Say your grandma handed down her special family recipe for mashed potatoes. It included two sticks of butter, a tub of sour cream, a pack of cream cheese, and a dose of heavy cream. Your grandma died of a heart attack. Seeking to avoid the family fate, you modify the recipe: cauliflower instead of potatoes, ghee instead of butter, cut the sour cream and the cream cheese, and substitute almond mild for heavy cream. Similarly, you can alter your genetic recipe in much the same way.
Yes, you still “gatta dance with the one who brung you” (your DNA doesn’t change), but the emerging science of epigenetics is showing us ways we can change the tune.
You just might be stuck with that crooked nose or receding hairline, but no longer are you sentenced to cancer, diabetes, depression, and other unwelcome inheritances from your forebears. The science of epigenetics is teaching us how we can better understand and perhaps override specific genetic tendencies.
“‘Epigenetics’ is a word that most Americans have never heard of, but five years from now everyone will know about it,” says William J. Walsh, Ph.D., president of the Walsh Research Institute in Naperville, Illinois, and a pioneer in nutrition and epigenetics. “I believe it’s the new revolution in mental and physical health.”
In fact, Transparency Market Research predicts that this revolution will snowball into a $5.7 billion global market by 2018. The completion of the sequencing of the human genome in 2001 turned upside down the belief that many diseases are genetic in nature. Instead, it suggested that they are epigenetic (above genetic) in nature. In fact, our environment can alter our genes.
“We are just at the beginning phases of understanding how such delicate details of the cellular machinery affect the ways our genetic code gets turned on and off — and hence how environmental factors and diet in particular can play a huge role in our health, well-being, and longevity,” says Robert Sheeler, M.D., a family-medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
“DNA is inside every cell in your body. It can coil and uncoil,” explains Walsh. “Genes only have one job: to make protein. You need a different chemical mix in every part of your body for survival. Epigenetics provides the blueprint that specifies the combination of proteins to be manufactured in each tissue.”
And, of course, all of these processes are controlled by the brain.
Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life. Although epigenetics is touching our lives, from A to Z, we are still far from fully benefiting from its application in our daily lives. Contrary to what most of us think, “Genes are not fixed, predetermined blueprints passed from generation to generation,” according to Theri Griego Raby, M.D., founder and medical director of the Raby Institute for Integrative Medicine at Northwestern. “Instead, our genome contains at least 4,000,000 ‘switches’ that can be turned on and off by life experiences and environmental influences. Scientists are now linking certain markers, or switches, to conditions such as asthma, diabetes, mental illness, and even cancer.”
According to the Genetics in Primary Care Institute, “There is a mistaken belief that epigenetics is like genetics and cannot be changed, but epigenetics is actually modifiable. The likelihood that epigenetics will be used in the treatment of childhood diseases and developmental disorders in the future is greater than that for genetics.”
Scientists and some physicians are waking up to the importance of epigenetics, but it’s enlightened consumers who will change the face of medicine, pushing for answers to how they can override their own genetic processes to attain their best health. Raby calls epigenetics “the true preventative medicine.”
This user’s guide to epigenetics seeks to provide digestible bits that will lead savvy readers to deeper exploration into their own health and well-being — and, perhaps, genomic action.
Note: As with any health or medical advice, individuals should consult with their physician. In the case of genomic interventions, a personalized genomic profile is essential, as each person’s blueprint is unique and requires distinctive supports. In other words, what may be right for one person may be wrong for another.
Altering Alzheimer’s and engaging antioxidant protection
Science has determined that Alzheimer’s begins decades before a clinical diagnosis is made and can be the result of oxidative stress. Paul Coleman, Ph.D., director and senior scientist at Banner Sun Health Research Institute in Sun City, Arizona, is leading the way in the area of Alzheimer’s epigenetic research and is currently seeking a better understanding of how environmental factors affect who gets Alzheimer’s, and is developing a blood test to detect the disease. Some studies suggest that antioxidants have no value once Alzheimer’s has been diagnosed. Other studies indicate that, prior to diagnosis, doses of vitamin E, vitamin C, and alpha-lipoic acid, or coenzyme Q, could reduce the failures that occur in advanced stages of the disease. The antioxidant benefits of green tea are also well-documented.
With epigenetic research, we are closer to a cure for cancer than ever before.
We’ve known for more than a century that cancer is a disease in which an otherwise normal cell’s genes go awry. It has taken decades to understand the many genes and proteins involved in the process. The role of genetics in breast cancer was on display when actor Angelina Jolie announced her decision to have a double mastectomy because she was found to carry the harmful mutation to the BRCA1 gene (BRCA1 and BRCA2 are types of tumor-suppressing genes).
Depression and mental health
According to Walsh, “There is considerable evidence that epigenetic errors are responsible for mental breakdowns experienced in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, the sudden emergence of OCD, and the striking symptoms associated with regressive autism. Epigenetic errors can occur when certain foods or toxic chemicals change the methylation pattern in DNA. Traumatic events in early life or adulthood can potentially alter DNA methylation and induce abnormal brain gene expression and, ultimately, depression.”