Health
When you hear the word health, what’s the first thing that comes into your mind? Is it the health care systems? The hospitals? Your doctor? Your next visit? What is it?
Regardless of your answer, health is generally the state of well being and if you’re listening to this I’m sure you’re chasing after that. But do you know exactly what that entails? And if you know, are you sure you understand?
In this chapter we’re going deep on what it actually means to be healthy, how your body is designed to meet this requirement, your DNA functions and how it can bring about health and disease, how the body is designed to heal itself, and how to actually start it up.
Body Design
Your body is created in different designs. You have the physical design that makes you the person you can see, and touch, and then there’s an inward design: the structure and processes that have been fashioned to support and maintain your physical nature. These are the processes that help your body fight against diseases and anything that might pose danger to your physical structure – a term well known as the immune system.
Your immune system is like a military defense system. It has soldiers sworn to protect you against internal and external threats such as infections and diseases or even better, help you recover after an injury.
So how do this soldiers handle their work?
If I may use an anology,
Just like soldiers guarding a territory, your body processes are incredible backups that come into function when there’s an attack or an attempt for something to cause harm.
Take for instance your chopping something in the kitchen with a very sharp knife and accidentally it lands on one of your fingers.
What will happen?
Obviously you’ll start bleeding. Now, what most people will do is place the bleeding area under a running water, before anything else, and there’s one thing you’ll notice; The more the water is running over the injured area, the less likely the bleeding is to stop.
Why?
Because the water is wiping away every attempt your defence processes are making to come together and stop the bleeding.
But, in case you cleaned the area and wrapped a bandage around it, your soldiers would get a peaceful moment to come together and cause clotting processes, which will eventually stop the bleeding.
Now, what this is showing us is that, with the right condition the body can actually take care of itself.
Another practical example is that of someone that has had an accident and their bones fractured. Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself. One thing you might have noted during your treatment or what the doctors do as part of management is ensuring that the bones are well aligned followed by a cast to maintain that position.
For some the alignment might involve surgery. Now aligning allows new cells to form and bring the bone back together.
But incase your doctor didn’t align the bones well, the new cells won’t stop forming but now you’ll end up with a deformity because the cells are multiply toward a wrong direction.
What makes all this healing to occur?
As we said earlier these healing processes are made possible through your immune system which we associated with bunch of soldiers offering protection.
Now, these soldiers are divided into two. You have the first line of defense and the second line.
The first line is the physical and chemical barrier
These are always ready to defend and protect the body against infections and any external harm.
They include:
- Skin
It protects the outside of your body.
Unless the skin is damaged, it offers protection against external organisms that might otherwise cause diseases.
- Tears, mucous, saliva
These are the main entry points for most pathogens (germs – bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi that make you sick), but luck enough tears, mucous, and saliva have enzymes that can ill any harmful organism.
Those that cannot be killed immediately are trapped in mucous and swallowed but get killed in the stomach acid.
- Digestive system
Your digestive system has a variety of protective mechanism such as bile, stomach acid, and other intestinal secretions that together help kill any harmful bacteria or simply hinder their multiplication.
- Mucous membrane
Just like the skin protects the outside of your body, mucous membrane is the moist lining that protects the inside of your body for example the lining in your nose, mouth, stomach etc.
The walls along your airway are coated with mucus which helps trap any microorganism that might have been trapped in the air when breathing in.
- Cilia
Cilia are the fine hairs lining your respiratory system. They trap and move harmful particles away from the lungs.
- Friendly bacteria
You have beneficial bacteria growing throughout your body; on your skin, in your gut in your mouth and many other places and these bacteria help level out harmful bacteria.
- Urine flow.
Urine flow flushes out any harmful bacteria from your bladder area.
The body’s second line of defense
In the event that pathogens get past your first defense line, let’s say through a cut on your skin and you develop an infection, the second line of defense becomes activated.
It basically involves different organs, tissues and cell, all working together in a series of processes to protect you against harm.
For instance your white blood cells will run to the area under attack to destroy the invader and prevent any illness from happening. Your platelets will do the same incase of bleeding to bring about clotting processes.
So before your body gets really overwhelmed to a point that you need medication, a lot must have gone on and that’s why it’s important to not jump into medications the moment you feel something wrong in your body.
Having seen how the body’s natural functions and processes impact health, lets now take a closer look at how the DNA plays a master piece in the whole concept of health, healing and disease occurrences.