THE ROAD TOWARDS DISEASE

by Walter Last

Become aware of the factors that cause our diseases.

People in Western society are rarely healthy. Real health - the perfect functioning of all parts of body and mind - is so rare that people mistake the temporary absence of disease symptoms for health. Formerly, people suffered mainly from violent, but short infectious diseases; now they are afflicted with chronic degenerative diseases for a lifetime.

The main factors causing widespread health degeneration are as follows:

As a result of this metabolic weakness and the overuse of unsuitable food, toxins and metabolic residues accumulate in the body. Toxins (toxic waste products from our chemicalized food) accumulate mainly in the fat tissue. Metabolic residues consist of protein debris, mucus, fatty sludge and organic acids.

• PROTEIN DEBRIS accumulates when we eat more protein than we metabolize. Small protein fragments clog up the basement membrane through which nutrients move into cells and waste is being removed. Also tiny blood capillaries and lymph channels become congested, contributing to a wide range of degenerative diseases.

•  MUCUS: Originates from the lactose (milk sugar) in dairy products, from gluten (in wheat products), refined carbohydrates, egg white, molds and food allergens. Mucus has a special affinity to mucous membranes, causing catarrh, ear and sinus problems, respiratory diseases and malabsorption of food.

•  FATTY SLUDGE: Mainly formed from oxidized cholesterol and polyunsaturated fatty acids, hydrogenated fats and trans-fatty acids but also by the interaction of chlorinated water with vegetable oils or body oils. It leads to poor circulation, senility and heart problems by clogging the blood vessels and congesting the lymph system.

•  ORGANIC ACIDS: General overacidity contributes to the accumulation of organic acids in the tissues and induce inflammations and mineral deficiencies. Overacidity results from insufficient cellular oxidation and by the formation of lactic acid after eating sweet food or food to which we are sensitive or allergic.

INFECTIONS

Wastes accumulate wherever the blood circulation slows down whether because of emotional blocks (muscle armouring), injuries, or insufficient use of muscles.

Up to 30 per cent of the volume of cells in elderly people may be filled with waste material, usually called 'old-age pigments'. This is comparable to 30 per cent of a city or a household being filled with refuse dumps. Just as dumps become infested with rodents and insects, the waste accumulations in the body provide favorable breeding-grounds for microbes and parasites.

Infections are healing efforts of the body designed to destroy any foreign invaders in addition to reducing the heavy load of toxic and obstructive residues (mucus) accumulated in the body. The use of drugs in fighting these infections prevents this cleansing action and reduces our vitality still further, while the body's immune system - its ability to defend itself against foreign invaders - is simultaneously damaged.

If the body is still reasonably strong, it fights these invaders and simultaneously reduces the load of stored wastes. This is experienced as an acute (sudden and severe) infection, often in the form of a cold or fever. However, as the body becomes weaker and the amount of stored wastes increases the body does not fight any more. It will be content with limiting the invasion to a certain part of the body and chronic (low-key but long-lasting) infection results.

Finally, the immune system becomes too weak to limit the chronic invasion and it becomes more generalized as in autoimmune diseases, cancer and leukemia. However, it should be understood that this 'invasion' does not necessarily occur from the outside. Especially in the case of cancer, it is more an 'uprising of germs' created by the disintegration of diseased body cells - similar to a revolution spreading in a country with dissatisfied inhabitants. This is the so-called cancer microbe, a fungus-related pleomorphic organism also active in most autoimmune diseases and AIDS.

The German cancer researcher P.G. Seeger demonstrated in thousands of experiments that the virulence of cancer cells depends on the nutritional status of the host. Another interesting study found that viruses breeding in hosts that are deficient in protective nutrients, such as selenium or vitamin E, tend to mutate and change from benign into very virulent and lethal forms. With sufficient levels of these nutrients someone was immune against the benign form of the virus but not against the mutated form that came from a deficient host. Most of the influenza epidemics that periodically sweep the world with new virulent strains originate in selenium deficient parts of China. Furthermore, the African HIV epidemic appears to have emerged in northern Zaire were many people are selenium deficient. The lesson from this is that poor nutrition breeds deadly viruses.

FOOD ADDICTIONS & ALLERGIES

Parallel health deterioration, closely linked to the weakening of the immune system, takes place with the development of addictions and allergies. These are extremely widespread in our society.

Whenever the body is confronted with a difficult food it enters a state of stress. The glandular system is induced to pour adrenal hormones into the bloodstream and this may be felt as an uplifting stimulation. Eventually, the body begins to crave this stimulation and this leads to an addiction to that particular food. In our society, these food cravings develop mainly for sweet and fried foods, bread, dairy products and red meats.

After many years of using addictive food the glandular system is markedly weakened and stronger stimulants are required. You then become addicted to alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco or various drugs. Eventually, even these will not achieve the desired effect or only for shorter and shorter periods.

The body becomes chronically fatigued and disease symptoms begin to surface evermore forcefully. Some symptoms can be linked directly to incompletely digested foods that are absorbed through a weak intestinal wall this is then called a food allergy. Disease symptoms develop selectively in parts of the body with hereditary defects or in those weakened by subsequent misuse or injured by accidents.

PROBLEM FOODS

Almost any food, if used to excess by susceptible people, can cause allergies. However, certain foods such as rice and vegetables rarely cause allergies while others carry a high risk of causing them. These high-risk foods are called 'problem foods' because in addition to allergies they frequently cause health problems in people who are not susceptible to allergies.

People who are prone to allergies are generally overacid with a weak sugar metabolism and hypoglycemia or diabetes, low blood pressure, a weak immune system, permeable intestinal wall and lack of digestive enzymes. Alkaline individuals, on the other hand, rarely have allergies. Instead, they are insensitive to pain and skin irritants and may suffer from chronic degenerative diseases or become victims of an unexpected heart attack or stroke. However, the same problem foods are major contributing factors in the development of disease of both groups.

The main problem foods in our society are:

1.   Cows' milk and its products, also lactose added to processed foods

2.   Wheat and oats and to a lesser extent the other gluten grains rye and barley (beer!)

3.   Sweet foods, especially household sugar

4.   Hydrogenated fats (for example margarine) or heated oils and fats

5.   Stimulants: overuse of alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco and drugs

These five groups should generally be used sparingly. Sweet and acid fruits, honey and salt are often incompatible with people of a certain constitution or metabolic body type. Also foods that are incompatible with our blood group often cause problems. In addition, any food that contains pesticide residues or added synthetic food chemicals is a potential health hazard. I do not believe in a safe limit for these chemicals, especially as limits are set for each item individually while ignoring the cumulative and potentizing effect of multiple chemical residues and additions.

SOCIAL & ECONOMIC FACTORS

With the present poor eating habits deeply ingrained in our society and the all-out chemicalization of our lives it is almost impossible to remain reasonably healthy - and very few people do. Almost everyone has obvious or hidden health problems. From attending to children, parents and grandparents of the same family I have seen how the level of health rapidly deteriorates in the youngest generation.

This trend is also clear from statistics and general observations for anyone who wants to see it. Statistics showing increased life expectancy due to greatly reduced infant mortality are irrelevant for judging the health of a population. These figures simply mean that more babies survive the early-childhood infections, that we have better plumbing and that more elderly people are kept artificially alive by organ transplants or on life-support machines.

But this is not health. More relevant statistics show that most people in Western countries suffer from chronic diseases and that the percentage of chronically disabled people is increasing rapidly. Arthritis, cancer and Parkinson's disease used to be diseases of old people. Now they are affecting children and juveniles. Health authorities so far have ignored the claims of natural medicine that it is the superior form of treatment for chronic and medically incurable diseases. The very fact of a high rate of chronic disease in our society attests to the inability of the medical profession to successfully treat these diseases.

This is highlighted by the embarrassing phenomenon of the falling death rate during doctors' strikes. Statistics show that whenever there was a strike by doctors, the death rate in the affected population fell dramatically. In 1976 the death rate fell by 35 per cent in Bogota, Colombia. In Los Angeles County, California, it fell by 18 per cent during a strike in the same year, while in Israel it fell by 50 per cent during a strike in 1973 (Mendelsohn, R.S. Confessions of a Medical Heretic. Contemporary Books). Only once before had there been a similar drop in the death rate in Israel and that was during another doctors' strike 20 years earlier. After each strike the death rate jumped again to its normal level.

During these strikes emergency care was provided. This means the patients who lived longer during the strikes were those with chronic diseases. They obviously benefited from a reduced exposure to medical drugs, operations and other technological interventions. There are an abundance of statistics, estimates and case reports of the great number of patients who are in hospital or worse because of disease caused by medical drugs and medical technology. One of the many books exploring this subject in detail is Medical Nemesis by I. Illich (Pantheon Books).

SELFISH MOTIVATION

However, our medical and economic leaders do not want to face reality. They brainwash the public into believing that the present health situation is completely normal. Finally and most importantly, the whole economic structure of Western civilization is based on the production and distribution of goods and services that are contributing to poor health. These include chemicalized agriculture and food processing, the pharmaceutical industry, technological medicine and the petrochemical and plastic industries.

The guiding motto for industry is 'profit', while for the consumer it is 'convenience'. The price for all to pay is the loss of health. This situation is the natural outcome of a society based on selfish motivation. A change for the better can only come when more and more people realize that ultimately they harm themselves with selfish attitudes.