The world just experienced a turbulent beginning to 2020. In January alone, we witnessed a shocking rise in wild fires, acidic oceans, airborne pathogens, locust clouds, and global protest — to name a few incidents. These extinction level events are not from the Bible but from Twitter’s January feed. So you ask yourself, what can you do? Curb climate change? Change your government? Change your diet? Recycle? Start with change yourself. This cliché saying is over-posted but underrated, and I’ll go so far as to say, completely misunderstood. There’s proof that ‘change yourself’ is much more than skin deep, actually, scientific proof stipulates it’s DNA deep.
In past articles, I briefly touched on neuroplasticity in reference to the brain’s innate flexibility — epigenetics can be explained in a similar vein. Just as neuroscience has observed that the brain is not completely hard-wired, our genes are not completely hard-written. We have wiggle room to activate and deactivate generational conditioning and behavioral patterns, that no longer serve us along our personal growth and genetic evolution. The latest findings state that up to 70% of our genetic expression can be influenced by our inner and outer environment. Environmental exposure is not limited to the literal environment but includes the internal environment we ourselves create — through habit and lifestyle. This includes: chronic stress, radiation exposure, industrial processed junk we ingest, toxic cosmetics our skins absorb, clickbait/tabloid misinformation we read, negative Billboard Hot 100 music we listen to or visual programming we stream. All these external inputs are variables that can affect feeling, which in turn affect thinking, which eventually effect gene expression — after prolonged repeat exposure. If genes carry the precursor blueprints for cell specification and function, epigenetics are those blueprints updated with edits, plug-ins and ad-ons. This of course is an oversimplification of one of the most complex biological processes that we can but partially observe.
The term ‘epigenetics’ is derived from the Greek prefix ‘epi-’ meaning, on top of, over or above -genes. In the biological sciences, epigenetics refers to modifications to DNA that turn genes off or on. However, these modifications do not have any change on the DNA sequence but only on how cells ‘read’ the on or off genes. All cells in our body have the same DNA sequence but depending on how the DNA is expressed, we get brain cells, muscle cells or skin cells. Epigenetics can be defined as the layer of instructions above our genes that can be controlled.
I was discussing how to go about modeling external environmental factors that could affect gene expression with a friend well versed in bioinformatics. He explained to me that there are too many variables in my unclear question. This reminded me of Newton’s celestial three-body problem of classical mechanics but with a literal human body and free will problem. This on-the-go thought experiment was without considering unknown variables that are invisible to our scope of dectection but have visible influence. To avoid further complexity we returned to the orbit of epigenetics in its simplest form.
Whether the breakthrough to the metabolizing and replicating first cell occurred on the planetary surface and was driven by solar energy or in deep sea hydrothermal vents where minerals of organic compounds were plentiful and conditions for biogenesis were favorable, the complexity of the first cell is staggering. — Zoltan Torey [clinical psychologist and philosopher of mind], The Conscious Mind (2014)
It’s a common misconception that we are prisoners of our genomic inheritance. This is only half true. We can break out of our built-in (or learned) behavior cycle, from cell to organ and body. In the beginning of his book How Not to Die, acclaimed nutrition resource Micheal Greger MD, goes over research of more than 500 identical twins that were separated at birth. The identical twins — despite having the exact same genes — contracted different diseases based on their diet and lifestyle choices. Dr. Greger goes on to say that, even if you inherit susceptibility (from both parents) to heart disease “you should be able to eat your way to a healthy heart. Your family history doesn’t have to become your personal destiny. Just because you’re born with bad genes doesn’t effectively mean you can’t turn them off.”
“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
―Ralph Waldo Emerson
I live in Kuwait, which for some years was ranked 2nd (after the United States) in global meat consumption — by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It’s hard to even have a conversation about vegetarian options with most people, especially at large gatherings and local celebrations. I try to use a logical argument I made up, rooted in Islamic culture (or chronologically speaking, the Torah’s Book of Genesis) with a bit of Arabic wordplay to drive the point home. In Islam, one of two annual observed Eid festivals is called Eid al-Adha, literally meaning the Festival of the Sacrifice. It is customary to slaughter livestock in the Halal tradition and distribute the meat to family, friends and the needy. When appropriate, I try to emphasize that this meat eating ritual is specifically called ‘Eid’ al-Adha, not day al-Adha and not weekend al-Adha. To the desert dwelling ancestors of Middle Easterns, Eid was special because it was a rare occasion, to wear special clothes and eat special sacrificial meat. If tribal ancestors ate as much meat as the contemporary Arabs, they would have chewed through their entire livestock in less than a month. And their arteries would be clogged by sheep, goat and camel plaque. As shown in study after study, too much meat consumption (red and processed) negatively affects the body and can lead to DNA damage, tumor promotion, and at worst, cancer. The American Cancer Society lists meat as a “known and probable” Group 1 carcinogen (along with arsenic, benzene, engine exhaust, diesel, radium, shale oils, tobacco smoke, ultraviolet-emitting tanning devices, x- and gamma-radiation). This can directly alter gene expression, which is epigenetic self-sabotage by choice.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
— Hippocrates
The takeaway for any rational person (who doesn’t have the time to experiment with diets empirically) is to not follow fad diets (like Atkins, Paleo, etc.), Western diets, or cultural diets corrupted by heavily processed and chemical laced Western foods. Follow evidence based diets, and the evidence is pointing towards whole food plant-based diets — like the traditional Mediterranean diet, the Okinawan diet (Japan) and Sardinian diet (Italy) — found in Blue Zones.
The problem herein lies in convincing public policy makers to take seriously the findings of sound science. If correct eating guidelines are mandatory in schools, in the long run, citizens will live healthier lives. As a result, the state will incur less in medical costs — which include those all-inclusive government sponsored ‘treatments’ to London with entourage and harem.
For hundreds of years, mainstream Western medicine has underestimated the connection between a patient’s mental state, diet and physical health. I have frequent exchanges with Western trained medical students that inform me how ignored nutrition is in the modern medical curriculum. If the medical establishment doesn’t take seriously nutrition as a central column to patient recovery, they will of course (off course) scoff at the notion that the mind can influence the health of the body — even though the placebo and nocebo are evidenced in scientific literature. The coming years will show the findings of snowballing studies that point toward the influence of food and thought on gene expression, overall body health and quality of life.
Conscious behavioral change and mindful self-nudging can redirect our genetic compass to a better biological destination. Fasting, cryotherapy, endurance sports and amraps, are uncomfortable at first but improve our physiology and strength. Athletes and fitness junkies take this further by purposely putting their bodies through extreme conditions. They have experienced the physical and mental benefits of pushing their minds and bodies to their limits, and have cracked the acclimation code. It’s very easy to say “I have bad genes” without trying to break through mental barriers and evolve as a person. Making a habit of eating clean and exercising begins with an iron will and mental toughness, and has nothing to do with physical ability. Once that neural circuit is written and repeated enough times, strenuous action becomes second nature and requires little to no effort. Only then can physical improvements be seen, preceded by feelings of achievement, runner’s high and renewed energy. Over time this learned behavior translates deeper than the command center brain and into the script of the genetic code.
Stress is not only a mental state but can manifest physically in the body. People with high stress have higher levels of cortisol in their blood. Chronic stress can lead to an allostatic load and eventually mood disorders, including depression and anxiety. Stress is extremely dangerous for pregnant women and their baby. Besides delivery complications, numerous studies have cited how high stress and emotional shocks can permanently prime a fetus to mimic the mother’s heighten emotional state.
What happens in the womb, does not stay in the womb
“…These synthetic glucocorticoids treatments mimic the effects of maternal stress. When a mother to be is stressed, she produces more cortisol than she otherwise would. Some of this cortisol is transmitted to the fetus through the placenta. The elevated cortisol levels experienced by the fetus permanently adjust the setting of the stress axis of the fetus, in a way that makes it more sensitive and hyper responsive to subsequent stressful events. These permanent alterations in the stress response are often referred to as glucocorticoids or HPA programming. A mother’s stress could come from multiple sources, a bad marriage, social isolation and poverty are just a few. Extreme stress levels such as those thought to prompt PTSD can also result from diverse causes, war is a very effective promoter of PTSD…” — Richard C. Francis [neurobiologist], Epigenetics: How Environment Shapes Our Genes (2001)
Some people can carry inherited stress in their genes and even old family trauma. This means that they can be biochemically hypersensitive to stressors in the environment. Maybe those stress hormones once served a purpose for survival in harsh conditions where constant vigilance was a daily necessity but that’s no longer the case in today’s comfortable modern world. The prehistoric animal brain can hijack the rational higher brain if a perceived threat triggers the fight, flight or freeze response. This cognitive downshift can feel like an onset downward spiral into anxiety, fear or uncertainty. Living in this automatic stress-response cycle severely taxes the body’s energy. Self-awareness is key to override the body’s built-in risk aversion.
Too many qualified and unqualified individuals and institutions, spread disinformation on social media about the links between diet and diabetes, obesity and exercise, fitness and supplements, food and inflammation, mood and the gut-brain, hormones and impulses, and environmental factors and genetics. This is changing with better access to reproducible data and verifiable insight. Thanks to COVID-19, awareness on how lifestyle choices now affect us in the near future, is at the forefront of collective consciousness. This global health awakening needs to connect to the quality of genes we pass to the next generation — and how that transfer can occur through personal epigenetic tweaks. This impromptu realization launches us into the era of biometric data hacking and personalized medicine — which is a big topic for another article.
References:
Epilogue: Health Without Healthcare
“In Selling Sickness, authors Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels explain “there’s a lot of money to be made telling healthy people they’re sick.” The prologue to their book, published in 2005, paraphrases a candid interview of Merck’s now retired chief executive Henry Gadsen, originally published in Fortune more than 30 years ago. “Suggesting he’d rather Merck be more like chewing
gum maker Wrigley’s, Gadsen said it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people. Because then, Merck would be able to ‘sell to everyone.’” The case that the healthcare industry does not exist for the betterment of our health has also been well-argued by a number of experts from respected institutions including Harvard — and The New England Journal of Medicine, — and so for the most part I’ve resisted making grand indictments of the healthcare industry and attacking its failure to keep us well. But it’s not just industry that’s to blame. This kind of corporate thinking trickles down
from the boardroom into your local clinic, contaminating individual doctors — like yours.While I was building my practice, my boss explained to me that to be “successful” I would need more chronic patients in my panel. He explained that putting people on blood pressure and other medications, which would need periodic monitoring, was key to building a practice. I understood that
from his perspective keeping my patients healthy — and medication free — was bad for business. This entrepreneurial mentality is endemic in today’s healthcare model.But these days it’s gone beyond populating one’s own practice with as many unhealthy people as possible and doing little to improve their health. As I discovered in 2007, now the name of the game is to push as many drugs as you can by whatever means you can get away with. When I interviewed
with the chief of family medicine at a large medical corporation on the West Coast he explained that, since he was part of a team of people who arranged for pharmaceutical companies to issue cash grants, he was in a position to offer me a particularly enticing salary.“What are the grants for?” I asked. “We have a quality improvement program that tracks physician prescribing patterns. We call it ‘quality’ but it’s really about money.”
And that’s all it’s about. It works like this. In his organization, any patient with LDL cholesterol over 100 is put on a cholesterol lowering medication. Any person with a blood pressure higher than 140/90 is put on a blood pressure medication. Any person with “low bone density” is put on a bone-remodeling inhibitor. And so on. The doctors who prescribe the most get big bonuses. Those who prescribe the least get fired. With a hint of incredulousness in his voice he explained, “So far, every time we’ve asked for funding for our program, the drug companies give it to us.” If this is where healthcare is headed, then these hybrid physician/executives will instinctively turn their gaze to our children and invent more creative methods to bulldoze an entire generation into the bottomless pit of chronic disease.
Merck CEO Henry Gadsen’s 30-year-old dream was to make healthy people buy drugs they didn’t really need. But he was dreaming small. What I see happening now is more sinister, more profitable, and promises to have longer-lasting repercussions than merely creating diagnoses that lead to unnecessary prescriptions. What I see is a massive campaign of nutrition related disinformation that has reordered our relationship with food and reprogrammed our physiologies. Industry has moved past selling sickness and learned how to create it. Whether by intent or simply fortuitous coincidence, today’s definition of a healthy diet enables corporations to sell us cheap, easily stored foods that will put more money in their pockets and more people in the hospital. By denying our bodies the foods of our ancestors and severing ourselves from our culinary traditions, we are changing our genes for the worse. Just as corporations have rewritten the genetic codes of fruits and vegetables to better suit their needs, they are now in effect doing the same thing to us.
But there’s one thing they’ve overlooked. Fruits and vegetables can’t fight back. We can.”
—Catherine Shanahan [MD], Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food (2008)
“The living cell is the most complex system of its size known to mankind. Its host of specialized molecules, many found nowhere else but in living material, are themselves enormously complex. They execute a dance of exquisite fidelity, orchestrated with breathtaking precision…yet this is a dance with no sign of a choreographer, no intelligent supervisor, no mystic force, no conscious controlling agency.”
— Paul Davies [physicist], The Fifth Miracle (1998)
“Each cell contains a digitally coded data-base, larger in information than all thirty volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica put together.”
— Richard Dawkins [ethologist, evolutionary biologist], The Blind Watchmaker (1986)
“What I would suggest is that our brains are our pharmacies,” Bosco said. “Our brains are making chemicals all the time,” such as neuropeptides and other neuromodulatory molecules with diverse functions. Some of those functions impinge directly on processes in other organs, including the reproductive system. “If we can ingest a chemical from our environment that changes the epigenomes of the egg or sperm, why couldn’t our brain make a similar molecule that does the same thing?”
— Giovanni Bosco [professor of molecular and systems biology], Dartmouth College (2019)
Nutritional psychiatry: Your brain on food
“Studies have compared “traditional” diets, like the Mediterranean diet and the traditional Japanese diet, to a typical “Western” diet and have shown that the risk of depression is 25% to 35% lower in those who eat a traditional diet. Scientists account for this difference because these traditional diets tend to be high in vegetables, fruits, unprocessed grains, and fish and seafood, and to contain only modest amounts of lean meats and dairy. They are also void of processed and refined foods and sugars, which are staples of the “Western” dietary pattern. In addition, many of these unprocessed foods are fermented, and therefore act as natural probiotics.
This may sound implausible to you, but the notion that good bacteria not only influence what your gut digests and absorbs, but that they also affect the degree of inflammation throughout your body, as well as your mood and energy level, is gaining traction among researchers.”
—Eva Selhub MD [Harvard Medical School & Clinical Associate of the Benson Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital],
The Stuff We’re Made Of
“…Lets’s get to the to bottom line and talk about the reality of what you and I are made of — proteins — which provides the very best example of just how impossibly complex everything we take for granted really is.
Proteins are generally made up of a bunch of amino acids stung together in a specific sequence. There are twenty different amino acids known to science today. The sequence in which these are strung determines how a protein molecule behaves.
Imagine a string of beads that come in twenty different colors. String together 30 green beads, followed by 1 white one, then another green and 12 blue beads, and you get a specific protein molecule that fits, say, in your muscles. String together 13 yellow, 22 red, and 2 blacks, and you get another protein that works as an antibody. Each protein is a highly sophisticated machine that performs a specific function. Some will act as pumps, others will shape-shift to fight germs, and some will move like motors. Your body contains more than twenty thousand such machines. Many other living beings contain protein-made machines that exceed a hundred thousand types.
The most amazing thing about those strings is that they don’t just dangle in a straight line; they fold themselves based on the sequence in which they are strung. And they keep folding until they find a stable “minimum energy configuration” to maintain the integrity of their structure. Like an origami creation, each fold needs to be done accurately in the correct sequence for the final work of art to come into shape. This perfection is very difficult for a protein to achieve without errors (known as ‘misfolds’) because water molecules bang those tiny strings around as they fold, forcing them to move and jiggle.
Now forget about all of the evolutionary cycles needed to create your ancestors, and let’s focus on just one of the twenty thousand proteins that make up our body. For that single building block to have existed it would have needed to be accurately strung in the exact sequence of amino acids that form its composition, and then it would have needed to fold correctly to find its functioning stable structure. How likely is this to happen due to randomness?
In 1969, Cyrus Levinthal noted that the protein molecule has an astronomical number of possible folds leading to its final structure. The Nobel Laureate Christian B. Anfinsen calculated that it would take 1,026 years for a single simple protein to form by randomly sampling all possible folds until it arrives at a stable structure. This is more than a trillion times longer than the age of the universe.
What would be the only was for that protein to fold correctly within the time it had for the task? You know that answer by now: intervention! The protein would have needed to know the primary sequence before it started to fold. Knowing how something is bound to be before it starts to be is what we call design! Like a documented origami work, the protein strand needed to be programmed with the exact steps to follow to get the job done in time.
For all twenty thousand proteins in your body to randomly fold and make one of you, it would take a stroke of luck equivalent to rolling twenty thousand dice at the same time and getting them all to land on 6! And note that each die is not made up of six faces but rather trillions of trillions of faces. Good luck with that!I’ve tried to show you the hidden parts of the mathematics that get tucked away when the cases for the Big Bang, evolution, and natural selection are made. I’ve attempted to tell a story in which everything is designed to perfection and interoperates flawlessly which no dependence on luck, a story in which there’s no chance and no trial and error, where everything behaves as expected and as per the everlasting cosmic equations set forth by the design. I can’t prove that story with 100 percent certainty. But when it comes to our original problem statement it surely enjoys a significantly higher probability than the tale of randomness. This story demands the presence of a designer — which, unfortunately, is an entity that has been taken over and disfigured by religious institutions to the point where we would rather deny its existence than belong to the madness waged in its name.
Our universe is so complex that we often get lost in the details. Even Einstein admitted the limitations to our understanding: “[Looking at creation] we are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”
— Mo Gawdat [entrepreneur], Chief Business Officer at Google [X] (2017)
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