When Linda McCartney died of breast cancer at age 56, USA Today asked Fran DuRocher, MD to comment on her death.  She said: "Breast cancer after all is a disease that affects healthy people.  That's why everybody is so surprised when they get it."

A few years later the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article entitled "Stroke In A Healthy 46-Years-Old-Man."  Healthy women develop cancer?  Healthy men suffer strokes?  Those conditions can take months, years or even decades of body malfunction (dis-ease) to develop.  Were these people really healthy the day before their cancer was diagnosed or their stroke occurred?  Of course not!

So why were Ms. McCartney and the unnamed "healthy" 46-year-old in the JAMA article considered healthy by medical doctors?

The Limitation of the Medical Paradigm

-Attributed to Sir William Osler, MD, on physicians

When a traditional MD declares you "healthy" what he/she is really saying is that you have no symptoms or abnormalities that their training can detect.  That is why people can be declared "healthy" when they are in fact facing serious illness.  We do not mean to imply that medical diagnosis is useless, however it does have serious limitations. 

Too many people live their lives silently waiting for disease to seemingly "strike" out of nowhere.  Many people enter medical offices with fear in their hearts.  "What will he discover?" "A Cancer?" "A blocked artery?" "Deteriorating joints?" "Organ disease?" Must they live with years of body malfunction before the medical profession can diagnose a problem?  Does it have to be that way?

People are increasingly choosing another path.  Instead of waiting for their health to deteriorate, getting a medical diagnosis and then intervening with the tools of medicine (drugs and surgery), they are choosing approaches to maintain and enhance their health. 

People are exercising, eating better, exploring natural childbirth, breast-feeding, using natural products, avoiding drugs (as much as possible), praying, meditating and turning to vitalist healing arts for their health care.

Vitalist healing arts include chiropractic, homeopathy, acupuncture, Chinese medicine and other systems that take many years of highly disciplined study to master.  Practitioners of these arts appear to be able to locate signs of body disturbance, malfunction or dis-ease long before allopathic (regular) MDs can diagnose something wrong. 

For example, a doctor of chiropractic will undoubtedly find spinal subluxations causing nerve pressure and energy/communication blockages in "healthy" women developing breast cancer or "healthy" male candidates for stroke.  Subluxations are often painless and can cause body/mind dysfunction years before disease symptoms appear. 

Similarly, a practitioner of homeopathy, using the intensive case histories homeopaths are known for, would surely discover dis-ease (body malfunction) years before orthodox medical practitioners would raise concerns. 

Practitioners of traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda) or traditional Chinese medicine (including acupuncture) check their patients' pulses for subtle energy imbalances.  These  doctors analyze a patient's 12 different pulses, six in each wrist, that are related to emotional and physical organ systems and energy patterns that can reveal subtle abnormalities.  The subtlety of this diagnosis makes a modern cardiologist's pulse-taking look rudimentary by comparison. 

Cranial osteopaths and craniosacral therapists can locate deep meningeal (inner brain and body) tension and perhaps locked emotional energies impeding the flow of energy and nutrients to important organs.  A nutritionist would surely discover nutritional deficiencies, heavy metal or chemical toxicity, dehydration or other findings regular MDs are not trained to locate. 

-Chinese proverb

Are you functioning at your optimum?  Do you have health--complete physical, mental and social well-being?  Anything less than optimal may be a warning sign of dis-ease (body/mind malfunction)

Some early signs of dis-ease are:

Low energy                                         

Poor sleep

Minor aches and pains

Poor digestion and elimination

Boredom

Anxiety

Depression

If you pay attention to the small, subtle signs of physical or mental dis-ease now, your body won't have to use serious illness to get your attention later. 

......A friend and general surgeon with more than thirty years experience once confided in me that, in retrospect, he felt the majority of surgical procedures he had performed might be classified as excisions of the "vocal apparatuses" of the inner selves of the patients.  He meant that by removing certain organs or tissues, he was eliminating the bodily voices that were attempting to communicate the presence of deeper emotional or spiritual problems in need of attention. 

You are living in an exciting golden age of health care with discoveries and re-discoveries of ancient wisdom blossoming.  Discoveries in the field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) are revealing that your thoughts and feelings affect your immune system.  Research is revealing that feelings of anger, hostility, depression, helplessness and other negative emotions weaken your immune system and set the stage for serious illness--from the common cold to heart disease and cancer.  Research also reveals that loving relationships, friends, religious observation, prayer and meditation can be very healing.  Enhancing relationships, seeing a therapist or counselor and/or learning emotional/meditative techniques can be powerful forces for self-healing.

-Jack La Lanne

Do it now so you'll age healthfully and never grow old.  Do it now so you'll live free of physical and mental debilities and be active, full of energy, vitality, happiness and inspiration all the days of your long and productive life.