Every aspect of human life begins with physical, emotional and social well-being. Each of us in the same in that respect: we have bodies comprised of skin, muscles, hair, eyes, a circulatory system and a digestive system, and a thousand details we may never fully understand. Some bodies are more ideal than others, but we all do the best we can with what we’ve got. We process food, gain and lose weight, maintain good health, watch our bodies grow then age, make babies, care for one another. The control center seems to be the human brain, and within it, a less tangible conception we call the mind, which seems closely related to an equally fuzzy construct, the human spirit. In body, brain, mind and spirit, humans are remarkably similar to one another—but the differences make human life a constant source of fascination, frustration, and amusement.
1. Your Body
A. Personal and Social Wellness
8. Genome & Microbiome
Genetic engineering of humans is a long way off, if only because of the ethical issues. However, personal genome analysis—sequencing and mapping—will become commonplace in the next few years, opening the door for personalized medicine. By analyzing your genome, your doctor will be able identify your individual risks for specific conditions and diseases, to recommend practical solutions that will keep you healthy, and alive, perhaps for a very long time. Imagine a 21st century medical system that understands the genetic patterns of Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia, (confidentially) identifies people at risk, and confidently recommends individual action that reliably changes the situation, one person at a time! Don’t limit your thinking to the much-publicized Genome Project. Instead, consider the opportunities offered by a deeper understanding of the microbiome. Each of us contains more bacteria cells than human cells. We routinely change the mix of bacteria in, for example, our throat or our gut by eating and drinking. If we understood the workings of this system, we could maintain a balanced ecosystem in our bodies—perhaps defeating the likes of Type II Diabetes in the process. All of this contributes nuanced, widespread understanding of the human system. human system. Finally, understanding of the status of our genes (epigenetics) and the proteins synthesized from them (proteomics) will give us a remarkable understanding as to our state of health and what the future might hold for each of us. That may be the greatest achievement of the 21st century—and a spectacular launching place for the miracles of 22nd century medical science.—Steven Taffet, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, SUNY Upstate Medical University
7. Physical "Improvements"
We’re provided with bodies designed to last a lifetime, but we can’t resist the temptation to tinker. Sometimes, our tinkering changes a life, makes it possible to walk or run, or see more clearly. Plastic surgery. Artificial limbs. A new hip or knee. Laser surgery to eliminate eyeglasses. A pacemaker. An artificial heart. Prosthetic limbs. A digital eye. A tissue and organ donor system taking shape with a long way to go in the U.S. and much further to go in developing nations. An emerging field of regenerative medicine that includes stem cells, growing organs in the laboratory, biological and synthetic materials that will change contemporary medicine. Robotic parts that do more than humans can do on their own. Science fiction becomes science fact, and we struggle with the ethical considerations of lives made longer, or made possible, through invention and technology. For the son whose father will or will not survive as a result of a physical improvement, the decision may be straightforward. For the religious, there may be serious questions about whether we have the right or the privilege to modify a human body. (We don’t think twice about slaughtering very large numbers of animals, then eating them, but debate whether human bodies ought to be modified for their own longevity. We’re an interesting species.)
6. Adorning the Body
We’re all born naked, but most human societies conceal and adorn bodies with ink, paint, makeup, feathers, furs, textiles, metals, and minerals. Sometimes, the reason is practical: by inventing the bone sewing needle, people from Africa could travel to the north of what is now Siberia by covering themselves with fur. Issues related to coming of age, young girls, and women are addressed by different cultures with all sorts of sociological, physiological, sexual, mythological and practical explanations. For example, some religious cultures require women to shave their beautiful hair, or cover their bodies with cloth; others celebrate near-nudity in city parks during the few months of golden sunshine. Self-image and fashion. Acceptance of violence to human bodies as entertainment, but repression of human bodies making love. Widespread availability of pictures and video showing naked bodies, or near naked bodies to promote commerce. Shopping for clothes and accessories as entertainment. Tradition. Changes with each generation. Fat, skinny, big butt, flat chest, hairless chest, long hair, too much makeup, not enough makeup, you are not leaving the house unless you change your…
5. Substances to Enhance the Body
The earliest humans enjoyed drinking, smoking, and certain foods that enhanced, or were believed to enhance, the natural processes of the human body. We smoke, drink, swallow, rub-on, ingest mist, and take it up our noses. We enjoy the drowsiness, numbness, positive feelings, blocking of unhappiness, curiosity satisfaction, thrill of the risk, improvement of concentration powers, etc. We’ve discovered, developed, enjoyed and overdosed on an enormous range of stimulants, pain relievers, euphoric substances, psychoactive plants, depressants, hallucinogens, tranquilizers, all sorts of salts and sugars. We grab a beer or smoke a cigarette or some weed, but pass laws that prohibit children from doing the same thing (and punish parents who do not comply). We routinely ignore science that connects substance abuse with cancer and other diseases because we’re more concerned about limiting the role of government, and we have no better solution. There is abundant mythology, cultural beliefs, etc. Drugs and alcohol are big business—some of it legal—but control over substances is a messy challenge (FDA, War on Drugs, laws and enforcement throughout the world).
4. Life Outdoors
For tens of thousands of years, humans have lived, mostly, outdoors. Nowadays, about half of us spend significant time outdoors, continuing the shift that began as we began to move to villages, then towns and urban centers in large numbers. Although city dwellers operate differently, many humans continue to wake with the sun, and sleep when it’s dark outside. The rest of us don’t rely upon natural light: we take pills or eat fortified foods to compensate for the lack of, for example, Vitamin D, “the sunshine vitamin,” because so many of us spend so little time in the sun, and we’re careful to avoid prolonged exposure because we’re fearful of skin diseases. As more people adopt city ways, we fundamentally shift our biological clocks, and our body chemistry. When it’s hot outside, we live and work in air-conditioned buildings, and when it’s cold, we turn up the heat. When it rains or snows, we head indoors. For many of us, life outdoors is limited to leisure: hiking, soccer, or beach-going, and the occasional chore. We can go days without heading outdoors: our homes are have become our offices and our recreational centers; we need only leave for food, and now, that’s a problem easily solved via the Internet. Our cars replicate the systems at home: HVAC, home entertainment, connectivity. Is this progress? Few of us can find our way in the wilderness; we’ve forgotten how to read the ocean, the sky and the wind. Through nothing but love, we’ve reconfigured the lives of our pet animals, too. Have we made a fundamental error?
3. Sleep
Over an 80-year lifetime, humans spend 27 years asleep: about a quarter of a million hours in all, more than any other single activity in our lives, with work/school occupying about twenty years, and watching TV, about fifteen years. We’re just beginning to analyze the natural processes associated with human sleep: natural wake/sleep cycles, sleep’s restorative power, the impact of sleep deprivation (especially related to emotional well-being). We are aware of shifting sleep patterns: waking up earlier, staying up later, but have yet to develop a comprehensive approach to sleep and memory, sleep and quality work, sleep and relationships, and the more sophisticated concepts of time distortion during sleep (“did I sleep for a few minutes or a few hours?”). Many humans sleep beside others—this requires tremendous trust, for sleep is our most vulnerable time. For some humans, nighttime is the most difficult time of the day, spooked by nightmares, frustrated by insomnia.“REM sleep is believed to be the stage during which the brain performs the deepest processing of events—the unitization (combining of discrete elements or chunks of an experience into a unified concept), assimilation (brain integrates new information into the existing network structure of things you already knew), and abstraction (where hidden rules are discovered and then entered into memory).—Daniel J. Levitin, The Organized Mind
2. Maintaining a Healthy Body
21st century medical science is far more sophisticated than its 20th (or 19th or 18th) century counterpart. Improvements in medical technology, pharmaceutical sciences, and patient education greatly increase the range of available solutions, and our success rate. Still, the responsibility for a healthy life rests on the patient’s personal choices, which, in turn, rely upon a fundamental understanding of how the human body works. Our understanding is affected by religious beliefs, ethnic / cultural norms, gender differences, age-related differences, and ideas passed from one generation to the next. As some of us take control over our medical records, read trusted websites about wellness and maladies, and embrace holistic and/or eastern ideas about health, the fundamentals remain. Nowadays, our goal is to keep the body in good working order for nearly a century. Our bodies rely upon proper nutrition and exercise in roughly equal measure, reasonable stress management, attentiveness to preventative measures and treatments, and frequent monitoring—get these right, and everything else becomes so much simpler. How and why have we managed to entangle these relatively simple ideas (choose your foods carefully, don’t eat too much, keep moving) into complexities of self-image, motivation, success in love or career, sedentary lifestyles, self-denial, family behaviors? Do we maintain the dreadful status quo and live with the consequences, or change our ways?
1. How Your Body Works
Every human ought to understand how his or her body works, and how it changes over time. We ought to be able to explain how our heart and circulatory system operates, what might go wrong, and what to do about it. We should be comfortable explaining how the nose, mouth, lungs, and other parts of our respiratory system work, and how they deal with oxygen and carbon dioxide. We should explain how our brain, spinal cord and nervous system interact with other parts of the body, and why we have skin. Our blood system, with its plasma, bone marrow, red and white blood cells, should not be a mystery. We should be able to name and identify most of the organs in our body, what they do, and what happens if they don’t function properly. Ditto for our muscles and our bones, and for our digestive and endocrine systems. Our reproductive systems, connected to various societal taboos, warrant equal attention and understanding. We should probably know more about our bodies than anything else in our lives.