Your DNA is not your destiny. This is a heretical idea for some and goes against a long standing understanding we have had that whatever choices we make during our lives might ruin our short-term memory or make us gain weight or hasten our death, but they won’t change our genes – our actual DNA.Which meant that when we had kids of our own, the genetic slate would be wiped clean.
Any effects of nurture (environment) on a species nature (genes) were not supposed to happen so quickly. Charles Darwin
Our ultimate power over health and well-being is in our own lifestyle. Gene expression is not determined solely by the DNA code itself but by an assortment of proteins that tell genes when and where to turn on and off. These proteins are turned on or off by factors such as diet, stress prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to another.
The new field of epigenetics is showing how our environment and our choices can influence our genetic code – and that of our kids.
At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations in the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. It is about alterations in the expression of the genetic code.
