The December 2009 PT in Motion magazine has the cover story: "Rooting Out Genetic Links" by Eric Ries. A beautiful cover, but once again a reactionary perspective with little vision of our role in rehab affecting genetics…why are we always so passive?
The article concludes quoting Steve Wolf, PT, PhD, FAPTA:
For Wolf, heightened awareness cannot come fast enough, given the frantic pace of scientific discovery.
"It's only a matter of time—some people say less than 5 years—before human stem cells and other progenitor cells start being produced that can change the way in which a pathological gene is expressed," he says. "These things are happening. We must be prepared to deal with them."
Too late! It has already happened and we're standing on the sidelines waiting for the genome to act rather than stepping up to work with the genome!
UPDATE: May 2010 U of Michigan reports PTSD and its role in gene expression
What if PT's had clinical skills within their scope of practice that had been shown to "manipulate"…(I guess technically mobilize as manipulate is now to mean high speed, low amplitude thrust) gene expression?
Well, I had the honor of introducing Dean Ornish, MD as our keynote speaker at our 2009 Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research. In the TED talk below Dean describes how using education, movement with awareness, breathing exercises, group social connection and interaction and nutritional changes in a positive social setting it has been demonstrated you can modulate genetic expression in men with prostate cancer. Here's the research article.
Hmmmm…does that sound like the scope of practice of any profession we know and care about?
Don't just imagine rehab altering genetic expression….empower your clients today! …and we got excited when we started moving facet joints!!!
Isn't this amazing???!!
Now…do we "flex" or "extend" the genes?…the next great debate!