The Story Encoded in Your Genes

[Music]

i’d like to tell you about an

adventure story it’s actually your

adventure story that’s in

your genes this is an extraordinary

story

and it’s one that unfolds over the

course of your life

to give you what you want

you know your genes really represent

part of your book of life your book of

life is actually encoded

in 23 chapters half of each chapter

written by your biological mother the

other half by our biological

father we call those the 23 pairs of

chromosomes

within those chromosomes resides

thousands of stories and those stories

are your genes

but they’re not all read simultaneously

because if they were you’d be a mess

whether they’re read selectively and

that’s called genetic expression

and what you’re going to learn is this

adventure story which is in your book of

life can be

anything you want it to be it can be a

book

of adventure that is associated with

empathic

passionate extraordinary experiences or

can be a book that’s encoded and it’s

associated with tragedy and disturbance

and

inflammation all of those messages all

those stories

are encoded within your book of life the

question is

which of those are going to be expressed

you know when i was young through my 74

years of living now

i recognize in reflection that my sister

and i were kind of

influenced by a concept that my father

used to tell us

that his parents had died at a young age

and so he expected to die at a young age

so-called genetic determinism there’s

nothing he could really do about it

it’s the bad luck of the draw and so my

sister and i grew up with that concept

of genetic determinism that

how we would grow older and our

health as we grew older would be

determined almost exclusively by our

genetic inheritance

that’s fallacious the 21st century model

has entirely thrown over that concept of

genetic determination

now we recognize only about 30 percent

of our health is actually

locked directly into our genes the other

70

of our health is determined by what

messages we send to our genes what we

wash over our genes in terms of

experience

in terms of our environment in terms of

our lifestyle and the selections that we

make

this unfolds and opens up the chance for

our journey

our adventure story to be that which we

want it to be

and not a journey that’s associated with

premature disease

and in fact one of the things that we’ve

learned is that the food that we eat

is actually information that speaks to

our genes isn’t that hard to believe

food is information for our genes but

yes that’s actually been found and it

opens up a field

that’s only about 20 years old called

nutrigenomics

how food and its principles the protein

carbohydrate fats vitamins minerals

of the phytonutrients that are in our

plant foods all regulate

and experience their effects on our

genes that regulate our function

wow what a powerful concept so how do we

know this

well one way we know it is by studying

identical twins because when identical

twins are born as you know

they have identical genes and as a

consequence you would expect as they

grow older then they should have

identical

health outcomes if in fact all of our

health is determined by our genes

but that’s not the case unless those

identical twins lived in the same

environment ate the same foods

live the same lifestyle had the same

experiences what you will find

in the research that have been done on

thousands of pairs of identical twins

over the last 20 years

is that over time their health diverges

it differs one from the other it differs

because there are different experiences

that are washing over the genes that

create different genetic expression

that then make them look at and feel

differently

and in fact that is then something

that’s above the genes that’s called

epigenomics or epigenetics above the

genes something that’s

creating a different outcome from our

genes now the great example of that are

the pima indians

now really there is a there’s two kind

of groups of pima indians they’re the

north american pima indians that live in

the southwest of the united states

generally

on the reservation in arizona and then

there are the

northern mexican pimas now they’re

genetically

virtually identical however their

outcomes in terms of their health are

vastly different

it was noticed by the indian health

services and the

bureau of indian affairs a number of

years ago that diabetes was increasing

dramatically in the pima indians such

that by the time they become

40 years of age or older almost 50

percent of them have

some form of diabetes you have kidney

problems you have neurological problems

you have problems with the eyes and this

is where you actually go if you want to

study diabetes is in this population and

so people started to say

they have diabetic genes diabetic genes

because they get such frequent diabetes

but yet if you look at the same genetics

that are in the mexican

pm indians you’ll find that not 50

percent of them or more

are diabetic but less than 5 percent of

them are diabetic it’s very infrequent

and the difference has not to do with

her genes it has to do with their

lifestyles once we started

giving the pemas in north america white

sugar white flour

white fat alcohol in abundance

the diets of too much of too little over

consumptive under nutrition

they started showing the problems of

obesity and diabetes

the genes were actually warrior genes

the genes were actually there to protect

them

from the historic greater risk they had

which was starvation

and so what’s been found is they have

thrifty genes that hold on to calories

very tightly

but if you feed them these diets that

are so rich in high calorie low nutrient

foods now you suddenly produce a problem

so do we really have bad genes

and the answer is no really we have

unique genes

unique genes that define our unique

relationship with the environment even

those genes that we’re worried a little

bit about like

apoe4 and alzheimer’s or the brca genes

with regard to breast and ovarian cancer

or prostate cancer in men

these genes which a lot of people don’t

even want to know if they have these

genes

being expressed these mutant genes

really can inform us

as to how we might best lead our lives

if we do have those genes

we might want to know not to eat a lot

of saturated fat stay away from

inflammatory foods get more exercise

maintain our body weight properly

because the data says

that if you know that information about

your genes and you do those right things

in your lifestyle

you can greatly reduce the expression of

those genes

into those diseases that we’re so

worried about even breast and ovarian

cancer

this came from work of mary claire king

a number of years ago the woman who

discovered

the bracha one and two genes so this

concept of genetic determinism

is really fallacious we have tremendous

opportunities to create our own outcome

even in those cases of what we call the

genetic

diseases of infancy diseases like

sickle cell anemia down syndrome

phenylketonuria

these are very serious diseases they’re

called monogenetic diseases

because they’re controlled by a single

gene and a lot of people said

well that’s nothing there’s nothing you

can do about them but now we recognize

over the last 20 years of research

that their expression also can be

modified

there can be very mild cases of down

syndrome there can be

hardly any adverse effects of

phenylketonuria if the

infant is put on the right kind of diet

that’s phenylalanine amino acid

restricted

and it doesn’t then impair their

neurological development

these are the extraordinary new

developments that we’re saying that

genes are not bad or good

genes define our uniqueness

and our opportunities to learn our

uniqueness and then modify our lifestyle

our diet and environment in such a way

to maximize our adventure story to be

all that we want it to be

so let me go back to my father remember

i told you he was kind of a genetic

determinist

my sister and i were imprinted with that

concept so when he got into his 70s he

started to have some health problems

he was adversely affecting his life my

mother and he were unable to do the kind

of things they’d love to do

even with his greatest love which was

his computer he was no longer able to

get onto it and do the programming that

he so

loved and so it was it was a very tragic

situation

so um my mother called me says so jeff

is there anything we can do for your

father and i said well

er this is early on in genetic testing i

said so well let’s have his genes tested

to see what they look like and when we

did it

we found out that he had a unique

genetic characteristic

producing very high levels of

homocysteine and amino acid in his body

and when we measure that in the blood

low and behold it was high

but we know what to do with that

particular condition once we got that

genetic information we know

by giving them higher doses of vitamin

b12 and vitamin b6 and folic acid

that we can modify the way folic acid

then in b6 and b12 affects

the appearance of homocysteine in his

body and lo and behold

it worked my mother calls me one morning

and she is just

excited as can be exalted it says jeff

i’m so excited this morning for the

first time in two years your father

walked in

the bedroom fully dressed ready to go

and saying let’s go on a picnic today

and for the next four years my father

had a high

functioning life he got back on his

computer he got back into independent

living

and it was like a miracle it wasn’t a

miracle

it was understanding his genes and need

that led him

into the appropriate approach toward

itself that is an

extraordinary adventure story that we

might call miraculous

but by understanding our genetic

heritage and

understanding the treasures that it

encodes we can do

magic things in our outcome and make our

life that which we want it to be

so if i was to then kind of encapsulate

all of this into a single take away what

does it really mean to us

number one have your genes analyzed

don’t be fearful of what they’ll say

you should be empowered by recognizing

that those are unique facets

of your inheritance the most important

thing you’ll ever own

you are like no other organism that’s

ever been made before nor will again

you’re unique identify then the

strengths in your genes

don’t worry about those weaknesses worry

about the things that actually

give you greater resilience greater

flexibility greater opportunity to

maximize your potential and then from

that

create a future that maximizes your

genetic gifts

in so doing your life will be a true

adventure story

of a century or more high level living

thanks so much for listening

[Music]

you