Heroes Not Zombies

Mostly doctors see sick people. Generally, we don’t go to visit doctors when we are well. However, we think of doctors as “health care professionals”, who work for the “health service”.

Whilst the goal of a doctor is to help a sick person back to health, their knowledge and skills are focused on treating disease.

Health and illness are not two entirely separate states. There’s a spectrum of health, with excellent health at one end and poor health (or illness) is at the other.

I’ve often wondered what lies behind this spectrum and how do we move back and forward along it?

One of the key concepts in modern biology is “homeostasis” – a complex set of regulatory systems which act to try and keep the “inner environment” of the body in a condition of balance. When imbalance occurs illness appears. Or, another perspective is, illness disturbs the inner balance.

We all understand that concept – if our diet is inadequate we are likely to get ill, and if our diet contains an excess of anything, especially too much salt or sugar, we get sick.

So, one way we stay well by having enough but not too much of whatever we need.

A second key concept is that of inflammation. The human inflammatory system exists to recognise what is us, and what isn’t….in particular to recognise potentially harmful “intruders”. (The immune system and the inflammatory one are intimately linked). We recognise inflammation when part of the body becomes hot, red, swollen and painful – as we do when we have an abscess, a sore throat, or an arthritic joint. Inflammation can occur anywhere in the body, but it especially occurs at our borders – the skin, the lining of the gut, the lungs, the genitourinary system. It’s our first line of defence.

However, the inflammatory system can become too active, as it is with almost all chronic ailments. And it can be very harmful when the immune system turns against healthy tissue (as it does in all autoimmune diseases).

The third concept I find useful has only come to the fore in more recent years. It’s “integration”. Integration can be understood as the creation of mutually beneficial bonds between very different parts. Our body contains very different tissues and organs. Our organs don’t compete with each other. They collaborate. They work in harmony with each other. When this goes awry chaos ensues!

All three of these – balance, inflammation and integration work together, each influencing the others. Almost all disease is “multifactorial” – there are a number of influences and factors combining to produce the dysfunction that leads to illness.

On the other side of the coin, it’s these same three we need to attend to if we want to be healthy. We need balance, healthy boundaries and defences and we need integration in our lives – in our physical needs for nutrients and water, in our psyche and in our multiple environments, social, cultural, and natural.

The same principles apply throughout the natural world. Healthy environments are the prerequisite for healthy lives.

So, these are what I have in mind whether I’m focused on helping a sick person, or helping a healthy one – balance, inflammation and integration.