One of the most exciting aspects of health and the human body is change. Your body, and therefore your health, is constantly changing. Either it’s getting a little bit stronger, or a little bit weaker. There is no Switzerland. There is no neutral.
Every day your body manufactures brand new cells and swaps them out with old. It’s programed in your DNA, and quite predictable. We all experience, and are familiar with, the regrowth of skin and — for most of us, at least — hair, about every 30 days or so. What you may not know is that every five days your body replaces its stomach lining. Every 45 days it essentially grows a new liver; a new bladder in 49; and brain every 60. In three months some say you have a new skeleton, and in four a new supply of blood. It’s pretty incredible! Many even point to the idea that every 7 -10 years we get a “new body.”
While a quick search on the internet will reveal the exactness of these numbers is open to some level of debate, what isn’t up for argument is the fact that your body DOES regenerate a vast majority of its cells with regular frequency. It’s basic biology, and it does this whether you want it to or not. In fact, it will do it in SPITE of you.
An example of this played out beautifully in Morgan Spurlock’s documentary, Super Size Me. In this film he took on a cultural food experiment reflective our our declining National Health Index: eat three squares at the Golden Arches for an entire month. Excessive and exaggerated? No, just accelerated.
At the start of the experiment, Spurlock was a pretty fit dude — with his doctors describing his health as “outstanding” and “terrific.” They were nonchalant — save the prediction of a bump in metrics like weight and cholesterol — as to how this diet would impact his health. Two weeks in, their indifference turned to grave concern.
All forms of evaluation now pointed to the fact that Spurlock’s body was sick and facing serious health complications. Not only that, he just LOOKED different. And I’m not just talking about the 25 pounds he packed on. The point? Mr. Spurlock’s body — like yours and mine — was doing what it was programed to do, regardless of the circumstance. It was undergoing cellular regeneration: cells, tissues, and organs taking on the slow steady process of turn-over, even — as with him — in the midst of suboptimal building material.
And this is where I get excited.
If the body is physically, emotionally, and chemically capable of radically changing for the worse in the presence of poor lifestyle choices, what is possible when we present it with the opposite?
Naturally, when it comes to regenerating healthy cells — and thus, over time, a healthy new you — smart nutrition is a major component, as is sleep and exercise. But there is one additional component, unknown by most, that “rules them all.” And that is a proper power supply. Unless you are exhibiting a proper brain-body connection, optimal health will never fully realize and will always be undercut when interference is present.
A healthy spine and nervous system is vital for living a healthy, high-quality, long life. Chiropractors around the world are helping people discover this foundational principle. Optimal health may seem overwhelming, but it really boils down to CONSISTENCY — allowing cellular regeneration to work in your favor by regularly doing right things, so your body can “get a little bit stronger,” every day.
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Contributed by Dr. Thomas R. Lamar, DC.
[originally published in KCN, February 2015; republished from Dr. Lamar’s spinalcolumnblog.com]
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source used for this article:
Spurlock. Documentary film: Super Size Me. 2004. view movie on Hulu.com: http://www.hulu.com/watch/63283
website on cellular regeneration schedule: http://www.agedefyingbody.com/RegenerationSchedule.html
Wikipedia: Super Size Me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me
