Today, illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, digestive disease, and cancer are epidemic. These illnesses reduce the quality of life for many Americans. Yet research has proven heart disease, cancer, brain, digestive and other disorders are often preventable, by healthy diet and lifestyle practices.
Chronic disease development can be thought of as a continuum moving from total wellness on one side to frank disease on the other. Long before a person “gets a disease” poor health symptoms can be experienced and if left untreated the symptoms can lead to physiological dysfunction. Illness is a process that starts long before a blatant disease develops.
The Continuum of Health and Disease
WELLNESS>>POOR LIFESTYLE HABITS>>SYMPTOMS>>PHYSIOLOGICAL DYSFUNCTION>>CHRONIC DISEASE
Years before getting a chronic disease many people have signs that something is wrong. Symptoms and signs like headaches, depression, constipation, joint aches, acid reflux, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, and a growing waistline are signs of dysfunction. If we ignore the signs, like our weight or poor digestion, we risk a “body-in-poor-operating-condition”. Like a car that never gets an oil change we “wear out.”
The best approach to healing and wellness center around:
Adopt permanent lifestyle habits versus “going on a diet”
Change habits and take action when symptoms are first experienced with a goal to correct underlying health problems before a dysfunction, or fullblown disease develops.