making up our genes, each person’s genetic makeup is unique – we inherit genes from our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents (you get the picture).
This is why some people get sick more frequently than others, and why some people get cancer and others don’t, even though our bodies all contain the genes for cancer.
The field of Epigenetics, the study of genes and how heredity affects gene expression, evolved from research by Conrad H. Waddington and Ernst Hadorn in the early 1940s, and has blossomed over the ensuing decades.
Research has shown that an individual’s environment and lifestyle can create changes to the genes which can show
up throughout the person’s life and
even passed on to later generations.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have a crystal ball that would tell us what type of funky genes we may have inherited, so we could take action
before anything occurred?
Guess what? We each have our very own crystal ball. In fact, we have two of them! They go by this unforgettable name – YOUR EYES!
The eye is an incredibly complex organ. Its primary function is like that of a camera. It receives and focuses rays of light on the retina (the film) and then transfers these ultra, high-speed light impulses to the brain via the optic nerve.
These impulses are received by the brain which in turn translates these impulses into images (pictures) that we see.
And in addition to giving us the gift of sight, the eyes also give us a picture into our health.
Blood vessels enter the eye from the body through the optic nerve. Considering that the eye is only 2.5cm in diameter (about the size of a marble), these blood vessels are extremely small and delicate. including the blood vessels. Many times, systemic diseases are diagnosed during an eye exam because of abnormalities observed to the blood vessels. This is the reason why yearly
23