The magic of the human body
Our bodies are made up of many trillions of cells. All of these developed from the original cell created when our father’s sperm fertilized our mother’s ovum.
This one cell divides into 2, then 4, 8 and so on until a small ball of identical cells has formed. Then the cells start specializing and form the many types of cell that make up our bodies: muscle, stomach, pancreas, lung, bone, brain and so on.
After 9 months we have the miracle of a new born baby. All these developments are controlled by the nucleus which contains the genes that make us unique and pass from the parent to the baby. In each nucleus is DNA, which is the blueprint or plan for our bodies. This DNA contains all the instructions – boy or girl, fair or brown hair, short or tall – everything which creates the miracle of the human body. When we are born, we should have a perfect set of brand new cells.
But this process of forming new cells does not stop at birth. As our cells age or become damaged, they are removed and replaced by new cells. As the DNA instructions found in the nucleus have not changed, these new cells should be as perfect as the very first original ones, provided the body as all the raw materials to create perfect cells. Just as a builder cannot build a perfect house without wood, bricks, nails, glass and other necessary materials, our bodies cannot create a perfect cell without the necessary vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats. This is the basis of nutritional medicine.
In fact the news is even better, because all our cells are programmed to have a limited life span, after which they are removed and replaced by new cells. We replace sperm and white blood cells every day, stomach cells every 2 days, colon cells every 4 days, skin cells every 3-6 weeks and bone cells every 25 years. Only the brain and nerve cells are not replaced – they are repaired. Thus every year, apart from our nerve and bone cells, all the cells in our body cells are brand new!
If we feed our cells correctly, the new ones should be just as good as the very first cells we were born with. In the womb, a baby receives almost perfect nutrition, because it’s mother supplies this from the food she eats and if this is deficient, nutrients are scavenged from her own body. Once we are born, we can only get nutrition from the food we eat and the supplements we take.
NOW consider an exciting possibility; if your tissues are injured by trauma, infection or disease, as these damaged cells are replaced, this damage can be rectified, and with perfect nutrition, you can create perfect replacement cells.
Nutritional medicine can allow the body to heal itself. The cells of our bodies also have specialized functions:
• Making secretions like saliva and the stomach juices
• Making hormones like insulin and adrenaline, cortisol, melatonin, progesterone
• Attacking invaders (viruses and bacteria) using the white blood cells and the immune system
When we look at thee and all the other complicated systems we have, we begin to realize just what a miracle the body is. When creating a meal, a chef needs the raw ingredients recommended in the recipes he is using. Likewise, in our bodies:
• Our cells, which make secretions, juices and hormones, also need the raw materials to make them
• Our body defense systems require all the nutrients necessary to enable them to identify invaders and abnormal cells
• We need antioxidants to help the body repair oxidative damage
Is it surprising that the body cells do not function optimally when they are not given all the nutrients they need?
Supplying our bodies with a complete range of nutrients:
1. Will enable the body to replace its cells with new ones which can be better than the older damaged ones and be as near perfect as possible.
2. Enables all the cells to function optimally as they were designed to do.
3. Can also help us defend our bodies from attach by the huge number of toxins and free radicals found in our modern polluted world:
• Toxins – sprays, pesticides, heavy metals, fumes, smoke and preservatives.
• Free radicals are unstable damaging molecules with only one instead of paired outer electrons and they damage anything they touch. A free radical steals electrons from nearby molecules, turning them into free radicals, which causes a chain reaction of damage. A free radical is like spark: short lived but very damaging. This process is often called oxidation. Free radicals are caused by many things including stress, saturated fat in our food, sunlight, toxins, fumes, smoke, exercise and radiation.
Our bodies require extra nutritional help to eliminate these toxins and poisons. For example to eliminate excess lead from the body, we need additional calcium, zinc, selenium, vitamin C, flavanoids, and chromium. To eliminate mercury we need selenium, lipoic acid, manganese, chromium, vanadium and so on. Remember, this need for nutrients is over and above our usual daily requirement.
This oxidation caused by free radicals damages the cells and is the basis for the development of many diseases, including heart disease, arthritis, cancer and strokes. Antioxidants in our diet (vitamins, proanthocyanidins an minerals) are compounds which can donate electrons and can help neutralize these free radicals, thus protecting our bodies.
