How Can Epigenetics Influence Our Internal Genetics?
Epigenetics is the study of how the environment and other factors can change the way that genes are expressed. While epigenetic changes do not alter the sequence of a person’s genetic code, they can play an important role in development. Scientists who work in epigenetics explore the mechanisms that affect the activity of genes.
– Psychology Today
When I was a student, we used to debate whether it was nature or nurture that helped create our individuality and personalities. Now we know that both are at play, and that genetics has a huge role in who we become as adults.
The study of genes is called genetics and refers to an individual’s genetic code created by DNA. The study of physical manifestations affecting how genes are “expressed” is called epigenetics. It relates to the understanding of how chemical compounds attach themselves to DNA.
According to the CDC,
Genes play an important role in your health, but so do your behaviors and environment, such as what you eat and how physically active you are. Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.
As a seeker of Wholistic Wellbeing, my takeaway is that we can influence our individual health, wellbeing, and longevity. A healthy body and mind both derive from excellent nutritional consumption; from being surrounded by love, support, and nurturing; and from adapting to environments that imbue our senses with calm and our mindset with growth.
Whether it’s early stress, a bad diet, lack of exercise, smoking, or drug use, exposure to these negative influences can impact our body’s interpretation of our DNA sequencing for the worse. More alarmingly still, even prenatal exposure to these negative influences has shown that the “methylation” of genes that influence growth can contribute to the way a person’s body and mind eventually develop. Methylation is a biochemical process involving the transfer of one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms (CH3) — from one substance to another.
You may recall the story of legendary Hollywood actress Audrey Hepburn and how the trauma of her father leaving the family, plus the near starvation she experienced during World War 2 while she lived in the Netherlands under German occupation, affected her mind and body for life. She was a tiny, undernourished child, and she remained thin throughout her life. People born and growing up in war zones have an increased emotional vulnerability caused by the stresses they experienced early on. They can become vulnerable to both physical and mental illness due to the changes in their epigenome. They also tend to hit puberty much earlier.
Can you change your epigenome? It appears that the answer is yes. Even something like smoking, which has been proven to shorten life, can have its effects reversed when a person quits smoking.
As a proponent of mindful wellbeing, I advise you to reach for the stars when it comes to insulating children from stress. Provide them with the most stable environment possible and feed them good quality nutritional meals. As for the rest of us adults, no matter our background, let’s strive to use this modern wisdom, that we can affect outcomes through epigenetics, to treat ourselves as kindly as we do our most beloved children.
