Tia Kansara on The Epigenetics of Wellbeing. Today, I'm going to share some interesting factors affecting our wellbeing and how you can take the chance to enhance the experience of your life. Around 80 years ago, embryologist, Conrad Waddington observed that the genetic code contains items that aren't always expressed. This difference in gene and trait or genotype and phenotype has given rise to what is now one of the fastest-growing areas of science, which has the potential to reshape our understanding of wellbeing.
Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Tia Kansara, founder of Replenish Earth Limited and board member of the World Happiness Foundation. Super happy to be here with you. We're excited to bring a special program together for you to enjoy. I'm super excited to be meeting all of you albeit digitally and always happy to receive your comments and your questions, any suggestions that you may have. You can also add me all on Instagram.
And if you hashtag epigenetics in our communication, I'll know where you came across me for context. So Replenish Earth is a leading consultancy helping companies to drive the net positive gender. So far we've transformed and helped over 120 companies to create a positive impact in over 90 countries. Our reach is expanding. And recently, we were honored by the United Nations and asked to spearhead their resilience frontiers initiative using lifelong learning practices at COP26.
We're also helping to strategize for COP27 in Egypt. Replenish Earth is pioneering ways to increase end-to-end sustainable development by supporting businesses to reduce their climate risk, improve their business models to become more eco-aligned, and support governments to invest in green alternatives.
Today, I'm going to share some interesting factors affecting our wellbeing and how you can take the chance to enhance the experience of your life. Around 80 years ago, embryologist, Conrad Waddington observed that the genetic code contains items that aren't always expressed. This difference in gene and trait or genotype and phenotype have given rise to what is now one of the fastest-growing areas of science, which has the potential to reshape our understanding of wellbeing.
The early stages of the field began with scientific debates about the nature of how organisms develop and how different mechanisms dictate genetic inheritance. Its early definition was a broad explanation for scientific phenomena, which couldn't really be explained by genetics. As the decades went by, scientific and technological developments allowed researchers to understand DNA methylation with the involvement of RNA and create new technologies, which all contributed to the gene expression and its various influences.
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Tia Kansara
Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Tia Kansara, founder of Replenish Earth Limited and board member of the World Happiness Foundation. Super happy to be here with you. We're excited to bring a special program together for you to enjoy. I'm super excited to be meeting all of you albeit digitally and always happy to receive your comments and your questions, any suggestions that you may have. You can also add me all on Instagram.
And if you hashtag epigenetics in our communication, I'll know where you came across me for context. So Replenish Earth is a leading consultancy helping companies to drive the net positive gender. So far we've transformed and helped over 120 companies to create a positive impact in over 90 countries. Our reach is expanding. And recently, we were honored by the United Nations and asked to spearhead their resilience frontiers initiative using lifelong learning practices at COP26.
We're also helping to strategize for COP27 in Egypt. Replenish Earth is pioneering ways to increase end-to-end sustainable development by supporting businesses to reduce their climate risk, improve their business models to become more eco-aligned, and support governments to invest in green alternatives.
Today, I'm going to share some interesting factors affecting our wellbeing and how you can take the chance to enhance the experience of your life. Around 80 years ago, embryologist, Conrad Waddington observed that the genetic code contains items that aren't always expressed. This difference in gene and trait or genotype and phenotype have given rise to what is now one of the fastest-growing areas of science, which has the potential to reshape our understanding of wellbeing.
The early stages of the field began with scientific debates about the nature of how organisms develop and how different mechanisms dictate genetic inheritance. Its early definition was a broad explanation for scientific phenomena, which couldn't really be explained by genetics. As the decades went by, scientific and technological developments allowed researchers to understand DNA methylation with the involvement of RNA and create new technologies, which all contributed to the gene expression and its various influences.
Although the true definition of epigenetics still remains highly debated, it's kind of like sustainability, people are sort of evolving with it. The concept is still linked to the observations that were initially made by Waddington in 1939. So it's the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not originate from changes in the DNA sequence. And this is really important.
That's the paradigm shift that epigenetics has triggered within the scientific world and that we can have even greater consequences on the environment with. So originally, when epigenetics was being studied, monozygotic or identical twins were becoming the face of epigenetic studies, because you can only imagine two people that are born with the same genetic code could look absolutely different.
They would be distinct with juxtaposing personalities and face different diseases. Studies have shown that despite identical twins being born with exactly the same genome in theory, the environment included epigenetic additions to their code would increase throughout their life as a result of very lifestyles, surroundings, emotional, social, mental surroundings. So did you know if a twin suffers from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, the other twin's risk of contracting the same illness increases by 50%.
So whilst this statistic has significant weight, if the twins have the same DNA sequence, one wouldn't expect the likelihood of getting the same illness to vary by 50%, right? Scientists have attributed this difference to epigenetics. And since one twin's epigenome can vary significantly from the others,, we can really try to understand how this works. So the term "epi" is derived from a Greek prefix, which means to hover over or to cover, kind of like a covering of an item.
So you can imagine that whatever your gene is, the expression is how it is expressed, right? So epigenetic modifications happen when an extra layer of instruction let's say covers the DNA altering the way that it adapts. A common sort of type is a DNA methylation whereby a chemical group is attracted to the DNA. And typically, it blocks a gene from being read or expressed. Histone modification is another mechanism where the Gene's readability depends on chemical groups, which can be added or removed, imagine.
So this changes how a gene is wrapped around the histone. And as a result, that's the expression that has changed. These mechanisms are caused by our lifestyle, as I mentioned earlier. What makes epigenetics so revolutionary is the notion that gene expression is affected by factors, which don't stem from the gene itself.
That the environment surrounding us has the role in the way our basic code is expressed, affecting our behaviors, our physical, mental health relationships, maybe even our productivity at work, the food that we eat, the environment pollutants that surrounded us when we were children in our neighborhoods, our working hours to the way that it can change our mood. The genotype and environment interplay.
And that's how they influence our brains architecture and functioning. These external influences can affect our internal response. So if we harbor an environment and a society that supports our needs, could epigenetics modify our genome to one that can improve our overall wellbeing. I mean, that's the trillion-dollar question, right? If you could change your environment and conceptualize the spectrum of positive expressions, you could change your comfort level or happiness level or state of wellbeing.
One such study analyzed how methylation affects wellbeing and found specific methylation sites, which were linked to wellbeing. Other studies look at the effects of specific exercises or regular meditation, yoga on gene expression. Meditation was found to be linked to an expression pathway, which influenced is the likelihood to suffer from depression, inflammation, or even cell aging. Can you believe it?
You could change the way that you affect your telomeres, how old you are, and how you age. The kind of potential that we're looking at for epigenetics is non-exhaustive and can be applied to countless fields. We're really just at the beginning of our study, even though in the past two years, many of us have been isolated from those we love and care about because of the pandemic.
And luckily we still had the technology to build connections, but some of us really suffered from our mental health more than others. I think we can all agree that our environmental structure, design can affect how we develop characteristically. And more than 42% of the people in a US census bureau survey said that they felt symptoms of anxiety or depression. And this is an increase of about 11% from previous years.
According to research, social anxiety is caused by two main areas. And guess what? The environment is one of those. The other is genetics. Reconnecting with nature can really help us cognitively and also emotionally to balance our mental health. [inaudible 00:09:44] I think is a really fascinating way that we can translate the way that we understand our environment. And really when we observe our healing power of nature, which was introduced by Hippocrates to explain the body's ability to heal itself, we can also appreciate biologists like Sir John Arthur Thompson also agrees that the concepts of nature can influence our wellbeing.
In the 1970s, maybe this wasn't as tested. And I really do think that Histo modification, when he was at the study of ecotherapy, was pioneering research that showed changes in surgery. Recovery times were linked to a patient's window view. So you could be looking outside of the window. And if you were to see nature, trees, they happened, the patients happened to recover faster.
Then they did if they were looking at an urban concrete wall. So at Replenish Earth, we believe in immersing ourselves in nature and as much as possible, incorporating nature into the design of buildings. We really do believe that it can rejuvenate us. Psychologists have also prescribed nature as this kind of medicine for those suffering stress and anxiety. Nature immersives can help reduce social anxiety. And the study of epigenetics helps us to understand what conditions are necessary to keep our environmental genetic relationship in equilibrium.
So let's experiment. Take a second to reflect on how your body temperature feeling right now. Indoor environments are often designed to create a desire for optimum wellbeing among occupants. Indoor wellbeing is the psychophysical sense of satisfaction in one's physical and thermal environments. And thermal comfort is often one of the main goals when constructing a building. I've found how important this is whilst during doing my PhD at UCL at the Bartlett Faculty Of The Built Environment.
And this research really did start to analyze how we can create this kind of almost physical environment for testing, how comfort can impact our productivity in our relationship with our thermal environment and how it can affect our biology. His curiosity specifically looked at unhealthy shocks that can affect us when we're kind of transitioning from the outdoors to the indoors and how it is that we can adapt to this form of comfort. Of course, the adaptive thermal comfort theory suggests that occupants of a building have a thermal history.
So you imagine if there is a particular place that you feel comfortable in, this means that this place will continue to remain comfortable to you. And that's the subjective wellbeing that we have when we are analyzing our adaptive response to the built environment. Nickel, and a lot of the work that Humphreys have done for example, have really shown that we can suffer something like heat stress inside or outside a building.
And of course, with the global commons warming up, we could really start to be affected in terms of our productivity. We're already seeing how our health is affected. So our crops are effected, our supply chains are affected. So it's really important to understand where we have this agency. These studies argue that buildings should not simply give occupants a satisfaction with their thermal environment, but should really give us delight.
Once a person enters a building, they may go through a period called the acclimatization, causing some kind of behavioral or physical responses upon their entry. And this kind of transitional area or zone is constantly being affected by the external environment. You can only imagine a door that you're entering and an airlock that is greeted with revolving doors still continues to be this transition space. Van Hoof and Henson recommended a gradual change of that kind of temperature when entering a building.
And Didier's work is really prominent when it comes to affecting our clothing mechanisms and those things that we can really affect our wellbeing with. So I would say that wellbeing really does go beyond our immediate sense of satisfaction. And studies have found links between our surroundings and its implications on disease risk as well. It's difficult to conceptualize that your bedroom will have an impact on your health in 20 years time.
However, think of your bedroom in terms of its level of particulate matter, right? The quality of your air, your neighbor's cigarette smoke that comes in through your ventilators or the endocrine disruptors from that Amazon delivery package you left on the kitchen counter. These tiny environmental exposures accumulate over time, as do their collective impact on epigenetic modifications.
So understanding what the triggers are and how they can impact your gene expression can give you the tools necessary to foster the environment that is needed for your specific code to prosper. Imagine having a bespoke service in catering and after your health. And despite not altering the gene themselves, epigenetic modifications can also be inherited. And a study by Rachel Yehuda, a well known neuroscientist has made multiple breakthroughs in understanding that genetics behind intergenerational trauma can really affect Holocaust victims in their response to cortisol, a hormone for stress response.
So I can only imagine that we are all susceptible to this incredibly powerful skyrocketing market that is being contracted at the moment. And I think that the work of companies like 23andMe to really understanding the work of three billion pairs and the impacts of privacy on our data, our genetic code can lead to some revolutionary practices.
And I think I really want us to be in that place that we're ready for whatever changes there will be. I hope you can feel comfortable in sending us messages at any of our social media. You can take a picture of the QR code that links to our social media as well, our link tree. And we have a course that's going to be coming out on net positive. So I'd really love for you to join me there. Please do feel comfortable in sending me an email or sending me a message on Instagram. And I very much look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments on our wonderful program this week. Thank you.