All treatment based on pharmaceutical products proceeds from the study and treatment of symptoms, categorised pretty much in isolation as evidence of separate "diseases".

Western medicine has built a vast repertory of observed symptoms, and a vast array of unnatural products tailored by chemical companies to prevent these symptoms from manifesting. We even have comparatively simple conditions, like heartburn, being labelled as "diseases" to bring them within the scope of the prescription drugs industry.

The word cure is a misnomer when applied to drugs and disease. Drugs suppress symptoms, which are the body's way of ridding itself of underlying illness. This drives the problem deeper into the tissues for the cells to cope with in some other way, which leads to big trouble at a later date. Drugs may offer a "quick fix", but the price paid in side effects and long-term illness is enormous, affecting both quality and length of life.

Published causes of death statistics are many and varied. You will never find among them a figure for the thousands of people whose lifespan and quality of life are slowly destroyed by pharmaceutical drugs. When their lives end, cause of death is simply recorded as the disease they were being treated for, or one of its side effects.

What Holistic Really Means

While modern western medicine excels at treating emergencies and injury, it has lost the plot completely when it comes to treating illness and disease. All disease manifestations are the result of the same basic "dis-ease" condition of the body. In reality, before the rise of drugs, many natural treatments were used successfully for centuries to set the body's chemistry to rights.

These methods were intended to restore the bodys correct pH, supply the nutrients required to correct the underlying imbalance in the body tissues, return the body to proper health, and so enable it to deal with whatever symptoms were present.

The "diseases" mindset obscures the fact that all symptoms are manifestations of an underlying defective condition of the whole body caused by -

Inadequate nutrition resulting in a weakened body structure (at both tissue and cellular levels) and decreased immune function; and

External factors such as toxins and stress.

It is true that the body has countless ways of manifesting sickness. The reason diseases seem so many and varied is because -

Each body breaks down at its weakest link - and in each individual that weakest link will be determined by heredity (genetic factors) and nutrition (eating habits);

Each individual experiences toxins or stresses peculiar to his or her own lifestyle (e.g. cigarette smoke, asbestos fibers, timber treatment chemicals or whatever). These toxins and stresses can produce different effects on the system.

When one realises that our categorized diseases are simply varied manifestations of an imbalance in the body chemistry, it becomes easier to understand what holistic medicine and treatment is about.

Body pH and Organic Nutrients

Body pH is the indicator of the acid-alkaline condition of the blood. It is the most important single factor to be corrected before healing can proceed. This can be achieved in a number of ways, but primarily by avoiding acid-producing foods, correcting mineral deficiencies, and supplying the correct balance of healthy foods.

The following foods are the worst culprits in producing acid reactions in the body and are the cause of much illness and disease in the western world: white flour, white sugar, common salt, soft drinks, artificial colorings and flavourings, over-consumption of red meat and animal fats, hydrogenated fats, deep-fried fats, alcohol, and cigarette smoking.

Consider the average western diet and you will realise why illness and disease are rampant killers in the west, where many people's daily food consumption comprises almost exclusively the above products. Consider also that in many third-world countries the introduction of the western diet has been followed by a rising incidence of western disease.

Rebuilding and Healing

The holistic approach to healing starts by avoiding all foods that produce acid conditions in the body. Many of these foods are so lacking in nutritive value that they deplete the bodys vitamins, minerals and enzymes. The body has to dig into its own store to find the elements necessary for digestion, and very often, because of the poor state of our food today, that store has reached rock bottom.

In supplying what our bodies really need for the rebuilding and healing processes, the prime consideration is usability. Minerals are the bodys ground-floor building blocks and recent research now shows that mineral supplements MUST be supplied in a form the body can utilise. This is not found in pulverized rock, or in colloidal minerals. In both of these, the particle size is simply too large for our cells to utilise efficiently. The maximum our cells can derive from these sources is about 3%. The unused residue of these minerals is dumped somewhere in the system, where it adds to the burden the body is already carrying.

What our cells really need is organic (i.e. angstrom sized) minerals - because these are what the body was designed to use. The organic, angstrom particle size is actually 10,000 times smaller than a micron.

Minerals in plants and fruits are naturally angstrom sized, and this is the reason why so many of today's natural plant formulations are helping people with health problems.

You will notice that all of these natural products have one element in common they are not the end product of our modern agricultural systems. This is because the depleted nature of our agricultural soils can no longer provide the minerals and trace minerals our bodies need in the quality and proportions they were designed for. Without a single exception, all of these new products are derived either from the sea, or from virgin soils that still retain their life-giving nutrients.

This is a huge lesson that we need to learn, and learn quickly. Unnatural chemicals are destroying our world, and they are destroying us.