Our World and Everything in It

I watched a really interesting Nova presentation on PBS last night about Epigenetics.  It is another reason for us to really nurture and care for the environment we live in. Our code of life seems to be more interactive with our surroundings than we think. All animals and humans have pretty much the same number of genes in our DNA makeup. Because of this, science is stumped by the individuality among humans and animals, especially health.

Watching animal parents (rats) either nurture or ignore their young led to a study of generational DNA makeup relative to psychological environment. We all pretty much know that children of abusive or neglectful parents suffer more depression and psychological problems as adults, but what scientists found was a marker on the DNA of maybe 3 generations of rats down the line denoting the stress from their great, great, great grandparent due to neglect. 

Shortly thereafter, another scientist way up in the Northern part of Sweden was studying a town that maintained great records for hundreds of years not just the genealogy of families but also the weather patterns and harvest records. He found a correspondence in disease and illness with environmental stressors such as drought and famine that affected the harvest.  Illness from poor health due to lack of nutrition is a no-brainer. But it wasn’t just the generation affected that had illness and disease; he found it ran in the family as far as 3 or 4 generations down the line whether they ate well or had a much improved lifestyle. 

Scientists started looking at the DNA markers for disease in people relative to these new findings. It appears these markers are handed down from the paternal side of the family. Memory of environment appears to stamp sperm.  If the individual male suffered stress from death, loss of crops, harsh weather, abusive parents, horrible weather, etc., that stress was transmitted to his sperm and it expressed itself in the form of a markers on their children’s DNA. It is not a genetic mutation. Even though the children are stress free, the markers of their father’s environment were there, passed on.

Environmental stress, both physical and psychological, matters for generations to come no matter how well future generations quality of life improves! The specific markers for individual DNA according to ancestry are what turn on and off the receptors for disease and illness, so lifestyle choices are extremely important for children and grandchildren’s health. This says much about the black community. Blacks suffer from many more diseases than whites. Considering their history of slavery, a horrendous stress for a human being, and this recent revelation, it’s no wonder.

The good thing about all of this is that back in the 70’s there was a form of chemotherapy so toxic it was discontinued. However, it had the ability to erase these DNA stress markers. The chemo has been reduced to like 1/20th of the original and dispensed to patients with diseases that had no cure. The patients had no side effects and their disease went into remission. When their DNA was checked, the markers were gone. This is all experimental at this stage, but I have no doubt the findings. I own an African Grey parrot.  Bird people know that stressors of any type show up on new feathers as small bars. We all share almost identical DNA, rats to humans. What sets us apart as individuals health-wise, are the stress markers of our ancestors. What are we sending to our children, and their children, and their children after that by living in a polluted, hectic world? It doesn’t look good right now as breast cancer and all other types of disease seem to be on a rise again.

The average person breathes in air that is questionable. We bathe, drink, and cook with water that isn’t the purest, full of chlorine and other chemicals for purity. And the food we eat lived in horrific environments of stress where pigs and cows chew on metals bars of their cages out of frustration from a life of constant confinement, a living hell in a CAFO, before we eat it. These animals give birth in these crates. The babies are ripped from the mothers and they in turn live a life of hell as foodstuff. I don’t think its fit to eat, and the people that perpetrate the business are evil. So our environment is ailing to begin with, and then we smoke, drink, overeat, and are getting more and more sedentary, as we watch the instance of disease rise worldwide. According to Epigenetics the correlation is right on the money. We simply must become more responsible keepers of our personal and world environment for the healthy future of humanity.

For more about the program on PBS called “The Ghost in Your Genes” goto:

http://www.pbs.org/search/search_results.html?q=The+Ghost+of+Our+Genes&neighborhood=none&btnG.x=4&btnG.y=5.
 

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 6:42 pm and is filed under CAFO's, DNA, Environmentalism, Epigenetics, Food Supply Contamination, Genetic Markers, Global Warming, PBS, Pollution, Science, Stress, U.S. Food Supply, Weather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.