The Really Big Question: Is Chocolate No Longer the Key to Health?
Want to Better Understand Your Health? Look Deep Down Inside
Eat these foods, not those. Fat is bad, now good. Aspirin, supplements, multi-vitamins. For anyone puzzled by the volume and sometimes conflicting health recommendations, you have plenty of company. As recently highlighted by an Atlantic article, an IMS study of five common conditions found Wikipedia health entries updated 16 to 46 times per month. In an age where we are sending robots to Mars, can health be this complicated?
Nick Lane, a biochemist at University College London, provides an answer in “The Vital Question: Why is Life the Way It Is?” He takes us all the way down into the structure of cells. Combining chemistry and physics, Lane asks we consider the role of energy in organizing life. Energy, it turns out, helps us examine how atoms form cells, which make up organisms and all living things. Lane also has some ideas on what this arrangement may mean for future research, as well as our own health.
The reader needs to do some work, though, as a handful of scientific terms and concepts — necessary to convey important ideas — are likely unfamiliar. However, it is well worth the effort. As the author points out, “we spend billions of dollars a year on biomedical research…[yet] how can we hope to understand disease if we have no idea why cells work the way they do?”
Lane takes us through all kinds of wondrous workings at the cellular level, ultimately concluding the key to life’s design lies in the way energy is generated within the cells themselves. Essentially, energy “pumps protons across a membrane…[and is] used to power work in the same way as a turbine in a hydroelectric dam.” Who knew?
Yet despite the latest research, much mystery remains. As the author writes, “perhaps the easiest part to answer…[is] life as we know it is based on carbon.” Why? The carbon atom can form “four strong bonds…[which] allow an extraordinary variety of long-chain molecules, notably proteins, lipids, sugars and DNA,” all necessary ingredients and the building blocks of life.
Exploring chemistry to the limits of this non-expert, Lane includes in his discussion the oxidant and antioxidant reactions inside cells and part of our normal body function. I’ll skip the details, but the punchline is this: science gave up on “antioxidants = healthy” over a decade ago. I found this quite unsettling, as I rarely miss an opportunity to include “chocolate” and “antioxidants” whenever candy becomes a topic of conversation. So much for that miracle molecule touted monthly in health magazines and media outlets, not to mention chocolate wrappers.
No doubt more will come as science explores the innermost boundaries of our chemical and physical nature. Some of it may ultimately find its way into dietary guidelines, USDA food pyramids, and magazine covers. For now, Lane’s book provides a thought provoking addition to how life operates behind the curtains. It’s worth taking a peek.
Thanks for reading. Comments and suggestions for other topics welcome.
Below are a few other posts on my experience with digital health and the health industry in general:
· “The Future of Healthcare is Now: My Teladoc Story”
· “Why I Questioned My Surgeon’s Advice. And Glad I Did”
· “Healthcare’s New Model: Pandora, Digital Ads, and Consumerism?”
· “Mobile Health Apps: One Parent’s Maiden Voyage with First Derm”
· “Is Blood Testing The Next Thing? Is Mark Cuban Right (Again)?
Below are reviews of popular titles in the health space:
· Dr. Eric Topol’s “The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands” here.
· Steven Brill’s “America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System” here.
· Athenahealth Co-Founder and CEO, Jonathan Bush, “Where Does It Hurt: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Fixing Health Care” here.
· Dr. Marty Makary’s “Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Healthcare” here.
· Frank Sloan’s and Lindsey Chepke’s, “Medical Malpractice” here.
· Barry Werth’s, “The Antidote: Inside the World of New Pharma” here.
· Dr. Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End” here.
· Dr. Robert Wachter’s “The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age” here.
I’ve also written about nutrition, money, behavior and other (mostly) related topics. On LinkedIn and Medium.
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