By Mark Hyman MD on January 27, 2012
Here’s some depressing recent medical news: Antidepressants don’t work. What’s even more depressing is that the pharmaceutical industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have deliberately deceived us into believing that they do work. As a physician, this is frightening to me. Depression is among the most common problems seen in primary-care medicine and soon will be the second leading cause of disability in this country.
A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine provides the evidence. It found that drug companies selectively publish studies on antidepressants. They have published nearly all the studies that show benefit, but almost none of the studies that show these drugs are ineffective.1
That warps our view of antidepressants, leading us to think that they do work. And it has fueled the tremendous growth in the use of psychiatric medications, which are now the second leading class of drugs sold, after cholesterol-lowering drugs.
The problem is even worse than it sounds, because the positive studies hardly showed benefit in the first place. For example, 40 percent of people taking a placebo (sugar pill) got better, while only 60 percent taking the actual drug had improvement in their symptoms. Looking at it another way, 80 percent of people get better with just a placebo.
That leaves us with a big problem: millions of depressed people with no effective treatments being offered by most conventional practitioners. However, there are treatments available. Functional medicine provides a unique and effective way to treat depression and other psychological problems. Today I will review seven steps you can take to work through your depression without drugs. But before we get to that, let’s take a closer look at depression.
What’s in a Name?
“Depression” is simply a label we give to people who have a depressed mood most of the time, have lost interest or pleasure in most activities, are fatigued, can’t sleep, have no interest in sex, feel hopeless and helpless, can’t think clearly or can’t make decisions.
But that label tells us nothing about the cause of those symptoms. In fact, there are dozens of causes of depression, each one needing a different approach to treatment. Depression is not one-size-fits-all, but it is very common.
Women have a 10-25 percent risk and men a 5-12 percent risk of developing severe major depression in their lifetime.2 One in ten Americans takes an antidepressant. The use of these drugs has tripled in the last decade, according to a report by the federal government. In 2006, spending on antidepressants soared by 130 percent.
But just because antidepressants are popular doesn’t mean they’re helpful. Unfortunately, as we now see from this report in The New England Journal of Medicine, they don’t work and have significant side effects. Most patients taking antidepressants either don’t respond or have only partial response. In fact, success is considered just a 50 percent improvement in half of depressive symptoms. And this minimal result is achieved in less than half the patients taking antidepressants.
That’s a pretty dismal record. It’s only made worse by the fact that 86 percent of people taking antidepressants have one or more side effects, including sexual dysfunction, fatigue, insomnia, loss of mental abilities, nausea and weight gain.
No wonder half the people who try antidepressants quit after four months.
Despite what we have been brainwashed to believe, depression is not a Prozac deficiency!
How We Have Been Deceived by the Antidepressant Hoax
Despite what we have been brainwashed to believe, depression is not a Prozac deficiency!
Drug companies are not forced to publish all the results of their studies. They only publish those they want to. The team of researchers that reported their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine took a critical look at all the studies done on antidepressants, both published and unpublished. They dug up some serious dirt …
The unpublished studies were not easy to find. The researchers had to search the FDA databases, call researchers and hunt down hidden data under the Freedom of Information Act. What they found was stunning.
After looking at 74 studies involving 12 drugs and over 12,000 people, they discovered that 37 of 38 trials with positive results were published, while only 14 of 36 negative studies were published. Those that showed negative results were, in the words of the researchers, “published in a way that conveyed a positive outcome.”
That means the results were twisted to imply the drugs worked when they didn’t.
This isn’t just a problem with antidepressants. It’s a problem with scientific research. Some drug companies even pay or threaten scientists to not publish negative results on their drugs. So much for “evidence-based” medicine! I recently had dinner with a step-uncle who runs a company that designs research for drug companies. He designs the study, hires the researcher from an esteemed institution, directs the study and writes up the study, and the scientist just signs his or her name after reviewing it.
Most of the time, we only have the evidence that the drug companies want us to have. Both doctors and patients are deceived into putting billions of dollars into drug companies’ pockets, while leaving millions with the same health problems but less money.
The scientific trust is broken. What can we do? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. But I do think functional medicine, on which my approach of UltraWellness is based, provides a more intelligent way of understanding the research. Rather than using drugs to suppress symptoms, functional medicine helps us find the true causes of problems, including depression.
I see this in so many of the patients I have treated over the years. Just as the same things that make us sick also make us fat, the same things that make us sick also make us depressed. Fix the causes of sickness and the depression takes care of itself.
Here are a few things you can do to start treating your depression today.
Seven Steps to Treat Depression without Drugs
1. Try an anti-inflammatory elimination diet that gets rid of common food allergens. As I mentioned above, food allergies and the resultant inflammation have been connected with depression and other mood disorders.
2. Check for hypothyroidism. This unrecognized epidemic is a leading cause of depression. Make sure to have thorough thyroid exam if you are depressed.
3. Take vitamin D. Deficiency in this essential vitamin can lead to depression. Supplement with at least 2,000 to 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day.
4. Take omega-3 fats. Your brain is made of up this fat, and deficiency can lead to a host of problems. Supplement with 1,000 to 2,000 mg of purified fish oil a day. Consider a vegan source of omega-3 (such as this one).
5. Take adequate B12 (1,000 micrograms, or mcg, a day), B6 (25 mg) and folic acid (800 mcg). These vitamins are critical for metabolizing homocysteine, which can play a part in depression.
6. Get checked for mercury. Heavy metal toxicity has been correlated with depression and other mood and neurological problems.
7. Exercise vigorously five times a week for 30 minutes. This increases levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a natural antidepressant in your brain.
Overcoming depression is an important step toward lifelong vibrant health. These are just of few of the easiest and most effective things you can do to treat depression. For more information on how to optimize your health, see http://drhyman.com/.
Now I’d like to hear from you … Have you been diagnosed with depression? How have antidepressants worked for you? Do you plan to try any of the approaches mentioned here? Please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
References
1. Turner EH et al. 2007. Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy. N Engl J Med. 358: 252-260.
2.Eaton WW, Kalaydjian A, Scharfstein DO, Mezuk B, Ding Y. 2007. Prevalence and incidence of depressive disorder: the Baltimore ECA follow-up, 1981-2004. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 116(3):182-188.
Photo credit: walknboston
Disclaimer: The opinions presented in this article are those of Dr. Hyman based on his years of training and experience as a medical doctor. This information is not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. All material in this article is provided for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you have regarding a medical condition, and before undertaking any diet, exercise or other health program.
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By Mark Hyman MD on August 9, 2011
It’s confirmed. Dairy products and sugar cause acne.
As our sugar and dairy consumption has increased over the last 100 years, so has the number of people with acne. We now have over 17 million acne sufferers, costing our health care system $1 billion a year. Eighty to 90 percent of teenagers suffer acne to varying degrees. The pimply millions rely on infomercial products hawked by celebrities, or over-the-counter lotions, cleansers and topical remedies. Recent research suggests that it’s not what we slather on our skin that matters most, but what we put in our mouth.
Many have suggested a diet-acne link, but until recently, it has not been proven in large clinical studies. Instead, dermatologists prescribe long-term antibiotics and Accutane, both of which may cause long-term harmful effects. In 2009, a systematic review of 21 observational studies and six clinical trials found clear links. Two large controlled trials found that cow’s milk increased both the number of people who got acne and its severity. Other large randomized prospective controlled trials (the gold standard of medical research) found that people who had higher sugar intake and a high glycemic load diet (more bread, rice, cereal, pasta, sugar, and flour products of all kinds) had significantly more acne. The good news is that chocolate (dark chocolate, that is) didn’t seem to cause acne.
The dietary pimple-producing culprits—dairy and sugar (in all its blood-sugar-raising forms)— cause spikes in certain pimple producing hormones. Dairy boosts male sex hormones (various forms of testosterone or androgens) and increases insulin levels, just as foods that quickly raise blood sugar (sugar and starchy carbs) spike insulin.
Androgens and insulin both stimulate your skin to make those nasty, embarrassing pimples. One patient recently told me he would give a million dollars for a pill to cure acne. He doesn’t need to. It seems that, for many, the cure to acne is at the end of their fork, not in a prescription pad.
While pimples are not as simple as too much milk or sugar in your diet, both have a significant impact. Nutritional deficiencies, as well as excesses, can worsen acne. Correcting common deficiencies, including low levels of healthy omega-3 anti-inflammatory fats, low levels of antioxidants such as vitamin E, zinc and vitamin A, and including an important anti-inflammatory omega-6 fat called evening primrose oil all may be helpful in preventing and treating unwanted pimples. I will explain how you can correct and incorporate all of these nutritional elements of your diet and outline some supplements that will help you fight acne in a moment.
But first it is worth taking a deeper look at milk and sugar.
Stay Away from Dairy and Avoid Acne
One scientist referred to milk as a “complex aqueous, suspended fat, liposomal, suspended protein emulsion.” What we know that milk is designed to grow things—namely, babies—and in the case of cow’s milk, calves. It is naturally full of what we call anabolic hormones (the same ones that bodybuilders and A Rod use to grow big muscles, and that cause bad acne). These are mostly androgens (like testosterone) and growth hormones, including insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). There is no such thing as hormone-free milk.
Here’s a short list of the 60-some hormones in your average glass of milk—even the organic, raw, and bovine-growth-hormone-free milk:
- 20 α-dihydropregnenolone
- progesterone (from pregnenolone)
- 5 α-pregnanedione
- 5 α-pregnan-3 β-ol-20-one, 20 α- and 20 β-dihydroprogesterone (from progesterone)
- 5 α-androstene-3 β17 β-diol
- 5 α-androstanedione
- 5 α-androstan-3 β-ol-17-one
- androstenedione
- testosterone
- dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate acyl ester
- insulin like growth factors 1 and 2 (IGF-1 and IGF-2)
- insulin
This is what our government suggests we drink in high doses—at least three glasses a day for me, a healthy adult male, according to the choosemyplate.gov website. Those guidelines have been strongly criticized by many, including leading nutrition scientists from Harvard such as Walter Willett and David Ludwig.
The famous Nurse’s Health Study examining health habits of 47,000 nurses found that those who drank more milk as teenagers had much higher rates of severe acne than those who had little or no milk as teenagers. If you think it is the fat in milk, think again. It was actually the skim milk that had the strongest risk for acne. In other studies of over 10,000 boys and girls from 9 to 15 years old, there was a direct link between the amount of milk consumed and the severity of acne.
It appears that it is not just the anabolic or sex hormones in milk that cause problems, but milk’s ability to stimulate insulin production. It actually may be the lactose or milk sugar in milk that acts more like a soft drink than an egg. Drinking a glass of milk can spike insulin levels 300 percent. Not only does that cause pimples, but it also may contribute to prediabetes. This is true despite studies funded by the dairy council showing that milk helps with weight loss. The question is compared to WHAT diet—a diet of bagels and Coke, or a healthy, phytonutrient- and antioxidant-rich, plant-based diet with lean animal protein?
Stay Away from Sugar, Refined Carbs, and Pimples
If a glass of milk causes pimples, that may drive you back to your Pepsi. But not so fast. Recent studies also show that sugar and refined carbs (a high-glycemic diet) cause acne. More importantly, taking kids off sugar and putting them on a healthy, whole foods, low-glycemic load diet resulted in significant improvements in acne compared to a control group eating a regular, high-sugar American diet. In addition to having fewer pimples, the participants lost weight, became more sensitive to the effects of insulin (resulting in less pimple-producing insulin circulating around the blood). They also had fewer sex hormones floating around their blood that drive pimples. We know that women who have too much sugar and insulin resistance get acne, hair growth on their face, hair loss on the head, and infertility. This is caused by high levels of circulating male hormones and is called polycystic ovarian syndrome, but is a nutritional, not gynecologic, disease.
But the dietary influences don’t stop there. It is not just sugar, but the bad fats we eat that may also contribute to acne.
Get an Oil Change
Our typical Western diet is full of inflammatory fats—saturated fats, trans fats, too many omega-6, inflammatory, processed vegetable oils like soy and corn oils. These increase IGF-1 and stimulate pimple follicles. Inflammation has been linked to acne, and anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats (from fish oil) may help improve acne and help with many skin disorders.
Balance the Hormones that Cause Skin Problems
The link is clear—hormonal imbalances caused by our diet trigger acne. Our diet influences sex hormones like testosterone, IGF-1, and insulin, which promote acne. The biggest factors affecting your hormones are the glycemic load of your diet (determined by how quickly the food you eat increases your blood sugar and insulin levels), and the amount of dairy products you eat. The good news is that eating a healthy diet and taking a few supplements can balance those hormones. Exercise also helps improve insulin function.
How To Prevent and Treat Acne
Nine simple steps will help most overcome their acne problems.
1. Stay away from milk. It is nature’s perfect food—but only if you are a calf.
2. Eat a low glycemic load, low sugar diet. Sugar, liquid calories, and flour products all drive up insulin and cause pimples.
3. Eat more fruits and vegetables. People who eat more veggies (containing more antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds) have less acne. Make sure you get your 5 to 9 servings of colorful fruits and vegetables every day.
4. Get more healthy anti-inflammatory fats. Make sure to get omega-3 fats (fish oil, or a vegan source of omega-3 (such as this one)
5. and anti-inflammatory omega-6 fats (evening primrose oil). You will need supplements to get adequate amounts (more on that in a moment).
6. Include foods that correct acne problems. Certain foods have been linked to improvements in many of the underlying causes of acne and can help correct it. These include fish oil, turmeric, ginger, green tea, nuts, dark purple and red foods such as berries, green foods like dark green leafy vegetables, and omega 3-eggs.
7. Take acne-fighting supplements. Some supplements are critical for skin health. Antioxidant levels have been shown to be low in acne sufferers. And healthy fats can make a big difference. Here are the supplements I recommend:
-Evening primrose oil: Take 1,000 to 1,500mg twice a day.
-Zinc citrate: Take 30 mg a day.
-Vitamin A: Take 25,000 IU a day. Only do this for three months. Do not do this if you are pregnant.
-Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols, not alpha tocopherol): Take 400 IU a day.
8. Try probiotics. Probiotics (lactobacillus, etc.) also help reduce inflammation in the gut that may be linked to acne.
9. Avoid foods you are sensitive to. Delayed food allergies are among the most common causes of acne—foods like gluten, dairy, yeast and eggs are common culprits and can be a problem if you have a leaky gut.
Following these simple tips will help you eliminate acne and have that glowing skin you have always dreamed of. It’s much cheaper (and safer) than expensive medications and dermatologist visits. Improve your diet and take acne-fighting supplements, and you will watch your pimples disappear.
For more information on how to optimize your nutrition and improve your skin, see http://drhyman.com/.
Now I’d like to hear from you.
Have you struggled with an acne or skin problem? Have you noticed any link between your skin? What seems to be a problem for you?
Why do you think we are encouraged to consume so much dairy when the risks to our health (and our skin) are so high?
What other steps have you taken to fight acne? What has worked? What hasn’t?
Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
Sources for this article can be found here.
Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt
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By Mark Hyman MD on June 17, 2011
Inflammation is a “hot” topic in medicine. It appears connected to almost every known chronic disease: from heart disease to cancer, diabetes to obesity, autism to dementia and even depression. Other inflammatory diseases such as allergies, asthma, arthritis and autoimmune disease are increasing at dramatic rates. As physicians we are trained to shut off inflammation with aspirin, anti-inflammatory medication such as Advil or Motrin, steroids and increasingly more powerful immune-suppressing medication with serious side effects. But we are not trained to find and treat the underlying causes of inflammation in chronic disease. Hidden allergens, infections, environmental toxins, an inflammatory diet and stress are the real causes of these inflammatory conditions.
Autoimmune diseases, specifically, now affect 24 million people and include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, thyroid disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and more. These are often addressed by powerful immune suppressing medication and not by addressing the cause. That’s like taking a lot of aspirin while you are standing on a tack. The treatment is not more aspirin or a strong immune suppressant, but removing the tack.
If you want to cool off inflammation in the body, you must find the source. Treat the fire, not the smoke. In medicine we are mostly taught to diagnose disease by symptoms, not by their underlying cause. Functional medicine is the emerging 21st century paradigm of systems medicine that teaches us to treat the cause, not only the symptoms, to ask why you are sick, not only what disease you have.
Functional medicine is a different way of thinking about disease that helps us understand and treat the real causes of inflammation instead of finding clever ways to shut it down. Medicine as it is practiced today is like taking the battery out of a smoke detector while a fire burns down your house!
Autoimmune conditions are connected by one central biochemical process: A runaway immune response also known as systemic inflammation that results in your body attacking its own tissues.
Autoimmunity: What It Is and How It Occurs
We are facing an epidemic of allergies (60 million people), asthma (30 million people) and autoimmune disorders (24 million people). Autoimmune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, celiac disease, thyroid disease, and the many other hard-to-classify syndromes in the 21st century. These are all autoimmune conditions, and at their root they are connected by one central biochemical process: a runaway immune response also known as systemic inflammation that results in your body attacking its own tissues.
Your immune system is your defense against invaders. It is your internal army and has to clearly distinguish friend from foe — to know you from other. Autoimmunity occurs when your immune system gets confused and your own tissues get caught in friendly cross-fire. Your body is fighting something — an infection, a toxin, an allergen, a food or the stress response — and somehow it redirects its hostile attack on your joints, your brain, your thyroid, your gut, your skin or sometimes your whole body.
This immune confusion results from what is referred to as molecular mimicry. Conventional approaches don’t have a method for finding the insult causing the problem. Functional medicine provides a map to find out which molecule the cells are mimicking.
Interestingly, autoimmune disorders occur almost exclusively in developed countries. People in poor nations without modern amenities like running water, flushing toilets, washing machines and sterile backyards don’t get these diseases. If you grew up on a farm with lots of animals, you are also less likely to have any of these inflammatory disorders. Playing in the dirt, being dirty and being exposed to bugs and infections trains your immune system to recognize what is foreign and what is “you.”
In this country, autoimmune diseases are a huge health burden. They are the eighth leading cause of death among women, shortening the average patient’s lifespan by eight years. The annual health care cost for autoimmune diseases is $120 billion, representing nearly twice the economic health care burden of cancer (about $70 billion a year).1
Unfortunately, many of the conventional treatments available can make you feel worse. Anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil, steroids, immune suppressants like methotrexate, and the new TNF-alpha blockers like Enbrel or Remicade can lead to intestinal bleeding, kidney failure, depression, psychosis, osteoporosis, muscle loss, diabetes, infection and cancer.2
When used selectively these drugs can help people get their lives back. But they are not a long-term solution. They shouldn’t be the end of treatment, but a bridge to cool off inflammation while we treat the root cause of the disease.
If you have an autoimmune disease, here is what you need to think about and do.
Nine Steps to Treating Autoimmune Disease
1. Check for hidden infections — yeast, viruses, bacteria, Lyme, etc. — with the help of a doctor and treat them.
2. Check for hidden food allergens with IgG food testing or just try The UltraSimple Diet, which is designed to eliminate most food allergens.
3. Get tested for celiac disease with a blood test that any doctor can do.
4. Get checked for heavy metal toxicity. Mercury and other metals can cause autoimmunity.
5. Fix your gut.
6. Use nutrients such as fish oil, vitamin C, vitamin D and probiotics to help calm your immune response naturally.
7. Exercise regularly. It’s a natural anti-inflammatory.
8. Practice deep relaxation like yoga, deep breathing, biofeedback or massage, because stress worsens the immune response.
9. Tell your doctor about Functional medicine and encourage him or her to get trained. Go to http://www.functionalmedicine.org/ for more information and to get a copy of the “Textbook for Functional Medicine.”
Give these steps a try and see if you don’t start feeling less inflamed. The answers are right in front of you. Treat the underlying causes of your illness and you will begin to experience vibrant health once more.
For more information on how to optimize your health, see http://drhyman.com/.
Now I’d like to hear from you … Have you been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease? How is your doctor treating you? Have you been frustrated by the medical advice that you’ve been given? What steps have you taken to get to the root of the problem, and what have your results been? Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below.
References
1. Nakazawa, D. (2008). The Autoimmune Epidemic. Simon & Schuster. New York.
2. Siegel, C.A., Marden, S.M., Persing, S.M., et al. (2009). Risk of lymphoma associated with combination anti-tumor necrosis factor and immunomodulator therapy for the treatment of Crohn’s disease: a meta-analysis. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 7(8): 874-81.
Photo credit: Trace Meek
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By Mark Hyman MD on January 18, 2011
The decoding of the human genome at the dawn of the millennium carried the hope and promise of the beginning of the end of human suffering. However, after more than a decade of intense exploration of the human genome, the burden of human disease and suffering has only increased across the globe. Heart disease, cancer and diabetes, as well as allergic and autoimmune disorders, have all continued to skyrocket. Hope has given way to disappointment as scientists have recognized that, other than in single gene disorders like Down syndrome, your genes don’t determine your fate.
In November 2010, a review on genomics, Type 2 diabetes and obesity in the New England Journal of Medicine1 sadly reported on how little correlation exists between obesity, diabetes and your genes. There are associated patterns that confer small risks, but the authors lament the lack of stronger connections between genetic makeup and the biggest disease epidemic of our time (obesity and diabetes).
The story of your health is much more complex than genetic programming. It is ultimately determined by the dynamic interplay of the environment washing over genes creating the “you” of this moment. The good news is that this has been the year of discoveries about “-omics” – epigenomics, exposomics, nutrigenomics and microbiomics, and toxigenomics – that do, in fact, hold the key to unlocking our health and disease mysteries.
The Epigenome: Bypassing Darwin and Evolution
More important than our collection of genes, it now appears, is how those genes are controlled by both internal and external factors: our thoughts, stress, social connections, what we eat, our level of physical and mental activity, and our exposure to microbes and environmental toxins. These factors are switches that turn genes on and off and determine which proteins are expressed. The expressed proteins, in turn, trigger signals of disease or health.
What’s even more striking is that if your DNA is tagged by an environmental factor, such as a pesticide, the impact this environmental factor has on your genes can be passed down through generations. The “epigenome” become inheritable. That means if your grandmother ate too much sugar, or smoked, or was exposed to mercury from too much sushi, the genetic modifications she incurred from this exposure could affect you. Her epigenome would carry an increased risk of disease that could be passed down from generation to generation. Interestingly, the Darwinian and Lamarckian worldviews are intersecting in 2010.
The Exposome: Environmental Influences on Health and Disease
In October 2010, Science magazine2 published an important paper that reviewed the notion of the “exposome” – the idea that the environment in which your genes live is more important than your genes themselves. What this suggests is that applying genomics to treat disease is misguided because 70 to 90 percent of your disease risk is related to your environment exposures and the resultant alterations in molecules that wash over your genes.
The question then is how do we measure and change our exposome– or the totality of the impact of the environment on your genes. We must address not just one factor but the whole collection of interacting factors that determine health and disease: toxins, food, microbes, internal chemicals including all the biologically active molecules that control inflammation, oxidative stress, gut flora, and other natural processes.
Emerging biomarkers and analytic techniques will soon allow us to map our exposome from a drop of blood and measure changes over time. Using novel treatments that help identify and remove known external toxins (like pesticides and mercury) and strategies that change the internal environment including diet, nutrients, probiotics, and detoxification would help you change your exposome and lower your overall disease risk.
Once this new paradigm of understanding how a lifetime of interacting exposures interacts with your genes to determine your chronic disease risk, once the gene-environment interactions are mapped more carefully, then the promise of the genomic revolution can be fully realized.
Nutrigenome: Eating Your Way to Better Genes
The most important thing you do to control your genes every day is eat well. Food – and the combination and quality of macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrate), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), fiber, and phytonutrients (plant-based bioactive compounds) – all wash over your DNA every day turning on or off, up or down signals from your genes. This field of study, called nutrigenomics,3 offers a powerful way for you to control your destiny.
Researchers have found, for example, that depending on your genes, you may respond better to different diets. Some do better with more fat and protein and less carbs, others may not. One of the most important discoveries of the decade is how food (whether it is plant-based, nutrient-rich, phytonutrient-rich food, or processed, high sugar, nutrient-depleted food) changes your gene expression in real time over the course of weeks to months. Dr. Dean Ornish showed how this works in his seminal prostate cancer research.4 He was able to beneficially affect over 500 cancer-controlling genes simply by having his patients eat a plant-based, whole foods diet.
Microbiome: The Most Important DNA in Your Body is Not Your Own
The human body hosts 100 trillion microorganisms. The DNA of the bugs living in and on you outnumber your own DNA by 100 times. This is called the microbiome.5 Our bodies are simply a host environment for bacteria. They use us for their own purposes. The molecules produced by the DNA of these bacteria have significant impact on our health. This field of study is called metaproteomics.
This microbiome, particularly the ecosystem of nearly 500 bugs that live in your gut, have been linked to everything from obesity, to cancer, to autoimmune and allergic disorders and even heart disease and diabetes. Our modern lifestyle and diet and the overuse of antibiotics has changed the population of bacteria living in our guts and it has made us sick. 6 Which bugs we grow in our intestine determine whether we will be fat or thin, inflamed or healthy. The critical discovery of this microbiome and its implications for influencing many of the diseases of the 21st century will provide novel treatments involving changing our diets and the use of pre- and probiotics to shift the gut ecosystem into a health-promoting balance. We are only as healthy as our gut bacteria.
What the Future Holds
The giddy, back-slapping decoding of the human genome has given way to a more sober view of the limits of genomics and the remarkable understanding of what we all knew intuitively: that how we live, the quality of our relationships, the food we eat, how we use our bodies, and the environment that washes over us determines much more than our genes ever will. The next decade will better characterize how the environment affects gene expression (the genome-exposome interactions) and our health, and provide us better ways to measure and improve those interactions and help us create the best expression of ourselves.
For more information on how your environment influences your genes and to keep up on the latest findings in this exciting new field of medicine go to drhyman.com.
Do you think your environment is as important as your genes in determining health or disease?
What actions do you plan to take to incorporate this new science into your life?
Would you consider changing your diet and lifestyle to change your gene expression? What changes do you plan to make?
To your good health,
Mark Hyman, MD
References
1. McCarthy MI. Genomics, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity. N Engl J Med. 2010;363(24):2339–2350. 2. Rappapport SM, Smith MT. Environment and disease risks. Science. 2010;330:460–461.
3. Grayson M. Nutrigenomics. Nature. 2010;468(7327):S1.
4. Ornish D, Magbanua MJ, Weidner G, et al. Changes in prostate gene expression in men undergoing an intensive nutrition and lifestyle intervention. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2008;105(24):8369–8374.
5. Caesar R, Fåk F, Bäckhed F. Effects of gut microbiota on obesity and atherosclerosis via modulation of inflammation and lipid metabolism. J Intern Med. 2010;268(4):320–328.
6. De Filippo C, Cavalieri D, Di Paola M, et al. Impact of diet in shaping gut microbiota revealed by a comparative study in children from Europe and rural Africa. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010;107(33):14691–14696.
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