Our DNA uses the instructions imprinted within its individual sequences to produce proteins. The word protein is derived from the Greek protas, meaning “of primary importance.” Proteins are the raw materials our bodies use to construct not only coherent three-dimensional structures (our physical anatomy), but also the intricate functions and complex interactions that make up our physiology. Our bodies are, in fact, protein-producing machines. Muscle cells make actin and myosin; skin cells make collagen and elastin; immune cells make antibodies; thyroid cells make thyroxine; certain eye cells make keratin; bone-marrow cells make hemoglobin; and pancreatic cells make enzymes like protease, lipase, and amylase.
All of the elements that these cells manufacture are proteins. Proteins control our immune system, digest our food, heal our wounds, catalyze chemical reactions, support the structural integrity of our bodies, provide elegant molecules to communicate between cells, and much more. In short, proteins are the expression of life (and the health of our bodies). Take a look at Figure 4.1 and review a simplistic understanding of genes.
This is a very simplistic representation of a cell with DNA housed within the cell nucleus. The genetic material once stretched out into individual strands looks like a twisted zipper or ladder called a DNA helix. The rungs of the ladder are the nucleic acids that are paired together, which act as codes to make proteins. A different length and sequence of the DNA strand is called a gene. A gene is expressed when it makes a protein. Various cells of the body make different proteins for both structure and function.
For the 60 years since James Watson, Ph.D., and Francis Crick, Ph.D., discovered the double helix of DNA, what Watson proclaimed in a 1970 issue of Nature4 as the “central dogma,” that one’s genes determine all, has held fast. As contradictory evidence popped up here and there, researchers tended to dismiss it as a mere anomaly within a complex system.5
Some 40-odd years later, the genetic-determinism concept still reigns in the general public’s mind. Most people believe the common misconception that our genetic destiny is predetermined and that if we have inherited the genes for certain cancers, heart disease, diabetes, or any number of other conditions, we have no more control over that than we do our eye color or the shapes of our noses (notwithstanding contact lenses and plastic surgery).
The news media reinforce this by repeatedly suggesting that specific genes cause this condition or that disease. They’ve programmed us into believing that we’re victims of our biology and that our genes have the ultimate power over our health, our well-being, and our personalities—and even that our genes dictate our human affairs, determine our interpersonal relationships, and forecast our future. But are we who we are, and do we do what we do, because we’re born that way? This concept implies that genetic determinism is deeply entrenched in our culture and that there are genes for schizophrenia, genes for homosexuality, genes for leadership, and so on.
These are all dated beliefs built on yesterday’s news. First of all, there’s no gene for dyslexia or ADD or alcoholism, for example, so not every health condition or physical variation is associated with a gene. And fewer than 5 percent of people on the planet are born with some genetic condition—like type 1 diabetes, Down syndrome, or sickle-cell anemia. The other 95 percent of us who develop such a condition acquire it through lifestyle and behaviors.6 The flip side is also true: Not everyone born with the genes associated with a condition (say, Alzheimer’s or breast cancer) ends up getting that. It’s not as though our genes are eggs that will ultimately hatch someday. That’s just not the way it works. The real questions are whether or not any gene we might be carrying has been expressed yet and what we’re doing that might signal that gene to turn either on or off.
A huge shift in the way we look at genes came when scientists finally mapped the human genome. In 1990, at the beginning of the project, the researchers expected they’d eventually discover that we have 140,000 different genes. They came up with that number because genes manufacture (and supervise the production of) proteins—and the human body manufactures 100,000 different proteins, plus 40,000 regulatory proteins needed to make other proteins. So the scientists mapping the human genome were anticipating that they’d find one gene per protein, but by the end of the project, in 2003, they were shocked to discover that, in fact, humans have only 23,688 genes.
From the perspective of Watson’s central dogma, that’s not only not enough genes to create our complex bodies and keep them running, but also not even enough genes to keep the brain functioning. So if it’s not contained in the genes, where does all of the information come from that’s required to create so many proteins and sustain life?
The Genius of Your Genes
The answer to that question led to a new idea: Genes must work together in systemic cooperation with one another so that many are expressed (turned on) or suppressed (turned off) at the same time within the cell; it’s the combination of the genes that are turned on at any one time that produces all the different proteins we depend on for life. Picture a string of blinking Christmas-tree lights, with some flashing on together while others flash off. Or imagine a city skyline at night—with the lights in the individual rooms in each building flipping on or off as the night progresses.
This doesn’t happen randomly, of course. The entire genome or DNA strand knows what every other part is doing in an interconnected fashion that’s intimately choreographed. Every atom, molecule, cell, tissue, and system of the body functions at a level of energetic coherence equal to the intentional or unintentional (conscious or unconscious) state of being of the individual personality.7 So it makes sense that genes can be activated (turned on) or deactivated (turned off) by the environment outside the cell, which sometimes means the environment inside the body (the emotional, biological, neurological, mental, energetic, and even spiritual states of being) and at other times means the environment outside the body (trauma, temperature, altitude, toxins, bacteria, viruses, food, alcohol, and so on).
Genes are, in fact, classified by the type of stimulus that turns them on and off. For example, experience-dependent or activity-dependent genes are activated when we’re having novel experiences, learning new information, and healing. These genes generate protein synthesis and chemical messengers to instruct stem cells to morph into whatever types of cells are needed at the time for healing (more about stem cells and their role in healing will be coming up soon).
Behavioral-state-dependent genes are activated during periods of high emotional arousal, stress, or different levels of awareness (including dreaming). They provide a link between our thoughts and our bodies—that is, they’re the mind-body connection. These genes offer an understanding of how we can influence our health in states of mind and body that promote well-being, physical resilience, and healing.
Scientists now believe it’s even possible that our genetic expression fluctuates on a moment-to-moment basis. The research is revealing that our thoughts and feelings, as well as our activities—that is, our choices, behaviors, and experiences—have profound healing and regenerative effects on our bodies, as the men in the monastery study discovered. Thus your genes are being affected by your interactions with your family, friends, co-workers, and spiritual practices, as well as your sexual habits, your exercise levels, and the types of detergents you use. The latest research shows that approximately 90 percent of genes are engaged in cooperation with signals from the environment.8 And if our experience is what activates a good number of our genes, then our nature is influenced by nurturing. So why not harness the power of these ideas so that we can do everything possible to maximize our health and minimize our dependence on the prescription pad?
As Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., writes in The Psychobiology of Gene Expression, “Our subjective states of mind, consciously motivated behavior, and our perception of free will can modulate gene expression to optimize health.”9 Individuals can alter their genes during a single generation, according to the latest scientific thinking. While the process of
genetic evolution can take thousands of years, a gene can successfully alter its expression through a behavior change or a novel experience within minutes, and then it may be passed on to the next generation.
It helps to think of our genes less like stone tablets onto which our fate has been ceremoniously carved and more like storehouses of an enormous amount of coded information or even massive libraries of possibilities for the expression of proteins. But we can’t just call the stored information up to make use of it the way a company might order something from its warehouse. It’s as if we don’t know what’s in storage or how to access it, so we end up using just a small portion of what’s truly available. In fact, we actually express only about 1.5 percent of our DNA, while the other 98.5 percent lies dormant in the body. (Scientists called it “junk DNA,” but it’s not really junk—they just don’t know how all of that material is used yet, although they do know that at least some of it is responsible for making regulatory proteins.)
“In reality, genes contribute to our characteristics but do not determine them,” writes Dawson Church, Ph.D., in his book The Genie in Your Genes. “The tools of our consciousness—including our beliefs, prayers, thoughts, intentions, and faith—often correlate much more strongly with our health, longevity, and happiness than our genes do.”10 The fact is, just as there’s more to our bodies than a sack of bones and flesh, there’s more to our genes than just stored information.
The Biology of Gene Expression
Now let’s take a closer look at how genes are switched on. (Several different factors can be responsible, actually, but for the sake of our discussion here about the mind-body connection, we’ll keep it simple.)
Once a chemical messenger (for example, a neuropeptide) from outside of the cell (from the environment) locks into the cell’s docking station and passes through the cell membrane, it travels to the nucleus, where it encounters the DNA. The chemical messenger modifies or creates a new protein, and then the signal it was carrying is translated to information now inside the cell. Then it enters the nucleus of the cell through a small window, and depending on the content of the protein message, it looks for a specific chromosome (a single piece of coiled DNA that contains many genes) within the nucleus—just as you might look for a specific book on the shelf in the library.
Each of these strands is covered in a protein sleeve that acts as a filter between the information contained in the DNA strand and the rest of the intracellular environment of the nucleus. In order for the DNA code to be selected, the sleeve must be removed or unwrapped so that the DNA can be exposed (just as a book chosen from a library shelf then has to be opened before anyone can read it). The genetic code of DNA contains information waiting to be read and activated to create a particular protein. Until that information is exposed in the gene by unwrapping that protein sleeve, the DNA is latent. It’s a potential storehouse of encoded information just waiting to be unlocked or opened. You could think of the DNA as a parts list of potentials that are awaiting instructions to construct proteins, which regulate and maintain every aspect of life.
Once the protein selects the chromosome, it opens it up by removing the outer covering around the DNA. Another protein then regulates and readies an entire gene sequence within the chromosome (think of it as a chapter within a book) to be read, all the way from the start of the sequence to its end. Once the gene is exposed and the protein sleeve is removed and read, another nucleic acid, called ribonucleic acid (RNA), is produced from the regulatory protein reading the gene.
Now the gene is expressed or activated. The RNA exits the nucleus of the cell to be assembled into a new protein from the code the RNA carries. It has gone from being a blueprint of latent potential to being an active expression. The protein the gene creates can now construct, assemble, interact with, restore, maintain, and influence many different aspects of life both within the cell and outside of it. Figure 4.2 gives an overview of the process.
Figure 4.2A shows the epigenetic signal entering the cell receptor site. Once the chemical messenger interacts at the level of the cell membrane, another signal in the form of a new protein is sent to the nucleus of the cell to select a gene sequence. The gene still has a protein covering protecting it from its outer environment, and that covering has to be removed in order for it to be read.
Figure 4.2B illustrates how the protein sleeve around the gene sequence of the DNA is opened so that another protein, called a regulatory protein, can unzip and read the gene at a precise location.
Figure 4.2C demonstrates how the regulatory protein creates another molecule, called RNA, which organizes the translation and the transcription of the genetically coded material into a protein.
Figure 4.2D shows protein production. RNA assembles a new protein from the individual building blocks of proteins called amino acids.
Just as an architect gets all of the information that’s necessary to build a structure from a blueprint, the body gets all the instructions it needs to create complex molecules that keep us alive and operating from the chromosomes of our DNA. But before the architect reads the blueprint, it has to be pulled out of its cardboard tube and unrolled. Until then, it’s just latent information waiting to be read. The cell is the same way: The gene is inert until its protein sheathing is removed and the cell chooses to read the gene sequence.
Scientists used to believe all the body needed was the information itself (the blueprint) to start construction, so that’s what most of them focused on. They paid little attention to the fact that the whole cascade of events starts with the signal outside of the cell, which is, in fact, responsible for what genes within its library the cell chooses to read. That signal, as we now know, includes thoughts, choices, behaviors, experiences, and feelings. So it makes sense that if you can change these elements, you can also determine your genetic expression.
Epigenetics: How We Mere Mortals Get to Play God
If our genes don’t seal our fate and if they actually contain an enormous library of possibilities just waiting to be taken off the shelf and read, then what gives us access to those potentials—potentials that could have a huge effect on our health and well-being? The men in the monastery study surely gained such access, but how did they do it? The answer lies in a relatively new field of study called epigenetics.
The word epigenetics literally means “above the gene.” It refers to the control of genes not from within the DNA itself but from messages coming from outside the cell—in other words, from the environment. These signals cause a methyl group (one carbon atom attached to three hydrogen atoms) to attach to a specific spot on a gene, and this process (called DNA methylation) is one of the main processes that turns the gene off or on. (Two other processes, covalent histone modification and noncoding RNA, also turn genes on and off, but the details of those processes are more than we need for this discussion.)
Epigenetics teaches that we, indeed, are not doomed by our genes and that a change in human consciousness can produce physical changes, both in structure and function, in the human body. We can modify our genetic destiny by turning on the genes we want and turning off the ones we don’t want through working with the various factors in the environment that program our genes. Some of those signals come from within the body, such as feelings and thoughts, while others come from the body’s response to the external environment, such as pollution or sunlight.
Epigenetics studies all of these external signals that tell the cell what to do and when to do it, looking at both the sources that activate, or turn on, gene expression (upregulating) and those that suppress, or turn off, gene expression (downregulating)—as well as the dynamics of energy that adjust the process of cellular function on a moment-to-moment basis. Epigenetics suggests that even though our DNA code never changes, thousands of combinations, sequences, and patterned variations in a single gene are possible (just as thousands of combinations, sequences, and patterns of neural networks are possible in the brain).
Looking at the entire huma
n genome, so many millions of possible epigenetic variations exist that scientists find their heads spinning just thinking about it. The Human Epigenome Project, begun in 2003 as the Human Genome Project drew to a close, is under way in Europe,11 and some researchers have said that when it’s completed, it “will make the Human Genome Project look like homework that 15th century kids did with an abacus.”12 Going back to the blueprint model, we can change the color of what we build, the type of materials we use, the scale of the construction, and even the positioning of the structure—making an almost infinite number of variations—all without ever changing the actual blueprint.
A great example of epigenetics at work involves identical twins, who share exactly the same DNA. If we embrace the idea of genetic predeterminism—the idea that all diseases are genetic—then identical twins should have exactly the same gene expression. However, they don’t always manifest the same illnesses in the same way, and sometimes one will manifest a genetic disease that the other doesn’t manifest at all. Twins can have the same genes, but different outcomes.
A Spanish study illustrates this perfectly. Researchers at the Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory at the Spanish National Cancer Center in Madrid studied 40 pairs of identical twins, ranging in age from 3 to 74. They found that younger twins who had similar lifestyles and spent more years together had similar epigenetic patterns, while older twins, in particular those with dissimilar lifestyles who spent fewer years together, had very different epigenetic patterns.13 For example, researchers found four times as many differentially expressed genes between one pair of 50-year-old twins as they did between a pair of 3-year-old twins.
The twins were born with exactly the same DNA, but those with different lifestyles (and different lives) ended up expressing their genes very differently—especially as time went on. To use another analogy, the older twin pairs were like exact copies of the same model of a computer. The computers came loaded with some similar starter software, but as time went on, each downloaded very different additional software programs. The computer (the DNA) stays the same, but depending on what software a person has downloaded (the epigenetic variations), what the computer does and the way it operates can be quite different. So when we think our thoughts and feel our feelings, our bodies respond in a complex formula of biological shifts and alterations, and each experience pushes the buttons of real genetic changes within our cells.
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