To the individual who wishes to remain incognito and who commented on my "A Perspective on Health" blog:

I turned down a medicine but opted for the supplement because my body obviously hasn't been receiving the correct nutrition as, I believe, is the case with nine-nine percent of this society. When the diet fails the body, the body fails. This was known to the Greeks of old and has been studied and proven by archaeologists as well as by studies comparing alternative foods to the food supplied by our present commercial food system. I take issue not only with the doctor I mentioned but with the huge majority of medical thinking and practice. I don't believe that just because it exists as the most potent "caretaking" group that it has enough of the right answers for me to hand over myself unquestioningly or undoubtingly to its whims or practices just because it believes, and has led the majority of our citizens to believe, that it is the end all and be all of health care. In actuality, medical practice does nothing to maintain one's good health. Conversely, it exists solely to treat symptoms of disease. The doctor, and the medical field at large, apparently doesn't believe that food is the beginning of good health. But you can't have a good structure built on a foundation built withinferior materials. Food is the foundation of all life. The supplement I opted to take is to help me replace the omega-3 fatty acids in my body that would be there were I able to find and consume food raised in a manner consistent with omega-3 production therein and which could be utilized by my own organism. Omega-3 fatty acids deter the build up of arerial plaque and can be gotten in abundance from a more correct diet.

It is thought and much touted that science and medicine have extended the span of modern man's life. I don't agree, having read extensively information and anecdotal reports about long-lived primitive groups. There are many primitive groups world-wide in which long-lived members are far from the norm, the most notable of which are Okinawans. The most notable common factor among these groups is the unrefined diet of each one.

I opted to take neither type of stress test becasue I have had both and both were extrememly uncomfortable. I can endure certain levels of stress and discomfort but I won't subject myself to those conditions just because the tests are a diagnostic "tools" a physician feels he or she needs to be more certain of a patient's condition. If I thought the test were critically necessary, I would accede to it, though not happily. I am foolish, but I can see the light once in while.

While drugs are prescribed for all types of conditions, including cholesterol reduction, no drug, except maybe aspirin, comes without side effects. I know. I have lost 3/4 of my kidney function due to taking a drug by a well-meaning doctor whom I still respect, but would question sharply and in detail before taking another serious drug. I am also impotent due to another drug I've taken for blood pressure. The blood pressure problem I now know is a direct result of being fat: almost obese. This is a dietary problem, and I can think of no physical problem I have that isn't attributable to bad diet, except for my hearing loss and astigmatism. The hearing loss came about form working in an excessively noisy environment without proper ear protection. The astigmatism? I don't know why I'm astigmatic. Diet could be a function of the condition, but I won't go that far. It has been neither proven nor disproven.

As to genetics, my brother died at 35 from a heart attack. My mother died at 52. All of my aunts and uncles on her side died before they reached sixty. My father died when he was about 72. I am within days of completing sixty-fours years on this planet. I was diagnosed with angina while I was in my mid-twenties. But I was also diagnosed as having smaller than normal arteries. i made some major diet changes while in my thirties, but haven't sufficed to maintain my proper weight. Yet, I have outlived almost everyone in my family, none of whom would listen to me about dietary changes. So much for genetics though I will admit that genetics predispose one to all kinds of traits and conditions. It doesn't mean however that maintaining the body properly with good nutrition can be disregarded.

I don't think I have enough answers yet to be able to state categorically anything one way or another. But I can state my convictions at this point, and I have.

I apreciate the questions. I appreciate more the astuteness of the mind behing the questions. Thanks for the comment.

qw

I heard a doctor talking about general health this morning on Good Morning America. One of the things he said rankled me because he said, “with a healthy diet you should take a daily vitamin supplement,” in the form of a one-a-day tablet or capsule. (I use the quotes to indicate more or less what he said since I'm not sure of his exact wording) Well, there are a couple of things wrong with this idea and the statement itself.

The first problem is the word healthy. A diet can't be healthy. It is not a living thing. It doesn't have the attributes which would allow it to be either healthy or ill. However, it can be healthful, which is what I'm pretty sure he thought he was saying or trying to say, or trying to imply. But being a trained doctor doesn't necessarily make one a trained grammarian nor a thoughtful, careful, or accurate speaker.

The second problem is that this advice was made from the medical viewpoint and not from a holistic (whole-istic) one. In the medical view, treatments are prescribed to cause the disappearance of a set of symptoms. The disappearance of the symptoms doesn't necessarily mean that the condition which allowed their appearance has been corrected. We wonder why human obesity is rampant along with heart disease, cancer and a host of other diseases. All are part of the problem of medical viewpoint, since we rely on our medical providers so heavily along with their medications. The problem is that taking a supplement of any type or kind doesn't address the underlying and most basic problem of human health, especially in technologically advanced societies: the food the society consumes.

Ingestion of energy is the most necessary requirement for the health of an organism. Respiration is the primary form of energy ingestion. Food and water are next. Maslow's hierarchy of needs says that the three basic requirements to human life are food, shelter and sex, in that order of need. Medical science has forgotten or willfully ignored the primary need when it comes to dealing with illness, or imbalance, in the human body. Instead of going to the probable root of the problem, it goes to opposite end of the chain of evidence and attempts to rid the body of the problem by trying to get rid of the evidence. Additionally, in trying to remove the chain of evidence using medication, medical science exacerbates the body's systems, very frequently causing other problems and other symptoms which then it tries to treat in the same manner. The chain intertwines with a new chain which, when treated conventionally, in many cases intertwines with another chain, and so on.

I can forgive the doctor for his views. He is the product of conventional educational and medical programming. I can also forgive the entire educational and medical field for their erroneous approaches to the age-old problem of human illness. But I think that the problem has more to do with what the body ingests and how it maintains its balance from what it ingests than the manner one uses to rid the chain of evidence.

My viewpoint is that the body, properly fed, will maintain a healthy and healthful balance immune to all disease. Mine is a simplistic view, I admit. But it is a view under investigated and under respected because of the snobbery of technology and science.

When talking about the necessity for a daily vitamin supplement, the doctor mentioned above hadn't thought past the present state of the food in our today's society. He hasn't, apparently, come to understand that all of the food commercially supplied through the commercial food system in this country is grown for profit motive and not for health. It is grown as efficiently and cheaply as possibly and distributed throughout our country and the world. It has much lower nutrition based on vitamin, mineral, and enzymatic content than any naturally grown food. Even organically grown products easily provide better sustenance. How can any body maintain its natural balance with deficient food? It's basic question to which the answer is it can't. Therefore it becomes susceptible to, and will contract, disease. However, bodies receiving proper nutrition will seldom, if ever, contract disease and will simply age and die. Extreme old age is more a result of proper nutrition than of medical science's advances medicine and medical treatments.

One of the thing the doctor probably hasn't thought of other than in terms of, "Isn't that interesting?" is that the blood composition of all living creatures is identical to seawater. This tells me that a healthy body must maintain a blood balance, or composition, the same as that of the ocean. This is or should be the first step toward good health. Ask a medical doctor to compare a sample of your blood with natural sea water and identify any elements which aren't the same and I'll bet he, or she, will act as though you're a few bricks short of a good foundation. But I believe, if you're ill and do replace those missing elements, you're good health will return.

It’s something to think about.


qw