Positivity and Focus

A Positive Look at Genetics

By: Ria

Going back to the basics, a gene is the most basic functional unit of heredity in a life system and genes are made up of DNA. Genetics plays a role in everything from hair color and eye color to disease progression.  Cancer, for example, can involve genes called tumor-suppressor genes. The normal function of tumor-suppressor genes is to prevent cells from dividing uncontrollably and leading to tumor formation. When this gene has a mutation, it cannot perform its normal function and will not stop cells from dividing uncontrollably; this leads to the formation of a tumor. 

It is possible that an individual may not have a disease when they are born, but are genetically predisposed to acquiring the disease due to increased risk. This genetic predisposition is due to an individual having one or more gene mutations. A few diseases that are linked to genetic predisposition are cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, retinitis pigmentosa, kidney disease and even asthma. 

Many disease progression mechanisms can be linked to environmental influences as well as  genetic components. These environmental influences can be things like too much exposure to the sun’s UV rays, psychological stress, smoking tobacco, or even working night shifts. These environmental factors can play a role in epigenetics; epigenetics involves alterations in gene expression that are not caused by the genetic code itself. Although it is a complex process, in simple terms it can be defined as physical alterations in the DNA sequence that are caused by outside influences.

Generally, if someone develops a disease we immediately think that there is a genetic predisposition for that person to develop that disease. Although this may be true in some cases, there are also things we can do to prevent our genome from being negatively affected and progressing a disease phenotype.

Some ideas to safeguard your DNA against possible alterations are:

- Don’t smoke tobacco

- Do some sort of physical activity daily 

- Reduce/avoid alcohol consumption

- Wear sunscreen when you are outside for a prolonged period of time

We also know that stressful experiences impact DNA expression, so ideas for the future would entail looking into how positive thinking and healthy solutions to problems mitigate stress and in turn helps protect our DNA.