Genes and our lives
Google search "minnesota twin study"
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#newwindow=1&q=minnesota+twin+study
“Dial down the drama” - book on mothers working with teen daughters whose brains are not all that developed and are under the influence of hormones and neurochemicals
Stanton Peele - author of Love and Addiction (1975), about falling in love being a strong brain chemical experience
Judson Brewer - curiosity pays, MD who runs a program of mindfulness to help stop smoking and other addictions - TED talk
Johann Hart - TED talk on people given high powered heroin in the hospital who don’t realize that is what they get, who benefit and who don’t get addicted. Also about rat studies that show addiction when they have nothing to do but not in an enriched environment
Idolatry, false goods and addiction - It seems possible that we can classify allowing ourselves to overuse cigarettes, alcohol and drugs in place of something better as related to idolatry
Fascination in the previous years with “will power”
Inevitability of alcoholism and drug addiction or not: is addition preordained by genetics?
From “Inheritance” by a medical geneticist -
But it’s all much deeper than that, because your body is in a constant state of transformation and regeneration and your experiences, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, from bullies to crushes to sloppy joes, have all left an indelible mark within you. And more importantly, within your genome. Of course, this isn’t how most of us have been taught to think about the three-billion-letter equation that makes up our genetic inheritance. Ever since Gregor Mendel’s mid-nineteenth-century* investigations into the inherited traits of pea plants were used to set the foundations for our understanding of genetics, we’ve been taught that who we are is a resolutely predictable matter of the genes we’ve inherited from previous generations. A little from Mom. A little from Dad. Whip it up, and there’s you. That calcified view of genetic inheritance is what students in middle school classrooms are still studying to this day when they map out pedigree charts in an effort to make sense of their fellow students’ eye color, curly hair, tongue rolling, or hairy fingers. And the lesson, delivered as though on stone tablets from Mendel himself, is that we don’t have much of a choice in the matter of what we get or what we give, because our genetic legacy was completely fixed when our parents conceived us. But that’s all wrong. Because right now, whether you are seated at your desk sipping a coffee, slumped into a recliner at home, riding a stationary bike at the gym, or orbiting the planet on the International Space Station, your DNA is being constantly modified. Like thousands upon thousands of little light switches, some are turning on while others are turning off, all in response to what you’re doing, what you’re seeing, and what you’re feeling. This process is mediated and orchestrated by how you live, where you live, the stresses you face, and the things you consume. And all of those things can be changed. Which, in very certain terms, means you can change. Genetically.* This is not to say that our lives are not also shaped by our genes. They most certainly are. In fact, what we’re learning is that our genetic inheritance— every last nucleotide “letter” that makes up our genome— is instrumental and influential in ways that even the most fanciful science-fiction writer could not have imagined just a few short years ago. Day by day, we’re gaining the tools and knowledge we need to embark on a new genetic journey— to take hold of a timeworn chart, lay it out across the table of our lives, and mark upon it a new course for ourselves, our children, and everyone down the line. Discovery by discovery, we’re coming to better understand the relationship between what our genes do to us and what we do to our genes. And this idea— this flexible inheritance— is changing everything. Food and exercise. Psychology and relationships. Medication. Litigation. Education. Our laws. Our rights. Long-held dogmas and deeply felt beliefs. Everything. Even death itself. Until now, most of us have been under the assumption that our life experiences end when our lives end. That’s wrong, too. We are the culmination of our life experience as well as the life experiences of our parents and ancestors. Because our genes don’t easily forget. War, peace, feast, famine, diaspora, disease— if our ancestors went through it and survived, we’ve inherited it. And once we’ve got it, we’re that much more likely to pass it on to the next generation in one way or another. That might mean cancer. It might mean Alzheimer’s disease. It might mean obesity. But it might also mean longevity. It might mean grace under fire. And it might just mean happiness itself. For better or for worse, we are now learning that it is possible to accept and reject our inheritance. This is a guidebook for that journey.”
Moalem MD PhD, Sharon. Inheritance: How Our Genes Change Our Lives--and Our Lives Change Our Genes (Kindle Locations 19-47). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Link to Amazon books about CRISPR CRISPR is a gene manipulation technique/tool. Some books about it are free if you have Amazon Prime and low cost without it.