US Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton recently announced 2 major initiatives her party will pursue if she’s elected President. Firstly, two billion dollars will go towards research and treatment for the rapidly increasing Alzheimer’s Disease . Secondly, she will focus on supporting those with Autism, another rapidly increasing health issue. This will mainly centre around providing work opportunities for the autistic, and greater protection for them at school and the work place. There was no mention of researching the reasons why this illness is increasing exponentially. Autism now is affecting 1 in 45 people, mainly children. This is down from 1 in many thousands in the 1980’s, and this increase has been shown not to be attributed to improved detection methods, nor genetics. If it is not genetic, nor better diagnosis, then it leaves the environment as the smoking gun (environment includes everything from food, drugs, the physical environment, right through to personal to behaviours).

Although Hilary’s motives might be commendable, no significant progress will be made in these or any other health issues until we understand first principles. First principles focus on the real causes of a problem, and removing them. They are the primary reasons for a disease. It’s what Dr Dean Ornish referred to as ” the causal chain of events” in his landmark book Reversing Heart Disease, published in 1990. As he stated, we need to go back as far as possible to establish the primary, or real causes. When these are understood, we take every opportunity to remove them from our way of living.

Toxaemia: The real causes of disease

Toxaemia is the condition where the blood, fluids and hard and soft tissues of the body become handicapped in its structure and/or function by an excess of toxic residues. These toxins come from the by-products of normal metabolism, all manner of drugs whether prescribed, illicit or social stimulants (like caffeine and alcohol), pesticides and artificial additives, household and personal care chemicals, inappropriate foods and beverages, vaccinations and of course environmental chemicals in the form of pollution. For over 100 years, the medical establishment ridiculed the belief that toxaemia was a primary cause of disease.

Then, another medical reversal occurred in 2001 when the EWG (Environmental Working Group) in the USA proved beyond doubt that such a situation did in fact exist, and further, could cause disease. They termed this the Body Burden. It had been known for centuries that people could be poisoned by exposure to certain chemicals (acute poisoning), and then in 2001, the concept of chronic poisoning was scientifically accepted. Such chemicals are measured at trace levels, and it is now understood that these trace levels can dramatically and adversely affect the human body, hormone system and immune system.

A New Health-Care Model is Urgently Needed:

At the present time of writing (2016) it is obvious that the human race is in a fight for its own survival. Not only are we faced with unprecedented damage to the environment, we are also witnessing the rapid extinction of many species of animals and the epidemic of disease within our own species. Disability-free life expectancy is getting lower. In other words, the age people reach before becoming partially disabled through disease is now shorter than ever in the modern world. To put it another way, we might be alive, but we are falling apart, and younger and younger at that. We are suffering from chronic disease at an earlier age. We might be living longer but we’re dying younger!

Modern medicine has not provided the solution, and in fact has contributed to the cause. Because medicine is now married to the pharmaceutical industry, nearly all illnesses are treated with toxic drugs which themselves cause side-effects and more disease. The word iatrogenic was coined to describe such a situation: diseases caused by medicine. It is a fact that modern medicine is now the 3rd leading cause of death in the modern world, after vascular disease and cancer. This is not my opinion, but was admitted in The Journal of the American Medical Association a few years ago.

The health-care system we have is failing us. No doubt there are some successes, particularly in emergency and trauma situations. But with chronic illness, which takes an incalculable cost in terms of human suffering and death, not to mention the unsustainable financial cost, we need a new model. This is why Hilary Clinton’s well-meaning commitments are doomed to produce poor results. She will be still working from the same paradigm that produced these diseases in the first place. You can throw all the money in the world at any disease, all the research, all the technology, but if the real causes are not removed, then the results will always be disappointing. Cancer is the best example. In 1972 President Nixon declared war on cancer. Since then, for 44 years this war, apart from a couple of less common cancers like testicular and some lymphomas, has been an abject failure. Everything has been, and still is, thrown at cancer from chemo to radiation to surgery and yet the major cancers which cause the most morbidity and mortality, remain epidemic. Most recent improvements in breast cancer survival have come about through smoking cessation and a marked reduction in the prescribing of hormone replacement therapy. This has been acknowledged by the Cancer Council itself.

There is not much chance of any fundamental change in the immediate future. The marriage of medicine to BigPharma is a huge and extremely profitable business, and as such will aggressively resist any threats to its position.

The new health-care model we so urgently need may never be accepted by the powers that be, but you can benefit by adopting it yourself. You can take more control over your health, energy and well-being than ever, and step off the medical merry-go-round. You can transform your own health. You can prevent most diseases, and reverse many. You do that by changing your mode of living. This means you re-evaluate what you eat, drink, how you sleep, rest and calm your mind, and how you cope with stress. It included appropriate activity, fresh air and sunshine, and an attitude of good-will. It means not flogging yourself, or routinely soldiering on. It involves listening to, and trusting your body! This is the new game plan. It is possible to live at a higher level. It’s simply a decision away!

The Public Health-Care System Vs Your Private Health Care System:

The good news is that you need not wait for the Public Health Care System to become more enlightened. The more modern medicine’s reliance on drugs, surgery and radiation as interventions, the less emphasis there will be on the self-healing powers that reside within you. Medicine’s paradigm will probably never change, and other peripheral, cosmetic changes are glacially slow anyway. But you can change your private health-care system today.

This shift starts with a basic desire to improve your health, physically, emotionally and mentally. From there your knowledge about health will improve the more you read and observe, and the more you question established beliefs. Go beyond daily newspapers, television and popular magazines. Become a critical thinker. Become more self-aware. Listen, really listen to your body. What is it telling you? Do an audit on your own health. Perhaps consult with a health-care practitioner you have had recommended to you, one that will educate and empower you, not simply recommend you take bag loads of supplements and remedies.

Explore the concept of Natural Health and Natural Hygiene. This changed my life more than 30 years ago and has formed the philosophical and scientific basis of my life ever since. Natural Hygiene teaches the principle of vis medicatrix naturae, or the healing power of nature. When you harness this power, you become not only healthier, but empowered. You will stand for something, and won’t fall for anything. It is the greatest private health-care system in the world.

How Natural Hygiene/ Health Relates To Your Own Health Choices:

The human body is a remarkable, miraculous creation. It is a survival machine, which is:

1) self- developing;

2) Self- defending;

3) Self- repairing.

For the human body to function in good health as it is intended, we need to provide it with the biological conditions of health. We do not provide it with materials, agents and influences inimical to health, like drugs and inappropriate foods. The biological conditions that build life, also build health. The power that builds us is the same power that heals us! When healing is required, the same biological conditions are needed but they are modified to suit the organism’s needs at the time. Thus we might not eat or eat less for a time, or we might get more sleep and rest or less activity. Our commitments might need to lighten for a while. Such modifications allow the human body the necessary energy to do its repair work, just as it was designed to do. This is self-regulation. For our body to self-regulate, self-awareness is needed. Health care is self-care.

If we care for it well, we live well. If we care for it poorly, we live poorly. We reap what we sow. It’s the law of cause and effect. Natural Hygiene, the new model of health and disease, is based on keeping our bodies as internally clean as possible. This concept is widely accepted today, and is encapsulated in the term detoxification used by so many.

Our everyday choices determine the level of internal toxicity we have.

At one extreme, if someone smokes tobacco, drinks alcohol, tea and coffee, eats sweets and processed foods regularly with a diet top-heavy in animal-based foods, eats for pleasure more than hunger, drinks when not thirsty, gets too little or too much exercise/ fresh air/ sunshine, eats food and takes medications when sick, habitually soldiers on and gets poor sleep and little rest, we can confidently predict sickness, disease and suffering. Poor lifestyle choices are the cause. Sickness is the effect.

If on the other hand we choose to live more rationally and intelligently: avoiding tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, adopting a diet predominately of plant-based foods, eating treats as celebration foods not as daily indulgences (and certainly not when sick), avoiding dairy, exercising regularly, sleeping and resting adequately, procuring sufficient sunshine and fresh air, limiting chemical exposure, eating when hungry and drinking when thirsty, not soldiering-on habitually, fasting when unwell or not hungry, and working on our minds, then we can confidently predict a much healthier outcome. Healthy lifestyle is the cause. Good health is the effect.

The former case (disease) is life expressing itself in disadvantageous circumstances. The latter (health) is life expressing itself in advantageous circumstances.

This is what forms the basis of the science and philosophy of health known as Natural Hygiene. It is the ultimate truth in understanding health and disease.

Why it Will Never Become Mainstream:

Imagine our world if chronic disease was an exception, instead of the norm. Imagine if the rates of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, ADHD, autism and depression, to name a few, all dropped precipitously. This would be an effect. The question then becomes: what caused this decline? Obviously the cause would be a complete change in the way we live.

Entire industries would be either completely decimated or forced to drastically downsize.

These include: the meat and livestock industries; the sugar industry, the alcohol and tobacco industries, coffee and tea manufacturers, the dairy industry, processed food manufacturers, soft drink companies, microwave oven makers, the egg industry, illicit drug peddlers, the pharmaceutical industry, the health food and weight loss industries like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, hospitals and all the healing professions. These would be changed forever.

Such a radical shift would inevitably lead to social chaos, as people became unemployed and desperate. Realistically, this will never happen. The forces of conformity are so strong that you need to act individually.

You can perform your own radical shift without waiting for the majority to join you.

Your New Game Plan

Remember that your health depends on keeping your body burden, or toxaemia, as low as possible. This means basically 3 things:

1) Following as natural a way of life as possible;

2) Really listening to your body and allowing it to lower its level of toxaemia by not suppressing acute symptoms like coughs, colds, discharges, fevers, vomiting, diarrhoea and the like. Such symptoms are not our enemy, they are allies in disguise, allowing the body to detoxify and keep its internal environment as clean as possible;

3) Keep learning about health, nutrition, activity, and the principles upon which these are applied. More importantly keep leaning about YOU. Research and study Natural Health/ Natural Hygiene, and apply these priceless and timeless principles to the betterment of you and your family. It will be an investment of incalculable riches!