Change your genes in 90 days…sounds impossible, right? Maybe not. A new study by researchers at the Univ. of California San Francisco (UCSF) shows that good nutrition in combination with stress management and exercise can “turn off” disease-promoting genes linked to cancer, heart disease, and inflammation and can “turn on” protective disease-preventing genes.
In this study, 30 men with prostate cancer decided to forego conventional treatments such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, instead opting for comprehensive lifestyle changes including a plant-based diet, moderate exercise (walking 30 minutes per day), stress-management techniques, and participating in a weekly one-hour support group. After three months, not only had these men lost weight and lowered their blood pressure, but the activity in over 500 of their genes had changed. The changes included increased activity in health-promoting genes and the shutting down of disease-promoting genes, including some related to prostate and breast cancer.
The authors of the study believe that its implications are not just limited to men with prostate cancer. What that means for the rest of us is that good eating habits and exercise can not only stop or reverse the progression of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and other chronic conditions, it just might improve our genetic destinies as well. It means that the excuse of “I have bad genes, there’s nothing I can do about it” is out the window. Genetic predisposition to any condition is only that: a predisposition, not a certainty set in stone. Making positive lifestyle changes with respect to diet and exercise can not only improve our current health but, through these newly discovered genetic changes, improve our possibility of good future health. It looks like it’s not just all in our genes after all.
