genes

In 1996, Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University authored a report in the Journal of The National Cancer Institute stating that after reviewing the worldwide evidence, approximately 50 percent of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women in North America engaged in more prudent nutrition and lifestyle practices. It has been shown consistently that having a full-term pregnancy and Read more...

Perhaps you think you stand no chance of clocking up a century. You know that longevity depends in large part on having the right genes, and one glance at the family tree may reveal that yours just won't pass muster. If so, think on this: Centenarians are the fastest-growing demographic group across much of the developed world. Assuming there hasn't been a miraculous Methuselah mutation in the Read more...

By Bernadine Healy, M.D. Our genes demand exercise, and that's at odds with our modern lifestyle, which increasingly does not. Evolutionary biologists theorize that a genetic hunger for physical activity comes from our hunter-gatherer ancestors who survived to pass on their DNA to us, as their sluggish comrades starved to death, were annihilated by predators, or simply flunked out in the Read more...

By Lori Oliwenstein Bone loss. Joint pain. They're the price of years of poor posture and poorer eating habits, of bad shoes and worse genes. To some degree, these bodily breakdowns are a biological inevitability. As we age, for instance, we are more likely to lose bone than we are to build or strengthen it. And because the joints in our legs, hips and back are jolted by a force four times Read more...

So the researchers looked to the genetic data, and indeed, there were two specific genes that stood out related to patterns of fat loss and exercise. Participants with certain combinations of those genes and their variants had significantly different fat loss outcomes. The complex science at this level can be pretty confusing. Genes are named with different alpha-numeric characters, and so Read more...

Studs finish first and women who make love with good-looking men enjoy much better sex lives than those who bed down with average-looking, "normal" men. So reports a study presented at the American Psychological Society annual conference in Miami. Florida Atlantic University psychologist Dr. Todd Shackleford, who co-authored the study, found that while many women are driven by an Read more...

When you dip into your Easter basket this year, blame your parents. Researchers say they're close to proving that your sweet tooth is a product of your genes, not necessarily just your cravings. In studies with mice, researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia say they've narrowed their gene search to a tiny area of a specific chromosome. The area, on mouse chromosome Read more...

Gradual genetic changes that lead to a "quality-control" failure may cause many illnesses of aging, including breast cancer, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease and arthritis, new research suggests. A team of at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., compared the effects of aging on 6,000 genes and found 61 underwent dramatic changes from age 9 to 90. Human aging and its Read more...

Okay, so you turn into a glutton the instant the Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas goose lands on the table. But don't be too hard on yourself -- scientists say it may all be in the genes. Research has already shown that we tend to eat 10 percent more, or about 200 calories per day, from October through December. Now scientists at Georgia Tech say the reason could be genetic, nature's way of Read more...