Ed note: The age old argument about nature vs. nurture will likely continue on for ages. In the field of epigenetics it’s been discovered that we can actually turn our genes off/on with some life experiences. At times our beliefs may have more effect than our genes – as is shown in this fascinating study. So little is known about what makes us tick!
If you tell people they have a genetic predisposition to a low capacity for exercise or a tendency to overeat, their bodies start to respond accordingly.
From the NYT: “Just in time to befuddle people who received genetic testing kits for the holidays, a new study finds that if you tell people that they have a genetic predisposition to certain health characteristics, such as a low capacity for exercise or a tendency to overeat, their bodies start to respond accordingly. Even if their DNA does not actually contain the gene variants in question.
The study raises provocative questions about the extent to which our genes affect our physical well-being and whether, in some instances, our beliefs about our bodies, capabilities and limits might be even more influential.
DNA testing is trendy at the moment. Over-the-counter and prescription testing services promise to tell us about our health inheritance, including whether we are prone to weight gain, will respond well to exercise, can metabolize various foods efficiently, and face heightened — or reduced — risks for a broad range of medical conditions.
The accuracy of many of these claims, however, remains in doubt. Most scientists who study genetics consider the effects of many particular gene variants on health to be generally slight and still poorly understood.
But even less is known about the psychological impacts of learning that you might have a high or low genetic risk for health and fitness problems and how our subsequent attitudes might play out in our physiology.
So, for the new study, which was published in December in Nature Human Behavior, researchers at Stanford University set out to fool a large group of men and women about their genetics, at least temporarily.