Epigenetics: Genes And The Environment

While many scientific advances in the future will undoubtedly be created from gene editing, breakthrough research now shows that our health is not dictated by our genetic blueprints after all.
Bruce Lipton, PhD, Cell Biologist
“Today’s views of genetics have completely changed. The old view I trained in and taught medical students was a view called genetic determinism and this is the belief that the genes control your traits. It’s not justyour traits that are structural but also thatyour physical, emotional, and behavioral traits are as well, so that our lives are a printout of our genetic lineage.
There’s a new science today called epigenetics, which is the study of how our cells and our body is affected and controlled by our environment. I first saw the nature of epigenetics 40 years ago when I was culturing stem cells. I had genetically identical cells in three dishes but changed the environment in each dish. In one dish they formed muscle, in another dish the cells formed bone, and in the third dish they formed fat cells. The important point was that all the cells were genetically identical, but their fates were controlled by the environment. Today, this new understanding of environmental control over genes is called epigenetic control.”
Lynne McTaggart, Consciousness Expert
“We are now understanding that the membrane of a cell is semi-permeable and there are a lot of protein gatekeeper receptors that let information in or out. Everything in our environment: our diet, the air we breathe, the emotions we hold, the sum total of how we live our lives affects whether a gene gets turned on or off. This is profound because it completely contradicts Darwinian genetics that says, “We are driven by our genes.”
How can that be if one little environmental thing like a vitamin can derail all of your genetic history? So scientists are now looking at cancer and all kinds of things from the epi genome and understanding that really, we are getting constructed in a sense from outside in, not inside out as we thought.”
Bruce Lipton, PhD. Cell Biologist
“The fate of our cells is controlled by the chemistry of our blood and the chemistry of our blood is adjusted by the way we perceive life. If we open our eyes and see love in our presence, we release chemistry in the blood such as oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and these chemicals promote health and vitality of the system. In contrast however, if we open our eyes and see something that threatens or scares us, we release a completely different set of chemicals into our blood such as stress hormones and histamine. The difference is these chemicals actually shut down our growth and prepare us for protection.
So it becomes very critical on how we see the world because our perceptions are converted into chemistry and the chemistry directly controls not just our behavior but our genetic expression as well.” We live in a vast energy field and peaceful, loving energy environments produce a vastly different affect on us, than a toxic environment.Conversely, whatever energy we feel and emanate, be it kind and peaceful energy, or angry and resentful, creates a powerful affect on us, and those around us.
Our consciousness is the key to bringing our awareness to the present moment. As we become aware of how we are feeling in various environments, we can endeavor to spend less time in toxic environments and also learn to transform and release disruptive energies, through self-healing practices. This will help improve our health, bring balance to our mind and spirit and contribute a more positive energy to our environment.
Reprinted with kind permission from The Healing Field: Exceptional Healing Practices to Change Your Life by Penny Price Lavin, published by iUniverse.