Your Next Body

Ever feel annoyed with your body and catch yourself wishing it would be different? Daydreaming perhaps about what your “next” body would be like? We often hope for magic wands to solve our ailments or cross our fingers that our healthcare providers have a spare body part hidden away in a closet that would be perfect for us. Sorry to rain on your parade, but there’s no magical wands and no “spare parts” for most of our troubles. However, what if I told you that it’s possible for you to get busy working on that “next body” for yourself - right now!? With the new year upon us, now is the time that people start to promise themselves that they will focus on making positive changes. Unfortunately, that often falls off the rails in a few weeks or months, perhaps because we aren’t seeing instant results. It’s hard to continue to believe that our positive changes are in fact “doing” something when we can’t see it right away. Patience is required when endeavouring to make lasting changes in our health, but it’s worth it, especially when we consider that we are constantly building our “next” body. 

Our cells, and therefore our tissues and organs, are constantly turning over - every day. Even in the absence of injury, cells grow, function and then are programmed to die off, replaced by new cells. Each cell type lives for different periods of time  but virtually every tissue is being built, broken down, and rebuilt constantly. Here’s some examples. Red blood cells circulate in our body for approximately 120 days then are “removed’ from their duties and broken down. Our bone marrow is constantly producing more, so we can maintain a healthy amount. So the red blood cells you have today, will all be brand new in about 4 months! The lining of our intestines takes a beating as it is exposed to toxins and stomach acids constantly. Every 5-7 days, we have a whole new lining (new “epithelial” cells) inside our intestines! Think if you had to replace the coating on the inside of the pipes in your house every week! That’s no small task, but your body takes it on as if it’s just a walk in the park! Bones. They seem rather inert and just scaffolding, especially once we are done growing our frame,  but they are actually very active tissues. Even in the absence of fractures, about 10% of our entire skeleton is replaced each year! Our skin - an important barrier to the outside world, is replaced about every 2-3 weeks. We used to think that myocytes (the muscle cells in the heart),could not regenerate as after scarring occurs following a heart attack, it’s hard for cells to “grow back”. However newer research suggests that there is actually turnover of the entire cell population of the heart every 3-4.5 years, with that rate increasing up to 50 times in the event of an injury to the organ. More research is needed, but understanding that our tissues regenerate and cells are constantly turning over, gives us exciting new directions for healthcare - and for home care. 

“Regenerative Medicine” is a bit of a buzz word these days. As we learn more about how cells are stimulated to regenerate, we can develop new ways to try to trigger this process when it appears to have stalled out for some reason, or scale it to help recover from injury or disease faster. Injecting stem cells from our own adipose tissue (fat), growth factors from our own blood, or irritants to trigger our body to get busy regenerating tissues itself, is already being done - and has been for years with much success. So following injury or disease, improving function of surrounding cells, annnd stimulating new growth in affected areas are both important avenues to consider in recovery.

In home care - or self care, we should also keep in mind that our body is constantly working on our new, “next" body. So what we eat, how much we sleep, how much exercise we get, our stress levels and our mindset can all have an impact on not only how we feel today, but also on the body we’re working on for the future. So even if you don’t see ‘immediate” results with your new year’s resolutions, keep them anyways and know that it’s helping set the stage for your next body. You’re already building another one, so why not make sure it’s better than the one you’ve got now!!