SS:  Can you explain the concept of DNA mutation in cells for our readers?
CP:  Every cell in our body has a program that tells it what to do, which is called the DNA, or the genetic code.  This DNA code is an owner’s manual, a set of instructions that guides the cell on when to grow, when to divide and multiply, how to communicate with neighboring cells, how to act as a team member with other cells.  This is important because groups of cells from tissues and organs act like an orchestra.  Every cell is also programmed to respond in a very specific way to hormones and other cellular signals that come from the bloodstream or the fluid surrounding them.
            All this proper cell behavior can be ruined, however, if the cell DNA code gets changed a bit by a chemical or by free radicals.  We call any of these DNA code changes mutations, and they cause our cells to have an altered set of instructions, different from the original program we are born with.  A cell with mutated DNA acts like a computer that has a bad program or memory problems.
            Keep in mind that these mutations can also occur quite frequently by pure chance, when the cells normally divide as part of the process of generating new cells.  This is part of the normal process that our tissues, organs, and blood undergo during growth and throughout our lifetime for continuous renewal.

SS:  It sounds like our cells can make errors frequently as they continuously divide and turn over.
CP:  Yes, the problem is that this process is kind of like making a photocopy of a copy and then making a copy of that copy.  So errors just happen, and they accumulate more and more in time; the copies start looking dirtier and fuzzier, they lose their meaning, and start looking nothing like the original.  That may be one of the mechanisms behind increased cancer risk with aging.  That is why we have to get wiser and wiser about our choices; we just do not get away with “nutritional murder” as we used to when we were younger.  Someone said that as we get older we become a less and less perfect copy of our original selves, and there is a lot of truth in that at the cellular and organ level.  We can only hope and strive to stay as close to the original as possible by protecting our cells.

SS:  So in regard to the random mutations and genetic predisposition factor box in your diagram, is there anything we can do to reduce the impact of those?
CP:  Yes.  It sounds like bad luck happens, but there are some nutritional interventions that can at least minimize the impact of theses potential events, and I marked this as  Intervention C  in Figure 1 posted at the end of this chapter.  What we can do is to make sure we have adequate vitamins such as folate and B12 in our diet and/or supplements, because they are necessary for making an accurate new copy of DNA for every new cell.  It’s like building a puzzle-if you are missing some important pieces, the meaning of the picture being built can change or get lost, which in the case of DNA can end up as different instructions for the cell.

SS:  Well, I see this as one more reason why it makes sense to bank our own stem cells.
CP:  Yes, that can have major potential in the future, because it saves some of our original cell programs in case technology allows us to reload our cells with “clean” programming.  We are like computers that need to be refurbished by reloading with the original disks they came with when we bought them.  That is why some parents store cord blood cells from their infants and they may also store the child’s stem cells as early as possible after birth.
Also, unfortunately, just like computers, we tend to accumulate viruses and bugs in our cell programs and the only way we can get rid of these is if the immune system recognizes and kills these infected cells.
So a reload with original DNA programming or any type of DNA correction may be an amazing anticancer, antiaging intervention.  In a way, they are doing something similar when they destroy existing marrow cells that generate leukemia cancer cells and reimplant new bone marrow cells that are supposed to generate normal cells.
In the meantime, however, there is a lot we can do to keep our cell programs and minicomputers as clean and unaltered as possible by keeping the chemicals out and the immune system strong.

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