57. Nutrigenomics of Vitamin B12 and Invasive Cancer Neuroepic: Nature, Nurture, Food, Family, Brains

As a society we are becoming more aware of how daily life patterns directly affect our health and wellness. Exercise, food, and sleep not only influence our short term mental and physical states, but there is increasing evidence that there are lasting effects on our DNA and potentially our offspring’s DNA. Our DNA, or genome, is composed of a specific sequence of nucleotides that control our growth, development, and the ability to carry out biological functions needed for survival. How the DNA is packaged and changes to this packaging is referred to as the epigenome. This can be thought of as a recipe, where the genome is a set of particular directions to make a dish. However, a cook can make a recipe their own and change up the steps to better fit a desired outcome, which is like the epigenome. If more steps are added to a recipe, it becomes more difficult to use, and less people will make the dish, and it can also be simplified by taking out more in depth steps. In the epigenome, changes are made to proteins, making them more or less easily accessible to make genes that our bodies need to function.