Epigenetics
Your Health
Can living a healthy lifestyle change how your genetics respond to stress? Can you pass your experiences onto the next generation?
Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression (active versus inactive genes) that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence — a change in phenotype without a change in genotype — which in turn affects how cells read the genes. Epigenetic change is a regular and natural occurrence but can also be influenced by several factors including age, the environment/lifestyle, and disease state.
I have friends who’s parents or grandparents have survived wars or great trauma that changed their life forever. Most have coped well enough to live a good life. Although when you watch their behavior patterns you can tell they still carry their trauma. They still have high levels of stress, which effects there mental and physical health. I noticed through my own experience and my friends experience as children of survivors their children and grandchildren have many of the same physical and mental behaviors. I wondered back in the late 1990s when I was taking genetic biology and pyschology courses, whether this behavior was caused by nature or nurture. Can we pass on our trauma genetically?
Free Will
Epigenetic, the word comes from the Greek word Epi, which means outside or over, the expression and influence of your genes. From my biology 101 courses I learned that humans inherit 23 chromosomes from both my father and mother. These genes can be good or bad and I had no choice regarding their selection. This is my inheritance and I am stuck with it! However, science is proving this may not be true. Genetics may be like karma, you can’t change your past but you can influence your future by how your react. Kinda mind blowing isn’t it! Science has found how we behave, how we react can turn genes off and on.
Nature Or Nurture?
Nature or nurture is an age old argument regarding our freedom of choice. Are we born with our behaviors hardwired in regarding our physical and mental health? Recently, especially within the last 5 years scientist have found what we experience is also encoded in our genes, it is like a genetic memory called epigenetics.
You Can Change!
If you feel overwhelmed by changing your lifestyle for health but feel you just can’t deal with everything that needs to be addressed. Have no fear, let that overwhelmed feeling go! Your genetic code has thousands of health and disease switches. You have the power to turn them on or off. How can you do this?
The relationship between epigenetics and cancer is far from clear, but tumour cells generally have comparatively low levels of DNA methylation. Methylation might switch off vital genes and contribute to the development of cancer. Studies in humans and animals suggest a whole list of dietary chemicals from alcohol to zinc that might influence methylation and cancer susceptibility, although sometimes counterintuitive. For example, a diet low in folic acid has actually been linked to excessive methylation at certain genes.
An Example On Changing Gene Expression
A pregnant woman’s diet have a major effect on her baby’s epigenetic tags. Diets with adequate levels folic acid and many of the other nutrients within the “methly family,” which is a set of molecules that can tag genes and cause epigenetic changes. These changes have been linked to an increase risk of asthma, brain and spinal cord defects in children. Stress can do this as well. Pregnant women who were stressed during the World Trade Center on 9/11 were shown to give birth to infants at a higher level then other areas in the United States that were hyper-sensitive to unknown noise, food, and people.
My Husband’s parents survived WII, I could easily see the PTSD symptoms in my husbands parents. But what is weird, my Husbands sibs as well as my husband showed signs of trauma as well. His parents are gentle quiet good people. So for many years I couldn’t figure out why everyone in my husband’s family acted like war survivors. Because of my interest in science I read a lot of articles and stumbled on epigenetic research back in 2010 and may have found an answer to my question. But are my loved one’s stuck with their genetic scaring?
You Can Change and Pass Your Health On To The Next Generation!
I was abused as a child, the neglect and physical abuse went on until I was 16 years old and has had lasting impacts on my health and relationships with myself and others. Back in the early 90s I started changing my diet and trying to change my behavior.
Through eating organic foods, cutting out useless calories and chemicals, drinking clean water, regular exercise, finding healthy people to befriend and going deep within myself through vipassana meditation I have completely changed my health and behavior. I wish I had done this before I had my children because my first two children suffer many of the physical and mental issues I faced as a young adult but no longer struggle with. Mostly anxiety issues but just living modern life can leave one feeling anxious. So I don’t know if they inherited my anxiety.
I hope they can learn from me. You can change deeply ingrained habits of survival. But interestingly my youngest daughter, which I had while I was learning new healthy behaviors had a rough start and still struggles with anxiety. But she has been able to move on quickly whilst in her early 20s, she is now approaching her 30s.
My oldest children now also have healthy lives but struggled a lot longer to find freedom from some of the immune illness I suffer from and also anxiety. Hopefully my struggle to find balance and health has helped my children and they have passed this knowledge on through every day life and our genetic code to my grandchildren.
Darwin Vs. Lamarck
As a child I read books about evolution given to me by my father before he died. I always liked Lamarck’s version of how and why we had all these different shapes and sizes regarding lifeforms on earth. Darwin happy mistakes didn’t make sense to me.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a 18th century French Naturalist, offered an interesting theory before Darwin wrote out his theory of natural selection. Lamarck proposed organisms could pass on traits they developed through a life time of experience. Maybe that’s how giraffes have long necks because they needed to compete for scarce resources, reaching higher and higher for scarce leaves on trees.
Everyone made fun of his idea including August Weismann who chopped the tails off of mice to prove their pups wouldn’t inherent that experience. But maybe that’s not the point, it’s the need to survive that imprints the genes to change. The poor pups probably are now extremely afraid of humans carrying knives. That’s just my guess but I am just a curious layman.
Swiss bioengineer Renato Pario, suggests through the epigenetic route, passing on gained characteristics fits Lamarck’s theory of evolution.
Who is right and who is wrong? I don’t know but what I do know is science isn’t sure yet, which leaves the door open for me to question everything and explore. I love that!
