Thought you might find this interesting if you had not already come across it.
We are what we eat. Such is the logic of a novel idea, which seems to be not so novel and yet is revolutionary in concept. It has to do with blood vessels and how our body produces and destroys them. William Li presents the idea on TED that we potential have the means to avoid many diseases and fight disease issues within our bodies by understanding more about how the body heals itself naturally. When our bodies are in balance they cope with the many potential disease issues we see rampant in the total population. Surprise, surprise, our health depends enormously on our diet and exercise!
The kicker is that most diets require an overall balance to be effective but don't deal effectively with overall balance. Most diets are partial rather than general equilibrium in nature. Thus, one goes on a popular diet loses weight temporarily and regains the weight subsequently. Or, one has a diet to fight something and dies from that that something anyways. This is particularly the problem of diets designed to fight cancer.
We know cancer is potentially going to kill any one of us. What we don't often realize is that the health issues that lead to cancer have long tails, such as breathing in a small particle of asbestos that thirty years later has cancer cells growing around it that lead to the full blown disease. Our bodies, nevertheless, can cope with a host of potential cancers by being in equilibrium with regard to blood vessel creation and destruction. This is what Dr Li focuses on! How do we ensure that our bodies cope with most destructive factors that would lead to premature death or a health disequilibrium such as characteristic of obesity? Many diseases have very long tails and so we can be surprised by unexpected disease more often as we grow older.
Our bodies are extraordinarily complex and there are no easy answers. Dr Li does however present an enormous set of possibilities for reducing the likelihood of any one of an enormous set of diseases appearing out of nowhere. The method hinges on the bodies ability to create and destroy blood vessels. We may find that we can proactively increase the chances that our bodies will be in equilibrium as regards having the natural weaponry and supplies of what is needed from the chemistry of our food to fight an enormous list of potential diseases. And, win!
The corollary is that we animals have evolved in equilibrium but that balance is destroyed by what we are attracted to by those selling food. Rather that being hunters and gatherers, we have become cavities in which an enormous list of toxins are dumped daily. We are lulled into putting the toxins into our bodies because we do not proactively try to determine what is good for us and verify the actual effects of what we encouraged to put onto or into our bodies. We have become lazy in our surveillance of potential hazards, such as sugar, wheat, salt, omega 6 fat, nicotine, food colorings, proteins, and so on.
Review Dr Li's talk and let us know what you really think?
http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html
Sent from AW Lake