Chronic Disease Management or Health and Wellness? Which Model Do You Choose?

Chronic disease management or health and wellness? Which model do you chose? The increased consumption of processed foods; sugar and seed oils; exposure to thousands of chemicals; electromagnetic radiation through phones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a broader definition of what constitutes disease forms the perfect foundation and model for chronic disease management.

There are many industries waiting to embrace you if you accept the status quo and are content with “the way it is”. There are three stages in the western medical, chronic disease management economic model:

1. Industrialised food production, exposure to poorly regulated chemicals, consuming food made primarily for the convenience and profit rather than health. We are told it is the only way to feed the planet but viewed from a holistic integrative perspective the food waste, environmental and health costs, together with the poor use of precious resources, need to be weighed up. This sets up the consumer, you and me, for chronic disease.

2. Broaden the definition of disease to encompass a bigger market. Medicalise or pathologise people who might once thought they were healthy.

3. The marketing of evidence-based medicine to manage chronic disease and to engage thought-leaders, sponsored or supported by those companies to establish a “standard of care” and “practice guidelines”, which influences the way medical practitioners deliver “healthcare”.

The perfect business model for a pharmaceutical company is to sell more drugs to more people for more chronic disease for as long as possible, without killing them.

What can you do? Take control and be the best you can be

We are bombarded with many confusing and contradictory health messages. It can be difficult to work out who or what to believe. Unfortunately a lot of corporations fund many organisations, so their advice may not be in your best interests. It’s why we believe your health is too important to entrust to someone else. You need to take control of it. The western health system is ideal when crisis strikes. But I believe you can avoid the “crisis” by being proactive. I propose a shift towards a model based on health and wellness. And it’s a model that allows you to take control of your health and be the best you can be.

One of the greatest challenges to our health today is chronic stress. In an evolutionary sense stress has played an important role in helping us deal with threats and dangers. In today’s world we aren’t faced with those same hunter gather threats, but we have a whole new unique range of stresses, that we have never been exposed to before and yet our primal stress response is still there.

At a time when we now have clean water, sanitation and the safety net of modern medicine I believe its a perfect time in human history to redefine what stress means in our modern world, understand how it affects us and take the knowledge and wisdom of what we have learnt in the past to guide us into the future where a world is focused not just on the health and wellness of the individual, but also the planet.

In our modern world our lives are in a state of stress too often and for too long. The stresses in modern life that break us down are;

• Emotional stress – thoughts are things and they evoke a biological response
• Environmental stress – we are now exposed to hundreds of chemicals and electromagnetic radiation on a daily basis that is poorly regulated
• Structural stress – exercise and posture
• Nutritional stress – we evolved to eat certain foods but are now consuming food barely recognizable to our ancestors
• Dental/Oral stress – the mouth is the gateway to the digestive and respiratory system

Once we have identified what breaks us down I propose 5 pillars of health to build us up and maintain good health;

• Sleep
• Breathe
• Nourish
• Move
• Think

My grandfather lived to be 86 years old. He eventually died of leukaemia. A week before he died he said to me, that when you work out how long we are alive and then you work out how long we are dead, it seems very unfair that we only get 86 years. However long we get we need to make the most of the time we have. We need to fulfil our potential whatever that is. To be the best father, friend person we can be. I want to empower you to take control of your health, simply be well and be the best you can be.