How does epigenetics impact you?
Our goal is for you to achieve the best results possible from your care and get you back to doing the things you love. As you move through care and your nerve connections are restoring communication through your body, your body gradually gets healthier and healthier. As your new cells develop, they enter a newer, more healthy environment with proper nerve signals and the nutrients your body needs to thrive. This is a big deal!
Why?
Because of epigenetics!
Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work—switching certain genes on and off based upon our lifestyle choices.
Simply put, the way we live impacts the way our bodies express our inherent DNA. Starting from our primordial journey into life as a single-cell zygote, we develop into full-grown humans via cell differentiation – when our cells split to build various tissues and organs that make up our body.
Since all cells have derived from that initial single cell, they all have the same primary DNA sequence. However, the primary DNA sequence isn’t the mechanism that regulates which genes are being expressed or not, how they are being expressed or how that system is modulated within our bodies; this is where epigenetics comes into play.
The Guardian has a great metaphor on how to think about it, “If you consider a DNA sequence as the text of an instruction manual that explains how to make a human body, epigenetics is as if someone’s taken a pack of highlighters and used different colours to mark up different parts of the text in different ways.” The markups, or epigenetic marks, tell our bodies what’s important to activate and what can be ignored until later. Furthermore, these epigenetic marks are constantly changing and variable dependent on outside stimuli.
For instance, consider the development of identical twins. Though they have the same genetic information, their behavior, skills and health can differ dramatically. Any external stimuli that our body detects have the potential to make epigenetic modifications. There is much more research to be done in the field of epigenetics, though a few examples of external factors that have been shown to affect our epigenetics include:
Chemical Stress:
- If you’ve read previous newsletters, we go over how toxins and sugar negatively affect the delicate balance of bacteria in your gut microbiota. When left unbalanced, epigenetic alterations are induced – such as histone modification and gene silencing – leading to a number of diseases that are currently plaguing the community. Many recent studies are beginning to explore microbiome and epigenome as a possible target for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of a wide range of common diseases.
- Consistently nourishing the good bacteria in your gut (eating raw organic vegetables, fermented foods, and taking Proflora4R restorative probiotics) can positively influence your microbiome and epigenome to create the expression of healthy cells.
Physical Stress:
- The fact that exercise is good for you is nothing new. However, there is mounting evidence that consistent exercise can create beneficial epigenetic marks in helping control weight, reduce sex hormones or insulin, and strengthen your immune system.
- In fact, a new study from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute links exercise with a lower risk of 13 specific types of cancer. Something as simple as a 30 min walk 5 days per week and a Neuro-Structural Chiropractic adjustment to keep you aligned will create a conducive environment for positive gene expression.
Emotional Stress:
- Studies on mice have shown that chronic stress produced a significant increase in a protein called Fkbp5 – this gene’s human form has been linked to mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disease. The mice under chronic stress were examined for epigenetic marks associated with Fkbp5, and found that those mice were less capable of methylating Fkbp5. This change in epigenetic marks lasted for weeks after the mice stopped receiving the stress hormone. Researchers explain that this epigenetic alteration prepares the body for future life events and activates the fight or flight response. However, this epigenetic change is more detrimental with modern-day stressors that we can’t fight or flee, such as a work deadline. As a result, this indicates that chronic stress leads to epigenetic changes that increase the human gene form of Fkbp5, the protein linked to mood disorders, including depression and mental health issues that last much longer than the stressful event or occurrence itself.
- The good news is that chiropractic adjustments help combat this by activating your parasympathetic nervous system, resulting in less stress and more relaxation. This leads to improvement in many mood conditions and epigenetic markers for future health.
The idea that our genes are consistent or “set in stone” is no longer a viable theory. This is great news because it means we can consciously make decisions to impact our gene expression positively. Our health is not just at the whim of our genetic predispositions. Our lifestyle and health decisions matter. How empowering! One of the fundamental health decisions we can make is continuing with Neuro-Structural Care throughout our lifetime to ensure your most important cellular environment, your brain and nervous system, is as healthy as possible.
Part of the healing process is ensuring that you supply your body with the right ingredients for success. And given the studies on epigenetics, the decisions you make now affect not only your body tomorrow but also the gene expression of your future generations as an individual’s epigenome has been proven to be transgenerational. As you continue with Neuro-Structural Adjustments and ensure proper diet and exercise regularly, you are actively rewriting the code in your genes for a more vibrant and successful expression of life.
Interested in learning more on epigenetics? Attend this special event with Bruce Lipton, details are below.
Thursday, August 3rd @ 6:00pm
Dave & Busters
940 Great Mall Dr.
Milpitas, CA 95035
Register by this Thursday, July 27th. $30/ticket (includes dinner) Call the front desk (408) 533-0553 or email info@platinumchiroca.com.