Epigenetics: How lifestyle choices turn our genes on and off

Dr. Cooper

Well Dr. Pelletier. It’s so good to have you on the podcast today. The information you’re bringing to us, I think people are just going to wake up and say, wow, I’d heard a little of that before, but this is so intriguing when, when you and I had a chance to meet at the conference, what last month, when we were both speaking, I was just in awe of some of the stuff you were sharing. So really great to have you thanks for joining us today.

Dr. Pelletier

Well, thank you for the invitation. I’m looking forward to this.

Dr. Cooper

Absolutely. So the audience knows of your bio and frankly, it’s a fairly extensive bio from the introduction. Can you give us a brief version of how you ended up on this path from your original days back in med school?

Dr. Pelletier

Well, my original, uh, research, and again, this would have been in the mid seventies at the UCLA school of medicine really, um, focused on at that time, there was a debate about whether people could influence the involuntary nervous system. So in the textbooks you had the voluntary and the involuntary nervous system and never the two shall meet, but that never made sense to me because you think about it. You can hold your breath, which is voluntary, but at some point your oxygen level drops and your breathing kicks in and that’s involuntary, or you can hold your eyes open for a period of time until the surface lens dries. And then you’ll blink. And that’s a voluntary hold followed by an involuntary response to something about that never made sense to me. And there was a researcher Dr. Elma Green at the Menninger foundation who had studied what we ended up calling adept meditators. Uh, and he, he basically, these are meditators who would inflict, self-inflict major wounds. They would secure themselves with bicycle spokes, uh, during meditation. And they would look as though they were having a vacation on the beach. Um, and he did these studies, but they were very uncontrolled and criticized. And, you know, for all the reasons they were dismissed, um, I heard about them and decided I would replicate those under very stringent laboratory conditions. So I did, and, um, had individuals, one person who learned his ability from being in a concentration camp, other and other individuals, actually a drug smuggler who learned to control bleeding and pain. So that he wasn’t discovered and arrested. So that was the mid seventies. And it really, to me was the beginning of realizing that we have an immense amount of regulatory control over our biology. And now fast forward to 50, some odd years later, uh, what I’m realizing and starting about seven or eight years ago was a research project in genetics and epigenetics realized that that same degree of self-regulation, uh, influence over mind over body or mind, body interaction that I saw in the mid seventies now holds true for our influence over the expression of our own genes. So that intervening, you know, years has been, um, really the development of this that’s one direction. The second has been in the area of corporate programs, working with fortune 500 companies to develop and evaluate interventions with clinical and cost outcomes. That’s my more conventional, uh, research, but I use many of these unconventional methods and interventions in the course of these more Orthodox research design. So those are my, hopefully that’s as brief as possible, uh, two parallel paths to this present time.

Dr. Cooper

Good. Very good. So you mentioned epigenetics that that’s obviously a big focus of what you’re doing for those listening, who hear that and say, wait, what, can you describe it in lay terms for us?

Dr. Pelletier

Yes. Um, I think the greatest misconception most people have and most people in the health and medical professions have is that our genes are like the hard drive in a computer, that there are sort of invariant regulations rules that govern everything that happens in and on the computer. Um, epigenetics says, no, that’s actually not the case that our genes are more like an interactive software. So it’s more like an artificial intelligence system where we’re continually interacting with our own genes in a way that creates expression or suppression. So the expression is that if you have a genetic predisposition to say intelligence or to a disease, heart disease or cancer, you can enhance the likelihood of that occurring by doing certain things in your life. Or you can suppress that tendency. So this area of epigenetics is really the new science of interacting with our genes. Second by second minute, by minute, in a way that is actually very powerful and is not the genes, are your destiny uh model that we’ve grown up with.

Dr. Cooper

I love that. So it’s, if for nothing, if we get nothing else out of this conversation, just having that out there and encouraging that, that your genes are not your destiny is awesome. I love it. I love it. And I noticed I was watching some videos of you preparing for this interview. And one of your quotes that jumped off the page to me was essentially what you just said. Our genes may indicate a vulnerability to disease, but they cannot predict our future. Could you continue to develop that a little bit and what that concept may mean for health and wellness coaches that are working with clients who the clients are thinking I’m trapped. This is my genes. This is what my father had or my mother had my grandparents. What, what, how can the coaches address that conversation?

Dr. Pelletier

Haha as usually the best way is through good science. And there is, there’s a growing body of evidence and it’s been around for a while. This is not radically new, except we’re beginning to have more and more precise research, even with NASA, which we can get into in a little bit. But the one of the first studies was done by Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins university. And he studied 15,000 people over I’m sorry, 7,000 twins over 15 years and, uh, identical twins. And what he wanted to know was if one twin had a disease, did that predict the same disease in their identical twin? Now, if you had a genetic deterministic reductionistic model, you’d say, yes, of course they have the same genes. They’re twins. Yeah, clearly. So he followed them and he looked at incidents of cancer, heart disease, immunological disorders, irritable bowel, et cetera. And what he found is that the incidence of a disease in one twin did not, not predict the incidence in the other twin. So in the heart disease, it was 50/50. If one twin had heart disease, the likelihood of the other twin having heart disease was about 50% for Parkinson’s disease it was actually 5%. If one twin manifested Parkinson’s the likelihood, the other one would, is 5%. For most cancers, he looked at a number of different cancers. That prediction was about 40%. So in other words, having the same genetic predisposition, because they’re living different lifestyles or eating different foods, they’re under different stress, et cetera. Um, had a major modification of the genetic push toward one disease or another. The other thing that he realized in this, this is now a classic study, um, was that the genetic makeup of one twin would only predict a single disease and the other twin as a possibility. So if you looked at heart disease in one twin and saw heart disease yes or no. And the other twin, it told you nothing about it. The second twin had cancer or irritable bowel or inflammatory disease. So the prediction was only good for one disease. And again, in all the cases we just cited, it was very much of a myth. So that kind of information, I think for coaches, and there are many studies like that, uh, they said, there’s an excellent study that we’ve just done with NASA. Um, that kind of information really helps to break that mindset of, Oh, it’s my genes. There’s nothing I can do about it. The point is there’s everything you can do about it.

Dr. Cooper

Wow. That’s tremendous. What was the lead author on that one again?

Dr. Pelletier

Uh, that was Bert Vogelstein V O G E L S T E I N. Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins university. Uh, a true classic study in this area of epigenetics.

Dr. Cooper

Beautiful. All right. I’m sure folks are going to want to pull that up and share it with their clients. So you you’ve been at this, and you mentioned in your, your introductory comments, you know, 50 years ago, I was doing this. What are some of the biggest surprises as you’ve been doing this cutting edge research for five decades? What are some of the biggest surprises you’ve discovered along the way that might be news to people that are listening in addition to what you’ve already shared?

Dr. Pelletier

Well, to me, what is so striking is that if you have training in biology or chemistry or medicine or nursing or whatever, you know, chiropractic, whatever your clinical training is, we are all taught a model of biological reductionism that the mechanisms we can observe and test in biochemistry and in biology is all there is. I mean, that’s the basic model. It’s a very physical reductionistic causal model. And what I’ve learned is that simply totally inadequate, um, it’s accurate in some instances, but in very precious few. And the main thing that to me, continual continually surprises me is the degree to which influences internally and externally have a profound influence on our health, on our life expectancy, which is very different, kind of a surprise. Most people assume their life expectancy is governed by genetics. It’s not which I find to be really hitting. So these things that we consider to be in various things over which we have no control or influence are in fact, influenceable by things like meditation adversely by stress, diet has a profound impact on genetic expression, our psychosocial interactions with friends. So people that have connections to others, family, friends, church groups, whatever social groups you have have one 10th, the incidents of heart attacks as people who don’t. Um, the interaction with our physical environment has a very direct causal impact on our genes. So my book title, uh, change your genes is actually, uh, a gotcha, you know, genes don’t change. They can be damaged by radiation. They can be damaged by hormone disruptors that come from basically reared animals that are reared for slaughter or, or, uh, they can come from exposure to, uh, petrochemicals. And I think the current controversy with Roundup and Monsanto is a clear example uh glycosate which is the active agent in, in a Roundup, is a known carcinogen. It is classified as such by the world health organization. The United States has failed to echo that. Uh, but there was a study two months ago, uh, looking at plankton in Antarctica, and that’s a pretty esoteric study, but they looked at plankton. And what they found is that glycosate is in the organism of every single plankton, uh, entity in Antarctica. So we have our pervasive carcinogenic agent. We’ve basically poisoned the planet that has a direct impact on our genetic expression. And of course the pharmacology has a huge impact on whether or not genes express themselves and how so, those kinds of subtle multifactorial influences that we encounter. And we manifest every day of our lives and the profound impact it has on our health. Our longevity is to me, astounding. I mean, I remain in awe of the extent to which this occurs even now.

Dr. Cooper

Was there a time when you, and I guess you slightly alluded to this in the very first question, but was there a time when the light bulb just went off and you said, Oh, this is it like, this is the direction I want to take in my research because of the impact it can have longterm. Do you remember some thing that caused that to click?

Dr. Pelletier

Yeah, I do actually. Um, great question. Um, hadn’t thought about that. Um, but the first person that I studied at UCLA, and this is going back to the adept meditators study was a man named Jack Schwartz. Uh, Jack was a, a healer, a lecturer, a philosopher. And, uh, he had learned his autonomic regulation as a, uh, prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. And he had been tortured. And when he, uh, was tortured, he fainted went into a reverie and in the reverie, he had a visionary experience. And specifically he saw himself, he was raised as a Catholic, uh, in, in the Netherlands. He saw himself standing at the foot of the cross and that when Christ looked up into the heavens and said, Oh, Oh father, why has thou forsaken me? Jack said he didn’t look up. He looked into the eyes of every person standing at the foot of the cross. And when Jack’s eyes met with his eyes, he woke up, came out of his reverie and said to the Nazi concentration camp officer, I love you. Now, from that point on, they left them alone. They thought he was completely crazy. What happened was his ability to control bleeding and pain increased exponentially. So when we studied him in the lab, what he did was would be to take a sharpened bicycle, spoke large diameter unsterilized needle, and he would push it completely through his bicep. Now, this is one of those do not do this at home moments. Um, and I’d heard about this. I’d seen films of it. I’d been told by Dr. Green and Dr. Camille, who was my research advisor, that this was possible, but when I saw him actually do it, and when I looked at the instrumentation, we had hooked up to him that showed a slow wave activity in his brain, slow heart rate, very regular heart rate, no increase in blood pressure, no subsequent infection, no change in respiration rate or pattern. Uh, no other kind of physiological responses we were measuring. I was astounded. And I thought this is impossible, right? Because everything we know about the autonomic or the involuntary nervous system was being violated by this person entering into a state of meditation. And we had, uh, one of the criticisms of the studies is that, well, maybe he’s abnormal, or these people are abnormal. They don’t bleed or feel pain like the rest of us. So we did standard bleeding, time tests and standard pain reaction, time and tolerances before they meditated. And in Jack’s case, everything was perfectly normal. He bled pain, just like all of us, but when he was meditating, he had this profound shift. And the last thing that I’ll say that, that again, was this, uh, ha this is amazing. Uh, he said that when he would push the bicycle, spoke through his arm, and this is a hard thing to do. There’s a lot of tissue or a major arteries to hit, it didn’t matter to him if he hit a major artery or not. In fact, in one of the demonstrations, he actually did hit an artery. And it was amazing to watch him close that down. Like, like a, like a faucet. Um, you said it’s like, I don’t feel the needle. He said, it’s like me pressing on my arm with my own finger. There’s a sensation there, but it’s not a sharp, distracting, painful sensation. It’s simply an awareness of the fact that I’m doing this with my arm. And again, that, that has stuck with me to the present day, which shows the, the amazing power, if you will, that our belief systems and our psychological States have on our health and illness and even longevity.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So let’s come back to another thing you’re known for saying, and that is our daily activities and choices determine whether those vulnerabilities, you talked about the genes early on, those vulnerabilities are turned on or turned off. What would be some examples of the day, those daily activities and choices and quotes that our listeners may or may not be aware of? So, you know, we think of traditional, you know, better nutrition, meditation, you mentioned, uh, exercise, activity levels, any thoughts or suggestions of things that may not naturally come to mind for a wellness coach or somebody listening to this?

Dr. Pelletier

Well, all of those that you’ve just named have that kind of a profound impact. And one of them just backing up for a second. One of the questions that comes up is how does this happen with a gene? And a gene has a molecular coding it’s called single nucleotide polymorphisms or snips SNPs. And these are like the rheostats that coat that gene. And so all of these stress diet, physical activity act like a rheostat. They turn it up or they turn it down. That’s how the gene is enhanced or suppressed in terms of its its predisposition. And what I have been really impressed with is how delicate the balance is and how profound the impact is of simple dietary changes. I’ll give you an example. Uh, there are dietary assays that look at the influence of diet on genes, and you will find information like eat walnuts, not almonds, because genetically you’re not predisposed to digest almonds very well. However, you know, walnuts are really good for you and things like that, that degree of subtlety to me is always very surprising. Um, with physical activity, there was a great study just two months ago, uh, out of Ireland that looked at 40, uh, professional rugby players versus 40 amateur athletes. And they looked at their genetic biomarkers. And what they found is that the professional athletes, because of having to push and develop skills beyond the general population, all had enhanced increased biomarkers. So their ability to clear, uh, you know, issues in their intestinal tract was improved. Inflammation was reduced reaction time for their hormones were all increased. So again, this deceptively simple physical activity, albeit at a high level, had a profound and direct, uh, impact. So I guess it’s, it’s all of the factors that you mentioned. But to me, what is most surprising is how subtle and specific this impact is. You know, it’s not a general global response when I go to conferences and I hear about the ketogenic diet, paleolithic diet, high fat, low fat. Now there’s the celery juice, fasting diet, that’s making the rounds. So I just kind of shake my head and just think it’s totally silly because the reality is there’s no one perfect diet, the probably closest diet that comes to being proven and having good data is the Mediterranean diet. And in fact, find with the people you studied, looking at optimizing their epigenesis, the Mediterranean modified Mediterranean diet is most often characteristic, uh, of them, but, uh, you know, there’s no perfect diet and what these assays, what these assessments allow us to do is to say not what is the perfect diet generally go what’s the perfect diet for you? How does meditation affect your genetic expression? How does physical activity affect you? What is your physical environment doing in terms of promoting your health or wellbeing or not? So the, I guess the, the bottom line, if you will, is precision medicine or personalized healthcare is really coming. That’s the future. That’s the future that I see in the next two to five years.

Dr. Cooper

And, and that’s really exciting. And, and you spoke about that at the conference and it, it, it definitely raised the, the energy in the room, as you were talking about that, what, in the meantime, as we’re kind of, sort of waiting for that, I know not everybody’s waiting for it. There are some options there, but on a practical level for the everyday person over the next two to three years before this becomes more broadly utilized, how do people individualize that? So I’m, I start exercising, what other things I can be looking for, or I try a different, uh, eating plan. That’s more similar to the modified Mediterranean diet. What would I be looking for that would tell me without doing the biomarker checks that it’s having a positive impact?

Dr. Pelletier

Well, there are a lot of subjective measures and by the way, these, these assays are available now. I mean, there are about seven or eight testing companies that do a very good job. In fact, one of them that I worked with, I don’t have, by the way, don’t have any proprietor, just for disclosure of any proprietary or for-profit relationship to any of these companies. It’s really an objective assessment, but one of them I work with is actually provided me with a code that I could give to your listeners or give to you that would give them a 30% discount from one of them looking at these assays. So the assay’s exists now, and they’re going to be getting better over the next two to three years. Prices are dropping, uh, I think pretty soon, there’ll be literally kind of a over the counter now in, in the interim. I think one thing, for instance, with dietary intake, most of us race through meals, we race on to something else when it’s over. And we fail to notice the impact of what we have just eaten. So if you wait about 30 minutes after you’ve had a meal, it could be a quick meal, but just check in 30 minutes later, how are you feeling? If you’re feeling lethargic, if your attention is wandering, you don’t feel quite as sharp as you did. It means that something you just ate is adverse. It’s not good for your body. It doesn’t matter if it tasted good. You like it it’s a favorite food. It means it’s had an adverse effect on you. So just paying attention to the impact of what you’re eating on your mood on your mental state is a great barometer, absent these kinds of assays, which are precise of, uh, how to evaluate your diet. In terms of physical fitness, it’s not so much a matter of, Oh, I’m going to go out on a run because it’s going to prevent a heart attack that does not last. Fear is a poor motivator for anyone with anything. So the really the trick with any physical activity is mixing it up, doing different things. So you’re not bored by one particular exercise and doing something that you really enjoy and doing it at least two or three times a week for anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes. Um, the other things that the more current research is finding is what’s called interval training. So instead of elevating your heart rate up to a submaximal level of aerobic exercise and maintaining that. The best thing is actually three to four minutes of maximal exertion followed by three to five minutes of a decreased in effect, rest exertion, and back up to three to five minutes of peak exertion. And you cycle through this peaks and troughs for about 12 to 15 minutes, that’s, what’s called interval training and turns out to be the best in terms of cardiovascular health, weight loss, and general muscle tone, uh, for individuals. So suddenly this onerous, Oh, I’ve got to go out and exercise three times a week, 30 minutes goes away. And, uh, my best suggestion for people in terms of monitoring that is how do you feel you feel better or worse? Is it sharpening you, does it increase your energy or not? And that will tell you how well the that is happening. I guess the last thing would be if you’re concerned about environmental exposure. And again, it’s in terms of air quality, soil, quality foods, radiation, um, is how do you feel when you’re in your home? Some people will walk into their own home and they feel badly. So it’s kind of a toxic environment, and it may be off gassing from components of the house, or you walk into your work site, your workplace, and you feel suddenly kind of either lethargic or disoriented or not as energetic as you did. It may be because the air recycling is very poor in that office building. So I guess the bottom line is just pay attention to the impact of all of these influences on you. And that will tell you a great deal about what to do or not do to enhance your health.

Dr. Cooper

I love it. Especially the, the fueling piece, the nutrition piece of, okay, pause 30 minutes afterwards. How are you feeling? That’s a great indicator and something, every one of us can be doing. I love it. Before I forget, you mentioned that the discount code that you don’t have any conflict of interest there that’d be great if you don’t mind sharing that. And folks that are listening might want to tap into that a little bit.

Dr. Pelletier

Yeah, I’m in one of the seven or eight companies is a company called daytwo.com. And day two is a ten-year-old company that founded out of the Weizmann Institute in Israel. Now the Weizmann Institute is one of the world’s great nutritional sciences center. So the science, the thing I like about day two, the science is solid, uh, and what they they’re just coming into the United States. I think in the last year, uh, they have an office in the East Bay, in Northern California, and they’ve just begun to make their, their assessment available. So it’s daytwo.com. And when you go log on to purchase it, I think it’s around $250. The last time I looked, I think that’s the price. If you put in Pelletier30, as a code, you’ll get a 30% discount. And it’s just things that, because I’ve worked with them and I talk about them when I’ve got them in my PowerPoint, as you saw at the conference, um, they liked that obviously with the means for people to get access to this at a reduced price. So that’s a good one. And it gives you very detailed information. So for people concerned about weight loss or food sensitivities, um, certainly if you’re pre-diabetic, this is a life life-changer, uh, or if you are diabetic, if you’re a type two diabetic and you’re having difficulty really determining best foods on your diet this day two is perfect. It is the best thing I’ve ever seen out there. And one of the, uh, things that has occurred with patients in our cardiology clinic at UCLA is people will come in and say, you know, I’m following the guidelines. I’m just not getting results. And most of the doctors think, Oh, they’re, they’re lying, or they’re not following the guidelines because I’m not seeing changes in their blood markers. And when we have subjected them to the genetic testing, what we find is that yes, they are following the guidelines and the guidelines are not working. That’s, what’s so important. So it gives you one example. Um, if I ask you now is, uh, a banana or an Oreo cookie, less likely to spike your blood sugar, which one would it be? So most people would say, banana will spike your blood sugar less. The cookie will spike it more. It turns out for about 30% of people that eating a banana actually will spike your blood sugar more than a cookie. Now that is a shocker. That’s not something that we can be aware of. We may or may not be aware of that. Even in the method, we talked about paying attention to the aftermath of what you consume, but that’s the kind of information that you can get from these dietary assays. So again, you know, day two, it’s a good one. If your listeners have an interest, that’s one that I would really recommend.

Dr. Cooper

Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Confusing question for me that you mentioned during the conference. I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but I’d like to have you at least touch on it for us. And that is the generational epigenetic changes. So how our choices, how the choices I make today can influence our kids and potentially grandkids. And I’m, I’m assuming this is post-birth like the, the connection as a woman’s pregnant, or as, you know, as the, the couple is growing up and they’re about to have children. I can, I can see that, but I struggle with understanding how my choices after the kids are born outside of modeling actually can influence them and maybe even grandkids. Can you talk us through that a little bit?

Dr. Pelletier

Uh, yes. Well, you know, one of the things you’re pointing out is if some, if a woman is pregnant, if you have a pregnancy in your family, uh, what you do by way of genetic expression before, during, and after the pregnancy, even after the pregnancy will have a direct impact on the child. So your changes, if you will, if you make positive changes in genetic expression, through all the things we’ve been talking about, that will be transmitted to the fetus in utero, and you will have a child that has a push in a more positive epigenetic direction. So that’s very clear. The other parts that you’re talking about is something that’s really quite surprising. It’s called trans generational epigenetics. And what that means is some genetic pushes actually skip a generation, which is pretty amazing, um, where this was discovered was in looking at the epigenetics of the survivors of Nazi concentration camps. The hypothesis was that the offspring of the survivors should have a hyper arousal, uh, because of the genetic push that the parents had in the concentration camps. It turned out that’s not the case, but then they looked at the grandchildren. And what they found is the grandchildren did have a hyper arousal tendency toward highly stress, reactive conditions. Now, why that’s the case? No one is certain except the fact of, again, this modification factor. So maybe the parents or the offspring of the survivors of concentration camps were more loving, more caring. They were taken care of. The survivors did not want their children to suffer. And therefore that was not expressed in their genes, but then the third generation, the parents forgot about that. Just let the children be reared on their own and have this hyper arousal. There was also a recent study, which I thought was fascinating. Again, it came out after my book was published, uh, but it was from the university of cork in Ireland. They looked at predisposition to obesity and they looked at grandparents, both maternal and paternal grandparents, and they wanted to know, did their weight have a predictive impact on their children? The answer was no kind of surprising, but what was even more surprising is they look then at the third generation. So the grandchildren, what they found is on the patrilineal side, so grandfather, to son, to grandson, there was no prediction that didn’t really, you know, that whether grandfather was heavy or not, didn’t matter. However, for the grandmother to two female child, to the grand, to the female grandchild, there was a high predisposition to obesity. So if the grandmother was obese, the mother was not necessarily obese. The grandchild had a strong push toward the, toward obesity. Somehow that’s skipped an entire generation and manifested in the third generation. So there’s a whole subset of research going on now, looking at these kinds of odd transitions and inherited values that seem to seem to skip generations and show up in subsequent ones. Yeah.

Dr. Cooper

Interesting. Wow. All right. Let’s turn the mirror around here for a second. What is one or, or a couple, if you’d like interesting ways that you’re applying your research in a way that might surprise our listeners?

Dr. Pelletier

Well, um, I mean, I, I mean, personally,

Dr. Cooper

Yeah, just in, in your life, Dr. Pelletier’s life, what, what are you doing with your research to, uh, to, to garner the benefits?

Dr. Pelletier

Well, I, I have modified my diet based on these assays. I always try them first before I recommend them to patients or to listeners or people like, like your, your, your coaches. Um, so, uh, you know, I I’ve changed my diet. Um, I do have a protein drink every morning and give you an example. Uh, my, I, I had low fat dairy as the main liquid, and I switched from low fat dairy to, uh, rice dream because I thought, well, that’s healthier, lower in fat, et cetera. When I did my, they, it turns out that rice dream really spiked my blood sugar. So I went back to low fat dairy. And in fact, now the glycemic response stays relatively flat, um, so that’s one change, but I do have a protein drink. I certainly, you know, I I’ve meditated literally since I was 18 and I continue that on a daily basis. Um, and I think that the meditation allows us to go inside and to look at, uh, the point of view from which we’re making choices about our life, about our beliefs, about what we do. And if we have a point of stillness from which we make those decisions, I think they’re better. They’re clearer, they’re more benign. So I do continue meditation. Um, you know, I’m physically active. I, you know, here in San Francisco, it’s easy. So I swim. I surf, um, you know, I do some running, although I don’t enjoy it. So I don’t do very much of that, but I stay physically active. And the other is that I really love my work. I mean, I love what I do and if I didn’t, I would stop. And I think if you do what you love, that’s a critical factor in genetic expression. I think that really enhances the ability of our body, body and mind to optimize health. And I think the last thing is I really become more cognizant of spending time with friends and family time is the one thing that is our most valuable possession. It’s the one thing you can’t get more of. I can’t get more time. Um, and yet how much time we squander or don’t use in a way that’s productive and positive. I really become aware of that in the last four or five years. So it’s more time with friends, more time with family. And I just think that that’s made at least for me a huge, positive difference. So those are some of the things, uh, on a, on a daily basis that I’m doing differently.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. That’s a great list. That’s nice to know that you’re applying what you’re talking about and it’s not just do what I say and not what I do. All right. So now you get a chance to design a billboard. It’s going to be on the busiest street in the country. What would it say? Any, any message you want to portray?

Dr. Pelletier

Uh, I think in, in, I think in your, your, one of your early statements actually captured the phrase. I really like, but just genes are not your destiny. Um, if there’s one message that I would convey to people, which is you are not a victim of genes, um, they do not govern your state of health. They do not govern your longevity and everything that you do makes a difference in terms of manifesting health and long life expectancy for yourself. And so my main message on a billboard would be genes are not your destiny. Be a good bumper sticker.

Dr. Cooper

I love it. I love it. All right, Dr. Pelletier, I appreciate you joining us, any final words of wisdom for the coaches that are out there working with folks that just want to get better? They want to improve their lives or futures, any kind of summary things you’d like to leave us with that maybe we haven’t brought up yet?

Dr. Pelletier

Well, I just want to commend, uh, coaching as a profession and commend your coaches in particular, because in all of our research with corporations and the corporate program, I I’ve run for 30 years includes, uh, the corporate members are, are, uh, American airlines and IBM for Dow, Lockheed Martin, Apple, Oracle, they’re really, they’re really blue ribbon companies in all of our interventions. We use health coaching. So because it’s inherently less, we develop the computer algorithms and then the coaches interact with the people using the computer algorithms to really counsel them, to really help the people make better life choices. And we’ve changed the lives of literally tens of thousands of employees through the skills of the coaches. So I have, you know, immense respect and, and I, I’m a real advocate if you will, of the coaching model to improve health. Uh, and, and I think we’ll see more of this telemedicine is becoming more acceptable, certainly in the work site. And I think there’s a bright future and, and, uh, I commend every coach for the impact they have.

Dr. Cooper

I appreciate that. Thank you. Great way to wrap up. Thank you again for joining us. This has been fantastic.

Dr. Pelletier

Thank you for the invitation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

Dr. Cooper

Absolutely. Wasn’t that fascinating? I remember the first time I heard Dr. Pelletier’s research, I was just stunned about what it meant on a practical level. We were so grateful he was willing to invest the time with us to share his insights. Thanks for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching.