The body reflects all the negative effects you can see as far as sickness or ill-health is concerned. But nobody usually gives it a thought that what you call the mind might have contributed to the manifested diseases.

Many people for example do not know that there is a direct connection of digestion and health to the functions of the mind and this is where the topic of fear might be of high significance to us. When the mind is full of fear, it sends out messages to the various glands of the body and organs to be prepared for danger. When we procrastinate and remain undecisive, our body becomes filled up with un-used materials. Our glands are relentlessly drained.

Constant state of fear soon cause the glands to function abnormally and the whole body system including the mind itself will begin to be affected one way or the other in some kind of disease.

Understanding the whole system of the body is really predicated on the understanding of two principal systems of the body. These are the nervous system and the endocrine system. How these two system collaborate in their functions to make a human function properly really explains the relationship between mind and body. The unit of their common function is the cell and that in itself highlights the importance of the cell functions.

When we are talking of human health and it can reasonably be predicted that as the issue of health is becoming more and more of serious concern, cellular nutritionist will most likely become actively relevant in the future in the discussion on the issue pertaining to our health.

Preventive health approach as we are beginning appreciate it rather than curative approach may be much more dependent on cellular nutritionist rather than on medical practitioners.

The cell as biologists will tell you is the smallest unit of a living matter that can exist on its own. All living things of which a human being is a prominent member are made up of cells. Cells exist in a variety of shapes and sizes.

The cell essentially is the starting point of life. As much as it could be said that the cell as the unit of a living matter can exist on its own it is to the extent that it has complementary support to carry on the vital chemistry of living.

There are various types of cells in the body with specialised functions. Some are rectangular, square, round and star shaped. But it should be acknowledged that their natural bond of cohesive function is located in the nucleic acids of de-oxyribnucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA).

This is to say that however different one cell in the body may be to another cell, they all contain in their nucleic acid the functional and structural information for the development of that body which should enable them to know in what way and manner they must work together to sustain the healthy living of the body they are concerned about.

So when we say that the cell in the body in whatever form we may conceive it is the starting point of life, this is in recognition of the fact that each cell is sensitive to the functional and structural information for the development of that body that will facilitate mutual cooperation among every cell in the body to achieve that goal.

What I am trying to say is that whatever you may call tissue, organ and system in the animal body in particular including a human being are various stages of the complexities of cell functions. Tissue may be a bone, a nerve or muscle in an animal. A tissue can be defined as a mass of cells uniting together to perform a particular group function in the body.

What we call an organ in the body can be defined as several tissues grouped together to make a functional unit. An example of this is the kidney. What we call a system such as the reproductive system usually refers to a series of organs whose functions are coordinated to produce effective action in the body; indeed our body is a function of systems most prominent among these systems are the cardiovascular system and the cerebrovascular system.

The understanding of how systems function may jolly well reveal to us what it may entail when we talk about mind-body relationship. The cardiovascular system is about the heart and the principal role it plays in collaboration with the blood vessels to carry the blood around the body.

The cerebro-vascular system is about the brain and the vessels involved in getting blood and other nutrients across to it. Two other cardinal systems in this respect are the nervous system and the endocrine system. Reference to them as cardinal systems finds meaning in the explanation I had given in a previous article that how these two systems collaborate in their functions to make a human function properly really explains the relationship between mind and body.

The unit of their common function is the cell of whatever kind where the nucleic acids await them. Our body system with its mental and physical functions require certain elements if it is to function properly.

What we might call mental or physical ill-health could be traced to the factor of these elements in our requirement. In a recent article I had hit the nail on the head that this factor is the factor of diet. Man must wake up to the understanding of the rules of diet.

The days are going when that erroneous impression is being pushed aside that it is only medical experts, psychiatrists and psychologists that can talk about the issue of health. Yes they will always be useful where the issue of curative approach to the issue of health is required.

The new dispensation on health matters is concerned about the preventive approach to health and the knowledge of the rules of diet may play an important role in this approach. You may not only be required to know about these rules yourself, you may need to give nutritionists a pride of place over the issue of your health.