Who Gets Sick?
The following 12 factors play a vital role in determining who is more likely to get sick:
- Education: the amount people know about their health, the environment and their bodies
- Beliefs: the beliefs people have inherited throughout their lifetimes.
- Attitudes: the attitudes people have towards themselves, others, and their health.
- Choice of Doctor: the method of health care that one chooses makes a big difference in ones health.
- Prevention: the health that you have today is determined by the actions that you have taken for your health over the last 20 to 30 years.
- Lifestyle: your day-to-day activities have an accumulating effect on your health.
- Habits: your habitual eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercise patterns are also very important.
- Environment:the environment that you live and work in may contain elements that adversely affect your health.
- Relationships: have a profound affect on your level of health, and how long you will live.
- Responsibility: the level of responsibility one takes with respect to their health also determines its direction.
- Income level: the wealthy generally enjoy a better level of health because they can afford the best of everything, and tend to be more aware of their health.
- Your reaction: How you choose to react to your lot in life and the situations you are exposed to determine more than anything else how well your body responds to stress.
Education
People who are uneducated about their health are the ones who have the most health problems. You will notice I did not say uneducated and leave it at that because there are many so-called educated people who know very little outside their area of expertise and know nothing about how the body works and what to do to make it healthy.
Nowadays it is imperative that one understands that, “the system” is not set up with the consumer’s health as its prime objective. The major food producing companies are obviously oblivious to the health requirements of the public and prepare foods for mass consumption with known toxic ingredients. It is up to the individual to become educated about what corporations put into our food and which ones to avoid. The chapter on nutrition and the chapter on toxins include some of these suggestions. A couple of good examples would be: fluoride (the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the North American public), aspartame (very damaging to the brain), sugar, and white flour.
Relying on the government, your doctor, and the corporate food producers to protect your health is rather naive. Your health is not guaranteed just because you live in North America. There’s a tremendous battle going on between the various companies for your hard-earned dollar. The trends are toward foods that taste good, are fast and easy to prepare, have competitive prices, and have a long shelf life. You’ll notice health is not one of the concerns. Since it is your concern, it is up to you to read the labels to find what is in the various products and then to shop wisely.
“Let the buyer beware” has much merit. Be aware that all foods are not healthy for you. In many of the advertising campaigns they actually misrepresent or do not mention the food value of their product and emphasize only its taste while associating it with a certain desirable lifestyle.
It is amazing the number of patients who come into the office and have absolutely no idea why they’re unhealthy. They have taken it for granted that they will stay healthy and only become concerned about their health when they have lost it. This is why our clinic emphasizes educating the patients about why they have their condition and what their responsibilities are to get well.
Beliefs
Beliefs are those concepts that have been drummed into us since we were born. We inherited the belief system of our parents and functioned the first 12 or 13 years of our lives based on their beliefs. Along the way new beliefs are picked up from teachers, friends, TV, movies, books, peer pressure, education, relationships, religious teachings, environment and occupation. All of these influences go together to make up our current belief system. You may or may not have been subjected to anything pertaining to your health, and could have the common belief that “the medical system will look after my health should I be unlucky enough to get sick”. Along with this belief goes the idea that “I don’t have to do anything about my health. I’m in good hands. The Dr. will look after me”. People are in for a big shock when they find out how ineffective the medical system really is.
Some Common Beliefs That Lead to Ill Health Are:
“I’ll quit smoking later and my lungs will return to normal”
“It won’t happen to me”
“My doctor will look after me”
“The hospital will cure me”
“My doctor knows best”
“My spine doesn’t have anything to do with my health”
“If it (Chiropractic) was any good my doctor would have told me about it”
“Food companies wouldn’t put anything poisonous in our food”
“Everything that is sold at the supermarket must be good for you or they would not allow it on the shelves”
“The government makes sure our water supply is safe”
“Immunization is safe”
“Drugs are the only answer”
“The doctor would not perform surgery on me if it wasn’t necessary”
Another belief that I encounter every once in awhile is that “I’m too old to change.” When people stop looking and are unwilling to change, even in the presence of overwhelming evidence that a change is necessary, then this is a sign that people are starting to display the characteristics of being “old”.
Attitudes
Attitudes are based on your belief system. The belief comes first, and then the attitude is formed. My belief for instance, is that I don’t get sick and therefore my attitude is that I am healthy all the time. If my resistance should get down because of a heavy workload, a busy schedule, or some stressful situations and my body warns me with some cold or flu symptoms, my attitude is that I’ll be back to normal in one or two days. Since that has been my attitude for some 25 years, this is what I experience in my reality.
The same principle applies to religious beliefs. The original belief may be that God controls everything; the resulting attitude is that fate controls your destiny. Consequently, things are written off as God’s will and never questioned.
The belief of some doctors is that they know everything. Their attitude is one of an “ivory tower”. Don’t you dare question my opinion. His or her persona is one of a dogmatic, domineering, not much time for anybody beside manner.
In the past the doctor would think of himself or herself as some kind of God and expect everybody to pay homage to them. Unfortunately, that’s how people have treated them. Today it is a different story; some people no longer accept directions without explanations. This idea that “I know best and don’t ask any questions” is becoming rather unpopular. People are expecting to be treated as human beings and are starting to demand the right to know what’s going on.
You eventually Get Treated According to How You Think of Yourself
Pessimistic, negative people who are always irritated and argumentative will have different chemicals secreted into their system. This adversely affects the immune system and eventually produces damage to various organs in the body. Ultimately they end up with conditions representative of years of being subjected to such chemicals. The psychosomatic aspect of disease has been well known for decades. If you go around worrying about every speck of dust and germs in the air, thinking that it is going to cause you to be sick, then you are right. Because you’re dominating thoughts eventually lead to the manifestation of these thoughts. The old adage “As a man thinketh in his heart, he doth become” is the point here. If you think you are going to be sick all the time, then that will be your experience. On the other hand, if you expect to be healthy then you have a better chance of that being your experience.
FM/CFS patients come in with a unique set of beliefs and attitudes. They have eventually come to the opinion that no one can help, and that their condition is just going to get worse. This is the result of the beliefs bestowed upon them by their doctors who have told them, “You are just going to have to learn to live with it” and “nothing can be done”. Therefore, the attitude of these patients is one of hopelessness and eventually depression, feeling that they are doomed to a life of suffering. Their experience proves it. Should they maintain this attitude, they will reap what they sow.
The attitudes that: “just a little dessert won’t hurt; one more drink won’t make any difference; another cigarette doesn’t matter; I’ll exercise tomorrow; and who cares what you look like after you are married” manifest themselves in certain ways. This has an accumulated effect on the body eventually producing ill health and accelerating the aging process, leading to premature death.
Choice of Doctor
Your doctor’s beliefs and attitudes are based on years and years of education channeled in a specific direction by the pharmaceutical companies and the powers that also control the medical profession. The medical system is set up in such a way that the patient’s health is not the number one priority. If it were, they would have no hesitation to send you to other practitioners who are getting success with your particular condition, no matter who they were. But that is not the case. The medical profession and the organizations that pretend to be looking after the best interests of the patients are only interested in treatments that are medically oriented. A good example of this bias is when I first started practice. I called both the Asthma Association and Headache Association. I informed them that I had an excellent new cure for both of these conditions. In the beginning they seemed to be interested but as soon as I told them I was a Chiropractor, their response was, and I quote, “If it’s not a medical therapy, we are not interested”.
Most doctors run such busy practices that they do not have time to go into an in-depth examination and case history to be thorough enough to understand all the causes of FM/CFS. Most appointments consist of telling the doctor what your symptoms are and then receiving a prescription for the symptoms. In the subsequent visit you are asked, how are you doing and given a repeat prescription. I had a patient in the other day that told me about a visit she made to her doctor. She had a couple of questions for him. He became very impatient and told her “you are taking up too much time and you are being very inconsiderate of my next patient”. Can you imagine the hostility that this type of comment produces?
Prevention
Thirty years ago I started watching the things that I was eating and started taking herbs and vitamins on a protective basis. The health that I have now is the result of the choices that I made in the last thirty years. The health that you will experience 20 years from now will depend on the choices that you make today. It is so much easier to prevent ill health than it is to try and regain good health. In my practice, prevention and maintenance are stressed for everyone. However, the percentage of people whom actually follow-through with this lifestyle, is very small. Of those who follow through, the percentage that experiences a longer healthier lifestyle is extremely high.
It has been stated in many places that 5% of the people are very successful and do the things necessary to be successful. The same percentage applies to health. Only about 5% of the people do the things necessary, on a regular basis, to stay healthy. They feel that the time and effort spent on prevention and maintenance far outweigh the cost of trying to find a cure once you are sick.
Lifestyle
How you spend your time also affects your health. Do you have a balance in your life between work, recreation, and rest? Are you all work and no play? Or are you all play and no work? Are you working towards goals, or just drifting along going wherever the wind blows? Some have a sedentary lifestyle, which leads to a certain set of conditions (obesity, chronic fatigue, arteriosclerosis, arthritis, heart attacks, diabetes, and strokes). People with active lifestyles do not experience these conditions to the same extent.
A lifestyle of “always wanting to learn more” has great advantages over those who don’t care. Caring involves having direction, goals, and a purpose for doing something. A lot of energy can be derived from having a reason to get up in the morning and getting ready for your day. Check out the section on goals for an in depth explanation of how to set goals and how to achieve them.
Habits
Habits and lifestyle go together. The things that you do and the choices that you make on a regular basis have a direct impact on your level of health today and on the level of health that you will experience in 20 years.
Eating Habits
The ideal situation is to take the time to have three balanced nutritious meals a day punctuated with adequate amounts of water. The meals should be made from healthy, nutritious (raw and organic whenever possible) ingredients, prepared with love and attention to detail. The meal should be consumed in a relaxed atmosphere, and in an unhurried manner. Each mouthful should be chewed 50 times. Very little liquid should be consumed during the meal. This sounds wonderful but most of us do not do this.
Our restaurant meals that are ordered without much thought for nutritional value, are prepared by people who care very little about your health, only about taste. These meals are eaten “on the fly”, chewed four or five times, and then washed down with copious amounts of liquid.
My belief is that it is okay to eat standing up, because when you sit down you are actually cramping the digestive tract. When standing it allows things to flow freely through the system without being interfered with or cramped by sitting.
Does your diet consist of mainly cooked foods? Or do you make a conscious effort to get adequate amounts of fresh raw fruits and vegetables? Do you eat a lot of snack foods? Do you eat in restaurants all the time? Do you use a microwave? These questions are all answered in later chapters.
Exercise Habits
“Sixty minutes a week is all the exercise you need”, experts say. (I think this would just be a minimum for a healthy person.) When you do the math it seems like such a small amount of time when you consider that there are 10,080 minutes in a week and you still have 10,020 left after you’ve done your exercise requirements. Twenty minutes of aerobics three times a week is all it takes. If you’re not doing this minimum you need to have a look and see what you did with 10,080 minutes. Where has it gone? What have you done with the time? Is exercise a scheduled part of your day? Is it a priority?
My first book was on exercise and at the age of 40 I was in the best shape of my life. I managed to maintain that for the next 10 years. At age 50 I gradually started to lose my 32-inch waist. I gained four inches on my waist and 20 lbs. overall in weight. My eating habits had not changed. In fact I was eating less. I was still working out for two hours three times a week. Why would this happen? The answer is that when you turn 50 (and for those of you who have not exercised much in your life, it could be 40) your hormone secretions start to diminish and body parts start to age. There are many other factors that come into play here as well: level of toxins in the body, diet, energy levels, occupation and priorities. If you are doing the minimum amount of exercise you can help slow the aging process down a little. I will cover this in later chapters and show you how to replenish your hormones.
This situation did not last long for me, because I rectified the hormone changes. Now, at 56 I am still in the same shape I was 15 years ago.
If you do not use the parts of your body on a regular basis they will start to deteriorate. If you exercise on a consistent basis you can slow down the aging process, increase your energy levels, increase your resistance to disease and infection, maintain your strength and agility, and maintain cardiovascular health.
Environment
The part of the world that yo live in determines many things. For example: the quality of health care available in your part of the country, your level of health awareness, the affluence of the country, national hygiene, industrial environmental pollutants, and type of organisms prevalent in your area.
City living is generally going to be more toxic than living in a remote area in the mountains. City dwellers have the privilege of listening to the radio weather forecast in the morning on their way to work, which sometimes also includes the pollution index. This warns you about how much pollution is present in your city’s air for that day. If you live in a rural area where there are lots of trees and no industry for miles, the quality of the air is noticeably fresher and contains more oxygen.
The environment inside your home can be toxic even if you live in a rural area. There are toxins emitted from: carpets, paint, woodworking, cleaning chemicals, fungus, and molds. If you had a leaky roof or a flooded basement there’s water in and behind the walls, floors, and ceiling and this is a breeding ground for fungus and mold.
That smell that is present in old damp moldy basements can be coming from behind walls and ceilings too.
“Sick buildings” are common, where the ventilation is so poor that people start feeling headaches and light-headedness after being in the building for only 20 minutes. Many of these buildings were constructed before central air conditioning was available. The newer systems inject 40 to 50% fresh air into the circulating air on a constant basis.
The emotional environment plays a role in determining the direction your health will take. The emotional condition of the people you associate with: family, friends, business associates, and acquaintances has an influence on your own mentality.
For example: When family members are always fighting and constantly in angry moods, you can get caught up in that too. Your close friends are always complaining and whining about their lot in life, your business associates are dishonest and deceitful, and some acquaintances, patients or customers are very negative and pessimistic.
We were invited to dinner at a friend’s place and it was mentioned that another couple was coming. The husband of this couple is very negative and finds fault with everything, without hesitation. I declined the invitation, stating “I had work to do.”
I try to avoid people with extremely negative characteristics whenever possible. Patients on the other hand are generally looking for help and are willing to listen to suggestions. Patients who continually complain about the same situations are reminded about the effect of repeated negative thoughts and urged to control and change the direction of their dominant thoughts.
Relationships
Family and work relationships have the most profound effect on your health because that is where you spend a great deal of your time. Marriage relationships have traditionally been responsible for contributing to either the success or downfall of either or both parties’ level of health. A loving, understanding, mutually beneficial, and positive marriage builds and helps to maintain one’s level of health. The chemicals that are secreted by the brain in a good relationship are conducive to boosting the immune system. On the contrary, a malicious, angry, suppressive, vindictive, and negative marriage tears away the structures that maintain your resistance and leaves you vulnerable to disease and infection.
Children are another issue and can bring a great deal of love and satisfaction to one’s life or alternatively grief and sorrow. Each child goes through all kinds of different emotional stages. Some of them have good accidents, or get injured in sports, or get in trouble at school. There are good emotional situations as well: graduations, performances, tournaments, athletic achievements etc. This list can be very long. How many of these emotional experiences that we have with our children and how we choose to let them affect us, determines to a great degree the effects on our health.
Some people are in very uncomfortable relationships but feel “there’s no way out” and stay stuck in a rut for many years. This situation leads to depression and further decreases the immune system’s ability to function. I have had several patients where this was the major actor in their lack of results.
Work relationships can be equally suppressive, especially if you are working in a job that you hate or working for someone who treats you poorly. The Monday morning dreads occur every week because you would rather not be there and would avoid it if you could. But again, you feel trapped because “you really need the money,” and you drag yourself reluctantly off to a place where you really don’t want to be.
Responsibility
I hear people saying that they take responsibility for their actions but I sense they are using this statement much the same way as when people insincerely apologize for things that they have done. There was no commitment or deep feeling; it was only an expression to pacify the person that they offended.
Other people try to take responsibility for too much. They feel responsible for their kids, their wife/husband, everything at work, the economic situation in their country, and even the outcome of sporting events.
There are only two things you are responsible for:
- Your actions.
- Your reactions.
That’s it. That’s all. Nothing more.
What you do, how you perceive your actions, and how you react is the total extent of your responsibility.
Your responsibility to your children is limited to: what you teach them (both formally and by example), providing for them up to a certain age, providing them with a safe environment and encouraging them to do their best. What they do with what you give them is their responsibility. You have done your part. I see some parents living their lives through their children. This is evident at the hockey arena, baseball field, drama stage, and dance recitals on a daily basis.
When I first started my practice, I had a misunderstanding about my level of responsibility, I felt that I could help everybody and very naively took it upon myself to do just that.
For example, I met a man at a social function and he asked me what I did. I told him I was a Chiropractor. He seemed interested and asked me more about it. Eventually we started talking about asthma. I’d had asthma from age 14 to 24, and since Chiropractic care had cured my asthma, I now concentrated on helping asthmatics.
He related to me that he had serious asthma and was interested in getting it corrected, I gave him my card, and he said he would call for an appointment. A month later I met him again. He said he was busy and that he was going to give me a call. Two months later, at a similar function, I asked a mutual friend about him. My friend said, “Oh, didn’t you hear? He had a severe asthma attack and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital”. I was shocked and very disappointed and beat myself up emotionally, because I had not insisted that he get to my office. I knew I could have helped him if only I had treated him. I mentioned this to one of my mentors at the time, an older and very wise Chiropractor whom I called “Pops”. He told me that “it was a hard lesson to learn but eventually you come to know that you can’t help everybody. Only the ones who come to you and only if they’ll let you”. The next lesson I learned was: You can’t change everybody. People are where they are because that’s where they’re supposed to be at this particular time in their life. You must let them experience it for themselves. You can make suggestions. You can encourage them to make changes but it’s up to them. You must not take responsibility for their decisions.
Income Level
The usual scenario is that lower income people tend to eat a poorer quality of food consisting mainly of inexpensive items such as potatoes and bread, while their counterparts enjoy a better quality of food. It’s usually fresher, more nutritious, and prepared in a healthier atmosphere. This does not have to be the case. Some people choose to grow their own food and prepare it in the healthiest possible manner. The wealthy may abuse their privilege, indulging in overeating practices, excessive junk food, a constant diet of restaurant food, or they may wash it down with copious amounts of alcohol.
With higher disposable income one should be able to purchase a healthier quality of food and add supplements and preventative nutrients on a regular basis. Priorities are the key here, even on a limited budget. Less nutritious and toxic foods can be avoided and wiser choices can be made.
Your Reaction
This is the most important point of this entire section! How you choose to react to your lot in life and the situations you are exposed to determine more than anything else how well your body responds to stress.
Stress has been the buzzword ever since Hands Selye published his work on stress and showed the world how stress affected the various organs in the body. For years people were told that their sickness and diseases were caused by stress. But if you look at the conclusion in Hands Selye’s book Stress of Life (revised edition), New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976, where he said “It is not what stresses us that counts, it is the way we react.” This explains why two people, subjected to the same stress, experience different effects in the body. Because each of them looks at the situation differently and therefore reacts in a different manner. The emphasis shifts from what has happened to how we react to it.
Our attitudes and beliefs and most importantly, the way we react to life’s situations, affects whether we get sick or not.
What happens between our ears has a profound effect on our nervous system, immune system, and our hormonal secretions. It has been discovered that thoughts can change the chemicals that are secreted by the brain, which ultimately changes how we feel and our ability to function. The power of the mind must be taken into consideration when doing a thorough examination to determine the cause of a disease.
If we continually consider ourselves to be under stress and become distressed about it, this has a direct effect on our immune system and the ability of our DNA to repair cells. A direct relationship can be established between when a condition started and the onset of certain attitudes and beliefs. For example, attitudes such as: seeing problems as overwhelming, being frustrated and feeling that you cannot perform up to the demands placed on your self can be traced back to the onset of certain conditions. Behaviors such as: giving up, not trying, feeling sorry for yourself, and continually whining and complaining to others can also be related to the onset of a particular condition. Combine this with the high risk factors such as: overeating, smoking cigarettes, using excessive alcohol, drug abuse, and lack of exercise, and we have a prime candidate for sickness and disease.
When in a stable mood it seems to be much easier to make rational choices about what things are good to eat. But when we become moody or depressed, our eating patterns seem to change. We become more compulsive and sabotage our health with poor dietary choices.
We have been taught to see stress as an overwhelming power that victimizes us and causes us to be sick. This is much like the germ theory when they would have us believe, that “germs cause disease”. A parallel analogy would be that “flies bring the garbage:. Of course this is absurd. The garbage must be present first to attract the flies. The same is true for germs. There must be an unhealthy, toxic garbage-like environment to attract the germs and encourage them to proliferate.
If all these negative thoughts and beliefs can make us more susceptible to disease, then positive attitudes and beliefs can help us to maintain our health and prevent us from being so vulnerable to disease.
How we react is more important than what we are reacting to.
The idea that we catch a cold or catch an infection is very similar to the fly and garbage analogy. Most of the germs and viruses that cause disease are already present and living in our body. They are opportunistic organisms that become activated when the environment is most fertile for them to grow. The ideal environment for their growth is when the immune system and hormone secretions are weakened by emotional upsets, and negative emotions.
Our internal environment determines how susceptible we are to the growth of these organisms. When our immune system is functioning at its optimum these organisms cannot grow but remain dormant waiting for the proper environment and opportune time.
The person who continually sees their life as hopeless and out of control has a much higher risk of getting sick. Some people do not adapt well to change and see change as a threat; others welcome change. The severity of the psychological reaction varies directly with a person’s ability to adapt to change (stress). Some people are adversely affected and others see stress as a challenge and actually create a positive beneficial experience.
The concept of blaming sickness on external stresses, as you can see, is inappropriate, because many people stay healthy even in extremely stressful situations.
Our attitudes and beliefs ultimately affect how we look at stressful situations. This influences the chemicals that are secreted by the brain, which affects our hormone production, and the ability of the immune system to defend our bodies.
The Missing Causes
The number one cause for disease and malfunction in the body is not even addressed if you choose the medical model as the direction you take in health care.
Until 1987, the AMA and the CMA were outwardly hostile towards the Chiropractic profession and made it well known to their members that they were not to refer patients to Chiropractors. A group of Chiropractors from Michigan took the AMA to court for restriction of trade in 1976. After many years and several different levels of court, the AMA was finally charged, in 1987, as being guilty of engaging in a conspiracy “to contain and eliminate the Chiropractic profession”. This information was made known to the public in 1988 November issue of Reader’s Digest. The AMA can no longer blaspheme the Chiropractic profession and is supposed to direct their members to refer to Chiropractors. Unfortunately, to this day there are few medical practitioners who refer to Chiropractors and if they do, it is done on the “Q.T.” The AMA and CMA are still maliciously protecting their piece of the pie and are not telling people about the values of Chiropractic care.
In order to understand this next section it is necessary to take a few moments to explain how the body is formed and what controls the body’s functions. Then we can proceed to explain why it may not function properly.
In the beginning we have two cells, the egg cell from the female, and the smaller but smarter (just kidding) sperm cell. These two cells join together as a new life form. The cells start to multiply and within a few days you have what looks like a small clump of grapes. The next thing to appear is a small line through this clump of cells. It is called the neural canal, which is the brain and spinal cord. The brain and spinal cord are the first things to form because they control the growth and function of everything to come. This little line or brains stem starts to form branches, and at the end of the branches little organs start to form. The brain and spinal cord control the function of the heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, intestines, and reproductive organs.
Since this control system is so important it is encased in bone. The skull and spine are the protective mechanisms that ensure that the nervous system does not get damaged.
All life forms have an innate intelligence that controls how and when things happen This is the intelligence that tells the original two cells to divide and multiply. It then forms the brain and spinal cord, which controls the formation of the organs and all the other body parts. Nine months later, we have a fully formed, totally autonomous, functioning, and live human being.
Chiropractors choose to call this intelligence “universal” or “innate intelligence”. That is what is in control of creating the body and its functions. This intelligence originates in the brain and sends its message to the rest of the parts of the body via the spinal cord and its connecting peripheral nerves.
A brief example of how it works: If the amount of blood sugar that the brain receives is less than what it requires to function properly than the intelligence of the brain registers this. The brain stimulates the appetite center, which the body interprets this as hunger, stimulating us to eat. The sight and smell of food stimulates the brain to send messages via the spinal cord and peripheral nerves to the stomach and pancreas to start preparation to digest food by secreting digestive enzymes and stomach acids.
When the food reaches the stomach, it senses what type of food is being received and relay these messages, via the peripheral nerves, to the spinal cord and then to the brain. The brain interprets these messages and tells the body what kind and how much of the digestive juices and enzymes to secrete. The appropriate organs are notified again via the same system. So you see, it’s a continual back and forth communication system from the organs to the brain and from the brain to the organs. When all of these messages are flowing in both directions without any interference, this is called optimal health.
Keep this mechanism in mind and let’s look at the immune system and how it functions. The first thing to understand is that there are foregin invaders such as germs, bacteria, parasites, fungus, mold, dust, and toxins everywhere in our environment. They are in the air, food, water, and on everything we come into contact with. If this is true, than according to the medical model, “germs cause disease”, we should all be sick all of the time. But this is not the case because some people get sick while others exposed to the exact same environment do not.
Normal Immune Function
When foregin invaders gain entrance to the body many proprioceptive devices detect their presence. The messages are sent via the peripheral nerves to the spinal cord and relayed to the brain. The brain interprets these messages and notifies the immune system (again via the nervous system) to deploy whatever cells are necessary to eliminate these foregin bodies. These can be phagocytes, T-cells, killer cells, an increase in white blood cells, or an increased body temperature (fever), to name but a few. When the body is functioning properly (optimum health) the body is able to handle the normal daily invasion of these foregin bodies. It is when the amount of foregin bodies is greater than the body’s ability to handle them that disease starts.
There Are Two Ways That Most Disease Can Start:
- The concentration of a particular toxin or foregin invader is so great or it has accumulated over the years that the body’s healthy immune system cannot totally eliminate it. For example: Germ warfare as evidenced in the gulf wars or the ingestion of a lethal amount of toxic chemicals, causing death (lethal means more than a body can handle).
- There’s an interference with the communication between the brain and immune system. Either the brain is not receiving the messages properly from the organs or the organs are not receiving the correct information from the brain or both.
We all grew up under the false assumption that germs cause all disease. Again, the analogy referred to earlier, stating, “Flies bring the garbage.” When in fact the opposite is true, in that garbage must be present initially in order to attract the flies. The same thing is true in the body; the environment or terrain of the body must be conducive to the proliferation of the germs, viruses, bacteria, and yeast etc. In order for these foregin bodies to grow, the immune system must be in a weakened state, and the terrain (body environment) must be in a state that permits growth.
As children, we thought that bandages did the healing. When we cut our finger we cleaned it, put some medication on it, and covered it with a bandage.
Then in three or four days we took the bandage off and as if by magic, the cut had healed. But let’s look closer at this. Let’s take a piece of steak, cut it with a knife, wash it with antiseptic, put medication on it, and wrap it with a bandage. Wait three or four days and the cut should be healed right? But to our disappointment when we take the bandage off the piece of steak has not healed at all. Of course you say, “that’s easy, the steak is not alive. No wonder it didn’t heal itself”.
New revelation: it’s the life force that heals- not the medication and bandages. Conclusion: it is the amount of life force, innate, universal intelligence that determines the body’s ability to heal. Interference with this life force decreases the body’s ability to heal itself. All healing is initiated and controlled by this innate life force or universal intelligence in the body. Without this life force nothing heals.
Now that we understand that the power that made the body(innate intelligence) is also the power that heals the body, we are ready to continue further.
Why is Nerve Supply and Blood Supply so Important?
Interference to the Flow of Life Force.
Since the flow of this life energy occurs from the brain to the spinal cord and out to the rest of the body via the peripheral nerves I will refer to this phenomenon, from now on, as simply nerve supply.
The spine
The nerve supply can be interfered with in many ways. The spinal cord and peripheral nerves can be severed. Depending on the level that this occurs, it can result in death or permanent malfunction of the organs or tissues at the end of those nerves.
The bones in the skull or vertebrae in the spine can become misaligned causing pressure on the nerves interfering with their ability to carry messages from the brain to the rest of the parts of the body. This mechanism is called subluxation.
Subluxation is less than a dislocation, but is significant enough to interfere with the nerve supply going to and from the brain to the peripheral nervous system, causing malfunction and/or pain.
How serious is a subluxation?
A gross subluxation can kill you instantly. This has been a method of execution for centuries. When a hangman’s noose is placed around a convict’s neck and they are dropped six feet, this produces terminal subluxations. The sudden stop and force of the noose across the top of the neck grossly subluxates the first and second cervical vertebrae severing the spinal cord. The convict dies instantly because there’s no longer any nerve supply getting to any of the organs and everything ceases to function.
Analogy
We have a messenger service that picks up an important directive from a branch office. “There are toxic residues in our canned ham”. The messenger heads out down the street to the main office. Turning off the side street and attempting to enter the main highway to the head office there’s a major accident and the messenger cannot get through. The main office does not get the important directive that there are toxins in their ham and they continue to ship out large orders as if there was nothing wrong.
This happens in the body in the same manner. The cells detect that there are toxins present and send messages back to the brain via the nerve supply. If there is a subluxation or misalignment of a vertebra, interfering with the peripheral nerves the messages going to the brain can get interfered with, distorted, or completely blocked. The brain is not informed of this toxin and therefore does not instruct the immune system to eliminate them. Consequently these toxins are distributed throughout the body and continues unmolested, to cause damage.
Therefore, when attempting to heal the body that has a sickness or disease the first question that must be considered is: “If this organ is not functioning properly, why is that?” Is there any interference to the nervous system producing this malfunction?
When a light is not working the first thing you check is the switch to make sure it’s getting the power. If you take out the light bulb and put in a new one and the power is still turned off or dimmed (as with a dimmer switch) The same thing is true with an organ that is not functioning. Don’t take it out just because is not functioning but first check to see if the nerve supply to that organ is being interfered with. It’s so important.