How To Overcome Healthcare Crisis – Part 1, Understand Complexity

Last year – early 2020 – I, along with the rest of the world, was hit with a hard realization: that a single virus had the power to overturn our world and threaten the lives of far too many.

It was unexpected. It took us all off guard.

What’s interesting, though, is that it was really the same story that I had been working with for many years… Well, just a slightly different version of it.

It’s a story involving the majority of our population suffering from a particular type of poor health – one that leads forward to the arising of many types of illness.

Today I’m here to tell that story, along with what it all means to me as I stand in a world that is “re-opening.”

---

When a problem arises, it is common to want to hear a clear, simple answer.

What exactly is the problem? What caused it? What is one clear way we can solve it?

This mindset is useful for certain types of problems:

• Problem: The room is dark
  • Solution: Turn on light by flipping switch

• Problem: Had a meeting with a coworker who was coughing. Next day woke up with cold symptoms
  • Solution: Avoid interactions with sick individuals

These problems are defined as simple problems, being that they have a small number of variables with a clear relationship between each variable and the change (whether that be beneficial or harmful) that is caused by manipulating that variable.

However, when it comes to understanding our particular health topic, this mindset fails us. If we want to overcome our prevalent healthcare challenges, we need a different approach.

This series is focused on helping you develop this new mindset – one that is appropriate for these types of healthcare challenges – so that you can make strong decisions that truly support your own health, enabling you to stay healthy and avoid the development of the common diseases that plgaue our modern world.

Upgrading from a Simple Mindset

When examining a simple problem, one defining feature is that there are a small number of variables with a clear relationship between each variable and the outcome (whether that be beneficial or harmful).

In simple problems it is possible to determine what is the clear underlying cause and to define interventions to address that cause, solving the problem. Most importantly, this can be done with a clear understanding of the full pathway involved, understanding each variable involved and the mechanisms at play responsible for driving this pathway forward.

For example, if you enter a dark room, you can clearly understand that your action (flipping the switch) will cause a direct change in the simple circuit that will lead to the light turning on.

As another example, if you want to avoid developing a cold, one clear solution is to avoid viral infection.

Once again, these are simple challenges because it is easy to understand a clear relationship between an input variable (your behavior) and the outcome, which is caused by a clear pathway through a small number of variables.

–

However, when it comes to problems of greater complexity – problems involving many more variables – this mindset no longer serves us.

With problems of greater complexity, we cannot determine this clear relationship between each behavior and a specific outcome via a simple pathway involving a small number of mechanisms.

What are some of these problems?

• The development of cancer
• The development of cardiovascular disease
• The development of Alzheimer’s disease

With these chronic, progressive diseases, it is not only difficult – it’s actually quite impossible – to draw clear pathways from behavior to the disease diagnosis while applying it to the general population.

_{Note: The application to the general population is key here. We could take a certain individual and understand what, exactly, caused the onset of a certain disease (in many cases). However, when we take a step back and look at why certain diseases arise across the population, there are so many variables at play that it becomes impossible to give clear, simple answers.}

Our challenge as individuals living in the modern world is to be able to make decisions that truly support our health, leading to the avoidance of these diseaes as we live out each day supported by energy, mental clarity, and an overall physical ability to take on what we want to be taking on!

Unfortunately, when it comes to this task, the simple mindset that has been instilled in us to solve problems is not only useless, it can actually be harmful. When we approach problems of great complexity with a simple mindset, we end up latching on to only a small number of the variables at play, thinking we understand the problem when really we only understand one tiny piece.

The fact of the matter is that, when it comes to the state of an individual’s health, there are too many variables at play to be able to determine a clear relationship between every single variable and the outcome.

Yet, we have been taught to approach problems by understanding all the variables involved, so we give this old approach a try:

• We look at the data that is presented to us, using this isolated, often cherry-picked set to make decisions
  • ex: because studies show that saturated fat increases LDL-C, we call a healthy decision one that minimizes saturated fat. Unfortunately, this often leads to the consumption of other nutrients that may actually be less healthy (e.g., less steak and eggs and more vegetable oil, refined grains, and sugar). Would this actually lead to the avoidance of cardiovascular disease?
  • ex: because studies show that isolated animal protein causes cancer in rodents, we call a healthy decision one that is plant-based. Unfortunately, this completely ignores the complex pathways involved in cancer progression while avoiding nutrient-rich animal foods

This is what we want to avoid: making short-sighted decisions based on a small data set.

Instead, we want to make decisions that take into account the greater complexity at play.

Which begs the question, how?

How do we make decisions about what to eat and how to otherwise behave if we can’t clearly understand the impact of every single decision on every aspect of health within our bodies?

–

Before jumping into the answer, let’s take a step back to look at the bigger picture here. I opened this article by referencing the Covid-19 pandemic, along with how it follows the same storyline of the pandemic involving chronic, progressive diseases.

Why on Earth would I suggest that?

The key here is two underlying themes:

1. Examining these complex challenges with a simple mindset
2. The underlying pathophysiology

Understanding what we do, as a society, to avoid large rates of Covid-19 is a problem of high complexity.

Yet, we look at it through a simple lens:

• If only people would just wear masks
• If only people would just stay home
• If only people would just….

The problem is, when we look at this particular challenge, we have to pull in human needs and behavior – and that will add in a large amount of complexity.

Before going too far down the rabbit hole of what we could do to address this particular pandemic, let’s move to the second piece:

The underlying pathophysiology is similar between chronic, progressive disease and the development of serious symptoms of Covid 19

This point leads us to the need to understand the underlying pathophysiology that is common for most individuals in this modern world, and that’s what we are going to really dive into in the second installment of this series.

So, for now, I ask that you take my word on it that there is a link here. Next up we’ll dive into exactly what that link is, along with how we can make sense of it in a way that enables us to make healthier decisions.

In this way, when discussing poor health and disease, we can speak to:

• The obesity epidemic
• High rates of chronic, progressive disease (e.g., Diabetes, Cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, etc.)
• The much higher rates of poor health that underlie the two above examples (insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, excess fat storage, dyslipidemia, etc.)

We can also speak to viral infections (e.g., coronavirus) and the severity of the impact on each individual and the greater public.

We will be doing this as we move forward through this series, and we’ll do so in a way that simplifies our ability to make health-conscious decisions. Most importantly, we will simplify not based on cherry-picked data, but rather, on a greater understanding of the complexity at play. Let’s take a look at what, exactly, this means.

–

A Complex System

When looking at problems of increasing complexity, more and more variables are added to the system such that it becomes more difficult (approaching impossible) to determine individual mechanisms and pathways responsible for tying one input to a particular output.

In a complex system, there are numerous factors interacting as a network such that the whole that is the functioning of the system is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the functioning of the whole that is created from each piece contains more information than can be understood by breaking that system down into individual parts.

The problem is that, traditionally, science is done by breaking systems down into individual pieces to understand how one variable interacts, mechanistically, with one other variable (see Figure 1A).

This reductionist approach to understanding how things work certainly is useful. It enables us to determine how one factor directly impacts another, allowing us to create interventions that manipulate that system precisely. In this way, we have tremendous control over creating the outcomes we want.

Ideally, when developing interventions for health problems, we want to have as much control as possible. Ideally, we would like to know the impact of our actions on every single mechanism and pathway.

However, when we apply this strategy to complex systems, we run into problems because we cannot control important outcomes if we stay hyper-focused on single pathways and mechanisms.

Once again, this simple, reductionist approach is not useful when dealing with complex problems because, when examining complex systems, important information is lost as soon as you start breaking the system down. That is, we cannot isolate individual variables, mechanisms, and pathways without losing information regarding how that variable interacts with all the other variables.

Let’s translate this to our application that is addressing poor health and disease.

As we do, note that the point for us in this article is not to answer these questions nor try to come up with solutions to fend off any particular health problem.

Instead, I leave these here as practices for you to think through how health challenges quickly become complex as we think more deeply about them.

---

Example 1: What is a healthy food to eat?

A food (an apple, steak, nut, etc.) is, itself, a complex system, made up of a complex structural network of biomolecules: diverse proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, micronutrients, etc.

Then, we humans (made up of our own complex networks) ingest this food, at which point, depending on what is going on in each individual’s gut, that food will be broken down and (depending on what the situation is throughout the rest of the complex systems supporting that individual’s human body), the diverse nutrients in that food will go on to have different fates.

For example, an individual who has been regularly moving all day may be in a state of glycogen depletion, in which case the carbohydrate will head to the liver and muscle and be stored as glycogen (a safe way to store glucose, where it is readily available to be used as energy!)

Or, perhaps another individual has been sedentary all day and has had plenty to eat – in which case that carbohydrate may go to the liver or adipose tissue where it is converted to fat

_{Note: this isn’t inherently a bad thing – storing energy as fat is a safe and useful way to get energy out of circulation and stored to where it can be used as energy at a later time. The problem arises when this occurs in an excessive and chronic pattern.}

From here, we can continue to add on more variables:

What impact does the fat, protein, or fiber in that food have on the fate of that carbohydrate?

• Is there fiber in the food to slow and control the breakdown of that glucose, or does that glucose come from a refined food (in which case that glucose is more likely to be dumped into the bloodstream, causing a spike in blood sugar)?
• Are there other micronutrients in the food that help control the release of glucose and its processing (e.g., antioxidants that help the mitochondria utilize this gluocse as a fuel source)?

What about the individual’s insulin sensitivity?

• Is the individual insulin sensitive, in which case a small amount of insulin is released to help store away that glucose
• Is the individual insulin resistant, and if so, how much extra insulin needs to be released out into circulation to control this glucose?

Given this increasing level of complexity, how could we make general claims about how all individuals should consume certain amounts of a specific nutrient given no other information about the individual (level of physical activity, metabolic health status, etc.) and no other information about the type of food?

Yet, this is what we do all the time! We call upon our simple mindset, making decisions based on a small set of variables while we ignore all the other important variables at play:

• eat less saturated fat because it increases LDL-C
  • nevermind the fact that saturated fat often comes in nutrient-rich foods
  • nevermind the fact that choosing to avoid saturated fat often leads to the consumption of other nutrients with negative health impacts
• drink wine because it contains resveratrol, a potent antioxidant
  • nevermind the high sugar and alcohol content ingested with it
• avoid carbohydrates because they lead the the secretion of insulin, which drives energy storage pathways
  • nevermind that storing energy is an important part of healthy functioning
  • nevermind the many nutrient-rich carbohydrate-based foods

Get the idea? Making dietary decisions based on one nutrient overlooks the many other factors at play, often leading to unhealthy decisions.

---

Example 2: Covid-19

Exactly how we overcome the significant, worldwide spread of this virus and the serious symptoms it produces in millions of individuals is a problem of great complexity.

To name just a few variables at play:

• the ease of spread of the virus
  • an inherent property of the virus, which varies by strain
• the number of human interactions that create opportunity for spread
  • a factor of human behavior
• the actions of those humans during the interaction
  • are masks worn, and are they worn properly (something that has the chance to reduce spread)

That’s just looking at spread. From here, we can start to look at infection of individuals and the impact on that individual and society:

• if an individual is infected, what is the state of that individual’s immune system to fend off the virus
  • we could then dive in to discussing the numerable factors involved in healthy immune system functioning
• what is the state of that individual’s health (lung health, metabolic health, etc.) that impacts the number and severity of symptoms
  • we could then dive into the numerous sub-systems involved in human health that could be at play here
• if that individual is sick enough, does that individual need help from others?
  • to what degree is that now a potential burden on others (infecting those that are helping; increasing number of hospital beds and other resources used; healthcare costs)
  • we could then dive into the socio-economic factors at play

Once again, the point is not to answer these questions nor to come up with solutions (we’ll save that for another time).

Rather, I ask you to keep in mind how these challenges become more and more complex as we introduce more and more variables at play.

---

Practice

Really, think about how these challenges become more complex as you understand more information involved.

Consider how this may be at play in the health-conscious decisions you have been making in your life.

If there is a situation where you think you know the solution because you have a clear understanding of one pathway, could it be possible that there are more variables and other pathways at play that impact that outcome?

---

Applying a new, complex-thinking perspective

Given this understanding of the higher level of complexity involved in health-conscious decisions, our goal is no longer to piece apart every single nutrient and all its different pathways in the human body.

Perhaps, with enough time and resources, we could understand every pathway and mechanism at play in each food and connect it to many different examples of different individual’s particular health statuses. Then, we could call upon machine learning and use significant amounts of processing power to understand and predict all types of different situations. We could combine this with information about a particular individual (taken from blood samples and other tests) to cater advice to that specific individual. We could add in an individual’s level of physical activity and other life stresses. We could then add in that individual’s own genetic code.

But this would be expensive and take many more years than you have to wait.

Instead, you need an approach that you can call upon right now to be able to make healthier decisions using the power of your mind, and you need to be able to do so in a short time.

This is why our goal here is not enhanced technology requiring more resources, but instead, a new perspective – one that appreciates the great complexity at play.

Once we understand this high level of complexity, we can learn to make health-conscious decisions that support the greater health of our bodies.

This approach involves:

• understanding high level workings of each system
• mindfully exploring specific pathways that may offer more precise health benefit

Understanding high-level workings of a complex system

When learning to make health-conscious decisions for our own selves, we begin with an appreciation of the complex systems supporting healthy functioning of the entire body:

• the human body is supported by a network of sub-systems that each produce their own functions
• each sub-system works wiht other sub-systems to maintain homeostasis and, thus, keep the body healthy

This next piece is important.

Understanding each of these functions is an impossible task; so, instead, we begin with a simple understanding:

The human body has been designed to take care of its own needs. It has a network of systems that perform hard and intricate work to do so, communicating specific needs to the higher-level organism (that being YOU!) as these needs arise.

Your task is not to micromanage these systems. Instead, your task is to be able to understand how your body communicates with you so that you can provide it with what it needs.

To take it just one step further, you can also learn about some of the higher-level workings of important systems in your body so that you are even better capable of supporting your own health.

To summarize these steps:

• The human body has been designed to take care of its own needs. It has a network of systems that perform hard and intricate work to do so
  • Your body is supported by complex networks made up of cells, tissues, and organs that have been designed to carry out specific functions. These systems work together performing their own special functions to keep you alive and healthy 🙂
• The body communicates its needs to you so that you can engage in the necessary behavior to support it
  • Your body sends you signals (e.g., hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain) based on what it needs (e.g., food, water, rest)
• Your task is not to micromanage these systems. Instead, your task is to be able to understand how your body communicates with you so that you can provide it with what it needs.
  • Understanding the complex workings of each of these systems is just not possible. Not only would it take all of your time, but we also lack a lot of the scientific understanding that would be needed and the technology necessary to interpret all of the data
  • Instead of trying to understand every little detail, what may be a better use of your time is to understand how your body communicates with you so that you can serve it as it keeps you healthy
• You can also learn about some of the higher-level workings of important systems in your body so that you are even better capable of supporting your own health
  • For those who want to go the extra step, there is plenty of useful science to help us understand how these systems function
  • It is less useful to use the traditional linear, reductionist approach in which we try to understand every mechanism at play
  • It is more useful to understand the greater functions at play so that you can make simpler decisions that better support, mindfully paying attention to greater detail as it becomes relevant in your life

In the next installment of this series, we will dive into how you can make powerful decisions by understanding one important function of the body and the many different sub-systems involved (don’t worry, you don’t need to know how these sub-systems function; you just need to understand that they exist).

To wrap up this first installment, let’s take a quick look at how you can put this information into practice to make healthier decisions for your own self, mind & body.

Put your new understanding of complexity into practice

To make healthier decisions for your own body, try this simple 2-step cyclical process:
Step 1 – Learn to get in tune with your body’s natural cues

Step 2 – Learn about key systems involved in supporting your health

Then, rinse & repeat

Step 1: Learn to get in tune with your body’s natural cues

Your body signals to you in many different ways, some of which are key to your basic healthy functioning. These include hunger cues, energy levels, any pain or serious discomfort, and many more signals that you are regularly responding to throughout the day.

While us human beings are designed to naturally tune into these cues, in this modern world of ours we have developed a problem: many have lost this ability to listen to their body’s natural cues, instead opting to use our logical minds to try to out-logic our bodies.

For example, in our diet culture, many have been instructed to distrust their body’s signals, and instead calculate their needs (using their logical minds) and then force their bodies to meet these calculations (using willpower). When this happens, there is a need to ignore natural hunger and fatigue cues, forcing oneself to eat less and exercise more (even if you are hungry and lethargic!).

Meanwhile, the body starves for energy, often holding onto fat stores.

Instead, our goal is to work with the body, learning to feed it foods that satiate hunger and provide energy for exercise. If we could do this, then perhaps the body would, in turn, understand that it has excess fat stored and release that fat as energy to be used to fuel our efforts.

Question: what happens if we take a step back, tune into the greater signals of our bodies, and we still don’t see the results we desire?

Step 2: Learn about key systems and mindfully apply logic to better support these

Your body’s intelligence is powerful, so when you release control of your need to rely solely on logic and tune in directly to your body’s needs, then true magic happens as you more naturally achieve the goals you have been clinging to.

However, sometimes this first step isn’t enough, and when that’s the case, it is now the appropriate time to call upon the logic of your highly evolved human mind.

Now it may be time to learn about specific systems within your body (e.g., how your body stores fat in adipose tissue) to be able to more precisely achieve the results you desire.

But, as you do, it’s necessary that you go in order:

1. Learn to tune into your body’s natural signals
2. Learn to more strategically work with your body to achieve you mind’s desired goals

The order is essential because without it we easily fall into the trap that is relying on our minds to overpower the important needs of our bodies, which is a surefire path to poor health and disease.

To avoid poor health and disease, we learn to tune into our bodies and meet their needs.

In Part 3, I’ll walk you through a detailed version of this process.

But first, let’s take a look at the second piece, beginning with this question:

The question becomes, what is one simple way that we can think about these complex networks performing diverse functions so that we can make the healthiest decisions possible?

Let’s find out in the next installment.

Ready to learn more? Sign up for my new health coaching program

---

Notes

1. Everything at Upward Slopes LLC and Your Health, Reprogrammed is grounded in The Reprogrammed Systems Approach to Healthy Living, and at the core of the model is taking lifestyle-based action to improve metabolic health.
2. There are many different ways I could describe what I mean by “poor health,” but I prefer to use one concept to explain most cases: metabolic health. What I mean is, health problems can arise from many different underlying causes. Perhaps an individual is hit by acute trauma or has a rare genetic disorder that lead to specific symptoms. These cases happen and need to be addressed as specific cases.
   • However, if we take a look at the population and ask why most people are suffering from poor health and disease, there is an underlying set of root causes, collectively defined as metabolic syndrome.
   • It’s to this case of an unhealthy metabolism that my models examine.

To learn more about this approach to taking on metabolic dysfunction:

1. Join the Journey to Better Health…
2. Sign up for the Healthy Living Newsletter. Not only will you receive weekly healthy living tidbits, you’ll also receive instant access to a series of guides designed to help you jumpstart your own journey to better metabolic health
3. Check out The Reprogrammed Systems Models to further your understanding of how your behavior impacts the progression of energy dysregulation, metabolic dysfunction, and modern disease.
4. Take action right now with the following three guidances:
   1. Learn to skillfully choose foods that nourish your own body. For most people, this looks like learning to choose whole foods (those that come directly from the Earth, a plant, or an animal) and how to avoid industrially processed products that we call food, yet have little resemblance to the complex structure that nature produces.
   2. Move your body regularly and dynamically. For starters, the details don’t matter so much. Just get up and move. Go for a walk. Lift weights. Build movement habits.
   3. Practice a balance of stress in your life: aim for acute stress that creates beneficial change (e.g., lifting weights, learning a new skill) while learning to manage chronic stress.

Disclaimer

None of the information in this article nor anywhere on my platform should be taken as medical advice. I am not a licensed physician nor a licensed healthcare provider in any form.

The information contained here and the Upward Slopes and Your Health, Reprogrammed platforms should be used at your own discretion, (see full disclaimer)