I came across a fascinating article today. It was of interest to me as an endometriosis patient. I think it is of particular interest to those patients who have also experienced infertility, cancer, and other issues that are often affected by environmental factors.
If you can get through some scientific terminology, this article is worth the effort. If you feel like you're getting "stuck" in the more scientific terms, try to keep reading past them to get the main idea of the article. The notion that "environment can become heredity" is really an interesting concept.
According to an article called "Environment Becomes Heredity" by a science writer named Valerie Brown (Miller-McCune - Turning Research Into Solutions, August 24, 2008):
"Advances in the field of epigenetics show that environmental contaminants can turn genes “on” and “off,” triggering serious diseases that are handed down through generations. But there’s also a more heartening prospect: The same diseases may be treated by relatively simple changes in nourishment and lifestyle."
Here's the link to this interesting article "Environment Becomes Heredity":
http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/489
If you managed to wade through the scientific information in the above article and would like to learn more about epigenetics, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
Look for more information on endocrine disruption (something mentioned briefly in this article and something of particular interest to endometriosis patients) in upcoming posts.
Finally, here is one more article on epigenetics. It's not as recent as the article mentioned above but it is also interesting:
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/114-3/focus.html
This article was posted by Jeanne via "Jeanne's Endo Blog" at www.endendoat.blogspot.com.
