The current medical model, which focuses on treating the symptoms with toxic pharmaceuticals, rather than preventing illness, is simply not working. We use more drugs than ever before and we are sicker than ever before. Unfortunately, most of us are very sick by the time we recognise we are ill or decide to do anything about our health. It is never too late, but it is more difficult. By comparison, if you have not serviced your car for 20 years, you don’t expect to repair the damage with one oil change.
The key to treating chronic illness is to act sooner rather than later. As the adage goes, “Prevention is better than cure.” You can, however, take important, health-saving steps at any time.
We need a paradigm shift when it comes to our lifestyle and nutrition. Previously we thought of “nutrition” as the Food Pyramid, 2&5, the RDI (recommended daily intake/allowance) of vitamin C, B vitamins, iron and calcium, counting calories and choosing “low-fat” foods. This approach is outdated and extremely dangerous, and in fact is contributing significantly to the level of chronic illness we have today. We need a lot more nutrition and a great deal more variety—not just the minimum amount to prevent scurvy or beriberi, but the right amounts for optimal health.
In the beginning, there were healthy, whole foods and healthy lifestyles; people took responsibility for their own health. Now most of the world is dying from food-related illness. Half the world is dying from not enough food and the other half from too much nutrient-depleted, calorie-dense, contaminated food. Times have changed and so has the way we need to look at food, nutrition and our health. Chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer are now the biggest killers in developed countries with the developing world rapidly catching up. Obesity has overtaken smoking as the single biggest cause of avoidable death in many developed countries.
Understanding some basics of chronic illness is the key to fixing the problem. The simplest place to start is with the underlying conditions that lead to chronic illness. This is what I call the “disease triad” of oxidation, inflammation, and acidosis. The triad, which you will read about in this book, is the underlying cause of all chronic illness in our bodies. The root cause of the illness, however, is what causes these three conditions, which are present in every form of chronic illness and prevent the body from healing and recovering. If we reduce them or even stop them from being out of control, then we can allow our bodies to heal. But the more advanced the chronic illness, the more we have to do in order to slow down and rebalance the triad. By the time modern medicine recognises that you have diabetes, blocked arteries or cancer, you have already had possibly decades of high inflammation, oxidation and acidosis.
