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Ever since we were little kids we have been told to save money for emergencies,  retirement, children, etc. so that we can live comfortably when we are old and retired. We invest in stock markets, 401ks, Roth IRAs, CDs, commodities, etc to prepare us as well as our children for the future.

Some of us work so hard and sometimes play so hard that when we are told to rest, we reply “I’ll rest when I’m dead” which, I know what you really mean is when you retire, but the interesting thing about that is that as we are preparing financially for this time in our life, we never prepare physically for this time in our life. Where is the stock in your physical health which will enable you to actually enjoy that financial health when you retire or just plain old life in the not so distant future? The retirement age is currently 66 or 67 in the U.S. depending on when you were born.

AARP states that in your 60s the average person develops dilated blood vessels, wearing down of cartilage and joint fluid, secret less hydrochloric acid (which is your stomach acid) and in return have a decrease in B vitamins, especially B12. This slowing of digestion causes colon problems and polyps to develop. The American Cancer Society says that colon cancer increases with age and is the 3rd leading cause of caner in women and the 2nd leading cause for men in the U.S.(ACS, 2017). We already know about heart issues as well as trying to keep your senses (hearing, seeing, taste, touch) 45% of people in their 60s experience hearing loss and 68% of people in their 70s. Some people don’t even have to wait that long to have these issues begin to occur on their health due to an early depletion of their physical savings account.

CNN reported that in 2015, a 65-year-old, healthy couple can expect to spend 266k over the course of their retirement on medicare premiums alone. They references Healthview services and Fidelity. Whereas Fidelity has a slightly lower estimate of 245k. This estimate is not including out of pocket expenses for long-term care. So where do you think your retirement saving is going to go?

I make these points to show just how lopsided things are in the way that we look at the importance of things. Why do some people stay sick longer than others? Why are some people genetically predisposed to certain illnesses, have reproductive problems, need hearing aid and or glasses whereas others are not? I am sure I am forgetting a lot of other issues,  but I think you get my point. These issues depend on 2 things. (1)Your inheritance (which is your inherited stock account) and (2) how you use the account you have. So when I am talking about stock, I am talking about nutrients use to build and rebuild you to who you physically are. This means that some people have an excess while others don’t. Just like money.  In the inheritance, some people inherit a surplus of nutrients which helps to building not only a symmetrical body, but stronger bones and a more robust immune system. It’s why short people can product tall people, and when the opposite happens tall people can produce short children. This is also how someone with diabetes produces a child with type 1 diabetes or some other effects of the brain, spine our heart (CDC, 2017). In the 2nd part, how you use your account. You can invest and withdraw from it the same way you do a savings account. You can build it up to compensate for what you’ve inherited to make it better or you can continue to pull from it until your funds become extremely low. When you are at this point, you experience bad joints, hearing problems, Cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc.

This is why some people can walk into a flu epidemic and be fine, where with other’s if they shake someone’s hand they are down and out for a while.

A good example of how quickly some people deplete their accounts would be models and actors/actresses..hmm the entertainment industry. They inherit a great stock account from their parents. They typically are pressured a lot about their physical appearance and most are on diets for most of their lives or careers. They work long hours, count those calories and as a result, deplete their stock very fast. You see a lot of the women having difficulties in having children and trying other methods and adopting. Maybe there wasn’t a problem in having them, but maybe the health of the child is a constant concern.

If your stock is low and you’re trying to bring a life into this world, that life has to be pulled from the stock you have and still have enough for you to continue living. When this is not the case, miscarriages and birth defects occur. Sometimes the mother and/or the child pass away.

For example, the UK noticed that birth defects and miscarriages after adding folic acid (B9) ended up saving 200k babies (Spencer 2015). The New England Journal of Medicine noted that taking B3 (niacin) reduces your chances of a miscarriage and again birth defects. Low iron and Vit D increases risks of autism.  This goes on and on for different nutrients.

There is an acting couple (Nicole and Boris) who are talking about spina bifida because their daughter has it. This neurological disorder is due to a lack of folic acid. Where the spinal chord doesn’t develop properly (not closing the back bone). After learning from that, their 2nd child did not have any issues.  This is an inheritance of stock. Where it was low, she invested and improved her genetic stock account.

When people say things like “Oh, I just have bad genes, it runs in the family” the question that you should be asking your self is why. Why does your family have bad stock? Eating habits are developed and passed on just like genes right? This is how micro cultures are created.

There is a new area of science called epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of gene expression. What I mean by expression is how external factors turn genes on and off

DNA is widely regarded as the code the body uses to build and rebuild itself, but genes themselves need instructions for what to do, where and when to do it (Alban, 2016). This is where your food, attitude and environment help you to do just that. I’ve attached a link in my references if you are looking to go deeper into this. There is a lot of great journals, articles and books about this from a research point of view to personal experience. One of my favorite books is one called Deep Nutrition by Dr. Catherine Shanahan. She had a painfully debilitating disorder which she was able to recover from. The other is a documentary called Burzynski who is a doctor in Texas who discovered how to turn on and off gene sequences using peptides (which are amino acids that are used as a building block protein in the skin and also send messages deep into the cells). He used this to treat patients with brain cancer with an 80% success rate. You had to be part of a clinical trial, but it was successful for thousands of patients another Dr. by the name of Nicholas Gonzalez who was located in New York used a similar treatment based on Dr. Burzynski’s with the same results. If you don’t know Brain tumors can’t use chemo That documentary is very interesting.

I say this to show you how important your stock is. Now I’m sure you’re asking how do I start working on increasing the value of my stock? Learning the difference in what adds to your stock (Nutrients) and what takes away from your stock (Depleters).

Nutrients are whole “virgin” foods. I use the word virgin instead of pure because pure can have different meanings to different people. So foods that have untouched with chemicals, or extractions or any other modifications that you can’t seem to do at home. Whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Unadultered meats, especially organ meats. If you noticed the deficiencies that cause birth defects. The B vitamins, iron, A, are all things high in meat, especially organ meats. Yes, you can also do some of this in vegetables, but the quantities for these particular nutrients are tougher to acquire. Kind of like how some Vegans struggle with B12 and iron, supplements work for some, but not others. I would point you toward the hybrid of algae instead for better results. Also, remember there is a function for each kind of food and it’s dietary direction that we spoke about in S1E27. Other things that are helpful in increasing stock is laughter, fresh air, clean water and a positive frame of mind.

Depleters, literally just think about the opposite of what I just said. These would be refined and highly processed foods and oils. So those sweets you enjoy pull/deplete nutrients from the liver and bones to help in the digestion of that food. Those bag of chips or ready-made meals, the carbonated drink and anything where the ingredients on the box are unpronounceable. Refining of grains such as the ever popular white flour and rice. Pasteurized and homogenized milk, margarine etc. Polluted air and water, always being in a bad mood or stressed. These things deplete your stock.

When I 1st learned about how important my stock was skeptical but oh so curious to see what would happen. After rolling the idea around in my head a bit, I decided that I was going to invest in me even more than I was going to invest in my financial future.

How do you know when your stock has increased especially since you don’t receive a financial report? Your doctor’s check-up will improve as well as your blood work. I remember being told that coming in for yearly blood work was not necessary. Let’s try every other year. That’s the only time I see my doctor is for a yearly check-up and to add some data on my health spreadsheet and keep my numbers in a range that works for me. You’ll forget you had aches and pains since they will gradually go away. You’ll notice a decrease in sickness until it no longer happens (yes, it can happen). I had 7-year stint of not catching a cold or anything. It came to an end with a 3 week trip to Saudi Arabia where there were a lot of diesel exhaust and dry air (environment) and I was eating very little since there was a lot of refined foods (so nothing to maintain the nutrient levels) on the day I returned. I got sick, but I know why. That was 3 years ago, the only thing that seems to hurt my system now is dry air…kills my mucosal lining and since I know why. I know how to address it. I know my relationship with my body is so much better.  I talked about listening to your body in an earlier episode. It will let you know when something is wrong in advance before there are problems and in this way, you can avoid a dip in your stock. So when my nose starts to become irritated, it’s time to get the humidifier out, so my body doesn’t use additional resources and deplete my stock.

I am an all or nothing type of person, I want it all to be nourishing, things that I can’t help is the environment, such as pollution, dry air and coworkers using air fresheners (at least for now) but I can have complete control of my diet to compensate for it. For those who are not all or nothing people, the idea is to eat more nutritional foods than depleting food. So if you know you’re currently eating more depleting than nourishing. Migrate to 50/50 then 60/40, 85/15 whatever works for you and that you can maintain to improve your stock value. There is a book and documentary called Genetic Roulette and it states that research shows it can take a little as 3 months to change your genes.  Understand the smaller the difference between the two, the longer it is going to take for you to see and feel changes.

Investing in your stock gives you the ability to enjoy the financial investments for later on. To enjoy your family, children and grandchildren. To enjoy your life.

Howard, B. (2012) What to Expect in Your 60s from www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-09-2012/what-to-expect-in-your-60s.html<

Lobosco, K. (2015) Don’t Freak out about health care cost and retirement  from www.money.cnn.com/2015/12/30/retirement/retirement-health-care-costs/index.html

Spencer, B. (2015) Daily Mail Birth Defects due to Lack of Folic acid from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3365083/Lack-folic-acid-causes-spina-bifida-hundreds-birth-defects.html

Alban, D. (2016) Epigenetics: How You Can Change Your Genes And Change Your Life from http://reset.me/story/epigenetics-how-you-can-change-your-genes-and-change-your-life/

American Cancer Society (2017) Key Statistics for Colorectal Cancer from https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/about/key-statistics.html<