Creating Change for the Better
Happy Birthday
This is a decidedly different post. I have just had my eighty-fifth birthday. Very nice party – but a time for reflection.
I was thirty-five when I formed Moldflow pioneering my career in computer-aided engineering. This involved a lot of paradigm busting, brushing away old ways of thinking and replacing them with the new ways that computer simulation enabled.
But this was a battle to change thinking between engineers and I am an engineer so I was fighting on my home turf.
Tough Battle
This was a tough battle, and although I am still fit and healthy you don’t have to be a brilliant mathematician to see that eighty-five is a lot bigger than thirty-five.
Gbiota, at its core, is still about paradigm shifting but the scale of the battle is just so much bigger. Chronic diseases are the biggest health problem across the globe.
Being overweight is everywhere, don’t bother about statistics just go to the local shopping centre.
Diabetes is the most rapidly expanding disease with eight million people a year suffering from a limb amputation, heart attacks are the most common cause of death and at eighty-five dementia is a real threat – sitting in a wheelchair, peeing your pants and wondering who those pesky kids are who keep calling you grand-dad.
If you are one of that diminishing minority that thinks human suffering matters this is an immense challenge.
If you are one of that rapidly expanding majority that thinks the only thing that matters is money then the global health costs are measured in the multi-trillions.
The battle over paradigms
Again the battle is over paradigms.
The old way of thinking is that chronic diseases are a medical issue which will be solved by medical technology.
The new way of thinking is that chronic diseases may appear to be a medical problem but they will be solved by food technology.
Wrong fat in the wrong place
It is simple. The underlying cause of chronic diseases is the wrong fat in the wrong place and that, quite correctly, stems from overeating.
But we overeat because we are not feeding the intelligent control system which regulates our appetite.
The microbes in our gut communicate with their neighbours to create swarm or group intelligence which, together with our head brain, regulates our appetite.
It does this by manufacturing hormones which make us crave specific types of food which we have learned about from our accumulated experience of eating food over our lifetime. That information is stored in our head brain which works at the subconscious level – we have no conscious control over what our sub-conscious brain does.
Food not pills
Our modern food system does not feed our gut-brain so it generates hormones to make us hungry.
We may be able to override our hunger cravings for a while but they will always win in the end. That is why telling people to eat less and exercise more does not work long term.
The solution is to feed our gut-brain which includes enhancing the microbes which live in our gut and drive the process.
We know exactly how to do that – breed beneficial microbes in soil which includes both organic waste and a spectrum of minerals, which is the food for the microbes.
Three snags
But there are three big snags.
The first snag is that it is incredibly inexpensive. Yes, you read that right, inexpensive. Breeding beneficial microbes can be done for next to nothing by collecting organic waste and incorporating this into a special soil and growing plants in this soil.
So why is ‘inexpensive’ the problem?
Because of snag number two which is that it must be done right to breed the beneficial microbes and not the harmful microbes which are equally keen to breed.
This is a catch-22. Because there is no expensive product to sell there is no money to promote and teach people how to feed their gut-brain.
Companies selling drugs like Ozemic, which costs about a thousand dollars a month have plenty of money to promote their expensive pills.
Snag number three is that we live in an age of disinformation. The web is saturated with very effective, manipulative advertising so that no one (or at least no one with a basic thinking capacity) believes anything they see on the web.
But I do know that people will listen to and follow real people (no Avatars thanks) they trust.
Don’t sit in the corner and rock
Now before we sit in the corner and rock, or hit the bottle or whatever is your method of coping – there is a solution.
In theory, it is simple but in practice not so easy.
We have to form a small group, not the entire population of eight billion people – so how many? This small group needs to change their gut biota to show what happens.
Eating gut-brain food and showing that this really does curb appetite and avoids food cravings is hard evidence.
Forming a lead group
How many people should be in this group?
Robin Dunbar may have the answer. He suggested that the maximum number of people we can effectively communicate with is 150.
But there is a little twist to the story which I discovered when I gave a talk to the local organic growers association. They were not that motivated by my talk, which was a little frustrating until I looked at the audience of about fifty people.
They looked a similar age to me (eg old) but they all looked fit and healthy and were certainly very different to the people I see at the shopping centre.
We have to work with the people that need help.
Diabetics
We need to focus on a group that needs help, and there is no group that needs help more than diabetics. The standard procedure as soon as someone is diagnosed as diabetic is to start medication of some, sort, typically Metformin.
If that may be proved essential later but the first action should be diet. But it is no good just telling people if their hormones are telling them differently so the first action should be to change the way their gut works so they want to change their diet.
The magnificent dozen
So my thinking is that we should aim for a small core group of about a dozen people. They may not need help themselves but can be leaders of a group again of about a dozen, who are at risk of suffering from a chronic disease.
How do we find these dozen people to act as group leaders? I have no idea but I do believe in the power of ‘group think’ so if you have an idea how to create this group of group leaders please, let me know.
Colin
