Diversity matters

Funny what inspires you to write at times, and be creative, I have just finished reading a post by @jasonstaggers on share trading, and motivation and one of the commentators were talking about diversity. I felt that is so right on more that just a trading level but also reflective of our diet, health, and life in general.

Diversity matters, it matters in particular with what you eat. Most people eat a fairly restrictive diet without even realising it, leaving them relatively nutritionally deficient due to not eating a broad spectrum of foods, particularly fresh vegetables. I regularly see clients who rarely eat any vegetables, tending instead to have a diet heavy in wheat, sugar, and dairy.

Being creatures of habit we tend to eat the same things week in, week out, gravitating to foods that we recognise and know what to do with, our palates very much trained to one type of food. That food for many now is sweet, and a lot of the time stodgy, being high in carbohydrate. That habitual behaviour means that most people eat at least 1 meal which is the same every day rarely changing it, and the amount of fresh food included in the diet is therefore very little.

Breakfast is a meal in many cases that has been bastardised to become less and less nutritious. Cereals make it fast, toast is a stalwart in the UK diet, and most people just want to get out the door as quickly as possible. Most people at this time of the day are not really thinking of nutrition but how fast and easy the food is to make and eat, hence the growth in the smoothie and 'on the go' breakfast drinks that are now seeing massive growth.

Time for food preparation is a bit like sleeping, food preparation has taken a back seat for other activity. Often little thought goes into breakfast, and the amount of cereals that are high in sugar leaves the body reeling from such a high glycemic load so early in the day. Many people would think twice about giving their kids a packet of sweets before going to school but will give the equivalent in sugar with a bowl full of kid's cereal.

Most people now don't meet the 5 a day fruit and vegetable portions that the World Health Organisation set over 25 years ago now, and in the UK the average is between 2-4 in a day depending on your socioeconomic status. That socioeconomic status matters, it can be the difference that means you are more likely to get a chronic disease state.

This leaves diversity in diet, low, for the majority of our population in the UK, which has more than just an impact on the nutrition in regards to the mineral and vitamin intake, it's also affecting the microbial diversity that we have living in our microbiome or biofilm which we have across our whole body.
We are teeming with diverse communities that exist on us and within us. They are our body, they make life possible, "the terrain is everything" Louis Pasteur said at the end of his life, and the condition of the bio-terrain determines the health of the body. As our lifestyle changes, it affects the inner terrain and our body's have to adapt to continue to operate, but this can mean that our organs may not be functioning optimally, and electrical conduction is reduced within the body.

Increasingly now researchers are showing how our microbial diversity matters for a wide variety of health issue. There is a link with Alzheimer's Disease to potential pathogens, the sinus microbial diversity is being considered a potential factor by some in the functional medicine field. Research is also being shown to link to how plaque and inflammation are connected to a viral load. Researchers hypothesise that a chronic infection that induces plaque locally could be a key factor in Arteriosclerosis and that it's caused to protect against these infectious pathogens.
The link between gum health and heart disease is now well known, with researchers considering that the microbes can move into the brain that are living in dental plaque biofilm increasing the inflammation that is often seen in the nervous system.

We need to feed our body's so that we ensure we keep this inner microbial diversity high, and balanced because it's clear that our body flora and it's diversity matters. The living organisms within us, play an indispensable role in our health. Their collective numbers which go into the hundreds of different species of bacteria far exceed our body cells in numbers. Sugar in cereals and a whole host of processed foods are driving a change in the bacteria that feeds off it and creating higher levels of inflammation in those that eat in this way. The fibre in fruit and vegetables is shown to have an impact on the brain via the bacteria and how it communicates. They are essential for ensuring that not only bio-chemical responses happened but also hormonal ones do. But as you can see from the research they can assist or compromise the health and that can go on to change even our very nature.

This diversity of life within us when balanced not only improves our overall immunity but also regulates, synthesises and absorption of vitamins, minerals, neurotransmitters, amino acids, and essential fatty acids.
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Broadening our diets can have profound effects on our long-term health, chronic disease isn't growing because of lack of medications, it's because we are living a lifestyle that supports it. Disease is often growing from within. It's not something we are catching but something we are creating with the lack of diversity in our diets, stress, and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.