FEATURE

Health is environmental?

Prof. B. M. Hegde,

hegdebm@gmail.com

“Skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”                 -Thomas Huxley

We have been depending too much on reductionist science to believe that health and diseases are basically controlled by our genes. This myth has now been blown apart and our genes, if anything, have very little to do with our evolution and even our existence here. That apart, we now know that we can even change our genetic pattern, if needed, by our environment. Our life style changes for the better can change even our genetic pattern. This has been recently shown in the case of killer diseases of old age. 

If one is healthy and well at a given point in time it is just chance; if one, on the other hand one is ill and suffering it is also chance! No science can predict either of those events with any degree of certainty! Doctors have been predicting the unpredictable future of patients for generations based on some phenotypic features called risk factors. A very large prospective study followed up for 25 long years has shown that there are no “risk factors” as far as human diseases are concerned. The said MRFIT study did further show that the so called risk factors could be controlled by drugs or surgery but the risk, if it is there, still works itself successfully!

With the onset of quantum wisdom, we have been now able to comprehend much more than what we could grasp with our five senses. Quantum world view opens a new vista in human physiology where we can get a wider holographic view of human life at a given point in time. So called life style management also gets a new meaning in quantum world view. In the old Einstein-Newtonian world view life style changes are simply wok, sleep, food, exercise, stress reduction, the physical environments like air, water, earth, weather etc. in addition to the medical money spinners like hypertension, diabetes, obesity and what have you. Although this has made a dent in the morbidity pattern they did not make a huge difference. In addition the powerful drugs used to control the risk factors have brought in their wake many adverse drug reactions, some of them being even fatal.

In the new world view human mind assumes special significance. Reductionist science does not take the mind into considerations seriously although some fringe studies did show some mental altered states like depression, and frustration leading to serious illnesses. The main line medicine is yet to give importance to the mind as it is not yet sure where the mind is? The Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield in his elaborate reductionist studies put the mind inside the brain but later realised his folly and in 1971 admitted that the mind cannot be confined to a small organ like the brain. Mind is our consciousness-the canvas on which our thoughts are projected. Consciousness is fundamental and all else will have to arise from consciousness, wrote Max Planck! Matter and energy being the two faces of the same coin the human body becomes an illusion of the human mind. In view of this new scientific awareness the real environment for our healthy living or even for recovery from any illness should be the human mind. 

A healthy mind is an insurance against diseases and is a tool in reversing disease processes, many of them like cancer keep incubating for very long times. Our mind is at work in every disease situation from common cold to cancer. In the latter case the cancer cells, “aimless, jobless wandering cells” that have mutated to survive a hostile environment in our bodies urgently need a conducive environment to remodel and survive. Our reductionist idea of early cancer detection (a big business move for the cancer industry) is a fraud as these wandering cells have gone far and wide long before the cancer can be clinically detected. Hence there is nothing called “early” cancer detection. Sometimes the secondaries come up before the primary cancer shows up! Now one can understand the significance of the need for a healthy mind to keep us physically also healthy. For the lay person what should be the meaning of a healthy mind?

Healthy mind is a mind filled with “enthusiasm to work and enthusiasm to be compassionate.” This all-encompassing definition covers all parts of health. The words are chosen carefully. Enthusiasm is not just wanting to do a thing but a compulsive motivation to do that. Enthusiasm to work is the love for work-want to work and NOT have to work! Similarly, enthusiasm to be compassionate is a compulsive urge to be of some use to someone almost always, nay to be universally compassionate. If one follows these two mottos in life there is no room for any negative thoughts in the mind like hatred, jealousy, superego, anger, pride, and greed (that too Wall Street greed)? The latter are the real risk factors for all major killer diseases!

In the true sense of the word the real environment for the human wellness and illnesses is the human mind. Rest of the conventionally acclaimed risk factors are not the real environment although they do contribute to the final outcome. Genetics has given place to epigenetics. Human mind sits in the driving seat in human affairs which can even alter the gene penetrance. Charles Darwin and Gregory Mendel have been given an undeservedly exalted position in medical textbooks although the neo Darwinists still want to hang on to their coat strings as there is money in genetic profiling, genetic engineering, stem cell research, dead body and cord blood preservation etc. Charles Darwin himself, in his old age and, before him, his own grandfather Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck had clearly said that the environment is more important than the genes in human evolution. The new science of evolutionary biology has strongly reiterated that truth.

Like people who search for the God inside mud and stone structures these scientists have been searching for the real environment far outside this real environment of the human mind in BP, sugar, cholesterol , tummy girth and what have you? Our future generation at least should have the benefit of this truth. We have to bring forth a generation of our youth with a healthy mind. In that direction real education takes the cake. Today education is aimed at making a wealthy career for the child. That is not education. The real education is to make a healthy mind out of every child and not just a wealthy career. If every Indian child develops a healthy mind with enthusiasm to work and enthusiasm to be compassionate all our society ills like terrorism, laziness, crime, rape etc. will vanish without any effort on our part. Can I hope that the powers that be would change the base of education policy which would lay the foundation for a healthy mind in every child?

“21st century illiterate is one who cannot unlearn the wrong things that he has learnt and relearn the right things.”                                                                  -Anon