- There is a curious tendency in conventional medicine
to label a set of symptoms as a disease. For example, I recently spotted
a poster touting a new drug for osteoporosis. It was written by a drug
company and it said this: "Osteoporosis is a disease that causes weak
and fragile bones." The poster went on to say that you need a particular
drug to counteract this "disease."
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- Yet the language is all backward. Osteoporosis is not
a disease that causes weak bones. Osteoporosis is the name given to a diagnosis
of weak bones. In other words, the weak bones happened first, and then
the diagnosis followed.
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- Another drug company defines osteoporosis as "the
disease that causes bones to become thinner." Again, the cause and
effect are reversed. And that's how drug companies want people to think
about diseases and symptoms: First you "get" the disease, then
you are "diagnosed" just in time to take an expensive new drug
for the rest of your life.
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- But it's all hogwash. There is no such disease as osteoporosis.
It's just a name for a pattern of symptoms that indicate you've let your
bones get fragile. And to treat it, western doctors will give you prescriptions
for drugs that claim to make your bones less brittle.
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- We should really call it Brittle Bones Disease, and describe
the treatment in plain language - exercise, vitamin D, mineral supplements
with calcium and strontium, natural sunlight, and the avoidance of substances
like soft drinks, white flour, and added sugars, which strip away bone
mass.
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- Diabetes is another condition given a complex name that
puts its solution out of reach of the average patient. Type 2 diabetes
isn't technically a disease. It's just a natural metabolic side effect
of consuming refined carbohydrates and added sugars in large quantities
without engaging in regular physical exercise.
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- The name "diabetes" is meaningless to the average
person. It should be called Excessive Sugar Disease. If it were called
Excessive Sugar Disease, the solution to it would be rather apparent.
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- Cancer is another disease named after its symptom. To
this day, most doctors and patients still believe that cancer is a physical
thing: a tumor. In reality, a tumor is only a side effect of cancer, not
its cause. A tumor is simply a physical manifestation of a cancer pattern
that is expressed by the body.
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- When a person "has cancer," what they really
have is a sluggish or suppressed immune system. And that would be a far
better name for the disease: Suppressed Immune System Disorder.
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- If cancer were actually called that, it would seem ridiculous
to try to cure it by cutting out tumors and destroying the immune system
with chemotherapy. These are the two most popular treatments for cancer,
and they do nothing to support the patient's immune system or prevent future
occurrences. That's exactly why most people who undergo chemotherapy or
the removal of tumors end up with yet more cancer down the road.
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- The cure for cancer already exists, and it's found in
every human body. Your body kills cancer cells as a routine daily task,
and it has done it thousands of times in your lifetime.
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- All we have to do is stop poisoning our bodies with cancer-causing
chemicals and start feeding ourselves the materials our bodies need to
beat chronic disease. Instead of searching for new technological cures,
our money and time would be better spent making people aware of the existing
cures and prevention strategies available right now.
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- Here's another example: high cholesterol. Conventional
medicine says that high cholesterol is caused by a chemical imbalance in
the liver, the organ that produces cholesterol. Thus the treatment is drugs
(statin drugs) that inhibit the liver's production of cholesterol. Upon
taking these drugs, the high cholesterol (the "disease") is regulated.
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- But the fatal flaw in this approach is once again evident:
The symptom is not the cause of the disease. There is another cause, one
that is routinely ignored by conventional medicine, doctors, drug companies,
and even patients. The root cause of high cholesterol is primarily dietary.
A person who eats foods that are high in saturated fats and hydrogenated
oils will inevitably produce more bad cholesterol. It's simple cause and
effect, not some bizarre behavior by the liver.
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- "There's a great deal of ego invested in the medical
community, and they sure don't want to make health sound attainable to
the average person."
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- ====================
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- If the disease were accurately named, it would be called
Fatty Food Choice Disease. That would make more sense to people. And the
obvious solution to the disease would be to choose foods that aren't so
fatty. Of course, that may be a bit of an oversimplification, since you
have to distinguish between healthy fats and unhealthy fats. But at least
the name would give patients a better idea of what's actually going on.
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- Outside the United States, the names of diseases in other
languages (such as Chinese) more accurately describe their actual causes.
In western medicine, however, the name of the disease obscures the root
cause. That makes all diseases sound far more complex and mysterious than
they really are.
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- That's a shame, because the treatments and cures for
virtually all chronic diseases are actually quite simple and can be described
in plain language. Preventing and reversing these diseases only requires
language that describes things like making different food choices, getting
more natural sunlight, drinking more water, engaging in regular physical
exercise, avoiding specific toxins, supplementing your diet, and so on.
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- There is a degree of arrogance in the language of western
medicine, and this arrogance propagates the separation between doctors
and their patients. Separation never results in healing. In order to create
healing, we must bring together healers and patients by using plain language
that real people understand and that real people can act upon.
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- There's a great deal of ego invested in the medical community,
and they sure don't want to make health sound attainable to the average
person. Making the language of disease complicated keeps it out of reach
of the public.
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- But health is attainable by every single person. It isn't
rocket science. It's not complex. And it doesn't require a prescription.
Health is easy, it is straightforward, and it is direct. And, for the most
part, it is available free of charge if you invoke the healing power of
sunlight, pure water, stress reduction, exercise, and healthy food choices.
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- _____
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- Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist and author of more
than 1,500 articles on disease prevention, conventional medicine, and more.
He posts new articles daily at http://www.NewsTarget.com. His downloadable
e-books (many are free) are published at http://www.truthpublishing.com.)
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