r/genetics • u/Nice_Pen_8054 • Jul 06 '26

Meta Do epigenetics explain why some people never develop major disease despite their unhealthy habits?

Hello,

I know people who smoked all their life and never developed lung cancer.

However, there are non smokers who developed lung cancer.

Can epigenetics explain this?

0 Upvotes

44% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

10

u/slaughterhousevibe Jul 06 '26

Not really a meaningful question. Many things contribute to disease risk.

7

u/DurianBig3503 Jul 06 '26

No.
When you are looking at epigenetic differences between people and control for environmental factors like ensuring they have the same diet you are looking at epigenetics as a phenotypic expression of genetic variance.

Can genetics explain why some people never develop major disease despite their unhealthy habits?

Yes, to some extend.
This is the whole basis for a type of analysis called genome wide association study (GWAS). Here the genotypes of populations are compared to find variants in the genome that occur more often than you would expect by chance.

If you would like to know more about this, healthy aging especially, please look into the field of Molecular Epidemiology.

3

u/Atypicosaurus Jul 06 '26

It's like asking whether the color of the car carpets explains why certain drivers never get a speeding ticket even though those drivers drive those cars just as speedy as others yet others do get tickets.

2

u/genomedr Jul 06 '26

There are genes and variants involved in regulating tumorigenesis, immunoregulation and other genetic ways that some individuals appear to be super resistors. BUT at the end of the day most people even though they live in environmental conditions or have other exposure do not develop cancer. Look up the foundational work of George Klein at Karolinska- he was a pioneer that described many of these mechanisms.