Altruism. The human species evolved far beyond other species for this reason.

Okay, so we don’t really know if our homo-erectus ancestors were uber altruistic, but professor of evolutionary anthropology, Herman Pontzer, has revealed the human species evolved such big brains because we shared. We hunted and gathered, came back to camp, and shared with our tribe.

We partnered to survive (attachment theory, anyone?), dependent on each other for safety, food and reproduction. This sharing allowed our biology to prosper! Less threat of being eaten, running out of food, or dying alone created an environment for our body to put extra energy towards growing our large brains, not just surviving. It allowed us to thrive.

Altruism, socializing, environment… these are more important than we once thought! Paul Farmer, a pioneering Harvard Medical School global health physician and medical anthropologist, in his theory of accompaniment, studies the emerging science of Socio Genomics, a kind-of subset of Epigenomics.

Warning: getting super nerdy here for a second… Epigenetics focuses on processes that regulate how and when certain genes are turned on and turned off through all stages of human development, among other factors. Did you know that genes can be turned on or off? Cool, huh? But what are those other factors??

Stay with me… Epigenomics studies the expression of genes (not to be confused with the DNA sequence itself), and how they are affected by our external environment! Different factors like social stress, conflict, isolation, diet and exposure to environmental chemicals affect the activity of the genome.

Yep, holy snikees!! That means we can actually affect which genes are turned on and off by our lifestyle choices, even genes that are passed down to us from our ancestors! 🤯

What does all this have to do with altruism? Now that we have a little understanding of Epigenetics, we can turn our focus to the most surprising factor we can affect (you know I’ll be back to cover other aspects!), our social environment. Our social environment, who we hang out with, attach and surround ourselves with, can have a massive effect on our gene expression.

Think socializing is a waste of time? Altruism, and fostering healthy social environments are key to managing stress, inflammation and other markers that turn on and off certain genes, leading to longer, disease-free lives. Creating friendships, spending time with family, reaching out when in distress, these are all actions we take for granted!

Dr. Hyman, practicing family physician and internationally recognized leader in the field of Functional Medicine, believes most chronic disease is not infectious, but contagious! If our friends, family, and relatives suffer from high stress, eat poorly, are sedentary, we are predisposed and at high risk to also suffer from disease associated with these lifestyle choices such as heart disease, diabetes, auto-immune disorders, and even some cancers.

Our Epigenome (the genes we were born with) cannot be changed, but the genes we choose to use are up to us! If we want to live a long, healthy life (more on that later), and live our last 15-20 years thriving and disease-free, we have choices we can make now to get us there. Most of these choices, though not always easy, are within our grasp (remember my previous blogpost about your Body Clock and sleep?). Thinking about cancelling on girl’s night again? Maybe not this time 😉.

National Cancer Institute, Epigenomics and Epigenetics Research, www.epi.grants.cancer.gov/epigen/

National Institute on Aging, www.nia.nih.gov/news/epigenetics-aging-what-bodys-hands-time-tell-us