Health is our natural state of being.
Illness is the body’s physical, mental and spiritual response to anything that would upset its
normal balance – “germs,” toxins, injuries, trauma, nutritional deprivation and so on.
After all, the body is a self-regulating organism, designed with systems to maintain a steady state of being called homeostasis. This is governed by the state of the extracellular matrix – all the stuff between cells that’s also known as the biological terrain.
A healthy, well-ordered matrix is what allows the body to be physically resilient, capable of
defending itself against threats and healing from the damage they may cause. What we
experience as symptoms are signs that the body is working towards healing – for instance, fever when infection is being fought; diarrhea or vomiting to clear toxins from the body.
When we understand health in this way – a paradigm most effectively developed by Hans-
Heinrich Reckeweg in the mid-20th century – it becomes easy to see that the most sensible way to promote health is to support the body in doing what it was designed to do.
Yet this is the exact opposite of the still-dominant medical model in this country, which
overwhelmingly treats symptoms instead of the causes of illness and considers it a success when symptoms are merely under control. Of course, gaining control necessarily means
working against the body’s natural processes. This has the unfortunate side effect of
compounding health problems over the long term.
Such a conventional approach is simply unsuited to the complex, multifactorial, chronic
illnesses that dominate us today, including autoimmune disorders (ALS, MS, Crohn’s, et al),
cancers and “enigmatic” conditions such as multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
But if we give the body what it needs to reverse the course of illness and return to its natural balance (i.e., health) – nutritional support, nontoxic medicaments, energetic support and the like – even some of the most complex health challenges may be overcome.
To learn more about the biological paradigm of health, read Dr. Gary Verigin’s excellent
introduction to the biological terrain How Illness Happens.