What factors are affecting your metabolic health and disease risk?
Image: Engin Akyurt from Unplash
As I make my way through a course on The Metabolic Approach to Cancer, I’ve been thinking deeply about prevention. Building better metabolic health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer can only happen if we take action now.
Many of us have been touched by cancer either personally or know someone who has had it. Whilst treatment options are extending what we need to be doing more is looking at how we reduce risk before disease hits.
Cancer, for example, is often thought of as an unlucky gene someone is dealt with. It’s more complex than that. It’s essentially the outcome of broken systems in our body. Epigenetics* and nutrigenomics** can play a role, alongside numerous lifestyle factors and there’s a lot we can do to improve our health and decrease our risk.
How can things go wrong?
The body is a truly amazing machine. There’s a process in our body called Apoptosis which detects and triggers the death of cells that malfunction. Alongside this, we have a process where we clean out our dirty cells, a bit like body housekeeping, called Autophagy.
When we can’t clean or kill effectively enough, and our body doesn’t spot the malfunctions, the defunct cells can cause issues and opportunistically grow, with the potential to start a cancering process.
Oxidation, sugar, stress, toxins, nutrition, lifestyle and inflammation can lay fertile ground for those mutated cells to multiply and develop.
How do things end up out of balance?
In a nutshell, our metabolic health.
In some people, stress or trauma can create a cascade of physical changes leading to dysfunctions in digestion, circadian rhythms and immunity. For others, environmental triggers can cause expressions of genetic snps* which impairs their detox function, overloading the body. In some, vitamin deficiencies such as D and A might be contributing factors to ill health and increased risk.
Modern-day life often means we’re exposed to multiple risk factors. To build good health we need to consider ALL the things that influence our body’s ability to function well, including:
An effective immune system
Toxin exposure
Hormone balance
Supportive nutrition and lifestyle
Good circadian rhythm (sleep cycles)
Mental and emotional health, resilience & stress exposure
Blood sugar balance
Regular (and appropriate) physical activity
Social connection and sense of community
Effective digestion
Good hydration
There’s a lot we can do to positively influence these areas. There’s no single answer and no single route to health (or cancer) but, we have lots of opportunities to create a better environment in our body for health and not for disease.
What can you do?
Everyone is different. We are all individuals, our bodies are unique and experience different stressors.
To understand your risk exposure and identify what your body needs you can start to consider some key areas and explore where there might be imbalances and vulnerabilities.
The Metabolic Terrain Institute of Health has a framework called The Terrain Ten™. It’s a powerful and well-established approach to begin understanding an individual's metabolic health and the key areas of the body’s terrain which need support.
When we think about terrain, we’re considering all the factors listed above and how our body functions. Things like:
How does your body feel day-to-day? Aches, pains, fatigue?
When was the last time you woke up feeling alert and rested?
What’s your digestion like?
How often do you have a bowel movement?
What do you do to move your body regularly?
How many portions of vegetables are you getting every day?
How do you feel if you’ve not eaten for more than a few hours?
What chemicals are in your cleaning products or body care products?
How much plastic are you in contact with?
What proportion of your food is organic?
How much clean filtered water do you drink each day?
What do you do to switch off, relax and de-stress?
How often are you out in nature?
What are your vitamin D levels**?
What’s your sleep routine like?
How does your menstrual cycle affect your daily life?
These are just a few prompts to enable you to start exploring your health. The more you understand what’s going on for you, the more power you have to start making change.
Once you recognise your areas of potential imbalance or vulnerability you can think about helpful changes and make a plan. Perhaps you can’t do it all, but you can look at what’s possible and prioritise. Even one or two changes make a difference and it can be done gradually. These are lifestyle changes, so you’re in it for the long haul!
And remember, following a diet or a protocol that someone else says works for them doesn’t mean it will work for you. Discover your risks, rhythm and approach to your own health.
*Epigenetics is related to how a gene is expressed. Someone might have a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) that has the potential to change how a system functions in the body. The internal and external environment, including nutrients, can influence how the SNP impacts health. Only 5%-10% of breast cancer diagnoses have inheritable genes. Metalloestrogens, low vitamin D, elevated insulin growth factors, elevated blood sugar, a BMI over 25% and the body's ability to detox hormones have been identified as big drivers in breast cancer.
**Nutrigenomics looks at individual DNA makeup and specifically how nutrition and lifestyle can impact the person’s genetic potential and related processes.
**Vitamin D - Optimal blood test results for serum 25(OH)D are suggested to be 50-90 ng/mL(125-225 nmol/l). GP test results might suggest anything between 30-50 ng/mL is adequate. However, these ranges are often set from the average of the population, so in a population with declining health and limited sun exposure, it’s not necessarily reflective of what is optimal for the body to function well. Some people will experience negative symptoms in this range, which dissipate when they increase their levels. Keep this in mind and always look at your numbers and consider symptoms when you get any test results. If you want to increase your Vitamin D, test first and consult with a healthcare practitioner to do this safely.
NOTE: This article is for information purposes and does not provide individual advice for you. If you have any healthcare concerns please get in touch or consult a relevant healthcare professional.
References:
https://www.optimaldx.com/blog/vitamin-d-optimal-levels-and-how-to-get-there
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1392256/
https://www.lifecodegx.com/nutrigenomics
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16489580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3356951/