Hi, I'm Katie, and I am a Biomedical Engineer (B.S.E., M.S.) on a mission to find solutions to address the terrible harm that is alive in our world due to unhealthy systems.
I see the world as an infinite series of interwoven biological systems, and when dysregulation & dysfunction is alive in one system, the harm and destruction oozes out into nearby systems, causing a cascade of harm in all surrounding areas.
Today, I live in a world with deep wounds everywhere I turn:
- my own self, as I work through the wounds carved into my nervous system
- the individuals that surround me on this planet, as I see terrible symptoms of unhealthy conditions negatively impacting how we all feel and are able to live out our lives
- the communities we have created, as individual wounds continue to express themselves through hateful behavior
- the ecosystems that make up our dear planet, as they continue to die out in mass numbers
These days, I support the healing of these interwoven biological systems through diverse perspectives that bridge traditional science & engineering and holistic perspectives.
Background - a brief look at developing The Reprogrammed Systems Approach to Healthier Living
From 2017-2019, I was focused fully on exploring the relationship between human behavior and health outcomes.
Having just graduated from my Biomedical Engineering program (B.S.E., M.S.), I took the tools I had learned and applied them to pathways of disease progression, working to understand how our behavioral choices (what we eat, how we move, etc.) impact these pathways. During this time I dove deep into the science behind human health, exploring nutrition and biochemistry, pathophysiology, pathology, and other health-related sciences.
Out of this exploration was born The Reprogrammed Systems Approach to Healthier Living.
By the end of 2019, I was happy with the models I had developed. With them, I could help others visualize pathways of disease progression, serving to teach how they could change their behavior to promote healthier habits.
From here, I ran into a serious problem.
From a mind perspective, these models were rich with information.
From a transformation perspective (that is, actually creating change in that individuals life), these models were lacking.
If I wanted to truly help people work through health problems and become healthier individuals, I needed a different approach.
The Reprogrammed Systems Approach to Healthier Living Explores pathways of disease progression, linking human behavior directly to pathways of good vs. poor health.
The "Systems Models" work by breaking the human body into important sub-systems that support one's health and are susceptible to dysregultion and dysfunction. Complexity is a key theme, helping individuals to understand that we can't understand health by only understanding individual mechanisms and pathways.
Complex systems always function as a whole network. That is, the functions of each system are always greater than the sum of their individual parts.
Metabolic Health is a key theme. By understanding the functioning of important "sub-systems" (e.g., tissues and organs) involved in energy storage, processing, and utilization, we can begin to re-think how our behavioral choices impact the functioning of these sub-systems.
Thinking in terms of interacting systems, we can make healthier choices that take into account the functioning of entire systems, instead of getting hyper-focused on just one or two little mechanisms.
What happened next? Exploring approaches to help individuals just like you make changes that truly lead to better health
By the end of 2019, I was able to fully recognize deep problems with an approach to human health that puts information at the center of the model.
In a world that is over-saturated with information, it is often the case that more information speaking to what we "should" or "should not" eat (or how we "should" or "should not" behave) often leads to more stress and unhealthier outcomes.
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Recognizing this, I began to ask a new question: how do we human beings get ourselves to move forward through a transformative process that actually leads to better health?
It's a journey that took me away from the technical pathways of human health and out into the real world where us human beings are living our real lives. Out here, a new approach to moving forward through a transformative process was born.
The Reprogrammed Systems Approach to Healthier Living Explores pathways of disease progression, linking human behavior directly to pathways of good vs. poor health.
The "Systems Models" work by breaking the human body into important sub-systems that support one's health and are susceptible to dysregultion and dysfunction. Complexity is a key theme, helping individuals to understand that we can't understand health by only understanding individual mechanisms and pathways.
Complex systems always function as a whole network. That is, the functions of each system are always greater than the sum of their individual parts.
Metabolic Health is a key theme. By understanding the functioning of important "sub-systems" (e.g., tissues and organs) involved in energy storage, processing, and utilization, we can begin to re-think how our behavioral choices impact the functioning of these sub-systems.
Thinking in terms of interacting systems, we can make healthier choices that take into account the functioning of entire systems, instead of getting hyper-focused on just one or two little mechanisms.
That's a lot of technical talk! What does it mean for your ability to make healthier choices?
It begins by thinking about this significant problem at play in our world today: when it comes to teaching healthier living, the common approach is to be hyper-focused on individual mechanisms. Ever heard any of this advice?
- eat less saturated fat because that will lower LDL-cholesterol
- drink wine because it contains resveratrol
When we dish out health advice based on one single variable (e.g., LDL-cholesterol, resveratrol, ), we end up making choices that DO NOT take into account the greater systems at play and their full functioning.
For example, consuming less saturated fat will likely lower LDL-cholesterol, and that may positively impact your risk of cardiovascular disease (based on this one risk factor). At the same time, it may lead to less consumption of a food that contains other nutrients that are beneficial for other reasons (e.g., butter provides a range of fats and fat-soluble vitamins that can support healthy functioning of cellular membranes, immune function, etc). At the same time, it also ignores how saturated fat can be a fair energy source (that is, it can furl your ability to go live life!). It's all about the greater context.
Similarly, consuming resveratrol can serve to support the body in different ways (e.g., as a potent antioxidant, to boost immune function and lower inflammation). Meanwhile, alcohol consumption can strongly lower immune function, promote inflammation, and create a need for more antioxidants!
And that brings us back to why a systems approach (i.e., an approach that takes the greater functioning of all of the systems supporting your being) is essential for anyone seeking to live a healthy life.