What is "chronic disease"? Chronic diseases now affect one in two Americans and account for 80% of our health-care costs. Yet despite a host of new drugs and procedures, the incidence of chronic disease continues to rise, not only in the US, but around the globe as developing countries adopt our "Western Diet".
Chronic diseases are all those conditions, ailments, and illnesses that make you sick and never really go away. We can manage their symptoms and find occasional relief from them, but they tend to come back again and again.
What are these diseases? They include:
Heart disease
Hypertension
Type 2 diabetes
Gout
Arthritis
Depression
ADD
Gastric reflux
Inflammatory bowel disease
Osteoporosis
COPD
Asthma
Fibromyalgia
Kidney and liver ailments
Macular degeneration
Cancer
And the list goes on.....
There are four common characteristics that chronic disease tend to have:
#1 Chronic disease does not heal by themselves--they are not "self-limiting". The common cold is self-limiting--it runs its course and then it's gone. Not so with chronic illness.
#2 Chronic illnesses get worse over time. Since the health-care is only treating the "symptoms", there is no return to health, just an ongoing management of recurring symptoms. For instance, high blood pressure--most patients are given a pill to take to bring down the blood pressure--stop the medication and what happens? The blood pressure goes up again. A much better approach would be to FIND the REASON for the increase in blood pressure and FIX it.
#3 Chronic disease doesn't have a single cause one can point to, rather, several factors usually are occurring.
#4 Chronic illnesses tend to have complex symptoms--that is, the "sick" person has numerous different complaints and there are varying indications of illness.
Because these chronic illnesses may have hard to specify causes and not one single origin, people think they have to live with these conditions. Unless we make drastic changes in health-care, (unfortunately, what we have now is sick-care), many people are on a course toward a frail, sick old age in which they will spend most of their time going to doctors and popping pills.
This does not have to happen!! Right now our "standard medical model" addresses the symptoms of illness and focuses on coming up with a diagnosis and a pill to "fix" the ill. However, there is a new science called Functional Medicine that searches for the "root problem", corrects it, and what happens?? The symptoms go away--no pills or procedures required.
Remember, the human body is more intelligent than any pill or procedure--our body is ALWAYS trying to keep all of our systems in balance and kill off any foreign invaders that come in through our diet and our environment to keep us running strong. However, should something go "wrong" and we start to get "symptoms", the first step we usually take is to go to a physician who then gives us a pill which only masks the symptoms--we MUST get to the ROOT of problem and eliminate it.
This can only be done by learning HOW to personalize your own health-management program, then manage it to REVERSE or PREVENT chronic disease and live your life to the fullest!!
The FIRST AND FOREMOST step in taking back control of your health is to FIX YOUR DIET! Every bite we take is either bringing us closer to HEALTH or closer to DISEASE. We need to fill our plates with as many colors as we can mange to eat! Vegetables and fruits are FILLED with disease-preventing, cancer-fighting, health-promoting vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, etc.....The more vegetables and fruits we can eat in a day, the MORE our health will soar.
With that being said, we have to PUSH OFF our plates all the "foods" that are making us sick--all the processed "food" that comes in boxes, bags, cartons, and bottles that have an ingredient list a paragraph long with ingredients we cannot pronounce--these food-like substances are not food our bodies are looking for. Our bodies were not designed for this type of "food".
Our grocery cart should look like this:
Chronic diseases are all those conditions, ailments, and illnesses that make you sick and never really go away. We can manage their symptoms and find occasional relief from them, but they tend to come back again and again.
What are these diseases? They include:
Heart disease
Hypertension
Type 2 diabetes
Gout
Arthritis
Depression
ADD
Gastric reflux
Inflammatory bowel disease
Osteoporosis
COPD
Asthma
Fibromyalgia
Kidney and liver ailments
Macular degeneration
Cancer
And the list goes on.....
There are four common characteristics that chronic disease tend to have:
#1 Chronic disease does not heal by themselves--they are not "self-limiting". The common cold is self-limiting--it runs its course and then it's gone. Not so with chronic illness.
#2 Chronic illnesses get worse over time. Since the health-care is only treating the "symptoms", there is no return to health, just an ongoing management of recurring symptoms. For instance, high blood pressure--most patients are given a pill to take to bring down the blood pressure--stop the medication and what happens? The blood pressure goes up again. A much better approach would be to FIND the REASON for the increase in blood pressure and FIX it.
#3 Chronic disease doesn't have a single cause one can point to, rather, several factors usually are occurring.
#4 Chronic illnesses tend to have complex symptoms--that is, the "sick" person has numerous different complaints and there are varying indications of illness.
Because these chronic illnesses may have hard to specify causes and not one single origin, people think they have to live with these conditions. Unless we make drastic changes in health-care, (unfortunately, what we have now is sick-care), many people are on a course toward a frail, sick old age in which they will spend most of their time going to doctors and popping pills.
This does not have to happen!! Right now our "standard medical model" addresses the symptoms of illness and focuses on coming up with a diagnosis and a pill to "fix" the ill. However, there is a new science called Functional Medicine that searches for the "root problem", corrects it, and what happens?? The symptoms go away--no pills or procedures required.
Remember, the human body is more intelligent than any pill or procedure--our body is ALWAYS trying to keep all of our systems in balance and kill off any foreign invaders that come in through our diet and our environment to keep us running strong. However, should something go "wrong" and we start to get "symptoms", the first step we usually take is to go to a physician who then gives us a pill which only masks the symptoms--we MUST get to the ROOT of problem and eliminate it.
This can only be done by learning HOW to personalize your own health-management program, then manage it to REVERSE or PREVENT chronic disease and live your life to the fullest!!
The FIRST AND FOREMOST step in taking back control of your health is to FIX YOUR DIET! Every bite we take is either bringing us closer to HEALTH or closer to DISEASE. We need to fill our plates with as many colors as we can mange to eat! Vegetables and fruits are FILLED with disease-preventing, cancer-fighting, health-promoting vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, etc.....The more vegetables and fruits we can eat in a day, the MORE our health will soar.
With that being said, we have to PUSH OFF our plates all the "foods" that are making us sick--all the processed "food" that comes in boxes, bags, cartons, and bottles that have an ingredient list a paragraph long with ingredients we cannot pronounce--these food-like substances are not food our bodies are looking for. Our bodies were not designed for this type of "food".
Our grocery cart should look like this:
The more veggies and fruits, the better your body will respond and begin the healing process.
For more in-depth diet information, stayed tuned for my next post!!
For more in-depth diet information, stayed tuned for my next post!!
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