For a healthy lifestyle What Causes Some Common DISEASES?

Key facts

• Access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food is key to sustaining life and promoting good health.

• Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances, causes more than 200 diseases – ranging from diarrhea to cancers.

• An estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420 000 die every year, resulting in the loss of 33 million healthy life years (DALYs).

• US$110 billion is lost each year in productivity and medical expenses resulting from unsafe food in low- and middle-income countries.

• Children under 5 years of age carry 40% of the foodborne disease burden, with 125 000 deaths every year.

• Diarrhoeal diseases are the most common illnesses resulting from the consumption of contaminated food, causing 550 million people to fall ill and 230 000 deaths every year.

• Food safety, nutrition and food security are inextricably linked. Unsafe food creates a vicious cycle of disease and malnutrition, particularly affecting infants, young children, elderly and the sick.

• Foodborne diseases impede socioeconomic development by straining health care systems, and harming national economies, tourism and trade.

• Food supply chains now cross multiple national borders. Good collaboration between governments, producers and consumers helps ensure food safety.

Major foodborne illnesses and causes Foodborne illnesses are usually infectious or toxic in nature and caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances entering the body through contaminated food or water. Foodborne pathogens can cause severe diarrhoea or debilitating infections including meningitis.

Chemical contamination can lead to acute poisoning or long-term diseases, such as cancer. Foodborne diseases may lead to long-lasting disability and death. Examples of unsafe food include uncooked foods of animal origin, fruits and vegetables contaminated with faeces, and raw shellfish containing marine biotoxins. Bacteria:

• Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli are among the most common foodborne pathogens that affect millions of people annually – sometimes with severe and fatal outcomes. Symptoms are fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Examples of foods involved in outbreaks of salmonellosis are eggs, poultry and other products of animal origin. Foodborne cases with Campylobacter are mainly caused by raw milk, raw or undercooked poultry and drinking water. Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli is associated with unpasteurized milk, undercooked meat and fresh fruits and vegetables.

• Listeria infection leads to miscarriage in pregnant women or death of newborn babies. Although disease occurrence is relatively low, listeria’s severe and sometimes fatal health consequences, particularly among infants, children and the elderly, count them among the most serious foodborne infections. Listeria is found in unpasteurised dairy products and various ready-to-eat foods and can grow at refrigeration temperatures.

• Vibrio cholerae infects people through contaminated water or food. Symptoms include abdominal pain, vomiting and profuse watery diarrhoea, which may lead to severe dehydration and possibly death. Rice, vegetables, millet gruel and various types of seafood have been implicated in cholera outbreaks.

Antimicrobials, such as antibiotics, are essential to treat infections caused by bacteria. However, their overuse and misuse in veterinary and human medicine has been linked to the emergence and spread of resistant bacteria, rendering the treatment of infectious diseases ineffective in animals and humans. Resistant bacteria enter the food chain through the animals (e.g. Salmonella through chickens). Antimicrobial resistance is one of the main threats to modern medicine. Viruses: Norovirus infections are characterized by nausea, explosive vomiting, watery diarrhoea and abdominal pain. Hepatitis A virus can cause long-lasting liver disease and spreads typically through raw or undercooked seafood or contaminated raw produce. Infected food handlers are often the source of food contamination. Parasites: Some parasites, such as fish-borne trematodes, are only transmitted through food. Others, for example tapeworms like Echinococcus spp, or Taenia solium, may infect people through food or direct contact with animals. Other parasites, such as Ascaris, Cryptosporidium, Entamoeba histolytica or Giardia, enter the food chain via water or soil and can contaminate fresh produce.

Prions: Prions, infectious agents composed of protein, are unique in that they are associated with specific forms of neurodegenerative disease. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow disease") is a prion disease in cattle, associated with the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in humans. Consuming bovine products containing specified risk material, e.g. brain tissue, is the most likely route of transmission of the prion agent to humans. Chemicals: Of most concern for health are naturally occurring toxins and environmental pollutants.

• Naturally occurring toxins include mycotoxins, marine biotoxins, cyanogenic glycosides and toxins occurring in poisonous mushrooms. Staple foods like corn or cereals can contain high levels of mycotoxins, such as aflatoxin and ochratoxin, produced by mould on grain. A long-term exposure can affect the immune system and normal development, or cause cancer.

• Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are compounds that accumulate in the environment and human body. Known examples are dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are unwanted by-products of industrial processes and waste incineration. They are found worldwide in the environment and accumulate in animal food chains. Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and cause cancer.

• Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury cause neurological and kidney damage. Contamination by heavy metal in food occurs mainly through pollution of air, water and soil.

The burden of foodborne diseases The burden of foodborne diseases to public health and welfare and to economies has often been underestimated due to underreporting and difficulty to establish causal relationships between food contamination and resulting illness or death. The 2015 WHO report on the estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases presented the first-ever estimates of disease burden caused by 31 foodborne agents (bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals) at global and regional level. The 2018 World Bank report on the economic burden of the foodborne diseases indicated that the total productivity loss associated with foodborne disease in low- and middle-income countries was estimated to cost US$ 95.2 billion per year, and the annual cost of treating foodborne illnesses is estimated at US$ 15 billion.

• WHO estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases

• World Bank estimates of economic burden of foodborne diseases in low- and middle-income countries

The evolving world and food safety Safe food supplies support national economies, trade and tourism, contribute to food and nutrition security, and underpin sustainable development. Urbanization and changes in consumer habits, including travel, have increased the number of people buying and eating food prepared in public places. Globalization has triggered growing consumer demand for a wider variety of foods, resulting in an increasingly complex and longer global food chain. As the world’s population grows, the intensification and industrialization of agriculture and animal production to meet increasing demand for food creates both opportunities and challenges for food safety. Climate change is also predicted to impact food safety. These challenges put greater responsibility on food producers and handlers to ensure food safety. Local incidents can quickly evolve into international emergencies due to the speed and range of product distribution. Serious foodborne disease outbreaks have occurred on every continent in the past decade, often amplified by globalized trade. Examples include the contamination of ready-to-eat meat with listeria monocytogenes in South Africa in 2017/18, resulting in 1060 cases of listeriosis and 216 deaths. In this case, contaminated products were exported to 15 other countries in Africa, requiring an international response to implement risk management measures.

Food safety: a public health priority Unsafe food poses global health threats, endangering everyone. Infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with an underlying illness are particularly vulnerable. Every year 220 million children contract diarrhoeal diseases and 96 000 die. Unsafe food creates a vicious cycle of diarrhoea and malnutrition, threatening the nutritional status of the most vulnerable. The International Conference on Food Safety held in Addis Ababa in February 2019, and the International Forum on Food Safety and Trade held in Geneva in 2019, reiterated the importance of food safety in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Governments should make food safety a public health priority, as they play a pivotal role in developing policies and regulatory frameworks, and establishing and implementing effective food safety systems. Food can become contaminated at any point of production and distribution, and the primary responsibility lies with food producers. Yet a large proportion of foodborne disease incidents are caused by foods improperly prepared or mishandled at home, in food service establishments or at markets. Not all food handlers and consumers understand the roles they must play, such as adopting basic hygienic practices when buying, selling and preparing food to protect their health and that of the wider community. Everyone can contribute to making food safe. Here are some examples of effective actions: Policy-makers can:

• build and maintain adequate food systems and infrastructures (e.g. laboratories) to respond to and manage food safety risks along the entire food chain, including during emergencies;

• foster multi-sectoral collaboration among public health, animal health, agriculture and other sectors for better communication and joint action;

• integrate food safety into broader food policies and programmes (e.g. nutrition and food security);

• think globally and act locally to ensure that food produced domestically remains safe when imported internationally.
  

Food handlers and consumers can:

• know the food they use (read labels on food packages, make informed choices, become familiar with common food hazards);

• handle and prepare food safely, practicing the WHO Five Keys to Safer Food at home, or when selling at restaurants or at local markets;

• grow fruits and vegetables using the WHO Five Keys to Growing Safer Fruits and Vegetables to decrease microbial contamination.

WHO response WHO aims to facilitate global prevention, detection and response to public health threats associated with unsafe food. WHO works to ensure consumer trust in their authorities, and confidence in the safe food supply. To do this, WHO helps Member States build capacity to prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks by:

• providing independent scientific assessments on microbiological and chemical hazards that form the basis for international food standards, guidelines and recommendations, known as the Codex Alimentarius, to ensure food is safe wherever it originates;

• assessing, in structured, transparent and measurable ways, the performance of food control systems throughout the entire food chain, identifying priority areas for capacity development, and measuring and evaluating progress over time through The FAO/WHO food control system assessment tool;

• assessing the safety of new technologies used in food production, such as genetic modification and nanotechnology;

• helping improve national food systems and legal frameworks, and implement adequate infrastructure to manage food safety risks. The International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) was developed by WHO and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to rapidly share information during food safety emergencies;

• promoting safe food handling through systematic disease prevention and awareness programmes, through the WHO Five Keys to Safer Food message and training materials; and

• advocating for food safety as an important component of health security and for integrating food safety into national policies and programmes in line with the International Health Regulations (IHR - 2005).

The Root Cause of All Disease: Toxicity and Deficiency

"What more can be asked by any doctor or layman than a philosophy of the cause of disease that gives a perfect understanding of all the so-called diseases?

To know cause supplies even the layman with a dependable knowledge of how to avoid building disease, and how to cure. When people know how to avoid disease they know an immunization that immunizes rationally.

Dependable knowledge of what disease really is and its cause is man's salvation; and when it can be had with no more effort that that required to read carefully and understandingly, there is little excuse for anyone, lay or professional, to live in ignorance of it.

Knowledge is power. Knowledge of how to have gives greatest power.

Few people know anything about the cause of disease."

- John Tilden, MD

Before someone embarks on a health journey, there is a very important question that should be asked.

"How did I get here?"

What were the lifestyle choices made that could've contributed to lack of health? For many people, there are several. Sadly, most of the choices people are making are made out of ignorance. This is why it's important to work with someone who is qualified and can coach you.

Physically, all we are is cells. Our hair, organs, blood, fingernails, etc... nothing but cells. Think of your heart for a moment. Most call our hearts an organ but what is it really? Our hearts are a bunch of cells organized that carry out heart function. The point is, if you want to be truly healthy, you have to take care of your cells; most specifically, the environment in which your cells live.

Simply put, our cells need certain things to thrive:

* water

* air

* nutrients

* electricity

If the cells are receiving what they need, they'll thrive, but that's only half of the equation. The second half is just as important.

Toxicity

If you hear the word "toxins", what comes to mind? In my experience, when I ask that question, people respond with things like, "air pollution" or "chemical spills", etc. Those are, in fact, toxins but there are more. The average American is exposed to hundreds of toxins every single day. Believe it or not, most of these toxins are right in our homes. As a matter of fact, it's estimated that our homes are 3 times more toxic than the outside environment.

Here are possible sources of toxicity in your home:

* food

* toothpaste

* cleaning chemicals

* shampoo

* soap

* lotions

* air fresheners

* deodorant

* body wash

* cookware

The good news is, there are safe alternatives to all of those. I have no interest in any particular brands or companies so I always recommend doing your research.

As you can see, we are bombarded with a toxic burden that our bodies cannot keep up with. Our major organs of detoxification suffer and can no longer handle the stress. If this continues, we fall ill.

So, the combination of not enough of good with too much bad will create an unhealthy environment for our cells.

Extracellular Matrix

Our cells aren't floating in the air. They live in what's called the extracellular matrix. Our hearts pump blood to target tissues and that is the environment in which our cells live. If the blood is clean and full of all the good, the cells bathe in a healthy environment. If the blood is full of pesticides, bacteria, viruses, toxins from our every day life, the cells will bathe in poison. Catch my drift?

What's important to understand is that nobody is going to completely escape toxicity. What each person has to assess is what are their major contributers and eliminate them. We can't control everything but we can pay attention to what we're putting in and on our bodies. Lighten the load. That's the first step.

* stop eating processes foods, sugar and grain

* eat organic whenever possible

* use aluminum free deodorant

* avoid unfermented soy

* use fluoride-free toothpaste

* use an oil diffuser for instead of plug-in air fresheners

* swap conventional home cleaning products for safer alternatives

* have any amalgam fillings removed by a biological dentist

* go on a water fast

These are just a few things that can make a huge difference. Remember, you don't have to do this on your own. Find a qualified clinician that can coach you.

Various studies and research papers have shown that chronic inflammation is a recurrent factor in most diseases that have become epidemics today.

Chronic pain, obesity, anxiety, diabetes, heart disease, depression, stroke, migraine, thyroid problems (such as Hashimoto’s disease), attention deficit disorder, ADHD, gastritis, dermatitis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and a long list of other diseases present a state of unresolved inflammation in almost every instance.

What is inflammation and how does it work? (In a nutshell)

Inflammation is a physiological reaction of the immune system required to overcome lesions or remove the presence of pathogenic microbes.

Inflammation eliminates the root cause of cellular lesions or damaged cells and tissues and kick-starts tissue recovery.

Inflammation starts when the body releases cytokines (protein molecules that act as communication signals between immune system cells and different organs and tissues). These act as emergency signals, carry nutrients, hormones and immune system cells to the location of the wound. To make this process easier, arteries dilate, while capillaries become more permeable to ensure that the cells that need to perform the “repair” function are able to access the wounded area. From there, the immune system cells perform their duties until the problem is solved.

What is chronic inflammation?

Inflammation is described as “chronic”, when the inflammatory process never reaches a phase of conclusion (never Terminates as outlined by the Integrative Functional Schemas cycle), such as when active inflammation and tissue destruction, with attempts at healing, co-exist for a length of time.

How does inflammation start? Gut, Stress, Trauma, Food

Most inflammatory diseases start in the gut with a reaction by the immune systems that triggers the inflammatory response.

The gut is composed of a semi-permeable coating that is incredibly vast and intricate. Its degree of permeability changes in response to various chemically mediated conditions.

For example, when cortisol (popularly known as the “stress hormone”) is elevated due to the stress caused by an argument or by trauma, or when we introduce an excessive amount of inflammatory foods such as sugar and trans fats, the intestine walls becomes immediately more permeable.

Bad posture, caused by feeling tense and being in a hurry, as well as thoughts that are constantly negative, also favour lengthy inflammatory states. [If you want to explore different psychosomatic mechanisms you can find many other articles and videos in our blog.]

When the intestine walls are repeatedly damaged (by stress and constant conflict, inadequate nutrition, irregular emotions etc.), cells in the gut become unable to carry out their job correctly and cannot to elaborate and use nutrients or produce the key substances required for adequate digestion that is thus compromised.

What are the defence processes for the gut and immune system?

immune system defence is composed of various barriers.

1. The first barrier is the gut microbiome, also known as gut flora, and amounts to the bacteria and microorganisms that live in the body’s mucous membranes, especially in the digestive tract and in the gut. The microbiome performs a critical role in immune defence producing a series of key substances (such as short chain fatty acids) that regulate homeostasis and pathogen defence processes.

2. The gut mucous membrane represents a second barrier: a single layer of epithelial cells that separate the gut lumen home to bacterial flora in the gut epithelium. Mucus stops large particles from coming into contact with the epithelial cell layer, enabling the passage of small molecules.

3. A third barrier is represented by the gut epithelium, a layer of epithelial cells that cover the intestine and that protect it but also manage the absorption of nutrients and other substances.

Below all these layers we find the immune system itself, composed of a series of cells whose role it is to defend the body.

When the layers prior to the immune system are damaged, any substance, pathogen or not, is able to cross the barrier, activate the immune system and trigger an inflammatory response.

In these conditions (known as dysbiosis or leaky gut) not just viruses and bacteria, but also various other substances that are normally regarded as harmless, such as glucose, lactose, or substances produced by the body in response to stress or trauma (such as catecholamine adrenalin, noradrenalin or dopamine) are able to enter and can trigger an inflammatory response.

In fact, today we know that a chronic inflammatory process can be induced by psychological trauma, the environment, stress or nutrition.

As the gut continues to undergo damage, the body responds with an inflammatory process that, if unsolved, can become chronic, manifesting itself over time with a series of symptoms that range from allergic reactions to more serious diseases like cancer.

The most common causes for inflammation

What are the most common causes for inflammation?

Factors connected to gut dysfunction that typically create an environment favourable to a chronic inflammatory process are:

• Diet: gluten, casein, processed foods, sugar and carbohydrates, industrial food, fast food and so forth

• Drugs: corticosteroids, antibiotics, antacids etc

• Stress: an increase in cortisol (adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine)

• Emotional imbalance and trauma: stress alterations plus sympathetic-parasympathetic imbalance, vagal alteration, brain-networks etc

• Hormone imbalance: thyroid hormones, progesterone, oestradiol, testosterone

• At a neurological level: brain trauma, ictus etc

• Metabolic level: there are various processes, in particular glycosylate end products (inflammatory end products of sugar metabolism)

• Physical alterations: physical trauma, tissue lesion etc

• Infections: H-Pylori, yeast or bacterial proliferation, viral or parasite infection

• Cigarette smoke

• Alcohol abuse

• Endocrine disruptors (contained, incidentally, in detergents, soaps and various other household products).

In this article we look at nutrition and diet issues more in depth, for plenty more focus articles, explanation and practical suggestions on mental, emotional and physical aspects please see the various articles and videos on our blog or our online Integrative Sciences HUB courses.

PRO-INFLAMMATORY FOODS

Nutrition certainly plays a key role in chronic inflammatory processes today.

The abundance of cheap, low-quality food that we find in supermarkets, accessible to everyone, certainly favours a number of metabolic processes that are negative for the human body.

Before providing a list of foods that can favour an inflammatory process, it is important to remember that we are not just talking about quality but also about quantity. In fact, a quantitative excess of food, both in terms of actual amounts and of intake frequency, is not good for overall health, regardless of the quality of the food.

Some of the foods that can cause dysbiosis, leaky gut and trigger an inflammatory process are:

• Sweet foods and sugary drinks: sweets, sodas, puddings, fruit juices, cakes etc that contain high quantities of fructose. Fructose metabolism produces toxic waste such as uric acid that leads to inflammation, endothelial damage, hypertension, gout and so on.

• Vegetable oils: cooking oils such as soy, maize, sunflower seed, palm etc. are rich in omenga-6. Too much omega-6 can trigger an inflammatory process producing prostaglandins, leukotrienes and thromboxane.

• Trans fats and fried foods: the chips, fish fingers and onion rings that we typically find in fast food outlets are often cooked in vegetable oils and are packed with trans fats.

• Refined carbohydrates: bread, pasta, pizza, focaccia, crackers, breadsticks and all flour products can favour an inflammatory process if consumed in excess. In addition to this, research has shown that wheat contains specific proteins called amylase trypsin inhibitors (ATIs) that can trigger an inflammation connected to chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

• Foods rich in glutamate and aspartame: excessive consumption of glutamate and aspartame favour chronic inflammation and connected diseases. Glutamate also tends to overstimulate cells causing damage to the brain on various levels and triggering or worsening learning difficulties, attention deficit, sleep disorders etc.

• Highly processed industrial foods.

How can you manage the inflammatory response to food?

A change in diet can certainly help to overcome an inflammatory process.

However, to favour change and recover physiological state it is not enough to increase some foods over others, but potentially inflammatory foods need to be limited or reduced.

It will therefore be useful to reduce or eliminate the following for a set period of time: carbohydrates such as pasta, bread or pizza, foods that contain fructose (soft drinks, fruit juices etc), all vegetable oils that contain high levels of omega-6, foods containing trans fats, foods rich in glutamate and aspartame.

We should:

Increase the intake of foods rich in omega-3 such as oily fish, meat from grazing animals that have mainly eaten grass or hay, free-range animal meat or free-range eggs.

Increase quality fats such as butter, eggs, oily fish like salmon, fatty matured cheese, cream, dark chocolate, dried fruit etc.

Increase intake of fibre-rich vegetables that contribute to the well-being of the gut microbiome.

And, after a period of preparation, introduce periods of intermittent fasting that are very useful to reduce inflammatory processes and favour a return to physiological state.

All these directions can be made all the more effective via exercises that help manage states of hyperactivation and hyperstimulation acting synergistically and systematically to reduce or overcome a chronic inflammation process. One example is the Crossed Cycles Breathing Technique that intervenes on different levels to manage stress responses, recover wellbeing, establish physiological state for body and mind and develop self-control in every situation.

In particular, carrying out this technique before meals enables a slow-down of rhythms and relaxes the mind and muscles in the top part of the body. It will thus be possible to eat calmly, enjoy out food and nourish ourselves in our physiological state both mentally and physically, creating ideal conditions to digest and absorb food.

Dr. Talia Marcheggiani is a naturopathic doctor practicing in Toronto. She has a special focus in mental health and hormones and uses an individualized mind-body approach to uncover and treat the root cause of disease. She is registered with the College of Naturopaths of Ontario and is a member of the Ontario and Canadian Associations of Naturopathic Medicine.

Like many people I see, Sandra was experiencing debilitating fatigue and weakness. I often get emails like this: “Dear Doctor, please tell me your favourite natural cure for anxiety”. To which I often reply: Dear Anxiety, Imagine you are a skilled gardener: you tend lovingly to your plants every day and you care deeply for their welfare. You are the perfect gardener in every way, except for one: for some reason you don’t know anything about soil. No one has ever taught you about the damp, dark world that envelopes the roots of your beloved plants, kindly offering to them its protection, water, and nutrients. You are a gardener but are innocently oblivious to the fact that soil must be nurtured by billions of microbes, and that nutrients in the soil must be replenished. You have no idea that the other plants sharing the soil with your garden form a complex network of give and take, depositing nutrients into it while greedily sucking others away. Now, as this soil-ignorant gardener, imagine your surprise when, despite your care and attention, the plants in your garden wither and die, bearing no flowers or fruit. Imagine your frustration when your efforts to prop up tired stems fail. You apply water and fertilizer to buds, leaves and stems. You stand by, powerless, as your garden dies. Notice the weeds taking over your garden, which you lop off at their stems, unaware that their roots reside deep inside the earth. When the weeds pop up again and again, you slash at them, burn them, and you curse the skies. “Why me?” Why you, indeed. You are unaware of root gardening, soil gardening, just as many of us are unaware of root medicine—soil medicine. You see, Anxiety, there are many natural remedies that can help. However, tossing natural pills at twitching nerves, imbalanced blood sugar, unregulated stress responses, and various nutrient deficiencies, might be as naive a practice as spray painting your roses while they wilt in sandy earth, beneath their red paint. It might be akin to prescribing anxiety medication or a shot of vodka to calm your trembling mind; you might feel better for a time, propped up with good intentions, before collapsing in the dry soil encasing you. With no one to tend to your roots you eventually crumple, anxiety still rampant. “Why me?” You curse the skies. Rather than asking, “Why me?” it might help to simply start asking, “Why?” While it is important to understand the “What” of your condition—What disease is present? What is the best natural cure for anxiety?—naturopathic doctors are far more interested in the “Why”. As Dr. Mark Hyman, functional medical doctor, asks:

• Why are your symptoms occurring?

• Why now?

• And why in this way?

It's true, naturopathic doctors prescribe natural remedies for conditions such as anxiety. However, naturopathic medicine is a medicine that first tends to the soil. Naturopathic doctors first look for and address the roots of symptoms, working with the relationships that exist between you and your body, your food, the people in your life, your society, your environment—your soil. Healing involves taking a complete inventory of all the factors in your life that influence your mental, physical, and emotional wellness. It requires looking at the air, water, sunlight, nutrients, stressors, hormones, chemicals, microbes, thoughts and emotions that our cells bathe in each day. Healing means looking closely at the soil that surrounds us. It requires asking, What are the roots that this condition stems from? And, What soil buries these roots? Does it nourish me? Do I nourish it? The causes of disease can be interconnected and complex. Very often, however, there are common root networks from which many modern-day chronic health conditions arise...

9 Root Causes Of Disease...

1) Confused Circadian Rhythms For hundreds of thousands of years, all of humanity rose, hunted, ate, fasted, and slept according to the sun’s rhythms. To align us with nature, our bodies contain internal clocks. There's a central one located in the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is susceptible to light from the sun. And there are peripheral clocks located in the liver and pancreas, which respond to our eating patterns. Our gut bacteria also respond to and influence our body’s clocks. However, the invention of electricity, night shifts, and 24-hour convenience stores means that our bodies can no longer rely on the outside world to guide our waking and sleeping patterns. This can confuse our circadian rhythms, leading to digestive issues, insomnia, daytime fatigue, mood disorders, and problems with metabolism, appetite, and blood-sugar regulation. Dr. Satchin Panda, PhD, a researcher at the Salk Institute in California, found that mice who ate a poor diet experienced altered circadian rhythms. However, he found that when these mice were fed the same diet in accordance with their natural rhythms, they weighed less, had lower incidences of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, had better cognitive health, and lived longer. These findings indicate that perhaps it is not what we eat but when that may impact our health. Perhaps it is that an unnatural diet disconnects us from nature, or that this disconnection tempts us to choose non-nutritive foods, but the research by Dr. Panda and his team reveals the importance of aligning our daily routines with our bodies’ natural rhythms in order to experience optimal health. According to Dr. Panda’s findings, this involves eating during an 8 to 12-hour window, perhaps having breakfast at 7am and finishing dinner early, or simply avoiding nighttime snacking. For many of us, this may involve making the effort to keep our sleep schedules consistent, even on weekends. For most of us, it involves avoiding exposure to electronics (which emit circadian-confusing blue light) after the sun goes down, and exposing our eyes to natural sunlight as soon after waking as possible. 2) Starving Gut Bacteria It was Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who first proclaimed that “All disease begins in the gut.” Our digestive systems are long, hollow tubes that extend from mouth to anus and serve as our body’s connection to the outside world. What enters our digestive system does not fully become the body until the cells that line that digestive tract deem these nutrients worthy of entering. Along their 9 metre-long, 50-hour journey, these nutrients are processed by digestive enzymes, broken down by trillions of beneficial bacteria, and sorted out by the immune cells that guard entrance to our vulnerable bodies. Our immune cells make the judgment call between what sustains us and what has that potential to kill us. For this reason, about 70% of our immune system is located along our digestive tract. Our gut bacteria, containing an estimated 30 trillion cells, outnumber the cells in our body, the most recent ratio being estimated at 3 to 1 (the ratio is often cited at 10 to 1, but that's wrong, and note that we still don't know the ratio for sure). Science has only just begun to write the love story between these tiny cells and our bodies. These bacteria are responsible for aiding in the digestion of our food, producing essential nutrients, such as B vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins, and keeping our intestines healthy. However, this love story can turn tragic when these little romantics are not properly fed or nurtured, or when antagonists enter the story in the form of pathogenic bacteria or yeast. Our microbiome may impact our health in various ways. Studies are emerging showing that obese people have different gut profiles than those who are normal weight. Our gut bacteria have a role in producing the hormones that regulate hunger, mood, stress, circadian rhythms, metabolism, and inflammation. They regulate our immune system, playing a role in soothing autoimmune conditions, and improving our ability to fight off infections and cancer. Psychological and physical stress, inflammation, medication use, and a diet consisting of processed food can all conspire to negatively affect the health of our gut. This can lead to a plethora of diseases: mood disorders, psychiatric illness, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain and inflammation, obesity, hormonal issues, such as endometriosis, autoimmune disease, and, of course, chronic digestive concerns such as IBS, among others. As Hippocrates long knew, one doesn’t have to dig for long to uncover an unhappy gut microbiome as one of the primary roots of disease. Our gut has the power to nurture us, to provide us with the fuel that keeps our mood bright and our energy high. However, if we fail it, out gut also has the power to plague our cells with chronic inflammation and disease. To be fully healthy, we must tend to our gut like a careful gardener tends to her soil. This involves eating a diet rich in fermented foods, like kefir, and dietary fibre, like leeks, Jerusalem artichokes, and black beans. It also means consuming flavonoid-rich foods like green tea and cocoa, and consuming a colourful tapestry of various fruits and vegetables. Healing our gut requires avoiding foods it doesn’t like. These may include foods that feed pathogenic bacteria, mount an immune response, kill our good bacteria, trigger inflammation, or simply those processed foods that fail to nurture us. To heal ourselves, first we must feed our gut. 3) Nature Deficit Disorder Nature Deficit Disorder is a phrase, coined by Richard Louv, in the 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods. According to Louv, a variety of childhood problems, especially mental health diagnoses like ADHD, are a direct result of our society’s tendency to increasingly alienate children from nature. With most of humanity living in cities, nature has become a place we visit, rather than what immerses us. However much modernization might remove us from nature, our bodies, as well as the food, air, water, sunlight, and natural settings they require to thrive, are products of nature, and cannot be separated from it. A Japanese practice called Shinrin-Yoku, or "Forest Bathing”, developed in the 1980’s to attempt to reconnect modern people with the healing benefits of spending time in a natural setting. There is an immediate reduction in stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rate when people immerse themselves in natural environments, such as a forest. Whether we like it or not, our roots need soil. It is possible that the components of this soil are too complex to manufacture. When we try to live without soil, essential elements that nourish us and the various relationships between these elements are left out. When we remove ourselves from nature, or ignore it fully, we become like gardeners oblivious to the deep dependency their plants have on the soil that enshrouds them. Connecting with nature by spending time outside, retraining our circadian rhythms, connecting with our food sources, and consuming natural, whole foods may be essential for balancing our minds, emotions, and physical bodies. 4) A Lack of Key Building Blocks Our bodies are like complex machines that need a variety of macro and micronutrients, which provide us with the fuel, building blocks, vitamins and minerals we need to function. As a child, I would play with Lego, putting together complex structures according to the blueprints in the box. When I discovered that a piece was missing, I would fret. It meant that my masterpiece would no longer look right, or work. If I was lucky, I might find a similar piece to replace it, but it wouldn’t be the same. After looking long and hard for it, sometimes the missing piece would turn up. I’d locate it under the carpet, my brother’s bottom, or lodged in a dark corner of the box. Often our bodies don’t get that lucky. Nutrients like vitamin B12, or a specific essential amino acid, or a mineral like magnesium help our body perform essential steps in its various biochemical pathways. These pathways follow our innate blueprint for health. They dictate how we eat, sleep, breathe, and create and use energy. They control how our bones and hair grow. They control our mood and hormones. They form our immune systems. These pathways run us. Our bodies carry out the complicated instructions in our DNA to will us into existence using the ingredients supplied from food. If our bodies are missing one or several of these ingredients—a vitamin or mineral—an important bodily task simply won’t get done. Dr. Bruce Ames, PhD, theorized that when nutrient levels are suboptimal, the body triages what it has to cover tasks essential to our immediate survival while compromising other jobs that are important, but less dire. For example, a body may have enough vitamin C to repair wounds or keep the teeth in our mouths—warding off obvious signs of scurvy, a disease that results from severe vitamin C deficiency. However, it may not have enough to protect us from the free radicals generated in and outside of our bodies. This deficiency may eventually lead to chronic inflammation, and years later, even cancer. According to Dr. Ames’ Triage Theory, mild to moderate nutrient deficiencies may manifest later in life, as diseases that arise from the deprivation of the building blocks needed to thrive. In North America, despite an overconsumption of calories, nutrient deficiencies are surprisingly common. 25-50% of people don’t get enough iron, which is important for the transport of oxygen, the synthesis of neurotransmitters, and for proper thyroid function. One-third of the world’s population is deficient in iodine, which affects thyroid health and fertility. Up to 82% of North Americans are vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D regulates the expression of over 1000 genes in the body, including those involved in mood regulation, bone health, immunity, and cancer prevention. Vitamin B12 is commonly deficient in the elderly, vegans and vegetarians. It is important for lowering inflammation, creating mood-regulating neurotransmitters, and supporting nervous system health. Deficiency in vitamin B12 can result in fatigue. Severe deficiency can lead to irreversible nerve damage, dementia, and even seizures. Magnesium is an essential mineral involved in over 300 chemical reactions, including mood and hormone pathways. Over 40% of North Americans do not consume enough magnesium, which is found in leafy green vegetables. Our bodies have requirements for fats - which make up our brain mass and the backbone of our sex hormones - and protein - which makes up our enzymes, neurotransmitters and the structure of our body: bones, skin, hair, nails, and connective tissue. Our gut microbiota require fibre. Our cells need antioxidants to help protect us from the free radical damage from our own cells’ metabolism and our exposure to environmental toxins. We certainly are what we eat, which means we can be magnificent structures with every piece in place, thriving with abundance and energy. Despite reasonably good intentions, we can also suffer from nutrient scarcity, forced to triage essential nutrients to keep us from keeling over, while our immune health, mood, and overall vitality slowly erode. In summary, we need to eat a diverse array of highly nutrient-dense foods in order to get the nutrition our bodies need. In addition, many of us need supplementation, based on our individual deficiencies, which very often are too far out of whack corrected through food alone. 5) Constant Fighting and Fleeing Like inflammation, our stress response is essential to our survival. When facing a predatory animal, our body is flooded with stress hormones that aim to remove us from the danger: either through fighting, fleeing, or freezing. Our stress response is affectionately called our “Fight or Flight” response. However, like inflammation, problems arise when our stress response refuses to turn off. Traffic, exams, fights with in-laws, and other modern-day struggles can be constant predators that keep us in a chronically stressed-out state. Chronic stress has major implications for our health: it can affect the gut, damage our microbiome, alter our circadian rhythms, mess with mood and hormones, and contribute to chronic inflammation. Stress gets in the way of our ability to care for ourselves: it isolates us, encourages us to consume unhealthy foods, and buffer our emotions through food, alcohol, work, and drugs. We also know that stress has a role in the development of virtually every disease. Like chronic inflammation, it has been found to contribute to chronic anxiety, depression, digestive concerns, weight gain, headaches, heart disease, insomnia, chronic pain, and problems with concentration and memory, among others. The first step to dealing with stress in this day and age is to make doing so one of our number one priorities. Just like eating a healthy diet and exercising, we should be taking time every day to de-stress, as well as building our capacity to handle stress through practices such as meditation. 6) A Body on Fire: Chronic Inflammation When we injure ourselves—banging a knee against the sharp edge of the coffee table, or slashing a thumb with a paring knife—our immune systems rally to the scene. Our immune cells protect us against invaders that might take advantage of the broken skin to infect us. They mount an inflammatory response, with symptoms of pain, heat, redness, and swelling, in order to heal us. They recruit proteins to the scene to stop blood loss. They seal our skin back up, leaving behind only a small white scar—a clumsiness souvenir. Our inflammatory response is truly amazing. Once the danger has been dealt with, the immune response is trained to turn off. However, when exposed to a stressor, bacteria, or toxin for prolonged periods, our immune system may have trouble quieting. Chronic issues can contribute to chronic inflammation. Scientists argue that an inflammatory response gone rogue may be the source of most chronic diseases, from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, to schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. The gut is often the source of chronic inflammation as it hosts about 70% of the immune system. When we eat something that our immune system doesn’t like, an inflammatory response is triggered. This can cause digestive issues such as inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, and the more common irritable bowel syndrome. It can also lead to more widespread issues like chronic pain, arthritis, migraines, and even mood disorders like Bipolar. Ensuring optimal gut health through nurturing the gut microbiome and eating a clean diet free of food sensitivities are both essential for keeping the body’s levels of inflammation low. 7) Discomfort with Discomfort To assess its impact on health, it helps to determine between two key types of stress: distress, the chronic wear and tear of traffic, disease, and deadlines, and eustress: the beneficial stress—the short-lived discomfort of intense exercise, the euphoric agony of emotional vulnerability, or the bitter nutrients of green vegetables—that makes the body more resilient to hardship. Whenever I feel discomfort, I try to remember the ducks. Several years ago, on a particularly frigid winter day, I was walking my dog. Bundled against the cold wind, we strolled along the semi-frozen lake, past tree branches beautifully preserved in glass cases of ice. Icebergs floated on the lake. So did a group of ducks, bobbing peacefully in the icy waters. With nothing to protect their thin flippers from the sub-zero temperatures, they couldn’t have felt comfortable. There couldn’t have been even a part of them that felt warm, cozy, or fed. There was no fire for them to retreat to, no dinner waiting for them at home, no slippers to stuff frozen, wet flippers into. This was it. The ducks were here, outside with us, withstanding the temperatures of the icy lake. A part of them must have been suffering. And yet, they were surviving. Far from surviving, the ducks looked down-right content. I think of the ducks and I think of the resilience of nature. We humans are resilient too. Like the ducks, our bodies have survived temperature extremes. Our ancestors withstood famine, intense heat, biting cold, terrible injury, and the constant threat of attack and infection, for millenia. You were born a link on an unbroken chain of survivors, extending 10,000 generations long. Our bodies have been honed over these hundreds of thousands of years to survive, even thrive, during the horrendous conditions that plagued most of our evolutionary history. Investigations into the human genome have revealed genes that get turned on in periods of eustress: bursts of extreme heat/cold, fasting, and high-intensity exercise. When our body encounters one of these stressors, it activates a hormetic response to overcome the stress. Often the response is greater than what is needed to neutralize the threat, resulting in a net benefit for our bodies. These protective genes create new brain cells, boost mitochondria function, lower inflammation, clear out damaged cells, boost the creation of stem cells, repair DNA, and create powerful antioxidants. Our bodies are flooded with hormones that increase our sense of well-being. It’s like the old adage, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Our bodies were made for discomfort. In fact, we have entire genetic pathways waiting to kick in and heal us as soon as they experience hardship. There are a growing number of studies on the healing power of small troubles:

• Fasting may have a role in treating autoimmune diseases, decreasing the signs of aging, and as an adjunct therapy for cancer

• Sauna therapy boosts detoxification and may prevent dementia

• Cryotherapy, or exposure to extreme cold, has the potential to heal arthritis and autoimmunity

• High Intensity Interval Training has been shown to boost cardiovascular health more than moderate-intensity exercise

Plants may benefit us through flavonoids, which, rather than serving as nutrients, act as small toxins that boost these hormetic pathways, encouraging the body to make loads of its own, powerful antioxidants to combat these tiny toxins. Mindfully embracing discomfort—the bitter taste of plants, the chilly night air, the deep growling hunger that occurs between meals—may be essential for letting our bodies express their full healing potential. 8) Not Minding Our Minds Our ability to withstand powerful emotions may have healing benefits. Many of us avoid painful feelings, allowing them to fester within us. We buffer them with excess food or drugs, leading to addictions. Mindfulness can help us learn to be with the discomfort of the emotions, thoughts and physical sensations that arise in the body as inevitable side effects of being alive. Research has shown that mindfulness can help decrease rumination, and prevent depressive relapse. It also helps lower perceived stress. How we perceive the stressors in our lives can lower the damaging effects they have on us. Research has shown that those who view their life stressors as challenges to overcome have lower stress hormone activation, and experience greater life satisfaction. According to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), our thoughts create our emotions. Becoming more aware of our thoughts, through CBT or mindfulness, allows us to identify which thoughts may be limiting us or exacerbating our reactions to stressful situations. When we learn to observe our thoughts, we create some distance from them. We become less likely to see the dismal thoughts in our minds as absolute truths. Practicing mindful meditation, CBT, or cultivating positive thoughts such as engaging in a daily gratitude practice may improve our resilience to chronic stress. 9) Inattention According to Stephen Cope, yoga teacher and author of The Great Work of Your Life, “You love what you know deeply. Get to know yourself deeply”. We get to know things deeply by paying attention to them. Georgia O’Keefe’s admiration for flowers, or Monet’s adoration of landscapes, is apparent to anyone who sees their work. In order to commit images to canvas, the artists gets to know their subject matter deeply. Their art celebrates what they took the time to pay attention to, and eventually came to love. As a naturopathic doctor, I believe that healing begins with attention. When we become aware of our bodies, we begin to know them deeply. Awareness allows us to respond to symptoms lovingly, the way a mother learns to skillfully attend to her baby’s distinct cries. When I first meet a new patient, the first thing I have them do is start to pay attention. We become curious about their symptoms, their food intake, their sleep patterns, their habits and routines, the physical sensations of their emotions, the thoughts that run through their heads. Through paying attention, with non-judgmental curiosity, my patients start to understand their bodies in new ways. They learn how certain foods feel in their bodies, how certain sleep habits affect their energy levels the next day, and how specific thoughts contribute to their feelings. Once we begin to open up this dialogue with our bodies, it becomes impossible not to answer them with love. It becomes hard not to eat, sleep, and move in ways that convey self-respect. A gardener who pays deep attention cannot ignore the obvious—her plants have roots, embedded in soil. The gardener quickly learns, through careful observation, that the health of this soil is vital to the health of her plants. And so, back to the original question, “What is your favourite natural cure for anxiety?” My favourite remedy isn’t a bottle of pills we reach for, it’s a question we reach for from within: “What do I need to heal?” After asking the question, we wait. We wait for the answer to emerge from some primal place within, just as a gardener waits for new buds to rise out of the mysterious depths of the dark, nutritious soil.