If you are one of those people who happens to be under the assumption that bad things just happen to people and with no explanation (death, disease, getting mauled by a bear), then the field of science probably isn't for you. In all likelihood you probably poked the bear... On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you believe that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, then you and I are probably kindred spirits. If you down too much booze, you're most likely going to puke your guts, if you slap your mom, you're going to get slapped back... and if you grew up in my house, Newton's law would need an amendment stating, "in every action, there is an equal and opposite, and sometimes more intense reaction." This my friends is the poking of the bear.
On my journey to cure my stupidity in the areas of epigenetics and disease with relation to breast cancer and microbial metabolites, I've found that I keep happening across literature that supports the over simplified adage that, "you are what you eat." If we're truly honest with ourselves, nobody wants to hear that the years of binge eating deep fried Oreos and carnival food is why we have cancer. But, if to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, then it is safe to assume that what we consume results in a series of unseen reactions. Eat good stuff... good stuff comes out... eat bad stuff, bad stuff comes out. Granted the human organism is extremely complex, and what's good for one may not be good for another, but I think it's fairly safe to say that what goes inside of us impacts our overall health.
In the blog post that I wrote about poop, I introduced the term epigenetics, which is basically the study of changes in gene expression with no change in the underlying gene sequence. We are finding that certain foods have the ability to regulate epigenetic processes which in turn affect the progression of certain diseases. Epigenetics has roles in cell cycle progression, DNA damage, cell death and much more, and I am of the opinion that there's an intermediary step that is responsible for food's ability to prompt epigenetic modulation resulting in the regulation of genes responsible for the initiation of disease. "Say whaaaat?" In other words, there's a bunch of stuff that goes down that causes one thing to affect another thing that tells a gene how to behave.
What mediates dietary epigenetic regulation? I'm not sure, but there's a lot of research suggesting that short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), the byproducts of our commensal bacteria, are capable of influencing epigenetic mechanisms. In fact what prompted this blog post was a paper I was reading that suggested the inhibition of inflammation through the inhibition of the epigenetic enzyme histone deacetylse via a SCFA called butyrate, may be able to influence immune response. If that's still throwing you for a loop, as a fellow Stupid Scientist I do hope that you've begun to utilize your critical thinking skills and resources by consulting with Dr. Google. I encourage you to read and discover by supplementing what you read here with actual research papers that will help to inform your learning.
In case you were wondering about a few of those words in that graphic at the top:
Global hypomethlyation= hallmark of cancer. In several cancers there is decrease in genome wide methylation an increase in methylation (hypermethylation) at the promoter region of tumor suppressor genes causing them to be inactive and incapable of suppressing cancer cell growth.
Site specific hypermethylation= addition of methyl groups resulting gene silencing of genes that should be active
DNA Methyltransferase= enzyme that transfers methyl (CH3) groups to DNA
Histone Methyltransferase= enzyme that transfers methyl groups to the histone
Histone Deacetylase/ Acetylase= Enzymes that add or remove acetyl groups from the histone which results in the binding or lack of binding of certain transcription factors which regulates the expression of genes.
Histones= proteins found in eukaryotic cell nuclei that package and order the DNA into structural units called nucleosomes.
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