Studies of animals and plants suggest that nutritional conditions in one generation may affect phenotypic characteristics in subsequent generations. A small number of human studies claim to show that pre-pubertal nutritional experience trigger a sex-specific transgenerational response along the male line. A single historical dataset, the Överkalix cohorts in northern Sweden, is often quoted as evidence. To test this hypothesis on an almost 40 times larger dataset we collect harvest data during the pre-pubertal period of grandparents (G0, n = 9,039) to examine its potential association with mortality in children (G1, n = 7,280) and grandchildren (G2, n = 11,561) in the Uppsala Multigeneration Study. We find support for the main Överkalix finding: paternal grandfather’s food access in pre-puberty predicts his male, but not female, grandchildren’s all-cause mortality. In our study, cancer mortality contributes strongly to this pattern. We are unable to reproduce previous results for diabetes and cardiovascular mortality.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate differences in burnout, self-rated health (SRH) and sickness absence between human service occupations (HSOs) and other occupations, and whether they can be attributed to differences in psychosocial work environment and organizational resources. Methods: Data were derived from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health, an approximately representative sample of the Swedish working population (n = 4408). Employment in HSOs, psychosocial work environment and organizational resources in 2012 predicted relative risks of sickness absence, burnout and suboptimal SRH in 2014 using modified Poisson regressions. The psychosocial work factors’ and organizational resource variables’ relative importance were estimated by adding them to the models one by one, and with population attributable fractions (PAFs). Results: Employment in HSOs was associated with a higher risk of sickness absence and the risk was explained by psychosocial and organizational factors, particularly high emotional demands, low work-time control and exposure to workplace violence. Employment in HSOs was not associated with burnout after sociodemographic factors were adjusted for, and furthermore not with SRH. A lower risk of suboptimal SRH was found in HSOs than in other occupations with equivalent psychosocial work environment and organizational resources. PAFs indicated that psychosocial work environment and organizational resource improvements could lead to morbidity reductions for all outcomes; emotional demands were more important in HSOs. Conclusions: HSOs had higher risks of sickness absence and burnout than other occupations. The most important work factors to address were high emotional demands, low work-time control, and exposure to workplace violence.

PurposeTransgenerational determinants of longevity are poorly understood. We used data from four linked generations (G0, G1, G2 and G3) of the Uppsala Birth Cohort Multigeneration Study to address this issue.MethodsMortality in G1 (N = 9565) was followed from 1961–2015 and analysed in relation to tertiles of their parents’ (G0) age-at-death using Cox regression. Parental social class and marital status were adjusted for in the analyses, as was G1’s birth order and adult social class. For an almost entirely deceased segment of G1 (n = 1149), born 1915–1917, we compared exact age-at-death with G0 parents’ age-at-death. Finally, we explored ‘resilience’ as a potentially important mechanism for intergenerational transmission of longevity, using conscript information from psychological interviews of G2 and G3 men.ResultsG0 men’s and women’s ages-at-death were independently associated with G1 midlife and old age mortality. This association was robust and minimally reduced when G0 and G1 social class were adjusted for. We observed an increased lifespan in all social groups. Median difference in age-at-death for sons compared to fathers was + 3.9 years, and + 6.9 years for daughters compared to mothers.Parents’ and maternal grandmother’s longevity were associated with resilience in subsequent generations. Resilience scores of G2 men were also associated with those of their G3 sons and with their own mortality in midlife.ConclusionsThe chance of reaching a high age is transmitted from parents to children in a modest, but robust way. Longevity inheritance is paralleled by the inheritance of individual resilience. Individual resilience, we propose, develops in the first part of life as a response to adversity and early experience in general. This gives rise to a transgenerational pathway, distinct from social class trajectories. A theory of longevity inheritance should bring together previous thinking around general susceptibility, frailty and resilience with new insights from epigenetics and social epidemiology.