Dean Ornish Quotes

Your genes are not your fate... if you change your lifestyle, you change your genes.

A mutation can create an alternative form of a phenomenon - a phenotype or trait - and we can learn a lot by seeing this alternative state. Once I saw a mouse with no eyelids. It simply had a membrane over the eyes. I found it fascinating that there is a single gene required for eyelids to develop.

One of the things that got me interested in genetics was the relationship between genes and environment. We are all dealt a certain deck of cards, but our environment can influence the outcomes.

Your genetics is not your destiny.

Genetics is about how information is stored and transmitted between generations.

The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.

My genetics are good, but they aren't crazy He-Man style.

People think genes are an absolute cause of traits. But the notion that the genome is the blueprint for humanity is a very bad metaphor. If you think we're hard-wired and deterministic, there should indeed be a lot more genes.

If you talk to geneticists they are constantly finding that your genes are being switched on and off because of the environment. Genes alone do not determine an exact path in your life.

Heritability pertains to the entirety of the genome, not to a single gene.

… the policy of genes

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my genes because I can't do anything about them.

Genes are not destiny!

Similarly, another famous little quantum fluctuation that programs you is the exact configuration of your DNA.

It used to be thought that our genes were historically immutable and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.

Each part of our genome is unique. We would not be alive if there was not a single mathematical solution for our chromosomes. We would just be scrambled goo.

First of all, many human diseases are influenced by, if not caused by mutations in genes.

Epigenetics doesn't change the genetic code, it changes how that's read. Perfectly normal genes can result in cancer or death. Vice-versa, in the right environment, mutant genes won't be expressed. Genes are equivalent to blueprints; epigenetics is the contractor. They change the assembly, the structure.

I spent 10 years trying to find one gene.

There are many ways in which genes influence the brain.

Genetics is all about showcasing human beauty along with high-quality performance.

In college, I had an early introduction to classical genetics from Professor Dan Lindsley, also an extraordinary teacher who influenced me greatly.

No one knows what the nongenetic causes of individuality are. Perhaps people are shaped by modifications of genes that take place after conception, or by haphazard fluctuations in the chemical soup in the womb or the wiring up of the brain or the expression of the genes themselves.

Our experience in fooling around with the genes of mice has taught us that many of the traits that interest us are not definite products of specific mutations but emergent phenomena arising from extremely complex interactions between genes, environment, and life experience.

Genes are not about inevitabilities; they're about potentials and vulnerabilities.