MEDICINE IS ALIVE AND WELL, BUT ARE YOU?

      Americans now spend $1.5 trillion annually on medical care - and it's growing. A real cash cow being milked for all it is worth. I don't know what America's #1 industry is, but this has to be close to it and will soon take that enviable ranking if it hasn't already.

      What does it say about our society when a huge percentage of the gross national product is directed toward tending to the ill? Shouldn't this ring some alarms somewhere - other than how to increase taxes and create medical entitlement programs to guarantee that everyone can participate and grow it even further? Yes indeed, when something is failing let's see how many more people can be funded to participate in it!

      You would think with all that money thrown at the problem that health would be improving. But it is not, in spite of the pie-in-the-sky advertising leading everyone to believe that health solutions are in a pill or on a surgery table, and all the cures we will ever need are just around the corner...if we would just fund a little more research. Doesn't the outrageous growth of medical expenditure speak to its failure, not its success?

      Previously ("Is the U.S. Healthier than Ever?") I presented some pretty compelling evidence that the #1 killer of people today is modern medicine. This is because the quick-fix approach in health care is counter to the way the body operates. The body is a self-healing mechanism, infinitely complex and finely tuned. It is not just an assemblage of pulleys, pipes, levers and valves, as reductionistic science would have us think. To force it into submission with drugs or mechanical alterations throws it out of balance because we do not fully understand what it is we are even tinkering with. Since balance is health, health is lost by such artificial intrusions - not regained. (I am speaking here of the chronic degenerative illnesses - cancer, heart disease, arthritis, etc. - not crises such as anaphylactic shock or the loss of a limb. Modern medicine can work miracles with these sorts of things, because these are dramatic mechanical failures and thus respond to dramatic mechanical solutions.) The great killers today result from longstanding problems of lifestyle balance and are not solved by quick-fix band-aides.

      This is not to impugn the motives of the many hard working and often underpaid health care workers. (The big money is going to the Institutions in this industry.) But intent does not erase result. People who submit to medical care are far more likely to be injured or killed than by any other normal life choice they make.

      The bottom line is that modern medicine itself is a disease, an out of control cancer sucking the very life out of our people and our economy. The cure is to reexamine the fundamental paradigm. Focus must be on prevention and causation, not mere management of illness.

      Since everything seems to move in our society by the force of dollars, why not shift the rewards? We could do it like it was done in ancient times and even more recently in the Far East: Pay doctors as long as the patient is well. If the patient becomes ill, the doctor forfeits the pay.

      But that's too rational. There are too many economic interests fighting tooth and claw to keep things exactly as they are. It also does not fit the present propaganda that disease is "just one of those things" to which we may innocently fall victim. Why hold the doctor accountable for an "act of God"?

      However, all the blame cannot be laid entirely at the feet of the industry. Industry is driven by consumer demand. People increasingly want to shift responsibility to others rather than take it on themselves. We are all intrinsically lazy, following the physics of the path of least resistance and effort. Heaven forbid that we should have to change our lifestyle or become informed. Let's just let someone else take care of everything for us. All it takes is money. If the problem is not being solved, then more money is the answer. Right? Wrong.

      So this is my plea. Don't wait for things to change. You change. You can decide not to participate in the nonsense. You can learn to take control and optimize your health; be the best you can be by giving your mind and body the lifestyle and food it was designed for. (1-3)

      If everyone followed the Optimal Health ProgramT, that trillion and a half dollar tidal wave would dry up to a trickle. The pain, suffering and death that could be avoided is the driving force here to keep the salutary words flowing in the e-Health Letter. You can help by emailing this to your friends and encouraging them to pay attention.

      You just might be saving a life.

Best of health to you and yours from all of us here at Wysong.