The Five Pillars of Chronic Illness

By Nimrod Weiner

Every day more and more articles are coming out with advice on what to do or what not to do to prevent illnesses from appearing or what to do once you’re already sick. Despite the ever-increasing sophistication of medical sciences and the ever-increasing medical spending, our rates of illness are also ever increasing.

Chronic Illness is now killing 80% of the industrial world.

Over 50% of our entire industrial population has a chronic illness.

Over 80% of our adult industrial population has a chronic illness.

These illnesses include cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, anxiety, depression, ADD, ADHD, autism and many more.

The cause of these diseases, in almost 100% of cases, is not genes, germs or bad luck; it’s lifestyle stressors. Our lifestyle choices determine whether we will express health, whether our genes will run the healthy programs.

And, in terms of your body’s functions, most chronic illnesses are preceded by specific stressed states. These are what Dr. James Chestnut refers to as the Five Pillars of Chronic Illness.

The Five Pillars of Chronic Illness are:

1.     Stress Hormones

2.     
Insulin Resistance

3.     Chronic Inflammation

4.     Decreased Sex Hormone Binding

5.     Decreased Immunity

What may be surprising is that these five pillars are actually our body intelligently adapting to a stressor, a state of Toxicity or Deficiency. Our body goes in to a state of stress, and it does so intelligently – to allow for short-term survival in this stressful environment. It basically buys you time so that you can find a healthy environment again. The problem is, this response was never designed to exist in our body over the long-term.

So here’s how it works:

1.    We make lifestyle choices that are unsuitable to our genes (whether it’s a lifestyle choice around what we eat, how we move or what / how we think)

2.    That causes some sort of Toxicity or Deficiency

3.    The body intelligently adapts to cope with this Toxic / Deficient state, resulting in the stress response

4.    The intelligent adaptation results in the Five Pillars

5.    The Five Pillars existing in our body over the long-term results in chronic illness

What we have to do is make healthy lifestyle choices so that our body is no longer in stress and no longer has a reason to express the five pillars.

Our message, as always, is these 3 simple steps:

1.     Reduce lifestyle stressors

2.     Increase healthy lifestyle activities

3.     Take away the imprint lifestyle stressors left on your body (see a chiropractor)

Choose Wisely!

The Cost of Health

Here’s a question that was posed to the Dalai Lama:


"What thing about humanity surprises you the most?" 

His answer was: “Man”
"Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money: Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he doesn’t enjoy the present: And as a result he doesn’t live in the present or the future.
And he lives as if he’s never going to die: And then he dies having never really lived."
If we live a healthy life now, in the present, then not only do we have health for the rest of our life, but we also have greater energy, creativity and productivity now in order to do our work now. That means we also have more energy and resources to do what it is we love after work.
Or, if we’re sacrificing our health now, then we slog away at work, come home exhausted, only to numb out at home, waiting for the day to end, so that we can go to sleep, so that we can wake up and do it all again.
We see the effects of our declining health throughout our own society: one in two of us has a chronic disease; and one in two of us will die of a chronic disease. The number of children with autism, ADHD, anxiety, diabetes and obesity is escalating exponentially. The cost of this in Australia is rising to be $650,000, every minute, 24 hours a day.
Do you find that you are frequently tired, are regularly getting sick, have a build-up of stress, issues with your energy levels or with being a healthy weight, have messed-up reproductive organs or sex-drive? These are not signs of a healthy body.
There is another way, a simple way. Health is not difficult, but it has been complicated. It need not be. Stick to common-sense: eat healthy, and plenty of it; exercise daily; work on healthy thoughts and interactions; remove the effects of stress on your body with a wellness chiropractor.
Why not do what is healthy, now, so that you not only enjoy your life now, today, you also enjoy it for the rest of your life.
By Nimrod Weiner

Genes: do they really determine our disease destiny?

By Nimrod Weiner
An article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (1) states that “Scientists have taken a leap forward in their quest to find a cure for multiple sclerosis (MS) by identifying more than 50 genes linked to the disease.” It makes me think how much we believe that we are slaves to our genes, and that leaves us with no control over our destiny. That is a terrifying way to live, because in that model we have no ability to determine our own health. Whether we get cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, die young, get fat or get a hangover seems to be predestined by our genes. Of course, in that model, if you have no control over your future health, then what you do today would make no difference, which should give you licence to do whatever you want! And yet, it does make a difference how you live your life.
It’s interesting to me that in the last century the rate of diseases in industrialised societies has sky-rocketed, whereas our genes have remained more or less the same for the last 40,000 years. How could we possibly blame genes for the exponential increase in obesity, diabetes, cancers, depression, lack of libido, infertility, autism, ADHD, acne, and anxiety?
When the birds fell out of the sky, when thousands of fish floated to the surface, when the Tasmanian Devil went extinct, did we blame genes?
Today’s SMH article also implicated a weak immune system and deficiency in Vitamin D. Perhaps we do need to better look to our environment, and how we are living a lifestyle that is not suitable to our genes. Interesting, as Vitamin D deficiency has also been recently implicated in diabetes. (2)

Perhaps a better explanation lies in epigenetics, as renowned author of Well Adjusted Babies, Jennifer Barham-Floreani, describes so well in her article “Worried your genes will determine what diseases you’ll get or whether you will end up being fat?” (3)
Should we be letting our health be dictated by the fear of what genes we have, or be proactive and determine the health of our lives ourselves?
The only way to get healthier is to live a healthier lifestyle. Decrease the stress that is in your life, increase your resilience and see a chiropractor to remove the impact of old stress on your body. 1. http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/genes-shed-new-light-on-cause-of-ms-20110811-1in6x.html 2. http://www.theage.com.au/national/vitamin-linked-to-diabetes-20110725-1hx5a.html 3. http://www.koraorganics.com/blog/live-in-my-skin/all-things-organic/organic-certification/worried-your-genes-will-determine-what-diseases-youll-get-or-whether-you-will-end-up-being-fat/

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Our Newtown Community Chiropractic blog is a tool for us to document to the world all the exciting, interesting and amazing things that happen in the world of chiropractic. Our Practice located in Newtown, Sydney Australia is a community of wellness orientated, educated open minded people.