Health is Wealth

“It is that health is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver”

–Mahatma Ghandi

Nearing a quarter of a century into the new millennium, the world is unknowingly living through an extinction event, the sixth of its kind.

There is no asteroid hurdling towards earth, there are no cataclysmic natural disasters, just the cumulative actions of mankind that we must now deal with.

Not only are animals, plants, fungi, and other life disappearing at a rate far beyond normal, but humanity itself has reached health levels indicative of a species on the verge of extinction (1).  The United States, the most expansive and powerful economic/military force in the history of man is no exception.  The country is plagued by diseases chronic in nature: heart disease, metabolic disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and the big one, cancer.  As of 2016, the United States spent upwards of 17% of its total GDP in order to pay for these diseases/conditions (2).  It does not take an economist to see that spending 2.3 Trillion dollars annually on lifestyle dependent diseases is not sustainable for an economy.

So what are we to do?

When two out of every three deaths in a country are attributed to a preventable disease it is reasonable to assume a cultural or social health issue.  This means that the issue does not necessarily lay in inadequate medicine but in the perception of health and disease.

What is Health?  What does it mean to be healthy?

Health is your body’s natural state. This is not only the case for humans but for every other living organism on this planet.  We have been been designed (or evolved) to exist in a state of balance know as homeostasis.   Homeostasis is marked by the body adjusting to its external environment by altering its own physiology through the use of a variety hormones, neurotransmitters, and other chemical compounds.

For instance, when is it is hot outside the incredibly small, involuntarily, muscles that line your blood vessels relax, thus allowing for the ready of exchange of heat from the blood to the environment.  When it is cold outside they do the opposite, all in an attempt to maintain a temperature that is vital for human cell metabolism.

Homeostasis is the body’s intelligent response to changes in the environment that potentially threaten its survival.  This occurs without the help of the conscious mind.

How do we lose this health? What is Disease?

Poor health is a result of a deficiency or toxicity within the body.  The human body has evolved over the 2 Billion years since the first single-celled organisms appeared on this planet.  Being a derivative of this, surviving five mass extinctions, tells us that our genetic code has been through much adversity to get to this point.

Your body (and mind) is a biological computer programmed to detect and adjust to patterns within its environment.  It regulates itself in tune with these patterns, attempting to be one step ahead of the environment at all times.  Meanwhile, the body is a sea of metabolism; cells die, and cells replicate, all at levels that are nearly incomprehensible.  In the time you took to read this paragraph your body has formed over 100 million more red blood cells! (3)

If this occurs all without the help of the conscious mind then we know that the body is a self regulating machine.  Disease rears its ugly head when this machine is either too taxed, and/or lacks the basic building materials (macro/micro-nutrients) to continue this constant adaptation to the environment.

For example, scurvy is a disease infamous for its affliction of sailors as they spent months at sea.  Scurvy is caused by the lack of the essential Vitamin C, a naturally occurring acid found in a variety of fruits and vegetables.  Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is necessary for the synthesis of collagen, the most prevalent protein in the body, and one of the main constituents of skin.  Humans, and other primates, lack the ability to create this compound naturally so it must be acquired through the diet.  Failure to do so means the body cannot repair the skin, or any other connective tissue, resulting in open sores that do not heal, eventually leading to infection or death.

If scurvy is an example of deficiency manifesting as a disease then Minamata Disease is a result of toxicity.  Named for Minamata, a city on the west coast of Japan, this disease is caused by toxic levels of exposure to mercury.  Supra-physiologic amounts of mercury inside of the human body wreck havoc, damaging the nervous system as well as the body’s ability to combat oxidation.   This is the case because elemental mercury, itself, is rare in nature.  When it is present it is often in amounts that the body has evolved to tolerate.  However, in his finite wisdom, mankind decided to use the oceans for dilution of wastewater from his industrial processes.  Mercury, and other nefarious metals, were then concentrated in amounts rarely (if ever) seen in nature.  The result was bio-magnification (increased concentrations of metals) via the food chain and deaths from the “disease”.

Although these are but two examples, there are many parallels that can be drawn to a significant number of other diseases.  Heart disease, cancer, COPD, diabetes, and obesity are all symptoms of the body attempting to adjust to its environment while being starved of its necessities.  Unfortunately, current medical doctrine (which is operating a few decades behind current research) can actually inhibit the body’s own healing mechanisms.

As an example, “high cholesterol” is considered a risk factor for the majority of chronic diseases affecting the United States today.  People are commonly prescribed “statins” for this issue.  A patented drug (and one of the first majorly successful pharmaceutical compounds), statins stop the liver from producing cholesterol and theoretically help prevent heart disease.

We now know that cholesterol is what makes up a large percentage of the cell membrane, molecule for molecule.  Integrity of the cell membrane determines the flow of materials into and out of the cell; as well as how cells talk with each other to ensure coordination.  Cholesterol also helps act as a raft for proteins floating inside the cell.  These rafts act as a means by which protein signaling, processing, and transport occur (4). In short, when the body suffers tissue damage and needs to make make repairs, it raises cholesterol to increase protein synthesis within each cell.

So it seems that elevated cholesterol is the body sending the raw materials to build what it needs to repair damaged tissue.  It also makes sense that the (over)use of statins in this country is linked to the following conditions (5):

• Muscle damage
• Nerve damage
• Liver damage
• Cardiovascular damage
• Endocrine disruption
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Birth defects

So an artificially synthesized compound that was advertised as a ways to prevent heart disease and therefore save our lives turns out to be killing us ever so slowly.  A theme that appears too frequently in today’s world.

Conclusion?

In this 21st century the human body is being exposed to countless numbers of chemical compounds that have not existed in the 2+ billion years of life on earth.  It is reasonable to believe that the prevalence of these toxic compounds can and does affect the human body’s ability to maintain homeostasis.  Additionally, the modern diet is devoid of integral micro-nutrients and enzymes required for the metabolism of cells and bacteria in the body.

It should be of no surprise then, that with so much environmental and internal stress, people are vulnerable to illness.

So, by simple economics, when health is in huge demand, but low supply, its value is greatest.  When even the best medical treatment in the world today may not always be enough, health is the greatest asset you can own.  No price can be put upon it.

Begin today.  Take your health into your hands. Give your body what it needs to help you live your version of your best life.  Your physical body is the only thing you will ever truly own. Why not treat it with the respect and care it so rightfully deserves?

References:

1. The Extinction Crisis. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/
2. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). (2018, July 23). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/data/statistics.htm
3. Milo, R., & Philips, R. (n.d.). » How quickly do different cells in the body replace themselves? Retrieved from http://book.bionumbers.org/how-quickly-do-different-cells-in-the-body-replace-themselves/
4. Simons, K., & Ehehalt, R. (2002). Cholesterol, lipid rafts, and disease. The Journal of clinical investigation, 110(5), 597-603.
5. Brogan, K., Marti, L., Graulus, L., Johnson, K., C., Wohl, M., . . . F. (2017, July 22). Study Links Statins to 300 Adverse Health Effects. Retrieved from https://kellybroganmd.com/cracking-cholesterol-myth-statins-harm-body-mind/