Lifestyle can affect you’re cells to the coreA lifestyle overhaul, including a better diet and more exercise, can lead not only to a better physique but to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Although it was a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy, reports The Associated Press. Instead, the men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise, such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods, such as meditation. As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes. After the three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes – including 480 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off. The activity of disease-preventing genes increased, while a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It’s an exciting finding, because so often people say, ‘Oh, it’s all in my genes, what can I do?’ Well, it turns out you may be able to do a lot,” said Dr. Dean Ornish, lead researcher and head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., and a well-known author promoting lifestyle changes to improve health. Ormish isn’t suggesting that someone undergoing cancer treatment simply stop and drop down and start exercising. Ornish said the men avoided conventional medical treatment for prostate cancer for reasons separate from the study. But in making that decision, they allowed the researchers to look at biopsies in people with cancer before and after lifestyle changes. “It gave us the opportunity to have an ethical reason for doing repeat biopsies in just a three-month period because they needed that anyway to look at their clinical changes (in their prostate cancer),” Ornish said. “In just three months, I can change hundreds of my genes simply by changing what I eat and how I live? That’s pretty exciting. The implications of our study are not limited to men with prostate cancer.”Vital Signs: Recognizing she had a problem, actress Jennifer Lewis got control of her bipolar disorder. But the actress, of Tyler Perry movie fame, says not enough African Americans are willing to accept that they have a mental disorder and seek help.  For more on her journey to wellness go to Vital Signs.

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