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What You Eat Affects Your Genes
purkinje writes "Tiny bits of genetic material, called microRNAs, can make their way from the food you eat into your blood stream, and change how your genes are expressed, according to a new study. A team of Chinese scientists found tiny bits of white rice microRNA floating around in people's blood after a meal. When they looked at what was happening on a cellular level, they found that the microRNAs were changing gene expression, decreasing levels of a receptor that filters out LDL (bad) cholesterol. When the scientists gave mice both rice and a chemical to block the microRNAs, their levels of that receptor returned to normal — showing that the microRNAs weren't just swimming through the blood stream, but acting on genes in the animals' cells."
... Jeans
...they probably would have used a different pairing of test subjects besides "mice" and "rice"
looks interesting, not my field but I have to ask if there is existing research with similar findings.
anyone got better introductory information on this topic?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroRNA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_expression
I eat lot of junk food, so only my junk dna is affected. And my sweatpants don't fit anymore. But that's ok; my virtual girlfriend still says I look good.
Broken clock is right blah blah blah. As much crazy bullshit that that idiot spews, he is bound to get something right eventually. (Contrast this with MSM, who never get anything right, so I draw the conclusion that they are not incompetent, but malicious).
What you didn't read is the chance that that hazard will actually manifest, and the comparison between that chance and the chance of getting whatever the disease is preventing. Then there's the severity of side effects to consider... The worst likely side effect of most vaccines is discomfort for up to a few days. The worst likely side effect of many vaccine-preventable diseases is death.
Alex Jones is just as bad as Fox News. He presents only facts that support his particular crazy theory, and ignores every bit of information that doesn't. That one of his bits of almost-credible information has some superficial similarity to actual science doesn't change anything.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Who knew the old phrase "You are what you eat" could actually be true!
This is amazing and one more nail in the coffin of our long-held dogma of genes being passed down from two parents, expressed but otherwise unaltered, then passed down to our children, all with just a little bit of mixing and mutation. From epigenetic modifications, to massive variances of stomach flora even between relatives, now to food's ability to affect our very gene expression... we've got some serious reconsidering to do about what makes us who we are.
Very cool.
Hey mate, spare a sig?
This is why we have the phrase 'You are what you eat," after all.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If I eat lots of chicken............ i'm going to turn into a chicken?
In ten years we could have scientifically proven "homeopathic" remedies.
Gene-doping through diet manipulation. Lose weight, increase brain function, increase blood flow while reducing blood pressure, even creating or discovering new gene functions. Perhaps a mutation that gives blood plasma a lubricating effect that prevents arterial plaque.
Or, for the vain men (and women) in the audience, truly reversing hair loss.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
This is exactly why we need to be careful about GMO taking over our food. They modify them so they don't reproduce so the companies making them can keep reselling them. You are eating them. They did studies on mice and they became sterile after 3 generations. This is what GMOs are doing to humans.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Just a side note, a common preservative Sodium(Natrium) Benzoate (NaC6H5CO2) used in most foodstuff is long known to cause alterations in human DNA. For example, almost all brands of ketchups use this preservative.
Wikipedia: Sodium Benzoate: Safety & Health
Diet Coke to drop additive in DNA damage fear
How long do these changes last?
If this were a permanent change, one would wonder why all those Southeast Asian people who consume white rice regularly don't end up with high LDL counts counts and subsequently a high per-capita rate of heart attacks.
Is this a short-lived change, like until the affected cells undergo Mitosis again (~30 mins.), or is there another food in tyhese people's diets that counteracts this genetic change?
Alex Jones needs to be taken off the air immediately and sent to China for Organ Harvesting that is the only way that vile kook will be of any use to humanity.
This is what happens when you let these kooks and conspiracy theorists say whatever they want to say. We need the FCC to step in and tell these morons to either tell the truth or take their vile Tea Party spewing rhetoric and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.
We used to have FCC rules against such morons, but the Reptile Republican patron Saint his Highness Ronald McDonald Reaganus Maximus screwed all of that up and now we have to listen to such blowhard work against the progress that has been made in last 90 years. These cretins rally their ignorant masses against the Progressive measures that are there to make their lives better, they are like the people throwing wooden shoes into the machinery, worse they are terrorists and should be treated as such.
Oh and don't get me started on their worship of the "Founders", a bunch of slave holders like Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. The Tea Party has stated they want to abolish the Amendment that freed the slaves, They want a return to the plantation and won;t be happy until the black man is out picking cotton for them.
Their precious constitution was written over 300 years ago and holds absolutely no relevance today, they had no idea what electricity was or even cars. We would be better to just to have one final amendment to constitution to void it and write a new one that ensures social justice and a fair wage equal wage so that the CEO and the factory line worker make the same amount of money then we will be able to finally have a country we can be proud of.
what are you doing? youre responding to what you accuse as being crackpottery with your own crackpottery. of course, in your world, democrat good, republican bad.. you have no business calling him a simpleton.
I thought we knew this for years. I remember reading about this in the late 1980s in Popular Science. The same issue also talked about prions and other fuctup stuff, like spongiform encephalitus (before all the hipster cows made it popular).
such a trite, annoying phrase... yet, even more annoyingly, it damn well turns out to be true! i remember seeing this mural, done by some ayurvedic indian guru thousands of years ago. it depicted a tiger mauling its prey violently, and eating it. underneath was an obese man, mouth open and wide-eyed in the same expression as the tiger. i thought at the time, "yes very interesting" and really didn't give it much more thought. yet here we are, in 2011, and "modern science" now backs up "ancient wisdom" yet again. how annoying.
This is a Chinese study saying rice is bad for you?
Or is it only "white" rice?
I only eat brown rice anyway but still, this seems odd. Are they trying to make a case for everyone to eat McDonald's or what?
so tell me... why is Genetic Modification of food allowed? what's a direct consequence of introducing or removing genes from food that we eat? (answer: RTA). so how are we to know that Genetic Modified food will not have unintended consequences, as a direct result of the removal or insertion of genes that would otherwise never have gotten there?
it's been shown years ago that gut bacteria adopt the genetically-modified soya bean genes into their own RNA. what happens when someone decides to "leverage" food crops to produce drugs, and those accidentally cross-pollinate with the world's food supply? that would be an incredibly stupid and irresponsible thing to do, right? oh wait - i see it's already been implemented. complete insanity, and this research goes to show how much is being put at risk: our lives.
Glagnar's Human Rinds. Now with flavor.
Sig this!
Their precious constitution was written over 300 years ago
And which constitution is that? The US Constitution is only 224 years old.
Also, what if you can't impose social jistice by fiat?
I don't like you anymore.
I wonder if this will have relevant effects on research into addiction to nicotine and other drugs? Such as the addiction to those drugs possibly being written into our genes?
[End Of Line]
Alexander Hamilton
But, Alexander Hamilton was a federalist!
Nope, mice are relatively cheap, easy to handle, and have physiology somewhat similar to humans' in English-speaking countries too.
A Fat Man's Prayer:
Lord, my soul is ripped with riot,
Incited by my wicked diet.
"We are what we eat!" said a wise old man;
And Lord, if that's true, I'm a garbage can.
I want to rise on Judgment Day, that's plain;
But at my present weight, I'll need a crane.
So grant me strength, that I may not fall,
Into the clutches of cholesterol.
May my flesh with carrot-curls be sated,
That my soul may be poly-unsaturated.
And show me the light, that I may bear witness,
To the President's Council on Physical Fitness.
And at oleomargarine I'll never mutter,
For the road to Hell is spread with butter.
And cream is cursed; and cake is awful;
And Satan is hiding in every waffle.
Mephistopheles lurks in provolone;
The Devil is in each slice of baloney;
Beelzebub is a chocolate drop;
And Lucifer is a lollipop.
Give me this day my daily slice,
But cut it thin and toast it twice.
I beg upon my dimpled knees;
Deliver me from jujubes.
And when my days of trial are done,
And my war with malted milks is won,
Let me stand with the heavenly throng
In a shining robe - size 44 long.
I can do it, Lord, if you'll show to me
The virtues of lettuce and celery;
If you'll teach me the evils of mayonnaise,
The sinfulness of Hollandaise.
Of Pasta a la Milannaise,
Potatoes a la Lyonnaise.
And crisp-fried chicken from the South,
Lord, if you love me, shut my mouth.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
The food you eat can change your genes. Presumably, if you eat bad food it will have negative genetic effects. THIS must be the reason the average American holds their present stereotype.
Genes are made out of what you eat!
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Heh, that gave me a good chuckle.
Jones is classic dis-information - some controversial nuggets of truth mixed in with batshit-crazy to make sure the truths are dismissed as well.
"Oh, that's one of those Alex Jones theories - you know he's batshit crazy, right?"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm going to have a hard time believing this, until we get a couple more labs to replicate the findings.
Just about every animal on earth, including us, produces copious amounts of RNAse, an enzyme that shreds RNA molecules. And while most enzymes are rather fragile, RNAse is unusally robust -- you can boil some RNAses for hours, and they will retain their activity. They're everywhere, on your skin, in your body -- and it's a pain in the butt when you're working with RNA (you put RNAse inhibitors in everything to keep them from chewing up your material).
It's almost as if it were being produced as some kind of defense mechanism against... hmm....
Jeans? Who needs jeans? A kilt gives more room "down there" and can improve circulation around the equipment that a man uses to pass on his genes. So does an ankle-length shirt.
Don't use that phrase around kids, or they might shun their vegetables for fear of turning into the next Terri Schiavo.
so tell me... why is Genetic Modification of food allowed?
Selective breeding over generations is genetic modification, and it's been going on for the past four millennia. Did you mean " recombinant genetic modification"?
what happens when someone decides to "leverage" food crops to produce drugs, and those accidentally cross-pollinate with the world's food supply?
Patent lawsuits like Monsanto v. Schmeiser.
What if I want a purse made out of human skin?
I guess it's good to see it mainstreamed. I just wonder what people with complete faith in genes believed activated genes.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Say I go to Chick-fil-A to eat more chikin, and I order a #1 (chicken breast sandwich, waffle fries, Coke Zero). Now a chicken breast is the pectoralis muscle of a chicken, so if I eat chicken pecs, will that help me build my own pecs?
2. If not, are those populations less sensitive to the effects?
And just to mention here, why call it "white" rice in the summary? Same genes, whole grain or not. TDA doesn't suggest that white rice puts more microRNA into the bloodstream. It doesn't make a distinction anywhere.
Er, TFA..
You'll have to contact Hugo Boss. Ask for the Schutzstaffel catalog.
GMO's are harmless and good for you.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Boss
Evidently, the eponymous founder of Hugo Boss was indeed heavily involved with the Nazis, including as a uniform manufacturer.
However, the stuff-made-of-human-skin myth seems ironic considering the actual horrors of Nazi Germany.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Allegedly, ( & afaik it's actually been tested (to an extent)) it helps stop cancers/tumors!
* In fact? See here, straight from THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY on that very note -> http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/DietandNutrition/inositol-hexaphosphate
(Pretty damned cool & I hope you guys all pick up on this - well, except for the damned trolls around here that is... They should get cancer as far as I am concerned, & leave us all be!)
APK
P.S.=> You KNOW the "old saying" of "How could a billion Chinese be wrong?", well... I guess they aren't, but personally? I like INDIA'S RICE BETTER (Basmati rice RULES!!! Comes in 'sealed bricks', you have to see it, & cooks VERY quickly too!)
... apk
You think it would have been better to use cats and rats?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And it does provide a new and more terrifying insight into exactly how a carcinogen might work. If the cell membranes aren't the bulwarks we thought they were it certainly explains how a cancer causing agent might get in to do its dirty work.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I expect to hear this being quoted in defence of homeopathy.
Up until now the the micro-RNA created by homeopathic succussion has been overlooked by as an agent in human health...
Duh! What part of that did people not understand?
I posed this question back in freshman bio in university, and was blown off, but was honestly curious.
Why wouldnt DNA be affected by any other chemical, naturual or not, it comes in contact with? It seemed to me as if it being sold to me as some magic, carved in stone, "bluebrint for life", but why would it be different than any other compound that can be adultered.
Why wouldnt centuries of common diet account for physical differences in races, different attitudes, etc?
So what I eat drink and ingest can affect my cerebral cortex? Beer, librium and crack can affect me? Gosh, I never knew that. Thank God for these articles.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
This is fucked up if true.
Antibodies from women with a rare condition known as immune infertility are used in the creation of GMO food
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may282011/gmo-not-food-cs.php
I seem to remember reading about traces of certain plastic showing up in people's blood after many years of use. Anyone got more details on this?
Imagine if plastic flatware, cups, etc. is the "lead mugs" of the next few generations? In 2250 they'll look back on us and wonder what the hell we were thinking...
You probably remember reading about BPA. BPA is used in the plastic lining inside of cans, poly-carbonate water bottles, thermal printers used for the receipts you get at a typical store. Although BPA both accumulates and is eliminated from the body pretty quickly, some people are worried about long term exposure as it is pretty much in everything these days so we never really get rid of all of it from our bodies because of constant re-exposure...
You're assuming the article is true. Chinese scientists have a reputation for making stuff up.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Food components affecting gene expression isn't really new. To use the relatively well known example of the lac operon, lactose from dairy products upregulates production of enzymes for the breakdown of lactose in bacteria. The only difference here is that the regulation is occurring post-transcriptionally.
Given the amount of fraud in Chinese science it makes a lot of sense to wait for confirmation from a more credible source.
And even if Chinese science were whiter than white, your blind-acceptance is decidedly un-scientific.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
No, I think a fox and lox. But I would not eat it in a box.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
How you even know you got methylation islands, kid?
You suck cox.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The obvious follow-up research is, of course, if that microRNA also appers in unborn children? What would that do for Lamarckism?
TFA says nothing about the rice being white. If anything brown rice should contain more RNA, not less.
The post should talk about microRNA found in white *mice* that were eating white rice...
is the true reason in the exponential increase in obesity; industrialized foods that not only alter our metabolism, but our very genes. Perhaps we need to look for microRNA snippets that are generated by BPA and other steroid-like chemicals.
I apologise for all those times I rebuked my friends and made them feel foolish for ranting on while stoned or drunk about "evolving" in their own lifetimes, by ingesting chemicals or meditating or whatever. I take back all those times when I said, "no, at best you'll be able to manipulate such changes across numerous generations of carefully selected offspring, but it's not likely to be something you can see to fruition before you die, let alone something you can perform in one generation, let alone something we'll ever see made possible to begin with in our own lifetimes, let alone something you can cause to happen inside of yourself in this lifetime."
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
A previous poster wonders why the microRNAs aren't being degraded. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that these RNAs form little hair-pin regions where they're double-stranded. That probably ensures that they are not broken down by RNAse
There's nothing I can see in TFA that says this is white rice. Which is no surprise to me, considering that white and brown rice are the same species. Brown is "wholemeal".
Does that means that Mc Donnalds is bad for our health?
O.o