Causes of ill health PDF Print E-mail

Is it  true that we don't know the cause of cancer or Parkinson's disease?
Why there is such a gap between the conventional medical model and view, and what patients seem to know intuitively?

Most patients will hear their doctor tell them that cancer, Parkinsons disease, multiple sclerosis, hypertension and numerous other diseases do not have a cause known to science.

I saw a patient recently with hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and depression who had been given four different drugs at the clinic. The clinic consultation lasted less than 15 minutes and she was asked to report back in one month. And that was that. When I asked the woman what she thought the cause of her ill health was she was able to give me some pretty good answers.


A crack in the wall is easy to see, measure and fix. Clearly, however, the cause of the crack will not be found in the bricks or in the cement around the crack.

The cause, in fact, is generally far removed from the crack, and even an engineer will not be able to place his finger on the origin of the fault. The cause is complex and has to do with the foundations, the nature of the materials used and the stresses and strains within the building. There is no straight line from the crack backwards. Instead, the pressure build-up of the various causes meets areas of resistance within the building material in such a way that the pressure moves and flows in different directions, taking lines of least resistance to end up as a crack in the wall.

The flow from health to ill health is much more complex, but in principle is quite similar.

Principle 1. There are no single causes of ill health, rather there are multiple causes. While there may often be a major underlying cause for the crack that is obvious to everyone, there will nevertheless be a number of other causes contributing to the direction and end-point of that major cause.

Principle 2. The causes stir up a response in the system. This response is generally an attempt to contain or correct the problems arising as a result of the effects on the system. The response of the system will also contribute to the flow and direction of the disturbances.

Principle 3. The interaction between the response and the causes is responsible for the symptoms and signs. There is always an innate intelligence operating here that is not haphazard. Using drugs to treat symptoms and signs may interfere with function further. Drugs block biochemical processes, therefore interfering with function, and may disturb even further what the system is trying to do.

Having said this one does need to keep in mind that sometimes the system has become so chaotic that the steady hand of the drug may on occasion bring an order into the system that could not have been achieved without the use of that agent. Recent anecdotal evidence on the drug Stilnox is a case in point. Stilnox, a sleeping tablet, has been found to be successful in treating some brain-damaged people.

Principle 4. The pressure of the causes plus the response of the system will direct the process towards its end-point, i.e. the disease. This end-point is the crack in the wall and may for example be the destruction of the dopamine-producing cells in the brain, or cells in the ovary that become cancerous. This is the end-point of the flow from the causes through the system as it attempts to respond and deal with the problem.

Principle 5. Every disease has its own unique underlying cause. This may be quite a shock for most people, especially those doctors who believe that science will somehow discover the unique cause of each disease. There is no unique cause for each disease, only a unique set of causes for each person. To make the point clearer: every patient, for example with Parkinsons disease or cancer, will have his or her own unique set of causes. One persons causes will not be the same as another persons causes, even if the end-point looks similar, i.e. even if both people have the same named disease.

Having discussed the principles of how the causes flow in the system towards their end-point, we can now also identify the underlying causes of ill health.

There are only four causes of all ill health:
1.    Genetic factors.
2. Environmental factors. This includes a whole range of factors such as the air one breathes, the water one drinks and the food one eats. Other environmental factors include chemicals in the environment, electromagnetic pollution, micro-organisms, parasites, xeno-estrogens, etc.
3. Emotional-mental factors. Typical psychological factors.
4. Psychospiritual factors. These factors have to do with meaning and the purpose-of-life issues that influence the way we conduct our lives, and they invariably flow down into the body. Whether you believe in karma, past lives, sin, or not, that belief system will also influence the dynamics of ill health.

This about covers all the causes of ill health. In every person there are a range of causes, with new causes being added, and some possibly being removed along the way. Slowly the pressure of these causes, together with the bodys responses to containing and dealing with the causes, will give a direction to the flow until somewhere a crack appears which we call the disease.

I believe it is important for patients to listen to their own inner voice rather than the assurance of their doctor that the cause of their ill health is unknown. My experience is that when asked to identify the cause of their ill health, many patients are able to identify many of the factors involved.

I am dismayed when patients with cancer are told that the cause is unknown, treatment is initiated (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy), and they are sent home to return only for observation to check for recurrence. Removing the cancer does not remove the causes, or change the underlying dynamics. Treating symptoms with drugs does not remove the underlying causes or dynamics. Telling patients that the cause is unknown is a way of getting patients out of the consulting room quickly, because spending time in discussing causes is not cost- effective for most practitioners. To a degree this is not the fault of the doctor but of a system that does not pay for time spent with the ill person.

The causes of ill health and disease are not a mystery. Most people are aware of many of the causes of their ill health, but this knowledge is often dismissed by doctors who believe that the causes are unknown. Each person has a unique set of causes, no matter what the name of the illness or disease. The bodys responses to these causes play a part in the direction in which the underlying dynamics move towards the end-point or disease.