The Home Depot Syndrome
Have you noticed how nearly all home repair projects turn out to be more complicated than you expected?  They always take more time and more skills than you expected and, invariably require at least two trips to Home Depot...and quite often, a new tool (no, I'm not a "tool head")?

In recent years, the mapping of the human genome (the DNA code manual for human physiology) was completed to well-deserved enthusiasm and celebration. That led to the confident assertions by the biotech industry that 'gene therapy' drugs were right around the corner that would give science the ability to prevent and/or reverse many diseases.

The Grand Genome Flop
Well, as it turns out, just like we home improvement wizards, genome drug therapy researchers also suffer from Home Depot Syndrome. Although scientists have mapped out the 3 billion sequences that comprise human DNA, and despite the bio-tech industry's over-hyped promises and the billions of dollars invested in gene therapy research over the past 10 years, they're still standing in aisle 14 scratching their heads looking for someone in an orange apron to come to their rescue. Here's how writer John Freedman summed up the progress on gene therapy to date in a recent article in Fast Company magazine:

"... so far, [genetic research] has given the medical world no more ability to treat or predict most illness than knowing that Al Qaeda is camped out in Waziristan has allowed the U.S. government to clean up terrorism or predict where it will strike next." [read article]  

The brash promise from the bio-tech industry was that once the human genome had been mapped, it would be - if not necessarily simple - just a matter of time before identifying particular DNA segments with specific diseases would lead to drugs that could manipulate those segments, creating the ability to prevent or cure virtually all diseases.  The genetic drug researchers, like we goofy homeowners underestimating the complexity of our home improvement projects, thought that by having the human genome map completed, they'd been provided with a 'paint by numbers' instruction manual to manipulate the gene 'switches' themselves that trigger the disease process.

"At first, a lot of people had the hubris to think 'Oh good, this will be even easier than we thought. We'll just stick all the gene code in an Excel spreadsheet and work with them there,'" John Sninsky, vice president of discovery research for Celera, the first company to sequence the genome, is quoted as saying in the article.

"We don't know what most genes do, and we certainly don't know what the variations are in most people. The idea that we can design custom drugs around genes, or change genes, is just silliness and science fiction," says Craig Venter, who founded Celera.

The genetic research industry has resigned themselves to the harsh reality that the interaction of genes is extraordinarily complex, which has in essence, invalidated virtually all gene therapy strategies to date.

"Even the very presence of a given gene is a rabbit hole of confusion. Genes can be "turned off" so that they might as well not be there, or partly turned on so that they contribute only weakly to the disease risk."

"I can find the switches, but I don't know what they do. There are switches for the switches, and switches for those switches. It's endless," Nadav Ahituv, Ph.D, a geneticist at UC San Francisco Medical Center is quoted as saying in the article.

The Verdict's In - Part II:

"And the situation is unlikely to improve much anytime soon," the article states.

So - where does that leave us mere genetic mortals? Right back where we started: eating and moving the way our healthy ancestors did; engaging in the lifestyle behaviors that science has conclusively proven will flip all those genetic switches to produce health and stave off disease.  Eating, moving and thinking in the manner our genes were molded to thrive on 100,000 years ago: daily moderate to intense exercise, whole foods in the form of organic vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruit and nature-fed animals (in case that went over your head - grains, dairy and grain-fed animals weren't on the menu when our current genome was formed 100,000 years ago - more on that subject later), and finally, an emotionally nourished, supported and rested mental state absent of chronic stress - that's what our genes want and need. 

Our genes don't need drugs, they need life.

"In the vast majority of cases, individual genes apparently don't influence your destiny as much as, or at least any more than, your behavior does. So lose weight.  Get some exercise.  Trade in the cheeseburgers.  Breathe clean air.  And for God's sake, don't smoke.  It's pretty much the same advice your great-grandfather got from his doctor.  I bet it's the same advice your great-grandchildren will get from theirs,"  Freedman concludes in his insightful article.

Science has proven this beyond a shadow of doubt - health is found in the self-checkout line, not at the customer service counter.

You can be healthy.

Yours in health, Dr. Paul