Assessment of the Genetic Characteristics of a Generation Born during a Long-Term Socioeconomic Crisis.

Background: A socioeconomic crisis in Russia lasted from 1991 to 1998 and was accompanied by a sharp drop in the birth rate. The main factor that influenced the refusal to have children during this period is thought to be prolonged social stress.

Methods: comparing frequencies of common gene variants associated with stress-induced diseases among generations born before, after, and during this crisis may show which genes may be preferred under the pressure of natural selection during periods of increased social stress in urban populations.

Prevalence of Common Alleles of Some Stress Resilience Genes among Adolescents Born in Different Periods Relative to the Socioeconomic Crisis of the 1990s in Russia.

Social stress is common among people and is considered one of the causes of the declining birth rate. Predisposition to stress and stress-induced disorders is largely determined genetically. We hypothesized that due to differences in stress resistance, carriers of different genetic variants of genes associated with stress resilience and stress-induced diseases may have dissimilar numbers of offspring under conditions of long-term social stress.

Innate-Immunity Genes in Obesity.

The main functions of adipose tissue are thought to be storage and mobilization of the body's energy reserves, active and passive thermoregulation, participation in the spatial organization of internal organs, protection of the body from lipotoxicity, and ectopic lipid deposition. After the discovery of adipokines, the endocrine function was added to the above list, and after the identification of crosstalk between adipocytes and immune cells, an immune function was suggested. Nonetheless, it turned out that the mechanisms underlying mutual regulatory relations of adipocytes, preadipocytes, immune cells, and their microenvironment are complex and redundant at many levels.