What are the 11 Hallmarks?
There are 11 primary causes ("hallmarks") of cellular dysfunction. Alone or in combination they can cause cancer and other chronic diseases. HALLMARK is designed to combat all 11, helping your body achieve the normal, healthy state for all 11 hallmarks. HALLMARK flips the 11 primary causes of cellular dysfunction and disease on their heads and promotes the 11 Hallmarks of Health.
Healthy cells function in a predictable way, being "born", living and dying according to highly regulated processes and ordered rules that your cells work hard to maintain. But environmental assaults break down your cells' defenses, disrupt their normal processes and make them break the rules. The result? Cells that misbehave, growing, living and dying when, where and how they should not, and behaving in ways that affect you.
In a bad way.
Hallmark 1: Genetic stability
Maintaining the stability of your genome is critical for healthy cellular function - so much so that your cells have multiple mechanisms to maintain the DNA in your genome. But environmental factors, lifestyle choices and aging all fight against your cellular defenses and can harm your genome, changing it from its normal state. This is important because research indicates that genomic instability is a primary factor in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, immunodeficiency, aging and more [1,44].
Hallmark 2: Appropriate response to growth signals
Growth and maintenance of normal, healthy tissues are highly regulated processes. Normal cells are exquisitely sensitive to growth factors in their local surroundings so that tight control of cell number, tissue architecture and function is maintained. The assaults on your cells by environmental factors, lifestyle choices and aging can cause your cells to alter or lose this sensitivity and thus lose control over normal cell numbers, tissue architecture and function [2].
Hallmark 3: Normal response to anti-growth signals
Growth and maintenance of normal, healthy tissues not only requires growth signals as described for Hallmark 2, but anti-growth signals as well. As expected, normal cells respond to anti-growth signals with a controlled halt of cell division or cell death. Cellular impairment can cause your cells to ignore anti-growth signals so that they grow when and where they should not and lose control over normal cell numbers, tissue architecture and function [3].
Hallmark 4: Appropriate response to programmed cell death signals
When the body's repair mechanisms cannot fix affected cells, they are most often eliminated in a highly regulated process called programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Once more, environmental factors, lifestyle choices and aging can cause your cells to ignore their orders, remain well past their welcome and cause havoc [4,5,6].
Hallmark 5: Normal response to senescence signals
Another key mechanism the body uses to prevent affected cells from disrupting normal function is called senescence, in which the cell cycle of a dividing cell is halted [7]. External and internal stressors can cause your cells to ignore senescence signals and cause harm, such as uncontrolled cellular growth, invasiveness and therapeutic resistance [8-10].
Hallmark 6: Healthy metabolism
Cellular metabolism is a complex mesh of interconnected reactions, all balanced to maintain your health [11,12]. This balance can be disrupted by cellular damage from environmental factors, lifestyle choices and aging, with wide-ranging, detrimental effects on you [13,40-43].
Hallmark 7: Healthy inflammatory response
Healthy inflammation is a short-term defense mechanism used to protect us from infection and injury. However, when our cellular systems sense persistent damage, chronic inflammation can result, which plays a pivotal role in most all chronic diseases and health concerns that afflict Western countries today, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and many more [14-18,33-39].
Hallmark 8: Normal angiogenesis
Angiogenesis, or the formation of blood vessels, is a critical process in the developing embryo, supplying newly formed tissues the oxygen and nutrients they need to grow. In adulthood, angiogenesis is only activated, briefly and carefully, upon injury or menstruation. However, damage from environmental factors, lifestyle choices and aging can cause your cells to flip the angiogenesis switch back on, feeding those damaged cells all they need to grow [19-22].
Hallmark 9: Appropriate cellular localization and mobility
Cells don't live in isolation. Many cell types adhere to each other and to an organized carbohydrate and protein matrix that exists outside the cell, the extracellular matrix. These interactions enable cells to form organized tissues, organ and biological systems. But again, damage from environmental, lifestyle and aging-related sources can alter your cells' ability to connect, letting them invade local tissues and even migrate away from their proper location, often causing you harm [23-25].
Hallmark 10: Normal cellular microenvironment
Cells are in constant communication with other cells in their local microenvironment mostly by sending and receiving chemical signals. This ordered communication is critical for all systemic bodily functions, including immune response, cell growth, differentiation, division and many more. Cellular damage can alter the chemical signals being sent into the local microenvironment, and the results are often detrimental [26-28].
Hallmark 11: Normal cellular response to the immune system
The immune system is our master defender, one with many functions including protecting us from external pathogens like bacteria and viruses and working to kill and recycle damaged cells [29]. However, cellular damage can often accumulate and enable affected cells to evade immune system action [30,31]. These cells are then free to exert their abnormal actions and influences on surrounding cells, harming you.
For more information on the science behind the 11 Hallmarks of Health [32], see the references list, below.
View References