Maintaining Homeostasis
From a medical perspective, internal good health can be certified by a physician if the individual’s blood and other reports are within the acceptable ranges. Some parameters (and there are several more) include:
| Body temperature |
98.6 F |
| Blood pressure |
120/80 mm/hg |
| Blood sugar (fasting) |
70 - 110 mg/dl |
| Hemoglobin |
11 – 16 mg/dl |
| Total cholesterol |
below 200 mg/dl |
| Total triglycerides |
below 150 mg/dl |
| BMI |
18-23 |
| Resting pulse rate |
68 – 72 bpm |
The maintaining of these internal ranges is autonomically controlled by the brain. This is known as Homeostasis. This internal balance can be affected by illness and infection. Externally, these can be influenced by various lifestyle factors including diet, inactivity, sleep deprivation and so on. This article reviews the various diets, exercises and sleeps enhancing systems and chooses what’s best for maintaining and enhancing internal good health.
1. Biogenic Diet For internal good health, very few diets are better than the Biogenic diet. Variance of this philosophy includes the detox diet and the uncooked foods diet. These diets are an excellent method of spring cleaning the body and ridding it of toxins, by eliminating wastes that have been in the body for years. These toxins and free radicals accumulate in the body by the polluted air we breathe, high fats, chemically preserved fast foods that we eat, and even our time pressured, tension-packed lives and Type-A stress prone result-oriented personalities. Prof. Dwight McKee, Medical Director of the International Health Institute of America, described the modern man’s body as comprising of 70 trillion garbage cans, instead of 70 trillions of vibrant healthy cells. This leads to disbalanced homeostasis, rapid aging, body degeneration and cancer proliferation.
As opposed to the five food groups commonly described in modern day diets (grain, vegetables, fruits, milk and meat products, oil, fat and sugar) the Biogenic diet comprises four categories as follows:
Biogenic foods are life generating foods as in sprouted grains, gram, seeds and nuts. These foods are vitalizing and are beneficial for the repair of body tissue and cells.
Bioactive foods comprise fresh uncooked fruits and vegetables and whole unprocessed grain. These foods form the major foods source, giving the body clean and pure energy, without toxins, and are therapeutic, comprising vitamins, and flavenoids that cleanse the body and purify the blood.
Biostatic foods are cooked foods, comprising grain, vegetables and even animal products such as fish, poultry, eggs, milk etc. These foods are treated as condiments, to be taken in small portions. They do not pollute the body, but they do not purify the body either since through cooking, their vital properties have been destroyed.
Biocidic foods comprise tinned, frozen and processed foods - anything that has chemicals and preservatives. Table sugar, white flour, aerated drinks, fast foods - all come into this category. It is this group that is to be avoided completely and is cited as the main source of body degeneration and modern ailments, including clogged arteries, arthritis, allergies, depression etc. |