The Faster I Run, the Behinder I Get

At lunch today with a friend and fellow cancer survivor, I learned a new term, actually several new terms, but the one that caught my ear was "epigenetics." In an earlier post, I commented on the importance of genetics to cancer treatment. It turns out that the treatment you chose may also modify the way your genes are expressed after treatment - that is, the treatment may modify the patient's genetic DNA structure.

In effect, once you begin treatment, you become a moving target for subsequent treatments. This is good when the effect is limited to DNA in (already mutated) cancerous cells, but may not be beneficial treatment result in DNA modifications which inhibit subsequent treatment or, in the case of a patient of child-bearing age, if the induced mutated DNA is subsequently passed on to the next generation.

In other words, "epigenetics" is the study of a repetitive process of induced DNA mutation resulting from all kinds of sources, including the food you eat, your life style, and cancer treatments involving radiation and chemotherapy.

As the below video will demonstrate, although identical twins have the same DNA structure at birth, their genetic structure grows increasingly dissimilar over time due to environmental factors. For more information, view this video (13 minutes) from Nova scienceNOW at pbs.org, which produced the video, and visit their web site.