Why real food works (and medicine doesn't) to create health

My previous post featured a Ted Talk by a gentleman who recovered his health fully after years of the compounded ill effects of serious injury and medications. Briefly, he broke his back which led to surgery and being put on a lengthy list of meds that grew over time as he became progressively more ill and depressed.

Eventually an insight came to him that he should at least die with dignity and grace for the sake of his young son by getting off all the medications, and the stupor they had kept him in for years. He felt he was ready to die, and this was the most constructive father's legacy he could give his son. He did not anticipate the chain of insights and events this one change engendered in him. And he didn't die, far from it in fact, he found his way back to fully robust health, an athletic level of health.

His insight led him to discover the cause of health.

The cause of health is a concept we generally are not all that familiar with in the modern industrialized world. It shifts focus from cause of disease to cause of health, and in so doing replaces confusion as to why we are not well with clarity as to how to become healthy, and stay healthy.

In my blog I've focused mostly on a whole food plant based diet as a cause of health, in this post I would like to begin to look at how "medications" are generally counterproductive to health.

In the Ted Talk referenced above the father refers to "radical fasting" as one of the many things he did on his road to recovery. I would like to take gentle issue with the idea fasting is radical, it is in fact a normal physiologic response to serious injury and disease. In the natural pre-industrial setting we are evolved from, serious injury or disease essentially immobilized us for the first stage of recovery. When sick enough we don't feel like eating, if force fed our body simply regurgitates. The body takes control, and we are driven completely by autonomic systems, which some call the body's innate intelligence.

And whether we appreciate it or not, our body's vast and hugely complex web of autonomic functions, our body's innate intelligence, is focused solely on making us perfectly healthy under every possible circumstance we find ourselves in. We can be in quite toxic conditions and not even be aware of it, but our autonomic systems are crystal clear on what has to be done, and operate at maximum capacity to rid our body of toxins 24/7/365, birth to death. Unfortunately, in a post-industrial world, autonomic function capacity can't always keep up with the toxic onslaught.

That is why so many "modern" humans are sick with chronic conditions. We have to figure out how to "help" our subconscious autonomic function do it's job keeping us healthy. It's not that difficult really, the principles of the cause of health are simple and logical, it begins with "stop putting in toxins". It begins with diet.

Everyone thinks they are on a healthy diet. Ask anyone, see what they say. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2007-2008), approximately 68 percent of American adults are now overweight or obese. And it's not because we are inactive, we are inactive because we are overweight. Get healthy, see what happens. Your body will "want" to move more.

There's an important reason for the "immobilization" of fasting, it refocuses all energy on the body's innate capacity to heal, and the body either heals and becomes mobile again, or if injury or disease are too great to overcome, the body dies.

There are some things modern medicine is good at, serious injury being a prime example, and we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. As we really begin to understand the cause of health we can trust ourselves to make intelligent choices in how and when we avail ourselves of modern medicine's beneficial aspects. And equally important we also become much more aware of it's counterproductive aspects.

So in the natural world we only do a prolonged fast when circumstances "force" it on us. It's good to keep that in mind because prolonged fasting is a rigorous and potentially dangerous process not to be taken lightly. In the opinion of every fasting expert I'm aware of, we should only do prolonged fasting under the care of expert supervision. We can however do safe forms of intermittent fasting if we choose, which can be very beneficial.

Let's return to "medications are generally counter productive to health", a potentially complex topic, so I'm going to simplify by looking at general principles and concepts. We all have become familiar with the power of placebo. It's a wonderous psychophysical aspect of the immune system, but it has limits. We can believe for example we are immune to biomechanical impact, but a bullet can still kill us. Briefly then, placebo has it's origin in psychology (belief), but exogenous mechanical forces ultimately trump placebo. If one is given a fatal dose of poison, but is told and believes it's vitamin C, chances are quite good one will die anyway.

And this is the key thing to understand about placebo, it's a real effect, but limited by contrary mechanical forces. However, the key point, it puts "wind in the sails" when coupled to positive mechanicals. We want to use the power of placebo by believing in the principles that together comprise the cause of health. So...placebo is really effective when coupled with positive mechanicals, like real food, positive social connections, good quality sleep, clean air and water, sunlight, rigorous physical activity, etc.

So how do we know "meds" are not all they're cracked up to be? Not only do they not overcome the contrary mechanicals of crap diet and lifestyle, on average they actually compound them into a downward spiral of degrading health. If it weren't so, we would all be at robust (athletic) levels of health taking all our prescribed meds, even into our 80's and beyond. Meds as a cause of health is a science fiction if there ever was one.

Again, there are exceptions, primarily antibiotics when we really need them (which isn't all that often), they counteract bacteria, turning a potentially dangerous situation into a temporary situation. Just as surgery turns many life threatening conditions into temporary conditions.

Generally speaking pharmacological medications mask systemic conditions and make chronic conditions gradually worse. They do not address the real problem, because they can't. Only the body can heal itself when we manage to "get out of it's way". So called "modern" medicine doesn't recognize this basic premise to begin with!

And this is the crux of the spiraling "health care" disaster we see in our health, and economy. Conditions "treated" with meds continue to grow worse, and as time goes on we need more and more "masking"...more meds, new and "better" meds.

Knowing when exceptions are appropriate is the intelligent use of medical advice. You do not have to do everything your doctors tell you. Unfortunately "modern" MDs are not trained in the cause of health, they are only trained in the cause of disease and phatmacology. The best advice is to approach medical advice with caution. Become informed, learn the cause of health and practice it in your own life...it's a frame of reference that will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Some of the things "alternative medicine" does are genuinely quite healthful, therapeutic bodywork comes to mind, but much if not most of alternative medicine is basically placebo. Whole foods engage the cause of health, fractionated versions of them generally do not.

So yes, believe in magic and placebo, it is real, but infinitely more effective when contextualized with reality.

I want to end this post with credit given to the person who introduced me to the cause of health, as he has done for so many others, Dr. Douglas Graham. Thank you Doug!