Lifestyle NOT Genetics: The Root of Society’s Health Issues

Lifestyle choices, not genetics are by far the most profound causes of illness, sickness and dysfunction affecting our society today.

It is useful, in fact necessary, to begin to look at genes with different eyes – to see them as a cause of health and ideal function (if given the biological needs to achieve this) rather than as a cause of pain, suffering or disease.

The model we use to help you with your health is built upon some simple ideas.

The first is perhaps the most important – your genes are programmed to live healthy.

You are designed to be extraordinary!

It is stress (in the form of toxicity loads or deficiency states) that re-program your genes and causes you to develop the outward signs of sickness. The genes themselves are not the problem.

‘Faulty’ genes are only expressed when the environment signals them to (with a very small proportion of exceptions – the ‘true’ genetic illnesses like Trisomy 21 (Down’s), Tay Sachs, Diabetes Type 1, where if that genetic abnormality is present, it WILL express itself 100% of the time)

“Although our genes have hardly changed, our culture has been transformed almost beyond recognition during the past 10,000 years, especially since the Industrial Revolution. There is increasing evidence that the resulting mismatch fosters “diseases of civilization” that together cause 75% of all deaths in Western nations, but are rare among person whose life ways reflect those of our preagricultrural ancestors.”

S. Boyd Eaton M.D., Melvin Konner Ph.D., M.D. and Marjorie Shostak Stone agers in the fast lane: Chronic degenerative diseases in evolutionary perspective. 1988; Am.J.Med 84, 739-749

“Anthropologists and some nutritionists have long recognized that the diets of Paleolithic and recent hunter-gatherers may represent a reference standard for modern human nutrition and a model of defense against certain western lifestyle diseases.”

Mann, NJ. 2004 Paleolithic Nutrition: What can we learn from the past? Asia Pac J Clin Nutr: 13 (Suppl): S17

“[Affluent populations] habitually consume a diet that was unknown to the human species a mere ten generations ago. Compared with the diet that fueled human evolution, the so called ‘affluent’ diet of today has twice the amount of fat, a much higher ratio of saturated to unsaturated fatty acids, a third of the former daily fiber intake, much more sugar and sodium, fewer complex [fruit and vegetable] carbohydrates, and a reduced intake of micro nutrients. World-wide, the adoption of this diet has been accompanies by a major increase in coronary heart disease, stroke, various cancers, diabetes and other chronic diseases.”

‘Conquering Suffering, Enriching Humanity, The World Health Report’ – World Health Organization, Geneva 1997

Our genes have not particularly changed since the times when we were hunter-gatherers, before agriculture and before industrial practices. What this means is that our genetically determined requirements, and the genetically determined things we will experience to be toxic are still the same as what they were back then.

Research shows us that our ancestors and small groups of surviving ‘hunter-gatherer’ societies do not suffer from almost any of the common ‘diseases of civilisation’ that now plague us – heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, lupus, depression and many, many more.

If our genes are the same, that it can’t be our genes that are the problem!

The difference must be the changes to our lifestyle that bring on the states of toxicity or deficiency – not genetics or genes themselves, but what causes the faulty genes to be expressed.

What all this boils down to, is that modern illnesses are due to our environment; they are avoidable and if we understand these issues and take action, we can achieve strong health going forward.

It is so important to actively learn more about how our bodies work and what we can do to improve their function. This is where our Vital Life Keys come into their own.