Nutrigenomics: The Diet That Can Change Your DNA

Diet and exercise. The importance of both was known to the earliest humans, but today we know much more about how food and exercise affects our minds and bodies through scientific evidence. In this two-part series, I delve into the latest science behind diet and exercise and how they are ultimately the foundation of optimal health. My last post was on the effects of exercise on the brain; here I explore nutrition: During the winter of 1944-1945, a terrible famine swept through the Netherlands and carried on until liberation in May 1945. During this time, dubbed the "Hongerwinter," the Dutch population's nutritional intake dropped to fewer than 1,000 calories per day. Women who conceived during this trying time gave birth to children who survived -- but with higher rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity compared to their unaffected siblings. How could something that happened before birth have such a powerful effect on health some 50 years later? The answer lies in the fetal adaptations to their environment (a lack of food + high maternal stress) and how these early changes set up a person for future health complications. In a nutshell, this phenomenon refers to epigenetics, a process by which the genetic function changes, but not the DNA itself. Think of it like turning a light switch on or off, without altering the switch itself. This is not limited to humans, mind you. Take the queen bee. She was not born genetically different than...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news