The Power of Prevention

Even if certain congressmen bend to the will of lobbyists, even if a few misguided voters never understood that "socialized medicine" is no longer a threat because the cold war is over, today's reality is that the President and a majority of people get that health care has to change.

"The attitude that we have a great system and we should not mess with it and if we do nothing we'll be okay, that's not true." President Obama told Diane Sawyer. "If we don't make these decisions we'll be worse off... If we're just going to just add more people onto a hugely inefficient system, I will say no because we can't afford it. If there are some basic game changes, additional incentives for prevention, and looking at what works best," those have to be in there, says the President.

Great! Now, let's talk prevention--or as I prefer to call it "proactive health care." To me, "prevention" implies a defensive posture of warding off disease, while "proactive" empowers us to address problems ahead of the curve when it's easier and cheaper to do so, rather than down-line when disease progression makes it more expensive.

But for now, let's talk "prevention."

In covering health care, I've watched integrative medicine build a beachhead in health care reform under the rubric of "prevention." However, a few items at the top of the list--diet and exercise--are typically all we talk about.

I'm convinced that we'll only attain the health improvements and lowered costs we seek if we undertake a more comprehensive approach to prevention--so let's take a look at some areas we should consider as well. In this and future blogs as well as in my ezine at www.health-journalist.com I'll delve into the power of prevention.

A recent EPA study mapped U.S. air quality revealing regions where higher levels of certain chemicals increase cancer and neurological risk.

Are these findings relevant to your health? Possibly, if you reside in New York, California, or other areas of higher chemical concentration.

However, in our prevalent health research and treatment model, there's no way to determine if these chemicals effect you and take action accordingly. The prevalent model (developed by drug companies to develop pharmaceuticals) just studies one chemical at a time.

It presumes that when Chemical A enters our air and water, that nature will disperse it into harmlessness. Unfortunately, the extinction of animal species and disease rates in humans tell us that's not what's happening. Chemical A meets up with other chemicals. But like the man who looked under the lamp for his lost coin because that's where the light was, the prevalent system just looks at singular chemicals as if they existed in isolation in the lab rather than in our bodies and environment where complex interconnectivity is the norm.

Although such tests exist, doctors don't routinely test our body's overall toxic load, nor do our researchers study cumulative effects or interactions. (For more on this check out Dr. Frank Lipman's excellent blog here.) Apart from certain integrative health practitioners, most health care fails to explore how the combination of chemicals effects us, how the combination of drugs and vaccines effect us, or how all of these interact with our food choices, stress levels, or genes.

Nor does medical practice offer approaches for reducing chemical load--even though recent studies estimate that most of us carry over three hundred chemicals from industry and agriculture.

In a lab, we may never be able to absolutely prove that Chemical A alone was sufficient to cause Syndrome A because of the interaction of all other potential factors. But in human beings, a million years of client experience (compiled by thousands of thirty year practicing integrative doctors working with thousands of patients) adds up to a different kind of health study: pragmatic results. If someone knows how to address a health issue, we need to listen and learn, rather than insist on costly studies no one can afford but pharmaceutical companies. Prevention means harnessing that experience and putting it into wider practice.

Here are just a few of the kinds of questions we should be asking:
• How can we lower costs on lab tests that determine chemical and toxin levels in our tissues?
• How do chemicals interact with each other and with other toxins?
• How do they interact with our genetics, foods, our stress levels, and medicines?
• How can we reduce these and other toxins into the environment?
• What treatment approaches help to address them?

Instead of waiting around to find out who among us draws the cancer, autism, or Parkinson's card from the deck, by demanding answers to these (and other similar questions) we'll be able to assess risk and take action. Now, we're talking prevention.

Please let me know what kinds of health care, tests, and changes you consider essential in preventive medicine.

Comments

[RMankovitz]

Hi Alison:

You asked for feedback regarding "preventive medicine," a phrase I avoid because I consider it to be an oxymoron. Why would anyone need medicine to prevent illness? Ask BigPharma.

My interest is in nature-based prevention. Some of us remember her - she evolved us and, from my perspective, holds all the answers to prevention.

I have written several books on prevention, including natural protocols for removing toxins from our bodies. Natural detoxification is based on observing how nature clears toxins from other species as well as from soil. It is not based on medicine. Years of research in the fields of zoology, paleopathology, primatology, zoopharmacognosy (how animals self-heal), botany and biology uncovered a whole different world of healing and prevention that flies in the face of conventional wisdom on these subjects.

Of course, I have also studied modern toxicology, including protocols for removal of heavy metals, toxic halogens, and volatile organics. There are no tests currently available to measure total body burden of even the simplest of toxins, such as lead or mercury. In fact, we do not even know where these toxins end up in the body. Further, some drug-based detox protocols can be quite dangerous if administered improperly.

For those readers interested in research and experiments regarding nature-based detox protocols, and lifestyle changes to minimize future exposure, see "The Wellness Project" or "Nature's Detox Plan." I donate copies of my books to public libraries.

Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com

[Alison Rose Levy - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, Ray, your comments reveal that the information gap between the many practitioners who successfully use protocols to address varied forms of toxicity and the widespread lack of awareness both of these effective approaches-- and even of the need for them.

Since, as you point out, they hide in various bodily tissues and are not easily located via testing, often the approach is to look at history and symptoms and support detoxification in various ways. Given the lack of available methods for detection, it's all too easy to deny the presence of toxins in the body..

Also it's near impossible to trace how toxins got there. Was it tuna consumption, air inhalation, a vaccine. By circling around those questions, we lose focus on obtaining a positive health outcome, which entails avoiding exposure and treating it when it has occurred.
But the practitioners who support people in the kinds of protocols you mention commonly report health improvements-- which is the real bottom line.

[juliaschopick]

Alison:

Thanks so much for yet another great post. One book that should be on every health-conscious person's book shelf is the not-well-e­nough-know­n "Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic," by Liz Armstrong and Guy Dauncey (available on Amazon.com). I was so impressed by this book that I interviewed Ms. Armstrong, a Canadian environmental writer and activist; you may listen to the interview at http://www.keeper.com/armstrong.html. Ms. Armstrong is also the author of the 1992 book, "Whitewash," which explores and exposes the environmental havoc caused by the sanitary products industry. These are both very important books.

Again, thanks for writing about these very important health topics!

Julia Schopick
http://www.HonestMedicine.com

[Alison Rose Levy - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, Julia, I had never heard of that book-- although there was a controversy a number of years back when a number of women suffered from what was called Toxic Shock Syndrome. There has been little reporting on that since. I wonder whether the products were changed. Do you know?

[checkyourpremises]

I just had a valuable prevention experience involving blood pressure. I had become addicted to bacon and salty foods and when i went for a checkup my doctor told me my blood pressure was off the charts and wanted to put me on medication. Instead, I upped my exercise, gave up salty foods and bacon (I switched to turkey bacon, which isn't nearly as good, but does the trick with eggs), and bought a blood pressure monitor, that allowed me to watch as my blood pressure steadily declined to normal levels. By taking these measures I precented both the effects of high blood pressure and the side effects of the medication my doctor was going to use to control it. A win win situation,and much less expensive than the alternative.

[Alison Rose Levy - Huffpost Blogger]

Your post brings up a key point. It takes some courage to receive an undesirable reading, or even a potential diagnosis and make the choice to first address it with a lifestyle change. What you did sounds very constructive and based on current guidelines, which is the way to go. Fortunately, you were able to intervene early in the process. It's always best to do that as at that point you have wider options.