This document discusses how lifestyle factors like stress management, social connections, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and mindfulness practices can positively impact health and autoimmune diseases. It promotes participating in a Twitter poll and hackathon called #HacktoHeal to explore how non-medical approaches can restore balance and healing. References are provided on research showing how the mind and body interact, such as how positive emotions, meditation, gratitude, and self-compassion can influence immune function and physical well-being.
2. What Does Healthy Look Like?
Carrie Johnson
3x Olympian
Selena Gomez
Actress, Singer
Karolina Kurkova
Victoria’s Secret Angel
#HacktoHeal
3. What Does Autoimmune Disease
Look Like?
Crohn’s DiseaseLupus (SLE) Thyroid Dysfunction
4. An Invisible Epidemic
100+ 16% 10
diseases US population Top leading
cause of death
in women
less than 64
yrs
I’ve been told too many times that I was too young to have the
symptoms I was having
I was refused proper care and testing for “old people” diseases and
disorders.
This happened in my 20s on.
“
”
5. Answer Our Twitter Poll!
#HacktoHeal
Do you believe your genes dictate your health?
10. The Science
Antoni, MH et al. “Cognitive-Behavioral Stress Management Reverses Anxiety-Related
Leukocyte Transcriptional Dynamics.” Biological Psychiatry 71.4 (2012): 366-372.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322311009656>.
Irwin, MR, and SW Cole. “Reciprocal Regulation of the Neural and Innate Immune
Systems.” Nature Reviews Immunology 11.1 (2011) : 625-632.
<http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v11/n9/abs/nri3042.html>.
Qu, S et al. “Rapid Gene Expression Changes in Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes upon
Practice of a Comprehensive Yoga Program.” PloS One 8.4 (2013) : n. pag. .
<http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061910>.
The Immune System’s Feedback Loops
Community
Kok, BE et al. “How Positive Emotions Build Physical Health Perceived Positive Social
Connections Account for the Upward Spiral between Positive Emotions and Vagal
Tone.” Psychological Science 24.7 (2013): 1123-1132.
<http://pss.sagepub.com/content/24/7/1123.short>.
11. The Science
Black, DS, and GM Slavich. “Mindfulness Meditation and the Immune System: A
Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.” Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences 20.1(2016): 1-12.
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12998/full>.
Tang, YY, BK Hölzel, and MI Posner. “The Neuroscience of Mindfulness
Meditation.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 16.1 (2015): 213-225.
<http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v16/n4/abs/nrn3916.html>.
Hill, PL, M Allemand, and BW Roberts. “Examining the Pathways between Gratitude
and Self-Rated Physical Health across Adulthood.” Personality and Individual
Differences 54.1 (2013): 92-96.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912004011>.
Neff, KD, and CK Germer. “A Pilot Study and Randomized Controlled Trial of the
Mindful Self‐compassion Program.” Journal of Clinical Psychology(2013): 1-17.
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jclp.21923/full>.
Mind-Body Feedback Loops
Notas del editor
Welcome, I am Bonnie Feldman, affectionately known as DrBonnie360 and I am thrilled to welcome all of you to our South By Southwest panel with the hashtag #hacktoheal.
We will share with you the latest research on how data and digital tools can help each of us take better care of ourselves.
My work at DrBonnie360 Consulting focuses on using data and digital tools to confront the growing, yet invisible, epidemic of autoimmune disease.
You may be surprised to learn how the #DIY health or #hacktoheal approach to wellbeing can be applied to chronic diseases such as autoimmune diseases.
With me today are
Linda Avey of We Are Curious, @WeAreCurious; you may remember her as one of the co-founders of 23 and me.
Poonacha of Jiyo @Jiyo4life, is a social entrepreneur working with Deepak Chopra to democratize wellness.
and Nicole Guthrie of Hopelab @hopeLab, the non-profit started by Pam and Pierre Omidyar, eBay’s founders.
We encourage tweeting so let’s get started with a twitter poll.
What does healthy look like? (Twitter Poll)
Young? Energetic? Strong? Attractive?
Unfortunately, even people who appear to be the very definition of health could actually be sick.
Such is the case with
Selena Gomez an actress and singer who has Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Carrie Johnson a sprint kayaker with Crohn’s Disease
and Karolina Kurkova a Victoria’s Secret angel who has a thyroid autoimmune
condition
They and 16 percent of the American population battle a losing fight against autoimmune disease.
So while we may feel healthy and look healthy, autoimmune diseases lurk in the shadows, ready to creep up on us and gradually erode our picture-perfect health.
How many of you in the audience have an autoimmune disease?
or knows someone with an autoimmune disease?
This invisible epidemic is plaguing millions worldwide.
Today, chronic diseases are recognized to be the biggest public health problem confronting us.
Autoimmune diseases make up the majority of chronic disease, in fact there are about 100 different kinds that affect more than 16% of the general population in the US.
That is more than cancer and heart disease combined, but you wouldn’t know it from the public health statistics, which don’t yet aggregate autoimmune diseases as they do cancer. Sadly, autoimmune disease is increasing in incidence among young adults in their 20s, many of whom battle more than one autoimmune disease in the prime of their life.
And now we are seeing an exponential increase in incidence among children!
Yet, despite the lifetime of suffering these young adults and children face, they are under-recognized and under-served.
Autoimmune diseases are individually, statistically and practically invisible.
So, what can we do to change this?
Can we turn the tides of this losing war against chronic and autoimmune disease?Better yet, CAN we change our fate?
Twitter poll
Yes! Genes are NOT our destiny.
Each of us is different and personalization is key.
The good news is that we live in amazing times where a convergence of scientific discoveries with technological advances can give each of us the power to #hacktoheal and #diy health.
On the science side, we see multi-disciplinary teams working in genomics, immunology and other specialties in systems biology.
Through microbiome research we discovered a whole new ecosystem. As we begin to understand that the gut is an organ of immunity, which may even explain our moods, we are unveiling some of the mysteries behind immune health and disease
Underpinning these scientific advances are better ways to collect, store, and analyze data.
We have better analytics such as predictive modeling, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other techniques to help us turn data into personalized, useable information.
The Stage is Set for Personalized PreventionWhether it’s changing your diet, sleeping better, exercising your mind-body connection or applying ancient wellness techniques,
we now know that changing your lifestyle can change your biology.
Despite scientific support for these lifestyle changes, we all know implementing new habits are hard.
So how do we make getting and staying healthy easy?
Getting started begins with finding your optimal feedback loops in food, sleep, work, etc.. To implement new habits and change old ones.
The key to this is maintaining a spirit of experimentation for iterative improvement. We must go through a process of tracking, analyzing, adjusting, modifying and iterating, in order to find the right balance that works for each of us
The next step to MAINTAIN these new habit changes is incorporating all these iterative feedback loops to achieve balance in your mind, body, and soul.
As shown here, we believe the major components are: exercise, musculoskeletal integrity, food as medicine, mind-body connection.
So
genes are NOT your destiny.. you CAN change your fate.
Your #hacktoheal is in your back pocket and the time is right for personalized prevention.
The key here is to find and maintain your balance.
Starting our discussion on moving from precision medicine to precision prevention, is Linda Avey, the CEO and founder of We Are Curious.