General Philosophies of the Pursuit of Health

I think it is necessary, that though we deal with a particular level of uncertainty in this area, that a logical approach to this endeavour should be established.

I will attempt to give 3 main points to explain the statement. Naturally, they are bolded and should be the take home message for anyone reading this. If you take away nothing else, at least view the 3 bolded and underlined sentences.

This is arguably not an easy task, especially since we are confounded by the blurry definition of the term ‘health’ itself. In that case I shall give my definition of the word.

Health means the ability to function optimally in the pursuit of desired outcomes in life. Now that is still vague, but to simplify, I will be break it down to simply physical, mental and spiritual health. This is in line with what I see to be fulfilling the needs of the body, mind and spirit.

The body just refers to the physical needs an individual has. It begins with the basic need of air, food and water, and then extends to things like motor function, joint health, organ health, etc. This is arguably the most explicit, with obvious differences in the quality of life experienced by an able-bodied young individual vs that of a wheelchair bound individual.

The mind to me represents everything from emotional well-being to general cognitive function. Some people view the ability to solve complex Mathematics problems as an indicator of an active mind. To an extent, it is independent of the body, as seen by the ability of Stephen Hawking to ponder to mysteries of the Universe despite his ‘disability’ (Which he argues may not be all bad in this TED talk). However, I will argue that all the 3 areas I listed earlier are somehow connected, which I will elaborate later in the article.

Finally, the spirit to me refers to the ability to be at peace with oneself. This will boil down to the higher order and usually intangible aspects of life such as freedom from worry, the love of family, and the need for fulfillment.

It does not matter whether or not there are 3 distinct areas, nor does it matter if the definition I give are accurate. What matters here is that you yourself recognise various aspects in your own life of which you know can be improved such that you can live a more fulfilling life. What matters is what those definitions mean to you.

As said before, I believe that these areas are linked. Inadequate sleep (chronically) will rob from one even the most brilliant bouts of insight and inspiration. An illness may prevent one from spending time with his or her family in activities like sport. A fiery temper can destroy the opportunity to forge new friendships. And to me, doing handstands between studying (and while writing this article) has had a profound effect on my focus.

So to sum up my first point: Health has to be pursued from all angles.

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Next, we need to discuss how to go about doing this.

If you are like my mother, you would say that good health is a product of all things in moderation. If you are like a professional athlete, you will say that good health is a a product of staying very physically active through your life. If you are a scientist, you opinion may vary. Some may say that research points to caffeine being generally bad for you. Others will tell you that all carbohydrates will make you fat. Still others will say that anti-oxidants are absolutely necessary to be healthy in today’s world.

As with most things, there will be a healthy medium between extremes.

This is not a consequence of some philosophy, but mainly because it is the most quantifiable and logically sound method of judging how to live one’s life.

To debunk some points mentioned earlier. What is the vague area called moderation? Does it mean eating all foods in moderation? Obviously there is little benefit in consuming trans fats.

In terms of exercise, what is ‘very physically active’? To some people, walking 1 mile is going to be a challenge. To others, running 10 miles is nothing big.

In terms of research, how much if it is valid? What were the methods used?

To give 2 good examples of the third point, the studies involving caffeine and meal frequency are notable ones. Caffeine is said by some people to be bad for health. It disrupts sleep, makes one jumpy, etc. We do however need to fall back onto the research conditions. How much dosage was used? To what subjects? For how long? One study used dosages of 5mg caffeine/kg bodyweight, or 500mg for a 100kg person, which is approximately 3-5 cups of coffee per day. Any negative impacts measured here were generally not measured at lower doses, say 1 cup/day. This is not even taking into account the research with shows positive effects, such as the increased lipolysis (fat burning) and caloric expenditure (one research quoted that 600mg caffeine/day causes an increased caloric burn of 100kcal/day)

With regards to the other topic of meal frequency, bodybuilders are known for their obsessive need to eat protein every 3 hours and have perfectly balanced meals. Yet, this research came from mice, which showed net nitrogen deficit (muscle wasting) and depressed metabolism after 3 hours. Take first into account that these mice live for 2 years and operate on timescales much faster than us. At the same time, other research which studies fasting (no food) show that metabolism, if anything, is elevated slightly after 72 hours, while a typical meal containing approximately 500kcal and 30g protein is still digesting after 5 hours.

The problem of course was created when some people (drugged bodybuilders) decided to do this and the idea spread like wildfire through the lens of the media.

And here comes my second point: All knowledge (and action) should be able to be quantified, verified empirically, and most importantly tested in real world conditions to be valid

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Then of course there is this big wildcard called genetics.

We have heard of stories of people eating fried chicken to their deathbed at the ripe age of 90. Some people are born with greater susceptibility to diabetes or heart disease. Some athletes have naturally higher testosterone and insulin sensitivity.

All of these lead one person to be different from another. One person may need to push the weights hard and eat like a horse to see muscular growth, others can ’smell the iron and grow’. One person can get away with excessively fatty foods, others cannot. Anecdotally, I know various people in the same family who lead almost identical lives fall prey to debilitating diseases like heart failure, while their siblings can still run 5 miles at the age of 70. All that because of the 50% of inheriting a recessive genotype from a parent.

Conversely, what if the athlete with better genetics decided to slack off. Then he may not get good results, and even be beaten by someone else with supposedly poorer genetics. Someone with genetically lean genes can still eat himself fat on Big Macs.

Unfortunately, we don’t know enough even with our ‘vast’ knowledge of science. We still don’t know why the inuits eat a high fat diet and yet don’t see heart disease, as with the French. We don’t know why the American diet has had such disastrous effects. We don’t know why some people seem to be prone to random outbursts or prone to depression. Perhaps we can identify genes which signal such diseases, we can study ill effects of saturated fats and try to correlate that to the real world. Sometimes it confounds us as to why our results are so inconsistent, and good scientists readily admit that.

The fact is the diversity of humankind makes one study very difficult to be conclusive.

And here’s the final point: Genetics do matter, and there is no way to know for certain what cards you have been dealt. Deal with this inherent uncertainty and do the best you can to remain healthy by your actions.

Finally, there must be some course of action despite all this uncertainty.

My answer is: Take pride in the fact that we have done all we can, and constantly experiment to see what works best for oneself. There will be no better gauge of healthy living than the response from your body, mind and spirit that you’ve done a great job.

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