Paris Update

Jeffrey Bland Ph.D., founder of the Institute of Functional Medicine gave a compelling five hour lecture examining the causes of chronic disease.

I’ll report more extensively on some of the findings of this conference in future newsletters. But I think it is fascinating to note that for the first time in 1000 years future generations are likely to die at a younger age than their parents (New Eng. Jnl Med, Mar 2005), and not as in the past due to infectious disease, but due to chronic age-related disease.

More than 70 percent of chronic disease comes from our environment, and only 30 percent from our genes. In other words, the food we eat, our home and work environment, our lifestyle, and our stress levels are largely responsible for our early demise. Food for thought indeed. Gluten sensitivity for example can cause neurological problems, emotional trauma can raise cholesterol, new man-made foods which are alien to our genes can cause an inflammatory cascade in our energyproducing cells. The list goes on.

Take home lesson…what we eat and what we think has an enormous impact on how we feel and how we age. This fairly much places responsibility for our health in our own hands.