
Some epigenetic changes can be negative and can result in diseases such as cancer. So the environment and lifestyle of your parents, which determines their gene expression, maybe passed onto you and influence your health. It’s been discovered that some epigenetic chemical tags may be passed down the generations to our children. This is one of the most interesting discoveries in epigenetics. These chemical tags can be influenced by a person's environment and lifestyle which influences how that person's genes are expressed.Įpigenetics also studies the changes in gene expression that we can inherit from our parents, that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence. The science of epigenetics observes how chemical tags on DNA have the ability to turn genes off or on.

With a firm understanding of how epigenetics works, and by the end of reading this article, you will understand clearly how you can influence the expression of your genes to help you live a healthier, happier life.

The evolving epigenetics revolution is showing us how illness and disease are influenced not only by our DNA but by forces in our environment, our life experience and even our emotional and psychological state.Įpigenetics is showing scientists that these previous forces interact with our genetic switchboard and trigger our genes to turn on and off. Now, and with the development of the science of epigenetics, it has been observed that what we first thought was a fixed blueprint, is more of a switchboard that’s constantly changing. In the early days, scientists used to think that every human was born with a fixed genetic blueprint that determined our health, traits, and behaviours. So what is epigenetics and what is the epigenetics revolution all about?Įpigenetics is defined as ‘the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself'.

One of the most recent developments that have taken the world by storm is the epigenetics revolution that is now observing that it’s not only our DNA that determines our health, but also our lifestyle choices. Since the discovery of DNA, there’s been a growing field of science analyzing how DNA affects us and how genetic hereditary determines our health.
