Thursday, February 7, 2013

A new friend in Health: Can we attain health?

I made a new friend today, someone who understand much about illness and health, but, like many of my friends who understand much - (s)he does not go far enough.  Like many (s)he believes we can, with the right actions 'attain health'.  This is a shortsighted conclusion.

We agree on many things:

 - 'health care' is actually disease care.  CHECK

 - it treats symptoms, not causes. CHECK

 - your body is incredibly resilient. CHECK.

 - health is not the absence of disease.  CHECK.  It is also not the opposite of disease.

but, like many people who almost understand, (s)he concludes with: 

 - x is the problem.  x is the first and most obvious sign of a body in trouble.

This simplification of health is a cause of many errors.  It results from the fact that we commonly simplify disease in order to treat disease.