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Healthy lifestyle triggers genetic changes: study
Wed, Jun 18 15:47 PM EDT
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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 decided 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),"
Ornish said.
(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Xavier Briand)