or is it?
You’ve probably heard someone say that a health condition they have comes from their family gene pool. A common and often helpless saying is, “Cancer runs in my family.” The belief is that cancer, or any other health condition that a person may be struggling with, is caused by their genetics, that it is inevitable.
This thought process is a common way of thinking about health, but I would love to offer a different perspective if that is ok with you.
This year will conclude my 10th year in private practice. Wow, does time fly! Over this decade, I have learned that an essential part of my passion for helping people get healthy is educating them on how their bodies work. My consultations with thousands of patients have lead me to believe that part of the reason we are sick as a society is that we subscribe to mistaken ideas of health.
So here goes. It isn’t that bad health runs in the family; bad habits and lifestyles do. And it is true, if not improved, these bad habits and lifestyle choices will lead to a similar fate as others in the same gene pool.
But the good news is we can change!
More commonly than not, patients think they have no control over their health and genetics are their destiny. The kicker is, following this thought process will often put patients into the exact pattern and lead to that outcome of disease.
What I am trying to say is, our genes are not 100% responsible for our health.
I’m not saying that there aren’t any genetic issues that lead to dysfunction, no. I’m saying that science now shows us that genes are not at fault 99% of the time. The term for this body of knowledge and study is called Epigenetics. Our genes are simply the blueprints to a house. But the house materials are made continually by our lifestyle choices, what we eat, how we move, how we choose to live in our environment. These lifestyle choices will either create healthy cells, tissues, and organs in our body or create less health and lead to dis-ease.
This is excellent news! With good lifestyle choices, including Neuro-Structural adjustments, eating well, moving well, and spending time with loved ones, we can change for the better and prevent many of the health issues we thought were inevitable.