The biohacking movement just got another boost. Merriam-Webster has officially added the word Biohacking to its dictionary.
Definition of biohacking
Biological experimentation done to improve the qualities or capabilities of living organisms especially by individuals and groups outside of a traditional medical or scientific research environment. That is the official definition.
What I still find fascinating even in this definition is that it is still referred to as non-traditional medicine. We still have an uphill battle. The drug companies and medical schools will continue call this alternative health. They do this to marginalize and cast a shadow on treatments that do not include handfuls of drugs that do nothing more than cover symptoms of a disease that will only continue to get worse.
I personally would much prefer to hack my biology to affect my gene expression to prevent or reverse a disease. Mainstream articles will point to some who are implanting devices or injecting untested substances. While this may be true that there are some who are going this far, But for the most part as group, biohackers are individuals interested in getting the human body to perform at optimal levels. We all know we are capable of so much more. Why should we wait until we are sick to see a Doctor so he can put us on some medication to reduce or cover symptoms of a disease? Meanwhile the disease continues to progress. Requiring ever more medications, which in turn cause further damage to the system creating a need for even more medications. This is exactly what the drug companies want. Clients for life!
In America we refer to ancient Chinese practices and other treatments from around the world that have been used for thousands of years as Alternative Health or Non-Traditional. Do you see the irony in this? The practices that can actually cure and fix many diseases are called Alternative. Meanwhile lab created drugs and surgeries to replace parts of the human body like car parts are referred to as traditional.
It is about time we start to pay attention to our biology. Just changing some of the foods we eat can and will affect or biology. We have a biological response to sugar. It goes as deep as created a real physical addiction. We all know that continued use of high levels of sugar leads to obesity and Diabetes. The main stream solution is more pills. These days you cannot watch prime time TV without seeing commercials for new medications to lower blood sugar levels or reduce the pain from peripheral neuropathy. Thats what they call traditional medicine. How about this little biohack that can prevent and even reverse obesity, diabetes and peripheral neuropathy, stop ingesting/using sugar? Is that really alternative health or just smart?
Multiple articles and research show that 95% of the diseases we suffer from are not genetic. They are environmental, in other words we are doing this to ourselves. We may have a genetic predisposition for a certain disease, but by manipulating our epigenome we can turn on or off the gene expression that would result in disease states. We can do this by limiting certain types of light, eliminating the genetically modified food in our diets, breaking the sugar addiction. These are fairly simple biohacks that will help us live healthier, happier and longer lives.
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Please explain.