Real Life Wellness: Why Aren’t You Healthy Already?
By Bill Hemmer
We live in one of the richest countries in the world. We spend more on health care per person than almost any other country on the planet. Then why aren’t we all healthy already?
The story begins back in 1910. Back then; the average life expectancy in the US was about 47 years old. Most people died of infection and accidents. You would have some sort of accident which often resulted in an infection and it would kill you.
Florence Nightingale was the first person back in the 1850’s to suspect nutrition and hygiene to be involved with disease. Then great scientists like, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch and Joseph Lister proposed the Germ Theory of Disease. The Germ theory proposed that infection came from bacteria, which created a whole new way to practice medicine.
In the 1920’s, the Germ theory of disease was gaining steam and antibiotics were discovered in the 1940’s. These drugs were made from natural plant sources. In World War II, antibiotics played a huge role in saving countless lives. Immunizations and antibiotics could stop or kill the spread of infections. So, injuries and the following infection were not considered a death sentence anymore.
This revolution spawned many new industries, most notably the pharmaceutical industry. The predominant thinking of the day was, if an antibiotic can stop death by changing biological processes, then why couldn’t drugs stop all kinds of illness and disease using the same reasoning? With this new idea of one pill for one ill, scientists began to experiment on every disease known to man to kill the bug or stop any symptom causing biological process from occurring.
This idea has shaped medical care for the last 100 years. We now have the most sophisticated state-of-the-art infection control and accident care treatment the world has ever seen. This is why today’s average life expectancy in now 74 years old. But this still doesn’t answer the question why you aren’t healthy already.
The Health Cards are Stacked Against You
The health care system I described above is the best in the world when it comes to infection and accidents. But the one pill for one ill approach to the most common chronic problems we all face today with our health just doesn’t work. Every chronic “disease” today has many different interrelated causes and doesn’t fit into the model that worked so well back in 1910.
Every system in our body is tied to every other system and affecting one will certainly affect all the others. You are much more than a heart, stomach, spine, lungs etc. Your entire being must be assessed as a whole and a plan must be implemented keeping all of you in mind. This is why when you go to a Cardiologist, Gastroenterologist, Orthopedist and a Pulmonologist for care, good luck getting all of them to agree on a holistic treatment plan for all of you.
This is why a Functional Health Recovery approach is necessary for you to take your life back.