Gene Expression & Gut Health

This is Dr. Tim Spector. After training in medicine and becoming a consultant rheumatologist, he’s turned his attention to medical research, and is these days a specialist in twin studies, genetics, epigenetics, microbiome, and diet.

What does he want us to know?

For one thing: epigenetics are for more than just getting your grandparents’ trauma.

More usefully: there are things we can do to improve epigenetic factors in our body

DNA is often seen as the script by which our body does whatever it’s going to do, but it’s only part of the story. Thinking of DNA as some kind of “magical immutable law of reality” overlooks (to labor the metaphor) script revisions, notes made in the margins, directorial choices, and ad-lib improvizations, as well as the quality of the audience’s hearing and comprehension.

Hence the premise of one of Dr. Spector’s older books, “Identically Different: Why We Can Change Our Genes”

(*in fact, it was his first, from all the way back in 2013, when he’d only been a doctor for 34 years)

Gene expression will trump genes every time, and gene expression is something that can often be changed without getting in there with CRISPR / a big pair of scissors and some craft glue.

How this happens on the micro level is beyond the scope of today’s article; part of it has to do with enzymes that get involved in the DNA transcription process, and those enzymes in turn are despatched or not depending on hormonal messaging—in the broadest sense of “hormonal”; all the body’s hormonal chemical messengers, not just the ones people think of as hormones.

However, hormonal messaging (of many kinds) is strongly influenced by something we can control relatively easily with a little good (science-based) knowledge: the gut.

The gut, the SAD, and the easy

In broad strokes: we know what is good for the gut. We’ve written about it before at 10almonds:

Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

This is very much in contrast with what in scientific literature is often abbreviated “SAD”, the Standard American Diet, which is very bad for the gut.

However, Dr. Spector (while fully encouraging everyone to enjoy an evidence-based gut-healthy diet) wanted to do one better than just a sweeping one-size-fits-all advice, so he set up a big study with 15,000 identical twins; you can read about it here: TwinsUK

The information that came out of that was about a lot more than just gene expression and gut health, but it did provide the foundation for Dr. Spector’s next project, ZOE.

ZOE crowdsources huge amounts of data including individual metabolic responses to standardized meals in order to predict personalized food responses based on individual biology and unique microbiome profile.

In other words, it takes the guesswork out of a) knowing what your genes mean for your food responses b) tailoring your food choices with your genetic expression in mind, and c) ultimately creating a positive feedback loop to much better health on all levels.

Now, this is not an ad for ZOE, but if you so wish, you can…

• Get the free ZOE gut health guide (this is good, but generic, gut health information)
• Take the ZOE home gut health test (quiz followed by offers of lab tests)
• Browse the ZOE Health Academy, its education wing

Want to know more?

Dr. Spector has a bunch of books out, including some that we’ve reviewed previously:

• Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food Is Wrong
• The Diet Myth: The Real Science Behind What We Eat
• Food for Life: The New Science of Eating Well

You can also check out our own previous main feature, which wasn’t about Dr. Spector’s work but was very adjacent:

The Brain-Gut Highway: A Two-Way Street

Enjoy!

The Stroke Of Insight That Nobody Wants

This is Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. She’s a neuroanatomist, who, at the age of 37 (when she was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School), had what she refers to as her “stroke of insight”.

That is to say, she had a massive stroke, and after a major brain surgery to remove a clot the size of a golf ball, she spent the next 8 years re-learning to do everything.

Whereas previously she’d been busy mapping the brain to determine how cells communicate with each other, now she was busy mapping whether socks or shoes should go on first. Needless to say, she got an insight into neuroplasticity that few people would hope for.

What does she want us to know?

Dr. Taylor (now once again a successful scientist, lecturer, and author) advocates for “whole brain living”, which involves not taking parts of our brain for granted.

About those parts…

Dr. Taylor wants us to pay attention to all the parts regardless of size, ranging from the two hemispheres, all the way down to the billions of brain cells, and yet even further, to the “trillions of molecular geniuses”—because each brain cell is itself reliant on countless molecules of the many neurochemicals that make up our brain.

For a quick refresher on some of the key players in that latter category, see our Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet 😎

When it comes to the hemispheres, there has historically been a popular belief that these re divided into:

• The right brain: emotional, imaginative, creative, fluid feeling
• The left brain: intellectual, analytical, calculating, crystal thinking

…which is not true, anatomically speaking, because there are cells on both sides doing their part of both of these broad categories of brain processes.

However, Dr. Taylor found, while one hemisphere of her brain was much more damaged than the other, that nevertheless she could recover some functions more quickly than others, which, once she was able to resume her career, inspired her model of four distinct ways of cogitating that can be switched-between and played with or against each other:

Meet The Four Characters Inside Your Brain

Why this matters

As she was re-learning everything, the way forward was not quick or easy, and she also didn’t know where she was going, because for obvious reasons, she couldn’t remember, much less plan.

Looking backwards after her eventual full recovery, she noted a lot of things that she needed during that recovery, some of which she got and some of which she didn’t.

Most notably for her, she needed the right kind of support that would allow all four of the above “characters” as she puts it, to thrive and grow. And, when we say “grow” here we mean that literally, because of growing new brain cells to replace the lost ones (as well as the simple ongoing process of slowly replacing brain cells).

For more on growing new brain cells, by the way, see:

How To Grow New Brain Cells (At Any Age)

In order to achieve this in all of the required brain areas (i.e., and all of the required brain functions), she also wants us to know… drumroll please…

When to STFU

Specifically, the ability to silence parts of our brain that while useful in general, aren’t necessarily being useful right now. Since it’s very difficult to actively achieve a negative when it comes to brain-stuff (don’t think of an elephant), this means scheduling time for other parts of our brain to be louder. And that includes:

• scheduling time to feel (emotionally)
• scheduling time to feel (gut feelings)
• scheduling time to feel (kinesthetically)

…amongst others.

Note: those three are presented in that order, from least basic to most basic. And why? Because, clever beings that we are, we typically start from a position that’s not remotely basic, such as “overthinking”, for example. So, there’s a wind-down through thinking just the right amount, thinking through simpler concepts, feeling, noticing one’s feelings, noticing noticing one’s feelings, all the way down to what, kinesthetically, are we actually physically feeling.

❝It is interesting to note that although our limbic system fucntions throughout our lifetime, it does not mature. As a result, when our emotional “buttons” are pushed, we retain the ability to react to incoming stimulation as though we were a two-year-old, even when we are adults.❞

~ Dr. Jill Taylor

Of course, sometimes the above is not useful, which is why the ability to switch between brain modes is a very important and useful skill to develop.

And how do we do that? By practising. Which is something that it’s necessary to take up consciously, and pursue consistently. When children are at school, there are (hopefully, ideally) curricula set out to ensure they engage and train all parts of their brain. As adults, this does not tend to get the same amount of focus.

“Children’s brains are still developing”—indeed, and so are adult brains:

The Brain As A Work-In-Progress

Dr. Taylor had the uncommon experience of having to, in many ways, neurologically speaking, redo childhood. And having had a second run at it, she developed an appreciation of the process that most of us didn’t necessarily get when doing childhood just the once.

In other words: take the time to feel stuff; take the time to quiet down your chatty mind, take the time engage your senses, and take it seriously! Really notice, as though for the first time, what the texture of your carpet is like. Really notice, as though for the first time, what it feels like to swallow some water. Really notice, as though for the first time, what it feels like to experience joy—or sadness, or comfort, or anger, or peace. Exercise your imagination. Make some art (it doesn’t have to win awards; it just has to light up your brain!). Make music (again, it’s about wiring your brain in your body, not about outdoing Mozart in composition and/or performance). Make changes! Make your brain work in the ways it’s not in the habit of doing.

If you need a little help switching off parts of your brain that are being too active, so that you can better exercise other parts of your brain that might otherwise have been neglected, you might want to try:

The Off-Button For Your Brain

Enjoy!