I really had every intention to leave sugar alone for a while, but a recent article from the Journal of Experimental Medicine has changed my mind.

If you thought the extra sugar you and your kids ate at Easter had little or only a short term effect, think again.  This latest research has shown that human genes remember a sugar hit for up to two weeks and change the way your body functions.  These authors concluded that all poor eating habits have what they referred to as “dramatic and long-lasting effects” on our cells.  Regular poor eating seems to amplify this effect.

This research can be added to the long list of material that suggests that ‘nurture’ is a bigger factor in determining health than ‘nature.’  We used to be taught that we were victims of our genes and that health and sickness comes down to a matter of good or bad luck.  They now know that our genes are turned on or off based on our lifestyle choices and our environment – this is the determining factor of health over disease.

The life lesson here is that all the lifestyle choices we make last a lot longer than we might think.  Furthermore, because lifestyle choices change the expression of our genes, we pass these tendencies to future generations.