Epigenetics on the Today Show?
This may be the first time NBC's Today Show has ever tried to distinguish between gene inheritance and gene expression and begun to explore how human health might be affected by epigenetic changes.
It happened in a conversation between the show's Medical Editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, and host Meredith Vieira [view clip], about a new report just released by Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsiblity on the role of the environment in aging, especially in increasing risks of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
The report does a very thorough and careful job reviewing a large literature on environmental contributions to aging, including nutrition, life style and contamination and how they contribute to dementia.
Snyderman's challenge was to capture a key conclusion of the report - that changes in gene expression caused by environmental factors are important contributors to risk of dementia - at a level appropriate for the Today Show's viewers without letting the viewers revert to the old frame of 'genes vs. environment.' It's all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that disease linked to genes is by definition one that is inherited.
Using very simple language, and in a good interplay with Viera, who kept coming back to the theme that 'we thought it must be genetic,' Snyderman described how environmental factors trigger genes to turn on and off: "All these things take those genes and they can switch things on or keep them silent. They can keep your chromosomes short or keep them long." Then she went on: "You have to start thinking about your body like a car. If your car rusts prematurely, you're not going to make it to 200,000 miles. If your body rusts prematurely, you're not going to make it to 80 and healthy. The more rust you can prevent in your body, the better off you're going to be. Especially if you're beginning to rust from the time you are born."
And from Viera: "I always assumed, obviously I was incorrect, that things like Alzheimer's were triggered by genetics. But the environmental triggers seemed to turn on those genes more and more."
Still a little fuzzy, but definitely on the right track.
Reporters have been increasingly willing over the past 5 years to step away from the frame "genes vs. environment" and begin to write intelligently about factors controlling gene expression. That it has made it to the Today Show, even as necessarily simplified explanation as Snyderman's description was, is an indication of how far it has come since Sharon Begley first began to write about epigenetics in her health column in the Wall Street Journal.
Many other reporters have now begun to use this language and framing as they track new discoveries in the environmental health sciences. During the past six years, Environmental Health News has archived 170 stories (from 109 reporters) using the word 'epigenetic.' The stories appeared in the mainstream and science trade press we track. Janet Raloff and Tina Hesman Saey (both from Science News), Rick Weiss (Washington Post), Martin Mittelstaedt (Toronto Globe & Mail), Sue Goetinck (Dallas Morning News) and Roger Highfield (London Daily Telegraph) have run great pieces. Discover Magazine has had a series of in depth stories.
This trend is highly likely to continue. Not only is the science heading that way - with major funding initiatives in the US, Japan and Europe, but many more journalists are picking up the thread. In fact, at the just-ended 2008 conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists (held in Roanoke, VA), writer/reporter Elizabeth Grossman led a session on epigenetics with NIEHS scientist Jerry Heindel as a panelist.
Stay tuned, much more to come.
