A study by Australian scientists says that a single sugar hit damages the controls regulating your genes for two weeks, by “turning off the genes needed to prevent diabetes, heart disease and other dangerous complications.” This study was reported in The Courier Mail on January 16 2009.
The article discusses the epigenetic process – as discussed and illustrated by Dawson Church in “The Genie in Your Genes”. Epigenetics says that the impacts of your environment, your beliefs, and even your thoughts, powerfully changes the way your genes express – that is, the way your genes run your body. Church reported that chemical changes could be detected in the body within 120 minutes of a powerful thought change. And that changed expression can be passed on to children. Note – this is not a mutation of your gene structure, simply a change in the way the gene produces proteins; and that change is passed on to your children.
The lead researcher on this study, Professor Assam El-Osta of the Baker Heart Research Institute, said that a single sugar hit “damaged the controls regulating the body’s genes for two weeks”. So regularly eating poor food meant that the damage could last for much longer periods, months or even years. The health impacts of this don’t show up for years though, and then it’s likely to be terms of diabetes and heart problems.
The team is now looking at the impact of a high-fat diet on gene expression and what that means for long-term health.
There is hope – improve the quality of your food and ‘epigenetic memory’ kicks in, restoring healthy gene expression.
Why I’m so interested in this research right at this moment though, is in terms of the fluoride in water debate going on in my state, Queensland – and around the world!
If one chocolate bar can impact on my gene expression for TWO WEEKS, what does having fluoride in every drop of water and bite of food, for years and years and years, do to my gene expression and my long-term health? And to the gene expression and long-term health of children? And their children? And since the toxin is in our water supply, enters our bodies through our skin when we shower, through our mouths when we eat or drink ANYTHING, we can’t avoid the stuff. We can’t control the dose. We can’t even calculate the dose of this toxin.
Maybe it’s time we erred on the side of caution for a change, instead of on the side of short-term very doubtful gain, and made decisions to NOT damage the health of people for generations to come. Get the fluoride out of our water supply!
While we can’t keep fluoride out of our bodies, we CAN start improving the situation by kicking out the short-sighted politicians who decided they know what’s best for our health.
