A boost for epigenetics: The science of interaction and influence in human health

The young health science of epigenetics is getting a boost, thanks in part to an $8.5 million grant that Oregon State University's Linus Pauling Institute just received from the National Cancer Institute.  LPI will use the monies to propel their research on diet, cancer, and epigenetic.

So what is epigenetic research? Essentially it's an early attempt to acknowledge that human health is not "nature" or "nurture," but instead the result of a collaborative interaction between the two.  For example, certain genes may predispose you to cancer, but there's something in the environment or your social or behavioral history and behavior that may be necessary to "turn on" that genetic expression to yield the cancer diagnosis you may have feared. An example is the histone deacetylases enzyme (HDAC). Too much HDAC can actually turn tumor-suppressing genes off, triggering the growth of mutated cells that we call cancer. But just as there are environmental triggers that can lead to increases in HDAC, there are also substances that act as HDAC-inhibitors. Many of these substances have already been shown, either through test tube or population research, to fight cancer, including broccoli, cruciferous greens, onions, and fermented fiber. Where we didn't fully understand how these foods were helping us, epigentics is giving us some answers.  In fact, Johns Hopkins researcher Paul Talalay MD developed and marketed BroccoSprouts after research from his lab showed that the sprouts were especially potent providers of the cancer-fighting (and HDAC inhibiting) compound sulphoraphane.

The epigenetic approach may seem like common sense. After all, developing disease or maintaining your health obviously has to do with a lot more than just the genes you were born with. Why else would siblings blessed with similar genes sometimes have radically different health histories? And why do some simple activities, such as walking, bolster human health so dramatically? In addition to potentially extracting some practical findings out of genetic research, such as showing why eating broccoli may save you from cancer, the epigenetic approach has the potential to add meaningful scientific backing to a more integrative view of health and health care. Rather than simply asserting that health is genetics, and hence you're either blessed or cursed, research is providing affirmation that we can guide our health destiny with smart choices regardless of family history.  Or that the answer to all dis-ease is rooted in genetic manipulations in the test tube, and predictable with the right genetic screening.

And perhaps the acknowledgment that the bio-medical components of health are more complicated and complementary with important behavioral and environmental influences will contribute to a more holistic view of human health that accepts the importance of often overlooked health factors with emotional, biological, and social components, such as joy, humor, stress, love, self confidence.

Does the epigenetic approach really seem that innovative to you, or simply a long-time coming?