This is the first day, well I guess technically it’s the second full day of spring and it has arrived in all its springtime glory here in the Pacific Northwest where we spend the long winter months in relative darkness yearning for the return of the sun. He sure didn’t disappoint today as he is out and shining bringing with him a much-needed reprieve from his long absence and the rain. So, as I sit here basking in the warmth and light, I started noticing that the trees, which were just beginning to bud a month ago, are now bursting with the promise of fresh leaves and blooms in the coming weeks. Spring has definitely arrived, and
I am so grateful for it. The sound of children playing outside and the smell of warmth in the air has lightened my heart like almost nothing else could. It’s soul music today.
This thought about the trees and spring and sunshine lead me down another path, as my thoughts are disposed to do, and I started thinking about a conversation I had the other day about health and why I started studying nutrition in the first place. Which then begs the question what is health? Is it genetics? Is it pure Darwinism and genetic determinism whose view holds we are but passengers along for a ride in the body we were given? Or is it a bit more? Something we have some agency over, some say. Something that can blossom, just like the trees, right before our very eyes if we but give it the attention it deserves? I know which view I find most empowering, that’s for sure.
The sense of agency over one’s life is an issue that many psychologists and therapists tackle daily as it is extremely important for an individual to have this sense active and present in life. Agency is a sense of control over the subjective awareness of initiating, executing, and controlling one’s own volitional actions in the world. It is what gives a person a sense that they are steering the ship. That we are not just sailing blindly in the night, but that we can plot a course to that far island and with reasonable certainty that we will make it there in due time. Abuse and trauma are devastating to a person in part because they take away this very sense. When we lose our sense of agency, life starts happening to us and not because of us. We feel helpless and weak, along for a ride we don’t want and didn’t sign up for.
As this sense of agency is so very important to our mental and emotional wellbeing, it is baffling to me that we continue to give it over to others when it comes to our health. We give it over to the idea that genes are destiny, that Darwin was right, and what we were born with is what we have. We give it over to doctors and nurses and other well-meaning practitioners, who truly have our best interests at heart but come from this same place. There is nothing you can do about your health. It is what it is, and the best option is to manage it with medications until it gets worse. Not if it gets worse, when. Then there will be more medications, more interventions more and more and more, and still, no one ever stops to ask the question why. Why are we like this? Why is disease so rampant in the developed world, and why does it seem to be getting worse instead of better? We have the most advanced knowledge and technology of any time in human history and yet, our physical bodies seem to be deteriorating at a staggering pace.
Why was the question I asked, when in my mid 20’s I was finally diagnosed with PCOS (there was also PTSD that I was dealing with, but that diagnosis and realization wouldn’t come until much later in life, and there was no question as to why that existed in me unfortunately). Why did I have this issue? Why was my body not working the way it was supposed to? I asked these questions of my doctor, and I got a literal shoulder shrug and the explanation “it just happens to some women.” I left that office with a prescription for metformin and birth control pills. I was told to take one if I didn’t want to get pregnant and the other if I did. That was it.
Here's the part where I wrap this narrative back around to nature, because even then when I was young, I had this idea that things (bodies) should work as intended and if they didn’t there ought to be a good explanation as to why. Why was something broken and how could I fix it was how I looked at many of the problems that arose in my life. This was no different. If you examine any wild creatures in their natural habitat, eating their natural diet and living their life the way they have for time immemorial, you will find little if any sickness and disease. They are not plagued with heart disease, hormonal disorders, neurological and behavioral issues, and reproductive loss, and if they are, there is a very discernible and explainable reason for it. Mother nature, God if you will and believe, has designed us perfectly. Designed animals perfectly. Designed plants perfectly. Each organism, in its natural habitat, engages synergistically with the environment in a perfect dance that benefits the entire ecosystem. Everything is in balance and harmony. Everything, from enzymes to hormones to genetic expression, down to the last molecule of our being works perfectly when the environment is right. Dis-ease rarely exists when the organism is working as intended at the molecular level.
That point circles me all the way back around to that fine fellow Darwin and his impeccable work for his time. He postulated that genes mutations control evolution and that genetic material was akin to the destiny of the organism. Somehow, this view has become the predominant one in western culture, even though there is plenty of more recent evidence against this view. Enter epigenetics stage right please. Epigenetics gives us back our agency. It says that genes are not set in stone destiny, but moveable, influenceable molecules that change with our environment. To quote Bruce Lipton’s book Biology of Belief, “it’s the environment stupid!” Our environment determines what genes are expressed, which is the only way genes have any say on what happens to our biological being. We may have the gene for breast cancer, but if it’s never turned on and expressed within our bodies, we will never develop the disease. Environment is something we have some control over. Epigenetics gives us our agency back and gives us an avenue to health. It goes beyond the idea that we are sick and there is nothing to do but manage the symptoms because that is life. It tunes into the choices we make each and every day that literally change us at a biological chemical level and send us down the path to health or dis-ease depending on the choice.
Now don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of the environment we actually don’t have control over. If you live in a polluted city and have to ride a bike to work to support your family, there isn’t much you can do about the air quality you breath. If you are on a fixed income or live in a food desert, dietary options may be limited and eating well may be an insurmountable challenge. However, knowing we have some control, that genes are not destiny, and we don’t have to play the hand we are dealt, empowers more than the opposing theory. I prefer to put my stakes in this one, and this is where my diagnosis lead me. As soon as I asked the question why, as soon as I got the shoulder shrug and had the thought this wasn’t right, I knew there had to be more to the story and I was plunged into a 15-year endeavor to learn as much about nutrition and biochemistry as I could.
For this was the path that I found forward, the one that put my body back into balance and put my PCOS far into the background. Today I may carry that diagnosis, but they symptoms of it no longer plague me, nor have they progressed and gotten worse or turned into another dis-ease (such as diabetes) because I started making different choices about what went into my body. I started learning about how common “health food” were actually what was making me sick and foods that I grew up thinking were bad were what I should be eating. I started learning about my severe vitamin and mineral deficiency and how to correct them. In short, I started to gain my agency back instead of just taking a pill and getting on with life.
This is what I hope to help instill in others as well. This sense of agency over health, that you too have a say in this, and your day-to-day decisions will impact you on a genetic level. I don’t say this so we all strive for perfection, because let’s face it, in today’s world you are probably going to eat pizza (or other junk food of choice entered here!) and that’s okay. It’s the knowledge that one gains when learning about nutrition and health that leads to better choices most of the time. It’s the knowledge that what we put into our bodies greatly affects our genetic expression and by proxy our health. When you have this knowledge, when it is present in your life, you automatically make better decisions because you understand. You understand that what passes your lips is more than just something tasty. The age-old adage you are what you eat is very literal in this way. When you learn what works with your body and what doesn’t those choices are so much easier to make. And when you do have pizza, you shake it off and get right back on board with what you know if the best thing for you.
All this to say, spring is here and it’s glorious, organisms are made perfectly, and you are an organism. You have agency over your health, it is not just dealing with what you’ve got. What you eat or put into your body has a big impact on the epigenetic environment of your cells and this is so empowering. So, get out there and be the glorious part of nature that you are! It’s literally in our genes.
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