TL;DR

  • Chronic health problems are often caused by underlying issues—not just the symptom itself.
  • The current healthcare system focuses on managing symptoms, not restoring health.
  • Inflammation, diet, digestion, and nutrient deficiencies are major drivers of chronic disease.
  • The same condition can have different causes—there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
  • Addressing core health issues can improve symptoms—even if you are under medical care.
  • You can identify your biggest health imbalances using the SymptomQuiz. Use the free SymptomQuiz guide to interpret your results.

Most chronic health problems don’t start where you think they do.

If you’ve been told your condition is something you “just have to manage,” you’re missing the bigger picture.

Here are 6 ways to look at chronic health problems differently—and what you can do about them.

#1: Know there are serious flaws in our healthcare system

Our healthcare system does a wonderful job with acute care, emergency care, and high-tech surgeries. It does not do a good job with wellness care or with chronic health problems.

The pharmaceutical industry has extraordinary influence over our healthcare system. The NIH, FDA, and CDC are full of people with ties to that industry. Drug companies give money to medical schools, and organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics. Medical journals are financially dependent on drug ads. Because of this influence, the pharmaceutical industry’s view of healthcare is dominant.

The “science” put forth by the pharmaceutical industry consists of finding a single chemical to relieve a symptom. They then perform a study to prove that chemical is useful. They have so much influence over the medical journals that they are able to fudge their results. The opioid crisis is largely due to the falsifying of data to avoid showing that opioids were addictive. This is not science. Science relies on clinical observations, which are then tested and formed into theories. There are thousands of health practitioners who have made observations about natural therapies, but their observations are ignored and even suppressed as “unscientific” and “unproven”. This suppression of natural health care exists simply because there is nothing patentable to be had by using natural therapy.

Using a single drug to suppress a low-grade chronic symptom often does more harm than good. In natural health care we view symptoms as the body’s way of telling us what is wrong. People with chronic health problems need to take steps to restore their health (even when a drug therapy has been deemed necessary). In general, natural health care does not interfere with medical care. In many instances it outperforms medical care.

Things have not changed much since the time of Ignaz Semmelweis

In the middle of the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis came up with a revolutionary idea. He thought that if surgeons washed their hands between patients, fewer people would get sick and die after surgery. He was shunned and lost his job. The medical authorities knew better. They were certain that his theories were “unproven” and “unscientific”.

We like to think we have grown since then and that medicine has become more “scientific”. Sure, surgeons wash their hands now, but fixed ideas in our health care system are still getting in the way of people getting better. It seems as though the same types of people who were in charge during Semmelweis’ time are still running things.

Right now, medicine is fixated on finding patentable treatments. Look at the following list. The concepts are ignored, because these ideas are “unproven”, much the same way as Semmelweis’ ideas were unproven.

“Unproven” ideas that are ignored by our healthcare system:

You can find scientific studies to support all these ideas. In fact, they are the cornerstone for thousands of physicians who focus on natural healthcare. Our bodies are under assault. Our diets and what has been done to the food supply and environment are making us sick. Simply manipulating symptoms with a drug (or even an herb or a vitamin), is not going to be enough. We have to fight to restore balance to our bodies—both chemical and physical.

#2: Realize that Americans are getting sicker

Our biggest problem is that we are focused on fighting disease and not restoring health. This, combined with the fact that the people with the most influence in healthcare are interested in patents—not in healing, has given Americans substandard healthcare. This means that most people with a chronic health problem do not get the healthcare they deserve. If you look at the numbers, chronic disease is increasing.

  • Autoimmune diseases are increasing by a rate of 7% per year.
  • The number of people with allergies have more than doubled since 1970.
  • Autism affected 1 in 150 children in 2000. It now affects 1 in 44.
  • The prevalence of Parkinson’s disease has grown by 50% in the last 5 YEARS!
  • The rate of new diagnosis of celiac disease has increased 7.5% every year for the past few decades.
  • Ten percent of US children have ADHD. The diagnosis has increased by 30% since 2011.

Why Are We So Sick? The average American eats 10 pounds of chemical additives (that is not counting the stuff they spray on crops) and 200 pounds of sugar each year. The CDC has found that most Americans have 125 different chemical additives in their bodies; 77% of us have plastic in our bodies. Our crops are sprayed with glyphosate (Roundup), which disrupts the bacteria in our intestines. This practice is linked to Parkinson’s, autism, autoimmune diseases, and allergies. We feed our infants soy formula—which has been sprayed with Roundup. It disrupts their microbiome (bacteria in the intestine), and then we wonder why there is so much autism (autistic children all have gut ecology issues). Glyphosate has literally made most grains toxic; no wonder we love ketogenic diets. In the meantime, medicine ignores diet, the environment, and the microbiome; probably because there is nothing patentable to be found there.

A “pill for every ill” is NEVER going to work. We need to support core health issues.

#3: Understand that the same disease can have different causes

The “one disease, one therapy” concept works well for the pharmaceutical industry. They want to create a drug that targets a specific symptom. We look at things differently in natural health care. For example, about 1/3 of patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis will respond to a diet without complex carbohydrates (called the “Specific Carbohydrate Diet”). The diet is based on the idea that the patient is not efficiently digesting complex carbohydrates resulting in the undigested food feeding undesirable bacteria in the intestines. The food literally rots in the intestines, creating irritation and inflammation. Changing the diet relieves symptoms in 1/3 of patients. Why didn’t the other 2/3 of the patients get better? Because “rotting carbohydrate” is not as big an issue for those patients. Another issue is causing their disease, or they have something going on in addition to “rotting carbohydrate”.

Drug therapy for patients with Crohn’s disease or colitis can include steroids (to reduce inflammation), immune modulators, or antibodies to target specific inflammatory proteins. Basically, drugs target the symptom—inflammation. Patients who are on drug therapy can still use diet or other natural healthcare approaches because they seldom interfere with drug therapy.

If you have migraine headaches, research shows that B vitamins (especially riboflavin) and magnesium can offer relief. It is not that you are “treating” migraine headaches with these nutrients. It means that people who are deficient in riboflavin and magnesium may begin to have headaches. Unfortunately, giving riboflavin and magnesium will not give relief to all migraine sufferers. There are other issues that can cause headaches. There can be structural issues with the vertebrae in the neck; this is why chiropractic has been effective for many people with headaches. Stress may be an issue; it can cause you to “dump” nutrients and literally affect every system in your body. Stress can cause migraines and very specific nutritional therapy and other strategies to support the adrenal glands can help. Food sensitivity, especially problems with gluten, can cause migraine headaches. These patients need to not only find and avoid problem foods, but they will also need help with the digestive system—especially the makeup of the bacteria that live there. You get the idea; there is no single natural health treatment for migraines. More often than not the migraine is the result of one or more core health issues going wrong. This is true of most chronic health problems.

Medicine targets symptoms. Natural healthcare looks for causes. This is not to denigrate treating symptoms. If you break a bone or have a heart attack, you want your symptoms attended to. You may have a chronic health problem and the symptoms are so distressing that you need relief, making an aggressive medical approach necessary. Addressing core health issues can still help those who are receiving medical care.

#4: Focus on the body’s infrastructure, NOT the symptom

We touched on this issue in #3. This is not an instruction to ignore your symptom or to not take something that offers relief. Natural healthcare seldom interferes with medical care. If you have a chronic symptom, however, you should take the opportunity to learn why it is there and address the body’s infrastructure.

Asthma is a great example. Asthma patients often take drugs that either reduce inflammation or open the airways. If an asthmatic is magnesium deficient, the airways will tend to be tighter. In fact, IV magnesium has been used in the ER to stop acute asthmatic attacks. People with asthma usually improve when taking magnesium supplements. A natural way to control inflammation is with diet. Foods that have a lot of polyphenols (translation: fruits and vegetables) contain antioxidants and are anti-inflammatory. Foods that create inflammation include sugar, chemical additives, grains, starches, and meat. A diet that is 75-80% fresh produce and is free of refined and processed food will benefit most asthmatics. This eating program is written in detail (complete with meal plans and recipes) in the Roadmap to Health.  The Roadmap to Health is a free PDF that is available from this site.

Like any other chronic condition, asthma symptoms will improve as you take steps to address core health issues. Iodine deficiency, for example, is very common, especially in areas away from seacoasts. Iodine can thin mucus and iodine deficiency may be an issue for asthmatics with thick mucus plugs. The digestive system can be a source of inflammation, and many people with asthma respond to digestive aids or therapies that balance the makeup of the bacteria in the intestines.

An asthma attack can be life threatening. Medical intervention is necessary in such an emergency. Drug therapy can keep symptoms under control. Like many chronic conditions, asthmatics can benefit from natural therapies while they are under medical care. Natural healthcare is not “instead of” medical care. Addressing the body’s infrastructure can, in many cases, will improve symptoms and make drugs less necessary.

Natural healthcare is cumulative—each portion of the body’s infrastructure that you address usually further improves results.

#5: Diet can heal

There is more to inflammation than pain: MOST DISEASE IS THE RESULT OF INFLAMMATION. Heart disease, Crohn’s disease, allergies, and even cancer all are inflammatory conditions. By getting inflammation under control, you not only reduce pain but improve your health in general. You may have heard the names of some of the chemicals involved in inflammation in drug commercials. Some examples of these pro-inflammatory chemicals are prostaglandins, cytokines, interleukins, and leukotrienes. Drugs that treat allergies and reduce pain and inflammation work by affecting these chemicals. Similarly, diet and supplements can also affect the amount of these chemicals and the inflammation that they produce.

It may seem strict, but…Try this diet for just 30 days (you can eat as much as you like). It will change your life. Diet and some basic supplementation can reduce pain and improve almost any chronic health problem. You can do anything for 30 days. The program is strict, but once the 30 days are over, you can relax the discipline a bit. At the end of the 30 days, some of the “forbidden” foods will be allowed. Just remember that coming off the program is an opportunity to make some of the improvements to your health and well-being permanent. At the end of this handout is some advice on ending the 30-day plan.

The Roadmap to Health is an eating plan that will reduce inflammation, improve digestion, supply trace nutrients, and generally make it easier for the body to heal. It has meal plans and recipes.      

#6: Find your core health issues with the SymptomQuiz

SymptomQuiz is a computerized health assessment questionnaire. It does NOT diagnose disease. It will give an idea of your core health issues based on your symptoms. It is easy and it is FREE. Simply go to SymptomQuiz.com and answer the questions. It will tell you what areas of your health need attention. Of course, the computer assessment is incomplete. A computer cannot replace an assessment by a human being. You can show your results to a physician. Take the quiz.    A free manual will help you understand the results.