Posts Tagged ‘epigenetic’

Cancer is not from genes may be good news, depending on how much responsibility you want to take. The BRAC1 and BRAC2 mutations are an alarm that tells you there is danger. However, having a high-risk mutation surely doesn’t mean you will develop any type of cancer from the abnormality.

There are variables such as the influence of your lifestyle on the other genes that work together with this mutation. Variations of the BRCA!, BRAC2, CDH1, PTEN, STK11, and TP53 genes increase the risk of developing breast cancer. Also the AR, ATM, BARD1, BRIP1, CHEK2, DIRA53, ERBB2, NBN, PALB2,, RAD50 and RAD51 genes are associated with breast cancer.

As far as real research into the role of lifestyle and diet on the two most feared gene mutations BRAC1 and BRAC2 you will not find it. It hasn’t been done. Since the triggers for any cancer is a sum total of everything which either activates and stimulates the ability for cancer to develop and spread. 

As of yet, there has been no research on the role of diet and lifestyle on these two genes. The triggers for cancer are the sum total of a cascade of events that stimulate the initiation of this condition. Alcohol, sugar, lack of exercise, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, stress, environmental toxins are all things that contribute to both the formation of tumors, and the spread of cancer.

Let’s take alcohol which has a known link to the development of cancer. There are parts of alcohol which converts to a metabolite know as accetaldehyde. This is a molecule which causes cancer through different means. One way it does it is to bind to the DNA causing mutations which can initiate cancer.  Also, it produces reactive oxygen species (ROS), which leads to an inflammatory response which can promotes cancer formation.

When we talk about cancer without talking about antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, gluthathione, exercise, sunlight, barley grass juice, silymarin (milk thistle), chlorophlin, grape seed extract, resveraterol, calorie restriction with optimal nutrition and a comprehensive nutritional regimen along with stress reduction we on the wrong path.

It is critical that there is universal recognition on what supports healthy cell function. Without this understanding our response will be to remove and destroy anything which seems to be a threat of our health. Getting healthy is the answer to cancer, until science recognizes the synergistic action of a healthy lifestyle they will continue to cut, burn and poison patients as a way to bring about health.

Epigenetic expression is up to you means how your genes express themselves depend on your lifestyle.

Epigenetics Good News

The relatively new field of “epigenetics” is revealing how people, plants and animals do start with a certain genetic code at conception. The choice of which genes are “expressed” or activated is strongly affected by environmental influences. The expression of genes can change quite rapidly over time, they can be influenced by external factors, those changes can be passed along to offspring and they can literally hold the key to their future health.

This kind of information is a reminder of the power we have over our health. It is bigger than the healthcare system debate. It points to the fact that the most influential decisions about our health come from us. This discovery should be met with enthusiasm by the public. There is comfort, convenience and protection if we have ownership of our health.

The question is will we be learning and cultivating our natural ability to build a gateway to health. Epigentics studies are bringing us good news, a reminder that everything that can help us is already in place.

Epigenetic Scientific Validation

According to Ron Dashwood, a professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon state University, epigenetics is a unifying theory in which many health problems, ranging from cancer to cardiovascular disease and neurological disorders, can be caused at least in part by altered “histone modifications,” and their effects on the reading of DNA in cells.

Histone proteins are essential for the packaging of the DNA into chromosomes within the nucleus of a cell. Histone proteins play an important role in DNA packaging, chromosome stabilization and gene expression.

“We already know some of the things people can do to help prevent cancer with certain dietary of lifestyle approaches,” Dashwood said “Now we’re hoping to more fully understand the molecular processes going on, including at the epigenetic level. This should open the door for new approaches to disease prevention or treatment through diet, as well as in complementing conventional drug therapies.”        

The OSU  scientist recently received an $8.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to explore diet, epigenetics, and cancer prevention. The positive findings of the laboratory research are already being converted to placebo-controlled human intervention trials on such health concerns as colon and prostate cancer.

Learning From This

Learning from this means revisiting what we already know. It has been shown over and over that good health is a decision. The transition to a man made diet from a whole food one has been at the heart of the healthcare crisis we are facing. This deviation from nature has taken us to the brink of self destruction.

Cultivating good eating habits means transitioning back to natural whole food diet. All the scientific terms come down to the basic fact, we are what we eat, from a health standpoint.

The type 2 diabetes stupid study will get $1.3 million in new funding from the National Institutes of Health. It is going to be used to continue with the world’s longest running study on obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Arizona Pima Indians

Obesity and diabetes have been described as the major public health concern of the 21st century says Leslie Schulz, executive dean of Northern Arizona University’s study’s principal investigator. “This study is taking those necessary steps toward finding a way to protect people against these pervasive diseases,” she said.

A related study has shown that Pima Indians in Arizona who have a diet and lifestyle similar to most Americans have a much higher rate of diabetes than the national average: 38 percent verses 8 percent nationally, giving them the distinction of being the most diabetes-prone group in the world.

The Arizona Pima Indians have been genetically linked to a village of Pima Indians living a more traditional lifestyle in a remote, mountainous region of Mexico. A 1995 study of the Mexican Pimas revealed only a rare occurrence of diabetes. Schulz explains that the genetic similarities between the two groups of Pima Indians, along with the contrast in their lifestyles, provides an ideal setting to study the relationship between environmental circumstances and diabetes.

The researchers returned in the fall after 15 years to the Mexican village to study the relationship between the Mexican Pima Indians’ increasingly “westernized” lifestyle and their genetic predisposition for obesity and diabetes.

“Since we were last there, the environmental circumstances of the village have changed,” Schulz says, explaining how the electrical supply to the region has increased, cars have become more prevalent and grocery stores have appeared.

She points out that this changing environment affects non-Pima Mexicans who also live in the village as much as it does the Mexican Pima Indians living there.

“These two groups of people have undergone the same lifestyle changes over the past 15 years but they have different genes,” Schulz explains. “Therefore, we hope to separate out the role genes play versus the role lifestyle plays.”

Question

The researchers are attempting to answer why a person who is genetically predisposed to develop diabetes does not develop it.

ANSWER: GENES AREN’T YOUR DESTINY

Just as genes provide the codes for producing proteins, various chemicals called epigenetic marks sit atop genes and offer basic instructions to them, telling them to switch on or off

Biologists offer this analogy as an explanation: if the genome is the hardware, then the epigenome is the software. “I can load Windows, if I want, on my Mac,” says Joseph Ecker, a Salk Institute biologist and leading epigenetic scientist. “You’re going to have the same chip in there, the same genome, but different software. And the outcome is a different cell type.”

At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic “marks” that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.

Save The Money

Save the money, the studies already prove epigenetics is the main factor in gene expression.