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Genes Load the Gun, but Our Lifestyle Pulls the Trigger

The world has a population of people and you have a population of cells. Your population is between fifty and a hundred trillion cells (depending on the book you are reading, but let’s be fair who has counted them?). If your population isn’t happy, you aren’t happy. It’s that simple. Now, let’s take you back to biology lessons – but don’t worry, we are only covering the most exciting bits, the bits about you!

Epigenetics

Inside each of our cells we have our organelles, which are like mini organs for the cell. For example, we have mini digestive systems, mini circulatory systems….you get the picture. We also have the nucleus, which contains our DNA This DNA is a bit like a computer, it is the control centre. As our cells are responding to the environment, we look to our genes for help. So changing the environment can switch on a gene, but if you can then change the environment so that gene isn’t needed, then, hey presto, you can switch off your gene. We are above our genes and that’s what epigenetics is all about.

Bruce Lipton explains in The Biology of Belief that the story of epigenetic control is the story of how environmental signals control the activity of genes. In simple terms, imagine your DNA as your arm, and the arm is covered with a sleeve, and the sleeve is the proteins. When the sleeve is over your arm, your arm can’t be seen. The same is true of the DNA: when it is covered by protein it can’t be read. Now, if the environment changes and the sun comes out, we would roll up our sleeve. Again, the same is true inside of us, as an environmental change has the potential to pull back the protein sleeve allowing the gene to be read. So changing your lifestyle can change your genes!

In July 2016, a study published by Tufts University in the journal Advances in Nutrition found that epigenetics is far more influential on our health than previously believed. By changing our diet, epigenetics may affect our genetic code and influence our health. In the words of Dr Dean Ornish: “our Genes are not our fate”. Genes load the gun, but our lifestyle pulls the trigger.

So, what do we actually need for a healthy lifestyle?