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Science is a powerful tool to help us understand our natural world and make better decisions given this knowledge.
Science is powerful, but only when used correctly.
When used incorrectly, it actually has the power to cause serious harm, and that's what I see so often in the health & wellness sphere.
More specifically, what I see is people calling upon "science" while they tell others how they should behave to become healthier. Unfortunately, these individuals often are lacking in their ability to properly use the scientific method to understand their particular topic (whether it's nutrition, weight loss, or other health-related topics).
This means that their "science-based" advice is not actually arising from well-done science, and the information that is being advised has serious potential to cause harm.
One key focus of this course is helping you correct this common error so that you are better capable of making health-conscious decisions. Meanwhile, my goal is to provide you with a better framework for making health-conscious decisions - one that aligns with how you, as a human being, are actually designed.
About that human design:
Your human body is a complex system.
A complex system involves a large number of variables that interact as a network such that the whole that is the functioning of the system is greater than the sum of its parts.
In other words, a complex system cannot be broken down into pieces without losing information regarding the greater functioning of the whole.
For example, a computer is a complex system. It performs various functions (e.g., the visual output that is this lesson) that cannot be fully understood by examining the physical components that make up the computer.
As a more relevant example, your brain is a complex system that serves innumerable functions. You cannot understand the workings of your thoughts with only an understanding of neurons (and other neural cells). Similarly, you can't understand language comprehension and speaking with only an understanding of brain cells.
As a third (and most relevant) example, your DNA and its expression as proteins that combine with lipids and other biomolecules form a complex system that is a single cell in your body.
While you can understand a lot about the cell by working to understand every single component (something we did back in my biology classes), you can't fully understand the cell until you zoom out and examine the functions it performs. As three examples:
- a squamous cell connects to other squamous cells to form thin, permeable membranes
- a neuron forms projections that link to other neurons to serve as a wire that carries information
- a red blood cell carries oxygen throughout the body
The key point is, you can study the components and their interaction with other components, and this can be useful, but you will never truly understand the full functioning (including the usefulness) of that system if you only focus on the underlying mechanisms. To be able to understand these higher-level functions, you need to think at a different level than the components that make up the system.
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Unfortunately, when it comes to making health-conscious decisions, we have been taught to use a simple, reductionist mindset, one that involves breaking apart the problem into individual components in an attempt to understand how each component interacts, mechanistically, with another, forming clear and distinct pathways from one input (e.g., a behavior) to a specific output (a particular health state).
For example, most of us are familiar with the idea of LDL cholesterol and saturated fat. As the traditional wisdom goes, we should avoid saturated fat to lower LDL cholesterol, which in turn decreases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
Simple, right? (as in a simple, mechanistic pathway involving just a couple variables)
Well, that's exactly the problem!
The problem is that this mindset significantly oversimplifies the reality that is nutrition and pathophysiology.
For one, any particular food contains a large variety of nutrients that all combine as networks to make up the whole that is the food. Isolating a single nutrient (e.g., saturated fat) takes that nutrient out of the greater (and very important) reality that is that whole food and its impact on the human body.
Even more, taking a single food out of the context that is an individual's eating (and other lifestyle) patterns leaves us lacking in important information needed to determine how that individual could eat to be healthier. How could we tell someone how to eat while not knowing their exercise habits or how much stress is building in their life?
Now let's look at the pathophysiology side of things. Cardiovascular disease is a complex disease. Taking one piece of it, the build-up and calcification of plaques in the arteries, we have a complex cascade of events.
One important piece involves LDL cholesterol. But there are other important pieces involved in how a plaque builds, ruptures, and calcifies. Other factors include:
- blood pressure
- blood sugar levels
- other factors that may impact the integrity of the blood vessel wall
When we make decisions to avoid saturated fat, we very easily make decisions that impact these other factors (e.g., consume more refined sugar and vegetable oils) which may also lead to the progression of this terrible disease.
What do we do about it?
Using a simple, reductionist mindset to make health-conscious decisions fails us because it leads us to become hyper-focused on a small number of factors (often only one!) involved in that system.
However, the reality is that there are always a large number of factors at play, and no matter how much work we do to attempt to understand each factor involved, there is always more information than we will be able to understand.
So, what can we do instead?
Step 1: We begin by taking a step back to look at the greater, more complex systems supporting the health of the human body, studying them in a way that enables us to understand the important functions they serve.
Step 2: We mindfully dig into the more specific sub-systems supporting the body so that we can more precisely make health-conscious decisions. After all, reductionist science serves an important purpose, and we don't want to throw it completely out the window.
Step 3: We continuously ensure that we are checking in with the higher-level systems so that we are never getting hyper-focused on specific details while losing sight of the greater picture.
Ready to get started?