If protein foods are eaten, the brain will not fully develop. Our environment, our care in using chemical products, our personal habits and our diet and exercise can be important. And remember that the natural substances we encounter can sometimes change a gene. Scientists say that some of our genes were modified by conditions hundreds of years ago and were passed to us from our great, great grandparents. Today, the chemicals or X-rays we need and use also can affect genes, especially if people are careless about how they handle these things.
Smoking causes changes in the genes of our lungs and other places in the body.
Such a poison can garble a gene's code. The poison can affect the message that a gene sends to cells to tell them what to do, how to assemble and how to grow. The latest on the Environmental Genome Project is posted there. Our publications are not copyrighted and may be reproduced without permission. However, we do ask that credit be given to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences , National Institutes of Health .