The Challenge
When John was still a baby, his body organs bragged about who can make John healthy and live the longest. They all agreed on a competition.
The brain said, “Since I can think, I can make John live the longest.”
Not so said the heart, “I supply the blood, as long as I keep on beating, I can make John live forever!”
“That’s a no brainer!” said the gastrointestinal tract. “Since I absorb all the nutrients that John eats, I am the most important! I will just keep on eating, and John will live for hundreds of years.”
The kidneys said, ‘John cannot live long with all the waste that accumulates every day. Besides, I handle fluid and electrolyte management, and John is mostly water, so I am the most important!”
The eyes said, “Danger is all around John, and if I don’t keep an eye out for all of those, he will surely be in trouble. Therefore, we are the most important.”
The twin pair of lungs said together, “John cannot live without oxygen. He needs it every minute. I will make sure that John gets all the air he needs, and he doesn’t need to worry about anything at all. ”
The Musculoskeletal system just stayed quiet. It does not have any specialized cells that others have. It does not have the billions of interconnections that the brain cells have with each and the fancy neurotransmitters. Nor does it have the cardiomyocyte cells of the heart that contracts in a spiral, non-stop manner nor the absorptive cells of the intestines. It cannot clean the blood like the liver and the kidneys and cannot carry and deliver oxygen like the red blood cells. It cannot even patch a bleeding site like those tiny platelets or the gas exchange powers of the lungs.
The musculoskeletal has muscle fibers that can only elongate and contract. The bones are stiff and depend on the muscles to move. Pretty boring. Plus the skeletal muscle is very dependent on other systems like the brain and nerves for stimulation. It needs the heart for the blood that contains the oxygen from the lungs, and the nutrients from the intestines and the kidneys to get rid of all the waste it produces. It even has to depend on those two little eyes, or else John will not know where to go and may also trip, fall, and get hurt. The musculoskeletal system said, “I will sit this out. I am not going to prolong John’s life. I’m not special.”
The Teen Age Years to Young Adulthood.
When John became a teenager, the digestive system did what they do best. Eat. The mission is to eat and give John all the nutrients he needs to grow and live longer. The brain, heart and lungs, blood, and kidneys cannot do much above their baseline without additional stimuli. The eyes can only watch. It seems that the digestive system is the sure winner in this competition.
Thing’s Get Bad
In his twenties, John’s sedentary lifestyle made him hefty. All the calories had nowhere to go after filling the liver with glycogen. The excess calories went to the visceral fat such that it became more significant. Next, it started to put out pro-inflammatory cytokines that caused inflammation inside the body organs, particularly the blood vessels. The blood vessels began to develop atherosclerosis and got harder. This lessened oxygen and nutrient delivery all over the body. This made the kidneys function less efficiently. The high blood sugar became triglycerides, which worsened atherosclerosis. This made the heart work harder because of the higher pressure it had to overcome. The liver began to accumulate fat and developed fatty liver.
John was just feeling fine and dandy. No symptoms at all. He was unaware of the smoldering inflammation going on inside his body. John had no problem sitting at work and sitting on the couch all at night watching TV or playing games on the computer. The only thing he noticed is that he had to loosen his belt several times and had to buy a size 40 pants. When he checked his blood pressure, it was 170/110. Other than that, John feels fine.
John’s company requires him to have a yearly checkup, and reluctantly he went. The blood work came back, showing a high fasting blood Sugar of 115mg/dl, which is pre-diabetes, triglycerides of 190, and his HDL was 40 mg/dl. John has all the criteria of metabolic syndrome.
John’s doctor told him to diet and exercise. Cut down on calories, walk 45 minutes three times a week, and to come back in three months for a recheck.
At first, John did what his doctor told him, but that fast food on TV looks delicious, and John did not have the time to walk 45 minutes a day three times a week.
Inside, the brain started thinking, visualizing, and imagining health. It tried very hard. With time, its blood supply began to get smaller, and the chronic inflammation continued. John started having memory problems.
Breathing is harder, especially with walking. John cannot run anymore because of the joint pains in the hips, knees, and ankles resulting from his weight. He had this vague abdominal pains that nobody can diagnose. Gout keeps flaring. And because of all that, he cannot walk more than 10 minutes. So John continued his sedentary lifestyle, and since there is nothing else to do, he ordered more take-out food and gained more weight. John’s self-esteem became lower with time. He avoided looking at the mirror, and his marriage is declined. John’s snoring and sleep apnea kept his wife up all night. Marital relations are down in the dumps. He can’t remember the last time they had sexual relations. Everything started to get worse. The future looks dim. John is now a time bomb waiting for an organ or more to declare the complications of the metabolic syndrome. It seems like John’s body organs will fail to make him live longer.
Is there any hope or science to help John? How will John get thru this? Is there an organ left to save him? Will he die early? Is divorce on the horizon? We will know in the next chapter.
Related Readings:
The Complete Series of “How to Prepare for that Unplanned Emergency Room Visit”
- Part 1 talks about why preparation is needed for an emergency room visit
- Part 2 lists the most essential medical information to bring to the emergency room.
- Part 3 describes the other medical information that are also important.
- Part 4 enumerates the different ways to carry medical information
- Part 5 lists all the needed medical information in a shortlist that can be copied and pasted to a word processing app ready to be filled.
- Disease Prevention Has a Deadline
- The Two Minute Warning
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