Changing Your Lifestyle Can Change Your Genes

For the past 31 years, I have directed a series of research studies showing that changes in lifestyle can make a powerful difference in our health and well-being, and how quickly these changes may occur.  We showed that comprehensive lifestyle changes may stop or reverse the progression of coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and other chronic conditions. 

Two years ago, along with Dr. Carroll (Chair of Urology, UCSF) and others who also collaborated on the new gene expression study, we published the first randomized controlled trial showing that these lifestyle changes may slow, stop, or even reverse the progression of prostate cancer, which may affect breast cancer as well.   When we published our earlier studies, we didn't understand many of the mechanisms by which these changes may have occurred.  Now, our new study is beginning to provide some insight into what some of these genetic mechanisms may be. 

Because we looked at normal tissue within the prostate (rather than the prostate tumor cells), it is likely that our findings may be generalized beyond men with prostate cancer.  Also, people who are otherwise healthy may not need to make such intensive changes and have a spectrum of choices.  We are still trying to understand the full significance of these findings--we've raised more questions than we've answered, and we need larger, longer-term studies--but it's already clear that you may be able to alter, at least to some degree, how your genes are expressed simply by changing your diet and lifestyle.  

I find this to be a profoundly hopeful message.  Often, I hear people say, "Oh, I've got bad genes, there's nothing I can do about it"--displaying what I call genetic nihilism.  Our findings (the first to show the effect of lifestyle changes on any kind of cancer genes) can be an antidote to genetic nihilism and, I hope, motivate people to begin making their own changes.  In most cases, our genes are only a predisposition; they are not written in stone. And if we have a strong family history for diseases such as prostate cancer, breast cancer, or heart disease-- "bad genes"-- then we may need to make bigger changes in lifestyle in order to help prevent or even reverse chronic diseases.  In the centuries-old debate about nature vs. nurture, we are learning that nurture affects nature as much as nature affects nurture.  It's not all in our genes.

© 2008