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Last October (2014), I'd become increasingly depressed. The tsunami of frightening statistics revealing a relentlessly increasing burden of chronic degenerative disease, the toxic soup we continue to create and must live in, the diminishing levels of vital nutrients in our food supply-all taking their toll on human health and potential to change the game-seemed overwhelming.
I was worried about my (as yet nonexistent) grandchildren's phenotype. Would they be irrevocably harmed in utero? Were harmful epigenetic changes occurring in my son (and daughter-in-law-to-be) that would shorten their health spans and compromise the health of their children-and grandchildren? Would I be able to remain functional long enough to even know, much less play with, my grandchildren?
The Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute (PMLI) Second Annual Thought Leaders Conference restored my faith in medicine's potential to optimize health and life span, not in some generic (and, therefore, meaningless, in practical terms) sense, but in each unique individual human being. Kuhn was there in spirit; this meeting was a seminal moment in the scientific revolution of our time.
We witnessed the second (please see Editor Pizzorno's editorial IMCJ 12.5,1 which reported on the first one) coming together of stellar thought leaders in the evolution of 21st-century medicine. Guided by the unparalleled capacity of Jeff Bland, PhD, for creating synthesis, we watched unfold, over 3 extremely interesting days, the integration of remarkable futuristic insights with tangible application. Present were the visionaries driving the evolution of the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), and, of course, the PLMI with Dr Bland being both the impetus and organizer for the collaboration.
Just imagine yourself channeling the contributions of functional medicine, natural medicine, systems biology, genetics, and epigenetics through apps made possible by 21st-century digital technology to produce actionable health-promoting insight into the unique "omic" essence of YOU.
Following are a few of the paradigm-shifting pearls.i Also, the order of presenters below is according to my thoughts on the progression of the theme of the conference:
James Fries, MD, Stanford University Emeritus Professor of Medicine
A legend in his own time, Dr Fries, who introduced us to the concept of health span back in 1980, shared his thoughts on the "Compression of...