Epigenetics refers to the way your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. As you age, epigenetics change naturally as part of normal development and aging and because of exposure to environmental factors over the course of your life.
Think of epigenetics as turning genes “on” or “off”.
These are not genetic mutations. Epigenetic changes are reversible. They change HOW your body reads a DNA sequence, not the actual DNA.
When you read these environmental and behavioral factors, you will think of course these matter! But what is interesting is the WHY. It turns out as we study more we can document how these environmental factors actually activate your DNA to act in a different way. Fresh air and low pollution? Your body will function better. Live in a high pollution area? Your DNA will not function as well, which can lead to increased inflammation, sickness, cancers, and more.
First, I see many women and men come in at a time where they are reassessing themselves. I think of it a time of life change or a water shed time- they are done with having kids, hit menopause, lost significant weight, or are just assessing how they want to be for the next chapter of their life, their version 2.0.
But are you healthy? Healthy bodies not only look better, but your body IS better. I think this is a great time to focus on your whole body. I do a deep dive with my patients to look at you as a whole- supplements and medications, protein, probiotics, blood glucose, hormones, vaping/smoking/THC, sleep, muscle and fat percentages, and weight. How can we optimize you? Most of my patients leave with a punchlist of things to do.
Yes, there are many things as a plastic surgeon I can recommend which are scientifically proven to help and quicker fixes, from topical medical grade bio-effective treatments like niacinamide and retinol, to supplements which are tested like NAD and creatine, to microneedling with Age Zero exosomes to build collagen, to surgeries. But I am not focused on a quick fix. I truly believe in whole body health- if you are better at a cellular level, your whole body will look and feel better.
Improving your epigenetics is going to help you optimize your surgery and help you heal. There was a study years ago showing how eating a high protein diet before a tummy tuck statistically significantly improved scars and lowered infection rates. DIET made that change. I am a believer in epigenetics and have been advocating for these optimizations with my surgical patients for years.