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The Promotion of Health and the Prevention of Disease

Last Reviewed on: June 25, 2002

In 1941, the renowned medical historian Henry Sigerist wrote that the main items that must be included in a national health program are free education, including health education for all, the best possible working and living conditions, the best possible means of rest and recreation, and the best possible medical care.

For Sigerist, medical care was "a system of health institutions and medical personnel, available to all, responsible for the people's health, ready and able to advise and help them in the maintenance of health and in its restoration when prevention has broken down." The current healthcare system is divided between two fundamental branches: medicine, which is concerned with the treatment of disease, and public health, which is concerned with the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. While the former has a far greater amount of resources, public health is thought to directly affect more peoples' lives. The promotion of health and the prevention of disease involve three distinct strategic levels of implementation:

• Societal measures to broadly improve the overall standard of living of the population, including efforts to reduce unemployment and to increase educational opportunities. An example of this level can be seen in the initial success of the prevention of tuberculosis when mortality rates were dropping in England, Wales, and Scandinavia, even before the cause of tuberculosis was understood, probably due to improved nutrition that allowed people, especially children, to resist infection.
• Public health interventions to foster health promotion and disease prevention in the society as a whole. An example of a successful public health strategy can be seen with the widespread utilization of polio vaccination, which had a major effect in reducing morbidity and mortality.
• Healthcare providers performing preventive interventions for individual patients, either to prevent disease (primary prevention) or to detect disease at an early stage (secondary prevention). An example of such intervention is in the declining mortality rate of Hodgkin's Disease in the late twentieth century due to earlier diagnosis and treatment of that condition.

Disease Management and Disease Prevention: Finding a Smart Balance
In reality, however, a mere fraction of the total healthcare budget has been allocated to prevention. In 1991, for example, the United States spent $750 billion on healthcare of which only three percent was dedicated to government public health activities designed to prevent illness. Officially, preventive healthcare has been a major goal of United States policy since publication of "Healthy People: The Surgeons General's Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention" in 1979. In 1990, "Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives" (United States Department of Health and Human Services) listed three broad goals to be reached by the year 2000.

1. Increase the span of healthy life for Americans.
2. Reduce health disparities among Americans.
3. Achieve access to preventive services for all Americans.

Such goals require a shift of resources from a healthcare system emphasizing disease management to true disease prevention and health. With greater balance between disease management and preventive healthcare, it can be expected that the quality of the overall healthcare system can improve to address the needs of our society, whether to individuals through healthcare providers or through public health methods to larger segments of the population.

Of course we all realize that preventing disease is far better than treating it, especially if we are considering chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer, for which cures are very difficult. Among the baby boom generation, more and more disposable income is going toward wellness services and preventive healthcare, helping to shift the paradigm from disease management to health promotion.

One of the primary features of complementary/alternative medicine is the emphasis placed on the cause of disease as compared to the emphasis in conventional medicine on the diagnosis of the clinical entity. Understanding the cause of disease gives us a tremendous advantage in advocating an effective healthcare strategy to prevent it.

Five Principles of Healthy Lifestyle
To begin, it is important to recognize that there are certain fundamental principles of health for which there are really no alternatives. These can be thought of as spokes on a wheel. If even one spoke is weak, the wheel will not turn smoothly and the entire vehicle will be disrupted. To maintain an optimum level of health and well being, we have to relate to five fundamental, non-alternative principles:

• Good nutrition, including clean air and pure water
• Adequate exercise
• Proper posture
• Sufficient rest
• A positive, peaceful state of mind

We should understand that true health can only be attained if we live in harmony with natural law as a matter of our day-to-day lifestyle. By incorporating the principles of a health-building lifestyle program into our daily routine, we can maximize the potential for a longer and happier life. Whatever else we do to increase our level of health and vitality, such a lifestyle program will be the solid foundation upon which everything else will be based.

When We Fail to Live by the Principles of Health
When we fail to live in accordance with the principles underlying the health building lifestyle, we lose the internal balance that characterizes the healthy state. It is also possible that, considering the degree of environmental toxicity to which we are exposed, and the level of stress under which most of us live, even those of us living a relatively healthy lifestyle can be thrown out of balance, setting the stage for the onset of chronic disease.

Once we have begun to lose our health, it is unlikely that the health-building lifestyle alone will be sufficient to reverse the problem. We begin to experience minor chronic symptoms, which are nature's early warning signals that corrective action needs to be taken. As powerful as our innate capacity for self-healing is, at a certain point the accumulation of environmental/metabolic toxicity and emotional/mental stress simply becomes more than the system can handle.

It would be wise at this point to consult with an integrative health professional (one who has knowledge of both conventional and alternative medicine) to make sure that there is no undiagnosed disease. Even if you feel you are in excellent health and have absolutely no symptoms at all, it is wise to have a periodic conventional diagnostic evaluation to rule out any disease conditions before proceeding with a self-help program on one's own.

Using Natural Health Promotion, Before Disease Develops
Once appropriate examinations have excluded the presence of disease, our next step is the use of natural health promotional programs, which can help correct the problems before serious conditions develop. Even those following a health building lifestyle would be wise to utilize these same programs as a preventive strategy to maintain and further promote their level of health.

The place to begin is in our response to minor acute illness. Often the onset of the uncomfortable symptoms of colds, minor skin eruptions, gastrointestinal problems, and other common complaints are nature's way of trying to handle low-grade infection or inflammation. By learning how to use nontoxic natural medicines like homeopathics, we can cooperate with nature rather than unwisely suppressing the symptoms.

Detoxification
In addition, the combination of toxicity and mental-emotional stress puts an enormous burden on the self-regulatory systems of the body. By addressing this issue as early as possible, we can significantly reduce the risk of more serious disease developing down the line. The issue of toxicity involves those methods that will effectively promote healthy gastrointestinal function and rid the gastrointestinal tract of parasites and other contaminants that we've introduced through the food or water. Food additives, flavorings, colorings, pesticides, preservatives, antibiotics, and hormones, among others, set off reactions in the body that can cause a variety of health problems. Used on a periodic basis, ideally every season or at least 12 times each year, an intestinal detoxification program combined with liver and blood cleansing can help defend the body against "inner pollution" by flushing out environmental toxins as well as the toxic by-products of metabolic processes.

Positive state of mind
The importance of a positive, peaceful state of mind has already been mentioned as one of the key factors in a health-building lifestyle program. It is believed by many that negative mental-emotional patterns such as resentment, envy, fear, and guilt can greatly disrupt and disorder the balance of our mind. Modern science is substantiating that every emotional state has a corresponding biochemistry based on the release of powerful neurotransmitters, which are naturally-produced chemicals that can exert either a beneficial or destructive influence on our body's physiology or function.

Stress management
Because this mind-body connection mediated by chemically active neurotransmitters is such an important factor in disease causation and disease prevention, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to manage stress on a regular basis in order to optimize the capacity of our inherent self-healing and self-regulatory mechanisms.

Conclusion
We have chosen to emphasize a health promotional approach using homeopathic medicines, detoxification, and stress management because they are generally safe, easy to implement, and will, in most cases, effectively improve your level of health. Of course, as was emphasized earlier, it is always advisable to discuss these approaches with your physician or licensed health professional, and to consult with your doctor if any health problem fails to resolve promptly or if there is any question about the existence of a more serious condition.

As we move into the first years of this new century, we are poised for great strides in the promotion of health, extension of life, and the prevention of disease. By taking more personal responsibility for our health and becoming more self-reliant in accessing those tools that can effectively serve us, we will be in the best position to take advantage of the breakthrough advances in biotechnology and medicine that science will undoubtedly provide us.