Is epidemiology ready for epigenetics?

Extract

The revellers depicted in the painting by the Dutch artist Judith Leyster (1609–60) (Figure 1) will not have given epigenetics a passing thought. Little were they to know that indulgences, such as drinking alcohol and smoking, would be contributing to their ‘exposome’¹ and marking their epigenome to potentially compromise their future health. The skeleton proffering an hourglass is perhaps a portent of the perils of such indulgence. Epigenetic alterations have been linked—sometimes tentatively—to a wide array of exposures and health outcomes, from smoking² and alcohol^3,4 to lung cancer⁵ and psychoses,⁶ and the field will surely witness a glut of further literature in the near future.

Epigenetics has undoubtedly recently taken the world of medical research by storm,⁷ offering the promise of prediction, prevention and treatment of a wide spectrum of common complex diseases.⁸ The current special issue brings together a collection of reviews and articles with epigenetics as a common theme to consider the contribution that epidemiology can make in defining the role of epigenetics in common complex disease, or conversely, to ask the question—is epidemiology ready for epigenetics?