[heimatau]

That study is only reference to the existing consensus, not the actual study from the OP.

I don't have the time to dig out the actual study but it looks like [1] it's originating in Canada (not NIH/USA) based on the publication of the press release.

Original comment of thread doesn't understand how much research is behind this idea (touch linked to higher outcomes long-term). I'd strongly recommend the commenter to read tribler's citation as that's scientific consensus at this point. If you want to read the recent study on DNA affects of touch, then below is that source of research.

1 - https://www.med.ubc.ca/news/holding-infants-or-not-can-leave...

[glofish]

I have performed DNA studies in my career. Measuring and interpreting methylation - understanding what it is, why, when and where it is present is at its infancy at best.

Sadly I have prime view how clickbaity ideas like this one drive most of the motivations behind investigations in life sciences.

It is not just this paper that is bullshit, the whole field of "epigenetics" that this paper is a representation of is bullshit as well - this paper is just one out of the long line.

As I pointed out it there is simply no proof that handling changes DNA. It could just as well handling stimulates the development rate which, in turn, also shows up as another signal.

The lie is not that A and B are present at the same time. The lie is presenting story as if A was caused by B. There is absolutely no evidence for that.

Now hundreds of scientists want a piece of the "cool" story, will jump headfirst into proving how LOVE will reflect in the DNA. No one will care about understanding what the heck is methylation - they will all be chasing baby handling and methylation. That's what I have seen happening and will keep happening thanks to papers like this.

[heimatau]

> is at its infancy at best.

Hence why the main source is published with ~90 subjects studied. Science starts with one paper/experiment and builds from there.

> The lie is not that A and B are present at the same time. The lie is presenting story as if A was caused by B. There is absolutely no evidence for that.

That's not a lie. It's called a hypothesis. It's testable. They've tested it and encourage others to test as well.

[glofish]

I will tell you what they did. They collected data, with no hypothesis or any idea what they are looking for, then desperately fit various models until something showed up as statistically significant.

Of course, you could say: how dare you, how would you even know, ... I work in this field, the p-hacking, harking (hypothesizing after the results are known) is both pervasive and endemic. they massaged the factors, the genders, the ethnicity, the socioeconomic status etc until the model did something that was publishable.

It simply not possible to accurately correlate these two measures: self-reported minutes of touching a baby with the methylation levels of the DNA of that baby - if you are serious about accounting for all the possible variations across all factors

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Your comments on this?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682215/

[glofish]

A perfect example of what I am talking about. What is the final conclusion of that paper written in 2009!:

> Are the neuroendocrine effects of these experiences across the lifespan also mediated by DNA methylation? The answer to this question is not yet known.

So what happened in the following ten (!) years, have we finally figured out whether the effect is mediated by DNA methylation? Nah. Instead, they published another bullshit paper, this time about babies being held...

Ten years is (or rather should be) an eternity in science! The 1st smartphone was barely released back then - how far have gone in technology in this time? Yet we are nowhere closer to have proven or disproven the mechanism. Instead, they would much rather maintain the status quo and publish another bullshit paper.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Just a small caveat. When I quit my PhD (computational protein folding models) in 1987, it was because I didn't want to spend 10 years working on a problem and getting nowhere. Turned out I was wrong - way too optimistic!

Until the recent ML-based announcement from Google (and maybe not even with that in hand), protein folding research went nowhere for at least 30 years. So I wouldn't be too critical of a 10 year gap.