Passage No One Would Argue That Much Good Has Ever Come

Passage
No one would argue that much good has ever come out of the crucible of war, and certainly not from the kinds of atrocities that characterized the Second World War.  However, the horror of the Dutch famine that occurred toward the end of the war, what in the Netherlands is commonly called the Hongerwinter, has provided epidemiologists a unique opportunity to research the long-term health effects of nutritional deficiency in utero on a specific cohort of individuals.Because it was so widespread-affecting as many as 4.5 million people in the German-occupied Netherlands-but limited in duration and swiftly followed by a return to prosperity, the Dutch famine constituted a highly aberrant situation of deprivation in a modern, developed nation.  The devastation began in September 1944 when Allied Airborne Forces failed to seize control of the bridge that crosses the Rhine River at Arnhem.  To impede German ground troops and assist the Allies, the Dutch government then ordered a railway strike, prompting the Germans to retaliate with an embargo that cut off food and fuel supplies to the central and western provinces of the Netherlands, including the country's largest urban centers.  Even after the embargo ended, railways remained dismantled and the Germans continued to requisition goods, stalling supplies.  This already dire situation was exacerbated by war-ravaged agricultural regions and an unusually harsh winter that froze the canals.  As the fighting dragged on, food rations dwindled.  Faced with escalating scarcity, urban dwellers desperately scoured the countryside seeking anything edible for which they could trade their valuables.  Many were reduced to eating tulip bulbs and grass.  The death toll from starvation alone reached 20,000.The famine was among the best documented in modern history, and the Dutch Hunger Winter Study has been the first study to examine the long-term consequences of intrauterine starvation.  The study compared 422 individuals exposed to adverse intrauterine conditions with 463 siblings who were the products of pregnancies that either came to term before the famine began or occurred afterward.  The initial results, published in 1976, revealed that, among other health consequences, individuals exposed to deprivation during early gestation had much higher than normal rates of obesity as adults.  Research by scientists from both the Netherlands and the US, together with new information from the field of epigenetics (the study of changes in gene expression barring alteration of the genetic code) , now suggests that nutritional restriction during early gestation effectively inactivates specific genes.Additional studies have shown that genetic expression can be altered through the addition of a methyl group, an organic compound consisting of one carbon and three hydrogen atoms, to a DNA molecule.  This methylation can modify gene expression without altering the DNA sequence.  In other words, it changes an individual's phenotype, or the observable genetic expression, but does not change the genome.  With this discovery, scientists now theorize that in individuals whose mothers suffered near-starvation during the early stages of pregnancy, DNA methylation silenced specific genes that normally help boost the rate at which the body consumes cellular energy.  The inactivation of these genes lowers metabolism, causing an increased tendency toward adult obesity.Other factors such as diet, environment, and even stress have been shown to alter methylation patterns on genes.  Furthermore, it has now been documented that the offspring of the Hunger Winter babies frequently exhibit the same health problems as their parents, including not only obesity, but also diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  Thus, with the advancement of genomics, this unfortunate period of starvation in the Netherlands offers strong evidence that DNA methylation is heritable-invaluable knowledge that can be used to understand a multitude of disease processes.
-Suppose it were discovered that starvation during the final months of pregnancy resulted in children who were smaller than average even as adults.  How would this new information affect the passage claim about intrauterine deprivation and adult obesity?

A) It would strengthen the passage claim.
B) It would not affect the passage claim.
C) It would falsify the passage claim.
D) It would demonstrate that the passage claim needs to be reexamined.