The Real Problem with Our Health Care: Drugs & Surgery

Our health care in the United States, is in crisis, this is not news to anyone. The hottest topic of discussion and the one we devote a large amount of energy, time and resources to, is solving our perceived health care problems. But what is that problem exactly? There is alot of talk about cost, and there is some talk of people not having access, but is this really the problem with our health care? If the problem was one simply of cost, then one would think it would be easily resolved through the billions of dollars we are currently spending in this area each year. Yet it's not. Th real problem is that we are spending billions of dollars a year on treatments that just aren't working. No one is getting healthier, and more people are getting sick. We are currently spending billions of dollars a year to treat epidemic proportions of health problems with our two go-to treatment approaches: drugs or surgery. Yet we have never stopped to ask ourselves if these treatment approaches are really working? When do ask that question and look at the data for an answer, the answer is that is shown is a clear no. The treatment approaches we are currently using and spending billions of dollars on each year, simply are not working for the majority of people. Spending billions of dollars on treatments that aren't working then, is the problem. 

Our Health is in Trouble

Here in the West, we have grown accustomed to living with poor health. Low energy levels, allergies and other “small” health symptoms, weight imbalance, sedentary, busy and stressful lifestyles and reliance on prescription and over the counter drugs are all seen by most as a normal part of modern day life. It is not uncommon for a middle aged American to be on multiple prescription drugs, each “treating” a variety of different health problems. There is a pill or product to address most every health problem under the sun, from the minor to the severe. We have also grown accustomed to seeking out medical care, most usually from a primary care physician, for most every sneeze, cough or fever. We are taught in order to stay healthy, we need our yearly checkups, to seek medical care when we are sick and be willing to do whatever it is our doctor tells us. We believe so much in this process, we each spend thousands of dollars on health care every year. In 2012 we collectively spent 17.6% of our entire GDP on health care costs. Compare that to our most closely Westernized country, the UK, who spent only 9.6% of their GDP on health care costs. We are spending more on doctor's visits and pharmaceutical drugs than any other country, yet we aren't any healthier. Most American health care consumers don't understand they are spending a high proportion of their yearly income on something that simply is not working.

The U.S. life expectancy is only 42nd in the world among developed countries. The World Health Organization, in 2000, ranked the U.S. health care system as the highest in cost, 37th in overall performance and 72nd in overall level of health. The incidence of disease in this country continues to rise. Heart disease, diabetes and other chronic degenerative diseases continue to rise year over year. According to researchers, by 2030, the numbers of cancer cases alone are expected to increase by 78%.  In no other sector of business would we spend such massive amounts of money on a product rated a dismal 72nd in overall production, with a continuing downward trend. In one of the most prosperous and scientifically advanced countries in the world, it is astounding to learn we rank so low in overall health, especially since we spend so much money, time and energy on just that, our health care. If we spend more money, energy and time on our health care then anyone else, why is it we aren't the healthier then anyone else? The problem is that the only two recommended treatment approaches in the U.S. health care system are drugs or surgery. While these treatment options are sometimes beneficial and the best approach in cases such as trauma or emergency type situations, they are not the best treatment approaches for most other health problems because they do not address the cause of health problems. When the real cause of health problems are not addressed, more people get sick and less people get better. 

Pharmaceutical drugs 

Pharmaceutical drugs are created to remove the appearance of health symptoms whether it be a headache, a backache, high blood pressure or high blood sugar levels. Pharmaceutical drugs are not able to heal the underlying health problem, rather they only treat the symptom and quite a lot of them at that. Americans spend a staggering $200 billion a year on prescription drugs, and that figure is growing at a rate of about 12 percent a year. Drugs are the fastest growing part of health care costs. Yet for all their fanfare, and matching price tags, pharmaceutical drugs are not making us healthier. In fact, over time they usually contribute to the deterioration of health problems. This is because they fail to address the root cause of health problems and only treat the symptom.

Symptoms are no other than a built in alarm system geniuslly engineered by the body to alert you when something is wrong. This alarm system was created to get your attention in order to change something. Prescription drugs are not created to heal the underlying root cause, which is causing the alarm to sound, rather they are created to silence the alarm. What would happen if instead of reacting to a fire alarm going off inside of a burning house you only turned the alarm off? Would the fire be extinguished? Would the damage being done cease? Or would the damage escalate while the alarm was silenced? The damage would escalate to a point of complete destruction. We know this and therefore we listen when we hear a fire alarm, yet we have not been taught to listen to the sound of the most important alarm of all, the alarm system of our own body!  If we silence the alarm while not addressing the cause of the alarm, the problem continues to escalate, quietly under the surface while we no longer hear the alarm. This is a disastrous and poor approach to treating health problems.

Prescription drugs also come with unwanted side effects. Many times the number of side effects indicated for a particular drug far exceeds the number of benefits. If you really pay attention to any prescription drug advertisement you will be astonished to hear the number and severity of some of the side effects! For instance, the list of possible side effects for a popular prescription drug for rheumatoid arthritis include; suppression of the immune system contributing to the development of tuberculosis, lymphoma and other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, heart failure, persistent fever, paleness, liver failure and bruising. When we take these drugs, after knowing the risks, we accept these side effects as normal or worth the risk. Lymphoma is one of the most aggressive cancers that effects the cells of the immune system and definitely not something you want, let alone knowingly create by something you take.

Prescription drugs come with such a lengthy and concerning list of side effects  because they have been chemically manipulated. Most usually the active chemical in a pharmaceutical drug is a active plant chemical. Each plant naturally contains thousands of active chemicals that have a whole bunch of different effects on the body. When the whole plant is taken, all of the chemicals work together to create balance. This is exactly why most herbalist recommend whole plant preparations of herbal remedies, myself included. Plant chemicals work together to produce many different chemical reactions inside of the body that, all together, create balance. Plants don't just have one intended effect, they have a whole lot of effects. Heart health promoting plants don't just lower blood pressure, instead they balance all processes related to the health of the heart. The plant works to bring total balance whether that is to lower or raise blood pressure, increase the efficiency of pumping or strengthen heart muscles, whatever is needed is done because there are thousands of chemicals working together within the plant to bring total balance to the heart. This balancing effect of plants results in complete balance. Pharmaceuticals interrupt this balancing process by using only one or two of the active plant chemicals. Then, through chemical manipulation, the potency and effect of that one chemical is increased in potency. A pharmaceutical does not contain the hundreds of other plant chemicals naturally contained in the whole plant that work together to create balance. What is left is a singular chemical with significant potency that works to do just one thing and one thing very effectively, for instance lower blood pressure. The problem with that approach is that the body works on the principal of balance, so if you take one chemical that only lowers blood pressure, the body has to counteract that in some other way to balance. The other health effect that is created may or may not want be wanted, so is termed a “side effect.”  In reality, it is just a natural effect of the extreme one-sided chemical reaction created in the body by the pharmaceutical drug. The stronger the effect of the drug in one area of health, the stronger the side effect in another. Pharmaceutical drugs frequently create new health problems, termed “side effects” which then must be treated with other pharmaceutical drugs. This can become an endless cycle.

Pharmaceutical drugs, also do not treat the cause of the health problem, simply the symptom. Again, with our heart example, pharmaceuticals could be used to lower blood pressure if the blood pressure was too high. Nothing is done, though, to discover and treat the cause for high blood pressure. When the cause of something is not addressed, it is allowed to get worse. If your high blood pressure was caused by plaque forming on the inside of your arteries and the reason for that plaque is never addressed, you may continue to unknowingly create additional plaque build-up in your arteries. Your blood pressure may be artificially lowered by the drug's effect inside your body, but the problem of plaque is still present and getting worse. Most people on prescriptions drugs alone will see a worsening of their health symptoms or condition over their lifetime, which is an observable effect. Type 2 diabetes, treated through pharmaceuticals alone, will never get better. The very nature of a chronic degenerative disease is to chronically degenerate the body over time and part of the reason for this is because the underlying cause of the disease is never addressed, reversed or healed in any way. Pharmaceuticals are created only to treat the symptoms as they arise. Unless your goal is to live on pharmaceutical drugs for the rest of your life and see your condition worsen, choosing drugs as your treatment approach is not the best option.

Surgery 

The other treatment approach available under Western medicine is surgery. While surgery has now become somewhat routine, it is anything but routine for your body. The cutting of your body and removal of organs or tissue is traumatic, saps strength and energy and many times leaves you without a vital piece of your body! While surgery has its place, it is used far too often and in situations where other more natural means could be more effective and less intrusive to the body. One of the most common surgical procedures in the U.S. is coronary artery bypass surgery. This is a good example of a preventable surgery that does not treat the underlying root cause that created the need for the surgery in the first place. Bypass surgery is an operation in which the arteries of the heart have become so clogged with plaque that a vein must be taken from the leg, grafted onto the heart and used by the heart as the blood vessel instead of the one/s that have been clogged with plaque. Some say changing diet and lifestyle practices are radical approaches to health, but I can't think of anything much more radical or Frankenstein-ean, for that matter, then having veins cut from your leg, your chest cracked and then cut open and your leg vein sewed into your heart. The healing time from such an invasive surgery is so extensive it is split into phases, with the first phase lasting up to 8 weeks.  In addition, this type of surgery is very costly! Bypass surgery cost about $45,000. In the U.S. alone, the total cost for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease with angioplasty and coronary bypass surgery now exceeds $100 billion annually. 

This is most often a completely avoidable surgery. Heart disease has a very close link to diet, specifically to diets high in saturated fat. Saturated fat is mostly found in animal products, including animal meat. The American Dietetic Association Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets  states, “Not only is mortality from coronary artery disease lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians, but vegetarian diets have also been successful in arresting coronary artery disease. Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for coronary artery disease and hypertension....”  Animal products have such a close link to heart disease because they create sticky blood cells. Those sticky blood cells then clump together and stick to vessel walls, eventually clogging arteries and preventing blood from traveling through the vessels any longer. 

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn is a former internationally known surgeon, researcher and clinician at the Cleveland Clinic who completed a 20-year nutritional study on the subject of heart disease and appeared in the popular movie Forks Over Knives. Dr. Esselstyn believes conventional cardiology has failed patients by developing treatments focusing only on the symptoms of heart disease and not the root causes. Based on the groundbreaking results of his 20-year nutritional study, the longest study of its kind ever conducted — Dr. Esselstyn has shown that a plant-based, oil-free diet can not only prevent and stop the progression of heart disease, but also reverse its effects. He is not merely theorizing, the proof is in his results. The patients in Dr. Esselstyn’s initial study came to him with advanced coronary artery disease. Despite the aggressive treatment they had received, among them bypasses surgery, 5 of the original group were told by their cardiologists they had less than a year to live. Within months on Dr. Esselstyn’s program, their cholesterol levels, angina symptoms, and blood flow improved dramatically. Twelve years later, 17 compliant patients had no further cardiac events. Adherent patients survived beyond twenty years free of symptoms. The basics of Dr. Esselstyn's treatment approach was to place his patients on a plant-based, oil-free diet. His patients ate lots of grains, legumes, lentils, fresh fruits and vegetables.  In addition to being effective, the cost of diet and lifestyle changes are relatively low and are no where near as costly as bypass surgery. They are also non-invasive to the body, causing no trauma or stress. Instead they are gentle, effective and cheap!

What You Are Eating - The Underlying Cause of Most Health Problems

As a U.S. resident you have a 75% chance of dying from a chronic degenerative disease.  That means you only have a 25% chance of dying from old age or natural causes, the way most of us would prefer to leave this life. According to former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, of the 2.4 million deaths that occur in the United States each year, 75% are the result of avoidable nutritional factor diseases. Avoidable nutritional factor diseases means, diseases that are completely avoidable caused by something wrong with our diet. The fact most of us will die from avoidable nutritional factor diseases is probably news to most of us. How often have you been told by your doctor there is a 75% chance your current health condition or symptom was caused by a problem with your diet? How much differently would you approach your health if you were given this information? If you were given this information, you would understand you have a significant role in the creation, as well as the healing, of your health. You would realize your health was dependent upon how and what you eat.

You may be wondering why it is your medical doctor has not told you this information. It isn't that they are purposely withholding this information from you, but simply that most don't know. Less than 7% of medical doctor's receive any type of nutritional training in medical school and of those 7%, most do not complete more than one semester of training in nutrition. So you have to ask yourself, “If the health problem my doctor is trying to treat is caused by something they have no training in, how successful can they be at healing it?” The answer is not very.

If the root cause of 75% of health problems is caused by how and what you eat, the best treatment approach then is to change how and what you eat! The answer seems straight forward, yet for most people seeking treatment for health problems; a treatment option that addresses diet and lifestyle is not offered or recommended. In fact, none of the treatment options currently available under Western medicine address the root cause of health problems. This in turn contributes to increasing numbers of health problems.

There is an Ancient Ayurvedic Proverb that says, “When diet is wrong medicine is of no use. When diet is correct medicine is of no need.” Healthy diet and lifestyle choices are all that is needed to correct health problems and there is no medicine, or surgery for that matter, that can do as good of job in truly healing the body. 

If you or someone you know is facing a health problem and would like to truly heal, naturally and holistically, and not just treat symptoms, you can contact us through our web site at:

www.alignholistichealth.com

~ Candice Marley

Holistic Health Practitioner, Holistic Nutritionist, Master Herbalist & Wellness Coach