You Are Not Your Genetics with Kenneth Pelletier, M.D.

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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.” (hosted by Justine Willis Toms) 

Bio

Kenneth R. Pelletier, M.D. is an integrative medicine pioneer and clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and former clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Corporate Health Improvement Program, known by the acronym (CHIP), which is a collaborative research program between CHIP and fifteen Fortune 500 corporations. He is a peer reviewer for several medical journals, including the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and is a vice president with American Specialty Health.

Kenneth Pelletier is the author of many books including:

• Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer: A Holistic Approach to Preventing Stress Disorders (Dell Publishing 1977)
• Change Your Genes Change Your Life: Creating Optimal Health with the New Science of Epigenetics (Origin Press 2019)

To learn more about the work of Kenneth Pelletier go to www.drpelletier.com.

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• What is the importance of mapping the human genome
• What does epigenesis have to do with the expression of our genes
• What is the state of healthcare today and how is it influenced by economics
• How healthcare today is a disease management industry rather than a health-enhancement system
• How medicine will be turning toward more individualized care
• How simple blood tests give limited information to a doctor
• What are the four components that make up a more comprehensive map of our body’s functions
• What is the downside of 23andMe and other direct to consumer genetic testing as a predictor of health
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of pharmaceuticals
• What are some good health assays that are available
• When will healthcare insurance cover the cost of available health assays
• What is the importance of having a professional interpret a health assay
• Why a major influence on gene expression is diet
• Why inflammation is important to control but not eliminate
• What are Pelletier’s thoughts on food intolerance
• Why diets should be as highly individualized as fingerprints
• Why meditation, exercise, and sleep are important components to good health
• Why interval training is better than aerobics
• What is the importance of telomeres that surround the gene
• Why Pelletier uses the term rheostat regarding turning up or turning down our gene expression rather than turning a gene off and on
• What are Pelletier’s thoughts on the use of supplements
• How assays will tell us how our bodies are absorbing nutrients from food and supplements 

Host: Justine Willis Toms        Interview Date: 2/13/2019       Program Number: 3663

Music Playlist

From Album: Intervention
Artist: Helen Jane Long
2012 BLlE Music Records #9790900213570  

Opening Essay: Track 01 Intervention
Music Break 1: Track 05 Rainbow
Music Break 2: Track 06 Fountain
Music Break 3: Track 11 Renewal