Melissa Jones

Wow. I went to the conference mainly for a kick in the pants back to higher compliance. I certainly got that, and it was relatively painless, but this was no Weight Watcher's meeting...I got so much more than I ever expected. 2005 tickled some neurons I didn't know I had, but 2007 may have changed the whole form and function of my brain! I'm tempted to say it was more worthwhile than my college education, but of course, that helped prepare me to receive it all. My college education planted a lot of questions in my mind that it did not answer, and I feel I've now received some answers to those nagging questions.

Here's some of the more hands-on stuff:

1. Night owls are more prone to a myriad of health problems, but can become normal or morning birds with a little intervention. I used to be a morning person, before college, and I did still have both forms of SAD (seasonal affective disorder, and standard american diet) the latter SAD served to cancel out many of the benefits of an earlier schedule. I think combining both BTD with better scheduling will finish off what seasonal affective disorder remains. Of course I've dragged down my children's schedules along with me, so this will take work! Last night they went to bed earlier than the night before, but I'm no pro at this part of parenting. I owe it to them and me to pull our schedules back up. "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." that aphorism has scientific backing.

2. Epigenetics: they touched on this in the last conference, but really spent some time on it this time and covered the mechanisms of it. Wow. That will be a whole blog or more right there. Basically, the time to change the health of the world is before a woman conceives and during pregnancy. Poor lifestyle choices at this time give rise to the major health problems of our day. Women need to eat adequate calories and most importantly get adequate nutrition, not only from supplements but from healthy food. Health interventions at this point deny the existence of health problems in future generations. That's frightening to me, considering the standard american diet, but also hopeful that the current epidemics of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. can be turned around...likely faster than they could be cured. It was the portion on epigenetics that helped me decide to get tested for master's certification. I just love learning stuff like this! That intense interest of mine also what turned me into a biotechnology major when I planned on Family Science or Humanities. I just can't turn off the curiosity!

To over-simplify it, phenotype changes to adapt to environment, these changes can be passed on, and phenotype is often more important than genotype when it comes to one's eventual outcome.

3. The segment on detoxification pathways was as interesting as ever. Most people have trouble somewhere along the chain of events that removes toxins from our bodies, some of us have more trouble than others. It is the biological basis for those of us who complain about chemicals more than others.

4. Quality of life was addressed quite heavily, I thought. The purpose of extending and improving life is to allow us more time and ability to express ourselves and find meaning, and to help others do the same. Doing so, well, that is good medicine, and results in better health outcomes and a better world.

So, I'm back on the bandwagon, and understand more about why I fell off it. I found an oxystress kit in my shelves that I had forgotten to use. The results weren't good, but it gives me something to work on and a cheap measure of how I'm doing on my diet. In 4 weeks, it should be better. My diet wasn't going so well before a few days ago, we'd been working on our house and without a whole kitchen for a while, so it was convenience food all the way with ne're a green thing in sight. I'm not surprised that my oxidative levels were in the very high range. It's always nice to have a gauge of improvement to look to.