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WELL-BEING
BIOSPHERE + OUR HEALTH
– By Dr . David Suzuki
Imagine if scientists came up with an inexpensive , easily administered way to decrease the risk of cancer , diabetes , heart disease , stroke and obesity by 25 to 35 per cent . It would create a sensation and , if patented , would be worth billions . But there ’ s already a free and simple way to achieve this : exercise .
The human body evolved over millions of years , long before cars , escalators , laptops and remote controls . It ’ s built to expend effort . Gas-powered vehicles enabled us to move over long distances or get somewhere quickly , but they ’ re bad medicine when they ’ re used to go two or three blocks .
Our lives are easier but not necessarily healthier .
It ’ s time we put more thought into keeping our bodies active and well , minimizing sickness .
Fitness increases your chances of staying well , but it ’ s not a guarantee .
We still have much to learn about the ways in which genetics and environmental conditions affect health . After the first human genome survey was completed in 2003 , we thought DNA sequences would reveal the secrets of disease and speed development of treatments . But despite trillions of dollars spent on research , many cancers are still unsolved and we ’ ve learned that only a few diseases — such as cystic fibrosis , Huntington ’ s chorea and sickle cell anemia — are the result of only one gene .
Most conditions result from the interplay of heredity and environment .
And because many genes each add a small bit to defects like cancer , heart disease and dementia , magic bullet cures are elusive . Meanwhile , health care costs show little sign of stabilizing , and increasing obesity and an aging population will drive them higher .
Health is about risk management . We can ’ t choose our parents , so there ’ s little we can do about the hereditary component of disease unless you subscribe to the promise of technological engineering like gene splicing and editing . But we can influence external factors , like diet , exercise , habits and environment .
Consider air , water and food .
We need air every minute of our lives to ignite the fuel in our body to give us energy . We suck two to three litres deep into the warm , moist recesses of our lungs . Our alveoli are smeared with surfactants that reduce surface tension and enable air to stick so oxygen and whatever else is in that breath can enter our bloodstream . Carbon dioxide leaves our body when we exhale . Lungs filter whatever ’ s in the air .
Deprived of air for three minutes , we die . Forced to live in polluted air , we sicken .
We are 60 to 70 per cent water by weight . Every cell in our body is inflated by water . Water allows metabolic reactions to occur and enables molecules to move within and between cells and , when we drink it , we also take in whatever ’ s in it , from molecules like DDT and PCBs to viruses , bacteria and parasites .
All the cells and structures of our body are molecules assembled from the debris of plants and animals we consume . If we spray or inject food plants and animals with toxic chemicals , and then consume them , we incorporate those chemicals into our very being , sometimes passing them on to our offspring before they ’ re even born .
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