Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative disease account for over 80% of deaths in people over 50 who do not smoke. Dr. Peter Attia refers to them as the Four Horsemen of chronic disease. Would it surprise you to learn that all of them may have the same root cause?

There’s a strong case to be made that the diseases above are rooted in poor metabolic health. That means what you eat, how you move, and how you live on a daily basis can have a very real impact on whether or not you develop these diseases. It’s a departure from decades of conventional wisdom that said those diseases have no discernible cause or remedy. To understand the role of metabolic health in relation to these diseases, you’ll need a basic (and very brief, I promise!) understanding of how your genes work-

Genes are commonly viewed as fixed traits that you inherit from your parents (hair color, eye color, height, etc.) Your behavior has no real impact on these traits, you get what you get. However, you can directly influence the genes that are involved in health and wellness (i.e. your metabolic health). That includes body fat storage, inflammation, muscle development, and more. This is really important to understand, let me tell you why.

It means that just because your father is diabetic, your mother has had a heart attack, or your grandmother has Alzheimer’s disease, you are not destined for their same fate. Your are constantly receiving signals from your environment and turn on or off, this process known as epigenetics. What this means for you is that the lifestyle choices you make today affect how and what genes are expressed.

Eat the way your diabetic dad eats you’ll likely end up with the same disease. But, if you choose to live more primal lifestyle- one that our genes have been adapted to for thousands of years, you’ll send the right signals that promote long-term health and wellness.

You body was meant to eat real food, not the stuff created in factories that fills most grocery stores. Your muscles need to lift heavy things, not sit around in a chair or couch all day. Chronic stress from jobs, finances, and traffic combined with screens in our faces until the moment we hit the pillow wreak havoc on our hormones and sleep. It’s time to take some ownership of your future health by choosing to live differently. Yes it’ll be hard at first, but aren’t decades of good health and vitality worth it?

Now let me be clear, family history and genetic factors can make you predisposed to a disease. I don’t want to minimize that. But I do want to empower to you understand that you have more control than you think over your likelihood of getting one of the most common diseases listed above.

So, what are you doing today to reprogram your genes? Or are you going to allow family history to become your history?