Ciao a tutti :)
L'altro giorno in inglese abbiamo letto un
articolo intitolato “Can a healthy lifestyle alter your genes?”, “Può uno stile
di vita sano alterare i geni?”.
Questo articolo parla di uno
studio fatto in America che è riuscito a dare una risposta a questa domanda. Ecco l’articolo:
“Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a
better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also
to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S researchers said on
Monday. In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate
cancer who decide against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and
radiation or hormone therapy.
The men
underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich
in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate
exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress
management methods such as meditation. As expected, they lost weight, lowered
their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers
found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before
and after the lifestyle changes. After the three months, the men had changes in
activity in about 500 genes -- including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes
that were turned off. The activity of disease-preventing genes increased while
a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate
cancer and breast cancer, shut down, according to the study published in the
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The
research was led by Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research
Institute in Sausalito, California, and a well-known author advocating
lifestyle changes to improve health. "It's an exciting finding because so
often people say, 'Oh, it's all in my genes, what can I do?' Well, it turns out
you may be able to do a lot," Ornish, who is also affiliated with the
University of California, San Francisco, said in a telephone interview. “In
just three months, I can change hundreds of my genes simply by changing what I
eat and how I live?' That's pretty exciting," Ornish said. "The
implications of our study are not limited to men with prostate cancer." Ornish
said the men avoided conventional medical treatment for prostate cancer for
reasons separate from the study. But in making that decision, they allowed the
researchers to look at biopsies in people with cancer before and after
lifestyle changes. "It gave us the opportunity to have an ethical reason
for doing repeat biopsies in just a three-month period because they needed that
anyway to look at their clinical changes (in their prostate cancer)”
