Thousands of people now use DNA methylation age tests to measure the effectiveness of diet and lifestyle changes.
Karen Fitzpatrick-Dame, ChhC, AADP
If you’re changing your diet or lifestyle, testing your biological age will show if the changes are beneficial. Plus these tests are starting to tell you what part of your body needs attention (inflammation, diabetes, heart disease, etc.).
Epigenetics is your body switching genes on and off depending on environmental, lifestyle, or other factors. DNA methylation is the process that enables Epigenetics.
In DNA methylation, a methyl group attaches to a strand of DNA, slowing or shutting down the genes in this strand. This may occur due to aging or injury. Aging is accumulation of injuries, according to one theory (aging recapitulates injury). For example, wrinkles appear where solar UV has injured our skin. We think of wrinkles as a sign of aging but wrinkles are more a sign of accumulated injuries.
Poor diet and lifestyle choices cause injuries throughout your body. As these injuries accumulate we look and feel older. Improving our diets and lifestyles repairs many of these injuries and we look and feel younger. Many tests measure biological age. The most accurate are DNA methylation age tests.
DNA methylation age tests give you a single number for your biological age. Thousands of people now use DNA methylation age tests to measure the effectiveness of diet and lifestyle changes, e.g., trying a plant-based diet, or eliminating gluten, or starting yoga classes.
Looking at what changes in methylation we can induce how this relates to changing predictive risk. In other words, if a specific report indicates that you’re at risk for diabetes, your doctor may prescribe a diet/lifestyle change, a medication, and/or DNA methylation therapy, which will add or remove methyl groups from DNA strands.
Of course, if your diet or lifestyle is setting you up for diabetes then switching genes on or off may work only temporarily. Improving your diet and lifestyle will continue to be paramount.
A study by Kara Fitzgerald of twenty men aged 50 to 70, with another twenty controls, found that improved diet, sleep, exercise, and stress reduction (meditation) reduced biological age by more than three years, in just eight weeks. Dr. Fitzgerald details the diet in her book Younger You.
Top foods that have a positive effect on Epigenetics, according to Dr. Fitzgerald, include Beets, Apples, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Shitake Mushrooms and others. These are just some of the ingredients In Life's Healthiest Methyl-Donor and Life's Healthiest Methyl-Adaptogen Whole Food Nutritional Therapy Blends.
Epigenetic Testing Is Available With No Prescription at Life's Healthiest Rupa Health Tests
