Never Be Sick Again (10 page)
Pathway Number Three: Psychological
The psychological pathway may turn out to be the most important pathway of all. Through study of the psychological pathway, we learn about the significance of thoughts, emotions and behavior, and how these affect our health.
Many people believe that the mind has an enormous effect on the body. This idea, however, is based on the supposition that the mind somehow is separated from the body. In truth, the entire body, including the brain, is the mind. When we understand that the mind and body are one, reports of placebo effects and miraculous healings should not be surprising. In fact, they are part of everyday life.
Our thoughts and emotions trigger a cascade of biochemical reactions that either enhance or damage health. How we react to various life events and how we respond to our thoughts and emotions are choices that can damage or enhance cellular health. What we allow to enter our minds on a daily basis is critical. What we think and feel over a lifetime plays a major role in our health or illness. The significance and impact of the factors associated with this pathway may indeed be more important than all the nutrients and toxins we put into our bodies, perhaps even more important than all the other pathways put together. The psychological pathway explores the subjects relevant to behavioral and psychological factors in health and disease, including meditation, stress, thoughts, emotions and the placebo effect.
Pathway Number Four: Physical
The physical pathway contains recommendations on how to recognize and provide for the body's physical needs. This pathway can be used to enhance physical potential and to minimize physical damage. Just as nutrition and toxic avoidance are important to health, physical maintenance and care are also essential to the health equation.
Most Americans do not get adequate exercise, sleep or sunlight. An indoor, sedentary lifestyle means little or no exercise nor exposure to natural light. Our mental lifestyle, meanwhile, is excessively fast paced, and this, together with a high incidence of sleep deprivation, means that often we are chronically and seriously stressed. Also we are exposed to subtle physical influences, such as electromagnetic fields caused by the wiring in our homes, hairdryers, heaters, electric razors, cell phones and the X rays we receive as part of medical and dental evaluations.
Pathway Number Five: Genetic
Limit genetic damage. Optimize genetic potential. These are the goals we strive toward on the genetic pathway.
The genetic pathway focuses on optimizing the expression of our genes to promote health and limit any damage to the genes. Each human being is genetically unique; inherent strengths and weaknesses are a part of our basic genetic makeup. Genes are the blueprint of life. Our genes, however, rarely have the final say and they are certainly not the primary cause of disease that modern medicine would have us believe. Genes are a potential for expression, and they express themselves in ways commensurate with life's circumstances.
The genetic pathway explores topics such as the genetic causes for disease and the effects of genetically engineered foods. Further, this pathway identifies specific hazards that can potentially cause genetic damage, such as environmental chemicals, prescription drugs and radiation. Most important is the personal resolve of individuals to commit themselves seriously to optimizing health, rather than accepting their so-called genetic predisposition as a fore-doomed fate.
Pathway Number Six: Medical
The medical pathway is perhaps the most surprising and most misunderstood of all the pathways. As we have noted, many people rave about and swear by the near-miraculous feats accomplished by modern medicine. The technology that contemporary medicine has to offer is best used in crisis intervention and trauma care. However, such applications are limited. No doubt that physicians are well-meaning, but a blind trust in them and in the treatments they offer (surgery and drugs) to the exclusion of other considerations can lead to destructive and even lethal consequences.
The medical pathway helps to explain how modern medicine can cause disease. Widespread ignorance and failure to comprehend this fact are reasons that modern medicine harms the health of our population. By studying this pathway we can identify and avoid potentially harmful aspects of medicine, while still reaping the benefits of modern medical technology.
The medical pathway is unique, expressing itself through all of the other pathways and thus, compromising health at many levels. In working to optimize your personal health equation, you need to be aware of the ways in which modern medical “care” actually can damage your health along any of the other pathways. Chapter 10 about the medical pathway describes more specifically medicine's capabilities and its limitations.
A New Theory for a New Millennium
During the last century, modern industrial society has brought fundamental changes to human existence; we are developing and changing the world much faster than our biology can adapt. Today, nutritional intake, toxic exposures and stress levels bear little resemblance to those of even our most recent biological ancestors. Every cell in our bodies is adversely affected by these profound changes, which is why our society has suffered more and more chronic disease. Disease is the catastrophic result of decades of inadequate nutrition, toxic exposures, sedentary lifestyles, familial and social disruptions and a dependence on drugs (prescription, over-the-counter and recreational).
In this chapter, I have attempted to outline the complexity and confusion that surround disease in our society. I offer a new theory of health and disease, a new way to look at these concepts: There is only one disease, cellular malfunction, and only two causes of disease, deficiency and toxicity. Six pathways can lead to health or disease. Our confusion arises because cells malfunction in many different ways. Modern medicine categorizes the symptoms created by these various malfunctions as different diseases, even though they have common causes. Achieving victory over disease requires removing the causes. Eliminate deficiency and toxicity, allow the body to self-repair and self-regulate, and disease will go away.
“Cellsâin the skin, the muscles, the lungs, the liver, the
intestines, the kidneys, the blood vessels, the glands, the heart
and, crucially, the nerves and brainâmust be well nourished
if we are to lead long and healthy lives. Contrarily, if these
cells are undernourished, disabilities and diseases of every
description will ensue.”
Roger J. Williams, Ph.D.
Nutrition Against Disease
L
et us take a trip together to the front lines of the daily battle between health and disease: your cells. Cells are the building blocks of your body. They build your tissues, and these tissues make up your systems. Because malfunctioning cells are the one disease, learning to care for cells is fundamental to healthy living. Come with me on a tour of the systems that keep your body healthy or that make you sick. The struggle for life itself occurs within every cell. The vitality of a person can only be as strong as the cells of which they are made.
The basics of caring for your cells are as follows:
⢠Supply cells with all the raw materials they need.
⢠Avoid the damaging effects of toxic chemicals.
⢠Build healthy cell membranes, the cell's first line of defense against disease.
⢠Learn how to prevent and reverse disease by understanding how cells work and how they malfunction.
⢠Choices, rather than genetic inheritance, are key.
Lost Along the Way
Before we leave our homes to travelâparticularly if our destination is unfamiliarâwe usually spend time reading brochures, studying maps, or researching local customs, currency, and, perhaps, health precautions. We rarely give that kind of attention to our own bodies and to our health, yet what could be more important?
Most people expect that their bodies generally take care of themselves, provided they don't smoke, drink to excess, or fall prey to some unstoppable virus or some predetermined genetic disease. Most people believe that as long as they avoid “fattening” foods, they are eating a healthful diet. On all counts, these people are wrong.
One of the most important things you need in order to fight disease and to encourage your own health is knowledge. This chapter teaches you how to prepare and what to pack for a healthy journey through the rest of your life. The small amount of time you will spend reading this chapter will be an investment worth making: It may save your life. Knowledge is power, and you are about to plug into a tremendous energy source.
A cabinet stocked with medicines, a list of doctors to call, and a head filled with commercial endorsements, medical studies and drug warning labels does nothing to give you what you really need: a true understanding of what makes you sick or how to get well. Without that understanding, you can be caught up in a whirlwind of medical procedures and pharmaceuticals that suppress or surgically remove the symptoms of what are labeled as thousands of different diseases. In reality, these drugs and surgeries do not cure disease, and they may actually kill you. Despite the confusion out there about how disease occurs and the different health plans that seek to promote health, real success can only come if you keep your cells working right. This chapter teaches you, simply and clearly, how your body works at its most basic level: your cells.
The Cell
A cell is much more than a combination of molecules and atoms. A cell is a miraculous realityâlife itself. A single cell may be a life form, such as a bacterium. A human being, on the other hand, is made of about 75 trillion cells, including about two hundred different kinds of specialized cells with specific functions throughout the body, such as in the brain, the blood, the muscles, the liver and the eyes.
Cells are created and maintained by extremely complex actions and interactions, but nature takes care of that complexity. Your job is rather simple: Make certain that your cells obtain what they need. Choosing health means learning how to supply your cells with what they need while keeping them free of what they don't need. Cells have great powers to take care of themselves and to repair themselvesâto stay healthyâunless they are overwhelmed by poor diets, unhealthy habits or environmental hazards.
Your daily choices
determine whether your cells stay healthy or get sick.
We are ready to begin our journey through the cells of your body. Picture that we have traveled to the largest industrial park you can imagine. Around the park is a security wall designed to keep out intruders, to prevent the loss of essential materials, and to regulate the passage of materials in and out of the park. Inside the park are powerhouses designed to make the energy necessary to keep the park working. These powerhouses, in turn, require fuel, oxygen and other essentials on a round-the-clock basis in order to do their jobs.
Also inside the park are different factories and manufacturing plants that require a continuous supply of energy and raw materials in order to meet their daily quota of finished products. Coordinating all these activities are computer and communication systems that regulate the delivery of raw materials and the removal of wastes, as well as the production, storage and distribution of finished products. All of these systems are based upon a set of design blueprints containing all the information necessary to build a new park.