(NC) It's increasingly common for modern society to link healthy living with a stance against genetically modified organisms (GMOs), biotechnology and other scientific advances.

Yet it's precisely these advances — including the much-maligned GMOs — in healthcare, industry, and farming that are letting us live longer, healthier lives and helping us take better care of our environment.

Healthcare biotechnology, for example, results in therapies for rare diseases as well as treatments for global common conditions like heart attacks, cancer, stroke and neurological conditions. Insulin, for example, is currently made from genetically modified yeast or bacteria cells. Before this discovery, diabetics had to rely on insulin derived from livestock pancreases.

Industrial biotechnology is helping reduce energy and waste consumption and our dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels. It's also being used to develop enzymes and micro-organisms that improve the effectiveness of everyday items like laundry detergents.

But it's food biotechnology that's making the biggest changes in improving human health and nutrition.

Global food security is an increasingly important topic as the world grapples with a growing population and a changing climate. According to the United Nations, close to 800 million people worldwide (about one in nine) don't have enough food to live a healthy life.

Modern food biotechnology has created crops that are resistant to insect damage, which means farmers can produce more food from their land and do so using pesticides in a more sustainable way. And soon there will be crops with higher drought tolerance, helping the global population deal with climate change.

Most of today's first generation GMO crops have traits that help farmers. But some even have characteristics that avoid widespread devastation, such as the Hawaiian papaya, which survived a virus that severely threatened production of the popular fruit. A biotech solution to citrus greening, a disease threatening to wipe out Florida's citrus groves, is also in the works.

Next generation biotech crops however, are focused on direct human benefit with nutritionally enhanced foods that can contribute to better health. This includes cooking oils with higher healthy fat levels, fruits and vegetables with more nutrients or cancer-fighting lycopene, soy and peanut varieties with fewer allergens, and a new rice variety with added beta carotene and iron to help prevent blindness in the developing world.