Epigenetics: Controlling our Health (video)

(NOVA) Once nurture seemed clearly distinct from nature. Now it appears that our diets[, environmental toxins,] and lifestyles can change the expression of our genes. How? By influencing a network of chemical switches within our cells collectively known as the epigenome.

This new understanding may lead us to potent new medical therapies [and manipulated genetic disasters, particularly in the realm of modified foods and deadly pesticides that kill off bees, frogs, and most of us]. Epigenetic cancer therapy, for one, already seems to be yielding promising results.

(LINK) Dr. Joseph Mercola.com interviews Dr. Bruce Lipton, who explains how the New Biology will take us from a world of crisis and illness management to health and self-control.

Epi-genetics means above-genetics. What is beyond, what controls, what gives expression to our genetic codes? (The mind, our beliefs, and external factors do). Genes do not express themselves. They have to be turned on and off, and that is usually not a genetic function or even a necessity. It is environmental interaction, a response.

• Epi-genetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the DNA sequence itself. The word is composed of the root -genetics modified by epi- (Greek for "over, above, or outer"). It refers to relevant modifications to the genome that do not involve a change in the genes or nucleotide sequence.

The practical upshot of this, according to Dr. Bruce Lipton and others, is that we control our gene expression and we are not controlled by our genes. Biology is NOT destiny after all.

• Uncovering the biology of belief