What is Epigenetics?
Your gene expression is in your hands.
Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and your environment can cause changes in the way your genes’ function.
the BIOLOGY of EPIGENETICS
As humans we are not mechanical machines controlled by our genetic inheritance (our genotype) as was once thought; but rather we are made up of vibrational energy which is under constant influence of our environment and the signals we are providing our Epigenome. Our Epigenome is our genes’ expression which is under continual informational signals emanating from our micro and macro environment. These epigenetic signals include both the experiences of our ancestors, along with key current environmental factors such as our nutritional status, our lifestyle choices, our mental and emotional states, driven by our thoughts and beliefs. These circumstantial keys play a major role in our phenotype or gene expression.
It is estimated that our inherited genotype makes up only 2% of our gene expression, while 98% is dictated directly by our Epigenome.
The HISTORY of Epigenetics
Epigenetics is the science that revealed that we are not victims of our own individual genetic inheritance, but rather have direct influence over our gene’s behavior. The Human Genome project which took over a decade to map and was completed in 2003, was expected to confirm the existence of over 100,000 individual genes. However, it instead revealed that only ~23,000 genes make up the human genome, barely more than the common fruit fly and far less than those found in a grain of rice! This was shocking given the knowledge that there are ten fold as many relevant proteins in each human. So this raised the question that due to the absence of hundreds of thousands of genes influencing each protein, that each gene must have the ability to be expressed in several unique ways.
The theory that a unique gene of only one DNA sequence could express itself in several different ways and the basis of how and why it does so would later be dubbed “epigenetics”. This theory had been hypothesized even dating back to the 1700s when Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed that life forms could acquire ‘information’ from their environment and incorporate it into their epigenome; and over a century later Erwin Schrödinger incorporated Quantum Physics into the field of molecular biology, and was officially coined “epigenetics” by Conrad H Waddington in 1942 when he derived it from the Greek word “epigenesis” originally described as the influence of genetic processes on development. This all set the stage for the study of epigenetics that we know of today.
The TECHNICAL details of Epigenetics
In our modern day, we define epigenetics as the study of chemical modifications of specific genes or gene-associated proteins which can define how the information in each gene is expressed and used by the cells. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence. Some examples of these types of epigenetic changes include:
DNA Methylation: which works by adding a chemical group to specific places in the DNA where it blocks the proteins that attach to DNA to “read” the gene. This chemical group can be removed through a process called de-methylation. Typically, methylation turns genes “off” and de-methylation turns genes “on.”
Histone Modification: occurs when the DNA wraps around proteins called histones. DNA wrapped tightly around histones cannot be accessed by proteins that “read” the gene. Some genes are wrapped around histones and are turned “off” while some genes are not wrapped around histones and are turned “on.” Chemical groups can be added or removed from histones and change whether a gene is unwrapped or wrapped (“on” or “off”).
Non-coding RNA: DNA is used as instructions for making two types of RNA 1) Coding RNA which is used to make proteins, and 2) Non-coding RNA which helps control gene expression by attaching to coding RNA, along with other proteins, in order to break down the Coding RNA so that it cannot be used to make proteins. This Non-coding type of RNA may also recruit proteins to modify histones to turn genes “on” or “off.”
DNA Methylation & Histone Modification
Chemical tags known as epigenetic markers sit atop genes either on the DNA itself or on the histone protein around which the DNA is wrapped. Changes in the mix of these marks can alter a gene’s behavior, turning the gene on or off and inhibiting protein synthesis.
Gene Expression
“Gene Expression” refers to how often or when your genes use the instructions within them to create proteins - since we know that your environment and behaviors (such as nutrition, movement, and mindset) can result epigenetic changes - it is easy to see the connection between your “gene expression” and how they can be directly influenced by your behaviors and your environment.
Gene Expression >>
Phenotype Changes
If there are harmful signals emanating from your environment – for example through the air you breathe, the food you eat, the electromagnetic fields that surround you, or even the 50,000+ thoughts you have per day - they cause disharmony – and the human body responds accordingly by changing the phenotype of your DNA without altering your genotype or your DNA sequence.
This phenotype change results in direct physiological changes that impact the performance and outcomes within your body.
How can we identify what is altering our Gene Expression?
Cell Resonance
Capturing gene expression and how it influences everyday physiology is a process that relies on vibrational energy to decode these environmental signals. Otherwise known as “Cell Resonance”, this energy allows cells to communicate within themselves and within an entire living system. This fundamental principle has provided us with a new understanding which has enabled the development of ground-breaking technology for the purpose of optimizing living systems upon which they measure.
Vibrational Energy
Being that life is not only made up of physical particles but also of vibrational energy existing in a field, the flow of information from the quantum field influences all vibrational energy. This in turn influences all matter through resonance and thus has an effect on physical particles, which make up all cells and thus living systems. That means that if we want to optimize the physical state of the human body, we ought to influence its vibrational energy.
