change. 8 Its proposed system of control switches governing gene expression may be compared to the relationship between a mu-sic score– (the DNA) and how the music is played (the epig-enome). Like DNA, the score is a fixed arrangement of notes, but how a musician plays the notes can differ dramatically depend-ing on who is playing it or which interpretation they choose to put on the melody. Some notes may be played fast, others slow, some loud, some softly. Anyone who has heard Glenn Gould’s unorthodox interpretation of Brahms’s First Piano Concert in D minor knows how radically different renditions of the same score can be. Epigenetics provides the framework for the interpreta-tion of our hard-wired genetic material –interpretations which are influenced by environmental factors – and these interpreta-tions, for good or ill, may be passed on to future generations. The concept that genes and the environment are not mutu-ally exclusive but inextricably intertwined is at the vanguard of a paradigm shift in our understanding of how evolution can act that rewrites the rules of disease, heredity, and identity. 9 “It will change the way the causes of disease are viewed, as well as the importance of lifestyles and family relationships. What people do no longer just affects themselves, but also can deter-mine the health of their children and grandchildren in decades to come.” 10 Paradigm shifts of this magnitude, however, often come with far-reaching and sometimes unanticipated societal consequences. Advances in our understanding of epigenetic mechanisms may, on the one hand, lead to powerful new ther-apies, but also could present the ethically laden potential to engineer human health into future generations. 11 look at the implications of epigenetics for mechanobiology, and also explore how epigenetics opens doors for the pain model and wellness. It will appear In the June 2011 issue of Canadian Chiropractor magazine. AND WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHIROPRACTIC? Quite a lot, as it turns out. According to Dr. Marion McGregor, Director of Year II Edu -cation at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC), “It is really challenging to recognize there is so much of rel-evance in epigenetics, tying so many different fields together. It actually touches all of the sciences, including the clinical sci-ences, and ties them all together. It is truly the ultimate in inte-gration. Everybody has had their separate piece, their separate area. Epigenetics is what assimilates all of them.” Epigenetics has implications for three core areas of chiro-practic practice: mechanobiology, pain and wellness. But it is in the area of mechanobiology that, for chiropractors, the rubber really hits the road. “When you start to look at the relationships between mech-anobiology, the individual and epigenetics,” Dr. McGregor observes, “they are expansive and incredibly complex. You’ve got the environmental system interacting in a number of dif-ferent ways. We are just beginning to tease out the variety of events that happen in a single cell if we do different things to it. In chiropractic, we possess an anecdotal history of all kinds of clinical behaviours that are difficult to understand or explain and that may only occur once in a single subject, and never again. Mechanobiology and epigenetics provide us with the op-portunity to observe these phenomena through new theoretical perspectives. This has opened up an entirely new science that allows us to look towards putting together a future that makes some real sense.” • In Part 2 of The Epigenetics Revolution, we will take a deeper 26 • CANAdiAN CHiROpRACTOR | MAY 2011 REFERENCES 1. Gilbert SF, Epel D. Ecological Developmental Biology: Inte-grating Epigenetics, Medicine and Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates; 2009; p. 5. 2. Ibid. 3. Cloud J. Why Your DNA Isn’t Your Destiny, http://www.time. com/time/printout/0,8816,1951968,00.html 4. The Ghost in Your Genes, BBC Science and Nature, http://www. bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml 5. Gilbert SF, Epel D. Ecological Developmental Biology: Inte-grating Epigenetics, Medicine and Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates; 2009; p. 307. 6. Cloud J. Why Your DNA Isn’t Your Destiny, http://www.time. com/time/printout/0,8816,1951968,00.html 7. Ibid. 8. Gilbert SF, Epel D. Ecological Developmental Biology: Inte-grating Epigenetics, Medicine and Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates; 2009; p. 12-13. 9. Watters, E. DNA Is Not Destiny. Discover Magazine, Novem-ber, 2006. http://discovermagazine.com/2006/nov/cover 10. The Ghost in Your Genes, BBC Science and Nature,http://www. bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml 11. Ellington, AD. Epigenetics and Society. The Scientist. March, 2011: p. 14. www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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