Scientists and doctors sometimes refer to your intestinal track as “your gut” and it generally refers to all of the bacteria and micro-organisms residing in your colon, your lower intestines, and youstomach. These are really the bacteria that digest your food into molecules small enough to become nutrients for your blood and hormones for your body.
Recent discoveries have shed more light on the Gut or more scientifically the Micro-Biome. It appears that perhaps 70% of your immune system resides in your Gut. And the hormones that activate your pancreas, liver, and more are produced in your Gut. And therefore it would appear that what you eat has everything to do with the signals (hormones) you send to your other organs – you heart, pancreas, brain, liver, and more.
One such signal or “pathway” is when you feed your gut a whole lot of sugar (fruit, bread – yes, baked goods turn to sugar in your blood faster than sugar, soda pop, etc.) – more than it needs or can use. Once it begins work on digesting that, it can’t handle it all and it moves it into your blood stream causing your pancreas to send out insulin in order to dispose of it. The body definitely needs to get sugar or glucose out of your bloodstream because the longer it remains there the more damage it does to the walls of your blood vessels and that in turns puts out the call for more cholesterol – the body’s repair mechanism for damaged blood vessels. If you’re running a marathon insulin brings glucose to the muscles where it is burned for energy. If you are sitting in front of the TV or your desk, the muscles don’t need it so it begins to deposit it into your fat cells.
Of course the real “science” behind these discoveries is saying that the next level down is that what you eat activates your genes and depending on what you eat will determine how your body reacts to the genes that activated – we generally think that diseases like obesity or diabetes are passed on through the genes but the scientists would argue that we all have the same genes to start with and which one expresses their characteristics is a matter of our habitual diets and of course our environment.
As an example, eat more good fats in your diet and your genes will express the right hormones to encourage neurogenesis, the creation of new brain cells to replace the old ones. Eat the wrong foods, high in carbohydrates like sugar, grains, pasta, etc. and you discourage neurogenesis. And hello Dementia and Alzheimers.
The most important takeaway for this article is that “food is medicine” and we need to start thinking about what we eat as the key to healing ourselves and preventing many of the diseases we could suffer in the future.
Here is the book I love for the more thorough explanation of how this works.
I like the fact you expressed – food is medicine. What we eat is directly related to our health and fitness. There are few diseases which transform through gene I believe but most probably diabetes not.
But actually we all should check and have a balanced diet from our early age so that we can have a healthy future.
Sangeeta
Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
Some key principles that are supported by research are;
– diabetes, obesity, Alzheimers, and related diseases are not passed on through the genes
– all of these illnesses are reversible
– all of these illnesses were caused primarily by what we eat and our environment
– what is defined as a balanced diet has been primarily defined by our government agencies such as the FDA without adequate research and peer review
Please read about the research cited in these books for supporting evidence:
http://health-over-70.siterubix.com/why-we-get-fat-a-book-review
http://health-over-70.siterubix.com/eat-fat-get-thin-book-review
http://health-over-70.siterubix.com/grain-brain-by-dr-david-perlmutter-a-book-review
Taking the time to study these books and their research will significantly contribute to your point of view about food as medicine.
Thanks again for the comments.
Hi Michael, I find the title a little bit misleading as the article is not about diabetes but more specifically on the workings of organisms in your gut as a reaction to the type of food we take in. Can you elaborate on the link between our food diet and the occurrence of diabetes? Cheers, Jerry
Jerry – thanks for your comment.
You’re right. The linkage between the article and diabetes is not clearly made.
The key is that metabolic syndrome often goes along with obesity and both are a high risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease as well as Alzheimers/Dementia.
So these issues begin in the gut as the article illustrates – it just doesn’t do a good job of tying up the causes to the eventual outcomes.
Thanks again.
I have never heard about Alzheimer’s being caused by your diet. I have learned something new today. For sure you know that eating healthy effects your life and you should always choose the right food for a balanced diet. But I did not know you can control if you get Alzheimer’s. That is very interesting, it’s amazing how much a bad diet can effect your whole body.
Michael – thanks for your comment and yes, it is surprising what the science and recent clinical practice in functional medicine is demonstrating to us. Most importantly, that Alzheimers, especially in it’s early stages when damage is still minimal, can be reversed through lifestyle changes. And many other neurological diseases are showing reversals as we begin to recognize that food is medicine.
Most importantly, we need to begin to wake up and realize that what mainstream medicine has been calling “alternative medicine” is really just the death-rattle as we transaction to a generation that recognizes that aside from acute care and care for communicable diseases, traditional medicine is no longer mainstream.
I think if you have a diet that is high in salt and sugar, then you put yourself in the firing line for getting diabetes, heart disease etc.
I would agree that if you eating the right foods and staying away from the bad fats like trans fats and saturated fats then the genes will express the right hormones to encourage neurogenesis.
I would also agree the diabetes and obesity are not passed down through our genes and we all start off on the same page.
So it really depends on what we put into our bodies and the habits we form when we are young that determines our health as we get older.
Adrian
Thanks so much for your comment. Research and facts are changing rapidly on this front. As I look the information provided in the UN research as presented by Dr. Mercola in this article – http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/03/21/un-to-phase-out-toxic-pesticides-in-farming.aspx?
I would say that just eating healthy is not the full picture when it comes to the precursors for diabetes and the other chronic diseases.
Because we now have ample evidence that GMOs and Glyphosate contamination in our environment is causing “leaky gut syndrome” we now have a better picture of the long term cause of inflammation, gut disorders, and immune response. It appears to me now that our gut disfunction leading to inflammation and immune response is at the root of all chronic disease no matter how far-fetched that might sound.
The reason for the wide variety of ailments is that inflammation and auto-immunity attack the weakest system in the body and that can vary according to genes and patient history. So we don’t necessarily connect all of these together unless you have the benefit of being a functional medicine practitioner in which case you begin to see the pattern very clearly.
Hi Michael, thanks for this very interesting article.
I totally agree with your comments about maintaining a healthy gut. Having done my own research into the matter, I’ve been aware of the gut’s importance for quite some time now. As a result, my wife and I have been eating a lot of fermented foods, along with good quality meat and vegetables.
Unfortunately, I think most people still tend to totally overlook good gut health, which then leads to all sorts of health problems.
Having read this article, I’m looking forward to exploring your website further.
Best, al
Thanks for your comments, Al. I just attended a summit on this topic and after listening to over 24 world wide speakers and subject matter experts I’ve decided it’s bigger than we thought.
1. We’re seeing an unprecedented rise in chronic disease including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autism, Alzheimers, cancer, auto-immune, and more.
2. We’re seeing early onset of these diseases in children.
3. If we test snow in the most pristine location or rainwater we’ll find heavy metals, glyphosate, and much more – toxic levels of everything imaginable.
4. We already know that our gut – our micro biome – the bacteria that make up our immune system, our digestive system, and the core of our DNA system – are damaged by these elements in our environment, in our food.
5. That means our immune systems are depleted and almost non-functional so diseases we thought we could conquer – things that would normally never appear because our immune system would take out the trash, are now thriving and killers us at younger and younger ages.
6. The pharmaceutical industry is having a “hay-day” churning out “cures” for all of these diseases and forcing an unprecedented number of vaccines through the use of federal agencies they own and mandate.
7. Getting control of how intake of these toxins is an imperative if we wish to save our lives and provide any life at all for our children.
I would like everyone to refer to this post – http://health-over-70.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=750&action=edit