Do your parents have a Chronic Illness? Why "It runs in the family" is not as significant anymore.

Have you ever repeated a story so much you believed it as fact- only later to realize that the story was not true?  Remember how shocked you were?

It's disturbing because you start to become aware that you may have other beliefs concerning your health that are not accurate. Imagine the surprise when we realized the earth wasn't flat.  I don't know the whole story-but I'll bet they thought the person who proved it was round was called a heretic.

When I went to school, we were taught to ask our patients about family history.  I'm sure you remember when I asked about the history of illness in your family.  Reason being-if your parents have an illness-then it's in your genes and your probability will be high as well.

Because of these beliefs, some people have gone so far as to have surgeries without any illness-just as a precaution-like removing their breasts because breast cancer "runs in the family".

What if I told you we're discovering these old-school beliefs about cancer and other chronic illnesses caused by "faulty genes" are today's version of "flat earth"?

The truth is-we are now discovering this paradigm is not true.  Your genes are not your destiny.  Read Time magazine's article "Why your DNA is not your Destiny". (Jan 2010).

The "Central Dogma Theory" taught in medical schools.

The "Central Dogma" - that is taught in schools (simply stated) is that your DNA gets transcribed to create proteins, which are the foundation of all the physiological functions of your life- and this process is irreversible.   In other words, your DNA controls your life, and there is little to nothing you can do to change that.

The funny thing is that it's actually called "The Central Dogma" of Biology.  Funny that in a paradigm that prides itself on being scientific, we have a "Dogma" which can be defined as "a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof."

I have some earth shattering news for you.  New research is now challenging the belief of "it runs in the family so I have a higher chance of getting it".

I'm also going to explain why this old belief is not only outdated-but it can be hazardous to your health to believe it to be true.

3 paradigm-changing studies that have been published about Genetics and susceptibility to illness.

1)  The first study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was from Denmark, a country where they for some reason keep an extremely detailed register of genetic origin for their citizens.  Researchers looked at 960 families-more than a thousand children who were adopted-meaning they had NO GENETIC CONNECTION between parent and child, and they evaluated causes of death.

What they found was that when one of those adoptive parents died of cancer before the age of 50, the risk of the child of these parents dying of cancer increased by 500 percent.

But how can that be? You might ask.  There's no genetic connection!

I'm glad you asked-because the answer is that family environment plays a huge role in your health, regardless of your "strong" or "weak" genes.  The authors conclude

…death from cancer, and possibly also from vascular causes, appears to be influenced by the family environment. (N Engl J Med 1988; 318:727-32.)"

2)  The Second study, again from the New England Journal of Medicine, conducted at a prestigious institute in Sweden where they select Nobel Prize candidates looked at (genetically) identical twins.  They studied whether or not these twins got the same illnesses because they shared IDENTICAL GENES.

Can you take a wild guess what the results were?

The author's state

Inherited genetic factors make a minor contribution to susceptibility to most types of neoplasms (cancers)….We conclude that the overwhelming contributor to the causation of cancer in the populations of twins that we studied was the environment".

3) The third amazing study from the Journal "Cell" was on cancer in mice.  A researcher named Cao and his colleagues decided that they were going to inject some mice with a substance that produces melanoma and intestinal cancer.

Then they put these cancer-ridden mice in different groups with different environments and in a nutshell-found that the groups in healthier environments (mice that got nurturing, socialization, and opportunity for normal exercise and mental stimulation) actually SHRUNK THE CANCER TUMORS.

"Dr. Gold, are you teling me that even if I have cancer, I can shrink cancer by changing my lifestyle?"

You tell me.  This is what the researchers say:

"We show here that an enriched environment leads to a remarkable suppression of cancer proliferation in all three models tested, even when delayed until the tumor was well established". (Cao et al. Environmental and Genetic Activation of a brain-Adipocyte BDNF/Leptin Axis Causes Cancer Remission and Inhibition.  Cell 2010 July 9, 142(1):52-64.

Even though it's controversial for me to say- THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'M SAYING.  Chronic illness is multi-factorial. Medicine is concerned with isolating the genes and coming up with an outside-in "cure".  Unfortunately most clinicians are too busy to keep up with the latest research.  Just because your doctor doesn't know doesn't mean it's not true.

There are many campaigns, runs, walks, fundraisers that we all get behind for this noble purpose of treating chronic diseases and cancer. I believe we need to spend more money and research on the above studies.

I might be so bold as to say that maybe disease can then be looked at as a wake-up call. You need to get yourself in the right environment which means proper nutrition, exercise, and rest. Create a mindset of gratitude, high self esteem and social interaction in your community.  Oh, and chiropractic spinal care to restore balance so that your spine can move properly.

At least that is what the research is starting to point out.