EPIGENETICS
HOW WE FOUL UP OUR GENE EXPRESSIONS - AND SUFFER, NEEDLESSLY
Through our what we eat and what we do we can actually alter the expression of our genes to the good side and to the bad side. In other words, another person with the same exact DNA (such as an identical twin) can have different expressions of genes and very different health - just through what they do.
While we cannot alter the genes (currently, anyway), we can alter the effect of the genes by altering their actual behavior. It is essential to your health, I think, for you to understand this in depth, so I'd recommend watching the longer of the video recommendations.
It seems that the body has evolved to do functions on both sides of seemingly antagonistic actions. In its chemicals it has chemicals that stimulate one thing with chemicals that inhibit that very same thing. The idea is, of course, to come to a balance that works for our best survival. And that will occur, if we let it be. But we foul it up, through our behaviors, what we eat and what we don't eat, and even by inappropriately incurring stress. (See Managing The Chemicals In The Body - Balancing And Using Them For Functioning Better.)
We even have our nervous systems set up the same way. The SNS (sympathetic nervous system) stimulates, the the PNS (parasympathetic nervous system) inhibits - and they do this for all sorts of functions and chemicals (which cause the functions).
What we do with the above, in turn, will affect how our genes will behave and, in turn, come back to affect our bodies in various good or bad ways.
It turns out that what food we eat makes a difference. If we eat fried foods, it throws our bodies into "dysregulation" (being out of whack in regulating itself properly) and we actually suppress the gene that would normally express itself to suppress tumors - thus we are more likely to have tumors continue to grow, instead of being suppressed into nothingness.
If we eat excess sugar, our body goes way out of whack in myriad ways - and throws off multiple genes in their expression, causing excess inflammation, heart disease, cancer (and faster cancer growth, too), and, of course, diabetes.
Be sure to watch the videos in the box to the left, so you understand how you control the expression of your genes. (And then go on to do the "good stuff" that is recommended in the book where I investigated what will and won't work for weight loss and for achieving good health and set it up so that you can implement these within two weeks - link to the book from Books.)
AN INTERESTING SIDE NOTE - EVOLUTION IS NOT JUST MUTATIONS
Through evolution we actually gained the ability to, as above, turn on and turn off certain genes and change their expression. This would help survival by making us even more adaptive.
But, interestingly, we can pass on these alterations to our next of kin. This not only means that it is no longer just the fact of mutations that determines evolution, but our behaviors and states of mind that also cause a change, a sort of evolution that can happen more quickly, even in one generation rather than over 1,000's of years.
Now we have another reason to modify our behavior to what is right and workable: the happiness and health of the next generation!
