I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say…’my mother has osteoporosis, so it’s only a matter of time before I get it…’; or ‘…my father has heart disease so I’m doomed to the same fate…”

 

But genes are not our fate. Read what Dr. Craig Venter, the scientist who first mapped the human genome, has to say about it…

 

“Everybody talks about the genes that they received from their mother and father, for this trait or the other. But in reality, those genes have very little impact on life outcomes. Our biology is way too complicated for that and deals with hundreds of thousands of independent factors. Genes are absolutely not our fate. They can give us useful information about the increased risk of a disease. But in most cases they will not determine the actual cause of the disease or the actual incidence of somebody getting it. Most biology will come from the complex interaction of all the proteins and cells working with environmental factors, not driven directly by the genetic code.”

 

A gene must be turned on in order to have an affect. And genes are turned on or off by our aggregate experiences – what we eat, drink, do, think, feel, etc. Everything we do, every experience we have, changes what genes are expressed at any given time in our lives.  Your body is responding to your environment at every moment.

 

Remember the age-old nature vs. nurture debate? That argument has swung sharply in favor of nurture – that is, our life experience is based much more on nurture than it is on nature. Our choices have everything to do with how the nature is expressed. Choices do matter! We inherit tendencies, but we behave our way in and out of what gets expressed. We are not what we inherit, we are what we express. Our genes are not a fixed code – they are a flexible and changing set of instructions. We need to get away from this notion that we are doomed to inherit our parents’ diseases.

 

Did you know that it is estimated that the risk of cancer is based only 5-10% on inherited genes and 90-95% on lifestyle? So if your genes have to be activated in order to have an impact, why not choose to behave in a way that fosters health and avoids disease?