Re: The Food You Eat May Change Your Genes For Life

[Guest guest]

This sounds like an Epigenetic effect, given that selective methyl-

bonding switched genes on or off in developing rat embryos.

Stardora wrote:

>The food you eat may change your genes for life

> a.. 17 November 2005

> b.. NewScientist.com news service

> c.. Alison Motluk

> d.. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825264.800.html

>IT SOUNDS like science fiction: simply swallowing a pill, or eating a specific

food supplement, could permanently change your behaviour for the better, or

reverse diseases such as schizophrenia, Huntington's or cancer.

>

>Yet such treatments are looking increasingly plausible. In the latest

development, normal rats have been made to behave differently just by injecting

them with a specific amino acid. The change to their behaviour was permanent.

The amino acid altered the way the rat's genes were expressed, raising the idea

that drugs or dietary supplements might permanently halt the genetic effects

that predispose people to mental or physical illness.

>

>It is not yet clear whether such interventions could work in humans. But there

is good reason to believe they could, as evidence mounts that a range of simple

nutrients might have such effects.

>

>Two years ago, researchers led by Randy Jirtle of Duke University Medical

Center in Durham, North Carolina, showed that the activity of a mouse's genes

can be influenced by food supplements eaten by its mother just prior to, or

during, very early pregnancy (New Scientist, 9 August 2003, p 14). Then last

year, Moshe Szyf, Meaney and colleagues at McGill University in

Montreal, Canada, showed that mothers could influence the way a rat's genes are

expressed after it has been born. If a rat is not licked, groomed and nursed

enough by its mother, chemical tags known as methyl groups are added to the DNA

of a particular gene.

>

>The affected gene codes for the glucocorticoid receptor gene, expressed in the

hippocampus of the brain. The gene helps mediate the animal's response to

stress, and in poorly raised rats, the methylation damped down the gene's

activity. Such pups produced higher levels of stress hormones and were less

confident exploring new environments. The effect lasted for life (Nature

Neuroscience, vol 7, p 847).

>

>Now the team has shown that a food supplement can have the same effect on

well-reared rats at 90 days old - well into adulthood. The researchers injected

L-methionine, a common amino acid and food supplement, into the brains of

well-reared rats. The amino acid methylated the glucocorticoid gene, and the

animals' behaviour changed. " They were almost exactly like the poorly raised

group, " says Szyf, who announced his findings at a small meeting on

environmental epigenomics earlier this month in Durham, North Carolina.

>

>Though the experiment impaired well-adjusted animals, the opposite should be

possible, and Szyf has already shown that a chemical called TSA that is designed

to strip away methyl groups can turn a badly raised rat into a more normal one.

>

>No one is envisaging injecting supplements into people's brains, but Szyf says

his study shows how important subtle nutrients and supplements can be. " Food has

a dramatic effect, " he says. " But it can go both ways, " he cautions. Methionine,

for instance, the supplement he used to make healthy rats stressed, is widely

available in capsule form online or in health-food stores - and the molecules

are small enough to get into the brain via the bloodstream.

>

>Rob Waterland from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who attended

the meeting, says Szyf's ideas are creating a buzz, as they suggest that

methylation can influence our DNA well into adulthood. A huge number of diseases

are caused by changes to how our DNA is expressed, and this opens up new ways of

thinking about how to prevent and treat them, he says.

>

>But Waterland points out there is still much work to be done. Substances like

methionine and TSA are, he says, a " sledgehammer approach " , in that they are

likely to demethylate lots of genes, and we don't even know which they will

affect. But he speculates that techniques such as " RNA-directed DNA

methylation " , so far tested only in plants but theoretically possible in

mammals, may allow us to target such methylation much more precisely.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Anyone know what TSA is, in this article?

>

> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825264.800

>

[Guest guest]

trichostatin A

See:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2004/10_18_04.html

BTW, this makes me want to add to the recent conversations about the

CDC and genomes in CFS.

See how easily genes can be switched on and off? It is an intricate

and very responsive choreography. Maternal infection can prime the

embryo, and then later encounter with infection can do a double

whammy. To me, looking at infection is smarter, and some scientists

*are* doing it.

> >

> > http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825264.800

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Groovy...thanks, Jill.

> > Anyone know what TSA is, in this article?