The Central Dogma & Epigenetics. Is Dr Bruce Lipton among others Right?

I have been following the work of Dr Lipton for a while now, and I have to say I find what he has to say fascinating. He seems to pan out as a reputable scientist who has placed his kahoonas on the line in order to try to correct science as he was teaching it back in the 60's and 70's.
Essentially, in a sentence he says that our lives are not controlled / determined by our genes, but by our environment. Only a very small percentage of our lives are predetermined by our genetic make up.

First short video:
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The consequences of this are far reaching, not just from a medical / disease etc perspective, but also from a well being / confidence enjoy your life perspective. If he is correct then we have so much more control over our lives, I think he says "masters of our own destiny" somewhere.

Second short video:
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His book is fascinating, a bit of hard work at times, but nevertheless intriguing:


Is it possible that for all these years, the works of Watson and Crick have been partly incorrect? That all biology books and teachings are fundamentally flawed? Can we really alter our lives and our outlooks on it in part by changing our environment and belief; by retraining our subconscious mind? Is it true that the nucleus of the cell is not the brain? more of a factory for reproducing the proteins our cells need. Is the cell membrane the actual "brain" of the cell?

A bit of background on the man:
www.brucelipton.com...

I did perform a search on Dr Lipton and only found fragments. The first video is taken from a post made here in 2012 so thank you to the member who posted it then.

I would be interested to hear the views on this, I am not a scientist or have any great scientific educational background, but i think I understand where it is being pitched. Has anyone had any success with this? Can anyone vouch or comment to the contrary about this work? I know epigenetics is a relatively new branch of science.

I can in no way vouch for the integrity of this last piece of information, but in the interests of balance, here is an article debunking his work to a degree:
www.metabunk.org...

S&F for this info. I believe that Epigenetics is very important. Adaptation to changes can only be done within boundaries though. Too much change in food too fast can cause major problems with Gene expression. This makes us susceptible to disease...disease being caused by a messing up of our ability to properly metabolize food and rid our body of toxins. Foods and additives can also halt proper apoptosis, or cell death or accelerate growth when it is not needed if too much of one class of food is overeaten. Improper folding of proteins can cause lots of problems.

We are changing our food too fast, we are adding chemistry that causes enzymes and hormones to work improperly. We are changing our gene expression. Sure the subconscious can work some of this out but not all of it. Our subconscious is set when we are young and the primordial sections of the brain has to interact with the Junk DNA properly or we are unhealthy. Our DNA has terrabytes of information on every strand. Proper communication with our cells is crucial for us to be healthy and a lot of things have to be in place or problems occur. This is genetic specific, the relationship I have with food is different than other people have, I can eat food that you cannot eat and you can eat food that I cannot eat. The result is genetic flaw as they call it. It is not even a flaw, it is a metabolic issue where we changed our diet too much in a generation.

I wish that medical science would just say this instead of telling people that they have genetic flaws. They are trying to make us feel inferior.

We can't increase the communication between our conscious, subconscious, and cells if we are eating foods and additives that can interfere with this communication.

reply to post by rickymouse


Thanks for the additional information. I understand what you say, and it does make sense. Our bodies are finely in balance and it is so easy with the additives put into today's food, to upset that balance even with something, let's say broccoli, that you think is totally good for you. GM food and all that.
Someone on ATS once said, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck and flies like a duck, then it's a duck! In the case of our food, that might not necessarily be so.

I watched a lecture of his where his associate, took an audience member through the process of altering their subconscious view on something. It looked a bit like a hypnosis stage act, and I am to be convinced, but am starting to think that all of the "positive thinking" guys out there may be onto something.......

I don't think I understand what "junk" DNA is, sure it could be a cast off from what we were early in our evolution, but to call it junk is a bit of a lid closer. Could it be that it is not junk at all, but rather a whole load of possibilities we don't yet understand?

Cheers again.

reply to post by Mufcutcakeyumyum


What they refer to as our DNA is just a small part of that structure. The rest is called junk DNA, it is sort of like a library of information for the DNA. The DNA is in every cell, yet the cells are different because the junk DNA is different leading to different gene expression which means that lung cells are different than skin cells. It is very important that too many problems do not occur in the junk DNA or it scrambles everything up and if these cells aren't killed they start to create improper cells or distorted cells...sometimes referred to as cancer.

reply to post by rickymouse


Yes I get that, apoptosis. This is where he indicates that a change in our environment can help offset our chances of contracting a disease. That only a very few diseases, around 4 or 5% are truly hereditary. In the case of cancer he gives an example of twins with no hereditary history of cancer being fostered and placed in two different families. The first in a family with cancer history and the other without.
Surprisingly or not, the one with the family who had a history contracted the disease, whereas the other did not.
Coincidence? maybe? probably? the point being that if you live in an environment which has cancer at the forefront of conversation / belief, then you are more likely to contract it?
He states somewhere that the environment is far more influential that hereditary issues and even toxins.
I know that a certain well known advocate of a cure for cancer says it is the substances ability to accelerate apoptosis is the main reason why it works.
Don't want to take this into a big cancer debate though, my small talk and speculation about such an awful condition affecting far too many people is an insult to those people living with it.

reply to post by Mufcutcakeyumyum


I like Bruce Lipton. I have lived my life with the knowledge that thought and environment play the key roles in our problems and accomplishments. My health is spectacular, has been for all of my life. We are what we think. If your mind and heart are sick, the body will follow.

You may also want to check out Gregg Braden. www.youtube.com...

reply to post by Mufcutcakeyumyum


Environment includes food and toxins. Most toxins can be neutralized in the body if the right foods are consumed sometimes. Life style is important, as is attitude. The kid who moved in with the people who got cancer got cancer because they followed the same recipes, foods, and lifestyle as the people he moved in with. some viruses can also cause cancer, maybe the whole family was exposed to this virus somehow.


There are many reasons that Cancer can occur, some like you say are hereditary but the percentage of five percent as you stated should be correct. Presently one third of people will get cancer in their lifetime, and some more than once. There is a big difference between five and thirty three percent.

Some of the old recipes have the answer. Most recipes do not include some data though. The methods were passed on from generation to generation as how to prepare the food to detox it. Also they have changed the food so much to increase production that the chemistry has changed. Sometimes the chemistry is better but often changing one thing changes another and the food is not recognized properly by the body.

reply to post by Mufcutcakeyumyum

Here's your videos OP.


There's another guy that gives talks on epigenetics, but I can't remember his name presently. I'll see if I can find him.

reply to post by Klassified

Gregg Braden was the man I was thinking of...

And here's another by Bruce Lipton that nutshells epigenetics.


Interesting stuff. However, I have a feeling the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes of this subject.

reply to post by Klassified


Thanks for that, I didn't check I had linked them up correctly. Cheers
I have seen bits of Gregg Braden, but usually as a piece of a larger video. Maybe I need to look at his works a bit closer.

What I like about Mr Lipton is the fact he has never been afraid to say or claim something which could and indeed has potentially damaged his reputation. Kind of leads you to believe it is more genuine.

Mufcutcakeyumyum
What I like about Mr Lipton is the fact he has never been afraid to say or claim something which could and indeed has potentially damaged his reputation. Kind of leads you to believe it is more genuine.

What criteria.

The shamans who sacrificed virgins to appease the rain gods genuinely believed it would help...do you like them too because they are genuine in their unfounded beliefs?

Some of Lipton's assertions have no more support than the beliefs of the Shaman sacrificing virgins to control the weather.

On the other hand he is a trained PhD so not everything he says is false. Like most pseudoscientists, he mixes some facts in with his unfounded speculation.

Your best defense to separate fact from fiction is to look for supporting evidence, and also check the quality of the source. Science is usually presented in scientific papers, not popular books.

I would also point out that Steve Jobs thought he could cure himself with a mind over matter approach instead of letting modern medicine treat what was a very treatable condition in its early stages. He died as a result of this misplaced belief. However his unfortunate death doesn't mean that environment, attitude and other factors are not part of someone's recovery prospects...they are. This is where you have to separate the fact from the fiction and unfortunately with Lipton there is far too much fiction mixed in with the fact to make him a reliable source.

Believing unsupported ideas can result in death if people forgo modern medical treatments instead, just ask Steve Jobs. Oh wait, you can't because he's dead.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Thanks for the reply and your thoughts.
I agree with several things you said, and although I understand that some of the notions expressed by Dr Lipton are not easy to digest, I wouldn't necessarily label him a pseudoscientist. If the word had been invented back in the day, then I am sure that many of the groundbreakers in science may have been labelled the same way, Newton for one, Kepler for another (just my opinion)

If you look at his CV as it were, he has published many papers in his field, not that I have actually read any, as I say I am not a scientist, so again, I consider the term pseudoscientist a bit harsh:

www.brucelipton.com...

I am no scientist myself but I think I understand and follow what he is claiming. Yes, science is evidence based and should be put up there to be ripped apart and proved wrong if it is possible to do so, that is how progress is made. Science is not a closed shop.

The terms itself was only coined 70 odd years ago, so it must stand to reason that there are still a number of things out there to be discovered in the field:

www.caprotec.com...

I suppose what I am trying to get across is that I like people who express the alternative opinion, go against the grain to stand by what they believe in and / or have discovered, not because it is easier but because it is harder and because it is right to do so. (sorry that sounds JFK)

Thank you again.

reply to post by Mufcutcakeyumyum

...he says that our lives are not controlled / determined by our genes, but by our environment. Only a very small percentage of our lives are predetermined by our genetic make up.

It's true - and it was obvious from the moment the human genome was sequenced - 30-odd thousands genes cannot possibly account for all the individual variation we see.

rickymouse says,

"I wish that medical science would just say this instead of telling people that they have genetic flaws. They are trying to make us feel inferior."

No rickymouse. "They" don't give a rat's anus how we feel. "They" are positioning to justify culling the human race based on disproved ideas of genetic "inferiority" and "superiority."

The 2 main myths in play here are:

1. Only genes determine what proteins are produced (to go on to fulfill essential functions); and
2. Only protein chemistry matters.

In fact:

1. Environmental factors can override genetic "orders," and
2. Protein structure determines function - environmental factors can cause proteins to change their structure and thus, change their function without changing the chemistry.