Creating an Epidemic: The Power of Semantics

As astounding as the power of belief is in healing illness - or preventing healing, in some cases - the power of semantics is affecting health care more than many of us would care to realize. There is a word for every type of physical, mental, and emotional malady out there. There are mental disorders, sleep disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, various disorders on the anxiety spectrum and on the autism spectrum, different types of heart diseases, thyriod problems, joint problems, bone disorders.... the list goes on and on and on. Despite the hundreds of names for various disorders and diseases, the majority of them can be solved with simple diet and lifestyle changes - but of course Big Pharma would rather keep that under their hat.

So how does semantics, or the practice of giving a name to every slightest variation of a health condition, affect the health crisis in America? The answer is simple, and quite brilliant in its simplicity: if we can name it, then we can treat it. With every new disorder that is "discovered", the drug industry can produce at least three or four different treatments for it. Once the patent for these new medications ends, even more profit can be generated both through the introduction of generic versions of the drug, and through the creation of "better" or "stronger" name-brand products.

An Example that Applies to 90% of Americans

Headaches and migraines affect an estimated 90% of the population. There are many different types of headaches, including tension headaches, migraine headaches, cluster, cough, exercise, and sex headaches, as noted by Mayo Clinic. WebMD lists twenty different brands of headache medication - and for every brand, there are dozens of companies making money from generics. Side effects of these drugs can include symptoms like diarrhea, gastrointestinal bleeding, difficulty breathing, rash, liver damage, and ulcers.

Headaches are viewed as a normal part of life. So is popping medication for fast symptomic relief when one starts. Unfortunately, about 70% of all headaches that occur are drug-induced; taking headache medication can actually cause more headaches. As the body and brain begin to rely on the drug to control headaches, the natural processes that would prevent headaches stop working. This is known as - drumroll, please - physical dependence. Yes, 70% of Americans are addicted to one or another type of headache medication, the majority of which can be purchased over the counter.

So how should we be taking care of the headache epidemic? Ending our dependence on headache medication, as well as on caffeine and nicotine, is the first step. And in the event that a headache does naturally occur, Mother Nature's best treatment for it is abundant, safe, and completely free - water.

The Labelling of Mental Disorders

Perhaps nowhere is the power of semantics seen as strongly as in the mental health field. Don't get me wrong - there are certainly people out there with a real disorder who need real help. The traumatized war veteran, for example, or the OCD patient who compulsively picks and eats his own skin. It's just that the treatment should begin with diet and lifestyle changes, along with intense behavioral therapy. Medication should be a last resort.

In real life, however, medication is the first line of defense against almost every type of mental disorder that can be diagnosed. There are countless Americans who suffer from depression (which in many cases could also be called discontentment, poor nutrition, low self-esteem, and lack of motivation), which becomes a vicious cycle that is only fueled by medication. The vast majority of these patients would experience a dramatic reduction in their symptoms simply by eating healthier, drinking more water, and exercising.

Orthorexia

Interestingly, there is a new mental health/eating disorder that is sweeping acros the nation. It is called orthorexia, and it is characterized by a preoccupation with the purity of your food. If you are reading this post with any interest or enthusiasm, you can probably be diagnosed with orthorexia. The first step in treatment is, undoubtedly, a heavy-duty prescription medication.

If you suffer from orthorexia, you are likely to avoid genetically modified foods. In fact, you may go to some lengths to do so, like shopping at health food stores, preparing food from scratch rather than from a box, and growing your own food at home. Big Pharma wants this condition treated.

Certainly, there have been some extreme cases of orthorexia. When your diet starts to interfere with relationships, your job, and your health, then it becomes a problem. The vast majority of people who could officially be diagnosed with this disorder, however, would be better off continuing to avoid processed foods, refined sugars and grains, and chemical additives. Better orthorexia than cancer.

Modern Medicine Does Have Its Place in Health and Wellness

Lest I sound like an extremist, convinced that conventional medicine is at the heart of every medical condition in existence, let me say quite frankly that doctors and scientists have contributed a lot to our understanding of how the body and the brain work. In some extreme cases, medication is indeed necessary. Surgeries, a frightening number of which are not really needed, can at times be the only option. However, medicine as we know it today should never be the end-all-be-all of illness treatment.

Instead of focusing on which bacterium or which virus is causing particular symptoms, we should instead focus on the body system that is being affected. I have twice ended urinary tract infections not by going to a doctor, determining the bacteria causing the infection, and taking antibiotics to get rid of the infection, but simply by increasing the functionality of my urinary tract by drinking lots of water. When anyone I know has a UTI, I tell them simply to "piss it out."

A Last Word on Semantics

Far too many drugs today actually exacerbate the very problem they are intended to treat. Headache medicines cause headaches, antibiotics increase the risk of future infections, and sleep aids and antidepressants effectively lobotomize their victims. The naming of diseases makes this occur more and more.

Many people who have a medical condition (or two, or ten) are almost proud of their diseases. You may have seen them on online forums, their disorders listed like scholastic acheivements beneath their names (Betsy, Type II Diabetes, Social Anxiety Disorder, Depression, GERD). It is a way for people to individualize themselves, to socialize with others like them, and to explain or excuse what they do and how they do it (I'm sleeping in late today because I have depression). Their medicine becomes part of a reassuring routine, believing in the false hope that if they take these drugs they will feel better, at least for today. In the process, they begin to lose their own identities. They become consumed in who Big Pharma wants them to be.

4 Must-Have Staples in Every Woman's Diet

While a good diet is always essential to the maintenance of good health, this is especially true when it comes to women's health. Cramping, bloating, mood swings, and an endless parade of PMS symptoms are the unfortunate side effects of one of nature's most complex and necessary cycles. Adding these four staples to your diet can naturally reduce many of these symptoms of womanhood, in addition to offerring a myriad of other health benefits.

Carrot

Many members of the carrot family are commonly prescribed by herbalists and naturopathic doctors for feminine ailments. Adding more carrots to your diet can aid in regulating your menstrual cycle, fighting off vaginal and urinary tract infections, and increasing milk supply in lactating mothers. I know this from experience; I struggled with a low milk supply for weeks before discovering that chewing a teaspoon of fennel seed, a member of the carrot family, boosts milk supply usually by the end of the day. Fennel is also my go-to remedy for winter illnesses; fennel seed tea is gentle enough for babies and can be used to help soothe even the frailest colicky infant. 

Oats 

Oats for women! Known for its ability to smooth skin and strengthen hair, oatmeal  can also be a great tummy soother when your time of the month rolls around. Its high fiber content helps keep you regular, and it can even suppress the appetite, aiding in weight loss. Oats contain many of the vitamins and minerals that your bones need, so they are great for women who may be at risk of osteoporosis or osteoarthritis. Eat a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast every day when your period starts, and feel free to slather it on your face before you shower to refresh your skin. 

Raspberry

Raspberry leaf tea is one of the essentials during those last long weeks of pregnancy. Drinking this tea is said to help strengthen the uterus, without raising the risk of pre-term labor (although it may not be safe in women with a history of miscarriage). This tea will also help the uterus shrink after giving birth, aid in milk production, and ease cramps. Fresh, frozen, or dried raspberries are a known source of cancer-fighting antioxidants, and are extremely useful for keeping blood sugar and cholesterol levels stable. 

Green Tea 

If there is any beverage that every woman, man, and even child needs to add to their diet, it is green tea. This mood booster, appetite suppressor, cancer fighter, and overall body stabilizer can be sipped on throughout the day. Drink it to help fight off infections, regulate blood pressure, stabilize blood sugar, lower your risk of heart attack and stroke, get rid of headaches, improve brain function, and acheive internal homeostasis. The dried leaves can be used externally as well to reduce swelling, inhibit the growth of bacteria, fight skin infections, soothe burns and bug bites, and reduce the appearance of wrinkles and dark circles under the eyes. Sounds a lot like the health benefits of medical marijuana, doesn't it?

Whether you are just discovering the joys of womanhood, with all its aches, pains, and hormonal fluctuations, or are already on the other side of menopause, adding these four foods to your diet on a regular basis can aid tremendously in the management of feminine maladies. Check out these recipes for some ideas on increasing your intake of these healthy foods. 

A Critical Component of Homeopathy: The Power of Belief

As more and more people are beginning to turn away from "conventional" medicine in favor of gentler, natural homeopathic remedies, Big Pharma is working harder and harder to convince the population that homeopathic remedies seldom work, work poorly, or simply don't work at all. Physicians are not hard to convince; visit any doctor who wasn't trained in naturopathic medicine and ask about a natural treatment for any condition. The chances are pretty high that you will get a blank stare at best, or outright ridicule of the notion at worst. When physicians recieve paid and lavish vacations from drug companies in return for doling out their prescriptions, they rarely see the need for a natural treatment.

But Big Pharma's warpath against natural medicine goes even deeper than most of us may at first realize. Obviously, by growing our own herbs for medicine and taking charge of our own health, we are threatening the pharmaceutical companies' multi-billion dollar profit margins every year. In fact, the average person in 2014 in the US had about thirteen prescriptions written each year - that's a new prescription every single month. When these numbers begin to dwindle, so will Big Pharma's massive income.

There is one critical component of homeopathy that even the most die-hard naturalists often overlook: the astonishing power of belief. The drug industry hasn't overlooked it, though. By doing all they can to discredit herbal remedies, companies like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson also diminish the power of belief and hold on to their $16 billion profits.

Health is a State of Mind

Have you ever noticed how a day that starts badly usually tends to end badly? Or how, when you get in a fight with someone, you end up feeling more tired than if you had run a mile? How weight gain and depression have an almost direct correlation? This is because, contrary to what modern physicians would have us believe, our physical health and mental health are intricately connected.

The human body is made of various systems which must work together for the body to run at optimal performance. The respiratory system, the circulatory system, the reproductive system, and even the endocannibinoid system, for example, are all intricately connected to one another. Likewise, the brain works through a series of chemical pathways, where neurons and hormones must all be balanced with one another for stable mental health. It certainly makes sense, then, that the systems of the body and those of the mind must be connected to each other.

Emotions almost always create a physical response in the body. Anger raises blood pressure, increases heart rate, diverts blood flow away from the stomach while increasing stomach acid, and causes a chain of physical reactions that lead to fat build-up in the heart and arteries. Anxiety causes a similar physical response. On the other hand, emotions such as happiness and contentment are vital to maintaining healthy blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and even weight.

Undermining the Placebo Response

You've probably heard of the placebo response before, where in a clinical trial the "control" group, or the patients in the trial who are given a placebo, respond to the treatment as well as - if not better than - the group on the drug being tested. This phenomonon is far more common than we are lead to believe. The placebo response has been observed in trials related to dozens of medical conditions, including physical conditions such as asthma, ulcers, migraines, and menstrual cramps, as well as mental disorders like anxiety, depression, and even substance abuse addiction. In fact, a Harvard Medical School program that is dedicated to studying the placebo response notes, "Even when we take pills with active ingredients, part of their effect is likely due to the placebo effect."

Such an important part of health and wellness should not be overlooked or undermined. By simply believing that a remedy will work, patients can increase the efficacy of a treatment, possibly by a lot.

Instead of quoting a bunch of studies on the subject, I can give you a personal example of the power of belief in healing a physical ailment. When my third son was born, he came home from the hospital with a staph infection. Foolishly, I opted to treat it with the prescription medication that his pediatrician prescribed, thinking that because he was so little I didn't want to take any chances with his health. I used the cream he had been prescribed, and within a few days the infection went away.

After only a couple of days, however, the staph came back, and this time it was different. His first infection looked like little white bubbles, just a rash; but his second staph infection started beneath the skin and felt more like the staph infections that caused a MRSA scare a few years ago. The original infection had morphed into something stronger, and scarier.

As I should have done in the first place, I now treated this new infection with a homemade salve of turmeric, ginger, and goldenseal root. In about four days it was gone, but not before it was passed to me. I dutifully began treating my own infection with my salve, but it took about a week and half to go away.

When my husband found a staph bump on his leg (this was the last one to plague my family), I got him to start treatment with the salve right away. He is, admittedly, very skeptical when it comes to homeopathic medicine - his father is a nurse - and I had to nag him daily to use the salve. For weeks, he doubtfully applied the funny-smelling yellow stuff and constantly vowed that he would have to see a doctor "if this shit doesn't go away soon." It finally did, but it took nearly a month of treatment.

Big Pharma and the FDA in Cahoots

It isn't really a secret anymore that some of the country's largest pharmaceutical companies regularly pay the FDA to get and keep their products legal. Of course it doesn't look that way on the books, but many of the "experts" hired to help the FDA determine the safety of medications receive money in some way from Big Pharma.

But the FDA is also working to undermine the efficacy of herbal remedies, namely by doing nothing. With no regulation at all on some strong and even potentially dangerous herbal remedies, the FDA is effectively saying, "Herbal remedies are so ineffective that they aren't worth our time." What a subtle yet extremely powerful way to put doubt into the minds of modern Americans.

The Power of Belief

Like a child who is determined to have a bad time at a party, we often set ourselves up for poor health with a bad attitude. But the best way to make any medicine work, whether natural or conventional, is to believe that it will. While few studies have been conducted on the placebo effect, many naturopathic doctors believe that this effect can improve the efficacy and duration of almost any particular treatment. Similarly, placing a strong emphasis on the power of faith - whatever your religion - can make a treatment more effective. The end result of prayer may be "little more" than a placebo response, but that doesn't make the healing that is gained from it any less real.

On Original Sin

According to the book of Genesis in the Bible, all humankind sins because Adam sinned. When Adam took the first bite of the forbidden apple, he introduced a whole new level of suffering, disease, sickness, and death to the human race. What Moses, the writer of Genesis, failed to reveal is how exactly the simple act of eating an apple could possibly have such disastrous consequences. A few passages in other books of the Bible give some clues, but for the most part the physicality of original sin remains shrouded in mystery and assumptions.

But is it really so mysterious after all? By embracing a few key facts about Adam, the apple, and sin in general, we can begin to understand how the first man wasn't really so different from his descendents, and eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil could indeed create a sin nature in all of Adam's offspring.

Sin Today

Before we can delve into the mysteries of original sin, we have to understand what exactly sin is and how it affects us today. A passage found in James provides perhaps the most easily understood definition of sin on a practical level: "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." (James 4:17 ESV) Seems self-explanatory enough, right? However, this passage gives us an insight into what sin is that many people overlook - a thought or an act that may be sinful for one person isn't necessarily sinful for another. In other words, sin is, to an extent, relative to each individual.

Of course, this doesn't give anyone free reign to do whatever they please, thinking that they are exempt from committing sin for whatever reason. Some things are not acceptable no matter who you are, like murder, adultery, greed, etc. But if there is something that is causing you to not do the right thing, then it is a sin.

For me, reading can be sinful. That's right, reading. If I get started on a book in the morning I will spend the rest of the day reading like an addict, to the detriment of my home and even my children. Dirty clothes will sit in the laundry basket, dishes will pile up, bedrooms will be destroyed, and I will put lunchtime off until I have read three more chapters and my boys are practically climbing in my face to say they are hungry. For me, to get started on a book before the house is spotless and the boys are safely tucked into bed can be a sin.

Why is Sin Unavoidable?

The easy answer, of course, is that we all sin because Adam first sinned. But there is more to it than that. Sin crawls in the food that we eat, in the air that we breathe; it is encoded in our very genes, in fact, and no matter how Christian and saved you may be there is no getting away from it completely while you live on this Earth.

Consider yourself at your very worst moments. When you snap angrily at your husband although he didn't deserve it, when an irritable impulse causes you to make fun of your children. When road rage blinds you to the fact that you are driving just as crazily as everyone else on the highway. Now consider why these things happen. Hunger, sleep deprivation, heat exhaustion, stress... they can all cause your mood to plummet faster than a failing economy. Consider your diet and your overall health. Fast food can literally cause malnourishment and obesity in the same person, which is a recipe for bad physical, mental, and emotional health. Hormonal factors, like PMS or the urge to have sex that overpowers almost everyone at some point in their lives, can easily lead to bad decisions and ultimately to sin.

Mark 7:20-23 says "And he said, 'What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.'” Sin comes from within - sin IS within - and even when you aren't actually sinning the capacity to, and the inevitability of it, is still lurking inside.

Thinking of sin as a software problem, or as something that can be fixed, is misleading. According to 1 John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Sin is hardwired into our circuitry, and the way we take care of our bodies can exacerbate the problem immensely. In fact, from a medical standpoint, sin is remarkably similar to a mental health disorder. While a mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, addiction, or OCD, can seem like a problem with the brain's programming, or "software", it is really a hardware problem that invades a patient's genetic material and no amount of therapy or prescription pills can truly eliminate. With different forms of therapy, and medication in the most extreme cases, most mental disorders can be managed, but a patient will be stuck "managing" the disorder for the rest of his life.

In a similar fashion, sin can be managed. Communication with God is as fulfilling and helpful as communication with a therapist (although in some instances God's recommendation as your Therapist may be to refer you to a human specialist for additional help), and with practice, the impulse to sin can be quieted over time, but it will never go away. Your hormones will still fluctuate, you will still eat food that disagrees with your physical and mental health, and genetic predisposition will still influence how you respond to certain events. In other words, while the symptoms of sin can be managed, the disorder is one you will have to live with for the rest of your life. The hardware cannot be fixed while we live on Earth.

Adam in the Beginning

So naturally, as humans we wonder why this disorder has plagued us. Why exactly was the act of eating an apple the literal death of us? To answer this, we first have to examine Adam as he was before the apple, because once he ate the apple he became radically different.

In some ways, pre-apple Adam was a lot like us. He was, after all, human. It is clear that he had free will, because he exercised it when he chose to take the apple from Eve. Look, however, at his genetic material. Many creationists (myself among them) believe that for Adam to have sired the entire human race, he must have carried all the genetic information that exists today in his own DNA. Mutations may have appeared to create new traits and new gene functions, but Adam was created with the genetic information necessary for these mutations to take place. Dominant and recessive, usual and unusual, he would have carried them all. So your blonde hair and blue eyes, as well as your natural talent for art, were inherited from Adam just as your brother's black hair, green eyes, and mathematical mind were. This is a seriously simplified explanation of Adam and Eve's genes; you can go in-depth about the implications of Adam's genes here.

Now let's take a look at what Adam didn't carry. We know that he didn't sin. He had no hormonal imbalances that would lead to fits of anger or rash decisions. He had no genetic mutations at all. He had no physical impairments, like poor eyesight or bad teeth, that would make him worry about his appearance or detract from his natural physical prowess. He didn't have any trust issues with God, because he had never lost a child to illness or accident, and in fact had never even known what the word 'hungry' meant. There was no need for "survival of the fittest" instincts, which today causes unneccesary competition on the most primitive levels (I'm stronger/faster/smarter/prettier/more capable than you). And of course every drop of food that Adam ate was fresh, local, non-genetically modified, chemical-free, and far more organically grown than is possible today.

So Where Did the Sin Come From?

Adam passed down everything that exists today, including sin. Since it simply didn't exist before Adam ate the apple (which, I might add, was probably not really an apple. However, for simplicity's sake, I'll refer to the fruit as an apple since we can't be sure exactly what kind of fruit it really was.), sin must have existed inside the apple.

Perhaps that sounds a little "fruity", if you can pardon the bad pun, but consider how your food affects you. Obesity, currently a rampant epidemic in the United States, is due entirely to food (both the quality and quanity of it) and lack of exercise. Obesity is the leading cause of a myriad of problems, including heart diseases, joint problems, respiratory problems, circulatory problems, infertility... the list goes on and on. Food can be used to treat illnesses - many common herbs and spices are antibacterial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and so on - and food can even contribute to the severity of a mental illness. Many patients with disorders like chronic depression, anxiety, and even autism find that cutting genetically engineered food from their diets and losing extra weight can help make their symptoms far more manageable. When you throw the astounding prevalance of synthetic drugs, including OTC drugs and hormonal birth control, into the mix, then you have a recipe for worldwide disaster.

But genetically modified food didn't even exist until 25 years or so ago. It's been only a century since mainstream Western medicine was to be found in pharmacies and bathroom medicine cabinets across the world. Surely, you may be thinking, you can't possibly blame the existence of sin on these things. Of course not, for as we have already discovered, sin is within us. I blame the growing acceptance of sin as "normal" on these things, at least in part. But my point is merely to show that what you eat can have an affect on how you respond to the flaws in your hardware. This can help to explain why God spent so many chapters in Leviticus discussing what a person could and couldn't eat.

Finally, we can look to the fruit that Adam ate as the original source of our original sin. This is where all the religious and scientific debate in the world must dissolve into "what if?", or into a matter of faith, because there is no verse in the Bible that says "The fruit that Adam ate contained something which causes cells to die, genes to mutate, and the immune system to become susceptible to disease." But it must have, because after Adam ate it, that is precisely what began to happen. Adam's cells began to die, so that aging and death were not only possible but inevitable. Adam's genes, or at least the ones that he started passing down to his offspring, began to mutate, causing birth defects and inherited illnesses. His immune system, once impervious to all kinds of environmental factors, weakened over the generations to the point that even a very useful and necessary type of bacteria could make one sick when they gathered in the wrong place in his body.

We can't lay all the blame on the fruit, of course. We can't even lay all the blame on Adam - it was, after all, Eve who enticed him into eating it, and Satan who tempted her. We could say that all sin starts with Satan. We could say that Adam (and Eve) made the choice to bring sin into the world. We could say that their food was the real reason for sin. But in reality, all of these things are true, and they all played a role. Like a mental illness, sin is a genetic reality that can't be avoided. However, we can make the choice to fuel it with poor diet, lack of exercise, and an all-around bad attitude, or we can fight it by improving our health and our lifestyles, and spending time talking to the Ultimate Therapist.