One step forward, one step back; or the curse of being human.

This morning, I was faced with another of this article/disguised promotion claiming to understand how to live healthier for longer. I have long learnt to ignore such declarations, but this time I was enticed to listen to it all as the facts appeared to be more scientific than usual and the professor a true expert on his field. And let be honest, from time to time we all need a bit of guidance or reassurance on how to go through the second part of our life, the one when we are officially declining and condemned to be doomed, if only to pretend that we can age with grace. This American Professor, apparently a renowned surgeon and academic, mentioned that healthy guts were THE key for a long and happy life and a strong subject of research from his side in place of all other professional activities: the secret lives in our guts. And then he explained in details why, filling us with the latest discoveries due to an ever growing knowledge of our bodies’ ways of working. I heard again about the importance of probiotics but beyond that the even bigger importance of prebiotics and finally of butyrate, which I had never heard of before. I spare you all the details, as I am not here to write a medical article, and you have already predicted how the video ended: by selling butyrate supplements. And then it all came to me, as a revelation: the human being has gone an incredibly long way, and is still making giant steps, in understanding in any small detail how our bodies work on a medical matter but more than anything, and let be honest here, on a commercial one linked to the race to stay younger (and beautiful) for longer. And yet, in parallel, life expectancy is officially now falling back. There are several reasons for such a phenomenon: obesity (processed food), toxicity from plastics, chemicals, pollution, and mental health (suicides and overdoses on a all-time high). All diseases the results of the human being’s creation: what man/woman makes, he/she unmakes. One step forward, one step back. In other words: why bother? Until the human being behaves as the grand engineer of the world, there will be no respite from it all. Maybe another reason to give God a place back into our lives?