Identically Different: Why You Can Change Your Genes

by Tim Spector

*A brand new and updated edition for 2024, including the latest insights on diet and weight management drugs, gene editing, cancer testing, anti-ageing, ultra-processed foods and much more*

Professor Tim Spector, number one bestselling author of SPOON FED and FOOD FOR LIFE, reveals the astonishing new science that is changing everything we thought we knew about genes and identity.

Since the discovery of DNA, scientists have believed that genes are fixed entities that cannot be changed by environment. Spector's pioneering epigenetics studies, and the latest genetic research, show that our genes are more like plastic, able to change shape and evolve, and these changes can be passed on to future generations.

This dazzling guide to the hidden world of our genes will make you rethink everything from sexuality to religion, cancer to autism, politics to pubic hair, clones to bacteria, and what it is that makes us all so unique and quintessentially human.

Tim Spector's book turns genetics on its head. Lucid, surprising and with a very human face. It brings epigenetics alive. It is a great read! Michael Mosley

PLEASE This title has an accompanying PDF.

352 pages, Paperback

Published November 21, 2024

About the author

Tim Spector is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at Kings College, London and Director of the TwinsUK Registry, which is one of the worlds richest data collections on 11,000 twins. He trained as a physician with a career in research, which since 1992 has demonstrated the genetic basis of a wide range of common diseases, previously thought to be mainly due to ageing and environment. Most recently his group have found over 400 novel genes in over 30 diseases, such as osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, melanoma, baldness, and longevity. He has published over 600 research articles in prestigious journals including Science and Nature. He coordinates many worldwide genetic consortia and is currently at the forefront of research with a highly competitive European Research Council Senior Investigator award to study Epigenetics – a new exciting research area into how genes can be altered. He is the author of several books for the scientific and public communities and presents regularly in the media.