AMEN 2014: Joined Together

Breakout Sessions C

Zeno Charles-Marcel

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Epigenetics

Let's start with a word of prayer, please.

Our Father in heaven, indeed we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And so, at this time, as we learn a little bit more about how you have put things together.

We ask that you would open our minds so we can see your fingerprints all over this topic.

How many of you have studied something about epigenetics before?

Well then, I guess I might be redundant because we're gonna be talking about epigenetics, but let's see how we can deal with this.

I have no conflicts of interest and nothing to disclose, so you don't have to be quiet about anything here, right?

And what we're going to do is more or less talk about things in this manner.

As, as Seventh-day Adventists, as clinicians, as, as people, We're called to reason from cause to effect, and epigenetics actually stresses us as we try to stretch into understanding how things get transmitted from 1 generation to another to another to another, as you were hearing before.

Epigenetics involves the regulation of gene activity and the expression without the alteration of gene sequences.

And we're going to do a little bit of kind of basic genetics, and then we'll talk about epigenetics in detail.

We also have something called nutri-epigenetics and microbial epigenetics, and these things show that we have some interaction between not only our own cells and the food and the environment, but also a large internal environment that we have called the gut.

We have about 10 times as many gut microbes as we have cells in our bodies.

And then we have complex diseases like type 2 diabetes, asthma, some addictions, schizophrenia, inflammatory bowel disease.

All of these things show that there's some interaction, right, between environmental factors and epigenetic regulation.

Now, obviously, 1 of my biggest challenges was how to distill things down just so it'll fit into about 50 minutes, okay?

So, let's see if I was successful or if God was good in leading me to which things I need to talk about.

Epigenetics and the complementary complex, concepts of metabolic imprinting or metabolic programming provide a compelling model for how environmental influences, how environment influences us through development of lifelong and lifelong health and health practices, how these things can interact.

There's a definite interplay between epigenomics and the human microbiome, and from conception to the first 1, 000 days of life has become now, according to the latest science, that's the very crucial period for things to happen in someone's life.

However, as you will see and as you know already and you heard from the last talk, these things are not set in stone, right?

The good news about epigenetics is that things can be changed, and we're not just a product of our genes.

We can actually influence how the genes are expressed, and we can actually influence the genes themselves, even though we're not going to talk much about the influencing of genes per se.

Councils of Parents and Teachers says, The Lord bids us to reason from cause to effect, to remember that we are his property, and to unite with him in keeping the body pure and holy.

And that parents should teach their children to reason from cause to effect.

And parents and grandparents and great-grandparents have a part to play in the next and the next and the next generations if time should last.

What do you think the picture represents?

You're supposed to see an old man's head, okay?

And depending upon the resolution of the projector, you may or may not see all of the things that are there.

I put this up because on the surface, this is supposed to represent a man.

That's supposed to be his nose, his mustache, his beard.

He's obviously military, and that's supposed to be his right hand with his fingers on his chest.

It's actually a man in here, an older fellow with a hat and a beard.

These are his legs and those are his pants.

And this is a woman over here and this is her skirt.

She has something in her arms, maybe a baby.

And there's some hay or something like that in the background there.

And this is the entrance of a portico going inside.

This is the street, cobblestone type street, and that's a dog that's lying there sleeping.

Now, why I put this up is because depending on how you look at things and how in depth you look at things, you can see more and more and more.

And for years, the idea was that our genes were these very deterministic types of things that were passed on very rigidly from 1 generation to the other.

And the history of this, as you may or may not know, when Gregor Mendel was first talking about this, people didn't believe that anyway.

And just before his death, there were some papers that were published.

And all of a sudden, this became the going idea.

As a matter of fact, it even lasted up to about 20 years ago.

People believed that Mendelian inheritance or some form of neo-Mendelian inheritance was the way things were.

However, in 1940, 1 doctor looked at what was going on with the X chromosomes.

He looked at what was happening with the X chromosomes and recognized that women have X chromosomes, too.

I don't see anybody here being surprised about that.

And if women have X chromosomes, how come those X chromosomes don't do anything for the women but they do so much for the men.

So we'll have to look and see how our current thinking is.

And we always have to talk in terms of current thinking, because tomorrow something else will be discovered, like in this picture.

There's something else that we don't see.

And God's painting of his creation, we're told we're going to learn about this, how long?

So there's more to see even than what we're going to see now.

Now, over the last 14 years or so, there's been a very interesting incline in the amount of publications dealing with epigenetics.

This was published in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News in 2013.

Lots of interest, lots of, you know, it's so interesting when something becomes in vogue, everybody wants to know something, everybody wants to do something with it.

So there's a lot of research, a lot of funding going into this.

And of course, people are looking for ways, not just to find out how things are, but actually looking for ways that they can exploit for therapy and things like that, and especially for the development of, you know what, right, drugs, okay?

How can we develop some drug that will solve some other problem that we have.

Time magazine put out this issue saying that epigenetics, DNA isn't everything.

There's something beyond genetics, and we're going to see what that is.

The new science of epigenetics reveals how your choices you make can change your genes and those of your kids.

And they went on to say, you are what your grandmother ate.

But I had to add, and your mother, what your mother ate, okay?

And your grandfather, what your grandfather ate.

And even your father, what your father ate?

And as you are aware, chromosomes are actually quite long and coiled up into what we would call those chromosomes that we see during mitosis or meiosis.

When I was in medical school, when the first was DIRT, That's how long ago I was in medical school.

Breakout Sessions B

Evelyn Kissinger

Fit & Free

So greetings from Michigan Conference from Vicki Griffin.

And we have been so excited about sharing the materials that we have been working on the last couple of years.

And I hope that you leave here with a lot of hope and inspiration and want to continue your health ministry in a vibrant way.

Heavenly Father, please send your Holy Spirit to be with us during our session today and impress our hearts with the mission that you have for us.

The first 1 I would like for you to look at is the brochure.

On the brochure, This tells you some of the materials that we have developed at Michigan Conference.

I started working with Michigan Conference probably about 10 years ago.

And the first thing that we developed was the Lifestyle Matters materials.

How many of you have done or are familiar with the Lifestyle Matters materials?

We designed these because we had little Michigan churches that said, we don't have health professionals in our little churches, and we want to do health outreach.

So these provide a DVD and a facilitator's guide that helps walk through the program.

The Foods for Thought and Simple Solutions is a 4 session program and the Living Free which is Overcoming Bad Habits and Addictions is a 6 session program.

So these are materials we developed a few years ago.

How many are familiar with Balance Magazine?

OK, the Balance Magazine, I have copies of those.

These are great to have in doctor's offices to use when you have a specific issue.

There's all different topics here, beating the big 4, superfoods that fight cancer, and lots of different topics.

These are great to have in the office for your patients.

Each issue has an article on physical health, mental health, and spiritual health.

So those have, we've had those out for a couple of years now.

The other thing that we offer is the health tracks.

There are 24 different tracks, like the glow tracks, except these are different things on health.

They're very inexpensive, nice to have in a doctor's office, if you're doing a health fair.

You can order just the 1 that you like, or you can order them as a set.

So we've taken those and turned them into these large handouts.

It's the very same thing as this glow track, but we made them large and if you open them up you'll see that on the back there's a place for notes.

And then we developed PowerPoints that go with each 1 of these and there's going to be 24, there's 24, and each 1 will have a PowerPoint so you can use this in evangelistic series.

You can make them longer or shorter by adding slides, taking away slides, or do a health presentation at between Sabbath School and church or whenever.

So you can see the different topics that we have and they're the same as the balanced tracks except they are for evangelistic series.

You can pass them out, they can take notes on the back.

We have 6 of those completed and you've got the packet that has the 6 in them that have the PowerPoints ready.

By general conference we'll have them all completed for Evangelistic Series.

So if you have a Spanish audience we have these available as well.

There's also a website and this is the Facebook page but there's also a website that will be launched in 2 weeks.

A new Lifestyle Matters website that features the Fit and Free program.

The Fit and Free program is the new program that we have developed and we're so excited about it.

We have, we've been doing it in many different places and seen some great success.

Each of the tracks in Fit and Free has a topic and the first 1 is called Build a Better Brain and then there is a mental piece, there is a lifestyle piece and there is a sermon.

So in each of the tracks there are 4 different presentations that are about 45 minutes each.

The first track is on build a better brain.

A 45 minute presentation on the topic, a 45 minute presentation on lifestyle, make it practical, what can we do to help build a better brain, and then a mental piece on your mindset and that we all can change.

And then, Engineering for Success is a sermon about building a better brain and asking for a decision on making a spiritual choice.

The second track is a weight control track.

The third is on heart disease and I'm going to show you a sample of the 1 on heart disease.

The ones that are Shaded are the ones that have been completed.

We are now working on the diabetes which will have 4 sessions.

Stress will have 4 sessions and overcoming bad habits and addictions will be the sixth.

On the disk that I have or the thumb drives, on this thumb drive are the 6 presentations for the Evangelistic series, the first 6, and the first 3 of these programs that have been developed.

We are offering this to you at a very low cost of $50, it would typically be $200, for $50 that you can take with you today.

I wanna show you a sample of what it looks like.

So there would be the 6 PowerPoints for the Evangelistic series, track 1 on build a better brain, track 2 on weight control, and track 3 on inflammation and heart disease.

So if you will follow along in the script, each of the presentations has a script.

I'm not going to go through the whole thing.

I'll tell you where I'm skipping some slides.

But you'll get the gist of what this is about and how you can change them.

All of these PowerPoints can be manipulated.

So you will tailor this to your audience.

You can make it longer or shorter and there's been many times where I've taken 2 different programs, put them together Because of the presentation I'm doing, I only have 1 hour to present something on Build a Better Brain.

So I take slides from each of the 4 presentations, depending on what my audience is.

And I think that you'll find this a valuable tool, because you can take these slides, add your own slides, if there's a new study that you want to put in there, or if there's some things that you don't really want to talk about to that audience, you can take those slides out.

So what our goal is is to get health professionals more vocal, more present.

But it takes so much time to develop these things.

And as you'll see, the quality material is, We have an artist that has done the work, and we just think he's incredible.

But if you follow along, I don't go exactly by the script, and you'll add your own stories and whatever.

And I'm kind of going to go through a little bit rapidly, but you'll get the gist of what it's about and the message that it is portraying.

But we start out with, what's going on with heart disease?

What does inflammation mean in heart disease?

And we know how many people that it is affecting.

And It is the leading cause of death in men and women.

That we see a number of heart attacks and deaths because of the issue of heart disease.

1 in every 4 deaths in the US is attributed to heart disease.

And heart disease begins in the arteries with a process known as inflammation.

It can be either acute, quick, or It can be chronic, long term.

It's immune system's response, natural response, to an injury, an infection, invasion, and it helps the body to get rid of whatever is not supposed to be there.

This occurs when the immune system perpetually produces an inflammatory response to unnatural conditions in the body.

There are many substances that are produced to help fight.

And when the body is attacked or has an injury, then some of these inflammatory substances may increase.

And chronic disease, inflammation is the root of many of these chronic diseases.

Now you can go through some of these different substances and what they do and if you wanted to get into you know water cytokines and bone cells and whatever, if you wanted to spend some time on that.

Like a slow burning flame that steadily destroys a candle, chronic inflammation is a process that actually damages the body itself.

All the stages of the atherosclerotic progression might be considered to be inflammatory response to injury.

Virtually every step in this atherogenesis is believed to involve cytokines and other bioactive molecules and cells that are characteristic of inflammation.

Well, when we have inflammation, what are some of the factors that might cause inflammation or might be the root of inflammation.

Randy Bivens

Structuring Your Family for Financial Success and Service

So, what gives me the credentials to be talking about financial planning?

I actually have completed the course work to be a certified financial planner, in addition to being a physician.

And I'm gonna give you some examples of actually how I've real time helped people with financial planning.

But more than that, we've studied the scriptural basis for a financial plan and what that means.

And you're gonna see a lot of biblical references when we talk about what's going on.

I actually had the imaging contract for 2 hospitals, 1 of which I don't actually work at anymore in Ukiah.

I have privileges, but I had the chance to hire somebody right at a UCSF fellowship.

You know, you don't get very many of those.

I still manage the contract up in Tillamook, and I manage the contracts, hire the radiologist, you know, keep it rolling.

And so I have a revenue stream, kind of a built-in revenue stream that provides me an income, it allows me the freedom to do some other things.

And because of that I do some other things.

I'm president of Life and Health Network.

The great thing to be president of a media company is you can give them a handout, an outline and tell them to make you a keynote presentation.

And so if this looks good, it's not my fault.

Well, it is kind of my fault, but I didn't do any of it.

So I'm president of Life and Health Network, but More importantly, I guess for the last year and a half, I've been Chief Operating Officer at Weimar Institute.

And we've had some amazing changes that have occurred, and God just blessing that institute.

Nedley alluded to it a little bit last night.

In the last month, we had a $3.2 million debt to Amazing Facts when those 2 ministries separated.

That debt was starting to accrue interest on the 7th of August.

On the 7th of August, we bought the debt down from 3.2 million down to 1 million.

We delivered a check to Mike Rich who was, it was during ASI, we delivered a check to them for a million dollars.

I wish I was there except on August 7th I was down in Costa MESA meeting with the Educational Licensing Committee of the Board of Registered Nursing for the State of California to get nursing credentialing, which we actually did.

We got full approval to start a nursing school.

Anderson is back in the back of the room there, and she is instrumental and actually for years of making this happen, instrumental in actually making this happen and thank you Shirley for being here and Melanie's here too.

The 2 of them are the reason we got nursing accreditation here on campus and thank you guys for coming.

But in addition to that, Just about 3 weeks ago, we were on a conference call with WASC, which is the Western Association of Secondary Colleges.

We've been applying to get accreditation for a college so that credits are transferred.

We actually can graduate people from WMAR, and We do, and they go to Loma Linda, to the medical school and dental school.

They can't actually get into the health school for some reason.

We've written a letter to Dick Hart saying, how come the medical school accepts our transfer credits but the school of health doesn't?

But if we had WASC approval, that transfer of credit isn't even an issue.

So we were on a conference call with them, and there were about 7 or 8 of us answering questions because they have 2 readers that are signed by WASC that are senior professors, presidents of colleges.

And they look through your entire application, 657 pages worth, and try to determine if you're eligible for status.

They denied us 2 years ago, completely denied us.

The option was they could deny us again, but we felt we had a much better application.

They could actually condition us, and that's what we were sure we were going to get.

We're going to get conditioned and they were going to tell us to buff up our finances or buff up our curriculum or they're going to do something.

Or they could give us full approval and we felt it was going to be a miracle if they gave us full approval and it was going to take a miracle to have us denied again.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Epigenetics

1h

Fit & Free

44m

Structuring Your Family for Financial Success and Service

55m

Harnessing Our Lay People in Health Education

48m

Ghost in Your Genes OR God in Your Genes

50m

Praying With Patients

55m

Post Abortion Trauma: Recognizing and Responding to the Need for Redemption and Restoration

1h

CLEAR: A Simple Model for Providing Whole Person Care

49m

Healthy Soil, Healthy People

57m

Building Faith in our Patients and Families

1h 9m

From Broken to Blessed

1h 26m

Reclaiming the Vision: Mission in the LLU School of Medicine

1h 6m

Sound Doctrine