The real cause of chronic diseases

Summary

Chronic diseases are the result of the wrong fat in the wrong place.

The new paradigm is to focus on our intelligent control system, which regulates our bodies. We do this by feeding our gut-brain by breeding beneficial microbes in organic waste to form biologically active soil, growing and eating plants while fresh to feed our gut-brain, and training our head-brain that food is secure.

This leaves us satisfied so we no longer crave food.

This contrast with the conventional paradigm of restricting calories which has not been effective as it leaves us craving food.

The failure of simple calorie restriction

The remedy which has been promoted for decades is eat less and exercise more. This has not been successful. The calorie theory is a valid explanation of how we get fat but does not explain why we get fat. The right answer to the wrong question.

We have an intelligent control system that regulates our bodies, particularly our appetite. If it decides we need to store more fat it sends out hormones that make us feel hungry and eat more.

With determination we may be able to override that for a short time, but not for long.

If we want success in overcoming chronic diseases we have to learn how to change the signals coming from our intelligent control system.

Adaptive or self-learning controls

We have yet to fully understand how this intelligent control system works but engineers have a good understanding of the complex intelligent control used to control difficult engineering problems which we can use as a model.

They work on the principle of adaptive control. The controller makes a small change to the system and observes the results. Based on the result it will compute an improved change to the system and again observe results.

This can happen hundreds of times a second and as all data is logged rapidly acquires a comprehensive understanding of the operating characteristics of the system.

This is the way humans manage complex tasks like riding a bike or catching a ball. It all happens in our subconscious brain at speeds far higher than our conscious brain can operate so we are not even aware it is happening.

Continuous blood sugar monitoring

Our bodies appear to work in a similar way as I see from wearing a continuous blood sugar monitor. I can see the changes in my blood sugar and the loads on my body which demonstrates the similarity between our bodies and mechanical intelligent control systems.

Our intelligent control system has two parts, the first in our gut which provides short-term intelligence while our head brain provides long-term data storage or memory.

Swarm intelligence

We can understand the intelligence in our gut from swarm intelligence which we can study in many insects, birds and slime moulds. The trillions of cells in our gut communicate with their neighbours providing this swarm intelligence.

For this to work effectively we need the appropriate species of microbes in our gut and we have to feed them.

The long-term memory in our head allows us to train the control system.

Functions of food types

We need relatively simple food for energy, complex chemicals to replace our body parts as they age and wear and food to feed the microbes in our gut.

The control system will only send out signals to make us feel satisfied so we want to stop eating when it senses that all these three types of food are available.

Changing paradigms

If we are to resolve the epidemic of chronic disease we have to recognise that the current paradigm of calorie balance is simplistic and learn how to direct our inbuilt intelligent control system.

Gbiota is a social movement of people dedicated to the prevention of chronic diseases by ensuring that the community has viable access to food, at an affordable price, which will correct for these deficiencies by breeding beneficial microbes in organic waste, then growing and eating plants while still fresh.

We aim to either teach people, or local growers, how to grow these plants themselves.

Dynamic situation

The change from the calorie-restricting paradigm to the new paradigm of managing our intelligent control system is dynamic.

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