You 'ARE' what you 'EAT'

How Does Food Impact Health?

The food we eat gives our bodies the "information" and materials they need to function properly. If we don't get the right information, our metabolic processes suffer and our health declines.

If we get too much food, or food that gives our bodies the wrong instructions, we can become overweight, undernourished, and at risk for the development of diseases and conditions, such as arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease.

In short, what we eat is central to our health.

The nutrients in food enable the cells in our bodies to perform their necessary functions. This quote from a popular textbook describes how the nutrients in food are essential for our physical functioning.

 "Nutrients are the nourishing substances in food that are essential for the growth, development and maintenance of body functions.  When nutrient intake does not regularly meet the nutrient needs dictated by the cell activity, the metabolic processes slow down or even stop."

In other words, nutrients give our bodies instructions about how to function. In this sense, food can be seen as a source of "information" for the body.

Thinking about food in this way gives us a view of nutrition that goes beyond calories or grams, good foods or bad foods. This view leads us to focus on foods we should include rather than foods to exclude.

Instead of viewing food as the enemy, we look to food as a way to create health and reduce disease by helping the body maintain function.

Why should I care?

The nutrients in food give our bodies the information and materials they need to function properly. But our daily diets may not always be providing all the information our bodies need.We all know that we need to get a basic balance of nutrients every day, but we may not be aware of the standard nutrients needed for the body to function.

Moreover, some of our processed foods, junk foods include chemically-altered fats and sugars that may be giving our bodies the wrong signals.

The Functional Medicine Perspective

One component of Functional Medicine focuses on how diet impacts health and function. When Functional Medicine practitioners examine the role of nutrition in chronic disease, they look at multiple systems, such as the digestive system, the immune system, and the detoxification system, because of the interconnections between those systems. For instance, because 80% of the immune system is contained in the gastrointestinal system, a person's issues with immunity could be related to faulty digestion.

Functional Medicine maintains that chronic disease is almost always preceded by a period of declining health in one or more of the body's systems.

One of the ways Functional Medicine seeks to address declining health is to provide the foods and nutrients needed to restore function. This is a cost effective, non-invasive intervention that aims to stop the progression into disease.

Example of Cardiovascular Disease

When taking a nutritional approach to health and disease, it is important to understand that one disease might have multiple causes, and one underlying dysfunction might cause multiple diseases. Cardiovascular disease may be among the clearest examples of this concept.

Researchers have shown that the development of heart disease can be triggered by multiple factors. These factors include insulin resistance, elevated homocysteine, oxidative stress, elevated cholesterol, hypertension, heavy metal toxicity, stress, and inflammation.

Each of these factors can be influenced by nutrition and each, in turn, impact our nutritional needs.

To conclude, food with correct nutrients can be the medicine to your body if taken with care. As I always say FOOD is MEDICINE. Take Care.