For many years, doctors, researchers and patients have all assumed that the primary responsibility for the state of the fetus was the mother, her health, her nutrients, her toxic exposures and her thoughts.

Recently, the new science called epigenetics has been burgeoning. I have mentioned epigenetics in my articles before. However, by way of summary, “epi” means “above” and therefore epigenetics means influences that are “above the gene”.

What does that really mean? It means that it is not just what genes we have, but what effects has the environment has had on these genes. Epigenetics determines how genes are turned on or off and this determines what proteins the genes make. These proteins then directly influence our health.

It is now coming to light that the health of the father’s sperm is of equal importance as the health of the mother during pregnancy in determining our children’s future health.

It turns out that the toxins that a man has been exposed to can end up affecting his sperm directly. What future parents should understand, and is now being proven, is that the health of their unborn children can be affected by what the man eats, the toxins he is exposed to, the traumas he has undergone, and his age at the time of conception. In other words, a man’s life experience leaves biological traces on his children. In addition his children can pass these biological markers on to their children.

This article shows that even fear can be transmitted through a man’s sperm.

All these influences on a man’s sperm occur through epigenetic mechanisms.  New research is showing this in the most astonishing way. For example, recent research has shown that Vinclozin, which is a fungicide that used to be sprayed all over our country, is able to block the production of testosterone. Male rats born to mothers who were given a significant dose of Vinclosin are highly likely to be born with defective testicles and reduced fertility. This is not a surprise and it’s what I’ve talked to you about in my previous articles. This is why mothers need to avoid these toxins during pregnancy and hopefully clean them out as much as possible before conception.

However the shocking result of this study is that the problems these baby rats were born with continue to reappear for up to four generations of male rats born after the mother’s exposure.

When a woman is born she has all the eggs she will ever have. However, by the time a man turns 40, his gonads cells will have divided 610 times to make his sperm. This gives an increasing chance for epigenetic changes to occur to his DNA that will subsequently affect his child and his future generations.

Dr. Michael Skinner is one of the foremost researchers and a founder of this science of epigenetics. Dr. Skinner was the first to do the study mentioned above on Vinclosin.

After his findings with Vinclosin, he subsequently tested additional substances that lead to diseases in the rat’s prostate, kidney, ovaries and immune system. Repeatedly these diseases also showed up in the fourth and fifth generation offspring of mothers who had been exposed to the chemical.

To quote Dr. Skinner: “In essence, what your great-grandmother was exposed to causes disease in you and your children.”

What Dr. Skinner also found was that these changes did not occur in the actual genes themselves but rather by the patterns of simple molecules called methyl groups that attach to the cells that eventually become eggs or sperm.

These methyl groups are just a carbon atom with three hydrogen atoms attached. Methyl groups stick like “burrs stuck to a knit sweater”

and interfere with the functioning of the DNA. Dr. Skinner found that these “burrs” stayed on the DNA for generations.

Dr. Skinner thereby coined a new field of medicine called “Transgenerational Epigenetics”. This is the study of inherited changes that cannot be explained by traditional genetics.

Dr. Skinner has gone on to do more research, as noted above, with additional chemicals including insect spray, jet fuel and BPA. He has found that each exposure leaves a distinct pattern of methyl group arrangements and that these persisted into the great-grandchildren of exposed rats.

This is like your grandmother’s environmental exposure leaving a fingerprint on your genes that scientists can now actually trace.

A practical example of this is that Dr. Skinner has determined that exposure of rats to the chemical DDT can lead to obesity in the subsequent generations. Since every patient I test for DDT does have it in their body, could this be a contributor to our current epidemic of obesity?

In terms of preconception pregnancy planning, my big question is, will an intensive detoxification and chelation program be able to reverse the epigenetic changes that have occurred to a man’s sperm? And, is it thereby worthwhile for a man to do a detox before his wife conceives?

This is all cutting-edge research, and some of it is still thought to be controversial by very orthodox physicians. But it makes total sense to me and to my colleagues in integrative medicine that transgenerational epigenetics is playing a role in our health and in the health of our great-grandchildren.

Leave your comments below or find me on Twitter or Facebook and leave me a comment there!

Also remember to visit my Healthy Living Shop where you can get physician quality supplements for you health!

More Reading

Memories pas between generations

The toxins that affected your great-grandparents could be inyour genes

Dioxin directly affects the sperm

Why fathers really matter

Epigenetics and environmental chemicals

Paternal Stress Exposure alters offspring’s stress axis

Epigenetic inheritance through sperm

How genes turn on and off, methyl groups, and epigenetics

While most people visualize their Thanksgiving Day as a warm and loving time surrounded by family, cozy aromas of turkey and stuffing cooking in the oven and feelings of gratitude, it can also induce stress brought on by high expectations, hectic preparation for the big day, family spats and nagging worries of overeating. It’s things like this that build up and many times take the joy out of what could be a beautiful Thanksgiving holiday.

With some careful preparation and a bit of organization, Thanksgiving day can turn into the warm, memorable holiday you’ve imagined.

The key is to be prepared in advance before the holiday to create your ideal Thanksgiving, one without stress and chaos.

If you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner there are 10 things on your checklist to make it as stress-free and enjoyable as possible.

Click here to view the checklist.

Babies, who represent what is most innocent and pure about humanity, are being exposed to high levels of chemicals while still in the womb. Sadly, this chemical exposure leads to babies being born toxic with greatly heightened potential to develop chronic diseases much earlier in life.

The findings were revealed by an Environmental Working Group (EWG) study of the umbilical cord blood of 10 newborn babies in the United States. The umbilical cord is a good measure of contaminants because it pulses the equivalent of at least 300 quarts of blood each day back and forth between the placenta and the child.

While it was once thought that the placenta acted as a shield, protecting the baby from most chemicals and environmental pollutants, EWG found this is not the case. Researchers wrote in Body Burden – The Pollution in Newborns executive summary:

“Not long ago scientists thought that the placenta shielded cord blood — and the developing baby — from most chemicals and pollutants in the environment.

Click here to read more.

For many years, environmental doctors including myself have been asking our government and the women of the world, to pay attention to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC’s),and the role they are playing in the current epidemic of breast cancer.

In my own practice, my to help efforts have been to help my patients to understand that even the cosmetics and personal care products that they are using on their skin every day can disrupt their hormonal system,and thereby contribute to their development of breast cancer.

In addition, chemicals in the air we breathe similarly can disrupt our endocrine system. Specifically these chemicals are known as xeno-estrogens. This means “foreign” estrogens.

I’m delighted to see that organizations as prominent as breastcancer.org, are mounting campaigns to teach women how to avoid these kinds of chemicals.

Many new cosmetic and personal care products companies are opening and leaving these harmful chemicals out of their new products.

My colleagues at the Environmental Working Group have led the way with their Safe Cosmetics Database. This database has been on their site for many years and they have evaluated over 79,000 personal care products and rank them according to their safety.

This even counts men’s personal care products such as shaving cream, which can disrupt their endocrine system, contributing to prostate cancer.

Many industries as well as high-ranking officials in our national government, have been in denial about these effects for a very long time.

Now with the publication of a new article showing a direct link between breast cancer in certain occupations, I am delighted to see the United Steel Workers step out of the shadows and call for action to be taken to protect their female workers.

That is because of this recently [published article in Environmental Health. You might say that they have been forced to bring this to light because this study has shown that young women in the automotive plastics industry are up to five times more likely to have breast cancer than their peers working in other industries.

I am delighted to see that the United Steel Workers in their announcement are calling for their “Collective voice to win health and safety improvements in our workplaces, such as substituting less hazardous chemicals… to prevent worker exposures to harmful chemicals.”.

In addition, more and more organizations are forming to refocus our approach to breast cancer on prevention rather than only treatment. the Alliance for Cancer Prevention is leading the way in Europe..

Physicians, including myself, are now able to measure at least some of the endocrine disrupting chemicals in our patients. I do this routinely on patients who come to me after a diagnosis of breast cancer, in an effort to help them prevent a recurrence. However this can be done in interested women in an effort to help prevent a primary breast cancer.

Please help spread the word to your girlfriends and your children to avoid Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, of which phthalates are the most common type, as much as you possibly can.

Insist on buying phthalate free personal care products and make up. If we all talk loud enough the big-name cosmetics companies will be forced to get these chemicals out of their products.

For more information on phthalates click here.

Click Here to see a fact sheet showing which factors increase and decrease breast cancer risk

For more information on EDC’s click here.

Here is a another article on chemicals in the workplace and women’s health

Leave your comments below or find me on Twitter or Facebook and leave me a comment there!

In the United States, a disease is generally considered rare if it occurs in less than 200,000 people. Those who suffer from these so-called “orphan” diseases often go undiagnosed for years, and then are left with little to go on in terms of treatment, known causes and cures.

In honor of Rare Disease Day, which is coordinated by the National Organization for Rare Disorders and is coming up in February, we’re highlighting 10 rare diseases that many people have never heard of, in order to broaden horizons and promote awareness of these conditions.

This is just a small sampling of the nearly 7,000 rare diseases recognized by the National Institutes of Health Office of Rare Diseases Research. To learn more about a particular rare disease, you can visit their site directly.

Click here to find out about some rare diseases. 

 Even in some of the richest countries in the world, environmental toxins could be making you “health poor.” In fact, even with the best diet, regular exercise and an optimistic outlook, your health can be impacted by the air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat, and even the soil in which your food is grown.

Are These Eight Top Environmental Toxins Making You “Health Poor”?

More than 80,000 industrial chemicals have found their way into the U.S. environment over the last 50 years.

Contrary to popular belief, most of these chemicals have never been safety tested for use with humans, animals or the environment, and many environmental chemicals cannot be seen, smelled or tasted — but that doesn’t mean they are inert.

Click here to read more.