This article is about the changes that lifestyle modifications, like practicing yoga, developing healthy food habits and detoxification can produce in the way our genes play out, thereby preventing degenerative diseases. This may go against conventional wisdom, but it is very much based on facts discovered by the branch of genetic research called epigenetics. Apropos epigenetics, according to Wikipedia it is, “The study of changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence…”
However, let’s start at the beginning not in the middle.
At regular intervals we read in the papers that scientists in different places in the world are presently working hard at discovering substances that would suppress or change our genetic predisposition for, let’s say heart disease – or any other disease. We are even notified of great breakthroughs in the field. The trick, they say, is in manipulating the genetic make-up of a person. Once ways have been found to manipulate our genes, through changes in the underlying DNA sequence, we are promised that heart disease, or obesity, or diabetes, or even cancer will not be an issue for us in the future even though we might be otherwise genetically predisposed to it.
At regular intervals we read in the papers that scientists in different places in the world are presently working hard at discovering substances that would suppress or change our genetic predisposition for, let’s say heart disease – or any other disease. We are even notified of great breakthroughs in the field. The trick, they say, is in manipulating the genetic make-up of a person. Once ways have been found to manipulate our genes, through changes in the underlying DNA sequence, we are promised that heart disease, or obesity, or diabetes, or even cancer will not be an issue for us in the future even though we might be otherwise genetically predisposed to it.
Such research is expensive. The remedies and procedures to be developed will in turn be even more expensive to future patients. This is only to be expected as the multinational drug companies are investing in their own financial growth. Naturally, they count on high returns on their patented products and services. And then, of course, the wholesalers and hospitals will also need to turn a profit, while the physicians will need to eke out a living. – But what can we do? We will need these future remedies and procedures in order to stay healthy and fit. We don’t have a choice, or do we?
Well according to what we are taught, we don’t. But we are not taught correctly. We actually do have a choice, because ways have already been identified to influence gene expression. It is not necessary to change the DNA sequence. It is enough to influence gene expression.
As one American integrative physician colleague aptly put it, “We can’t change the hardwiring of our genetic code, but epigenetic factors such as lifestyle and diet can radically change what our genes do… The genes that can’t be changed are less than 2%... [However] You can ‘turn on’ genes that prevent chronic diseases and ‘turn off’ oncogenes that promote breast cancer and prostate cancer as well as ‘turn off’ genes that cause inflammation and oxidative stress. Your genes are controlled by epigenetic coding that tells them to be expressed or not expressed – which is completely controlled by your environment and lifestyle.”
In order to make sense of what is being said here, we need to understand how genes operate. The German physician, molecular biologist, and psychotherapist Joachim Bauer, teaching and practicing at University Clinic in Freiburg coined the phrase, “Genes are neither autistic nor autonomous.” It perfectly describes how dependent on outside input genes are.
In simplified terms: The brain contributes to regulating the function of most genes through the input it receives from the environment through the five senses. The outside signals are passed on to various brain structures, such as the cerebral cortex and the limbic system. The latter then translate sensory input into biological signals some of which proceed to set in motion so-called transcription factors. It is these transcription factors, which in turn ‘activate the gene or group of genes’. In other words, the activity of any gene depends on signals that come from either the cell environment, or the body/mind continuum as a whole, or the outside world. Genes are not at all a law onto themselves. They are not our masters; we are not their slaves.
Regarding the question of disease causation this infers that, “For the most part we do not manifest disease merely by a defective gene, but by the regulation or expression of our genes, and the expression of our genes is much more dynamic and modifiable than had previously been realized.” Yes, we can do something about it. We are not victims of our genetic make-up, but through epigenetic factors, its co-creator.
Which was further proven by an epigenetic cancer study at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore USA. Their data lead to the same conclusion as drawn above, “Evidence from their research suggests that the epigenome can be influenced by the environment, which means that epigenetic modifications that lead to carcinogenesis may be reversible by changing the environment… What is meant by environment? The environment is the totality of surrounding conditions – the milieu of the cell. What affects the milieu of the cell? Toxins, viruses, carcinogens, diet, essentially everything that our cells are exposed to. Detoxification followed by the creation of a healthy milieu with appropriate diet and supplements benefits cancer patients.”
But why wait with the appropriate lifestyle changes until seriously ill?
If detoxification is good for cancer patients, with a manifest disease, it will certainly be good as part of a regular lifestyle, in order to prevent this or any other degenerative chronic disease from ever happening.
In addition, yoga is mentioned in the headline because it is known to be an effective stress buster. Stress, or depression on the other hand increase the risk for attracting serious illnesses, in particular cancer. Many studies prove this. For example a 14-year study on lung cancer conducted by Paul Knekt and others at the National Health Institute in Helsinki, Finland, between 1978 and 1992; or the study by John Jacobs and Gregory Bovasso, “Early and Chronic Stress and Their Relation to Breast Cancer”, published in 2000 in Psychological Medicine.
Psychological stress and depression weaken the immune reactions of the body. They alter gene activity not only in cytokines, the ‘messengers’ of the immune system, but also within the T-cells and NK-cells (natural killer cells), making them a less effective defense against pathogens and tumor cells. Treating the symptoms of depression and stress, for example with anti-depressants does not provide a solution either, as enough data indicate that anti-depressants dampen the immune reaction of the body even further.
To come back to the headline: Do detoxification, good lifestyle and food habits, do yoga and meditation ‘change’ our genes? Not really, no.
But they don’t need to do that. Changes in the DNA sequence are not necessary. It is enough that they change the way in which our genes express. As Dean Ornish puts it. “When you live healthier, eat better, exercise and love more, your brain cells actually increase.” And Joachim Bauer assists, “The brain translates dangers and challenges from the environment into biological signals, which activate the genes in the alarm system of our bodies, located in the brain stem and hypothalamus. Positive signals on the other hand are translated into signals which activate the growth factors necessary for an increase in nerve cells.”
The message is simple and straightforward.