Adapted from my book "Superior Health : The Secrets Of The Chinese And Eastern Way"
( Reading Time – Approximately Three To Four Minutes ).
Genes and germs.
There are two aspects that modern Western Medicine projects as the cause of many diseases; these are genes and germs. In this article we will examine how credible this viewpoint is.
( Reading Time – Approximately Three To Four Minutes ).
Genes and germs.
There are two aspects that modern Western Medicine projects as the cause of many diseases; these are genes and germs. In this article we will examine how credible this viewpoint is.
Genes.
Genes are blueprints of how cells should perform. They can contain predisposing elements which may lead to disease. When scientists initially discovered them, they believed whatever genes you inherited at birth would manifest your future health or illness. Nowadays thanks to epigenetics we are starting to see a very different picture.
Epigenetics show how the environment is really controlling our genes. The environment that we are in can switch them on or off. Anything that you do which weakens or aggravates your body can turn on the DNA inside your cells to produce disease.
The big picture here is that for most of us, you have to still lead an unhealthy lifestyle to become sick.
There is a small percentage of people, about two per cent, who Western scientists suggest have certain unavoidable traits in their genetic makeup. But for most of us it comes down to what we all knew before; if we smoke, if we eat the wrong foods, if we don’t learn how to deal with stress and so forth, then we are likely to become ill. If we do live healthy lives, we are far less likely to suffer illness.
Many studies have shown that after a period of time, immigrants to the US who come from a healthy gene pool such as Japan, still become unhealthy and get the same incidence of disease as regular US citizens, regardless of the good genetic makeup they have. The Japanese are credited to have the longest life span in the industrialized world, they suffer from considerably lower levels of cancer, heart disease and other ills than those in the US, so are considered to have better genes than them. However, when they live in the US and adopt their lifestyle they get just as sick as everyone else there.
Genes are blueprints of how cells should perform. They can contain predisposing elements which may lead to disease. When scientists initially discovered them, they believed whatever genes you inherited at birth would manifest your future health or illness. Nowadays thanks to epigenetics we are starting to see a very different picture.
Epigenetics show how the environment is really controlling our genes. The environment that we are in can switch them on or off. Anything that you do which weakens or aggravates your body can turn on the DNA inside your cells to produce disease.
The big picture here is that for most of us, you have to still lead an unhealthy lifestyle to become sick.
There is a small percentage of people, about two per cent, who Western scientists suggest have certain unavoidable traits in their genetic makeup. But for most of us it comes down to what we all knew before; if we smoke, if we eat the wrong foods, if we don’t learn how to deal with stress and so forth, then we are likely to become ill. If we do live healthy lives, we are far less likely to suffer illness.
Many studies have shown that after a period of time, immigrants to the US who come from a healthy gene pool such as Japan, still become unhealthy and get the same incidence of disease as regular US citizens, regardless of the good genetic makeup they have. The Japanese are credited to have the longest life span in the industrialized world, they suffer from considerably lower levels of cancer, heart disease and other ills than those in the US, so are considered to have better genes than them. However, when they live in the US and adopt their lifestyle they get just as sick as everyone else there.
We can also look at obesity to see that genes are not responsible for it. The obesity epidemic has only really come into existence in the last ten to twenty years. However, we have been on the planet in this form for well over 80,000 years. So our genes certainly haven’t suddenly changed in this generation to make most of us overweight. We are becoming overweight from eating too much of the wrong types of foods. From the many indigestible chemicals and substances that now infiltrate them and our environment. Not from our genes. The current children being born to overweight adults will most likely inherit these altered genes but the vast majority of adults alive today certainly didn’t.
Occasionally you will come across an adult who has weak digestive genes that they were born with. I was one of them. I was born weighing about ten pounds, which was quite a big baby for that time. I grew up fat as a toddler and child. I ate roughly the same foods as my brother, but whereas he remained a normal weight I was much heavier. Up until the age of thirteen, when I started exercising vigorously every day, I was considerably overweight. I was the fattest kid in my class and indeed in most of my school for many, many years. After learning Chinese Medicine I was able to use their techniques to alter and enhance my digestive system and whereas many adults in Ireland (where I live) are now overweight or obese, I maintain a normal healthy weight.
Occasionally you will come across an adult who has weak digestive genes that they were born with. I was one of them. I was born weighing about ten pounds, which was quite a big baby for that time. I grew up fat as a toddler and child. I ate roughly the same foods as my brother, but whereas he remained a normal weight I was much heavier. Up until the age of thirteen, when I started exercising vigorously every day, I was considerably overweight. I was the fattest kid in my class and indeed in most of my school for many, many years. After learning Chinese Medicine I was able to use their techniques to alter and enhance my digestive system and whereas many adults in Ireland (where I live) are now overweight or obese, I maintain a normal healthy weight.
Other studies have shown the effects of our surroundings and lifestyles on our genes ...
A study by Chris Murgatroyd and others at the Max Planck Institute Of Psychiatry, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, found that exposure to early life trauma in mice, changed their DNA. Stress hormones released in them, actually tweaked the DNA codes of a set of genes in these mice, leaving them more susceptible to long term behavioural problems.
Research by scientists at the Patiala University in India, suggested that background exposure to pesticides has altered and damaged the DNA of people in farming communities, which has led to higher rates of cancer amongst them.
A study by Dean Ornish and colleagues at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and the University Of California, published in the Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences, found that good nutrition, emotional support, moderate exercise and stress management, changed the expression of the genes in over 500 men with prostate cancer, within a three month period. With these good healthy lifestyle changes, it was found that many disease promoting genes were down regulated or turned off and many protective disease preventing genes had been up regulated and turned on in these men.
So what does all this mean ? It means that even if you are born with weak genes, you certainly don’t have to be stuck with them. What you do in your lifestyle after you are born is far more important and has far more of an impact on your health and your life than what you have inherited.
If you practice a healthy lifestyle and positive mind set you can change your genes to work at their best to keep you strong, healthy and happy.
A study by Chris Murgatroyd and others at the Max Planck Institute Of Psychiatry, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, found that exposure to early life trauma in mice, changed their DNA. Stress hormones released in them, actually tweaked the DNA codes of a set of genes in these mice, leaving them more susceptible to long term behavioural problems.
Research by scientists at the Patiala University in India, suggested that background exposure to pesticides has altered and damaged the DNA of people in farming communities, which has led to higher rates of cancer amongst them.
A study by Dean Ornish and colleagues at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and the University Of California, published in the Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences, found that good nutrition, emotional support, moderate exercise and stress management, changed the expression of the genes in over 500 men with prostate cancer, within a three month period. With these good healthy lifestyle changes, it was found that many disease promoting genes were down regulated or turned off and many protective disease preventing genes had been up regulated and turned on in these men.
So what does all this mean ? It means that even if you are born with weak genes, you certainly don’t have to be stuck with them. What you do in your lifestyle after you are born is far more important and has far more of an impact on your health and your life than what you have inherited.
If you practice a healthy lifestyle and positive mind set you can change your genes to work at their best to keep you strong, healthy and happy.
Germs.
Western Medicine often looks for bacteria and viruses to be the sole sources of human illnesses. This way of thinking originated way back in the 1800’s from Louis Pasteur who is recognized as the father of The Germ Theory. The Germ Theory states that when we are exposed to bacteria and viruses they will automatically make us sick.
Since then Western Medicine has spent vast amounts of time and money trying to create drugs that will kill these bacteria and viruses. Unfortunately many of these same drugs often weaken the rest of us too, often depleting our energy and resources, and even weakening our bodies’ natural defence, our immune system.
Western Medicine often looks for bacteria and viruses to be the sole sources of human illnesses. This way of thinking originated way back in the 1800’s from Louis Pasteur who is recognized as the father of The Germ Theory. The Germ Theory states that when we are exposed to bacteria and viruses they will automatically make us sick.
Since then Western Medicine has spent vast amounts of time and money trying to create drugs that will kill these bacteria and viruses. Unfortunately many of these same drugs often weaken the rest of us too, often depleting our energy and resources, and even weakening our bodies’ natural defence, our immune system.
The Chinese and Eastern approach is quite different. They would respect that germs can certainly make you ill, but whether you get sick or not has more to do with the strength and power of certain elements in your body; in particular your energy system.
If you have abundant energy and your immune system is fully powered, then it can easily produce white cells, the bodies’ defenders. If this is the case, it is difficult even when exposed to germs to become sick.
It’s quite clear to see that there is much more to the causes of illness than just germs, otherwise everyone exposed to an illness would develop it and this is clearly not the case. Doctors, nurses and health care workers are constantly around patients with infections all the time, yet most of the time they don’t get anything. They simply don’t become sick from this exposure.
Everybody usually knows someone in their circle who never seems to get colds or flu during winter but must also have been exposed regularly to these bugs. In fact we are constantly surrounded by thousands and thousands of germs on a daily basis. They are everywhere, our bathrooms, kitchens, computers, beds and nearly all other places. Even our cars have registered to have more than 15,000 different types of bugs in them.
So it is more than obvious that germs are only one side of the equation and for that matter the smaller side.
In future blogs I will tell you how to maximise your energy in lots of different ways, this will in turn boost your immune system and help to prevent you from catching colds or other germs and bugs.
If you have abundant energy and your immune system is fully powered, then it can easily produce white cells, the bodies’ defenders. If this is the case, it is difficult even when exposed to germs to become sick.
It’s quite clear to see that there is much more to the causes of illness than just germs, otherwise everyone exposed to an illness would develop it and this is clearly not the case. Doctors, nurses and health care workers are constantly around patients with infections all the time, yet most of the time they don’t get anything. They simply don’t become sick from this exposure.
Everybody usually knows someone in their circle who never seems to get colds or flu during winter but must also have been exposed regularly to these bugs. In fact we are constantly surrounded by thousands and thousands of germs on a daily basis. They are everywhere, our bathrooms, kitchens, computers, beds and nearly all other places. Even our cars have registered to have more than 15,000 different types of bugs in them.
So it is more than obvious that germs are only one side of the equation and for that matter the smaller side.
In future blogs I will tell you how to maximise your energy in lots of different ways, this will in turn boost your immune system and help to prevent you from catching colds or other germs and bugs.
