It's NOT all in the Genes

There's a common mistake, in my opinion, that being born with 'faulty' genes is the most significant factor affecting our health. They say it's just bad luck. It's in the genes we're told and yet for many years researchers have been arguing that diet and lifestyle factors have a far more significant effect on health than genetic influence. Indeed this is in part due to the epigenetic influences of diet and environment.

Recently I attended a conference on the BRCA gene - readers will no doubt recall Angelina Jolie's story which was all over the headlines a few years ago. Jolie had a double mastectomy based on the fear of a genetic fault in the BRCA gene family - the BRCA 1 and 2 genes being tumour suppressors and therefore if they are faulty it apparently creates a greater risk of developing cancer. It does increase risk particularly as women get older and yet just how great an influence is this faulty gene?

I was quite shocked at that conference to find doctors and surgeons telling women to have children and then surgery as if they had no other option; and the earlier the better! This is an instance where the effect of genes is being, in my view, greatly exaggerated and many women are having unnecessary surgery because they are being frightened. In the case of the BRCA gene research shows that using the supplement resveratrol (an extract of grape skins) can prevent the silencing of the BRCA1 gene via epigenetic mechanisms. If this is the case wouldn't it better to suggest that women try a nutritional protocol first before even thinking about surgery? And hey if that doesn't work out within a reasonable time frame the surgery still remains an option. Of course surgery doesn't address the underlying mechanisms of cancer and removing tissue can only buy time. Perhaps we could put it this way - genetic effects on our health are between 5-10%, the rest is about diet and lifestyle factors. If we influence that side of things (90%) then perhaps we should be less concerned with genetic scaremongering!

Now new research has appeared which suggests that the 'bad luck' of genes is far less responsible for diseases such as cancer as was long erroneously promoted. For example a Harvard study found that in the case of obesity genes are not destiny and make only a small contribution to health. What is far more relevant is that some genes can be literally switched on and off depending on the food we consume and the toxins we are exposed to.

A 2011 article under the heading Why Genes Don't Determine Your Health describes that it is your dynamic relationship with the environment which creates 'you' at any given time - this is known as the exposome. It is about the complexities of exposure to all of the things in our environment which has upwards of 90% influence on our health and therefore, as naturopaths have argued since the time of Hippocrates addressing diet and lifestyle factors is the key to good health!