RE: Smoking, diet and your heirs.

January 19, 2008

I saw a show recently that was studying illnesses, specifically breast

cancer. They were looking in to identical twins. Two people with the

same DNA to see how their environment and lifestyle effected their health.

What they found in the twins was obvious and exactly as they expected. What

they found in the offspring of the twins was startling and disturbing.

They discovered that what we do in our lives, not only affects us, but our

children and grandchildren. In one set of twins, one of the ladies

developed breast cancer while the other did not. Not surprising when you

looked at the diet and smoking. What was surprising was that the twin that

got the breast cancer passed the gene on to her children and they in turn to

their children. They found that certain environmental conditions could

turn genes on and off. When it did, those genes would then be passed in

their on and off state to their children. When they dived in to this

further, they were able to determine both parents had the same effect on

their children.

So not to make this note too long, the short of it was that the toxins we

ingest and breath can affect not only us, but generations of our offspring.

It scared the hell out of me. I have since been talking to my son and

daughter to make sure they educate their kids at a young age so they know

the ramifications of what they do will affect their children and

grandchildren.

Both my parents smoked. My sister and brother all suffer from extreme

allergies and asthma. The youngest, my brother has it the worst.

Obviously the longer our parents smoked and ate poor diets, the worse off

his ailments would become. It is very possible the ailments we suffer

from are the results of our parents and their parents.

The choice to smoke or not smoke is something that I believe we can no

longer assume is strictly our decision. It affects those who will come

after us for generations. Think about it.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on these subject.

Regards,

Darv

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