Epigenetics: How well do you fit into your genes?

Prepare to have your understanding of genetics completely transformed. The revolutionary science of epigenetics reveals that you're not simply a prisoner of your DNA – you're actively participating in how your genes express themselves through every choice you make.

Dr. Mark Pettus takes us on a fascinating journey through this emerging field that bridges the gap between fate and free will. Drawing on cutting-edge research and decades of clinical experience, he explains how our modern environment creates a profound mismatch with our ancient genetic template, setting the stage for chronic disease. The 21st century human faces challenges our ancestors never encountered – from ultra-processed foods to artificial lighting to environmental toxins – all triggering genetic expressions incompatible with optimal health.

The most empowering revelation? These expressions can change in real-time based on lifestyle choices. Within hours of consuming whole foods rather than processed ones, gene switches flip from promoting inflammation to reducing it. Regular movement, quality sleep, meaningful relationships, and even our thought patterns all influence our "book of life" at the molecular level. Dr. Pettis shares compelling research showing how maternal stress during pregnancy alters offspring epigenetics for decades, how indigenous populations saw 500% increases in diabetes within a generation after adopting Western lifestyles, and how we can potentially reverse our biological clocks through targeted lifestyle changes.

Discover why Blue Zone populations maintain extraordinary health into their 100s and how you can implement their wisdom into your modern life. This isn't just about preventing disease – it's about actively creating health by bringing your lifestyle into alignment with your evolutionary biology. The science is clear: you have far more control over your genetic expression than previously imagined. What will you write in your book of life?

Powerpoint slides and video can be found at www.thehealthedgepodcast,com

Essential Provisions whole foods meals ready to eat (MREs) at www.essentialprovisions.com

Transcript

Introduction to Epigenetics

Speaker 1 0:03

Hi, I'm Dr Mark Pettis, the Medical Director of Essential Provisions. I'm also an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, and my clinical background is in internal medicine, nephrology and integrative functional medicine, and I'm pleased to share this webinar with you on epigenetics how well do you fit into your genes? Of all the trends in science and biology over the last 10 to 15 years, none has been more revolutionary, in my view, than epigenetics, an emerging science that would suggest the extent to which lifestyle influences our genetics is much greater than anyone had ever thought. So this is a really terrific subject, and it's one that I think is empowering, as it would suggest that every choice that you make can influence your book of life, your experience of life, and so let's dive into this. I'm going to share my screen and off we go. So how well do you fit into your genes? As it turns out, our genes can express themselves in a number of ways, and lifestyle ultimately will determine which of the many possible expressions actually emerges, and so let's dive into this a little more deeply. It was Mark Twain that once said it's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.

Speaker 1 2:10

I've been in practice and an educator for 40 years, and it's been truly humbling for me to appreciate over time how science and research continues to evolve and challenge what can be some deeply etched perspectives on our understanding of who we are and how we function. And I learned, as most physicians learned and most people are told by their physicians, that you have this because it's genetic. You have that because it's genetic. Mom and dad or grandmother, grandfather, had this and therefore you're more likely to get it because it's genetic. And while there's a sliver of truth to that, what we know that ain't so ultimately is you are not a prisoner of your DNA. The science of epigenetics would suggest very convincingly that you are not locked into that which you inherit from mom and dad, and so, while that may indeed put you at greater risk for a health issue like heart disease or cancer or Alzheimer's, it is hardly a fait accompli, a done deal. This, in fact, is a much more malleable story, and that's why I think this is so powerful and empowering, because it gives individuals an opportunity to literally rewrite the hand they were dealt, to replay that hand in a way that can perhaps help them avoid what might seem to be a strongly genetically linked health concern. So here's where the evidence is at currently concern. So here's where the evidence is at currently.

DNA Is Not Your Destiny

Speaker 1 4:09

All health, your quality of life, your health span, quality of life along your age continuum, and all diseases are ultimately byproducts of what are individualized interactions between the genes that you inherit from mom and dad and the environment that you are in. By environment, I'm referring to inputs that include all aspects of lifestyle how you eat, how you move, how you interpret and respond to stressful events in your life, your quality of sleep, how connected you are to people who love you and express compassion toward you, how much forgiveness you're likely to cultivate in response to a prior hurt or transgression. All of these aspects of our lives, what you think, what you believe ultimately become the blueprint upon which the genes that you inherited will translate. And so this is a very dynamic interaction that actually starts before you were conceived of choices that your parents made prior to your conception. The quality of the environment that they were in, was it loving, was it supportive, was it safe are all aspects that set the stage for your book of life prior to your conception a radically different perspective than that which, historically, was thought to be the case.

Speaker 1 5:49

We know that your book of life, my book of life, really has a Stone Age imperative. Many generations preceded us and they handed down that book of life and, as it turns out, research would suggest that that template has probably not changed in millennia. What has changed are the environments that we are in. The 21st century, environments for humans is very different than what that environment was like 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and so our Book of Lives adapt to those changing environments. And with each generation, I believe there's a greater gap between that which our book of life has been accustomed to and adapted for and that which we now engage in, our modern lives. We now engage in our modern lives. This incompatibility, this gap between what your biology has evolved to be in relationship with as compared to what it is actually in relationship with, is where the stage is set for the emergence of disease risk, changes in mortality risk, quality of life, etc.

Speaker 1 7:10

And so we know that lifestyle medicine, functional medicine, many aspects of our lives that are within our influence, our domain to influence, can change that trajectory throughout our lifespan. So we can actually change the way our genes express themselves, and this, ultimately, is the foundation of epigenetics. So, as it turns out, you have this book of life, this double helix, this DNA that was passed down over many generations, the person that emerges. The experience of life for the inhabitant of this DNA will vary considerably based on the quality of the environment throughout that life that that individual experiences. Is it a health-promoting environment or is it one that is health-undermining? So, as it turns out, there are an infinite number of possible you that could emerge over time, which is kind of a wild, radical thought, and the one that emerges ultimately can be influenced in real time and can change based on how this relationship is altered and we're learning more about what it is throughout our lives that will influence what our life will be like in 50, that will influence what our life will be like in 50, 60, 70 years.

Speaker 1 8:48

This is research that I will be reviewing in other essential provision webinars that aging has an epigenetic signature and there are longevity and quality of life signatures that we can adopt and develop throughout our lives. And if we're not playing with the best cards, we have opportunities to take those cards that aren't working well for us and replace them by way of changes in behavior, changes in how we think right what we believe, how we eat, how we move, how we interpret and respond to stress, etc. And virtually every aspect of lifestyle and environment has been shown to influence our epigenetics interpretation. If your body was a computer, ultimately lifestyle is the software that runs that computer and depending on the quality of that software, the output of that computer can be very different, can vary considerably, and so we know that certainly, what we eat, how we interpret and respond to stress, are our lives dominated by fear, by anxiety, by perhaps anger, frustration, envy, or are they characterized by hope, forgiveness, compassion, integrity. Those are more than just virtues. Those are states that will impact your biology how socially interactive we are, and here I'm not referring to whether you get lots of social media likes. This is really about the quality of the relationships in your life, how loving and compassionate and supportive they are.

Speaker 1 11:00

We know that many medications will have epigenetic effects. This is a whole new frontier that the world of pharmacologic intervention has had very limited insight around. Medicines appear to have effect beyond that which the FDA has approved them for. They can affect our epigenetics. A good example of that is an old blood pressure medication that I was trained to use called hydralazine very effective at lowering blood pressure, but we would eventually learn that it altered the epigenetics of individuals that put them at greater risk of autoimmunity. So these are fascinating interactions. Your microbiome we'll have a separate webinar on the gut and the importance of this ecosystem how you move socioeconomics less vigorous and vital quality of life. And we see this intergenerationally. We would call these genetically linked diseases.

Speaker 1 12:22

In fact, what we are inheriting are the environmental and social conditions within which our parents conceived us, and often that poverty will be passed from one generation to the next. We know that the seasons, sunlight I'll talk about this extensively in our webinar on circadian rhythm this amazing interaction between light, health, our biologic clocks all of these things are influencing the software that ultimately runs your hardware and creates your experience of life. Much has been written about the epigenetic revolution and, in particular, the importance of perinatal health. It's been proven that the quality of life that a mother and father has prior to conception of their future child will very much influence that child's health. And while we've long been aware of that relationship, is it possible that the conditions within which your parents conceived you might influence what your life is like at the age of 30, 40, 50? And there's some evidence to suggest that that may indeed be the case. But again, you know your DNA is not your destiny. You know your DNA is not your destiny.

Lifestyle Factors That Shape Our Genes

Speaker 1 14:02

So this concept of a disconnect genetically between a modern lifestyle, which exposes us to things that generations before us had little experience with, many of the foods in our food supply today, which we would take for granted because we grew up on them, are relatively new to the human food supply. Things like ultra-processed foods, right Lots of sugar, lots of preservatives, chemicals, new-to-nature things that are pervasive in our food supply. These are not native to the human experience and that disconnect is one that very much drives disease and diminished quality of life. So what do we know about epigenetics and their connection to modern diseases? Well, connection to modern diseases. Well, virtually every disease that has been studied now has demonstrated that.

Speaker 1 14:58

Your book of life and these little on and off switches epigenetics, these are the on and off switches that turn some things on. Maybe you inherited something from your parents that you would rather not be turned on. As it turns out, lifestyle can turn that off, particularly if it's compatible with that which you have evolved to be in relationship with. So if the foods you consume are foods that were not experienced by your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents and the generations before them. You are at greater risk of disease from that disconnect If you're spending 95% of your time indoors under artificial lighting as opposed to being out more in nature, which is what the generations before you were adapted to experience. We now recognize that that's another example of a disconnect that will put one at greater risk for obesity, for diabetes, for heart disease, for autoimmunity like rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis all cancers, allergies, depression, degenerative neurologic diseases allergies, depression, degenerative neurologic diseases chronic, complex diseases in 21st century continue to go up and while I'm a byproduct of the Western allopathic medical enterprise, I've come to realize that much of the advances in science have done very little to alter the trajectory of these diseases that continue to go up.

Speaker 1 16:40

When I was in training 40 years ago, I was told by really good people that, mark, you might never see another case of autism in your life unless maybe you go into pediatric neurology. Other case of autism in your life, unless maybe you go into pediatric neurology, a specialty whereby you're likely to have kids referred to you. The prevalence was like 1 in 7,500 children right A generation later that is now 1 in 35. These aren't genetic mutations, in my view. The evidence, I think, is much more strongly consistent with modern environments that are no longer compatible with the biology that is still alive and well in our DNA. Yes, we may have genetic predisposition, there may be some genes that we inherited that put us at greater risk, but whether that disease manifests or not is largely contingent on lifestyle and compatibility of one's lifestyle with good health.

Speaker 1 17:49

Good health, and we know that virtually every aspect of modern life that has been studied. If you look at ultra-processed foods, they will change the on and off switches in your book of life to perhaps make you more inflamed, which is a driver of all diseases. We'll look at inflammation as a separate webinar. We know that sedentary states, which are not the natural state of the human being, will alter the on and off switches that will put you at greater risk for all those chronic, complex diseases. We know that not getting enough downtime, not having enough stillness, peace, solitude and ability to go more deeply within is a real challenge in modern life. That is not compatible with a long, healthy life.

Nutrition's Role in Genetic Expression

Speaker 1 18:57

Important as we've all come out of the pandemic and the trauma of that Trauma, from something as profound as a pandemic, with illness, mortality, social isolation, lack of social connection. For the next generation we're going to be learning about the epigenetic implications of that and the health consequences of those universally shared experiences of life. We know that environmental toxins, from plastics and microplastics to things like food dyes and coloring, the 80,000 plus chemicals, glyphosate and Roundup these are all well known to cause epigenetic changes that put a person at greater risk for obesity, for allergy, for autoimmunity, for degenerative neurologic disease. And so you see these common threads, all of which dynamically shift your book of life in a way that starts to write and produce chapters that many of us would want to edit and rewrite, and epigenetics is a science that would suggest that that is possible throughout the age continuum. Certainly, the quality of our microbiome, how much time we spend outdoors in nature and natural full-spectrum light, cultivating meaning and purpose in our work, love and play these are more than just known attributes of the capacity to thrive. These have powerful biologic underpinnings that can influence one's life, often in amazing ways, and sometimes in profoundly disruptive ways. A good example of epigenetics on a large epidemiologic scale is when you look at the changes in environment of the Pima Indians from Mexico, and this is well-studied research and the Mexican Pimas, after migrating north of the border largely the southwestern US saw a five-time higher, a 500% increase, in type 2 diabetes compared to their indigenous ancestors. That happened inside a generation. These aren't new genetic mutations. This is a dramatic mismatch between that which the biology of that individual was accustomed to in comparison to that which that individual is experiencing. And so we have the native Pimas that were lean and strong and fast and healthy to now a generation where we're seeing type 2 diabetes historically adult diseases now occurring in young children. So we know that every aspect of lifestyle can influence epigenetics.

Speaker 1 22:13

A lot of my interest is in nutrition and we know that, and again, this won't surprise anyone, but it's yet another reason to reconsider what may be on the end of your fork. I believe any food that nature produced is health promoting, and while some foods that nature has produced, like perhaps meats or fats, have been condemned, in my view and this theme will be recurring throughout the webinars that we share here at Epigenetics it's also the foundation of our nutrition philosophy, and all of the products that we produce is essentially, mother Nature has packaged foods in ways that are most compatible with human health, whether that is a pasture-raised red meat or an egg produced by a pasture-raised chicken, whether that be certainly plant-based foods, whole fat dairy, including butter yes, you see butter on this list. I would make the case that these are foods that all generations of humans before us were well-adapted to us, were well adapted to, nutrient dense, free of chemicals and really the holy grail in terms of promoting health and longevity. And we're learning that, while we focus on the nutrients vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, you know, carb, fat, protein all of which are important, epigenetics is largely about the phytonutrients, these chemicals in plants, for example, that aren't vitamins, they're not minerals, but they're molecules that plants produce to render them more resilient in the environments that they are in, and when other species, like humans, consume those foods, they acquire that protection. It's a fascinating concept of how one species can promote the health of another by virtue of its defense system. So we know that many of these plant-based in this example molecules will change the on and off switches of your book of life. They do that in real time. Within hours, this will begin to happen and ultimately, as your book of life is translated into proteins, the translation will vary based on the quality of this information we have information in, we have output from that information. Your life, that which manifests to you, will largely be a reflection of the quality of the information that you are cultivating and interpreting, and that is a very dynamic and empowering paradigm.

Speaker 1 25:27

Another example of this is when you look at the glycemic effect of foods. The glycemic effect is the extent to which sugar goes up after consuming a food. And if anything can be said about the standard American diet, in my opinion the problem isn't so much fats and animal protein, red meats the problem is carbohydrate, sugar, flour, these processed seed oils, vegetable oils that are in virtually all processed foods that give them a very long shelf life. These foods have a very high glycemic effect. Now, if you give a group of adults, as this study did, high glycemic carbohydrates and then you look at their genes, you do a little biopsy of fat, you can look at the genetic expression. These tools are now readily available. You see on-switches going on for inflammation, for oxidative stress. This is one of the hallmarks of aging and this happens within hours of consuming higher glycemic foods.

Speaker 1 26:42

Now if you take a carbohydrate that's lower glycemic, maybe a sprouted grain, for example, or a plant-based carb that is lower glycemic, a non-grain same amount of carbohydrate. You know we would say 10 grams of carbs. 10 grams of carbs they're the same Same number of calories, same amount of carbs. The information in that carbohydrate in this example is different. The glycemic effect is much lower and when you look at those same genes, the on switches then become off. They're turned into the off mode. This happens in a matter of a few weeks. This is why, for somebody, for example and I'm going to talk about this in my metabolic health webinar weight metabolism. This is why, if you're trying to lose weight, if you're dealing with prediabetes, diabetes, high blood pressure, it's really important to look at the carbohydrates that you're consuming, particularly those that have sugar, flour, refined products very high in glycemic effect, vegetable oils, these processed seed oils, and switch them to lower glycemic carbohydrate sources, sources of fat, sources of protein. We'll talk more about all of these. These are big topics that nature has produced, that have not been processed and that your biology will have greater compatibility with.

Environmental Trauma and Generational Impact

Speaker 1 28:21

Just another quick example of epigenetics on a large scale this was the ice storm Project, ice Storm in Quebec. This was a catastrophic system that affected tens of thousands of people in Quebec, and the researchers at McGill were really opportunistic in their recognition of the need to study the epigenetics of the children who were conceived and being carried during this ice storm, where the food supply was disrupted, the quality of food, heat, the fear of starvation, hunger this was quite pervasive. And what Mojah Shiv, who was the lead investigator at McGill, found is that the offspring of mothers who were pregnant during the ice storm were much more likely to have issues of inflammation and oxidative stress. Their epigenetics were programmed to prepare those children for a very harsh environment. It was as if the maternal experience was the environment is harsh, you are going to enter and be born into a very harsh environment. Harsh, you are going to enter and be born into a very harsh environment. It will be advantageous for you, for your immune system to be hypervigilant, for your defenses to be hypervigilant. When those children are born, you see more allergy, more autoimmunity, more cognitive challenge, et cetera. And so this was the first evidence that perinatal maternal stress produced a lasting effect.

Speaker 1 30:16

Dna methylation is a form of epigenetics. It's attaching a little methyl group to your book of life, your DNA. It's an on and off switch, and what they found was that the epigenetics, the programming for all these moms, and ultimately their children, who were conceived during this environmental catastrophe, were programmed as a predisposition for poor health. They would find that these changes persisted through early childhood into adolescence. Now, all of these things can be changed, but it requires a greater alignment of lifestyle choice with that which one's biology ideally needs to be in relationship with.

Epigenetic Clocks and Reversing Biological Age

Speaker 1 31:08

And I'm going to close with what I think is some very exciting research in the aging and longevity science field, which is exploding, and this is looking at what we call epigenetic clocks. So imagine that you have a chronologic age based on the date that you were born. You also have a biologic age which may or may not coincide at all with your chronologic age. And, as it turns out, researchers now from many labs around the US are looking at accurate ways to measure biologic age, and they do so by maybe taking a saliva sample, a cheek swab or a blood sample. They can measure your epigenetics, all of those on and off switches, and they can then correlate that with patterns that are more likely to predict longer healthy life, or patterns that are more likely to predict a shorter life with a diminished health span, diminished quality of life. So you could take two men in this example and this is Steve Horvath from UCLA who's been at the vanguard of this epigenetic clock, biologic clock research you could take two 60-year-old men same chronologic age, but one has a very compromised quality of life. Their epigenetics will look entirely different than someone of a similar chronologic age whose on and off switches are much more aligned and compatible with longer, healthy life.

Speaker 1 32:56

Again, the take-home message here is that we're able to adapt, that we can. Actually, the research would suggest that we can regress our biologic age. So if you're concerned that you are starting to succumb to age-related health issues, which we are all at risk for, greater alignment with every aspect of lifestyle and your beliefs will ultimately determine whether that biologic clock accelerates or whether it actually regresses, and that's what the research is showing. We can slow down our biologic aging through whole food nutrition, through regular movement, through more time outside, through the cultivation of meaning and purpose in our work, love and play, cultivation of meaningful, loving, supportive relationships, unloading, getting rid of foods that we might love but don't love us back, don't love us back or relationships that aren't working well for us. These are all malleable choices that can either slow down our biologic aging or accelerate our biologic aging, and I would make the case that, for the average American in 2025, we are looking at accelerated aging and diminished quality of life.

Blue Zones and Conclusion

Speaker 1 34:34

The public health statistics are quite clear and really striking. So this relationship is very dynamic and, while we continue to understand more about it, I think that the take-home message is that, if this is the person, the environment that is manifesting, we can actually reprogram through adoption of a different lifestyle that ultimately will change who you are, will change your trajectory of life, and we see this perhaps in no better example than the Blue Zones, these parts of the world that Daniel Boettner, at the time a writer for National Geographic, was studying. These are parts of the world where people lived extraordinarily long lives To be 100, not at all uncommon and it's more than just aging right, it's a quality of life. So these are individuals that not only are living long, but they're living well, and not surprisingly, when you look at the quality of life in places like Okinawa, japan, sardinia in Italy, icarus, greek Island, the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, the lifestyle of these cultures hasn't changed a lot. They've been able to preserve environmental inputs that, in 2025, are more compatible with their underlying biology than what many modern Western industrialized cultures have adopted, like here in America, and so you know these are all attributes of blue zone cultures that are shown to be strongly correlated with long lives, compressed morbidity. So we're not only getting older, but we're still functional and thriving and feeling good, which is what we all want.

Speaker 1 36:45

Epigenetic changes at the level of one's book of life, where on and off switches are configured in a way that's compatible with one's biology and your biology becomes your biography, and that, very much is just a brief overview of epigenetics. How well do you fit into your genes? I hope this was helpful information to you. We encourage you to explore some of the other educational webinars we have. Most of our webinars are about lifestyle, but we're scientists. Essential Provisions is a nutrition science company. We're very interested in translating that science, helping others realize what's possible in their lives, and this is a story of hope, and I hope you're coming away with a little more hope than maybe you entered this webinar experiencing. So thank you.