Epigenetics And Why You Are Not A Slave To Your Genes

By Dr. Justin Marchegiani

You are not a slave to your genes. We see all kinds of information on the news today about Angelina Jolie getting a preventative mastectomy, which is removing healthy breast tissue.

She tested positive to the BRCA1 and 2 gene, this is a genetic risk factor for breast cancer.

The question that I purpose is why are there millions of people out there that have this gene and aren’t coming down with breast cancer?

It’s because, genes are not a death sentence. You have the ability to control how your genes are expressed, in regards to how you manage stress.

Essentially, genes are like a light switch; You can flip it on or off based on how you manage stress and it’s the factors above the genes, known as epigenetics (These are the switches that are above).

It’s kind of like you see a puppet and the puppet moves but it’s the marionette above that’s controlling the puppet. It’s the epigenetics above that’s controlling the DNAs, flipping it on and off.

Many different people in different families know that they have a predisposition to heart disease. Their father died of that or their uncle died of that. We see it with cancer in different families as well.

Yes we passed down lots of traits and skills through generations in regards in how to eat and how to manage stress and such. These can play a factor in why these are passed down.

If we don’t manage our stress properly that turns on certain epigenetics, which flip genes on or off.

So the next question is how do we control these?

Predisposition, stressing our genes is nothing more than pulling the chain tight. Each link in the chain may be a predisposition. If I pull the chain tight, the heart disease link may break, maybe cancer on another, or fiber fibromyalgia MS on another person.

So the question is, let’s take the stress off the genes (let’s take the stress off the chain). Pulling these chains tight gives us the predisposition for these chain links to break; lessening the stress decreases that chance.

Essentially, we have three main stressors. These stressors can be physical, chemical, and/or emotional stressors.

Physical can be an old car accident, it can be too much too little exercise, old injuries, and traumatic events/physical traumatic events. Chemical stressors can be infections, food allergens, eating poorly, getting exposed to environmental toxins and heavy metals. Emotional stress poor communication in relationships, financial issues, issues with children or your spouse or loved ones.

These are all issues that can affect the emotional side and all of the stressors actually interplay on one another. So what that means is you may have hurt your back in an old athletic injury, an old sports injury. That’s going to decrease your body's ability to function and do things like maybe golf, or do things that you enjoy.

Then you’re going to have an emotional heart ache now because you're not going to be able to do some things that used to do and then we have all kinds of inflammation which is a chemical stressor from the injury. So if physical stress becomes a chemical stress which becomes an emotional stress, then all of these stressors interplay on the genes.

Can I be in control of my genes? Click here to find out.

If we don't manage those stressors properly then our genes are going to frown, we’re going to see a frowning face. If our genes are managed properly, we are going to see a smiley face. The goal is we want to make genes smile as much as possible.

So getting back to our genetic predisposition analogy, our predisposition is which link may break. But again, if we don't pull the chain tight we don’t have to worry about the link breaking because the stress isn’t on there to make it break in the first place.

So manage the stressors, by taking the stress off the chain, by taking the stress off your genes. You have the ability to control this.

Going out there and preventatively removing healthy organ tissue is absolutely preposterous. A lot of people do this because they get caught up in the fear of it, they feel like they don’t have control. They feel like it’s a death sentence and I want to make sure that everyone knows that it’s not a death sentence.

You have the ability to control your genes.

So in the analogy of Angelina Jolie and cancer, vitamin D is a perfect analogy that can decrease cancer risk amazingly. Decrease sugar and refined carbohydrates, eating organic, managing stress, getting good sleep, moderate amounts of exercise, and eating cruciferous vegetables; broccoli, asparagus, kale (they’re high in these different cancer metabolizers).

These are all simple things that you can do that can take the stress off your genetic chain. You may have to do a better job at managing stressors than the average person, but you still have the ultimate control to help your genes express optimal health.

Click here to know more about the effects of stress on our bodies.