Getting To The Root Of Health And Disease

Terry Wahls | Huffington Post [United Kingdom] | March 9, 2014

I made a mistake for most of my professional career, a mistake nearly all my physician colleagues make. For decades, I believed the best way to take care of my patients was to use the latest drugs and newest procedures. Instead of talking to my patients about food, toxin exposure, or activity level, I prescribed meds and moved on to the next person as quickly as I could.

I have seen the error of my ways. I have since learned about the power of epigenetics. Epigenetics looks at our how factors in our human habitat, or environment, affect our genes, turning them on and off. This interaction between our environment and our genes directly affects how our cells operate. Epigenetics examines the influence our environment has on which genes are active and which genes are silenced. It explains why a developing fetus might develop birth defects, malformations, or more subtle changes such as crooked teeth. It also explains why an adult, depending on diet quality and lifestyle choices, can have a much higher (or much lower, with the right health-promoting choices) risk for developing obesity, diabetes, heart disease, early onset dementia, or cancer...