For decades, doctors, and therefore patients, have believed that our genes largely determine our health; that our DNA is static, meaning that what you’re born with, including predispositions to certain diseases, will be our plight to carry, and that family history is one of the best predictors of disease. While our actual DNA sequences are indeed unchangeable, new, exciting breakthroughs in the science of Epigenetics have shown us that gene expression is quite plastic, and largely influenced by diet and lifestyle.
Ongoing research on this topic indicates that the genes for disease, healing, and longevity can be turned on and off like a light switch. This is fantastic news for those of us with a family history of disease. We may be born with a set of genes, but only a small number of these genes are ‘fixed,’ like the genes that determine our eye color. The rest of our genes depend on instructions from the chemicals produced by our body as to how they will be expressed, in a process called DNA methylation. And the chemicals we produce are largely the cause of diet, exercise, stress, and our thoughts/emotions, making the expression of our genes largely in our control.
Dean Ornish, Clinical Professor at UCSF and Founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, in a TED Talk titled Your Genes Are Not Your Fate, says that when you eat healthier, manage stress, exercise and love more, you can stop and reverse the progression of cancer by inhibiting tumor growth. His research shows that these diet and lifestyle shifts favorably changed over 500 genes in men with prostate cancer, “in effect turning on the good genes, the disease-preventing genes, and turning off the disease promoting genes.”
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and author of Identically Different: Why You Can Change Your Genes, does much of his research with identical twins. He says this: “Although we can’t change the structure of genes, it is now possible to change the way our genes work…” He also cites food, exercise, stress, smoking and emotions as the factors that can switch genes on or off.
Thanks to an exciting new science, Nutrigenomics, a combination of molecular-biology, genetics, and nutrition, we are learning more specifically about the interaction of food with our genes on a molecular level, confirming much of the nutritional wisdom that has been around for years. When you hear about foods that are ‘anti-cancer,’ like broccoli, blueberries, green tea, and yes- chocolate, know that this is meant very literally! The nutrients in food act like signals to many of our genes, affecting how they are transcribed, either promoting or inhibiting protein and cell production related to healing or disease.
While we can never eliminate all risk for disease, as there are many things out of our control, we can certainly lower our risk, and increase our longevity, by changing the things that are in our control, like our diet and lifestyle (which extends to stress management and even our relationships). So if you think you are doomed to a certain fate because it runs in your genes, think again. It’s not your DNA that is the best determinant of your health, it’s the choices we make in our lives. And that should feel very empowering!
Want to dive deeper into all things Epigenetics? I recommend this podcast episode on The Doctor’s Farmacy, with Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Jeffrey Bland.
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