My Level of Awareness

You inherited it from your mother, I’m afraid.

The inability to smile without first looking like you are in intense pain.

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Sorry, life attack prevented Science Friday from going off on time.  I had to move into the Director’s office at work (which is exactly the same as my old office, only with a better view), so that the new scientist that is coming to save me by taking over some of my old responsibilities (which only makes room for the new responsiblities, unfortunately) could move in without having to sweep my cookie crumbs out of her desk drawers.

 And while we are on the subject of cookies…

Moira asks:

OK.. I have a life science question for you: If your parents are overweight, how do you beat the genetic side of being overweight? Is there a hormone/vitamin that will help trick the body in to reducing stored fat and beat the genes?

This is because this weight watchers thing has me only losing about 1 lb a week on average. I’m seeing a distinct decrease in the rate at which I’m losing weight in proportion to the time I’ve been on the program.

So can you flex your life science muscle on that? And yes, I’m all about raw data.

When we start to look at the genetics of any given trait (such as body weight), even when we move past the question of genetics vs. environment and focus ourselves purely on genetics, things inevitably get more complex than we bargained for.  Weight, and because medical genetics tends to use “abnormal” to define “normal”, lets use the term obesity (discard the negative connotation for a moment and just focus on the medical definition), is one of those things that quickly becomes a tangled nest of genetic interactions.  Considering the bulk of scientific research on the subject (pun intended), if it were as simple as a couple of metabolic pathways to be tweaked, we’d have a pill for it by now.

And we don’t.  So here is your first take-home lesson - If a weight loss drug offers you a silver bullet for weight control, they’re lying.  Period.  And as both a dieter and a life scientist, I can tell you that one pound a week is not bad.  Any more than 1-2 lbs a week usually involves water.

To follow format with the last Science Friday, I am going to focus on the genetics first, and put the environment off until last.  Because the environment is ultimately the part you can control - the genetics just direct you to the “how” of doing it.

 First, there are some assumptions that even experts have about the role of our genes in obesity that have turned out to be inaccurate.   Our initial assumption is that people who tend toward being obese have inborn differences in metabolism from those who are thin.  It has been popular to make the assumption that food intake between a thin and a heavy person is the same, it’s just the heavy person metabolizes it more slowly.  That is pretty obviously the case, but here’s the thing - this is rarely because of an inborn difference in genetics.  Changes in metabolism are most often the result of the onset of obesity, not the cause.

If we look at extreme cases of obesity to give us clues, what we find is that when we can trace the difference to genetics, to cases where we can identify single genes that are responsible, the genes affected are involved in satiety, not metabolism.  In other words, in a very small (and I want to emphasize that this is a VERY small) subset of the morbidly obese the genetic pathway that tells them that they have had enough food and to STOP eating is disrupted.  As a result their eating habits are aberrant.  So it IS what they are eating, and not because they metabolize it any differently than you or I.  The message from the stomach to the brain that says ‘Put down the fork and walk away from the plate” just doesn’t get processed like it should. 

So the question is, why has this “defect” persisted?

We tend to think of the way our biology works in terms of how we live our current lifestyle.  But our current lifestyle is a blink in the evolution of our species.  What is “maladaptive” to us now makes perfect sense in the context of tens of thousands of years of evolutionary selection.

Enter environment.

Evolution is the result of the environment exerting selective pressures on a species (in this case, us), that cause a subset (who have a natural genetic variation) to be more successful than their compatriots.  Success being defined as more likely to reach breeding age and/or producing more viable offspring.  Eventually the subset becomes the dominant, and if environmental conditions change, the cycle repeats itself.  If lifecycles are short, this change can happen very quickly (for instance, you can selectively breed a tailless boxer in five generations, each generation taking about a year).  But in humans, where lifecycles and time to “likely breeding age” are long, it can take a long, long time to respond to a change in selection pressure. 

Back in our days on the savannah, food supplies were limited and the necessary energy expenditure to find it was substantial.  It made sense that when you found it, you filled the tank to capacity, so to speak.  So, a slow satiety response was positively adaptive.  You would need the stored energy to search out the next feast.

Keep in mind that I mentioned that only a small, small number of obesity cases can be tracked to variations in only one of the genes involved in satiety.  For the great majority of people for whom the tendency to be overweight is genetic (and it is estimated that 40 to 70% of our weight tendencies ARE inherited), it is a combination of many genes that produces the final weight “setting”.  Which means, while it is “programmed” in your genes, there’s a lot of room for variation in what we inherit.  That’s why in so many cases, siblings vary widely in their final body type.  While we probably get our tendencies from our parents, it’s difficult to distill exactly what that means.

And back to the environment…

If we look at some of the most recently published information on dietary tendency in Western countries, we find something interesting.  The trend for fat and overall calorie consumption in these “developed” countries over the last several years is, contrary to what the media would like you to believe, downward.  In other words, we are consuming less fat and fewer calories each year, on the average, than we did the last.  And yet, obesity continues to rise.

We know what we are supposed to be eating.  And by and large we ARE doing something about it.  But caloric control is only one part of the equation.

We were designed to store energy against future expenditure.  But as the daily occupations in Western society slip further toward the sedentary, we are approaching the bottom limits of our fight against satiety.  We have to start EXPENDING.  We cannot beat our genes, we can only use them the way they were supposed to be used.

So, there you go.   The “magic bullet” for maintaining healthy weight is exactly what it has always been - “eat less, move more”.  Except we are only getting half of it right.

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The romanticism of our modern society likes to make such an ideal out of the concept of unconditional love - the self-sacrifice, the constancy, the faith.  But I think the ideal folds back upon us and paints us into a corner from which there is no escape.

It demands we love beyond the bounds of reciprocity.  It skirts the boundary between self-sacrifice and self-degradation.  Mutual respect is the foundation of love.  But unconditional love denies the consequences of disrespect.  We can not demand love and degrade ourselves before it.  We become objects of pity and contempt, not of love.

And so the spiral begins.  We demand unconditional love, and when it is given, we lose respect for the giver and we cannot promise love in return.  What was a relationship of equals becomes a dance between contempt on one side and despair on the other that is ultimately doomed.

Love should not be unconditional to be ideal.  It does not leave room for love to change and to grow.  Only reciprocal love, where a demand extended is matched by a willingness to give, to concede, to compromise in the name of the relationship, where the sacrifice is equal and mutual allows the conservation of the self, and self-respect that is necessary to maintain love.  Love should, at it’s best, be conditional.  We should run the risk of losing respect in the eyes of the beloved.  It keeps us honest.  It reminds us of the importance of the beloved in our life.  It makes us better people.

A little chivalry wouldn’t kill modern love.  It just might save it.

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Okay, folks, I have taken your input (those of you who still seem interested), and I have produced a new, improved, and much-shortened GAMBLE list - to start this week with the new Harry Potter by popular demand.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The Great Mortality

Eye Contact

Phantoms in the Brain

Size 12 is not Fat (A Heather Wells Mystery)

Women in the Viking Age

Confession of a Failed Southern Lady

The American Way of Death Revisited

Bastard out of Carolina

Charlemagne’s Table

 I will be revising the GAMBLE Page to reflect the changes.  I will keep the remainder of the books on an “also ran” list, just in case you want to refer to them for some reading suggestions later.

To those who have stuck with it, thanks.  I have discovered some really cool new stuff (and enjoyed some delicious trashiness) through the list, and I hope we can revive it.

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I have already broken one of my strict unofficial rules about blogging.  I blogged about blogging.

Now, I am going to break and even more sacred one.  I am blogging about NOT blogging.  How sorry is that?  I have reached new depths of online depravity. 

(Okay, a quick review of my spamlog reveals that’s an exaggeration.  The internet has incredible depths in the depravity department.)

In one of those ironies inherent in the entire webjournal concept, the one thing that is keeping me from writing about my life is, well, my life.  I took over as departmental director at a time that coincided neatly (and, I suspect, not coincidentally) with three project startups, one project wrapup and one major bid deadline.  I never knew one person could survive so many meetings. I do not stop for one moment from the time I log into my computer at work until I turn my office light out, and at the same time my actual billable hours have fallen to a paltry 2 out of 8 - if I am lucky and proactive about closing my door on a given day.  I have never worked so hard to NOT earn my salary.

Simultaneously, my husband and I have come to a realization that we need to dedicate some serious time to our relationship.  Or, rather, some less serious time.  And no, for the record, this has nothing to do with the fact that our son cosleeps with us, but thanks for expressing the concern (Really, people, have y’all never heard of guest bedrooms? Or living room couches?  Or kitchen counters?  Have I shared too much?).  It’s not about the s-e-x (oh my gosh, I have started spelling things out already and Harry’s only two), it’s about connecting on a level that goes beyond dinner planning and coordinating daycare pickup.  So we are off to the Ozarks for a childfree, schedule free weekend in a hotel room that is picked up by a MAID.  I might even leave the towels on the floor.  And have a glass of wine.  And an R-rated movie.  I like to live dangerously like that. (And likely there will be some of that spelled-out word, but I won’t bore you with the details.  They will not involve kitchen counters.)

But before we leave, I will commit myself to:

• Finishing the next installment of Science Friday (which may become Science-Every-Other-Friday as I dedicate a little more time to the family).  It’s about obesity (thanks, Moira), and I think you’ll find it interesting.
• Revamping GAMBLE (for anyone who has been paying attention).
• Posting some more pictures of the now-two-year-old apple of my eye.  Oh.  My. God.  The Cuteness.

So, if you have been waiting breathlessly for the next installment of “My Level…”, I want to say I appreciate the patience and understanding.

And, for God’s sake, if you have been holding your breath that long - get a life!  I am just not that fascinating!

But, thanks for coming anyway.

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I love being a mom.  And I am lucky enough to be married to a man who is truly the best dad in the whole universe.

But the icing on the cake is those moments that I am struck with the realization that the greatest dad in the world is also…

…Just.  Damned.  Sexy.

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… when the barista in the Starbucks at the Little Rock Airport recognizes you as a regular and starts your drink before you even get to the front of the line.

And gets it right.

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Sorry to get this late start.  Last Friday was my son’s birthday (more on that later), and life got unexpectedly complicated in the interim.  Well, let me rephrase that - it got more complicated.  More on that later, too.  Maybe.

Suz asks:

So cool! Okay - here’s what I want to know and I apologize if it’s a silly question as I never paid attention in biology. I have “identical” twins, but the question is whether there is any genetic difference between them. I read about how there can be slightly differing conditions in their amniotic fluid which could slightly alter their cells (okay - this is a bad explanation), but I was just wondering if they were 100% genetically similar and, if not, why not.

All right.  This is a very cool genetics lesson.  Because, even though I finally got my PhD in Biochemistry (for the sole reason that it tends to be more lucrative), I am basically a geneticist at heart.   How nature creates almost infinite variety with a very small set of building blocks is something that is so elegantly beautiful that it never ceases to amaze me.

The short answer is this - identical twins are, in essence, naturally occuring clones.  They are the result of an embryo, in a very early stage of development, collapsing and separating and then repairing into two individual embryos.  But they started out as one being. 

So, the short answer is - Identical twins are the closest thing to identical as any two beings can be to one another.  From a genetic standpoint, anyway.  But genetics are not the sum total of what we are.

Genetics are not 100% deterministic.  We are not the sum total of our genes; we are the sum total of our genes plus the way that outside factors act on our genes.  We are a product of action and reaction, of the constant interplay between our predisposition and our environments from the very moment that we are conceived.   But let’s set that aside for a moment and concentrate on genetics.  We will come back to environment later.

Rather than repeat an entire lecture on DNA replication, I have provided you a link to a pretty good explanation of the topic.  And just because it’s neat, here is an animated molecular model of what DNA replication would look like, if we actually had microscopes that could see that small.  Cool, but I digress.  The point is, while the mechanisms that allow replication have an enormous level of fidelity, if you consider the millions and billions of pairs of genetic code that are reproduced in the world every minute, they are not perfect.  Mistakes get made.  And when you are talking about something as complex as a whole person, well, chances aren’t bad that two cells of YOU are not identical.  Any two of your own cells may differ by one or two mutations.  So, when I say that identical twins are about as identical as two beings can get, that’s where the perspective comes from.  You aren’t even IDENTICAL to yourself.  But any small changes, with few exceptions, are generally insignificant when viewed in the context of the complete organism.

So, now we have established that identical in genetics basically means very-very-very close to identical.  And we have one more step to go before we even get to environment.  We have epigenetics.  Genetics is all about the code we were born with.  But not necessarily about how that code will be expressed.  Part of what determines that expression is that environment-thing I keep putting off to the end.  But, when we have tried to separate what of “us” results from the simple inheritance of a gene, and what of “us” is molded by our environment, we have tended to see a bit of a maddening gap between them.  We can’t always get them to add up to 100%.  And some of that gap is accounted for by modifications that are made to our genes, that are NOT directly inherited, but that change their expression.  One of the most fascinating examples is genomic imprinting. 

Basically, it doesn’t only matter that your parents gave you a gene.  It matters which parent gave you the gene.  Some genes are only expressed when they come from the mother, some are only expressed when they come from the father.  As this pattern of inheritance in identical twins is the same, genomic imprinting has no net effect, however, since your twins are girls, another factor comes into play.  In girls, although we inherit two copies of the X chromosome, we only actually use one of them.  The other simply “shuts off”.  This happens more or less at random, long before birth.  Which means one of your girls may actually be “using” the X chromosome she got from you, while the other is “using” the one that she got from her father.  This inactivation isn’t perfect, and even on the “dormant” chromosome, every woman has a different pattern of residual activity, but it also may account for differences in even genetically identical twins.  To add even more variety - which X is “dormant” may not even be the same in all the cells of a single person.  At the time the X shuts down, we are beings of about 32 cells. Not all those 32 cells may shut down the same X.  So patches of us express mom’s X, and patches of us express dad’s X.  We are literal mosaics of gene expression (think calico cat).  In a very real way, men, having only one X to express, really ARE simpler beings than women.  And these are only two examples of how epigenetics can radically alter how we use the inhertance that we received at conception.  There are a myriad of other modifications made to our genes by the sun, substances in the water we drink and air we breathe, that accumulated tiny changes to our genes that change the way they behave, not just in response to the influence of the environment at the time, but permanently.

And now we get down to the “other” e-word.  Environment.  The educated layman tends to think of biological questions in terms of the classic nature vs. nuture dichotomy, but I think this gives the implication that we have more control over our environment than is reflected in life.  Your environment starts acting on you from the very moment that the egg and the sperm combined to start the journey of your life.  In fact, even before, as environmental factors mutated genes on the developing egg, and pre-sorted the available sperm.  Your destiny was more than genetics even before you were born.

We are only beginning to fully appreciate the affect that our prenatal environment has on who we become as a individual.  Subtle changes in amniotic fluid affect, not the makeup of our genes (as your question suggests), but how they are expressed.  And in an organism where a single cell can go on to produce an entire heart, those effects can be amplified in profound and unexpected ways.  The environment we find ourselves surrounded with in our very earliest days can have the most lasting impact on how we grow, simply because there is so little of us that has to grow up to be so very much.

Fraternal twins are the product of two completely different conceptions, and they each have their own “mini-environment” inside individual amniotic sacs with their own individual placentas.  Since your prenatal environment is the result of a complex biological interplay between mother and child, no two “wombs”, or even “rooms in the womb” are alike, even between children of the same mother.  And there is an interplay between the twins themselves.   Females born of sister/brother fraternal pairs tend to have more masculine behavoral characteristics, and this has been attributed to the influence of her brother’s testosterone in the womb.  Although identical twins are free from this effect (by their nature, they share a gender), they are not free from the complexities of prenatal interaction.  Identical twins may or may not share the same amniotic sac and placenta, which may affect their degree of “sameness”.

The thing that attracts our curiosity to identical twins is obvious.  There is an attraction to seeing life in duplicate and we marvel in how “alike” they are.  But the thing that is probably even more amazing is, given the fact that they started life’s journey as a single being, how different they can become.

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Recently I have been given a bit of a forced epiphany regarding my views on relationships and endurance.  I hate to think I am a slow learner, but after two marriages, I realize that what I know may be a mote in the eye of what I do not.

Even after the slow dissolution of my first marriage, through neglect (mine) and indifference (his), I tried to recover what lessons I could from the ruined shambles.  I stepped down my career and made it the lesser half of my life.  I learned to be less defensive and insecure about my individuality and found solace in surrending a part of myself to “coupledom”.  I accepted that marriages were something to be cherished, a sacred trust, a life partnership that had to be between equals, with the respect given an equal.

What I did not lose, despite all experience to the contrary, was my vision of what I thought a “perfect marriage” should be.  Marriage was my bulwark against the slings and arrows of daily existance, my solace, my haven.  I was the scientist who traded in my ivory tower in academics for a new one in matrimony.  In my second marriage, I felt truly blessed to have been given a soulmate, a person with whom I was “more myself” than I could ever be alone.  My marriage was my castle inviolate with gleaming walls and inside I was safe in the garden.

But the reality remains that castles have cracks and gardens have snakes.

And when this reality confronts you with a cold slap you have two options.

You can let the fantasy around you crumble, and rebuild it again from the rubble, recreating it anew, brick by brick.  Which is a seductive thing because, in our society, imperfection offends the eye. Who has not dropped coffee on a new blouse, and replaced it because it could never again be brought back to pristine newness.  We disdain the worn, the patched and the old.  Novelty buys excitement and happiness.  We are a country that reinvents itself daily.

But that option carries its own burden.  Lives cannot be replaced as easily as blouses.  Novelty cannot replace the comforting softness of a well-worn sweater, the low gleam of light left on lovingly by the table for the return home.  It lacks the familiar smell and treads of the house we have built, the house we can navigate with our eyes closed, even though we occasionally may stumble.

So together we mix the mortar to patch our walls, drive the snakes from the garden and mend our fences.  And in the end, what is left is not a gleaming fortress, but a patchwork cottage, humble and careworn.

But not untended.

Not unloved.

Perhaps perfection is something, when applied to life and marriage, can only be judged in hindsight.  It is a painting painted equally of tears and laughter, of anger and hurt, but also of forgiveness and grace.  The end product has a beauty that can only be viewed from the inside.

Because it is our home.

And we will build it together.

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I want to say thank you again.  Her Bad Mother has nominated my MBT entry for a June ‘07 Perfect Post award. Getting a nod from another blogger whose writing I envy is so much better than candy.  It makes me even sadder that I am not going to be able to make BlogHer this year (taking over the department at work pretty much put the cabosh on that), because there are so many great women bloggers whose hands I really want to shake and thank for the inspiration.

However, in my constant, near-obsessional, compulsion for self-examination I had to notice that I seem to write more eloquently about loss than I do joy.  I will try not to dwell on the commentary that particular observation makes about the condition of my psyche.

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