"Diet Trumps Genes" in the book, "Biology of Belief"

For years I have worked with my massage mentor, Stephen Yates, here in Lexington, KY. We exchange information on the lastest massage modalities, nutrition, astrology and he is everything that I could ask for in a leader. It just happens to be that we were born on the same day but one generation apart. Recently he has given me a book called the Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. Lipton is a renown cell biologist and he describes his research and the implications of a new science called Epigenetics. Lipton's work involved following precise molecular pathways of the brain, and his conclusion was the all of the cell of your body are affected by your thoughts.

The section that really spoke to me is the one in which the Agouti Sister rats were tested.

"One year old female genetically identical agouti mice. Maternal methyl donor supplementation shifts coat of color of the offspring from yellow to brown and reduces the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and cancer."

As I understand it, two genetically similiar preganent mice were tested. These mice have the agouti gene which means that they are born yellow in color and obese. The experimentaly mouse was given folic acid, vitamin b12, betaine, and choline vitamins. The vitamins influenced proteins which bound so tightly to the DNA that the gene was not read .Instead the genes were silenced or the b vitamins modified the gene's activity. So that even though both the control and the experiemental group had pups that were genetically identical, the pups that were born to mothers who took B vitamins were standard, lean, brown mice. The agouti mothers who didn't get the supplements produced yellow pups, which ate much more than the brown pups. The yellow pups wound up weighing almost twice as much as their lean "psedo-agouti" counterparts.

This implies that the parent's life experiences shape their children's genetic character.