Epigenetics and Exercise: An Essential Friendship

Javier Colomer 6 min. of reading Well-being habits Leave a comment

Today we look at a rather interesting topic: how exercise can shape our epigenetics.

Index

1 What is Epigenetics?
2 Epigenetics and the Genetic Code
3 Can genes be modified?
4 How does Physical Exercise affect our Genes?
5 Could your training today affect your grandchildren?
6 Your habits can mark your offspring
7 Conclusions
8 Bibliographic sources
9 Related Entries

What is Epigenetics?

Epigenetics, if we look at the etymological origin of the word, is nothing more than “that which is above your genes”.

As this will clear up a few doubts, let’s define it differently.

Here is a sentence with and without punctuation marks (in this case, commas):

Let’s eat, children vs Let’s eat children

Quite different, right?

The sentence without punctuation would be genetics, i.e., the set of genes laid down by the genetic code and encoding multiple proteins that make us who we are.

Epigenetics and the Genetic Code

Until recently, the genetic code was thought to be immutable.

If you were born with a genetic code that generated a defective protein and therefore a disease, that was your immutable fate.

That’s all there was to say…

Epigenetics, fortunately, changed this picture.
Epigenetics is nothing more than punctuation: commas, full stops, quotation marks.

And punctuation changes everything…

Epigenetics is the set of modifications that our genetic code undergoes as a result of predominantly environmental inputs and which greatly conditions gene expression.

Can genes be modified?

To put it in a nutshell, epigenetics is made up of a series of “tags” that are placed on top of our genes which we call DNA methylation, histone acetylation and miRNAs.

These tags are able to activate or inactivate the expression of most of the genes we know.

Thus, depending on our environment, some genes may be expressed and others may not.

We can be born with a faulty gene and an increased risk of disease, but our lifestyle habits can silence that gene and cause the faulty protein it encodes to never show up.

That is the power of epigenetics.

How does Physical Exercise affect our Genes?

Epigenetics is malleable.

What we do on a daily basis modifies our epigenetics and, in this respect, there is one thing that modifies it far more than other interventions: physical exercise.

Six months of aerobic exercise, for example, alters the entire DNA methylation pattern in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue and directly influences lipogenesis (1).

Several things happen when we exercise:

We modify our metabolic environment

Certain hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, glucagon and GH are elevated; meanwhile, insulin decreases.

We modify the pattern of myokine secretion.

The muscle is an endocrine organ capable of secreting a multitude of substances when exercised.

These substances have a systemic effect and affect multiple organs and systems.

We increase the expression of certain genes and decrease the expression of others

This is where epigenetics makes its stellar appearance.

In ways that are not yet well understood, exercise is capable of modifying gene expression by altering the pattern of gene methylation and histone acetylation.

And something very interesting: we give our offspring better health. See the next section.

Could your training today affect your grandchildren?

One of the most exciting things about epigenetics is the fact that epigenetic changes have an intergenerational inheritance.

It is not only genetics that is inherited, but also epigenetics.

For example, treadmill exercise by prospective parents increases hippocampal BDNF expression in (future) offspring.

Your training today may affect the learning ability of your future child. Who knows if it will affect your future grandchild.

Your habits can mark your offspring

Similarly, science is realising that the lifetime risk of disease is also largely determined by epigenetics.

This is of incredible social importance:

If you smoke;
If you use drugs;
If you are sedentary;
If you are continually stressed; or
If you have a poor diet.

You are no longer only harming yourself as an individual…

You are damaging, via epigenetic modifications in your sperm/ovule, the health of your future children, which will be impaired before they even have a chance to be born.

As I always say, taking care of oneself is a social as well as an individual responsibility.

Minimising the risk of chronic disease and maximising the chances of being functional and useful for as long as possible is something to which we should all aspire.

The science of epigenetics only adds weight to this argument.

Conclusions

From now on, when you train, instead of thinking about your abs, your round deltoids or your powerful gluteus, think about the following:

You are literally modifying the expression of your genes.
That in itself protects you from countless chronic diseases.
The positive effect will be passed on to your offspring.

Since the epigenetic modifications accumulated throughout an individual’s life and which respond to his or her habits are intergenerationally heritable.

Bibliographic sources

Denham J, Marques FZ, O’Brien BJ, Charchar FJ. Exercise: Putting action into our epigenome. Sports Medicine. 2014.
Yin MM, Wang W, Sun J, Liu S, Liu XL, Niu YM, et al. Paternal treadmill exercise enhances spatial learning and memory related to hippocampus among male offspring. Behav Brain Res. 2013 Sep 5;253:297–304.

Related Entries

After reading this post, it seems incomprehensible that people still don’t exercise. We explain some of the main causes in this link.
Did you know about these benefits of aerobic exercise? Read more.