Imagine the body as a giant web

Lots of things going on at the same time, everything is interconnected, ticking along smoothly, a perfect symphony.

Then something happens that causes damage to this web, makes a hole, disturbs the perfection, the music sounds out of tune.

It can be an external factor, like an accident, an infection, a contagious disease or a life event outside our control that causes a major stress. Or it can be internal, some systems start to malfunction, the body is unable to keep the web strong and so it weakens in parts and holes can appear - think chronic metabolic disease, diabetes, mental illness, autoimmune disease but also conditions linked to the functioning of specific organs, like digestive issues/reflux, thyroid issues, heart disease … The list is long .

When damage happens, how do you repair it? How do you patch up a hole in the web?

It depends on the situation. 

Modern medicine has some excellent tools in the event of damage caused by external factors. It can patch up an open wound, a broken bone, eradicate the contagious disease, prevent the infection from causing damage. Modern medicine also knows how to prolong life in situations where systems fail, think organ transplantation, cancer treatments, bi-pass surgery etc.

But what about situations that are more subtle than that, yet very very common? Like the conditions mentioned above, linked to our internal systems not working well?

At the first sign of weakness in the web, the approach of modern medicine is … do nothing ("Your labs are fine", "It's probably all in your head"). Then, when the 💩 hits the fan -  "Here, take this pill". It will patch up the hole.

Now think about our analogy to the giant web. 

What this pill will do is try to patch up the hole by pulling together the strings around it.

But by doing so, other strings that were in place are disturbed and move out of place. They, in turn, will pull on the strings attached to them, and so it goes.

This is the result of an "external" intervention to an "internal" systemic problem. This is why every medicine comes with a list of side effects. At times, one ends up having to take pills to deal with the side effects of the initial pills. The "secondary line" pills come with their own list of side effects and so it goes. Before you know it, the web is completely distorted.

We take statins for high cholesterol. Statins block an enzyme (HMG-CoA reductase) that is needed for the liver to make cholesterol. The liver makes less cholesterol. Except that same enzyme also plays an important role in the process of our cells making energy. So we get muscle pain, fatigue.

We take PPIs (proton pump inhibitors) for acid reflux. PPIs reduce the amount of acid our stomach makes so we don't feel the burn anymore. Except the stomach has a pH 1-2 for a reason. To digest food and to kill pathogens that may come in with the food. Low stomach acid leads to impaired digestion and nutrient absorption. Long term use of PPIs comes with a laundry list of not ideal side effects.

We take antidepressants for anxiety, sleep issues and depression. Our symptoms may lessen somewhat but the underlying problem is not solved, so we cling to them for years and even add more of them as the years go by.

We take Ozempic to lose weight. The weight comes off, our blood sugar comes down. But we get nauseous and sick. If we stop Ozempic, the weight comes back, the blood sugar goes back up again.

These are just some obvious examples, but the list is endless.

Now, this is not to say "pills are bad". Medications are a tool. To be used appropriately after a risk-benefit analysis is carefully done with the help of a competent professional. Sometimes, living with a hole in the web is just too painful and it is better to patch it up, despite the distortion that will happen around it. However,

What would be a better way of repairing the damage?

Figuring out the real cause of the internal dysfunction and giving the body the raw materials it needs to repair the damage by itself.

From the moment we are born until the moment we die our body is always trying to help us. It is always trying to repair the web. It harbours an intelligence that leaves anyone who has ever tried to understand it in awe.

However, in our modern world, with our hectic but sedentary lifestyles, with our suboptimal diets, with our exposure to all kinds of environmental toxins, our body does not always have the raw materials it needs to carry out the repair work it otherwise would. It tries, but it gets sabotaged.

What if we were to stop sabotaging it and give it the raw materials it needs?

How?

Well, let's go back to the basics. 

We have been on this planet in our current form for more or less 2 million years. Our body has been exposed to highly processed foods for about 100 yrs or even less (it all took off after WWII, busy working parents, no time for making real food, "hello" convenience).

What do you think? Can evolution happen that fast? 

Our hardware is still primitive. It has been designed to get its raw materials for fuel and repair from food that is made by the earth.

When it gets substances that have been put together in a lab and produced after heavy processing where the matrix of the original food has been completely distorted, it gets confused. It does not know how to deal with it. It does the best it can to decipher, but eventually it gets sick. The web gets weak, holes appear and the body cannot repair. So we run to the doctor and get a pill to patch up the hole and so it goes.

Let's not do that anymore. Let's teach our kids to not do that either.

Let's Eat Real Food,

=> the kind that does not need a box with a long list of ingredients,

=> the kind that does not need branding or advertising,

=> the kind that will actually go bad if we don't eat it in a few days,

=> the kind that comes in all the colours of the rainbow but does not contain any food colouring.

Let's eat like our life depends on it - because it quite literally does.