Dr. Sarah Gottfried

The devastating Sri Lanka explosions, terrorist attacks, horrific school shootings, deadly wars, they all have the tragic potential to affect the health of generations of lives through the transgenerational transmission of trauma. In her research, Rachel Yehuda found epigenetic inheritance of survivor trauma; the survivors’ DNA did not change, but the epigenetic marks did, and those changes (the sticky notes attached to FKBP5 and an increased risk of PTSD) were passed on to the survivors’ offspring. Another recent investigation into epigenetic changes looked at the health records of nearly 4,600 children whose fathers had been Prisoners of War (PoWs), comparing them to just over 15,300 children of veterans of the war who had not been captured. Additional reviews have found an “accumulating amount of evidence of an enduring effect of trauma exposure to be passed to offspring transgenerationally via the epigenetic inheritance mechanism of DNA methylation alterations and has the capacity to change the expression of genes and the metabolome.

Healthspan is about the day-to-day choices that defy your genetic tendencies and fight diseases of aging, such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease (“ I want to help you make the most proven choices, day-to-day, in my new online course The Aging Reset: Make Aging Optional. I’ve pored over the best studies and anti-aging books, defining the best practices (many of which are new, and some are counterintuitive), planning ways to follow the best practices, and preparing to give you the opportunity to perform the protocol. Achieve dramatic results and transform your health and life; Calculate your HealthspanScoreTM, and track it over time so that you stay young; Learn the insider secrets that impact your body, environment, and mind when it comes to de-aging; Discover your top 12 genes and how to improve the way they are expressed in your body, so that you lose pounds, gain muscle and confidence; Create a customized protocol to combat your own healthspan hot spots – which may be problems such as weight, food, sleep, relationship, purpose – so that you can look and feel younger; Develop expertise in the new field of genomics, and the practical lifestyle tweaks that are needed to live long and well (ideal for health practitioners and citizen sciences who love to be on the cutting edge); Inject new enthusiasm into your health journey and avoid burnout.

The way to determine if a food will trigger your DNA in a good or bad way is to measure your genotype and phenotype. The second way that Big Data has helped us understand what to eat is the concept that genes load the gun but food pulls the trigger. In Which We Eat The third aspect we need to take into consideration is the CONTEXT, i.e. WHEN you eat your food. Look at the environment and how it is interacting with what you eat: If you’re not sure what to eat, perform an elimination diet and cut out sugar, dairy, caffeine, and gluten.

The gut-brain axis (GBA) refers to the vast communication between the gut (and its enteric nervous system) and the brain (i.e., the central nervous system), which links the gut with the emotional and cognitive centers of the brain. The most common root cause of gut-brain axis dysfunction includes: excess stress and other causes of increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut)nutrient deficiencies (such as not enough prebiotic foods) All of these lead to an increase in inflammation, which is the final common pathway for GBA disruption. The progress of inflammation along the gut-brain axis begins with gut dysfunction then progresses to brain fog but it doesn’t end there. When you don’t get enough sleep, inflammation rises in the brain Supplements that can help improve the health of the gut, thereby reducing inflammation in the body and brain, include: Probiotics to encourage diversity in the gutVitamin C may act as a buffer to protect against the effects of cortisol (the stress hormone) and corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) on the lining of the gutL-Glutamine to protect the lining of your gut wallOmega-3s to protect the brain-body from inflammation.