Research

Mixed

Exogenous environmental factors, including diet, stress, and exercise, induce direct or indirect epigenetic modifications (DNA methylation, histone modification, RNA silencing) that can permanently alter gene expression profiles and influence health outcomes across the human lifespan.

Your lifestyle choices (diet, stress management, exercise) are not just temporary fixes; they chemically tag your DNA and histones, potentially altering gene expression for the long term. While you cannot change your DNA sequence, you can influence how those genes are read through consistent environmental inputs, particularly during critical developmental windows and throughout adulthood.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
exposure to pharmaceutical and toxic chemicals, diet, stress, exercise, and other environmental factors are capable of eliciting positive or negative epigenetic modifications with lasting effects on development, metabolism and health. These can impact the body so profoundly as to permanently alter the epigenetic profile of an individual.
Riya R. Kanherkar et al. · Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology · 2014

Why this rating

This is a review article proposing hypotheses and summarizing animal/human studies; it is not a primary clinical trial.

Source

Epigenetics across the human lifespan

Riya R. Kanherkar et al. · Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology · 2014

DOI 10.3389/fcell.2014.00049

narrative_reviewCited 406×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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