By Carrie Dennett, The Seattle Times, September 23, 2019
I remember when I first heard about “epigenetics,” the study of the biological mechanisms that turn genes on and off. I was just starting the two years of science classes I had to complete before applying to graduate school for nutrition — classes I had avoided during my undergrad years studying journalism. When it came time to select a topic for a biology-class group project, I chose the intersection of diet, environment and genetics.
The research papers I started reading led me straight to epigenetics, and I was fascinated by the idea that the genes we inherit from our parents are not necessarily our destiny. That’s not because the genes themselves are likely to change in our lifetime, but because what happens within us and around us — nutrition, physical activity, stress, social connections, exposure to chemicals — can alter how those genes are “expressed.” In other words, whether they are turned on or turned off. If your genome is your body’s hardware, then your epigenome is its software.
If this topic intrigues you, you don’t need to power through a pile of research papers to learn more. In the new book “You Are What Your Grandparents Ate: What You Need to Know About Nutrition, Experience, Epigenetics & the Origins of Chronic Disease,” Toronto journalist and author Judith Finlayson has done that work for you. The book’s title refers to the fact that nutrition — as well as other lifestyle and environmental factors — can alter gene expression in ways that affect the risk of chronic disease two generations down the line. How is this possible? Because the egg you developed from was created in your mother’s ovaries while she was still a fetus in your grandmother’s womb.
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