Your Lifestyle Affects Your Genes

An American study shows that eating healthy, exercising regularly and reducing stress can change the expression of hundreds of genesdefine in our body – turning on beneficial genes and turning off harmful genes.

Now we don’t have to blame our genesdefine for certain things as, simple lifestyle changes can change the way our genes work. In a pilot study, men with low-risk prostate cancerdefinedefine were able to change the way their genes worked with healthy diet and moderate exercise.

Dr Dean Ornish, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and also a diet guru said "We found that simple changes have a powerful impact on gene expression. People say, 'Oh, it's all in my genes, what can I do?' That's what I call genetic nihilism. This may be an antidote to that. Genes may be our predisposition, but they are not our fate," he added.

Dr Ornish along with Peter Carroll, M.D.-- UCSF professor and chairman of urology; Christopher Haqq, MD, PhD -- UCSF prostate-cancer geneticist and others conducted the pilot study named as “Gene Expression Modulation by Intervention with Nutrition and Lifestyle” or GEMINAL study.

The researchers enrolled 31 men between ages 49 and 80 years with low risk prostrate cancer who chose not to undergo treatment unless their cancer got worse.

The researchers conducted the biopsies of the men’s prostates at the beginning of the study and again after three months. For three months they were made to eat diet rich in green veggies, fruits, whole grains, legumes and soya products, they did regular exercise such as going for walk daily for 30 minutes and stress management techniques such as yoga, breathing techniques or meditation for an hour daily.

The participants were also given extra soy, vitamin E (100 units), fish oil (3 grams), selenium (200 milligrams) and vitamin C (2 grams) daily.

Due to lifestyle changes the participants shed extra few pounds, lowered their blood pressure and had other heath benefits. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes.

After 3 months, the researchers noted that their were positive changes in activity in about 500 genes in men -- including 48 genes (protective, disease-preventing genes) that were turned on and 453 genes (including those associated with cancer, heart disease and inflammation) were turned off.

The findings of the study, published in the June issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences were based on the changes in levels of RNA --molecules that carry instructions from DNA -- in samples of non-cancerous prostate tissue taken before and three months after the men started the study.

"People say, 'Why bother about it?' But when they see that in just three months these changes can make a difference, they may change their minds," Ornish says. "It is not really so much about risk-factor reduction or preventing something bad from happening. These changes can occur so quickly you don't have to wait years to see the benefits."

He said that the results of the study were "very unexpected and we've raised more questions than we've answered."

Dr. Simon J. Hall, chairman of urology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and the director of the Deane Prostate Health and Research Center, said that it is very clear that if you can make lifestyle changes like those in the study, you can definitely improve your cardiovascular health.