Feed Your Genes Right Eat to Turn Off Disease-Causing Genes and Slow Down Aging - By Jack Challem ( 2005 )

The study of DNA in heredity and disease has led to a great many
heady scientific discoveries and, ironically, to some humbling acknowl-
edgments of ancient medical wisdom.
Scientists discovered nucleic acids, the general chemical building
blocks of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and genes, in the 1890s.Within
several decades, biochemists and biologists had gained an impressive
understanding of how nucleic acids were involved in heredity, and by
1950 experiments with bacteria had proven that DNA transmits inher-
ited traits from one generation to the next.
Perhaps the single most dramatic event to ignite the imagination
and enthusiasm of biologists was the 1953 discovery by James Watson
and Francis Crick of the double-helix structure of DNA. All that
remained, or so it seemed at the time,was to decipher and describe the
genetic code in terms of its four-letter chemical alphabet.
But unraveling the details of DNA and its role in health and disease
has turned out to be a far more complex and, at times, vexing process.
As it turned out, the new millennium coincided with the complete
decoding of the human genome, and this catalog of all human genes has
led to many new insights into the function of DNA.Unfortunately, the
promise of turning these discoveries into practical ways of preventing
and treating disease has so far been disappointing. Cardiovascular dis-
eases remain the leading cause of death in the United States and most
of the developed world, while the scourge of cancer continues to take
its relentless toll despite minor advances in treatment and prevention.
Gene therapy has proven dangerous and difficult and has had few sig-
nificant successes.Despite our current understanding of cancer-causing
oncogenes and the details of how genes function, researchers have
devised few new and effective therapies for cancer patients.
Quite surprisingly, the promise of improved treatment and preven-
tion of human disease has emerged from an unexpected source: the
study of nutrition. This was unanticipated for a couple of reasons.
Despite the fact that two thousand years ago,Hippocrates, the father of
Western medicine, wrote that food was our best medicine, this idea
somehow came to be considered quaint rather than relevant. In addi-
tion, modern medicine has often derided and dismissed the role of
nutrition in health.
However, increasing numbers of researchers and physicians have
begun to acknowledge that the foods we eat lay the foundation for the
biochemical milieu of our DNA. For example, the body’s production of
new DNA, required for health and healing, depends on the presence
of many vitamins.The activity of DNA is further influenced by various
nutrients’ intersecting with genetically determined biochemical
processes. And the progression of many diseases can often be influ-
enced or ameliorated by careful adjustments in the intake of dietary
nutrients.
This is a brave new world—and an exciting one at that—in the
fields of both genetics and nutrition.But it has been many years in com-
ing.An excellent example of the interaction of genetics and nutrition
was my 1969 discovery of arteriosclerotic vascular disease in children
with an inherited disease called homocystinuria. The most common
form of homocystinuria is caused by a single abnormal gene, which
programs the construction of the enzyme cystathionine beta synthase.
This genetic defect results in elevated blood and urine levels of homo-
cysteine, a toxic molecule now recognized in medicine as a risk factor
for coronary artery disease and stroke.
The normal activity of the cystathionine beta synthase enzyme
activity depends, humbly enough, on vitamin B6
.Approximately half of
all children with this genetic condition respond favorably to large doses
of vitamin B6
with a dramatic lowering of homocysteine levels and a
marked reduction in the risk of blood clots and cardiovascular disease.
This is but one demonstration of how a genetic disease can be amelio-
rated by nutritional therapy.
In this important new book on genetics and human disease, the
remarkably talented nutrition and health writer Jack Challem clearly
explains the importance of nutrition and lifestyle factors in modifying
the genetic underpinnings of many human diseases. He draws upon
diverse yet authoritative sources to give reliable, sound, effective,
and well-reasoned advice. The impressive advances in nutrition andbiochemistry over the past several decades parallel the growing under-
standing of the human genome and the genetic basis of human disease.
The merging of these two fields sheds new light on the process of aging
and the causes of human degenerative diseases.
Not only does Feed Your Genes Right explain the scientific
understanding of nutrition and genetic disease, but also the sound,
knowledgeable advice on treatment and prevention given is put into
understandable and practical terms in an achievable program of prac-
tical dietary improvement. Following the nutritional and lifestyle
advice in this book will help prevent the degenerative diseases all too
common in our twenty-first-century world.