Does genetics determine cellular health?
Written by
Robert Kelly
Reviewed by
Prof. William Dalton, Ph.D.Your genes represent a design, not a sentence. Epigenetics shows how daily choices change the expression of genes. Food, exercise, and environment excite or silence certain genes. This act of becoming enables you to supersede cellular health tendencies. Your lifestyle becomes the builder of your biological reality.
Gene Activation
- Nutrients like folate turn on DNA repair genes
- Exercise activates longevity-associated SIRT1 genes
- Cold exposure switches on brown fat genes
Harmful Gene Silencing
- Antioxidants turn off inflammatory gene pathways
- Stress reduction lowers cortisol-related gene expression
- Toxin avoidance prevents cancer-promoting gene activation
Cellular Memory
- Consistent habits create lasting epigenetic marks
- Three months of healthy eating alters methylation patterns
- Lifestyle changes accumulate into cellular inheritance
Research demonstrates lifestyle's profound impact on health. Identical twins are known to develop different patterns of diseases that are determined by the way they live. Populations gradually changing from low-fat eating habits to the high-fat Western diets show accelerated changes in genetic expression. Day by day, your habits literally change the instructions coded in the cells. This change in flexibility of biology is used to advantage in preventive health, but we lose one's genetic heritage.
Particular nutrients directly modify the expression of genes. Sulforaphane in broccoli will switch on detoxification genes. Resveratrol in grapes influences pathways of longevity. Curcumin alters the methylation of inflammatory genes. These food elements function as switches in nutrition. Nutrition here becomes a more directed epigenetic influence.
Monitoring progress verifies the epigenetic phenomenon. Blood work is revealing changes in inflammatory markers, and increases in certain energy levels document activation of specific mitochondrial genes. Cognitive testing discloses increases in BDNF levels. The biomarkers thus present show evidence of genetic expression changes. Your body is documenting such cellular reprogramming.
Read the full article: Cellular Health: Your Body's Foundation
