Choosing our Diseases

Yesterday I wrote about mindfulness with an emphasis on mindfulness and eating.  Last evening during the local PBS fundraiser, I watched "Protect Your Memory" with Dr. Neal Barnard.  Dr. Barnard inherited the gene that predisposes him to Alzheimer's disease, so his interest in researching what people can do to avoid or at least delay memory loss is a personal one.  He described a few simple steps to eating, exercise, sleep, and other means to delay this horrible disease.

My own family medical history predisposes me to coronary-artery disease and diabetes. A recent public service advertisement campaign has made me aware the women are more likely to have heart attacks, increasing the attention I should give to the coronary-artery disease.  It works out that many of the things that one does to avoid Alzheimer's are the same as those to prevent my genetic challenges.

Many years ago, I attended a "Mind-Body Medicine" conference at Duke University Medical School, one of two or three pioneering research universities to explore out ability to control our physical fates.  It has been way too long for me to remember who the speaker was, but I distinctly recall a description of the impact our DNA has on our long-term health.  "Think about DNA," he said, "as providing us a door to a disease.  Our lifestyle choices determine whether we open the door."

The decision, made by my parents when I was 10 and my brother was 7 to shift us to a low-fat diet to reduce our likelihood of opening the door to coronary-artery disease, was a fortunate one.  My decision as an adult to continue to reduce my intake of "bad fats" while increasing consumption of "good fats" has continued to help me avoid opening that door.  My decision in my early 30s to begin running daily and to continue exercising regularly continues to support that decision.  Those two decisions have combined to keep my weight in the healthy range, which reduces the likelihood that I will get diabetes.  According to Dr. Barnard, those decisions have had the additional benefit of protecting my memory.

By contrast, the treadmill of working long hours in recent years which seems always to race faster has often precluded my daily exercise, With that said, even in bad weeks, I usually get my heart rate up for at least 30 minutes two or three times a week.  It ends up that my decision to get rid of my car in 2010 and depend on my feet, a decision originally made to protect the environment, has been a good one for these various health challenges as well.

Most often, when I've rounded the corner on exercise, it has been because I want to make sure my customers are well served.  However, I am realizing that perhaps I've been making a false choice about exercising.  I've framed the decision as "Do I serve my customers well?" or "Do I not serve my customers well?"  With my increased mindfulness, I now see that the real choice is "Do I go beyond reason on customer service?" or "Do I choose to keep the doors to my DNA closed so I may enjoy long-term health?" Although I tend not to be motivated much by money, there may have been days when I made the decision between "Do I skip exercise to put in the 10th or 12th hour of the day to get a miniscule bonus at the end of the year?" or "Do I skip the bonus and choose health?" Those are very different choices.

At a regular meeting of people interested in mind-body medicine at Duke in the late 1990s, one of the Kaisers of Kaiser Family Foundation spoke about the next 20-25 years in medicine.  What he predicted then has now significantly come to pass in the 15 years since he spoke.  He said that by 2020-2025 we would understand the causes of most debilitating health challenges, and we would hold the ability to determine our health in our own hands.

As I've just discussed, we now know how to prevent or delay coronary-artery disease, Alzheimer's, and diabetes.  In the years since, we've learned to avoid if not prevent certain kinds of cancers. I don't think we've got to the point the speaker described when we can avoid diseases altogether, but then again, it isn't yet 2020-2025. I would add to his comments that we not only hold or will soon hold the ability to determine our health in our hands, but we also hold that fate in our consciousness.

Which brings us back to intention and mindfulness.  Will we bring the intention to have health to life by being mindful about the choices that we make moment by moment?  I would like to think that I could and would.  I know I have the intention.  Yet intention without the mindfulness to choose in each moment to support that intention is empty.  I certainly have discovered that my willingness to be honest with myself about the choices I am actually making to close the door on disease and to open the door to a long and healthy life with support my intention.