Welcome to the blog, where we dive into the essential core fundamentals of human health imperative from the atomic microcosm to the DNA blueprint that codes for all functional and structural proteins that make up the human, as well as the energy interactions that influence the maintenance and sustenance of its vibrancy through life.
Humans have striven to become immortal for centuries. There is an even deeper yearning to live longer, in good health in our generation.
This blog aims to introduce the basic biology of aging in various simple and complex organisms, including humans, which has created changes that eventually lead to diseases.
Our lifestyle profoundly interacts with the process of aging to either promote or prevent these chronic diseases.
To develop the capacity to adopt a healthy lifestyle, we must understand the intricate molecular processes that evolve in our bodies as we grow older to live longer and age better.
It is fascinating from years in medical school to appreciate the reproduction process in mammals, especially humans. I am looking at fertilization and embryogenesis with the intricate and delicately guided change process from a newly fertilized single cell and then two-cell embryo developing to a fetus. Intriguing is that the same cells invariably differentiate into bones, cartilage, hair, and muscles that form different organs and then a baby.
As the baby grows, the cells divide and undergo differentiation under genetic guidance. The environment profoundly influences the changes, sustaining and maintaining growth, contributing to life's long-term survival. It is intriguing that this growth process also contributes to the aging process since cellular regeneration begins.
Medical science had unraveled the underlying process responsible for these very intricate changes resulting from the genetic blueprint that was 'patched together' from two genetically different individuals as parents. Further inquiry and the quest to find answers had prompted the search for a structured understanding of the biological basis for aging.
What has the mind got to do with health?
Throughout history, aging and disease have been a battle that human beings have had to fight even when they know they may not win. However, there has been a giant leap in understanding the universal relationship between matter and energy about health over the last decade or so. Scientists also understood the aging process better through an inclusive and intricate understanding of universal energy, including the interaction with the human brain through the connections that we now understand to be the mind.
Therefore it has become imperative to note that understanding the biological and molecular mechanisms that drive cellular transformation and growth depends on the tertiary and quaternary conformation of functional and structural proteins.
Scientific knowledge has established that their influence and control are possible by manipulating the microcosmic environment from genetics to cell metabolism and growth through the invocation of the energy mechanisms of the brain's alignment to universal energy - the mind.
Epigenetics to the rescue
There are approximately 35-50 trillion cells in the human body, and all originate from a pair of gametes that eventually got fertilized into embryogenesis.
One of the maps or atlas recently been made public focused on 15 fetal types of tissues from phases of development after conception. The process they used generated three rounds of splitting and labeling every cell, which ended up with a unique combination of 3 DNA barcodes, making it possible to keep track of the cells without physically extracting or separating.
It is understood that after fertilization of the gametes, the resulting cell subsequently continues to replicate exact copies of the original cell; however, downstream, one of the cells begins to differentiate to neurons, and others follow suit to become hepatocytes, epithelial, and so on.
While researchers found 77 main cell types, they further classified them into 657 subtypes, most were tissue-specific, but others were found in multiple tissue cells.
The way a cell develops depends on the tissue environment and epigenetic modification, which we shall discuss later in another blog post.
When broken down as shown in the Atlas mapping of the genome, endothelial cells and blood vessels acquire the contractile ability to respond to different Oxygen levels in the lungs based on their initial interactions.
The epigenetic changes are made possible because chromatin and histone proteins can be modified by environmental factors, creating conformational changes in the histones that expose stretches of accessible DNA strands that are amenable to altering molecular machinery and others tightly looped inside without the same accessibility.
This has opened the understanding of genetic regulation by switching on a gene for phenotypic expression or suppression. For Instance, regions of DNA associated with T2DM were accessible in the Islets of the pancreas, liver, and stomach.
This has created the enabling environment for research around the paradigm of lifestyle modifications, chronic diseases, and developmental disorders.
So this blog series shall methodically focus on reorganization of the chaotic, noisy chatter scattered in the information highway and create a clear understanding of the imperatives and fundamentals of health and healthy living, thereby empowering readers to design their health using the umbrella of the Mouth, Muscle, and Mind.
I shall furthermore explore the Mind and the relationship between Man and Matter concerning healthy living within the confines of the universe. All ancient civilizations, including religion, understood the unique nature of humankind and that old religious belief systems were right about the innate quality of man to be self-healing, self-maintaining, self-sufficient with a divine nature to live forever.
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