248. Using Genetics to Personalize Health Optimization
Like most people who end up in functional medicine, Kashif’s story starts with his own health. He had a number of health issues, from eczema to psoriasis, acid reflux, depression, and more – and the traditional healthcare system had failed him in their treatment. As his health was declining, he met with a friend in the healthcare field who dove deeper into his genetics and learned that all of these problems had a root cause.
Your genes act as a set of instructions for your body, but some of those instructions can be wrong. Typically, a geneticist will only study those who are unhealthy. Kashif set out to look at those who have the same genetic disposition as people with an illness, but who are healthy. What he learned was that your environment, nutrition, and lifestyle habits act as variables in whether or not those predisposed for illness actually get sick. It’s endlessly fascinating stuff.
If we can stop treating illness as something that applies to everyone the same way, and start looking at how our personalized genetics are determining our health outcomes, the world could soon be free of chronic illness.
The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway
“The understanding of why disease happens is completely off. Chronic disease is a choice. It's not – My family has heart disease. My family has breast cancer – and then you wait to see. What your family had was risk. And then they had wrong environment, nutrition, and lifestyle loads that caused the risk to manifest. So if you understand what those things are, then all of a sudden disease becomes optional.”
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