The essence of chronic disease: the speed of cell damage exceeds the speed of repair
I have asked a lot of people this question: “how long do you think you can live?”
Most people replied vaguely: “maybe eighties?”
Ask again: “Why can’t you be over 100?”
A lot of people will say, “I don’t know, I think everyone around me is like that.”
Then why on earth is it?
We know that the human body is made up of cells.
In general, when the number of cell deaths reaches 20% of the total, people will die.
In the absence of external interference, the life cycle of cells is basically fixed.
For example, endothelial cells of blood vessels die in one day;
gastric mucosal cells replace every 3 to 5 days;
cells on the surface of the lung live for 2 to 3 weeks;
cells in the outermost stratum corneum of the skin need to be renewed in about 28 days;
liver cells can survive for about 150 days; heart cells renew much more slowly, which takes about 20 years;
but brain cells no longer renew for life.
Therefore, in a person’s life, most of the cells in the body are constantly renewed and repaired through regeneration. Our life is a process in which cells continue to repair themselves.
The essence of illness is that the speed of cell damage exceeds the speed of cell repair.
Excluding congenital and irresistible factors such as heredity (such as diseases caused by chromosomal or genetic abnormalities), external causes (such as transmission of diseases from others or injuries caused by car accidents, burns, etc.), in our daily life, what factors cause cell damage, and which factors affect cell repair?
The answer is unhealthy psychology or unreasonable diet, exercise, sleep and other lifestyles.
Our most common diseases such as coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, tumor, depression, tracheitis, asthma and chronic kidney disease are all caused by inappropriate lifestyle. Medical workers classify these diseases as chronic non-communicable diseases, referred to as “chronic diseases”.
Medical treatment for chronic diseases is costly, with high mortality and disability rates, which are much higher than the number of deaths and disabilities caused by car accidents and wars.
According to statistics, one in five people in China is diagnosed with chronic disease, and the number of deaths caused by chronic disease accounts for 85% of the total number of deaths in China.
Over the years, many countries have tried their best to stop the development of chronic diseases, and the most mainstream way is adversarial therapy-antihypertensive drugs for high blood pressure, hypoglycemic drugs for high blood sugar, removal of tumors, anti-asthma drugs for asthma, and so on.
How did it turn out?
After spending the money and suffering, the man still left.
More and more people are suffering from chronic diseases, which cannot be prevented. Why on earth are the diseases of people with chronic diseases becoming more and more serious and incurable?
The treatment is going in the wrong direction-this kind of adversarial therapy used to be used to deal with diseases caused by external factors.
For example, diseases caused by trauma and viral infection are often used to stop bleeding, anti-inflammation, rescue and vaccination, but they are not suitable for chronic diseases.
Chronic disease is caused by wrong behavior, and correcting wrong behavior is fundamental.
When a person sits in front of the computer for a long time, smoking one cigarette after another, feeling like a living fairy, pursuing delicacy without restriction, and staying up late to create the glory of life, the state of health is getting a little off track.
At this time, there will be some of what we often call sub-health, which is the distress signals sent to us by the body, such as fatigue, pain, allergies, coughing, constipation, diarrhea, increased blood pressure, rising blood sugar.
At this time, we should correct the wrong way of life, solve the causes of the problems, work and rest regularly, increase exercise, quit smoking and drinking, and so on.
But most people’s choice is to take medicine, pressure down the symptoms, cough with cough medicine, constipation with laxative, high blood pressure with antihypertensive drugs, high blood sugar with insulin needles into their bodies again and again.
Heart bypass, stents in blood vessels, thrombolysis, removal of tumors.
These quick ways to cut the mess are actually helpless and belong to temporary cramming, but many people think that this is the ultimate shortcut to health, and even travel all over the world to look for health products or various folk secret recipes. Hoping to use some kind of panacea to get rid of the pain.
How did it turn out?
They didn’t get what they wanted, the disease and pain remained the same, and their life expectancy didn’t prolong much.
In fact, the real “panacea” is around us, in our hands, but many people choose to turn a blind eye.
In the final analysis, chronic disease results from various imbalances, such as lack of sleep, long-term smoking, heavy drinking, inactivity or excessive exercise, unbalanced diet, too much stress, and so on.
The faster the acceleration of this imbalance, the more types it accumulates, the more likely it is to develop a chronic disease, and the age of the disease is much earlier.
Sleep, exercise, smoking, drinking and so on all belong to the way of life, so why do I have to put forward diet alone as a key point?
Because in the process of the game between cell damage and repair, the only thing that can provide raw materials for cell repair is diet.
Just like a balance, there are five weights on the left-sleep, exercise, smoking, drinking, mindset, and only one weight on the right-diet. The mistakes on the left add up to the weight on the right.
There is damage and consumption on the left, repair and replenishment on the right, and the incorrectness of each item on the left is a challenge to the nutritional supplement of the right diet.
The self-repair ability of human cells depends on two main factors, one is the innate cell life cycle, and the other is the acquired nutritional status, namely congenital factors and acquired factors.
Congenital factors (inherent renewal cycle of cells) determine the speed of repair, and acquired factors (nutritional status) determine the quality of repair.
When the speed of cell repair is lower than the rate of injury, the condition will be aggravated.
For example, a person who suffers from high blood pressure and has been taking the same medicine has recently suddenly increased his blood pressure significantly, and his blood sugar has also begun to rise, as well as symptoms such as dizziness, indicating that the rate of repair of his body cells has recently been slower than that of damage.
When the speed of cell repair is equal to the speed of injury, the disease will be sawed all the year round, showing that the condition is stable, but it is always lingering.
For example, a person who has been suffering from diabetes for decades has been taking metformin.
If the dose does not increase, the blood sugar can remain basically stable.
When the rate of cell damage decreases, the repair materials are added, that is, the nutrition is in the right direction, and the disease will develop in a better direction and may even be cured for a long time.
For example, if a person quits smoking, the damage to the respiratory tract is reduced, and some nutrition is added to the symptoms, the person’s chronic bronchitis will improve.
From this level, we can come to the conclusion that the development of disease is a game between cell damage and cell repair.
Chronic disease has been sick for a long time, which actually gives us the opportunity to repair our own cells, that is, we can have time to find out the cause of cell damage, remove the damage factors, and supplement cell repair ingredients with pertinence. The body will be healthier and healthier.
In other words, chronic diseases can be prevented and cured.
Of course, there is a premise here, that is, the degree of cell damage is not irreparable.
Some serious injuries can no longer be repaired, such as kidney failure, tissue that has been myocardial infarction, brain tissue that is necrotic after cerebral thrombosis, and so on.
