Health Advantage has developed some quick-and-easy steps and tips to help you jump start your path to true health and wellness. But you must know that it is just that - a start. The information contained on this site, together with the books and links recommended, will require you to examine and rethink everything you know and have been taught about diet, health and nutrition. (You could get a head start - and alternate but very illuminating and analytical perspectives on some of your favorite health books - by reading these "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" book reviews.)
At the root of the disparity between what has actually been discovered and what we tell each other about what it takes to be healthy is the germ theory of disease. This theory was very successfully promoted by Louis Pasteur, despite the crucial discoveries of Pasteur's contemporaries Antoin Bechamp and Claude Bernard which showed that a compromised, unhealthy biological terrain provided the environment needed for disease. From the germ theory came the vaccine myth, against which Bechamp argued strenously and in vain.
We now have a health - or more accurately - sickness care system that is fast careening out of control and towards a modern holocaust in which the drug and medical supply industries are the only clear winners. This modern holocaust is only magnified by rampant dietary mis-advice and ersatz food innovations promoted to the public despite the decades of efforts of MDs, researchers and scientists to alert us against these very same substances. This mis-advice and these food "innovations" are then given official approval by the USDA through its Food Pyramids, and reinforced by our ill-placed belief that the FDA is a true watchdog agency that will do everything possible to ensure the safety of our food and drug supply. In addition we believe the myth that we are now living longer life spans as a result of what modern science has given us.
Because so many of us overlook what our elders, such as Weston A. Price and many others, had to teach us about what the healthiest diets looked like, too few today question the cholesterol theory, or the underlying truths about veganism, and even vegetarianism. On the other hand, doctors who try to sound the warning bell are ignored (or worse) while disappointed and disillusioned consumers are increasingly feeling the need to learn how to help themselves. The most successful of us will be those who consider seriously the teachings and discoveries of researchers like Weston A. Price who gave us many clues into the less obvious, but underlying signs and signals of declining health.
Because we all have been trained to accept sound-bites as a major source of information, this kind of rethinking, re-examining and objectivity will not be easy. Indeed, the multi-layered levels of misinformation, half-truths and outright lies are so profound and have developed over so many decades that even many natural health enthusiasts as well as the most dedicated holistic and medical practitioners often fail to acquire all the main pieces of the puzzle.
And of course, no one has all the answers. What Health Advantage has done is piece together authoritative information from a wide variety of sources, both historical and contemporary, in order to form a "roadmap" we can each use in our quest for better health - not to mention a safer, cleaner environment. In addition, we have drawn from basic physiological and biochemical precepts taught in most high schools and colleges today. Key among these is that the various systems of body, including the circulatory system, respiratory system, endocrine system and so on, do not operate in a vacuum but in highly complex, interrelated ways. And because our body systems are interrelated, when an imbalance occurs in one body system, other body systems are affected as well.
Put another way, the body is a biological terrain - an ecosystem - in which, as Pasteur himself admitted on his deathbed, the germ is nothing, the terrain is everything.
So, with the understanding that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step let's begin with an overview of modern health and nutrition, or perhaps more appropriately, the astonishing lack thereof. We conclude with some ideas for becoming your own health insurance/assurance provider by taking charge of your health.
To begin, it is a tragic fact that the majority of Americans erroneously believe that we are among the healthiest and long-lived groups ever to grace the planet. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH, and our children stand to pay an even higher price for our illusions than we are - or will be - paying. Learn about The REAL State of Our Health.
One of the main causes of our poor health status is that we have, especially since World War II and the explosive growth of giant ag-tech-food industries, become the most overfed and undernourished nation on earth. (Although other so-called developed nations are not far behind.) The inescapable truth revealed in The Real State of Our Health and elsewhere is that IF WE DON’T CHANGE THE WAY WE EAT AND THE WAY WE GROW AND PREPARE OUR FOOD, WE WILL NOT SURVIVE! Check out Un-Nourishing Modern Traditions and More Un-Nourishing Modern Traditions.
Sadly, too many of us assume, and are led to believe, that as long as we can drag ourselves out of bed each day – and various diagnostic tests cannot pin a label on our complaints – we have nothing to worry about. And yet many, if not most of the chronic degenerative diseases which plague our modern society take years and even decades to develop to the point at which a diagnosis can be made.
Genetics play a role of course, but a relatively minor one. Diet, nutrition and lifestyle have far greater influence over our individual ability to maintain health.
In other words and just like planet earth, our biological terrain is alterred in various ways every day of our life for good and bad - primarily by things we have at least a measure of control over. Thus it is not actually a "germ" that causes a chronic or degenerative problem to become diagnosable or even an acute condition such as the flu to develop, but rather a gradually depleted and ultimately overwhelmed biological terrain.
In addition we each need to recognize - and accept - that technologically sophisticated tests themselves can and frequently do obscure the underlying issues and we each also must understand that the eventual price for our own neglect and oversight of these issues can be high. Consider One Doctor's Story about how overlooking the obvious impacted one Dr. Stephen Gyland, M.D. of Tampa, Florida in what is now a classic case, well known to many natural health practitioners.
Unfortunately the accumulating warning signs of damage are too often ignored or discounted, allowing them to fester into full blown catastrophe. THIS NEED NOT HAPPEN TO YOU. Before your body reaches an actual state of crisis know that there are, in fact, any number of Signs and Signals of Declining Health that your body and mind may send you in order to get you to mend your ways that may not – yet at least – have been labeled as a “disease”.
Know too that, as in Dr. Gyland's case, if a health catastrophe has landed on your doorstep, there ARE a myriad of natural methods you can use in conjunction with your treatment choice. Consider One Mom's Story, but know that even in serious health crisis, persistance and attention can pay big dividends.
In the end, Mama and Grandma were right - there is a lot, perhaps more so today than ever before, that we can do to maintain, and even substantially improve, our health and our life without having to simply rely on drugs or surgery, or for that matter on distasteful foods. More and more good, solid research is proving this to be true. Supplementation is now a big part of that picture, as is rebalancing our diet and making better food and lifestyle choices, so long as we understand what these choices really should look like.
We at Health Advantage have spent the last fifteen plus years carefully researching and evaluating the information you will see here and feel confident that it represents the best of the best. But as Mark Twain once said: Beware of what you read in health books, lest you die of a misprint. With this important idea in mind we recommend that you invest some time in developing a knowledge base so that you can adequately represent yourself in your own wellness program. This site, along with the links and resources we provide will go a long way toward helping you do just that.
While we have developed quick and easy ways to help you get started, and which should help make big improvements in your health, in the end, your success ultimately depends on you, the effort you are willing to invest, and your current state of health. Because of that unalterable fact, all of what we offer here is intended to augment, not replace required medical care.
While your ultimate goal should, in our opinion, always be to minimize the use of toxic drugs and invasive surgeries and diagnostic tests, it also is important to recognize that if you have, or suspect a medical condition and/or are taking prescription medication, you MUST work with your health care practitioner so that your response can be monitored to your benefit. Know that many physicians today are hamstrung by insurance requirements and a plethora of state laws and regulations. This sad fact gives new urgency to an observation made by Benjamin Rush who was the personal physician to George Washington: Unless we put medical freedom into the constitution, the time will come when medicine will orgnize into an undercover dictatorship.
Nevertheless, if your practitioner refuses to work with you on your new endeavor, find one who will. That is, after all, still your right.