A staggering 70% of Americans are taking prescription medications for symptom management or chronic diseases. When patients visit healthcare professionals for issues like fatigue, mood swings, pain, bloating, and heartburn, they are often prescribed medications. These pills do often control symptoms—at least for a short period. However, more often than not, symptoms return, or new issues appear. The patient then returns to the doctor, and medication is increased or added to. The vicious cycle continues, and the medication list grows. Despite spending thousands on medications designed to improve their health, patients often become sicker.
The primary issue is that physicians focus on treating symptoms rather than addressing the root cause of their patients’ sickness. The belief that genes are responsible for illness often prevails. However, it’s been found that 70% to 90% of the risk of developing high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer can be attributed to three factors: diet quality, physical activity level, and smoking status.
There are numerous scientific studies showing that consuming more vegetables and reducing or eliminating sugar and white flour intake leads to less obesity, diabetes, mood disorders, dementia, heart disease, and autoimmune issues. Regular physical exercise and adopting meditative practices can also help reduce the risk of these illnesses.
Yet, during their time in medical school, physicians receive fewer than 15 hours of education on diet and even less training on exercise or stress-reducing practices. Moreover, they receive a limited education about how medications can deplete stores of crucial vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients required for normal cellular functioning. This lack of knowledge can lead to a worsening health status for patients.
Addressing the root cause
A clinical approach that focuses on using diet and lifestyle interventions to treat patients has shown tremendous success. When people replace sugar and white flour with up to nine cups of vegetables and incorporate more exercise and stress-reducing practices, there is a marked improvement in mental health problems, obesity, neurological issues, diabetes, heart disease, and other autoimmune issues. By illustrating the effects dietary and lifestyle choices have on nourishing our cells, people become more inclined to make these changes and maintain them, thereby allowing their cells to construct a healthier body.
It has been observed time and time again that making simple changes to diet and lifestyle can stop—and often reverse—the damage caused by various chronic diseases not considered curable. These diseases include Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury, neuropathy, diabetes, obesity, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, and multiple sclerosis (even primary progressive multiple sclerosis). For more information on this approach, visit terrywahls.com.
It is crucial, now more than ever, for healthcare professionals to start considering the root causes of patients’ illnesses rather than just addressing the symptoms. By educating patients about the importance of a balanced diet, regular exercise, and stress-reducing practices, doctors can help prevent and sometimes reverse the progression of chronic diseases that, until now, seemed untreatable.
