Rise of Disease in the Modern World

If you've watched the news lately you are constantly flooded with higher rates of diseases like cancer, heart disease, autism, and many other auto-immune diseases.  It seems like doctors are extremely busy with all these diagnosis and treatment plans for their never ending number of ill patients.  Scientists are constantly working on the new miracle drug to cure cancer or autism.  Don’t get me wrong it is important that they are trying to cure these dreaded diseases but this should be our last resort for those cases that were unpreventable.  The problem is too little attention gets paid to why the rise in these diseases in the first place.  What if we could dramatically decrease the prevalence of these diseases?  Not with frequent doctor visits and tons of tests and some miracle drug but rather with a proper diet and an active lifestyle.  I’m not talking about an hour four times a week at your local globo-gym but rather a lifestyle of movement and physical tasks.  I’m not a scientist but I have done my fair share of research and have first-hand experience.

Inactivity and consumption of processed foods, grains (pasta, bread even whole wheat, oatmeal etc. etc.), and some diary can be detrimental to your health.  Obviously smoking and excessive alcohol consumption also has a negative impact on our health.  I’m going to assume everyone is aware of this so I’m not going to discuss it although the effects can be similar.  Anyways, these foods weren’t a part of our diet for more than 99% of human existence.  What does this mean?  Our bodies haven’t adapted and are struggled to cope with our less nutritious modern diet.  Every time you consume that greasy burger with French fries and a soda you’re putting a chink in your armor.   You may be lucky and never see any blatant side effects from your poor diet but you’d be the exception.  Also just because you may not eat much fast food and processed foods and you exercise, and are at a healthy body weight doesn't necessarily mean your healthy.  There are many other foods that many people don't realize are negatively affecting their health.  Also activity to be healthy is more than just going to the gym a couple days a week because this doesn't offset the issue that your probably sitting 8 hours a day at your job. Our bodies are these amazing machines that put up with whatever you throw at them to a certain point and then it says enough and stops functioning properly.  Perfect example is type II diabetes which is when your body stops properly utilizing insulin from the years of a poor diet high in carbohydrates and physical inactivity.  Insulin acts as a counter balance to keep your blood glucose levels normal and not too high.  Your body has created an insulin resistance and your pancreas kick into overdrive to produce more insulin but that only lasts so long.  Your body is now unable to produce enough insulin to keep your blood glucose levels normal.  Essentially your body was sick of dealing with years of your sugar-laden diet, inactivity, and carrying around fifty extra pounds.  Now there are some cases of type ll diabetes that may just happen and it wasn’t your fault and your body just failed you which again would be the exception and not the majority. 

Making poor diet and lifestyle decisions is just chipping away at your body armor.  There will be a day when your armor becomes to damaged and it stops functioning properly and this is when your screwed.  The potential for a serious health problem here is very high. There are foreign invaders that are constantly trying to get through our armor but when the body is functioning properly we are well equipped to handle these invaders because our bodies have built immunities to them.  The problem is when you put all these chinks in your armor your essentially weakening your body’s defense mechanisms.  This is when our body can no longer tolerate or put up with these invaders.  It is that bullet that finally penetrates through the armor that opens you up to many serious health issues.     

                         

The point I’m trying to make is to take care of your body before you have developed these health issues.  Doctor’s main purpose should be preventative not reactive.  What do I mean by this? They should be better educated when it comes to nutrition and giving advice to living a healthy lifestyle rather than reacting to diseases by prescribing drugs.   Yes medication may be necessary when the patient has the disease but the majority of the cases are preventable.  At the end of the day your health is largely up to the decisions you make.  So do yourself a favor and skip the drive-thru dinner and go make a nutritious dinner made with real whole foods.  Get your old running shoes from the garage and wipe the cobwebs off and put them to good use.  There comes a time when everyone wants to let loose eat something a little unhealthy and have some adult beverages.  You should reward yourself with a weekend evening night here and there but only if you’ve made the right decisions time and time again Monday thru Friday.

Modern Life & Sustainability

          I know this post has nothing to do with Crossfit or nutrition but since it’s my blog I’m going to write about it anyway.  Something has been on my mind a lot lately and it stems from human activity in the modern world and climate change.  This weekend I was spending the 4^th of July weekend on the beach with my family.  I couldn’t help but noticed the packed and overly crowded beaches.  This kind of put a damper on relaxing at the beach.  I was barely even able to see the waves because of the wall of umbrellas as far as the eye could see.  I guess this is just the world we live in nowadays.  The beach got a little less crowded and hot towards the early evening.  When the umbrellas were gone what was left behind was a bunch of trash which really got me thinking about human activity today in the modern world.  I saw beer cans, plastic cups, plastic water bottles, among many other things that did not belong on the sand and eventually into the ocean.  The thought of trash especially plastic washing into the ocean just makes me cringe.  I began collecting the trash I could see and quickly filled up a bag of trash.  I seemed to be the only one concerned with the trash or at least the only one bothered enough to do something. 

I find myself at odds with the majority of people these days and it’s not a good feeling.  What I mean by this is I can’t understand the way many people act and their complete disregard for our planet and sustainability.  We are all well-aware of human-influenced climate change at this point so the justifiable excuses are gone.  I just can’t understand how people can intentionally and even unintentionally leave trash behind especially on a beach where those same people come to admire its beauty.  If we all treated places like this eventually it will look like a landfill and then no one will want to visit.  I think humans have lost their connection with nature in the modern world.  I’m not saying let’s all retreat to the woods and live caveman-style unless you want too.  Seriously though people need to consider the consequences to their decisions and I don’t mean directly onto themselves.  We aren’t the only inhabitants of this planet and are actions directly affect everything else.  Earth supplies us with life and all it asks for in return is respect and thus far humans haven’t been holding up their end of the bargain.  The use of plastic water bottles still baffles my mind especially here in America.  We have safe water here that comes out of our faucets so fill up a Nalgene and take it with you simple enough.  If not buy a filter and purify your water.  Just think about how much plastic waste you are buying when you get that 24 pack of water plus there are another 7 billion people on this planet so just imagine if they were all doing the same thing Yikes!

                There are many things that need to be changed to allow a sustainable and less human-disrupted Earth but if people can start taking small steps and actions it can have a dramatic effect.  So next time you are out at the beach, mountains, or whatever destination you chose to enjoy make sure you collect your trash and properly dispose of it.  Also if you’re walking and happen to notice a beer can or some other article of trash on the ground; pick it up please!