Why Healthy Cells = Healthy You

When you think of how your body works, it's easy to get lost in the complexities of systems and structures. There are specialized tissues and chemical messengers which enable necessary processes to take place. Even something as simple as moving your finger entails multiple systems communicating in a coherent fashion. Truly, our bodies are a marvel.

But breaking it down to the most basic components, while illustrative of just how marvelous we are, can shed light on the simple beauty of how cells function in community with one another. This is what Bruce Lipton highlights in his book, The Biology of Belief, where he shares insights from examining the individual cell to illuminate how the body works as a whole.

If you consider the cell the basic building block of the body, as cells join together in communities of like-purposed cells, they begin to form tissues. There are a multitude of diverse tissue types, distinguished by function. For instance, some cells join to form skin tissue, others to form muscle tissue. This is true of all tissues, from fingernail to frontal lobe.

Tissues also join in specialized communities, making workhorses we call organs. Organs provide specific services to our bodies, allowing work to be done in an organized, interdependent fashion. Organs like the heart pump blood so oxygen and nutrients can make it to different parts of the body. The stomach kills external microbes and breaks down food so it can be digested and absorbed in smaller nutrient packages.

Organs work together to carry out specific functions in what we call systems. So, to carry on the stomach example from above, this organ partners with the mouth, esophagus, small intestine, liver, pancreas, colon, and rectum to usher sustenance through its full lifecycle in the body from food, to nutrients, to waste, which is finally eliminated from the body.

Other systems play a role as well, in an intricate, intertwined symphony of processes. For instance, the immune system plays a role in all stages of the digestive process, so we can get energy from food while remaining safe and healthy.

By looking at how individual cells function, Lipton grew to understand the factors that play into our overall health and wellness. In short, this big orchestra can be understood in its simplest form: healthy cells = healthy you.

In his research on individual cells, Lipton found that the cell membrane, not the commonly believed DNA, serves as the real brain of the cell. This bilipid layer, made of saturated fat and cholesterol, determines what goes into and out of the cell. 

Key players are integral membrane proteins, or cell receptors sites, that receive hormones and nutrients, and if deemed appropriate, allow messages into the cell. There, it may initiate a specific action needed for the cell to produce energy, release toxins, and even engage the cell's DNA to turn-on or "express” genes. It stands to reason, then, If the cell membrane, which holds the innate intelligence of the cell, is impaired these critical functions are also impaired.

What factors damage your cell membrane? There are 3 main culprits, highlighted in Daniel Pompa in The Cellular Healing Diet. Pompa spent many years in debilitating pain before delving into research like Lipton’s to identify key inflammatory factors and healing himself and others. These factors are: 1) glucose and insulin spikes, 2) bad fats, and 3) stressors, most significantly chemical stressors such as toxins and the chronic stress we experience from everyday life. Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

Glucose and insulin spikes. It's beginning to be clear how damaging glucose and insulin spikes are for your body. It's estimated 38 million Americans have diabetes and 18 million Americans are living with heart disease, both of which are directly related to chronically elevated  blood sugar. The warning signs for each of these diseases show up decades before disease diagnosis, but we typically fail to catch them and reverse them. They are even starting to call dementia "Type 3 diabetes" because it's connected to elevated blood sugar over long periods of time.

Blood sugar spikes damage your cell membrane and blunt your cell receptor sites. When cell receptors sites are dulled, hormones like insulin reach the receptors sites, but are not allowed to enter the cell. This prevents the cell from receiving the message to pull glucose out of the blood and into the cell. The result is insulin resistance and dysregulated blood sugar. Before long, diseases like diabetes and heart disease present themselves. The same effect occurs with other hormones, such as thyroid hormone, often resulting in hypothyroidism.

A number of testing tools are available if you want to get more specific about how your body processes sugars. Finger prick testing can help you establish a baseline and show you how your blood sugar reacts to different foods you eat. This is significant because we all differ in how we process specific foods. For example, sweet potatoes can be blood sugar stabilizing for some, and cause glucose spikes for others. Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGM) are devices you stick into your body (usually on the upper arm). They send live data to a corresponding app, that gives you insight into what your blood sugar is doing all day as you go about your usual activities. This eliminates the need for individual finger pricks but has an associated monthly fee. Ask your doctor if you’d like to know more about this option.

The simplest strategy to keep your blood sugar stable is to eliminate all processed sugars and significantly reduce natural sugars like honey, maple syrup and coconut sugar, and dried fruits. Be mindful of where foods that turn to sugar quickly in your bloodstream are in your regular diet. Common sources are restaurant meals, processed snacks and sauces, sugary drinks and extra grains, even whole grains.  

Bad fats. Not all fats are created equal. Though for more than 60 years, fats have been largely vilified, our bodies need fat for cell function, nutrient absorption, energy, brain development, and more. Food sources contain different types of fatty acids, including saturated fats, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. These have different physical qualities at room temperature, different smoke points, and different nutritional functions. In short, your body needs some of each type of fat, and most food sources contain a combination of the three. Polyunsaturated fats are further subdivided by their chemical structure into omega 3 fatty acids, omega 6 fatty acids and omega 9 fatty acids. Both omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids are considered essential because they can’t be made in the body and therefore need to be consumed in the diet.

The most important factor when consuming omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids is the ratio between the two. In nature, this ratio was intended to be around 1:1. In the Standard American Diet (or SAD ☹), omega 6 fatty acids are used in processed foods everywhere, making the ratio closer to 12:1 or even as high as 20:1 omega 6s to omega 3s. This creates disfunction in the cell as lopsided ratios of these two fatty acid types lead to inflammation. To compound the problem, prevalence and accessibility are major issues. The seed oils we eat daily in processed foods (think store-bought cookies, crackers, and baked goods), restaurant food (frying oil as well as cooking oil), and our home cooking, are the source of some of the most toxic fats we eat. Commonly found yellow seed oils such as corn, canola, vegetable, soybean, peanut, sunflower and safflower oils are highly refined at high heat, which denatures the fats and makes them rancid. Rancid oils damage the cell membrane, further disrupting the healthy flow of messaging (via hormones) and nutrients into the cell and the exit of toxins from within the cell. Perpetuating inflammation at the cellular level as well as a high toxic burden contribute to a number of conditions and diseases, including the ever-increasing incidences of autoimmunity.

Your best bet is to ditch the seed oils and use only the highest quality fats available. In general, this includes grass-fed butter, extra virgin coconut oil, and avocado oil for high-heat cooking. Extra virgin olive oil works best for medium to low heat cooking. Nut oils like walnut and macadamia oils as well as flax oil work best only in raw/uncooked preparations. Raw nuts for snacking and grass-fed meats and cheeses can also provide high-quality, healthy fats.

Stressors. Stressors can be physical, emotional or chemical. Usually,  some combination of the three combine to set off a chain of events that lead to dysfunction and sickness in the body. Emotional stress can include past trauma as well as perceptions of everyday stressors as being painful and overwhelming. This type of stress can lead to continued release of the stress chemicals adrenaline and cortisol, creating chronic inflammation that continues until the cycle is broken.

Chemical stressors include toxins that are brought into our bodies from environmental exposures. The biggest offenders are toxic heavy metals such as mercury from amalgam fillings, pesticides and herbicides in our food and water, plastics, colorants, preservatives, fire-retardants in clothing and building materials, and artificial fragrances in face/body care  and cleaning products. These toxins are ubiquitous. The best way to limit exposure is to avoid them as best you can. Use tools like the Environmental Working Group’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce and databases for cleaning products and beauty care to help you purchase healthier options. Apps like the EWG’s Healthy Living app and Yuka can also be helpful when shopping for safer products. In general, take your shoes off before entering your home so chemicals on the bottom of your shoes don’t make their way into your spaces, filter your water, and buy organics.

Feeling overwhelmed? To borrow from James Clear’s Atomic Habits, “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” Baby steps matter, so just pointing your feet in the right direction is massively important in reaching the results you want in your health and wellbeing, as in anything else. Start small and be as consistent as possible.

If you’d like some insight into how to make smart changes in the context of your personal life and habits, consider working with a practitioner experienced in navigating the different factors as they relate to your specific health concerns.

Every little bit helps, so start today by choosing one improvement you’d like to make. Post your personal challenge and follow-up by sharing your progress.

You got this!

References

Lipton, B. 2005. The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles

Pompa, D. 2017. The Cellular Healing Diet

Clear, J. 2018. Atomic Habits