Do the genes you inherited determine your overall state of health or which diseases will show up in your body? That concept is genetic determinism. It makes you a passive victim since you didn’t get to choose your own DNA.
But, is it really that simple? Contemporary research is proving otherwise, and your understanding of these new insights will empower you to avoid disease, live longer with increased vitality, and amazingly, also improve the health of your children, even if you haven’t conceived them yet.
This is the science of epigenetics, and it’s capturing the minds and research enthusiasm of today’s scientists. According to a Winter 2008 article by Laura Beil in Cure magazine, “epigenetics is at the epicenter of modern medicine” and “may hold the secret to flipping cancer’s ‘off’ switch.”
This is critically important news: You have access to the protective switches through your lifestyle choices!
“The human genome still retains its status as the blueprint for the body. But the epigenome—the way the genome is marked and packaged inside a cell’s nucleus—tells a cell which of the many sets of instructions on that blueprint to follow, which ones to ignore, and which ones to follow over and over again. If the genome is the blueprint, the epigenome is the contractor directing how the walls and windows are made, and whether the plumbing is correctly installed.”
“Because it has the power to switch our genes off and on, epigenetics is the reason that identical twins, even though they are pretty much genetic clones of one another, don’t get the same diseases. And it is often the reason that a perfectly normal cell goes bad.”
Cell Biologist Bruce Lipton, in his excellent book The Biology of Belief, states that “Genes are not destiny! Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress, and emotions, can modify our genes, without changing their basic blueprint. And those modifications can be passed on to future generations as surely as DNA blueprints are passed on via the Double Helix.”
Epigenetic mechanisms have been found to be a key factor in a variety of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lupus, and even autism. In fact, according to the research of Willett (2002), “only 5% of cancer and cardiovascular patients can attribute their disease to heredity.”
“While the media has made a big hoopla over the discovery of breast cancer genes, they failed to emphasize that 95% of breast cancers are not due to inherited genes but environmentally-induced gene alterations.” (Kling 2003; Jones 2001; Seppa 2000; Baylin 1997)
From “Epigenetics and Your Overall Health” also in Cure Magazine, Beil declares that “if epigenetics has as broad an impact on our health as many scientists think, it means that almost every aspect of our lives slowly writes our medical playbook. Doctors have long said we are what we eat. Through epigenetics, perhaps, we are also what we do.”
Your nervous system directs and coordinates every aspect of your systemic functioning, including the epigenetic influences upon your health and those of your kids. The ramifications are huge. Increasingly, scientists are looking at dysregulation of the autonomic aspect of the nervous system, which regulates all organic functioning and adapts us to the stresses of life, as a central component of all disease processes.
We will explore this concept further in upcoming posts as well as discussing lifestyle action strategies you can employ to gain epigenetic victory.
One key aspect will be examining how injury, stress, and toxin-induced spinal misalignments disturb your nervous system, which then disrupts critical immune, endocrine (glandular), and other system functioning, leading to altered physiology and eventual pathology (disease).
You won’t want to miss the startling research revealing enhanced DNA repair after long-term chiropractic intervention! Subscribe today so you won’t.
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