Vitamins, foods might improve your genes

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Vitamins, foods might improve your genes

06 Apr 2005 Medical News Today

Taking your vitamins and eating a variety of fruits and vegetables -

such as raspberries and spinach - can make up for your not-so-healthy

genes.

That's according to a new book, Feed Your Genes Right ( Wiley &

Sons, March 2005).

Your genes, which you inherited from your parents, contain the

biological programs that control your health. But you don't have to

be at their mercy.

Best-selling nutrition and health author Jack Challem points out that

certain vitamins and foods enable your genes to function at their

best.

For example, at least one-third of Americans have a variation in the

gene that reduces activity of folic acid, a B vitamin. As a result,

they are more likely to heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's

disease. A woman with this defect is more likely also to have a baby

with birth defects.

You can't change the gene, but taking a daily multivitamin and eating

certain fruits and vegetables help that gene to work better, Challem

says.

" Our bodies need B vitamins and other nutrients to make, repair, and

regulate our DNA and genes, " Challem says. " In a sense, vitamins are

inexpensive gene therapy to help our genes function at their best. "

The B-vitamins are involved in what biochemists call " one-carbon

metabolism. " The process donates molecules needed to make the

nucleotides that form DNA and genes.

Challem's advice includes these suggestions:

-- Take a moderately high-potency daily multivitamin, which includes

the B vitamins. Several of these vitamins help suppress cancer-

promoting genes.

-- Eat spinach salads. Spinach is rich in folic acid, a B vitamin

needed to make and repair genes.

-- Eat berries. Raspberries and blueberries are loaded with

antioxidants, which protect genes from damage.

-- Drink green tea. It protects genes from the cancer-promoting

effects of dioxin and other pollutants.

-- Go easy on foods high in refined carbs and sugars. They boost

levels of insulin, a hormone that turns on fat-storage genes.

" The biochemical basis of our genetics comes back to nutrition, "

Challem says. " Nutrients provide the biochemical building blocks for

our DNA and genes. "

Excerpts from the book are available at

http://www.feedyourgenesright.com.

Jack Challem is a leading nutrition and health writer and the author

of the best-selling " Syndrome X " and " The Inflammation Syndrome "

books. He writes regularly for Alternative Medicine, Body & Soul, and

other health magazines. His scientific articles have been published

in Free Radical Biology & Medicine, Journal of Orthomolecular

Medicine, Medical Hypotheses, and other journals.

Feed Your Genes Right

By Jack Challem

Wiley & Sons/$24.95

ISBN: 0-471-47986-1

On Sale March 2005