Your human body is a complex, non-linear, dynamic system.
While this may not sound like a wonderful portrayal of the incredible being that is you, let me assure you, having an understanding of yourself from this particular perspective has its uses if we want to make healthy decisions.
About learning to make those healthy decisions…
A problem with our current healthcare paradigm is that current advice doesn’t often operate with this understanding of the complexity of the human body. Instead, our current healthcare system, diet industry, and any other party interested in addressing health problems – these tend to work in a reductionist paradigm in which the system is broken down into individual pieces, connecting each piece together to determine causal relationships.
This method is useful because it allows us to see how one component directly impacts another.
However, when we attempt to apply this reductionist approach to a system that has numerous variables interacting as a network, we run into a number of problems.
One problem is that there are a large number of immediate effects and it is often impossible to completely capture each of these. The way this problem plays out in the world is that we often end up examining only that which is easiest to measure, basing advice off of the information that is available to us while pushing the fact that there are other unknown effects under the rug.
A second problem is that this network often operates as a series of feedforward and feedback loops such that a change in one variable impacts a change in another, which goes on to cause a change in another while also going back to impact the previous variables.
This means, in addition to the immediate effects, there is a cascade of events that span far and wide and are usually impossible to fully capture using our current technology, let alone comprehend with our mere human minds.
Clearly, when it comes to trying to fully understand the system such that we can produce a specific desired outcome, this reductionist approach is inadequate.
Fortunately, we have other options, which we will get to once we better understand what it means to be working with a complex, non-linear, dynamic system.
Let’s break this down, beginning with…
A Complex System
Complex: multiple factors are at play within any system, typically working together as a network and often grouping together as a sub-system within a larger system.
In our case, we are dealing with a complex, biological system. The complex system exists as multiple factors that are constantly interacting with themselves (internal) and with the environment (external) such that over time equilibrium of the system (and each individual factor) is achieved.
This dynamic state of equilibrium is termed homeostasis and describes a state which can continue on indefinitely as long as it receives the resources it needs and is able to expel the waste.
This brings us to an important point: if the system is receiving resources and expelling waste, this means that there is an interaction with the outside environment going on.
Let’s look at that interaction.
Simple, linear interaction
In a simple, linear interaction, a small set of variables interact in a 1:1 fashion; that is, if I change this one variable, it will cause a corresponding change in another variable (or small set of variables). We’ve seen this already:
If I can manipulate the independent variable and measure the corresponding change in the dependent variable, then I can understand what happens (and what will always happen) in this simple pathway.
This means that, if I want a desired outcome, I can simply manipulate the input variable to create the change I desire.
However, this is not the case with the human body. The human body is non-linear and complex. That is, each time there is an interaction with the environment, there are numerous variables that respond, often in ways that look nothing like that which we would predict in a linear pathway.
If one input variable impacts the entire system, then there will be multiple responses.
And these responses will cause a change in other areas…
Which will cause changes in another area.
Get the idea?
If we wanted to create a specific outcome (which is our goal when we try to make healthy decisions), how could we possibly map out the entire network of responses?
How could we know which input variable to manipulate and by how much? And, just as important, how could we know that our particular change in this input variable is impacting each part of the network in a positive way?
We couldn’t, and this is the key point here: it is impossible to create a solution that benefits the entire complex network by looking through a reductionist lens.
At this point, we see a problem with the typical approach used in our healthcare system that says: just change this one thing and you’ll cause this specific response in your body that will solve your health problem.
We can take this even further, though, because in the world we reside in, it isn’t often the case that we have one isolated factor impacting the complex system. Instead whatever is impacting the system is often complex, itself.
Let’s take food as the perfect example.
While nutrition science has been able to gather a mountain of information about specific nutrients, what it tends to lack is an appreciation for the complexity of the food itself.
Food is a complex network of macronutrients and micronutrients. We can try to understand some of these components, but what we can’t do is map out how each specific component impacts each other component inside the human body.
This is an impossible task for a number of reasons that are worth digging into:
1. The sheer amount of information this would involve is impractical.
Even if we were willing to force enough graduate students to spend that much time painstakingly mapping out how one micronutrient impacts one part of the body which impacts another (something we have already accomplished to a significant extent), the ability to integrate all of this information into some sort of coherent structure that provides meaning – that would take something with more processing power than the human brain, which isn’t very useful for those of us who are here to make healthy decisions for ourselves.
2. Even if we had unlimited resources, there is information that is lost when you break down a complex system into its components
Let’s say we did have the ability to gather all the data we wanted by painstakingly measuring the effect of each of a food’s components on each sub-system in the human body.
We still have the following issue: breaking down a complex system into its components to map out all of the interactions does something to the system, resulting in the loss of information that arises from higher structures.
This involves the concept of emergence, which I won’t dive too far into here. For now, think of emergence simply as “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” For example, water is a complex structure made up of molecules. We can break down water into its components (hydrogen and oxygen), but when we do this we lose sight of the emergent properties of water – all those things that we are familiar with (its ability to flow or form to its container; its sight or taste) – these are lost when we examine water at a molecular level.
It’s the same idea with food: we can break it down into its molecular components to study each individually, but we can’t put it back together again and have a complete picture of what it means to eat that food. Instead, each food, as a whole system, has emergent properties of its own that will impact the system that is the human body at another level.
The point here is this – the ability to comprehend how a particular food could impact a particular individual is not feasible under purely reductionist methods.
And yet, when it comes to teaching how to make healthy decisions, we tend to speak in reductionist terms:
- Consume less saturated fat (one particular food component) which will lower your LDL cholesterol and decrease your risk of a heart attack
- Consume more fiber
- Consume more vitamin C
Which all sounds like fair advice, until you see people making specific decisions such as:
- Choosing to consume creamer made from industrially produced vegetable oils and a long list of chemicals instead of cream; choosing spreads made from industrially processed vegetable oils and artificial flavorings instead of butter
- Choosing to consume granola bars with fiber in the title which, to me, look and taste a lot like a candy bar
- Choosing to drink orange juice regularly when it provides the same dose of fructose as drinking a soda
What this means for us who want to make the healthiest decisions possible: we need to look elsewhere for the ability to make the healthiest decisions for our own bodies.
Where do we begin? With a systems approach, one I’ll walk you through over here…