Getting healthy and staying healthy takes more than just generic recommendations. For example, one person dies every minute from cancer and one every 33 seconds from cardio-vascular disease even though many individuals try to minimize the risk through dietary and lifestyle changes. You know, a “one size fits all” approach just doesn’t work when considering the complexities of your health situation.
The strategy for your health plan is based on your personal biochemistry. Through the blood test as well as your individualized dietary and lifestyle evaluation, your report in conjunction with your Health Care provider will evaluate the results and determine which of the six fundamental health markers are out of balance in your body.
The six defects we look for are:
pH Imbalance – primarily acid stress
Anaerobic tendency
Free calcium excess
Chronic inflammation
Connective tissue breakdown
Oxidative stress
By pinpointing these imbalances we can develop a winning strategy that works best with your body’s design to restore balance and therefore restore your health.
Decades of research led to the development of the Health Model. This model is markedly different from the Disease Model, which is currently the basis of traditional heath practice, including how nutritional medicine is practiced today.
The Disease Model is based on the assumption that health is simply the absence of disease and established risk factors. When medicine is practiced this way, a doctor is expected to assume that disease is mostly the result of flaws in the generic pool. As a result, the focus of treatment is on making a diagnosis, putting a label on that diagnosis and then treating the label. This approach works well in crisis situations, such as a heart attack, but fails miserably when used to handle chronic disease and infections. The flaw rests in the fact that symptoms and risk factors are less often the cause (and more often the reflection) of underlying defects. As a result, treating the symptom by dictating to the body what you would like to have happen (rather than supporting natural mechanisms) does little more than hide the underlying defect.
The Health Model begins, instead, with the premise that it is necessary to know how something works in order to repair or improve it. It further proposes that health changes must be addressed from the perspective of their impact on total health, rather than just focusing on how a procedure impacts a specific symptom.
Our Health Model address health from a broader framework that the conventional approach. Six sub clinical defects that are common to every chronic disease condition; chronic infection and chronic toxicities have been identified. For someone to get completely well from disease, these six must first be identified and then addressed in a particular order. We recognize that each person is biologically unique, and slight alterations in treatment approach must be made for each individual. This is why a one-size-fits-all approach to wellness doesn’t work for many people. By addressing and treating these defects, the doctor and patient are able to get at the cause of disease rather than simply treating symptoms for a lifetime.
The Six Sub clinical Defects
pH(Acid/Base)Imbalance-Acid or Alkaline Imbalance
This is a condition in which the pH of body fluids are abnormally out of balance, leaning generally to the acidic side. In health, the body makes every effort to remain alkaline, but this is made difficult by the volume of acid produced by normal metabolism. Rarely does the body experience “alkaline stress”. Acid stress occurs far more often..…when alkalinity is lost due to the challenge. Acid stress sets the stage for infection and underlies 80% of all diseases.
Anaerobic Metabolism
In health, the body derives energy from a mix of aerobic and anaerobic metabolism, but favors high-energy aerobic metabolism over low energy anaerobic metabolism. As the energy pendulum swings towards the anaerobic state (which generally coincides with acidity), fatigue, disease and infection begins to set in. A near total switch to anaerobic metabolism accompanied by severe acid stress results in cell death and disease. This is typical of heart attack and stoke.
Free Calcium Excess
In health, 55% of serum calcium is bound to protein or alkaline buffers, while 45% is left unbound in the “free” state. As the ratio narrows, resulting in an excess of free calcium, the body experiences calcification, bone resorption and alterations in cell signaling resulting in a wide range of diseases. The list especially includes heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis and cancer.
Chronic Inflammation
Inflammation when acute is a healthy event: helping the body to repair itself, fight infections, deal with cancer and handle toxic exposures. Chronic or prolonged inflammation begins to fail its intended purposes, thereby raising the risk of infection, toxicity and all disease conditions, especially heart disease, arthritis and cancer.
Connective Tissue Breakdown
Connective tissue makes up the body’s superstructure and “guy-wires” that literally hold the body together. Enzymes produced by chronic inflammation, combined with damaging free radicals and alterations in the other sub clinical markers assessed, cause a breakdown in connective tissues. Failure to use proteins or a deficiency of proteins is often fundamental to this problem, which is characteristic of aging and all other chronic diseases.
Oxidative Stress
Oxidative stress occurs when protective antioxidant status falls short of what’s needed to handle the output of damaging free radicals. Free radicals are extremely reactive chemical entities that arise normally from metabolism, and also from toxic exposure. An excess amount of free radicals relative to antioxidant capacity leads to uncontrolled oxidation that destroys cell components and destabilizes healthy cell function, laying the groundwork for disease, infection and disability from aging and toxicity.
The human body was designed to anticipate and successfully cope with the most toxic exposures, including mercury. However, illness develops from toxic exposure for a variety of reasons. Repeated exposures that overwhelm the body’s ability to respond impede exit capabilities. Altered genetics and alterations in the quantity and quality of the binding proteins are the most common. When one of a combination of these roadblocks is active, the six sub clinical defects seen in all diseases and toxicities lead to compromised health.
Finding ways to support the body’s intended design, for detoxification does lead to improved health. Even when genetics are involved, a harmful gene still needs permission to express itself.
USING THE HEALTH MODEL AS THE STARTING POINT, AND THEN LOOKING FOR THOSE THINGS WHICH VIOLATE THE MODEL, THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE SIX FUNDEMENTAL DEFECTS TO CHRONIC DISEASE, CHRONIC TOXICITIES AND INFECTIONS BECOMES APPARENT. Using the health model-based approach, we’ve seen some remarkable results. People with chronic fatigue, sleep disorders, memory difficulties, numerous aches and pains, digestive disorders, chronic depression, systemic impairments, coronary diseases, cancer, autoimmune dysfunction and a host of other maladies have made profound improvements.
The Health Model is our frame of reference for both understanding and attaining the highest level of health. Through this approach we’ve gained the insight that directs us to those steps necessary to not only prevent disease, but also to overcome it. We encourage you to work closely with your health care provider and take responsibility for your own journey.
Recovery is possible and expected, but turning the situation around will require your discipline, patience, a determined will, and total commitment. Medicine is what a Dr does for you. Health is what you do for yourself. So if you were ever going to get truly well, when would be the best time to start?
