Healthy Lifestyle Triggers Genetic Changes

[Hemidakota]

Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy.

The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.

As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes.

After the three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes -- including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off.

The activity of disease-preventing genes increased while a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research was led by Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a well-known author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health.

"It's an exciting finding because so often people say, 'Oh, it's all in my genes, what can I do?' Well, it turns out you may be able to do a lot," Ornish, who is also affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco, said in a telephone interview.

"'In just three months, I can change hundreds of my genes simply by changing what I eat and how I live?' That's pretty exciting," Ornish said. "The implications of our study are not limited to men with prostate cancer."

Ornish said the men avoided conventional medical treatment for prostate cancer for reasons separate from the study. But in making that decision, they allowed the researchers to look at biopsies in people with cancer before and after lifestyle changes.

"It gave us the opportunity to have an ethical reason for doing repeat biopsies in just a three-month period because they needed that anyway to look at their clinical changes (in their prostate cancer)," Ornish said.

Reference: Reuters News Wire

[Misshalfway]

Good! Cause I have a short list of genetic changes I would like addressed immediately.

[Fiannan]

I have red that many of our genes lay dormant unless kicked in my environmental stimuli. I forget the term for a gene that does not act so if anyone remembers it please let me know.

I have often wondered if the soul that inhabits our body acts at some metaphysical level on our genes -- therefore expressing more of who or what we are on the outside than we truly are aware of in this life. Perhaps issues like sexual preference have absolutely nothing to do with physiology but rather our preferences or mental states, coupled with behavior, could alter or physiology -- I know that behavior can alter the structure of the brain...maybe it goes deeper than that.

There are doctors who believe tht cancer is generally a factor of our mental state and not genetic -- maybe research like this will prove them right. Being able to think young, forgive others, feel connected...these things are associated with slowing the aging process and increasing longevity (as well as boosting our immune system). I hope this type of research continues.