“Experiments in mice show just how important a mother’s diet is in shaping the epigenome of her offspring. All mammals have a gene called agouti. When a mouse’s agouti gene is completely unmethylated, its coat is yellow and it is obese and prone to diabetes and cancer. When the agouti gene is methylated (as it is in normal mice), the coat color is brown and the mouse has a low disease risk. Fat yellow mice and skinny brown mice are genetically identical. The fat yellow mice are different because they have an epigenetic “mutation.” ”
“When researchers fed pregnant yellow mice a methyl-rich diet, most of her pups were brown and stayed healthy for life. These results show that the environment in the womb influences adult health. In other words, our health is not only determined by what we eat, but also what our parents ate.”
What does this mean? The study above is particularly important to us as this shows that even if we are predisposed, within our DNA, to being overweight or to certain ailments, all is not lost. Through correct nutrition, we can in fact change the way our genes are expressed by activating or deactivating good or bad genes. Epigenetics – “The term epigenetics refers to heritable changes in gene expression (active versus inactive genes) that does not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence; a change in phenotype without a change in genotype. This in turn affects how cells read the genes.”
“Nutritional Therapy is the application of nutrition science in the promotion of health, peak performance and individual care.”
The first impact of food is the information it brings to the cell level, changing its behaviour – for better or for worse! This can be a good response, such as resveratrol (the phytonutrient in red grapes) that activates the “longevity” genes inside the cell. Or not such a great response, such as refined sugar, which binds to the cell and triggers the release of irritating chemicals that cause swelling and autoimmune conditions. How can we help you? Our goal is to be able to sit down with you and figure out what you are eating, how you are eating and when you are eating. We then perform a complete nutritional deficiency assessment. Don’t worry, no needles or any pain involved whatsoever! We do a general basic health check by measuring blood pressure, pulse rate, listen to your lungs, check your temperature and record your weight. We then go through a set of cross referencing control questions based off of known symptoms which are directly related to specific nutrients. Once we have all the information we require, we then proceed to formulate a complete Personalized Nutritional Therapy Plan. What is a Nutritional Plan? A nutritional plan is very different from a diet. A diet will eliminate whole food groups and restrict you to only eating certain foods prescribed in the diet. The problem with this is, the moment you cut out whole food groups, you are also cutting out essential vitamins, nutrients, fibre and minerals. You will lose weight on a diet, but you will also be restricting yourself of a wide range of nutrients, thus increasing the possibility of sickness, disease, poor health, and poor quality of life. Unfortunately not all diets work for everyone, in terms of losing weight, as we are all different and require different nutritional needs. With a nutritional plan, you are guided, scientifically, into eating correctly according to what your body needs. You will be given food groups to choose from, that will be high in the particular nutrients that you are requiring. This enables you to choose which foods you really enjoy, while still reaching your required nutritional goals. You will notice that with choosing the recommended foods from your personal nutritional plan, that you are automatically getting foods that are high in the following:
Carbohydrates (including fibre)
Fats (including good cholesterol)
Proteins
Vitamins
Minerals
