“Give a man a fish and you’ve fed him for a day. Teach him how and
you’ve fed him for life!”
Health care costs in the United States are skyrocketing in large part due to the fact that many Americans do not take precautionary measures to protect themselves from the serious diseases in their lives. Truly an anomaly, although as a leading industrialized nation we provide more health care services than any other country in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), we are below the expected standards of a world leader in mortality and morbidity statistics.
The thrust of “preventive” health care—as opposed to fixing what is broken—is to prevent breakage. Traditionally, our attitudes toward health and our health care system is based on what could be called, “remedial” intervention. The focus is producing rapid change in an attempt to improve a situation or find AN answer. In contrast, preventive medicine is based on “generative” interventions. It is designed to help people make resourceful choices to achieve useful and lasting changes.
In fact, we frequently develop chronic, deadly diseases and degenerative changes, many of which relate to stress and diet.
The occurrence of stressful situations are frequently considered an unavoidable by-product of our daily lives and beyond our control. Yet, the ways in which we react to those situations are often within our control, despite beliefs to the contrary. A “stressor” is not stressful unless we empower it. This often occurs when we believe there is a threat to our health and well being and we determine that there is an imbalance between the demands being made on us and the psychological and physical resources available to negotiate those demands.
Because stressful responses often elevate blood pressure, produce rapid breathing and increase the flow of adrenaline through your body, they are a major contributor to heart disease. Moreover, stress interferes with the functioning of the immune system by reducing the availability of specialized blood cells that combat infection. Additionally, stress—often manifested as intense worry and inability to perform tasks—results in prolonged immobility. This, in contrast to a healthy exercise regimen, greatly increases the likelihood of higher cholesterol.
To the extent we become increasingly aware of our stress symptoms we will be more effective in their reduction, thereby reducing the risk of serious diseases. The kinds of stressful responses may be classified in two types: Emotional and physiological. The former include negative internal representations (dialogue, pictures, feelings) about the probability of being successful in a task or relationship, as well as withdrawal from social situations, lethargy and unpredictable outbursts. The latter can include muscular tension, tics, rapid heart beat, shortness of breath, headaches and difficulty concentrating. Monitoring these symptoms through deep muscle relaxation, meditation and biofeedback techniques in an effort to become more aware, is the first step in the stress management and healing process.
A major contributor to increased stress is the perception of being unable to control a lifestyle that threatens physical health. Accordingly, as stress mounts, people often increase the kinds of maladaptive responses that further threaten their health. One of these is consumption of a
poorly-conceived and deficient diet.
There is substantial evidence that lack of dietary fiber and antioxidants are associated with incidents of cancer, heart disease, and other life-threatening illnesses. The average American consumes approximately twelve grams of fiber per day. From research it has been shown that if you add ten grams of fiber to your diet, you enter a health envelope in which you can lower your risk of heart attack or stroke up to forty-one percent! Moreover, this amount of fiber will also reduce the risk of colon, breast, prostate and uterine cancer, as well as frequently lower cholester-ol significantly. Did you know that if you lower your cholesterol by one point, you decrease the risk of heart attack by two percent? Furthermore, research (New England Journal of Medicine, August, 1997) has indicated that incorporating antioxidants into your diet can reduce atherosclerosis and heart disease.
As a result, innovative, effective products have been developed, some of which have been awarded patents for compliance with the afore-
mentioned research. If taken on a regular basis they will guard against serious diseases! Information on these products is available upon request.
As we age we become more aware of our mortality. And as many of us—especially the so-called, “baby-boomers” –-confront the grim reaper by seeking to look and feel better, and live longer, the expression, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, acquires new meaning!