Importance of Epigenetics

Serena Cuoghi
Title of Professor of Biology

Epigenetics is a relatively recent branch of science, oriented towards the study and understanding of the elements that intervene in the organism beyond what is dictates its own DNA, in turn, the term is used to refer to the set of factors external to the organism's own genetics, which can condition in one way or another the expression of genes, while this scientific resource is having great impacts on the understanding of evolutionary processes and even on the development of diseases, the organism's defense mechanisms and the very appearance and disappearance of conditions that were thought to be of a strictly genetic origin and therefore, invariable in the individual.

Based on this, when referring to an epigenetic factor, it is pointing to an element that may well have any type of nature, so in In this sense, the value of epigenetics on the understanding of biology itself lies in having allowed the incorporation of new study variables, based on the environmental factors that condition life, ceasing to assume that DNA was solely responsible for everything that happened in an organism, thus also accepting the strong link between the mind and the body, to finally give scientific support to what until not long ago was discriminated as mere conjectures or popular gossip.

In a certain way, to talk about the importance of epigenetics is also to talk about a well-deserved vindication of ancestral knowledge, which has been surviving generation after generation, as part of the empirical knowledge that has been transmitted in favor of the preservation and care of the health.

The oldest tribes on earth have long known the importance of maintaining habits based on respect for the balance between nature and man, however, has not been until the development of epigenetics as a scientific vision, that this fact has been able to demonstrate what determinant of this balance for the very expression of our genes, and therefore, of the real link between a silent genotype and its consequent observable phenotype.

habits vs. genes

Human customs are usually determined by various factors, the culture shared by a social group, formal education, the availability of resources, what we have learned at home and finally our own whims and personal tastes lead us to model habits that in turn end up modeling us themselves.

This constant game that we carry between good and bad habits even has the power to condition our state of health, in such a way that it seems to be a direct translator of the behavioral patterns towards the language of the molecules that make up DNA, thus finally rewriting the sequence of the proteins that it orders to synthesize, both for and against our.

In this sense, the understanding of the true nature of the origin of the most critical diseases for humanity, highlights the importance of epigenetics in the field of health. An integral example of this is represented by Diabetes, a disease that until a few years ago was considered genetically heritable, causing great anguish in all the family environment where a member presented it, since it used to be determined even by the specialist doctor himself, that everyone was predisposed to suffer from it, however, the investigations pointed to the possibility of epigenetic origins for this disease, currently being able to demonstrate the true patterns causes of Diabetes and with it the development of an entire approach system, oriented mainly towards a prevention that previously was not even taken into account. account.

Having managed to understand the factors that can trigger the development of Diabetes has been a contribution of indisputable importance that epigenetics has provided, since which makes it possible to guide the patient's approach mainly based on the habits that could have led him to develop the disease, seeing it no longer as a sentence due to genetic heritability within a family group, but as a probability as a consequence of the repetition of habits, a fact that also influences the emotional state of the patient and her immediate environment, which in turn affects the metabolic responses of people, as has been demonstrated by the epigenetics.

not everything has been said

Although scientific advances in the last decade have been strongly oriented towards expanding and deepening the role of epigenetics, this area of Research turns out to be much broader than genetics itself, since for each expression of the same gene, there can be an indeterminate number of variables that influence their activation or suppression, so this fascinating field of study has not only been providing answers to the biggest unknowns generated since the entirety of the human genome was revealed, but has allowed a dizzying acceleration in the field of medical research, with a view to resolving of great mysteries such as those that still hide the most elementary processes of life, however, there is still much to understand, even in the variability of the very external factors that end up conditioning the "decisions" of the DNA, so that the true path towards the real understanding of our genes is barely starts.

References

BEDREGAL, Paula, et al. (2010). Contributions of epigenetics in the understanding of the development of the human being. Chilean medical journal, vol. 138, no 3, p. 366-372.

GARCIA ROBLES, Reggie; AYALA RAMIREZ, Paola Andrea; PERDOMO VELASQUEZ, Sandra Paola. (2012). Epigenetics: definition, molecular bases and implications for health and human evolution. Health sciences magazine, vol. 10, not 1, p. 59-71.