The Dutch Hunger Winter

Dutch Hunger Winter lasted from November 1944. It was time period of World War II when North Neatherlands was under the German blockade and expiriencing very harsh winter at the same time. Germans took control of the food and sent it to Germany and thus the Dutch people were suffering from hunger. They nutrition intake was reduced to 30% of the normal nutrient intake.

People, specifically the infants that survived the Hunger Winter, all experienced malnutrition at the same time. Considering that and the perfect historical records from that time make them excellent test subjects. Scientists then looked and the grown adults that were born/ conceived during this awful time period. Another study showed the schyzophrenia is very common. It was found that genetics plays major role if this ilness will develop or no. When two identical twins are born and one of them has schyzophrenia, the other wtin has a 50% chance of having it, too.
It was found that babies that were conceived at the beginning of this time period were born smaller while babies conceived at the end of this period were born normal size. The ones that were born small stayed small throughout their whole life even though the malnutrition period already ended.
Also those people whose mothers were malnourished early in pregnancy had higher rates of obesity and other health problems including mental health, specifically shyzophrenia. Schyzophrenia is an ilness currenly affects about 50 million people worldwide. It causes hallucinations, delusions adn difficulties to mentally focus. Since people are not able to distinguish between reality and "the other world" it is dangerous, especially if these peiple are dangerous, which isn't very common. However, it can be treated. People with schizophrenia have 50 as much chance to commin suicide than other individuals.
Epigenetics is when DNA isn't the only factor i what is happening. Based on the Dutch Hunger Winter it can be observed that most of the affected people could have been born healthy. Yet the severe famine caused them to have health defects. In other words, epigenetics describes the effect of environment on us; a nature vs nurture effect.

Sources
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/142195/beyond-dna-epigenetics

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/65/a5865465.shtml