Skip to main content

New Scientist News - The food you eat may change your genes for life

The food you eat may change your genes for life


IT SOUNDS like science fiction: simply swallowing a pill, or eating a specific food supplement, could permanently change your behaviour for the better, or reverse diseases such as schizophrenia, Huntington's or cancer.

Yet such treatments are looking increasingly plausible. In the latest development, normal rats have been made to behave differently just by injecting them with a specific amino acid. The change to their behaviour was permanent. The amino acid altered the way the rat's genes were expressed, raising the idea that drugs or dietary supplements might permanently halt the genetic effects that predispose people to mental or physical illness.

It is not yet clear whether such interventions could work in humans. But there is good reason to believe they could, as evidence mounts that a range of simple nutrients might have such effects.

Two years ago, researchers led by Randy Jirtle of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, showed that the activity of a mouse's genes can be influenced by food supplements eaten by its mother just prior to, or during, very early pregnancy (New Scientist, 9 August 2003, p 14). Then last year, Moshe Szyf, Michael Meaney and colleagues at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, showed that mothers could influence the way a rat's genes are expressed after it has been born. If a rat is not licked, groomed and nursed enough by its mother, chemical tags known as methyl groups are added to the DNA of a particular gene.

The affected gene codes for the glucocorticoid receptor gene, expressed in the hippocampus of the brain. The gene helps mediate the animal's response to stress, and in poorly raised rats, the methylation damped down the gene's activity. Such pups produced higher levels of stress hormones and were less confident exploring new environments. The effect lasted for life (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 847).

Now the team has shown that a food supplement can have the same effect on well-reared rats at 90 days old - well into adulthood. The researchers injected L-methionine, a common amino acid and food supplement, into the brains of well-reared rats. The amino acid methylated the glucocorticoid gene, and the animals' behaviour changed. "They were almost exactly like the poorly raised group," says Szyf, who announced his findings at a small meeting on environmental epigenomics earlier this month in Durham, North Carolina.
“This opens up new ways of thinking about treating and preventing diseases caused by how our DNA is expressed”

Though the experiment impaired well-adjusted animals, the opposite should be possible, and Szyf has already shown that a chemical called TSA that is designed to strip away methyl groups can turn a badly raised rat into a more normal one.

No one is envisaging injecting supplements into people's brains, but Szyf says his study shows how important subtle nutrients and supplements can be. "Food has a dramatic effect," he says. "But it can go both ways," he cautions. Methionine, for instance, the supplement he used to make healthy rats stressed, is widely available in capsule form online or in health-food stores - and the molecules are small enough to get into the brain via the bloodstream.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Insulin Resistance- cause of ADD, diabetes, narcolepsy, etc etc

Insulin Resistance Insulin Resistance Have you been diagnosed with clinical depression? Heart disease? Type II, or adult, diabetes? Narcolepsy? Are you, or do you think you might be, an alcoholic? Do you gain weight around your middle in spite of faithfully dieting? Are you unable to lose weight? Does your child have ADHD? If you have any one of these symptoms, I wrote this article for you. Believe it or not, the same thing can cause all of the above symptoms. I am not a medical professional. I am not a nutritionist. The conclusions I have drawn from my own experience and observations are not rocket science. A diagnosis of clinical depression is as ordinary as the common cold today. Prescriptions for Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, etc., are written every day. Genuine clinical depression is a very serious condition caused by serotonin levels in the brain. I am not certain, however, that every diagnosis of depression is the real thing. My guess is that about 10 percent of the people taking ...

Could Narcolepsy be caused by gluten? :: Kitchen Table Hypothesis

Kitchen Table Hypothesis from www.zombieinstitute.net - Heidi's new site It's commonly known that a severe allergy to peanuts can cause death within minutes. What if there were an allergy that were delayed for hours and caused people to fall asleep instead? That is what I believe is happening in people with Narcolepsy. Celiac disease is an allergy to gliadin, a specific gluten protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. In celiac disease the IgA antigliadin antibody is produced after ingestion of gluten. It attacks the gluten, but also mistakenly binds to and creates an immune reaction in the cells of the small intestine causing severe damage. There is another form of gluten intolerance, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, in which the IgA antigliadin bind to proteins in the skin, causing blisters, itching and pain. This can occur without any signs of intestinal damage. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a similar autoimmune reaction to gliadin, however it usually involves the...

Blue-blocking Glasses To Improve Sleep And ADHD Symptoms Developed

Blue-blocking Glasses To Improve Sleep And ADHD Symptoms Developed Scientists at John Carroll University, working in its Lighting Innovations Institute, have developed an affordable accessory that appears to reduce the symptoms of ADHD. Their discovery also has also been shown to improve sleep patterns among people who have difficulty falling asleep. The John Carroll researchers have created glasses designed to block blue light, therefore altering a person's circadian rhythm, which leads to improvement in ADHD symptoms and sleep disorders. […] How the Glasses Work The individual puts on the glasses a couple of hours ahead of bedtime, advancing the circadian rhythm. The special glasses block the blue rays that cause a delay in the start of the flow of melatonin, the sleep hormone. Normally, melatonin flow doesn't begin until after the individual goes into darkness. Studies indicate that promoting the earlier release of melatonin results in a marked decline of ADHD symptoms. Bett...