What we eat, drink, breathe, our stress levels, our use of pharmaceuticals, our interaction with the immediate physical and social environment – these are all essential factors in genetic expression. Rather than worrying about the genetic hand we are dealt, we must optimize our health by the choices we make. Pelletier describes our genes as like the hard drive of a computer. They give us our eye color, gender, what diseases we have a propensity to contract and more. But the expression of those genes depends on epigenetic factors like stress, diet, exercise, environment, and social relationships. He says, “These determine whether a push in a particular direction is going to be expressed or suppressed and, in fact, never show up even though we have a genetic push in a particular direction. Epigenesis is the new science that, in the last ten years, focuses on the changes that our lifestyle makes in expressing the gene.”
