It is just fantastic to learn how our genetic makeup works. Especially when my doctors point to the fact that my parents and grandparents had the diabetic condition, that there is no way for me to reverse that trend. I am learning more about how the genetic make can be changed through food and reprogramming our habits. I am really impressed with the book The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet: Activate Your Body’s Natural Ability to Burn Fat and Lose Weight Fast by Mark Hayman M.D. I referred to this book on my previous post. Here is a small excerpt from that book about Epigenetics:

Epigenetics: A Wrinkle in the Gene Story

We know you can’t modify your genetic code. But we also know that you can change how your gene function, which ones are activated or silenced by what you eat.

Thats right you can change your genetic makeup by what you eat!

New research has found a way to switch genes on and off or affect how they work. This science is called epigenetics.

You have 8 billion letters in your genetic code, or “book of life.” Quite a big book! The code won’t change, but which letters get “read” does change based on inputs from the outside -starting in your mother’s womb. The environment created for you in the womb-what foods, stress, and toxins she was exposed to-will determine how your genes get set for life. This “reading” or bookmarking is how epigenetics determines much of what happens to you during your lifetime. If your mother ate sugar and junk food and was deficient in vitamins and minerals, the messages from the sugar and nutritional deficiencies will get programmed into your genes and increase your risk of obesity and diabetes.

What’s worse is that those changes can then get transmitted to your offspring. So what your grandmother ate during her pregnancy, and what toxins she was exposed to, will influence your genes and your grandchildren’s genes and risk of disease. But like a cycle of abuse in families, this cycle can be broken.

Yes, you can be the transformational person of your family if you have had some familial disposition. It does not matter what gene map you were given you can transform what you will pass on by changing what you eat… fascinating. That is such a liberating feeling. You can be a change agent and actually transform your future and the future of your progeny.