I have received emails from the British Medical Journal (BMJ.com) for years now and find their editorials often very interesting. Lately, two issues have come up that I have found worrisome. The first is, medicine and complementary medicine treating pre- diseases. When our health care system (conventional, integrative, complementary or alternative) uses the medical model as its basis, genetics and chemistry dictate the way a human being is defined. Therefore if you have a certain genetic picture and your numbers according to chemistry (blood work) are falling in a certain range, you might get the disease, so we need to treat you with drugs or supplements. Diabetes, Osteoporosis, Cancer, and Heart Disease, are examples.

Please understand, I am not suggesting that we should not be respectful of our health and preventing diseases, but the basis of this approach is fear. It is a negative approach to health. I feel our health can reflect the fear that we are pathological even before we become sick. We can become the disease.

The research to show that pretreatment with medication, natural or chemical will change this is lacking and often just assumed. We set ourselves up to be on a polypharmacy of chemicals, natural or synthetic for a lifetime. No wonder medicine (called healthcare) is such a large player in our economics and politics.

To me the most important is the lack of respect for our own body, mind, and spirit and its ability to heal itself.

We need to be very thoughtful with each step we take and to question: are we doing this test, drug, supplement, surgery to help ourselves or in response to fear? Have we spent the time to be thoughtful in our decision-making and checked in with ourselves before we take this step?

Susun Weed (susunweed.com) in her six steps of healing has a step 0, which to me, is the most important. DO NOTHING – listen to the wise voice of the healer within.

I firmly believe that in the future, they will look back and remark on how barbaric our generations were.

Or perhaps it is as Voltaire suggested: “The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature cures the disease.”

Looking forward to your comments and watch for my next blog on the second issue.