Do the genes you inherited determine your overall state of health or which diseases will show up in your body? That concept is genetic determinism. It makes you a passive victim since you didn’t get to choose your own DNA.

But, is it really that simple? Contemporary research is proving otherwise, and your understanding of these new insights will empower you to avoid disease, live longer with increased vitality, and amazingly, also improve the health of your children, even if you haven’t conceived them yet.

This is the science of epigenetics, and it’s capturing the minds and research enthusiasm of today’s scientists. According to a Winter 2008 article by Laura Beil in Cure magazine, “epigenetics is at the epicenter of modern medicine” and “may hold the secret to flipping cancer’s ‘off’ switch.”

This is critically important news: You have access to the protective switches through your lifestyle choices!

“The human genome still retains its status as the blueprint for the body. But the epigenome—the way the genome is marked and packaged inside a cell’s nucleus—tells a cell which of the many sets of instructions on that blueprint to follow, which ones to ignore, and which ones to follow over and over again. If the genome is the blueprint, the epigenome is the contractor directing how the walls and windows are made, and whether the plumbing is correctly installed.”