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Momtezuma Tuatara
24-12-08, 07:47 AM
This locked thread is a compilation of stuff which will be added to. Discussion is welcome – start a new thread up in this forum if you wish to discuss something from this thread. I'm sure that many of you will find links I don't know about!

Seraphina (http://forums.beyondvaccination.com/showpost.php?p=1451&postcount=1) put up a very good URL (http://discovermagazine.com/2006/nov/cover/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=), which details why the key is epigenetics, and how it's a lifelong process. People through the ages have known exactly what epigenetics is. There is a simpler phrase for it - "knowledge gained through observation of cause and effect". Most of us know innately how we live affects the whole of our lives.

Ask any car manufacturer, and they can give you a fundamental definition of epigenetics by describing the car assembly line. This is s a good allegorical comparison to the process of creating a baby.

Right at the start, the manufacturer brings together all the materials to be used at every stage. The car parts brought in to the factory, could be of the best quality, medium quality, or lousy quality, depending on the "intelligence" of the manufacturer. Nevertheless, these parts provided are what the assembly line workers must use.

What you eat, drink, breathe and think, forms the building materials making and growing babies, just like the parts of a car are used to create the car. These materials will affect the way your babies’ genes work.
Back to the assembly line. The car is put together in a set order, following a specific blueprint. Certain things can affect the assembly line. Power cuts, worker strife, and other conditions which might result in workers damaging the car structure as it develops. The provided materials aren't everything. Things which affect where materials are put are also relevant. The car assembly line moves forward, never backwards. Rivets are added in a certain order. Screws, bushes, springs etc build the core foundation. Maybe an assembly worker is lazy, and misses out parts that cushion, or puts on a hose too short. Finally, the "skin" is painted, everything polished and packaged, sent to the car dealer, who shines it up.

And then you walk in. and you look at it, and think, "That's nice".

Just like you look at your baby, count the toes, and fingers, see what looks like a nice face, and think, "That's nice".

What are your concerns about this shiny red car you are thinking of buying? For starters you want the car to do its job, be reliable, and to have the least possible maintenance on it. You also take note WHICH petrol to use, WHICH oil to use, etc... after all, you don't want to invalidate the warranty. Even if the car is made from quality materials, the reality is how well the car works, might be dependant, long term, on providing the right sort of oil and petrol.

Same applies to babies. History proves that babies can grow on formula, appear to be okay and can grow into what appears to be healthy humans on the outside. But are they? You can't compare them to the child they would have been, had the right petrol and oil (breastmilk) been used. Formula fed people say, "Oh but I'm okay." Well, are they? Today's generation of middle aged and elderly are the biggest users of pharmaceutical medicine – most of them were formula fed during the height of formula marketing. "Ah, but that's the process of getting old!" they say. But is it? Do people nowdays, live until the age of 167? (See attached article called Tamysh Kipshidze.) Or is the dependency on prescriptions in middle age a result of constantly breaking the rules which "invalidate the warranty"?

You drive your car on the correct side of the road, and you treat it with care. If you don't, you know what the result will be. The bottom line is, in any car, IF somewhere along the assembly line, substandard goods were used, you are going to find out all about that at some point in that car's life.
So it is with babies. The "start" of the immune system, or a baby's health begins long before birth. Birth is one of the processes on "the assembly line" so to speak, and our immune systems are flexible throughout life.
Back to our cars. Some purchase agreements now have what we call a "Lemon" clause. I bought a computer in 2000 which was a lemon. It cost the company so much money that in the end, they gave me a new one However, unlike cars or computers, we can't send babies back and ask for a new one according to the lemon clause in the "baby" agreement. But there are things we can do to reverse the damage, if we know how.

Just as we drive off with a new car, not realising until maybe a year along the way that the original parts were substandard, we might not know the baby we birthed with five toes, and five fingers, has an internal manufacturing lemon-quotient. Somehow, when something crops up at aged five, we think that the "problem" was never there before. (Obviously with something like a fracture, it wasn't). We don't realise that even something simple, like the way our children's bodies respond to a cold, may be the result of the "petrol" we are running their "car" on.

For so long now, doctors have blamed things on genes, but it's not as simple as that. Just say you have a G6PD deficiency, (a "genetic" disorder). G6PD is a disease where nothing happens unless there is an environmental trigger. Many "diseases" are like that. Take diabetes. In both world wars, when refined flour and sugar were not available, diabetes rates plummeted, because the environmental "trigger" was not there for people to chose to eat, and in turn to provoke disease.

Our health problems can be a result of lifestyle choices. Those choices are "epigenetic" in effect. They alter the "conductor mechanism" of how our genes work. Sometimes, through no choice of our own (dumped chemicals, pollutants in the air ~ fill your own list...) our children can suffer "epigenetic" damage while they grow. We *** can*** pass on our epigenetic damage to our children.

Here is the big thing to take away from this knowledge.

The ultimate test of epigenetics was "Pottinger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition" by Dr. Frances Pottinger. Look at the chart on this page (http://www.healmarketplace.com/herbs/htnp2.html) Pottinger went further, and took the fourth generation cats, put them on their correct diet, and it took four generations again, to take those cats back to where they were before.

Genes are not static or permanent. By going through pregnancy the right way, we can start to reverse damage done in previous generations. We have the potential to create as healthy a baby as possible, if we know how. If we choose to ignore the “natural laws of the manual”, we can invalidate the warranty. When those natural laws are violated, we aren’t the only ones that pay the price. Our children do too, and so do their children after them.

From the day of my conception my genes were malleable by the actions of my mother – what she did, how she raised me, how she fed me etc. And even today, until the day I meet my maker, I can help or hinder that blueprint which is the "ultimate". It is my choice.

This thread will start by bringing together information (note I didn't say knowledge, since the two to me are different), which may help us all understand how and why the assembly line is so important, and why, what we do, eat, think and feel before, during and after pregnancy, can affect the "beginning product".

Momtezuma Tuatara
24-12-08, 08:09 AM
Here are some URLs which might be useful:

http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=9322 (http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=9322)

http://www.geneimprint.com/features/ (http://www.geneimprint.com/features/)
http://www.springerlink.com/(gyg1pf55uwkltmrjkyso53zi)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,18;journal,15,24;linkingpublication results,1:102960,1 (http://www.springerlink.com/(gyg1pf55uwkltmrjkyso53zi)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,18;journal,15,24;linkingpublication results,1:102960,1)

But it's not all good news. Supplementation may do harm, and good nutrients are best got from good food. This study was one on mice: http://www.geneimprint.com/media/pdfs/12861015_fulltext.pdf


we show here that merely supplementing a mother’s nutritionally adequate diet with extra folic acid, vitamin B 12, choline, and betaine can permanently affect the offspring’s DNA methylation at epigenetically susceptible loci. This finding supports the conjecture that population-based supplementation with folic acid, intended to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects, may have unintended influences on the establishment of epigenetic gene-regulatory mechanisms during human embryonic development (21). Stover, P. J., and C. Garza. 2002. Bringing individuality to public health recommendations. J. Nutr. 132:2476S–2480S.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15347527 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15347527)

http://www.healthystarttolife.monash.org/conference.pdf (http://www.healthystarttolife.monash.org/conference.pdf)


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10504151&ref=rss (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10504151&ref=rss)

Momtezuma Tuatara
26-12-08, 09:03 AM
Here is a classic example of epigenetics in operation. If a person becomes so attached to something made of metal, that it does this to them, then the consequences can be life-threatening. There is a moral in this for all of us...:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10549723

Gloom easing on 'very dark cloud'

4:00AM Friday Dec 26, 2008
By Juliet Rowan (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/juliet-rowan/news/headlines.cfm?a_id=101)


http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/feat60.jpg
Raymond Seymour has struggled with distress and ill health since the medal thefts. Photo / Alan Gibson


Related NZHerald links:


Army man laments 'crime against the nation' (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10480148)

"It's been a difficult year," retired Colonel Raymond Seymour says. "But there have been some high points in it."

A little over a year ago, the Waiouru Army Museum director got a call in the early hours to say thieves had smashed their way into the building he refers to as "the home of the nation's taonga [treasures]".

Those responsible for the night-time raid had gone to the heart of that sacred space, stealing 96 medals belonging to the country's greatest war heroes from the museum's Valour Alcove.

For the next 2 months, Colonel Seymour was distraught, unable to sleep as long as the medals were missing.

Even now, he is still able to recite the moment they were snatched: "1.10am on December 2, 2007".

Relief came on February 15 when police told Colonel Seymour they had recovered the collection, which included nine Victoria Crosses belonging to the likes of Charles Upham, Keith Elliott and Clive Hulme.

But he was still angry the thieves had not been caught and was anxious for the medals to be returned to "their rightful home".

Then, driving back from work one evening, he felt an excruciating pain in his belly, and collapsed.

He was rushed to hospital, where doctors found a tumour in his pancreas and ordered the 61-year-old to go home and, in his words, "get my affairs in order".
The tumour has since shrunk and Colonel Seymour is feeling "95 per cent", determined he will not be beaten by cancer - the same disease that killed his first wife and left his son fighting for his life.

He was also relieved in October to learn of the arrest of two men for allegedly stealing the war medals, and then, a few days later, to see the irreplaceable collection restored to the museum.

Families of the medal recipients were among those who attended a "marvellous" ceremony on October 21, and Colonel Seymour said the emotion of the occasion, which involved young Army recruits forming a guard of honour, was overwhelming.
He has also watched with joy as thousands of visitors have flocked through the doors of the newly secure museum to view the medals since.

"There has been a silver lining of this very, very dark cloud," he said.
Colonel Seymour expects the crowds to swell during the summer holidays, and hopes visitors will take the time to look at other exhibitions, particularly a new one focused on New Zealand soldiers in World War I.

The Last 100 Days: Victory and Home exhibition takes visitors through a wood-lined trench while a smell mimicking mustard gas fills the air.

Colonel Seymour said the courageous deeds of World War I soldiers had been overlooked and the exhibition was designed to raise awareness of how those New Zealanders helped to bring about the war's end.

Dressed in his uniform with his own set of eight medals, the Vietnam and Malaya veteran said he was still angry at the "despicable act" of those who plundered the Valour Alcove, but had always been confident of arrests because the country's four million people were also horrified.

"I'll be angry for the rest of my life but it will dissipate as new milestones are met," he said.

The two suspects, whose identities are suppressed, are due back in court on January 12.

Momtezuma Tuatara
07-01-09, 03:14 PM
This is a crucial article, and I want everyone here to read this (http://www.newtreatments.org/Hypomagnesia/ga/203). It will take a while, but every word is worth it. It's pretty much a small book, but covers pretty much the guts of it all.

Later, I'm going to expand on key nutrients and their interactions, but there are some other concepts that need putting up first...

Momtezuma Tuatara
07-01-09, 03:20 PM
Use this chart (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR15/wtrank/wt_rank.html) to find out which foods are highest in which nutrients.

Spy
07-01-09, 03:26 PM
Use this chart (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR15/wtrank/wt_rank.html) to find out which foods are highest in which nutrients.

Wow. That's the best I've seen so far, thanks! :D

Momtezuma Tuatara
26-01-09, 08:47 AM
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4650566a19716.html (http://www.stuff.co.nz/4650566a19716.html)

Anxious mothers make timid babies
By DONNA CHISHOLM - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 10 August 2008

Pregnant and stressed to the max? You could be creating a child who's timid, anxious and temperamental.

Visiting Canadian academic Professor Michael Meaney, a researcher into the effects of maternal stress on children's behaviour, says a woman's mental health can be just as important as her physical health in determining how her baby fares.

"For children in general, the level of anxiety of the mother is a very good predictor of the level of timidity and anxiety in the offspring."

Meaney is directing a major study at Montreal's McGill University that follows groups of depressed women through pregnancy and monitors them and their children over the following years.

He says research has shown the repeated or long-term release of stress hormones during pregnancy has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, immune problems and mental illness in offspring.

And it means that babies being born with such problems are often the offspring of parents who are most ill-equipped to cope.

The hormones affect the development of areas of the brain, inhibit growth of the baby and disrupt the blood flow through the placenta.

So how much stress is too much?

"You don't need to start talking about people in war zones or suffering serious mental health problems before you start seeing these effects."
Societies with high rates of poverty and crime were hotbeds for disruption of the baby's growth in the womb and later mental health problems the so-called cycle of abuse was not only the result of learning the behaviour by watching it.

Attention deficit disorders, fear and anxiety, acute shyness, social phobias and schizophrenia could all be linked back to poor foetal development and maternal stress.

Meaney's research will examine whether the consequences of these problems during pregnancy and poor foetal growth can be offset by a good upbringing.

His studies in rats have shown that when exposed to stress, the offspring of mothers who licked their babies more than others were calmer during stress and had a greater capacity to learn than pups reared by low-licking mothers. So a mother's touch may also be a means by which genes involved in shaping our response to stress get turned on or off.

"For some kids, good parents are substantially more important than for others," Meaney says. "When you look at children who are more difficult, for those children parental skills are critical.

"If you have an easygoing, happy baby, these kids are essentially `just add water'.

"The problem is that the population of kids who are temperamentally difficult are born to parents least able to deal with them."

Meaney, in New Zealand as a guest of the Liggins Institute which specialises in perinatal research, is giving a free public lecture, "Happy mothers, healthy children", on August 13 at 6pm at the University of Auckland Business School.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again, I don't agree with everything Gluckman has to say. I think Lipton is the better "authority" on epigenetics.

Momtezuma Tuatara
26-01-09, 08:48 AM
These are some of his books, which, if you read, you need to eat the flesh and spit the supposition and his ego:

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=t6zBlKcokMgC&dq=%22The+Fetal+Matrix%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result (http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=t6zBlKcokMgC&dq=%22The+Fetal+Matrix%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result)

http://www.amazon.com/Fetal-Matrix-Evolution-Development-Disease/dp/0521542359 (http://www.amazon.com/Fetal-Matrix-Evolution-Development-Disease/dp/0521542359)

http://www.amazon.com/Developmental-Origins-Health-Disease-Gluckman/dp/0521847435/ref=pd_sim_b_1/179-0172053-7670667 (http://www.amazon.com/Developmental-Origins-Health-Disease-Gluckman/dp/0521847435/ref=pd_sim_b_1/179-0172053-7670667)

Nirvana
08-02-09, 08:49 PM
Sticky this one too please. Some really fantastic info on epigenetics. :write: