Happy Independence Day: Freedom From Your Genes
You don’t have to be a prisoner of your genetics. I know I have talked about this topic before, but it is something that I am passionate about and think is worth repeating. Whether I am in or out of the office, I hear a lot of people blame their issues or the issues of others on genetics. They are overweight because it’s genetic. They have high blood pressure because it runs in the family. They have fill-in-the-blank disease or dysfunction because their genes determined that they would.
I believe this is such a disempowering thought process. It gives control of your life and your health state to your genes, which can’t be changed. It also may be a protective way of thinking because if it wasn’t the fault of your genes, then you would have to take responsibility for your actions. Either way, we have a lot more control of our health outcomes than we have been led to believe. Do our genes play a role in disease development? Absolutely, but not as much credit as we tend to give them. Genes may predispose us to certain diseases, but excluding a few exceptions, they don’t guarantee them.
Heart disease, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease are four of the top ten killers in this country. They actually account for nearly 60 percent of all deaths, but they are largely lifestyle diseases. Although you can’t change your genes, you can change how they are expressed. Epigenetics is the field of study that looks at how gene expression can be altered without changing the gene sequence itself.
You can think of it like this: your genes are the blueprint to a building. Blueprints can’t build themselves and create a building. They need a contractor to interpret the blueprint and construct the building. Your lifestyle is the contractor that will determine how your genes are expressed. So even if you want to blame your genes, then it is that much more important to live a healthy lifestyle. There’s no excuse. Eating a healthy diet, exercising, getting regular chiropractic care, meditating, getting massages, etc. can turn on or off certain genes and give you the best chance to express true health.
Starting this Independence Day, start taking action to create health instead of being a victim of your genes. We tend to behave our way into disease, so it would make sense that we need to behave our way out of them. If you are in the Hatboro, Horsham, Warminster or Warrington areas and don’t like your current health state, then let us help you on the journey back to health. Schedule a complimentary consultation to see how we can help!