Diet is arguably the single most important preventive measure for healthy aging because it affects the functioning of every organ in the body and is a factor both in the development of disease and in recovery.
Thomas Edison said: “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
As far as I can see, nutrition advice is mostly population based, rather than individualized, although some people may get personalized advice. Unfortunately, it seems that much of nutritional advice is either very generic (eat your veggies, keep the weight off) or has weak scientific underpinnings (antioxidant-rich foods) so that it tends to be faddish and changeable. There is a tendency to believe that eating a certain way will keep you healthy, but (a) people who eat that way still get sick sometimes and (b) no one agrees for long on what a healthy diet is composed of. Will scientists eventually discover a link between what constitutes a healthy diet for an individual and that person's genes?
Preventive medicine is well-established already in a number of areas (e.g. drugs to control high cholesterol and blood pressure; breast and cervical cancer screening; screening of newborns for in-born errors of metabolism such as phenylketonuria). The use of genomic information to personalize preventive medicine is a subject that is much discussed now that it is feasible to collect the data, especially in the area of cancer susceptibility. The widespread adoption of such approaches will require not just scientific advances in understanding, but also the development of a regulatory/insurance framework and ethical guidelines.
Dear all,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrates#Hippocratic_theory
"Hippocrates is credited with being the first person to believe that diseases were caused naturally, not because of superstition and gods. Hippocrates was credited by the disciples of Pythagoras of allying philosophy and medicine. He separated the discipline of medicine from religion, believing and arguing that disease was not a punishment inflicted by the gods but rather the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits."
Best regards,
Konstantin M. Golubev
Nutrition has always been a factor in health.
Unfortunately, its present or future role in personalized medicine is problematic due to a number of reasons:
- the still centralizing and generalizing trends in disease management (one disease = unified healing protocol)
- lack of good understanding of genetics, gene inter-connection and gene connection to/ modification by food intake
- refusal of main-stream medicine and pharmaceutical companies to incorporate nutrition in preventive medicine (i.e. it is not profitable)
- lack of information on the cooked/ fermented, rather than the raw benefits of food ingredients
- food intake choices seen as a private affair, a matter of individual taste (which by the way, as physicians we know, is partially genetic and partially a product of body's bio-chemical needs; thus, taste changes over time)
- the financial circumstances of each patient, which may preclude the implementation of diets with high-priced ingredients
- cheap food production to feed a growing population, whereby existence and quantity are valued more than quality and benefits for the body
- (linked to the above) diminishing variety of natural food ingredients (i.e. less available grain, veggie, fruit & nut varieties, animal breeds)
The list goes on and on.
With so many issues involved, nutrition as a whole will most probably remain as a recommendation rather than used as medicine (unless governmental/ private institutions do not engage in active promotion campaign :), but even that takes time and some convincing).
Of course, there are some exceptions like allergies, diabetes, osteoporosis, iron-deficiency anemia, etc.
One component of food intake that I foresee as becoming a more feasible part of personalized medicine, due to its connection to metabolic water (key for health, as almost all cells functions are realized in it) and its diminishing quantity on the planet, is different forms of water intake (i.e. live, dead, heavy, spa water).
Russian, Norwegian and Japanese scientists lead in this respect.
All the more, we are already using different forms of water.
Scientific labs, for example, are using something close to dead (i.e. distilled) water since a long time ago. Surgery makes good use of silver ion enriched water. Agriculture uses copper ion enriched water.
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