Archive for category: Science

Movement Comparison Between Early Humans And Modern Humans

In mid September 2015, scientist Lee Berger discovered what could be the potential missing link in the current evolutionary trail of modern humans, Homo Sapiens. While exploring deep in the caves of South Africa, he uncovered an absolute gold mine for Science. He and his team uncovered a new human species that is being called, Homo Naledi. This new species has both characteristics of the Australopithecus genus of hominids and the Homo genus of hominids. Homo Naledi looks very similar to our current species of Homo Sapiens in the arms and legs, but the spine and torso are more in line with Australopithecus, more chimpanzee like. This means Naledi was simply shorter and wider through the pelvis and rib cage than are modern humans. It also means Naledi had arms of a similar length to modern humans and legs slightly shorter, but similar in bipedal movement patterns. Naledi walked like modern humans and had the ability to manipulate tools similarly to modern humans, but were closer in size to the Chimpanzee skeleton.

The shape and size of the skeleton and the position and origins of the musculature are necessary to understand the evolutionary design when analyzing movement differences throughout hominid evolution. So with that in mind, let’s quickly explore movement patterns of current Homo Sapiens.

Current movement patterns for us humans today are extremely efficient and elegant, which is how dance came about. For the Homo Naledi and Australopithecus, movement was probably closer to a waddle, such as that of a penguin, but more elegant and not as severe as that of a penguin waddle. This probably came from a reduced separation between the rib cage and the pelvis, slightly shorter legs and a slightly wider pelvis. Being an upright animal and having a reduced ability to climb trees in comparison to the earlier evolutionary primates, humans basically lost a survival mechanism of hiding in the trees. Instead, we were more on the ground and now had to adapt to a different form of protection.

The new form of protection came in the way of speed. If humans could out run predators, they would be able to stay alive longer. When it comes to out running a wild animal, you just have to out run your buddy! OK, all jokes aside, the next question is how did we get faster?

Sapiens are taller than Naledi because of the mechanical stresses placed on the body. Over the years and generations, Nature found that longer leg bones and a slightly narrower pelvis could produce greater speed in humans. More speed placed the body under a great deal of mechanical stress, which sent a rippling effect throughout the entire body forcing it to adapt to the repeated stress of movement and increased energy demands. As with all adaptations in this world, the musculoskeletal system got compressed and pulled in different ways and eventually rearranged itself in a new orientation that would better manage the consistent mechanical stresses to ultimately produce a new equilibrium and an energy efficient system. The body’s goal is to always find a state of equilibrium when exposed to repeated stress so it can repair itself from previous damage. Once the bones, ligaments, muscles, and tendons adapt and get stronger, bigger, more flexible and more coordinated, they are better able to manage the stresses from movements, gravity and the sun to name a few.

Something that is truly fascinating is how the physical parts of the body adapt to external pressures, forces, and stresses. Muscles react to bones sliding off the joint surface by lengthening to “catch” the joint slipping, as joints are basically frictionless. The stress forces the brain and nervous system to innervate all other muscles around the slipping joints thus creating a coordinated firing pattern of the electrical signals in the nervous system to bring forth elegant and effortless movement. For example, as the knee joint “slips” off its surface between the tibia and femur, the knee will bend or flex. Upon flexion, this will lengthen the quadriceps muscle group and force the quadriceps to shorten itself to bring the knee joint back to a place of stability. Sure enough, this is precisely the role of the quadriceps – knee extension, or knee straightening. By taking this principle of muscle lengthening to “catch” the sliding action in a joint and applying it to every joint in the body, you can begin to imagine or picture the beauty of human movement. Over thousands of years of evolution and subtle tweaking of the motor neurons in our body, we have adapted and evolved into one of the most pristine animals to ever exist on the surface of the Earth.

Before wrapping up this post, it is important to realize that the human body can easily get injured when pushed beyond its mechanical limits. However, when it is kept within its mechanical limits and is fueled with the right raw materials (high quality foods from the Earth), the human mind and physical body can be an absolutely magnificent thing to watch and observe. And that, in my opinion, is why so many humans of the world are drawn to sports and other events that test the brilliance and limits of the human body. Because I have a passion for how the human body operates, I enjoy studying and hypothesizing about it to make progress in our understanding of what makes us human and then relaying that information to the rest of the world to help them regain their health and movement efficiency.

In summary, most modern humans (Homo Sapiens) have postural imbalances and poor mechanics, which become very obvious when you consider the number of people each year that get injured while performing even the most basic of movements. That said, those are just my thoughts on the evolution of mechanical behaviors of Homo Sapiens. What are your thoughts on why humans move the way they do?

Can Dad’s Food Choices Influence His Child’s Genetic Expression?

We know Mom has a big influence on the child since she is the one carrying around the unborn child for 9 months. The question becomes, can Dad influence his future child’s genetic expression? Notice I said genetic expression, instead of genes. One thing is for sure. The child’s genetic sequence came a little from Mom and Dad, but mostly from the many generations of humans dating back to the first Homo sapiens. What is unsure is how those genes get expressed in the child. This is where the parents truly come into the equation in determining the outcome of junior.

The parents both lived their lives and accumulated toxins and naturally had to rid the toxins. However, I can guarantee you they were not thinking about life as toxin in versus toxin out. Odds are the toxins were more accumulated than eliminated and therefore in a state of imbalance. When both parents are imbalanced, the female egg may not have a sufficient amount of certain minerals or amino acids. Likewise is the male sperm. If the Dad ate poorly and had poor lifestyle habits, then his sperm could easily be deficient in certain amino acids and minerals as well.

If the egg and sperm are both deficient in certain nutrients, the fetus will not develop as well as it should. This increases the likelihood of the born child being deficient in these same nutrients, therefore causing any number of disorders or dis-eases.

One important thing to note – Zinc is critical for every cell to pass on DNA to the future cells. Zinc should be at sufficient levels in the male sperm if the fetus is to develop as a healthy born child without any issues. If Zinc is deficient, many issues will surface in the years to come. These issues are what we call altered gene expression.

Altered, or mutated, genes are a part of life’s natural selection process and could be placed all throughout each human’s genetic code. The key is to only allow the beneficial proteins and enzymes to be produced. If the person’s biochemical needs are met, then every gene will either get expressed or not expressed depending on which consequence is more beneficial to the human.

In an optimally healthy human, his/her genome will act beautifully by regulating the expression of every gene without much interference. When the regulation of genetic expression gets interfered with however, the expressions could result in abnormalities of body functioning.

So, when Dad can provide sufficient amounts of minerals and amino acids to his part of the equation, it helps the new born child have a more easily balanced biochemical composition throughout life. If the biochemical composition is more balanced, the body will function more smoothly and with fewer complications.

On the other hand, if the biochemical composition is more prone to deficiencies, the symptoms of these deficiencies will present themselves in times of stress. There is no telling which genes will malfunction, so there is only one way I can think of to possibly solve this problem – trial and error.

Trial and error is probably the best way to learn something inside and out. Some times it can be fatal, but usually when done in a relatively controlled setting, the results will be tolerable. Trial and error for your own biochemical composition requires you to fully commit to the process. You must drink filtered water or mineral water and must eat a variety of wild fish and wild or grass fed land animal meats plus eggs. This will provide certain bio-chemicals necessary for human survival. You must then eat a variety of plant foods to get sufficient amounts of other bio-chemicals and fiber to help eliminate the used, or wasted, minerals. The fiber and water are what will flush out all the used and unwanted materials. If this did not occur the unwanted toxic material would cause a backup and therefore inflammation and bio-chemical imbalances.

In addition to cleaning up your eating habits, you need to make a major lifestyle change and commit to the change. Change is not an easy thing to do, because obstacles will be in the way and you must find a way to overcome them in order to succeed. This could be to quit drinking alcohol, coffee, soda, or pretty much anything except water and herbal teas. Another example is to quit using addictive chemical compounds, as they will deplete the body of many minerals. Once you have overcome the obstacles and begin understanding your transformation, your health comes back in waves. It is during this part of the process that the body has found its necessary level of bio-chemicals in order to reach optimal health.

The hard part becomes maintaining these unknown predetermined levels of the bio-chemicals throughout your lifetime. If trial and error is successful, you will have a better understanding for what foods yield the correct proportions to match your biochemical analysis. Simply eating the foods that provide the right amounts of every nutrient (for you as an individual) will put you far ahead of most humans. This can only happen should you decide to fully commit to regaining your health, which takes a tremendous amount of self-discipline. Should you accomplish this feat, I can promise you will feel like a far more superior human being than your old self. I have always said, “You will never know what is out there unless you make the jump with confidence.”

To wrap up this post, let’s briefly summarize. A child’s genes are his/her genes. Nothing can be done about that. The child’s ability to regulate the expression of his/her genes has been linked to the biochemical imbalances of the father AND how healthy the child keeps his/her environments (i.e. food and lifestyle choices) throughout his/her lifetime. The best and safest way to figure out your biochemical needs for optimal health is through trial and error. Clean up your eating and lifestyle habits, reduce your stress, get more sleep, and start listening to your body communicate signals to you on what it needs to fully regain its overall health.

Ladies, if you’re looking to get pregnant soon, you better make sure your man is healthy. As for the rest of you, maybe this helped explain some things that you had always thought were similar with you and your parents but you couldn’t quite figure out how things were connected. What are your thoughts?

The Connection of Movement and Food: Part II

Previously, I wrote about the connection between Exercise and Health from the movement side of things. As with many things life, it is a two way street here and one must also view the same connection from the other side. The connection gets much deeper when viewing it from the perspective of food.

One thing I purposely skipped in the first post on the connection between Exercise and Health was hormones. They seem best suited on the side of food rather than movement, because hormones are necessary regardless of the movement side of the equation.

There are many hormones involved with bodily functioning every day. For example, the hormone Insulin is necessary only in small amounts so the body can utilize the sugars (glucose) from broken down foods. Insulin allows our muscle cells to get a constant source of energy to perform tasks of daily living. This makes it seem far too simple, but it is the basic way of viewing Insulin.

Another example is that of the hormone, Leptin. Leptin is released from fatty acids floating in the blood stream, which triggers the region of the brain governing the sensation of hunger. The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that signals to the rest of the body, “I’m good, I have plenty of energy. I’ll let you know later when I need more.” Fatty Acids floating freely in the blood are known as Free Fatty Acids. They get paired with a protein to deliver them to the liver to process for energy.

A third example of hormones that signal bodily functions to occur is Norepinephrine. This is a hormone that gets released when the body experiences an increase in heat production (increased Oxygen intake) from increased movement patterns (exercise). This leads to increased blood pressure due to the body realizing it now has more physical strain. Norepinephrine triggers the release of Epinephrine (Adrenaline) to signal that there is a potential state of fear and danger, which in this case would be the increased strain on the muscles and bones from exercise. This simply means you disturbed the subtly balanced state of equilibrium, which is extremely easy to disturb anyway.

When Adrenaline gets released, it signals that there is going to be a heightened state of energy use. Once the brain and body realize more energy is necessary, the hormone Glucagon is released causing the body to free up the fatty acids from storage. As the body frees up these fatty acids for use, the liver converts them to usable energy. The body and brain will continue to move and think to escape the potential fear and danger that started the entire chain reaction.

Generally speaking, the type of daily movements and exercising our ancestors performed mostly required energy from fats for light intensity activities. This meant, humans needed fats and proteins and little sugars since the body had an efficient process for getting enough sugars to the muscles during times of need.

Here comes the problem in today’s world. We over exercise and sprint and lift too many heavy objects way too frequently. This type of working out is the exact opposite to what our ancestors did. This modern way of exercising requires far more energy than the body can generate on its basic fatty acid conversion rate. This meant the body had to find energy faster. This can happen fortunately. Enter sugars. The body can convert sugars to glucose extremely fast. This requires the pancreas to release massive amounts of Insulin in order to keep up with the constantly incoming sugars.

When our body truly recognizes a state of fear and danger, we need to rush the sugars in our cells immediately. There is no time to wait for the fats to get converted to energy during emergency situations. Our Genes and DNA however didn’t need to rush sugars into cells very often, so they didn’t need many sugars as a fuel source. They were happy with fats. In times of true danger and desperation though, the body is beautifully equipped with a way to handle the high demand of sugar for us to escape and survive. This is when the body happily produces Insulin.

Insulin is only needed in small amounts and the above is the reason why. It wasn’t necessary all that much, therefore the body produces small amounts. When you exercise too much (frequency or intensity) this produces a “fake” sign of true danger forcing the production of Insulin to the point of where you eventually burn out the Pancreas. You literally burn out the motor for production. This overproduction makes the muscles mad because Insulin won’t stop knocking on the door saying, “I’ve got your sugar!”, causing the body to resist and ignore Insulin even though it is simply trying to do its job. This burn out can lead to pancreatic cancer or a resistance to Insulin, which is the same thing as Type II diabetes. It also produces products that cause you to age at a faster rate.

There is a reason why we have multiple hormones that are connected to fats and the metabolism of these fats for energy use. Contrary to the multiple hormones connected to fats, there is only 1 (Insulin) that the body produces for sugars as a source of energy. Seems like common sense and that the brain and body are communicating to you saying, “I don’t need sugar! I need animal protein and fats!”

When the body consumes too much sugar, the sugar feeds the bad bacteria and promotes inflammation of the digestive tract. When the colonies of bacteria become out of balance like this, the production of certain neurotransmitters gets tampered with and generally leads to a deficiency. One such imbalance is the significant decrease in Serotonin production. This ultimately halts the brain’s ability to fall asleep opening the door for all sorts of physical and mental health issues.

Another issue is the ability to inhibit the nervous system so it can take a break. If you hold down the trigger on something, you will either break the object quickly or it will run out of ammunition. Either way it can’t perform it’s job! This same principle is associated with the nervous system. When the body receives sufficient amino acids from animal foods, the pool is great enough that the body can produce the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid). This is the key to giving your nervous system a break. If GABA cannot be produced, the nervous system will continue to fire due to the opposing neurotransmitter of Glutamate, which keeps the nervous system firing, just like holding down the trigger. The body has a better ability to produce Glutamate rather than GABA since Glutamate is the “Go” system. However, just like a car, it will crash and burn if you cannot provide a “Stop” system.

With the right foods and enough water, the body has regulatory systems in place serving to keep the body in balance. When something becomes deficient, one or more of these regulatory systems will get out of balance and the body or brain suffers from the consequences.

Based on the connection between human movement and human nutrition, you can hopefully gain a deeper insight for knowing what, when, where, why and how to get the types of foods that we were supposed to consume for energy. Proteins and fats come from animal foods (meat, eggs, seafood) with fiber, starches, and oils coming from plant foods (vegetables, tubers, roots, fruits, nuts, and seeds). In combination with water, this will be the most simple and efficient way of taking care of your health for a lifetime.

Does this change your opinion of sugar? Does this give you an idea of how sugar isn’t necessary to our genetic predisposition for slow constant movement and the occasional heavy lifting of objects? Does this help you understand that neurotransmitters and hormones play a critical role in your overall health?

What are your thoughts?

The Gut-Brain Connection Part II

I concluded the first part of this Gut-Brain post about there being a definite connection between the intestinal tract and the brain, but I pretty much left it at that. In part 2 I’d like to go a little deeper in the connection between the Gut and the Brain. There’s not just a connection however, but rather there is a complex web of connections.

How connected is it then? Well for starters, you could imagine it as a graph depicting all of the flights of the different airlines flying throughout the United States. Certain cities are going to be more heavily traveled through as they are major hubs, and other smaller cities are important, but just not as heavily traveled through. This is generally better thought of as the entire nervous system, but a part of the huge complexity of the nervous system web deals with the Enteric nervous system that is tied to the gut.

Many of these nerve cells slide their long transport axis between tightly packed cells that line the intestines. These cells are not always “tightly” packed, which leads to what is referred to as “Leaky Gut Syndrome.” When they are tightly packed together, it prevents smaller bacteria, parasites, and viral pathogens from slipping straight into the blood stream and making you ill. By sliding a nerve terminal between these packed cells, the nerve endings can sense what kind of activity is going on in the lumen (intestines) and can determine which nervous signals are necessary to regulate the whole GI tract. Again, this could be good or bad depending on the internal activity of the different bacterial colonies.

As I mentioned previously, you are only 10% human, and that’s crazy to think about. This means the other 90% of you is bacterial colonies, most of which live in the gut because it’s a perfect environment for them. It’s warm, moist, and they get free access to food. Why wouldn’t you want to live there? The bacteria break down foods direct and with the certain nutrients, the bacteria can assemble proteins and neurotransmitters for the brain to use as instructions. Since you are mostly bacteria, it is best if you think about your health as the health of your gut bacteria. Don’t forget, they are in charge of your immunity, so you better treat them nicely!

The 2 major types of bacterial colonies that live in the human gut are called Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. There are other types of bacterial colonies that of course live in the human gut, but these are the 2 major groups. It has been found almost across the board that the humans with the higher percentage of Bacteroidetes have a better quality of health. And vice versa, those with a higher Firmicutes percentage is heavily linked with inflammation and dis-ease.

One would think if that were the case then you would want more Bacteroidetes than Firmicutes. That seems obvious. The issue is that the research is so new that science can only draw conclusions based on what has been studied. Having an understanding of metrics analysis, I can all but promise the difference in your health if you were to change your gut bacteria for the better. Since every human is slightly different, you can only attempt to change your colony species, rather than aim for a certain percentage of the different types of bacterial colonies. A small shift in the percentage can cause drastic results for better or worse.

Something of huge importance I want to point out is that people who eat more whole grains, lentils/legumes, and tend towards the vegan or vegetarian side have a much higher percent of Firmicutes. Those that eat more meat generally have a much higher percent of Bacteroidetes. This is a good indication that humans were meant to eat meat! This does not mean you can start eating just any meat. You must still be concerned with the meat being wild or grass fed.

Firmicutes are types of bacteria that enjoy sugars and appreciate less Oxygen. If this sounds like your kind of life, then sign yourself up for inflammation and dis-ease. Eating excess carbohydrates and too much sugar in addition to being dehydrated and sedentary is a recipe for these Firmicutes to thrive.

Contrary to the Firmicutes, you have the Bacteroidetes. These bacteria can handle much less sugar and be just fine to thrive. These types of colonies are found with more meat intake and are probably involved with the break down of the meats and are better able to assemble the necessary proteins that humans can only obtain from animal foods (i.e. meat, eggs, seafood). It is these proteins that allow the Bacteroidetes colonies to help create certain enzymes, hormones, and neurotransmitters for the brain.

One such neurotransmitter is known as Serotonin. Serotonin is sent from the gut’s nerve endings through the system and up to the brain for use as the sleep-wake cycle regulator. Serotonin is the critical brain chemical that allows humans to sleep and repair damaged tissue from every day wear and tear. If Serotonin is not made in large enough amounts, the brain doesn’t know when to sleep and therefore will be extremely inconsistent and not very effective in repairing damaged tissue. This leads to sleep disorders, poor performance at work and at home, and ultimately promotes inflammation and dis-ease of other body systems.

As sunlight hits the eyes, the light triggers an area in the brain (Pineal gland) to signal the hypothalamus to utilize Serotonin. This process is necessary as the body must be awake and focused to accomplish the tasks of daily living. However, if we are depleted of Serotonin production due to a lack of materials and bacterial colonies, then the body and brain get thrown for a huge loop. As the sunlight disappears in the night and no longer strikes the eyes, a transfer enzyme changes Serotonin into Melatonin. Melatonin then signals to the brain that everything is safe (no danger is near) and it can fall asleep allowing for the repair of tissue damage. This is where the issue lies. If you can’t produce the necessary Serotonin, the gut can’t connect to the brain through this pathway, therefore no Melatonin gets produced, and this ultimately screws up your sleep schedule, which will have tremendously harmful consequences to your overall health and immunity.

The Serotonin neurotransmitter is only one of many different connections the gut has to the brain. Since this particular example is crucial to human health, you can realize the importance of all the connections the gut has with the brain. They are all going to have an impact on your life experiences, including the behaviors you exhibit during social situations.

Earlier in this post I mentioned “Leaky Gut Syndrome” and I wanted to briefly discuss that before wrapping up Part 2 of the Gut-Brain connection. When our cells that line the intestinal tract our healthy, they will be tightly packed next to each other to prevent any pathogens from leaking into the blood portal. This tight packing is a natural defense mechanism for the human body, but it can easily be disturbed. Eating poorly and making lifestyle choices that are harmful to the body will undoubtedly create a loose fitting between the cells in the lining of the gut. Being dehydrated will also loosen up the tight packing of the cells. The unhealthier these cells become, the easier it is for anything (food or pathogen) to slide through into the blood portal untouched. This is exactly how a human gets an autoimmune dis-ease. The body no longer has the ability to tell which proteins are necessary for health and which ones are detrimental to health and therefore causes the immune system to attack itself, hence the name autoimmune disease.

When you think about it and even if you don’t know what “Leaky Gut Syndrome” is, it doesn’t sound like it’s a good thing does it? Rather, it sounds disturbing. Why would you want a “leaky” gut? I definitely don’t want a leaky gut. If I had one piece of advice here, it would be to clean up your eating habits and feed your bacteria the foods THEY want. When you feed your bacteria, they can perform their jobs and keep you a healthy human. Now that sounds like a great relationship! And the best part about that relationship is that you get to have total control over the input. The output is entirely dependent on your input. Remember, the bacteria can only eat what you feed them. Feed them sugar and don’t provide them water will produce disastrous results that will manifest as inflammation symptoms. BUT… feed them healthy fiber and starch and provide plenty of water and these little bacteria will produce a fabulously vibrant immune system with a healthy mind and body!

That sounds like a winning combination and great relationship to me. What are your thoughts?

Nerve Transmission… Your Thoughts?

Ever thought about how your nervous system actually works? Or are you like most people and have too many other things going on in your life that it goes completely unnoticed? Probably the latter, but as for me, it is a different story. I have thought about it and learned about it so that I could have a better understanding of how to reach the highest levels of health. To give myself the best chance possible to live a long, exciting, successful, and prosperous life.

So how does it work? Well, I’m no expert in the field of Bioelectricity or Electrophysiology, but I know enough to write about it in its simplicity. First, as humans, we have a Central Nervous System that is housed in the spine. Next, these nerve fibers have to branch out to reach the extremities, or peripheries, of the body (the torso and limbs) to make us completely human. This is what we call the Peripheral Nervous System. You can see how it got its name. How original right? Then again, that’s the point. Let’s keep it simple. The Peripheral Nervous System is what is attached to different types of cells that have receptors allowing for different stimuli to vibrate them. Say, if light hits the eye, or some object touches your skin, or you hear a sound, then these cell receptors have been stimulated by some outside object (source or frequency). Upon stimulation, or vibration, something pretty cool happens.

Each of these cells have the elements of Sodium and Potassium, regardless of which type of sensory system they are attached to (humans have 5 senses of sensory perception). Potassium is on the inside of the cell mostly, and Sodium is on the outside of the cell mostly. Once these cells have been stimulated, the Na-K Pump (Sodium = Na, Potassium = K) acts like a windmill almost and allows these 2 ions to travel through a channel in the cell’s membrane (protective fat layer). When these 2 atoms are in a water solution, they get dissolved and become ions. This is why the human body must always be supplied with enough water. If dehydration occurs, the nervous system does not operate efficiently and things go wrong, quickly.

Ions are considered electrically charged particles because their atomic structure has been altered due to the presence of water. This is the basis for how signal transmission of the nervous system works.

As this pump moves these ions from high concentration to low concentration, there is also an electric field that resists this movement from happening. As Potassium goes from inside the cell to the outside, and as Sodium goes from outside the cell to the inside, there will become an imbalance in charge, which will create a voltage that sends an electrical current (signal) from a tiny patch in the membrane to the next neighboring patch. This ultimately creates a voltage for the next cell to “fire” the signal and on down the line it goes.

This process can be interrupted in multiple ways. 2 of them I will discuss briefly as they are related to human nutrition. One of them I mentioned earlier is water. If the body is constantly being supplied with water, it will be able to maintain a sufficient level so that chemical reactions can occur easily. Also, as I previously mentioned, the water helps to dissolve the Potassium and Sodium to make them electrically charged ions. With these charged particles and a sufficient level of water, the nervous system can operate somewhat well, but there is still a large part of it that can cause failure of transmission.

Something to take note of is that pure water is not a very good conductor of electricity, but ions in water create a solution that is a very good conductor of electricity.

With that in mind, let’s get to the second cause of failure that is related to human nutrition – Fatty acids. The important Fatty acids I am talking about are the Omega-3 Fatty acid, Lecithin, and Sphingomyelin. There is plenty of other “fats” or “lipids” in the mix that are important, such as cholesterol, other phospholipids, and other sphingolipids. I realize these seem like big words to pronounce, but that’s not what’s important.

The 3 important fatty acids I mentioned (Omega-3, Lecithin, Sphingomyelin) are the ones that make up the insulation for the Nervous system, be it in the brain or the rest of the body. Some nerve fibers have insulation that is called a myelin sheath, but not all of them have a myelin sheath. There is no coincidence in why is it called the myelin sheath, since these are made from Sphingomyelin.

In getting back to nerve signal transmission, electricity is only going to transmit efficiently if there is a conductor (ionic solution) and something to insulate it so it doesn’t leak. Remember, electricity will always find the path of least resistance. So if you provide insulation to the nerves, this is the resistance necessary for the nervous system to direct where the signals need to go.

To paint you a picture, imagine a constant “lightning” or electrical storm going on inside your body from all sorts of stimuli causing the nervous system to fire all the time (thoughts, food, touch, sight, etc.). If there is a constant “lightning” storm going on, then it would be in your best interest to provide a constant supply of water and fatty acids so that you can purposefully direct where you want the signals to go. If one or both of these (water and fatty acids) are missing or deficient, then the electricity is going to follow the path of least resistance and therefore cause the body to malfunction due to the signal coming up short of its intended destination. You are only as strong as your weakest link!

This naturally leads me to the last section of this post – where do I get the elements involved with creating an efficient AND effective nervous system? This answer – you need to drink filtered water and keep your hydration level high enough at all times. Second, you need to eat foods that will provide you with enough Potassium and Sodium at all times. Just about all vegetables and fruits contain these elements in good amounts and some nuts, seeds, and meats will provide them as well. Lastly, you need to get the fatty acids to complete the equation. These fatty acids will come from eggs, especially the egg yolk, all grass-fed and wild meats and seafood, and your vegetable, nut and seed oils like olive oil, sunflower oil, avocado oil, macadamia oil, etc.

If you read that last paragraph again, it pretty much sums up what Nourish Wild is all about and how our human ancestors thousands of years ago ate – wild and grass fed meats, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, some nuts and seeds, and plenty of water. Throw in the occasional grains of oats, rice, or corn and you’ve got a super healthy way of eating. However, there is one other missing link here. You must learn to eat many of these foods in their raw or fresh state (vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds). You will want to cook your meats, seafood and eggs, but when possible try to cook them in stainless steel pots and pans and on low heat.

Cooking fast and/or with high heat is a recipe for inflammation and dis-ease.

This can and should be completed in your own home where you can enjoy these foods in their natural and untouched (unprocessed) state knowing they will provide you with the energy to get through your day, week, month, year, and life.

Eating is not a chore or hindrance to your life. It is how you live a healthy life so that you can do the other finer things that make life exciting and worth living. The psychology is to enjoy every bit of your food and water, knowing you are getting critical nutrients and biochemical elements to sustain you for a long, exciting, successful, and prosperous life!

Be kind to your body, especially to the brain and nervous system. If not, it will not be kind to you and will not come full circle.

And on that note, what are your thoughts?