The quote below is from the abstract of a 2014 landmark study published in the journal Nature
(link) https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12820
"consumption of diets composed entirely of animal or plant products alters microbial community structure and overwhelms inter-individual differences in microbial gene expression"
The key phrase in the above is "overwhelms inter-individual differences in microbial gene expression". In other words the genes we are born with are not in complete control of our health and longevity outcomes. We exert control over whether our health and longevity related genes are turned on or off with diet and lifestyle choices.
This is not rocket science. When we poison ourselves with toxic choices health is the victim. And we are our health, it is equivalent to our level of functioning, and can even be said to be "the most important thing".
The bad news is diets we typically consider "healthy" are considerably more toxic than we realize. How do we know this?
We've been led to believe health is a consequence of our genes, and whether we are lucky or unlucky in the gene department. The originators and purveyors of that point of view is the pharma industry that just so happens to generate huge profits from manufactured treatments intended to counter the effects of bad diet and lifestyle choices. All of these treatments have negative side effects, and none are remotely as effective as the diet and lifestyle choices that are the actual cause of health.
In terms of diet the cause of health is those choices we are evolutionarily adapted to. Every species evolves to take nutritional advantage of some sliver of earth's biology. And consider that significant evolutionary changes in mammals take about 100,000 years on average. That means we are adapted to foods that existed 100,000 years ago and longer. Are we consuming foods that existed 100,000 plus years ago?
And further, are we consuming them in the form they existed in 100,000 plus year ago? Which means 100,000 years ago we gathered and ate food in the forms we found them in. How many restaurants serve that diet?....an effective zero.
Every species, including humans, has a species specific diet that is the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
But there is evolution and there is progress. The terms are frequently conflated, but are not the same thing. Evolution is the very slow changes in biology. Progress is the very rapid changes in technology. The attraction to genetic modification of organisms is that technology at last gives us the possibility to leapfrog over glacially slow evolution. But it's not going to work.
If you believe there is intelligence in the workings of nature you will find it easier to understand there are important reasons for the very slow pace of biological change: it prevents a chaotic level of changes that result in a Frankenstein version of nature. The classic novel Frankenstein can in fact be seen as a prescient warning about the dangers of skipping over the gradual evolutionary changes in nature that preserve it's symmetries and balances.
Human curiosity will not be blunted however. Logic affords a certain forecastability that may be noted but ultimately ignored, and we learn from our mistakes. And as usual we hope mistakes in technological progress do not sum at some point in the collapse in the species homosapien.
Pharma has a vested interest in not seeing these relationships clearly. So should we take their edicts and theories at face value? If we are consuming the human species specific diet and practicing the other causes of health, we should take them at face value only in those rare instances where there would be greater benefit than harm. And when that relationship is not crystal clear, err on the side of caution.
Pharmaceuticals are not food, they are foreign substances to the body, and consequently all have negative side effects. When we practice the cause of health we rarely need them, if ever.
Meanwhile the effects of practicing the cause of health are all positive.
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