Dr. Steven R. Gundry
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 Hormones or plant chemicals stimulate genes to either switch on or off, determining what's going to happen in each cell, each part of the body, and each person.
YOUR GENETIC AUTOPILOT
Indeed, whether you realize it or not, your fate is being controlled by a hidden system that runs most of your cellular, hormonal, nervous system, and aging processes without your conscious input. It does this, so that the "thinking you" doesn't screw up the process of moving genetic material forward in time. |
Dawson Church
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 The understanding that much of our genetic activity is affected by factors outside the cell is a radical reversal of the dogma of genetic determinism, which held for half a century that who we are and what we do is governed by our genes. Research is showing a much more interconnected reality in which our consciousness plays a primary role. |
| What will happen, though, is that the circulation of these stress hormones through your system on a regular basis will compromise your immune system, weaken your organs, age you prematurely, and contribute to activating genes that worked perfectly well for the caveman in Scenario One, but are counterproductive to the modern person in Scenarios Two and Three. Herbert Benson, M.D., president of Harvard Medical School's Mind-Body Medical Institute, says, "The stressful thoughts that lead to the secretion of stress-related norepinephrine impede our evolutionary-derived natural healing capacities. |
| Headlines like the October 29, 2005 proclamation in the New York Times stating, "Two More genes Linked to Dyslexia" (in addition to a third gene announced a year earlier) oversimplify the cascade of genetic factors involved in conditions. After a subtitle that says, "Findings Support that Disorder is Genetic," the story goes on to tell us that, "...people deemed simply lazy or stupid because of their severe reading problems may instead have a genetic disorder that interfered with the wiring of their brains before birth. 'I am ecstatic about this research,' said Dr. |
| 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. Larry Dossey, M.D., observes, "Several studies show that what one thinks about one's health is one of the most accurate predictors of longevity ever discovered."10 Studies show that a committed spiritual practice and faith can add many years to our lives, regardless of our genetic mix.11
How did the dogma that DNA holds the blueprint for development become so firmly enshrined? |
| The newsletter for the students at the Health Science campus of the University of Southern California proclaims, "Research has shown that 1 in 40 Ashkenazi women has defects in two genes that cause familial breast/ovarian cancer...."7 Unexamined beliefs in this or that gene causing this or that condition are part of a the foundation of many scientific disciplines in our society
Such assumptions can be found in stories like one that aired on National Public Radio on October 28th, 2005. The announcer declared: "Scientists today announced they have found a gene for dyslexia. |
Dr. Steven R. Gundry
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| Under orders from your genes, your DHEA level drops as you age, causing you to lose about one-third of your muscle mass between the ages of 30 and 60. While distressing to us, the result is that you don't have to eat as much-muscles require calories-and violate rule #3: Don't compete for resources with your offspring.
WHEN PICKINGS ARE SLIM
Whenever conditions are unfavorable for the survival of offspring, a form of genetic override kicks in. During periods of food scarcity, pregnant women miscarry male fetuses in much higher numbers than female ones. |
| Quite the opposite: since her life-changing encounter 75 years ago, she has been instructing her genes to "be good"! I've also discovered how to do the same no matter what genetic cards a person has been dealt. What I have found argues powerfully for a major and immediate change in lifestyle. Dr. Gundryl& Diet Evolution is based on radically simple, but simply radical changes that will make you slimmer, fitter, and healthier. You may well become another Michelle!
By now you're probably thinking I'm a fanatic trying to spread the latest theory of doom and gloom. |
| In fact, my credentials would suggest that I am the most unlikely person to suggest that killer genes are responsible for excess weight and a host of other ills.
I'm in the human survival business. Until six years ago, I primarily flexed my survival muscles as a heart surgeon and researcher on how to keep heart cells alive under stress, operating on infants with malformed hearts and adults with blocked coronary arteries or valves. |
| Until I discovered how to communicate with my genes, I couldn't seem to deal with the extra weight, high cholesterol, arthritis, and tendency to diabetes-the very same health issues many of you are facing.
One more claim to fame: I was the medical consultant and also had a bit part in the movie The Doctor, starring William Hurt, about a heart surgeon who changes his ways when he develops a potentially life-threatening disease. As it turns out, the premise of the film couldn't have been more prophetic.
Surgeons are trained to fix problems, usually with an operation. |
| Rather, it's a highly sophisticated system of specialized cells and the genes within them, including those that produce and sense hormones, govern your immune system, line your gut-all in constant communication with each other without your conscious input. If you're still having trouble with this concept, consider the autopilot program on an airplane. Once the human pilot inputs data about the destination into a computer, the autopilot controls direction, speed, thrust, flaps, pitch, and yaw. |
Tori Hudson, N.D.
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 Several analyses of the locations on the genes that are shared by siblings indicate abnormalities in detoxification enzymes. This would lead to susceptibilities to environmental exposures to substances that could then lead to the increase in the disease. Other insights have included that the genes involved are associated with tumor suppressor genes. If these tumor suppressor genes are affected, there is susceptibility to abnormal tissue growth, such as the endometriosis. |
Jack Challem
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 But there is nothing funny when genes misunderstand chemical messages and their reactions then set the stage for chronic disease.
Excess Carbohydrates Alter Gene Function
The significant difference between past and present eating habits becomes clear in a simple comparison. Twenty thousand years ago, people hunted and foraged for their food, eating lean meats, seafood, and organic (pesticide-free) vegetables that resembled our modern kale, rose hips, and crabapples. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 In the science community, we now know that this way of eating activates all the genes that protect you from disease.
Activate your disease-curing genes
Did you know you had genes in your body that can turn on and destroy cancer tumors in your body? Did you know you had genes that protect you from infection and support healthy endocrine system balance so that you produce the right amount of insulin and hormones, and that make sure you have the right appetite and that your glands work correctly, and so on? |
Jack Challem
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| They work in part by reducing the activity of genes involved in inflammation, including those that program adhesion molecules.
Osteoporosis
What Happens
Osteoporosis refers to a serious reduction in the density of bone, which increases the risk of fractures and falls. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 10 million Americans have osteoporosis, and 18 million more have low bone mass (or low bone-mineral density). Eighty percent of people with osteoporosis are women. Each year osteoporosis accounts for 1.5 million fractures of the hip, wrist, vertebrae, and other bones. |
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
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 The data point towards the involvement of signal transduction pathways, cell cycle regulatory genes, differentiation genes, oncogenes and perhaps, tumor suppressor genes. Hormones do not appear to be involved. |
Jack Challem
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| What You Can Do
As you might expect, the composition of your diet influences the activity of genes involved in inflammation. For example, the ALOX5 gene codes for 5-lipoxygenase, an enzyme needed to make inflammation-promoting molecules. However, this gene's activity is regulated in part by the relative amounts of dietary omega-6 and omega-3 fats. In people consuming large amounts of omega-6 fats, the ALOX5 gene produces substantial amounts of 5-lipoxygenase and proinflammatory compounds. |
| Antioxidant-rich diets and antioxidant supplements work by tempering the activity of genes activated after UV-ray exposure.
What You Can Do
Dietary Considerations
A diet rich in nonstarchy vegetables and fruits can increase the reservoir of protective antioxidant vitamins, carotenoids, and flavonoids normally found in your skin. In fact, researchers have found that people eating a healthy diet—one consistent with the recommendations in chapter 7—are less likely to develop wrinkles. Dr. Mark L. |
| Pycnogenol works partly by reducing the activity of two genes, calgranulin A and B, involved in skin disorders.
Inside-Outside Protection
Several studies have determined that a combination of beta-carotene supplements, taken orally, and topical sunscreens are more effective than sunscreens alone in protecting against sunburn. Although these studies focused only on beta-carotene supplements, it is likely that a multiple-antioxidant supplement (or a high-potency multivitamin) will work just as well, if not better. |
| Insulin turns on genes that increase levels of the stress hormone Cortisol, which accelerates aging. Insulin also increases the production of C-reactive protein, a substance that promotes inflammation and accelerates aging. One of the key steps you can take to minimize DNA and gene damage is to keep your insulin levels as low as possible. A fasting insulin of under 12 mcIU/ml of blood would be ideal, and some physicians recommend levels under 8 mcIU/ml. You can achieve this level by following the dietary recommendations in chapter 7. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| You have all these genes in your body, but when you pursue an unhealthy diet of processed foods, cooked foods and animal products, these genes get suppressed.
If you suppress your healing genes long enough, you eventually get diagnosed with one or more diseases, but when you come here to the Tree of Life Center, you are given an opportunity to experience a diet that activates all these healing genes. Then, your body takes over and becomes your best doctor, and it can perform microsurgery at a cellular level. It can rid your body of toxic waste and tumors. |
Dawson Church
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| They provide a link between our thoughts and our bodies, between biology and psychology, and are an important piece of the puzzle of how psychological states can affect our bodies, and vice versa. They also explain how psychotherapy, prayer, worship, and social rituals can have positive effects on our physical wellbeing. They offer a pathway by which we can influence physical health by immersing ourselves in behavioral states that promote health, and avoiding behavioral states that can hurt us. |
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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 Don't my genes predetermine whether or not I'll get heart disease?
I often hear some variation on the following theme: "My eighty-seven-year-old grandfather eats nothing but eggs, bacon, cheese, and pork, and seems fine. Since I have his genes, why should I change?"
That question brings to mind an analogy: depending strictly on your genes to keep you safe while living a high-fat lifestyle is much like getting through a busy four-way intersection that has no traffic signs or stoplights; a few people will make it across unscathed, but many more will be injured—or will perish. |
| Am I condemned by my genes to have heart disease?"
This time, the answer is an emphatic NO. If you maintain a cholesterol level under 150 mg/dL, or LDL under 80 mg/dL, you— and all the other relatives who inherited these genes—will be free of heart disease. Recall, once again, the house fire analogy I ask my patients to consider. If you do not throw any fuel at all on that fire, it cannot burn.
To paraphrase William Shakespeare, the fault is not in our genes, but in ourselves and the way we eat. And that brings me to a frequently asked question that gets a chapter all its own. |
Ray D. Strand
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 He further argued that cancer was not so much the result of dysfunctional genes as it was the result of genetic damage that highly reactive free radicals caused.7
For the past twenty-five years, researchers have believed that abnormal genes are the driving force behind all cancers. But now researchers are beginning to believe instead that individuals with certain genes are simply more vulnerable to oxidative stress than others. This may explain the familial patterns of many types of cancer. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| You have all these genes in your body, but when you pursue an unhealthy diet of processed foods, cooked foods and animal products, these genes get suppressed.
If you suppress your healing genes long enough, you eventually get diagnosed with one or more diseases, but when you come here to the Tree of Life Center, you are given an opportunity to experience a diet that activates all these healing genes. Then, your body takes over and becomes your best doctor, and it can perform microsurgery at a cellular level. It can rid your body of toxic waste and tumors. |
Michael T. Murray and Michael R. Lyon
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 At that point in my life, my obesity and diabetes-prone genes were in complete harmony with my athletic lifestyle, and I looked and felt better than ever before, even though I probably packed away over 5,000 calories per day of wholesome food just to fuel my big commute. I still exercise most every day, but because I don't have the time or the inclination to ride a bike seventy miles per day, I have to watch my diet very closely or the "thrifty genes" take over and I gain weight readily.
A stark contrast to my lifestyle was seen in most of the patients who came to the hospital. |
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