Healthy lifestyle triggers genetic changes: study

[TechBear_Seattle]

Healthy lifestyle triggers genetic changes: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy.

The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.

As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes.

After the three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes -- including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off.

The full article is available at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080618/sc_nm/genes_lifestyle_dc

[gblady]

1. thanks.....

great article....important research...

I hear so often, there's nothing I can do about(whatever) because it's genetic, as an excuse not to change lifestyle habits...
I hope this gets big press.

[Sinistrous]

2. Shades of Lamarkianism. n/t

[kestrel91316]

4. Genes merely turning on and off isn't true Lamarckianism.

That's when de novo mutations of the convenient persuasion arise. Supposedly.

[ensho]

3. kick

nt

[SnowGoose]

5. Epigenetics

I am surprised how poorly this field has penetrated into the general consciousness. At its simplest level, we now understand that the environment can produce *heritable* genetic changes in an organism without altering the DNA sequence itself. So the old viewpoint that your DNA sequence was everything was far too simplistic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

Particularly over the last decade this has grown into a huge area - but even some people I know who are just out of medical school are surprisingly unfamiliar with it.

[Indenturedebtor]

6. Medical school teaches you how to treat people

There is a far too common misconception that MD's represent the pinnacle of human scientific knowledge. Don't go to a professor for a prescription, and don't go to a Doctor for a research paper.

But yeah I agree with you it is shocking how little this has entered the public consciousness. This is how genes do their thing!