is it true, that, what our ancestors ate,and how they took care of themselves,passed along to our gene pool of today and effects the current family living? when they say,"its genetic", what are they saying? to me, its been that our ancestors, got sick, and formed these diseases, thus passing along the defected gene to us...any info? thanks

There's little clinical proof of the Blood Type Diet, if I am getting what you are saying, though it's an interesting hypothesis. And while some allergies are hereditary, most are environmental. I'm not sure what you mean by diseases. I refer to only pathogenic infections as "diseases"; to me, everything else is a "disorder", so I may not be understanding your meaning. Are you asking about anything specific?

hi tamakhu...

you know when they ask, "does diabetes run in your family?"

or when they ask. "does cancer?" you know how if your grandmother had breast cancer then some say you might be more succeptable to it than if she didnt have it?

As far as science has shown us for Type II diabetes, when things "run in the family" it's likely lifestyle that is the culprit rather than genes. Like, if your granny ate junk and became diabetic, and your mother was raised to eat junk and became diabetic, and you were raised to eat junk, there is an expectable outcome, right? Especially if you have a genetic predisposition to a disorder. We know that eventually, lifestyle based Type II diabetes becomes encoded genetically in future generations; perhaps this is how the Type I anomaly first arose, though I have heard that it can be a simple case of untreated pathogenic infection. But that's a whole other tangent.

What I mean is that, with diabetes and breast cancer, it isn't the same thing as, say, Wilson's Disease[genetic inability to metabolize copper from liver] in that these disorders can be controlled with lifestyle modifications. Even in the case of Type I, no one knows how many people are genetically "doomed" to have it, as there are patients on record that are limiting their Type I with diet and exercise, and there is some anecdotal evidence that it can be reversed this way. This is astonishing.

As with the "breast cancer gene," scientists are finding more and more evidence that the expression of a genetic disorder, whether it's cancer or Type I diabetes, requires certain lifestyle factors to be in play. If they are not, the gene may not switch on. There aren't enough studies to disprove this, in any case. I think we are at just the beginning of our understanding of how much Nurture can influence Nature where our genetic health is concerned.