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The Health Edge: translating the science of self-careAuthor: Mark Pettus MD and John Bagnulo PhD, MPH
Its not what we dont know that gets us into trouble. Its what we know that aint so. Will RogersWe believe the explosion of life science research from many disciplines had catapulted ahead of our capacity to process, integrate, understand, and apply. We are interested in translating all that is out there as news to use. A fundamentally different understanding of human biology has emerged. The implications from the perspective of self-care are profound. We are rapidly moving away from the debate of nature versus nurture toward an understanding that life emerges from a dynamic landscape of nature via nurture. We are passionate about the science. We are passionate about the implications. We believe in the capacity and possibility made possible by being alive here and now! We are beautifully designed to be on the African Savannah, living fully integrated with our planet, and in the context of social relationship. Our modern environment is not well designed to promote human health and the capacity to thrive. Many are struggling to maintain balance and traction in lives that often feel overwhelming and frightening.The challenge is to better leverage our superb ancestral adaptation for a different and radically challenging modern environment. Everything that touches us today has the potential be be very familiar or totally foreign. The less aware one is of the day to day distance between what we are biologically , as a species, familiar with and what we actually encounter, the fewer the possibilities for more effective alignment. Leaving ones health trajectory to chance in our modern environment is a very risky proposition. We are interested in holding the science to the light with an open and humbled mindset. Like you, We are intrepid explorers interested in how we emerge in the midst of our relationship with the environmental inputs of our liveshow we eat, how we move, how we sleep, how we navigate the mind fields of conflict in our lives, how socially conn Language: en Genres: Alternative Health, Health & Fitness, Medicine Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Paleodeficit Syndrome And The Modern Diet
Wednesday, 5 August, 2026
Send us Fan MailChronic disease doesn’t feel “modern” when you’re living it, but the causes often are. We take on the Paleodeficit Syndrome, the idea that your body still runs on an ancestral operating system while your environment has been rewritten in a few generations. That mismatch helps explain why obesity, insulin resistance, prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, and cardiovascular risk keep rising even as nutrition advice gets louder and more confusing.We dig into the biggest dietary shifts that separate ancestral eating from the modern diet: grain dependence after agriculture, acellular carbohydrates from refined flour, ultra processed foods, industrial seed oils and omega 6 excess, and the way fortification can hide a low nutrient diet inside “enriched” staples. We also explore why potassium, iron, and zinc bioavailability matter, why fermentable fiber and the gut microbiome are central to metabolic health, and why seasonality used to shape human physiology in ways we rarely consider now.Then we bring receipts. We discuss a short clinical Paleo diet intervention where insulin resistance markers (HOMA IR) and triglycerides improved fast, and we push past the simplistic cholesterol narrative by focusing on LDL particle quality: small dense versus large buoyant LDL and how insulin levels influence both. Along the way, the agouti mouse research makes the case for nutritional epigenetics, showing how diet can change gene expression and even affect future generations.If you want practical ancestral health takeaways without hand waving, this one will challenge you in the best way. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s tired of nutrition whiplash, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What part of the modern diet do you think is most out of sync with human biology?For video, slides and open source references: www.thehealthedgepodcast.com
