The old approach to health and medical care

We’re all used to the idea of going to the doctor when we’re sick. You get a cold and go to the doctor to get some antibiotics. You break your arm and you go to get a cast. It’s a little more unusual to think about going to the doctor in order to stay well. In fact, it really goes against the whole basis of western medical care for the last hundred years because doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies only make a buck when you’re sick… and that means that it’s in their financial interest to continuously treat you for illness as opposed to curing you. That’s a shock when you really think about it.

A lot of this developed out of the work of Louis Pasteur who came up with the idea of “germs”. The basic idea is that the body is invaded by “germs” – translate to bacteria and viruses – and that’s how you get sick. The immune system produces antibodies to fight these pesky little invaders and modern medicines somehow help the body do its job. The assumed reason for illness is the “germs” as opposed to the general state of illness in the body… and you go to the doctor to get rid of the “germs” rather than to get healthier.

But that isn’t the only way to look at things…

The new approach… well, really, the older approach to health care

Think about any mechanical or electrical device. Take a cell phone as an example. The physical material of the phone includes things like the case, the antenna, the buttons, the microphone, the electronic components, and the batteries. Sure, if any of these things are broken, then the cell phone won’t work… but, in addition there’s got to be energy in the batteries and the phone for the cell phone to work, and that energy has to flow properly through the circuitry. If the energy is too weak, too strong, or flowing in the circuits incorrectly, the phone won’t work even if every physical component is ok.

Well, the human body is both a mechanical and electrical device too. The organs and tissues in the body are like the components of the phone. They’ve got to have the proper energy circulating in them to work properly in order to work right. The heart needs the right energy to circulate the blood. If there is too much energy in the heart, high blood pressure may result. The lungs need the right kind of energy to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. If there is too little energy in the lungs asthma may develop. If energy in the stomach is weak, it may be hard to digest food. The concept is really simple and it’s totally amazing that it has largely been ignored in the reductionist germ oriented approaches of western medical science.

But it hasn’t been ignored in other cultures. In fact, Chinese Medicine is all about the proper flow of energy known as Qi throughout the energy channels in the body known as the meridians. Acupuncture is the science of analyzing the flow of energy within the meridians and regulating the flow of energy in the meridians to restore a state of harmony and balance to the body as a whole in order to cure disease. Let’s be clear that energy in this sense is not energy in the sense of vigor or enthusiasm, but rather a force, analogous to electromagnetic energy that empowers the entire body. So the new, older approach to health is to consider a few basic principles concerning the driving force of Qi in the body.

·         The body, emotions, and mental states are completely interconnected and work together as a whole rather than as individual components.

·         The body, emotions, and mental states inherently function correctly when the Qi energy of the body functions properly.

·         The nutrients, material structure, and Qi energy in the body inherently depend of each other.

·         What we call disease begins when the Qi energy system in the body is somehow out of balance.

·         Chronic diseases including structural and bio-chemical troubles occur when the major organs in the body fail to receive the proper Qi energy and nutrients over an extended period of time.

·         Wellness and well being consists of maintaining proper nutrition for the right chemical building blocks for the body and the proper flow of Qi energy in the body and between the body and the environment.

·         At a bio-chemical level Toxicity produces negative effects on both cellular chemistry and on Qi energy. Toxicity is caused by the body’s inability to rid itself of negative substances.

So, the alternative approach to health is to restore the body’s natural harmonious energetic balance, to ensure proper nutrition, and to eliminate toxicity.