The one thing I truly loathe hearing is people blaming their past, current or future health problems completely on genetics. It bothers me that people are so easy to put their own personal health out of their own hands. When someone blames their health condition completely on genetics, not only have they attempted to take blame off of their lifestyle, but even more important is that they have taken the healing out of their hands. Well, your genetics are not the end-all-be-all, epi-genetics is a more accurate way of looking at health conditions.
Epigenetics, straight from its Latin derivative is outer-genetics meaning outside sources that impact gene expressions. What this means is that there are non-genetic influences on your DNA, which impacts how it is expressed. So if you tell me that you have high cholesterol because it’s ‘genetic’… Sorry but I just don’t buy it.
Some people will read this and be upset that unless they take control of their lifestyle and their health issue may not resolve. Others may read this and be content that they actually have control over their health condition and then they can resolve their health issue. Which one are you?
I think you can take control of your health condition, modify your lifestyle and eliminate this outer source that is causing chaos upon your body. Essentially, the environment impacts your genes and can cause your body to change and modify itself it order to compensate. Take for example the infamous genetic-blaming disorder hyperlipidemia, also known as high cholesterol and high triglycerides. Many people will see their doctor, and they will be told that they have high cholesterol and if dieting and exercise doesn’t help then it ‘must’ be genetic. However, what if they are just not introducing the right foods, or perhaps they are doing other things like excess alcohol, that could be contributing to their cholesterol issues. Or perhaps they are cholesterol-deprived and their body is trying to compensate with excess cholesterol production. Maybe they are under extreme stress. Each of these aspects are epi, or outside environmental sources.
Nutrigenomics, the study of nutrients on gene expression is a new up and coming science. A book I just read by Naturopath Dr. D’Adamo (of the Blood Type diet) goes very deep into nutrigenomics. It is called The Genotype Diet. This book is way ahead of its time, and I highly suggest you read it. It essentially takes everything I said, but puts it in a book with personalized genetic analysis. Go get it!
-Ralph Esposito
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