Genetic Predisposition Quotes

Pride should be reserved for something you achieve or obtain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish isn't a skill... it's a fucking genetic accident. You wouldn't say I'm proud to be 5'11"; I'm proud to have a pre-disposition for colon cancer.

With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The two other bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn't mean the chambers were empty.

There is strong evidence that there exists a genetic predisposition for aggression. In all species the best hunter, the best fighter, the most aggressive male, survives to pass his biological predispositions on to his descendants. There are also environmental processes that can fully develop this predisposition toward aggression; when we combine this genetic predisposition with environmental development we get a killer.

I had recourse to magic, that is, to a kind of deliberate predisposition, an intuitive complicity with nature.

One of the more exciting benefits of good nutrition is the prevention of diseases that are thought to be due to genetic predisposition. We now know that we can largely avoid these “genetic” diseases even though we may harbor the gene (or genes) that is (are) responsible for the disease.

Imagine a person who enjoys alcohol, perhaps a bit too much. He has a quick three or four drinks. His blood alcohol level spikes sharply. This can be extremely exhilarating, particularly for someone who has a genetic predisposition to alcoholism.23 But it only occurs while blood alcohol levels are actively rising, and that only continues if the drinker keeps drinking. When he stops, not only does his blood alcohol level plateau and then start to sink, but his body begins to produce a variety of toxins, as it metabolizes the ethanol already consumed. He also starts to experience alcohol withdrawal, as the anxiety systems that were suppressed during intoxication start to hyper-respond. A hangover is alcohol withdrawal (which quite frequently kills withdrawing alcoholics), and it starts all too soon after drinking ceases. To continue the warm glow, and stave off the unpleasant aftermath, the drinker may just continue to drink, until all the liquor in his house is consumed, the bars are closed and his money is spent. The next day, the drinker wakes up, badly hungover. So far, this is just unfortunate. The real trouble starts when he discovers that his hangover can be “cured” with a few more drinks the morning after. Such a cure is, of course, temporary. It merely pushes the withdrawal symptoms a bit further into the future. But that might be what is required, in the short term, if the misery is sufficiently acute. So now he has learned to drink to cure his hangover. When the medication causes the disease, a positive feedback loop has been established.

Human nature is governed by general self-interest and affected by genetic predisposition, which implies that there are likely to be limits to our moral sensitivities.

It is curious that a genetic predisposition for homosexuality should persist in populations over the course of evolution, given that this group reproduces so much less.

believed in a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality,

A species that over many generations repeatedly exposes itself to some experience will eventually find its offspring selected for a genetic predisposition to cope with that experience. Why?

The effect of hallucinogenic mushrooms on the user's experience and behavior depends in part on his or her personality and genetic predisposition, which can vary to a great extent from person to person. As symptoms of psychiatric disorders can sometimes be elicited after one-off use, people with a genetic tendency to depression or psychosis should be discouraged from using psychoactive mushrooms.

depression can occur because of biological factors such as genetic predispositions, hormonal changes (including menopause, childbirth or thyroid problems) and differences in biochemistry (an imbalance of naturally occurring substances called neurotransmitters in the brain and spinal cord). In other cases, depression is caused by psychological factors, severe life stressors, substance abuse and certain medical conditions that affect the way your brain regulates your moods.

If any field needs integration, it is medicine. If any field needs an integrative paradigm that can make sense out of all the different models of healing, it is medicine. The weaknesses of the conventional medical model have been clear for some time. Its procedures are too invasive and have too many harmful side effects. There is no conventional medical model for the treatment of most chronic and degenerative diseases (germ theory and genetic predisposition are not adequate explanations for most conditions in this category). Last, but not least, conventional medicine is expensive. In contrast, there are so many

It is easy sometimes to blame genetics, some obesity gene perhaps. But even if this were true, we’ll still be referring to the machine. Genetics are predispositions. The body is designed as a closed system, physiologically speaking and unless acted upon by an outside or higher force it maintains its functions. It is designed to sustain its own survival. The psychological (self-ordinate command) is essential for this survival because the body also belongs to a self, one that can overfeed it, starve it or kill it as may be. It is also by material urges that you seek to acquire wealth and by self command, suppose what you consider a higher more fulfilling purpose that you choose to give it all away. The hard core truth is that despite some obesity gene, you can starve yourself to death if you want, or perhaps if you feel you have an ulterior higher purpose like an anorexic might, to look thin and beautiful in the eyes of the communal.

What if an EO isn’t a product of just any trauma? What if their bodies are reacting to the greatest physical and psychological trauma possible? Death. Think about it, the kind of transformation we’re talking about wouldn’t be possible with a physiological reaction alone, or a psychological reaction alone. It would require a huge influx of adrenaline, of fear, awareness. We talk about the power of will, we talk about mind over matter, but it’s not one over the other, it’s both at once. The mind and the body both respond to imminent death, and in those cases where both are strong enough—and both would have to be strong, I’m talking about genetic predisposition and will to survive—I think you might have a recipe for an EO.

We can choose the narrative we tell about our lives. We're born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn't choose. We're born with certain brain chemicals and genetic predispositions that we can't control. We're sometimes thrust into social conditions that we detest. But among all the things we don't control, we do have some control over our stories. We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to organize perceptions.

But the history of Hopkins Hospital certainly isn’t pristine when it comes to black patients. In 1969, a Hopkins researcher used blood samples from more than 7,000 neighborhood children—most of them from poor black families—to look for a genetic predisposition to criminal behavior. The researcher didn’t get consent. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit claiming the study violated the boys’ civil rights and breached confidentiality of doctor-patient relationships by releasing results to state and juvenile courts. The study was halted, then resumed a few months later using consent forms. And in the late nineties, two women sued Hopkins, claiming that its researchers had knowingly exposed their children to lead, and hadn’t promptly informed them when blood tests revealed that their children had elevated lead levels—even when one developed lead poisoning. The research was part of a study examining lead abatement methods, and all families involved were black. The researchers had treated several homes to varying degrees, then encouraged landlords to rent those homes to families with children so they could then monitor the children’s lead levels. Initially, the case was dismissed. On appeal, one judge compared the study to Southam’s HeLa injections, the Tuskegee study, and Nazi research, and the case eventually settled out of court. The Department of Health and Human Services launched an investigation and concluded that the study’s consent forms “failed to provide an adequate description” of the different levels of lead abatement in the homes.

One of the issues with our field is when we've looked at activity, and what controls activity, we've forgotten that we know very clearly there are biological mechanisms that actually influence people to be active or not" Lightfoot says. "You can have a predisposition to be a couch potato

All of those theories are essentially ways of saying that the criminal is a personality type —a personality type distinguished by an insensitivity to the norms of normal society. People with stunted psychological development don’t understand how to conduct healthy relationships. People with genetic predispositions to violence fly off the handle when normal people keep their cool. People who aren’t taught right from wrong are oblivious to what is and what is not appropriate behavior. People who grow up poor, fatherless, and buffeted by racism don’t have the same commitment to social norms as those from healthy middle class homes. Bernie Goetz and those four thugs on the subway were, in this sense, prisoners of their own, dysfunctional, world. But what do Broken Windows and the Power of Context suggest? Exactly the opposite. They say that the criminal—far from being someone who acts for fundamental, intrinsic reasons and who lives in his own world—is actually someone acutely sensitive to his environment, who is alert to all kinds of cues, and who is prompted to commit crimes based on his perception of the world around him. That is an incredibly radical—and in some sense unbelievable—idea.

The cat is an obligate carnivore and it is in its nature that it must eat meat. This is corroborated by the fact that cat's senses are made for “a crepuscular and predatory niche”. They are hunters, carnivores that show no developmental predisposition for herbivore lifestyle based on the current knowledge of their ancestral and genetic development.

The attempt to define free will is the granddaddy of these pointless quests. We understand what it is to be coerced. It is to be a prisoner frog-marched down a hill. Coercion is something tangible. Freedom is the absence of coercion, nothing more. Events from childhood do not coerce our personalities in adulthood. We are not frog-marched by parental spankings at age six into being guilt-ridden thirty-year-olds. Our genes do not coerce our adulthood. Unlike spankings, they have a substantial statistical effect on our personality, but we are not frog-marched into being alcoholics even if our biological parents are alcoholics. Even having the genetic predisposition, there are tactics we can adopt to avoid alcoholism. We can, for example, shun drinking altogether. There are many more teetotal people with alcoholic parents than you would expect there to be by chance alone. Absent coercion, we are free. Freedom of the will, choice, the possibility of change, mean nothing more-absolutely nothing more than the absence of coercion. This means simply that we are free to change many things about ourselves. Indeed, the main facts of this book—that depressives often become nondepressives, that lifelong panickers become panic free, that impotent men become potent again, that adults reject the sex role they were raised with, that alcoholics become abstainers—demonstrate this. None of this means that therapists, parents, genes, good advice, and even dyspepsia do not influence what we do. None of this denies that there are limits on how much we can change. It only means that we are not prisoners.

The American system of jurisprudence recognizes a wide range of factors, predispositions, prejudices, and experiences that might cloud our judgment, or affect our objectivity—sometimes even without our knowing it. It goes to great, perhaps even extravagant, lengths to safeguard the process of judgment in a criminal trial from the human weaknesses of those who must decide on innocence or guilt. Even then, of course, the process sometimes fails. Why would we settle for anything less when interrogating the natural world, or when attempting to decide on vital matters of politics, economics, religion, and ethics? — If it is to be applied consistently, science imposes, in exchange for its manifold gifts, a certain onerous burden: We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically—not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told; to surmount as best we can our hopes, conceits, and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really are. Can we conscientiously and courageously follow planetary motion or bacterial genetics wherever the search may lead, but declare the origin of matter or human behavior off-limits? Because its explanatory power is so great, once you get the hang of scientific reasoning you’re eager to apply it everywhere. However, in the course of looking deeply within ourselves, we may challenge notions that give comfort before the terrors of the world.

Virtually all the authors of popular books on the subject assert that ADD is a heritable genetic disorder. With some notable exceptions, the genetic view also dominates much of the discussion within professional circles, a view I do not agree with. I believe that ADD can be better understood if we examine people’s lives, not only bits of DNA. Heredity does make an important contribution, but far less than usually assumed. At the same time, it would serve no purpose to set up the false opposition of environment to genetic inheritance. No such split exists in nature, or in the mind of any serious scientist. There are many biological events involving body and brain that are not directly programmed by heredity, and so to say that ADD is not primarily genetic is not in any sense to deny its biological features — either those that are inherited or those that are acquired as a result of experience. The genetic blueprints for the architecture and the workings of the human brain develop in a process of interaction with the environment. ADD does reflect biological malfunctions in certain brain centers, but many of its features — including the underlying biology itself — are also inextricably connected to a person’s physical and emotional experiences in the world. There is in ADD an inherited predisposition, but that’s very far from saying there is a genetic predetermination. A predetermination dictates that something will inevitably happen. A predisposition only makes it more likely that it may happen, depending on circumstances. The actual outcome is influenced by many other factors.

It was the combination of many factors," Dr. Hornicker said in his last report, written for no medical reason but just because he couldn't get the girls out of his head. "With most people," he said, "suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn't mean the chambers were empty." But this is all a chasing after the wind. The essence of the suicides consisted not of sadness or mystery but simple selfishness. The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind. What lingered after them was not life, which always overcomes natural death, but the most trivial list of mundane facts: a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself. Her brain going dim to all else, but flaming up in precise points of pain, personal injury, lost dreams. Every other loved one receding as though across a vast ice floe, shrinking to black dots waving tiny arms, out of hearing. Then the rope thrown over the beam, the sleeping pill dropped in the palm with the long, lying lifeline, the window thrown open, the oven turned on, whatever. They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldn't help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that none of them led to us. We couldn't imagine the emptiness of a creature who put a razor to her wrists and opened her veins, the emptiness and the calm. And we had to smear our muzzles in their last traces, of mud marks on the floor, trunks kicked out from under them, we had to breathe forever the air of the rooms in which they killed themselves. It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.

In this study and others like it, guesswork about a peculiar black predisposition toward unhealthy births imports an old notion about sickle cell disease “afflicting the black race.”25 Whenever I give a talk on this topic, there is inevitably someone in the audience who invokes the mantra that sickle cell anemia is a black genetic disease and therefore proves that race is a genetic category. This misconception was first popularized in the early twentieth century by hematology experts who believed the capacity to develop sickled cells was uniquely inherent in “Negro blood.”26 Stereotypes about black resistance to malaria and susceptibility to sickle cell justified sending black workers to malaria-infested regions in the first part of the century and later led to discriminatory government, employer, and insurance-testing programs in the 1970s.27 The error is easily exposed by looking at two world maps, one highlighting the regions around the globe where malaria is prevalent, the other highlighting areas where sickle cell disease is present. The maps mirror each other perfectly. By comparing them, it is plain to see that malaria and sickle cell aren’t restricted to Africa and that much of Africa is unaffected. High frequencies of the trait also occur in parts of Europe, Oceania, India, and the Middle East, all places where there is malaria. In fact, people in the town of Orchomenos in central Greece have double the rate of sickle cell disease reported among African Americans.28 If frequency of the sickle cell gene determined racial boundaries, it certainly would not prove there is a black race. Instead, as Jared Diamond pointed out in the November 1994 issue of Discover , if we grouped together people by the presence or absence of the sickle cell gene, “we’d place Yemenites, Greeks, New Guineans, Thai, and Dinkas in one ‘race,’ Norwegians and several black African peoples in another.”29 It would be more accurate to call the groups with the sickle cell gene the “antimosquito race.” Of course, that would be a silly way of grouping people, except for studying the sickle cell gene. But “black race” is an equally silly way of grouping people for identifying genetic contributions to disease.

The association with allergies also serves to imply a genetic predisposition for the illness, and this can help to predict who may be at risk for developing CFIDS.

A sliver of a man stood on a corner beside a charcoal garage door, a plume of smoke twisting from his hand. He looked more like a shadow than a person, the offspring of Marlene Dietrich and Checkpoint Charlie, born with a genetic predisposition to survive in the catacombs.

that hormones seek balance and when you disrupt the endocrine system that governs them, you’ll present with a symptom, then another, then another, until you have a condition. The conditions that women exhibit might be different from one female to the next, based on your genetic predisposition and lifestyle factors, but focusing on the symptoms and/or the conditions is less valuable than addressing the underlying causes.

It’s as simple as this: if you have excess body fat, it’s directly reflective of the amount of insulin you produce from your diet combined with your familial genetic predisposition to store fat. In plain-speak, if you eat like crap and have bad (genetic) luck, you’ll get fat and sick and you’ll probably die early.

Prescription drugs. There are thirty-eight drugs linked to lupus in people with a genetic susceptibility to the disease. (This is called drug-induced lupus erythematosus, as opposed to systemic lupus erythematosus, but the diseases are basically the same.) The three drugs that cause the most cases are hydralazine (a blood-pressure medication), procainamide (used to treat cardiac arrhythmias), and isoniazid (an antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis). In these cases, stopping the medication early enough can completely reverse the disease. However, many people will continue to experience symptoms or suffer a recurrence of lupus or another autoimmune disease later in life (probably because of their genetic predisposition to autoimmune disease).

A rise in acidity increases the excitability of neurons in these areas, making them more responsive to threats.98 Hypersensitivity to acid in the brain has been proposed as a genetic predisposition to panic disorder,99 consistent with Klein’s suffocation alarm theory of panic (see Chapter 3).100 Given that the rodent research suggests that changing acid levels in the amygdala and BNST alters the response to external as well as internal stimuli, research on acid-sensing receptors might be pertinent to a broader range of conditions involving fear and anxiety. New pharmacological tools are becoming available for altering acid levels, and these may offer yet another approach to treating problems with fear and anxiety in people;101 studies of extinction in animals would be an ideal place to explore this possibility.

SOMATIC CONVERSION A third form of conversion is the conversion of needs and feelings into some form of bodily or somatic expression. Needs and feelings can be changed into bodily sickness. When one is sick, one is usually cared for. When one is sick, one can feel as bad as one really feels. This conversion dynamic is especially prevalent in family systems where sickness is given attention and rewarded. I was asthmatic as a child. Frequently when I wanted to miss a day of school, I would induce an asthma attack. I learned early on that sickness got a lot of sympathy in my family system. Getting attention with sickness is a very common phenomenon. When people want to miss work, they call in sick. Sickness works! Conversion of feelings into sickness is the basis of psychosomatic illness. In Max’s family there were several generations of hypochondriasis. His maternal great-grandmother was bedridden off and on for years. His maternal grandmother was literally bedridden for forty-five years, and his mom, Felicia, continually struggled with ulcers, colitis and arthritis. Max himself obsessed on illness a lot. My own belief is that families don’t convert feelings and needs to actual physical illness unless there are predisposing genetically based factors, such as a genetic history of asthma, arthritis or particular organ weakness. When parental modeling and high rewards for somatic illness are added to a genetic predisposition, the conversion of feelings and needs into bodily or somatic expression is a real possibility.

Studies show probably both. A predisposition for the condition may be genetic but the environment dictates how it is expressed.

Because trauma doesn’t operate by checking the right box in the right category. Instead? Please believe me when I say your experiences and reactions are valid and real and you are worthy of care and the opportunity to heal. Because we don’t know why some things are worse than others for some people. I know that it is a weird fucking idea, but everyone is different. Everyone’s lives, histories, and experiences are different AND our genetic predispositions are different.

If happiness were a matter of genetics alone, I believe that I would have a genetic predisposition for unhappiness.

Since the 19th century, medicine has focused on specific disease states by linking collections of signs and symptoms to single organs.... Systems biology and its offspring, sometimes called Network Medicine, takes a more wholistic approach, looking at all the diverse genetic, metabolic, and environmental factors that contribute to clinical disease. Equally important, it looks at the preclinical manifestations of pathology. The current focus of medicine is much like the focus that an auto mechanic takes to repair a car. The diagnostic process isolates a broken part and repairs or replaces it.... Although this strategy has saved countless lives and reduced pain and suffering, it nevertheless treats the disease and not the patient, with all their unique habits, lifestyle mistakes, environmental exposures, psychosocial interactions, and genetic predispositions.

reacts to us in a way that reinforces our genetic predisposition. Again, it would be an oversimplification to say that our environment influences us. Our environment sees something in us that makes it react in a certain way, but the cause of this reaction is, at least partly, predetermined by our genes. What

Chronic pain and grief over loss nonetheless remain as unavoidable facts of lives shaped by catastrophic accident, chronic and progressive illness, or genetic predisposition. Despite their strategic elision in disability studies or transcendence in happy stories in the popular press about trauma overcome, bodily pain and grief persist, to be accounted for as best one can. This book is my contribution to that record. I find that Emily Dickinson is right -- in the wake of great pain, the pulse of life slows, and the interval between life-sustaining beats interminably extends. Life is suspended. In that interval, the difference between the one you once were and the one you have become must be addressed, the pain acknowledged, and the grief admitted. It can be a treacherous process, given all that might be lost.

The only decision to focus on is the one you are still able to make,” he said. I nodded. We Irish suffer a long-standing tradition, if not a genetic predisposition, of looking back, of going over unresolved situations. “They say the only things the Irish take to their graves,” I said, “are grudges.

Seeking help when I was suffering with depression after returning from the Moon was a lifesaver for me—perhaps, literally. Several people in my family, including my own mother, had committed suicide, so I wondered if there was a genetic predisposition that might cause me to follow their examples. Fortunately, I found excellent doctors and friends who encouraged me and helped me to recognize that I was not trapped by the past, that I could be responsible for my own decisions, and that my emotional health was much more important than my career.

we have shown in experimental animals that cancer growth can be turned on and off by nutrition, despite very strong genetic predisposition. We have studied these effects in great detail and have published our findings in the very best scientific journals. As you will see later, these findings are nothing short of spectacular, and the same effects have been indicated over and over again in humans.

The human condition is plagued with a labyrinth of shortcomings, frailties and limitations that hinder man from reaching his fullest potential. Therefore, it only makes sense that we find ourselves at the next phase in human evolution where restricted man merges with the infinite possibilities of hyper-evolving technologies. This techno-human transmutation will prove to be ‘the’ quantum leap in human progression. The harmonization of technologically extending oneself, consciousness, artificial intelligence and machine learning will reverse the failures of genetic predisposition and limitation.

A fine line exists between quitting on ourselves and letting go of a restrictive position in life and moving forward to reach our ultimate destination based upon our natal predisposition honed by a lifetime of experimentation. Who has not been forced to stop and ask ourselves, ‘who are we,’ ‘what are we doing,’ and ‘where are we going?’ Who has not been forced to pause by life’s dynamic forces and ask ourselves, ‘what mystical chords bind us as a species; what is the meaning of life; and how do we give birth to our genetic blueprint while shaping a sense of purposefulness out of our own existence and striving to bring joy to other people’s hearth?’ To answer these life affirming questions that gnaw most voraciously at our consciousness at the time when tension and unsettling trauma besieges us, we must appreciate our heritage, be mindful our epoch, accept responsibility for our adult decisions, and strive to accumulate wisdom that segues our entrance into the future. Each of us must arrive at a unifying philosophy that guides our living quest, and the sooner we come to terms with our eccentric self the quicker we will perceive and appreciate the ineffable beauty of nature.

Alcoholism Also known as Alcohol Dependence Syndrome may modify and influence characteristics of one's behavior producing a. momentary emotional enhancement, and b. reduction to anxiety level's that individuals suffering from mood or anxiety disorders may crave. Thus, perpetuating patterns of self- destructive behavior. Causes of Alcoholism include Depression, Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, Genetic Predisposition, and an Overactive Prefrontal Cortex. Other Causes may include life turmoil, loss, shitty parents, females, loneliness, females, and… a. self-awareness of subtle but gradual decay within one’s soul, conditioned by culture, society, and an overstimulated sociological pressure prompted into a state of constant consuming, and b. realizing that we are just manifested consciousness endowed with temporary control of a meat-slop of atoms flying on a giant rock in infinite space. Excessive Drinking may cause dizziness, shaking, aggression, sexualized compulsive behavior, vomiting, headaches, slurred speech, and… looking at your bloody fist after a blackout; then looking at your friend on the floor holding the side of his jaw; then watching your friend get up. walk out and slam the front door, shouting, “Fuck you!” Benefits of Alcohol include forgetting.

So why did the voice of evil choose Mum as its vessel? Was she born with a genetic predisposition, or was her madness learnt? Did she allow it to take hold of a malrotated genome – a disease with no toxic chemicals to kill it – or was it instilled in her mind by an outside force? Were there parental influences conditioning the mind? Just as Pavlov trained his dogs to salivate at the ring of a bell, did Mum learn to listen to the voice that permeated her thoughts, allowing that voice to control her actions? If there is a history of tormented minds in a family, then does genetics win the argument?

A few centuries ago, the government of this country became interested in enforcing certain desirable behaviors in its citizens. There had been studies that indicated that violent tendencies could be partially traced to a person’s genes—a gene called ‘the murder gene’ was the first of these, but there were quite a few more, genetic predispositions toward cowardice, dishonesty, low intelligence—all the qualities, in other words, that ultimately contribute to a broken society.” We were taught that the factions were formed to solve a problem, the problem of our flawed natures. Apparently the people David is describing, whoever they were, believed in that problem too. I know so little about genetics—just what I can see passed down from parent to child, in my face and in friends’ faces. I can’t imagine isolating a gene for murder, or cowardice, or dishonesty. Those things seem too nebulous to have a concrete location in a person’s body. But I’m not a scientist. “Obviously there are quite a few factors that determine personality, including a person’s upbringing and experiences,” David continues, “but despite the peace and prosperity that had reigned in this country for nearly a century, it seemed advantageous to our ancestors to reduce the risk of these undesirable qualities showing up in our population by correcting them. In other words, by editing humanity. “That’s how the genetic manipulation experiment was born. It takes several generations for any kind of genetic manipulation to manifest, but people were selected from the general population in large numbers, according to their backgrounds or behavior, and they were given the option to give a gift to our future generations, a genetic alteration that would make their descendants just a little bit better.” I look around at the others. Peter’s mouth is puckered with disdain. Caleb is scowling. Cara’s mouth has fallen open, like she is hungry for answers and intends to eat them from the air. Christina just looks skeptical, one eyebrow raised, and Tobias is staring at his shoes. I feel like I am not hearing anything new—just the same philosophy that spawned the factions, driving people to manipulate their genes instead of separating into virtue-based groups. I understand it. On some level I even agree with it. But I don’t know how it relates to us, here, now.

Lp(a), homocysteine, and ferritin can be influenced by genetics. A predisposition to high blood pressure can be genetic. But we believe that many people use genetics as an excuse to do nothing.

When Richard Cooper went to medical school at the University of Arkansas in the late 1960s, he was stunned at how many of his black patients were suffering from high blood pressure. He would encounter people in their forties and fifties felled by strokes that left them institutionalized. When Cooper did some research on the problem, he learned that American doctors had first noted the high rate of hypertension in American blacks decades earlier. Cardiologists concluded it must be the result of genetic differences between blacks and whites. Paul Dudley White, the preeminent American cardiologist of the early 1900s, called it a “racial predisposition,” speculating that the relatives of American blacks in West Africa must suffer from high blood pressure as well. Cooper went on to become a cardiologist himself, conducting a series of epidemiological studies on heart disease. In the 1990s, he finally got the opportunity to put the racial predisposition hypothesis to the test. Collaborating with an international network of doctors, Cooper measured the blood pressure of eleven thousand people. Paul Dudley White, it turned out, was wrong. Farmers in rural Nigeria and Cameroon actually had substantially lower blood pressure than American blacks, Cooper found. In fact, they had lower blood pressure than white Americans, too. Most surprisingly of all, Cooper found that people in Finland, Germany, and Spain had higher blood pressure than American blacks. Cooper’s findings don’t challenge the fact that genetic variants can increase people’s risk of developing high blood pressure. In fact, Cooper himself has helped run studies that have revealed some variants in African Americans and Nigerians that can raise that risk. But this genetic inheritance does not, on its own, explain the experiences of African and European Americans. To understand their differences, doctors need to examine the experiences of blacks and whites in the United States—the stress of life in high-crime neighborhoods and the difficulty of getting good health care, for example. These are powerful inheritances, too, but they’re not inscribed in DNA. For scientists carrying out the hard work of disentangling these influences, an outmoded biological concept of race offers no help. In the words of the geneticists Noah Rosenberg and Michael Edge, it has become “a sideshow and a distraction.

Researchers have found that “late-onset” alcoholics—those who abstain or drink normally for many years before tipping over the edge into alcoholism, like I did—generally become alcoholics not as the result of genetic predisposition, but because of some circumstance or event in their life (divorce, job loss, major physical or psychological dislocation) that throws them off balance and leads them to drink more and more,

. . . she believed (Lindsay) that some people have a genetic pre-disposition that can go either way depending on your life course and trauma. Certain things can make a difference, like love and belonging.

With a limited number of genes, humans enjoy a stable human genome. We inherit it from our parents, and it can give us a genetic predisposition for a variety of biological and pathological traits. Conversely, the human microbiota expresses one hundred times more genes than humans, is extremely plastic, and can change from individual to individual and within the same individual over time, all as the consequence of a variety of environmental factors that can shape its composition and function. Our human genome has coevolved with the trillions of constantly changing microorganisms found in and on the human body.

I've always held myself in high esteem. No one needed to tell me I was good at writing: All I would have to do was sit down and the words would come. I knew like you knew you'd be capable of killing a person in battle. Give me the knife. I'll kill you. If it comes down to you versus me, know I will emerge victorious whatever the fight. Maybe my dad's words are what led me to believe I could handle anything. Anything at all. No, they were my words that I used on myself when my vision was clear. Sometimes I'd fantasize about war just to know how it felt to be invincible. Presumably a result of my genetic predisposition to delusions of grandeur which blossoms every now and then. I've always known I can write as though it were a matter of life or death.

BRCA2 are so-called caretaker genes, cancer-suppressing genes responsible for DNA repair. Mutations in this gene can cause a rare form of hereditary breast cancer. As has been well publicized, Angelina Jolie decided to undergo a preventive double mastectomy. A National Breast Cancer Coalition survey found that the majority of women believe that most breast cancers occur among women with a family history or a genetic predisposition to the disease.141 The reality is that as few as 2.5 percent of breast cancer cases are attributable to breast cancer

However, it may be that a genetic predisposition to the condition causes a trigger such as stress or anxiety to allow their OCD to resurface during marriage.

The quality of the environments that are thought to be so important to development, including stress, life events, and trauma (and probably also maternal attunement and sensitivity), can all be inherited. It is likely that personality characteristics that we had often thought of as—and what the child might experience as—the consequence of the parents’ behavior toward the child are in fact genetic predispositions.

Regardless of how any individual clinician may conceptualize a person’s distress, the current paradigm under which all mental health professionals operate is one that is conceived through a medical ideology with a medical classification system (Caplan, 1995; Frances, 2016). Terms such as “symptoms” are used to describe human behaviors and emotions (Hare-Mustin & Marecek, 1997), while many categories are associated with words like “neurological”, “genetic predisposition”, and “illness”, despite no known biological abnormality to be specifically associated with any DSM -defined category (e.g., Kupfer, 2013).

But let’s suppose that scientists someday discover a genetic contribution to homosexual desires. Would that give license to behavior? No, all of us have desires that we ought not to act on. In other words, we were all born with an “orientation” to bad behavior, but desires don’t justify the behavior. For example, some may have a genetic predisposition to alcohol, but who would advocate alcoholism? If someone has a genetic attraction to children, does that justify pedophilia? What homosexual activist would say that a genetic predisposition to violence justifies gay-bashing?

THE FOREVER DOGS FORMULA Diet and nutrition Optimal movement Genetic predispositions Stress and environment

Turning people into "gene carriers" concentrates responsibility on them to manage their own genetic predispositions, shifting the spotlight away from state responsibility for ensuring healthy living conditions.

To live an open-hearted life is to operate at peak health and therefore to override any such genetic predispositions. However, there exists an even higher truth hiding here at the siddhic frequency — it is that all codes can eventually be transcended and are in fact designed to be transcended

The earlier you begin to encourage your children to breathe through their nose and ensure the correct positioning of the tongue, the better. Not only might you help them avoid orthodontic treatment altogether, but the shape of their face, their general health, and their athleticism will be significantly influenced during these few short years. Even genetic predispositions can be minimized when the right action and behavior is enshrined.

To put this into even simpler language, the mold toxin can enter a cell and set off a severe inflammatory process. Most people (75%) are not susceptible to this reaction because they are genetically blessed to be able to bind to and get rid of this toxin before it creates all of this damage. Unfortunately, 25% of the population cannot do so, and are predisposed to being affected by mold toxins and these are the patients who we see with mold toxicity. There is nothing psychological about this genetic predisposition to illness created by mold toxins, but because you can have one or two individuals at home, or in a workplace, profoundly affected by mold toxins, but others will be perfectly fine in the same environment, you can understand how the immediate (and incorrect) assumption that it must be something psychological.

The point is that nothing could be more “instinctive” than the predisposition to learn a language. It is virtually unteachable. It is hard-wired. It is not learned. It is—horrid thought—genetically determined. And yet nothing could be more plastic than the vocabulary and syntax to which that predisposition applies itself. The ability to learn a language, like almost all the other human brain functions, is an instinct for learning.

The ultimate cause suggested by the biological hypothesis is the loss of genetic fitness that results from incest. It is a fact that incestuously produced children leave fewer descendants. The biological hypothesis states that individuals with a genetic predisposition for bond exclusion and incest avoidance contribute more genes to the next generation. Natural selection has probably ground away along these lines for thousands of generations, and for that reason human beings intuitively avoid incest through the simple, automatic rule of bond exclusion. To put the idea in its starkest form, one that acknowledges but temporarily bypasses the intervening developmental process, human beings are guided by an instinct based on genes. Such a process is indicated in the case of brother-sister intercourse, and it is a strong possibility in the other categories of incest taboo.

almost universally recognized as a developmental disorder, multiply caused: genetic predisposition, pre- or postnatal viral infection, chromosomal damage, biological agents still unknown.

Most chronic illnesses have been earned from a lifetime of inferior nutrition, which eventually results in abnormal function or frequent discomfort. These illnesses are not beyond our control, they are not primarily genetic, and they are not the normal consequence of aging. True, we all have our weakest links governed by genetics; but these weak links need never reveal themselves unless our health deteriorates. Superior health flows naturally as a result of superior nutrition. Our predisposition to certain illnesses can remain hidden.

In more than a decade of psychotherapy practice, I have met thousands of people who refer to themselves as “shy.” Often, these people believe shyness is a fait accomplice, a matter of genetic predisposition that they must deal with as a fact of life. They say they were “born shy”—their parents, grandparents, or other relatives are shy too, and it’s just in their blood to be timid. Of course, behavior also can be handed down through conditioning—perhaps your mom always got nervous before a party so you learned to react the same way. Believing that “shyness” is an indelible component of the personality can be a real stumbling block to overcoming social fears. “That’s just the way I am” becomes an excuse for not taking responsibility for individual well-being. In order to change this mindset, it is important to understand that because shyness is learned, it can be unlearned. Anxiety can be controlled.

Environment The biochemical and genetic explanations for social anxiety are fairly straightforward. However, they don’t explain why one person fears all social situations while another fears speaking in public and yet another is afraid only of talking on the phone. The environment is generally considered the final factor that determines social anxiety. In other words, when a person has a biochemical and genetic predisposition to anxiety, the form that anxiety takes may depend on the circumstances of his or her life. Your environment includes where you live, the people you live with, your school, and your friends. This environment can have a negative or positive effect on how you feel about yourself and the character traits you develop. There are many factors that can contribute to the degree and form of your social anxiety.

It is important to understand that variances in the childhood abuse/neglect patterns, birth order, and genetic predispositions result in people polarizing to their particular 4F type.

Children are being born every day with a genetic predisposition to feel no guilt, no remorse, no empathy.

The [World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research] scientists cited a natural substance in meat call harm, which they identified as promoting the formation of potentially carcinogenic compounds. They also suggested that cooking meat at high temperatures produced a group of more than one hundred substances--known as heterocyclix amines and polycystic aromatic hydrocarbon--that can cause cancer in people with a genetic predisposition.

A baseball team that knew its All-Star reliever had a genetic predisposition to rotator cuff tears could put him on a preventive strengthening program like the one Mackie Shilstone designed for Serena Williams and Peyton Manning. On the other hand, it could also use that information against him in contract negotiations, arguing that his services were less valuable than those of a hurler less likely to end up on the disabled list. For that reason, players’ associations have been wary of genetic science. In many sports, unions have been reluctant even to embrace wearable sensors, worried the data they captured would be used in ways that would undermine athletes’ negotiating power. DNA data, which reflects not just a player’s current physiology or performance but his immutable destiny, is an order of magnitude more sensitive.

To digest gluten, the cells of the intestinal wall produce a specific enzyme called transglutaminase. Transglutaminase breaks down gluten into its smaller building blocks, the peptides gliadin and glutenin. The cells of the intestinal wall then absorb these into circulation. The GALT scans their surfaces, as it does with all things absorbed, in search of threatening surface codes. For reasons that only nature understands, the surface of the glutenin peptide is not coded as threatening, but gliadin is in people with a genetic predisposition. T cells in the GALT will mediate the production of gliadin antibodies. These same antibodies, however, often attack the intestinal wall’s natural transglutaminase enzyme, essentially tearing apart the intestinal wall, piece by piece. This shrinks and erodes the villi and microvilli, the finger-like tendrils in the small intestine that maximize its surface area; this results in an inability of the small intestine to absorb any nutrients at all. In its most severe expression, this is known as celiac disease, which presents as weight loss, diarrhea, bloating, abdominal pain, and an overall failure to thrive.

The stigma of a genetic predisposition to alcoholism remains among Native Americans to this day, despite the fact that it is a claim not rooted in fact.

More broadly, a decent, humane, self-governing society will reject the belief that most human beings – homosexual or heterosexual – are slaves to their passions, their desires, their genetic predispositions. Our identities are not defined by sex, nor is sex itself an irresistible force. To believe otherwise is to vitiate the concept of individual responsibility and free will. Although our struggles are not all the same, we all do struggle against every sort of human desire, against our biological impulses, against our emotional longings. We do not abjure the struggle because it is difficult or beaux we seem to be battling against something deep within us – even if that something is as powerful as sexual desire; even if it seems fundamental to who we are.

Perhaps Ms. W., like thousands of people, had gotten a big dog on purpose—a dog of a breed with a genetic predisposition toward aggressive behavior—in the hope that it would protect her.