Are Diseases Really Genetic?
Are we Victims of our own DNA?
For most of us, just hearing words like ‘cancer, arthritis and stroke’ evokes fear and worry. The fear is that one day, for some ‘genetic’ reason, our normal healthy body cells will suddenly malfunction and start destroying us from the inside out, leaving us dependent on drugs, surgery, chemo therapy etc. This is a fear that we have been taught to live with, but by who, and why?
The ultimate mission of medical science since ‘modern science’ began in the 15th century has been to discover how the doctor can control the behavior of your body so that you don’t have to experience disease. This assumes that you the person are powerless in controlling your own body’s behavior and must buy this control from drug companies through the doctor who is the middle man. Science’s search for what controls life, so life in turn can be controlled, led to the search for the hereditary factors that controlled cell synthesis, which led to the discovery of DNA.
In 1953, scientists unraveled the mystery of the “genetic code,” which revealed how the DNA served as a molecular “blueprint” that defined the construction of proteins (the basic building block of body tissue). The DNA blueprint for each protein is referred to as a gene. Since proteins define the character of an organism and the proteins’ structures are encoded in the DNA, biologists established the dogma known as the Primacy of DNA. It was concluded that DNA “controls” the structure and behavior of living organisms, which led to the concept of Genetic Determinism, the idea that the structure and behavior of an organism are defined by its genes.
The next step in the grand scientific mission was the Human Genome Project, the multibillion-dollar mission to identify all of the genes of a human. Once this was accomplished, it was assumed that we can use that knowledge to repair or replace “defective” genes and in the process, realize science’s mission of “controlling” the organism and therefore disease. The ‘shock discovery’ of this project was that humans have almost the same number of genes as a simple worm.
For more than fifty years’ medicine has held the illusion that our health and fate were preprogrammed in our genes. Though mass consciousness generated by drug companies and media is currently stuck with this belief, a radically new understanding is unfolding at the leading edge of science.
A few innovative scientists have now proven that the environment (external and internal), and more importantly, our perception of the environment, directly controls the activity of our genes. Genes do not control themselves. In other words, our lifestyles directly affect the expression of our genes. Lifestyle being a combination of what we eat and drink, the air we breathe, how we exercise and rest and what we think, feel and believe. Yes, all these things affect our DNA!
Even if we have certain genes that may pre-dispose us to develop certain health problems, in most cases those genes still require stimulation from outside the cell (lifestyle triggers) in order for that gene to express its damaging activity. Experiments with mice have shown that even simple dietary changes made during pregnancy can completely block the gene activity held responsible for diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity in the offspring. In these experiments B vitamins made the big difference.
Experiments have now proven that the genes are not the control centre for cells. The most important part of a cell is its membrane. This forms a barrier or interface between the external and interior environments of the cell. The cell membrane ‘perceives’ the environment in which the cell must try to flourish. It continuously monitors the environment and allows the passage of nutrients and information molecules in and out of the cell on a selective basis. These information molecules provide instructions to the DNA regarding what new proteins it must manufacture. The cell membrane serves the same survival function to the cell as our central nervous system (brain and spinal chord) serves to us in our life. Your perception of your self and your environment acts through your central nervous system to affect your internal environment which is perceived by the cell membrane which intern directs the expression of your genes. Yes, we are really in charge of our own vessel!
Though there are hundreds of behavioral functions expressed by a cell, all behaviors can be classified as either growth or protection responses. Cells either open to receive nurturing stimuli from their environment, or they close to block out threatening stimuli. Since a cell can not open and close at the same time, a cell cannot express growth and protection at the same time. This means that if your body perceives stress and a need for protection, it must compromise its growth behaviors which include; relaxation, healing, immunity, digestion, fertility and positive emotional states like love, gratitude and resourcefulness. Protection and defensiveness is sometimes necessary and is ok for short periods, but long term it leads to a disruption of all growth behavior in your body.
We started to see these phenomena in our chiropractic work as we discovered that a persons’ posture and movement is different when protection behavior is predominant in the body and growth behaviour is compromised. Growth and protection shows up throughout many body functions: Posture, movement, muscle tension, breath, heart rate, blood pressure, hormonal and brain activity. We have subsequently learned how to help a person shift their body and self away from protection behaviour and into growth behaviour which opens up opportunities for improvements in life and health that were previously unavailable.
Your genes are basically protein manufacturers who manufacture the exact proteins deemed necessary for survival in the current situation based on perception of that situation. Interestingly, cancer cells thrive in toxic environments in which normal cells struggle. When a cell membrane perceives a toxic environment for extended periods of time, it expresses extreme protection behavior, which is just to survive another day. Your long term health and wellbeing is not a priority when your life is in immediate danger, you are only concerned with surviving the moment. Turning cancerous is a great short term solution for a cell but a lethal long term solution! Have you ever felt so stressed that you are happy just to get through the day? Human behaviour is essentially the same as the behaviour of our cells. After all, we are just one big family of a few trillion cells.
Did God or nature (pick your own term) spend millions of years developing the human being only so we could suffer such terrible health problems until the age of gene altering drugs? We don’t buy this, but the drug industry is betting that millions will.
By Roger Smith and Nikos Kalogeropoulos