Why epigenetics is (not) a biosocial science and why that matters

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Etat: Public
Version: Final published version
Licence: Non spécifiée
ID Serval
serval:BIB_7D8B1F289334
Type
Article: article d'un périodique ou d'un magazine.
Sous-type
Synthèse (review): revue aussi complète que possible des connaissances sur un sujet, rédigée à partir de l'analyse exhaustive des travaux publiés.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Titre
Why epigenetics is (not) a biosocial science and why that matters
Périodique
Clinical Epigenetics
Auteur⸱e⸱s
Chiapperino Luca, Francesco Paneni
Statut éditorial
Publié
Date de publication
11/11/2022
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
14
Numéro
144
Pages
1-6
Langue
anglais
Résumé
Epigenetic modifications offer compelling evidence of the environmental etiology of complex diseases. Social and biographical conditions, as well as material exposures, all modulate our biology with consequences for risk predispositions and health conditions. Elucidating these complex biosocial loops is one of the main challenges animating epigenetics. Yet, research on the development of epigenetic biomarkers often pulls in a direction that departs from a view of biological determinants of health embedded in their social and material environment. Taking the example of the epigenetics of cardiovascular diseases, this paper illustrates how common understandings of epigenetic biomarkers strongly lean toward considering them as mere targets for molecular intervention, rather than as correlates of a complex biological and social patterning of disease. This reductionism about biosocial dynamics of disease, we argue, hampers the pursuit of the goals epigenetics has given itself (in cardiology and beyond). If epigenetic mechanisms point to the deep socio-environmental embeddedness of our health, we conclude, future designs and methods of this research may require an improved methodological consideration of a biosocial perspective.
Financement(s)
Fonds national suisse / Carrières / 185822
Création de la notice
12/11/2022 2:00
Dernière modification de la notice
12/11/2022 8:11
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