Commentaar Vrouwenpartij: de Vrouwenpartij ziet vrijheid en de waarde vrijheid als de belangrijkste factor in ons leven. Vrijheid is het hoogste doel van en in het leven en het is juist vrijheid, de vrijheid van keuze dat ons steeds meer en vaker wordt aangeboden.
Terzijde: is het toevallig dat persoonlijke vrijheid van alle kanten wordt aangevallen in de VS en andere rechts-extremistische regimes?
Vrijheid gaat samen met verlies aan macht bij de machthebbers. Alleen extremisme kan de golf van vrijheid tegenhouden, ook al is het maar tijdelijk.
Meer keuzevrijheid en meer controle over je leven
Tot niet lang geleden verklaarde de wetenschap dat genen de bouwstenen waren van het leven. Dit was vooral gebaseerd op het idee dat genen onveranderbaar waren. Niets bleek minder waar. Vijftien jaar geleden kwam er een barst in die theorie, toen epigenetica werd geboren en aantoonde dat genen konden veranderen door omstandigheden in iemands leven.
De wetenschap komt nu snel tot de ontdekking dat genen een heel veel minder bepalende rol spelen dan gedacht. Wijzelf kunnen veel meer dan onze genen. Het onderstaande wetenschappelijk artikel toont aan dat wijzelf grotendeels kunnen bepalen hoe lang we kunnen gaan leven. Een vrijheid die groter blijkt dan we eerder dachten te hebben. We hoeven ons niet meer neer te leggen bij wat onze genen voorspellen.
Nieuwe vrijheden
– Ook fysiek kunnen genen tegenwoordig gemanipuleerd worden. Crispr Cas kan worden gebruikt om bij een gen met een foutje de fout er uit te knippen en een goed stukje er voor in de plaats te ‘plakken’.
– De toekomst is echter aan de stamcellen. Stamcellen zijn de eerste cellen die na de bevruchting gevormd worden. Ons hele lichaam is gebaseerd op die eerste stamcellen, waaruit elk deel van ons lichaam kan groeien. Een stamcel kan in principe uitgroeien tot een oog, een nier, een lever of welk ander deel in ons lichaam.
Wat als de cellen van een slecht werkend orgaan (lever, nier, long, hart) vervangen kunnen worden door stamcellen? In principe kunnen ze elk soort cel worden omdat het volledige menselijke lichaam in hen zit. Dat zou betekenen dat we elk orgaan kunnen vervangen door een nieuwe jonge versie. Als dat geen vrijheid is….
– Als genen kunnen veranderen door de omstandigheden in ons leven, zal het ooit ook mogelijk moeten zijn om onze genen bewust te veranderen.
In onze genen worden onze psychologische karakteristieken bewaard en via onze genen doorgegeven aan onze kinderen en vervolgens onze kleinkinderen. Wat als wij onze psychologie bewust kunnen veranderen, dan veranderen we ook onze genen en belasten we onze kinderen niet met onze psychologische gebreken. Ouders die zich verantwoordelijk voelen voor de minder goede eigenschappen die ze doorgeven, zouden de keuze-ouders kunnen zijn van een zieltje die vrijheid zoekt.
Kortom: Vrijheid tegenhouden kan alleen op een tijdelijke basis en opent daarna weer met een groter verlangen naar vrijheid.
Lees hier het artikel: Lifespan Is Shaped More By Your Choices Than Your Genes, Study Finds
Bron: sciencealert.com
HEALTH
Hassan Vally
23 March 2025
Lifespan Is Shaped More By Your Choices Than Your Genes, Study Finds
The Conversation
One of the most enduring questions humans have is how long we’re going to live. With this comes the question of how much of our lifespan is shaped by our environment and choices, and how much is predetermined by our genes.
A study recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine has attempted for the first time to quantify the relative contributions of our environment and lifestyle versus our genetics in how we age and how long we live.
The findings were striking, suggesting our environment and lifestyle play a much greater role than our genes in determining our longevity.
What the researchers did
This study used data from the UK Biobank, a large database in the United Kingdom that contains in-depth health and lifestyle data from roughly 500,000 people. The data available include genetic information, medical records, imaging and information about lifestyle.
A separate part of the study used data from a subset of more than 45,000 participants whose blood samples underwent something called “proteomic profiling“.
(see picture in the article).
The study found lifestyle is a stronger predictor of aging and mortality than genetics. (Argentieri et al., Nature Medicine, 2025)
Proteomic profiling is a relatively new technique that looks at how proteins in the body change over time to identify a person’s age at a molecular level. By using this method researchers were able to estimate how quickly an individual’s body was actually ageing. This is called their biological age, as opposed to their chronological age (or years lived).
The researchers assessed 164 environmental exposures as well as participants’ genetic markers for disease. Environmental exposures included lifestyle choices (for example, smoking, physical activity), social factors (for example, living conditions, household income, employment status) and early life factors, such as body weight in childhood.
They then looked for associations between genetics and environment and 22 major age-related diseases (such as coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes), mortality and biological ageing (as determined by the proteomic profiling).
These analyses allowed the researchers to estimate the relative contributions of environmental factors and genetics to ageing and dying prematurely.
What did they find?
When it came to disease-related mortality, as we would expect, age and sex explained a significant amount (about half) of the variation in how long people lived. The key finding, however, was environmental factors collectively accounted for around 17% of the variation in lifespan, while genetic factors contributed less than 2%.
This finding comes down very clearly on the nurture side in the “nature versus nurture” debate. It suggests environmental factors influence health and longevity to a far greater extent than genetics.
Not unexpectedly, the study showed a different mix of environmental and genetic influences for different diseases. Environmental factors had the greatest impact on lung, heart and liver disease, while genetics played the biggest role in determining a person’s risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancers, and dementia.
The environmental factors that had the most influence on earlier death and biological ageing included smoking, socioeconomic status, physical activity levels and living conditions.
Interestingly, being taller at age ten was found to be associated with a shorter lifespan. Although this may seem surprising, and the reasons are not entirely clear, this aligns with previous research finding taller people are more likely to die earlier.
Carrying more weight at age ten and maternal smoking (if your mother smoked in late pregnancy or when you were a newborn) were also found to shorten lifespan.
Probably the most surprising finding in this study was a lack of association between diet and markers of biological ageing, as determined by the proteomic profiling. This flies in the face of the extensive body of evidence showing the crucial role of dietary patterns in chronic disease risk and longevity.
But there are a number of plausible explanations for this. The first could be a lack of statistical power in the part of the study looking at biological ageing. That is, the number of people studied may have been too small to allow the researchers to see the true impact of diet on ageing.
Second, the dietary data in this study, which was self-reported and only measured at one time point, is likely to have been of relatively poor quality, limiting the researchers’ ability to see associations. And third, as the relationship between diet and longevity is likely to be complex, disentangling dietary effects from other lifestyle factors may be difficult.
So despite this finding, it’s still safe to say the food we eat is one of the most important pillars of health and longevity.
What other limitations do we need to consider?
Key exposures (such as diet) in this study were only measured at a single point in time, and not tracked over time, introducing potential errors into the results.
Also, as this was an observational study, we can’t assume associations found represent causal relationships. For example, just because living with a partner correlated with a longer lifespan, it doesn’t mean this caused a person to live longer. There may be other factors which explain this association.
Finally, it’s possible this study may have underestimated the role of genetics in longevity. It’s important to recognise genetics and environment don’t operate in isolation. Rather, health outcomes are shaped by their interplay, and this study may not have fully captured the complexity of these interactions.
The future is (largely) in your hands
It’s worth noting there were a number of factors such as household income, home ownership and employment status associated with diseases of ageing in this study that are not necessarily within a person’s control. This highlights the crucial role of addressing the social determinants of health to ensure everyone has the best possible chance of living a long and healthy life.
At the same time, the results offer an empowering message that longevity is largely shaped by the choices we make. This is great news, unless you have good genes and were hoping they would do the heavy lifting.
Ultimately, the results of this study reinforce the notion that while we may inherit certain genetic risks, how we eat, move and engage with the world seems to be more important in determining how healthy we are and how long we live.
Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University
This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
