9780743249720_titlePage_01.html by Mark Hyman M.D. & Mark Liponis M.D

Author:Mark Hyman, M.D. & Mark Liponis, M.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2003-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

We believe that every person who pays attention to these forces will enjoy better health. Our program isn’t just about getting better when you feel ill—it’s about staying better so you don’t have to feel ill at all.

Today many doctors talk about early detection as the cornerstone of prevention. But true prevention has to start long before detection can occur. This is because patients are not an ambulatory collection of separate organs and various conditions. Everything in the body is related. Imbalances or dysfunctions in one system lead to added stresses in the other systems. When these stresses and imbalances tax the organ reserve of any system, symptoms and illness result.

For example, if a problem develops in your intestines, added strain will be placed on your immune system, which can lead to immunological problems such as arthritis, hepatitis, skin conditions, asthma, or eye inflammation, and that intestinal stress also puts added strain on the liver, which can affect the blood and the brain.

Remember the old song, “The thighbone’s connected to the hipbone, the hipbone’s connected to the tailbone…”? There was more truth to that song than the writers may have known. Just as no organism can exist in isolation, neither can a body system. Each system is interdependent; the cardiovascular system with the immune system with the gastrointestinal system with the nervous system with the endocrine system with the musculoskeletal system, and so on.

Yet if you were to approach most doctors and say, “I feel like I’m getting arthritis in my hands, and when I eat pizza I get gas, and on top of that I seem to have come down with this weird skin rash,” they may respond that they can only deal with one problem at a time. In our approach, however, these conditions serve as clues that, viewed as part of a larger picture rather than unrelated snapshots, provide us with information about your overall situation.

Most doctors don’t try to put the clues together to form a big picture. It’s as if Sherlock Holmes walked into a room, saw his first clue, and then refused to look any further. But, Dr. Watson asks, “What about these clues over here?” “Shush,” says Sherlock, “stop confusing me with all those extra facts.”

Let’s say you wake up one morning and you’re short of breath, with chest pains shooting down your arm—you may well think you’re having a heart attack and go to the emergency room. And sure enough, the diagnosis is a heart attack. The treatment will be difficult, and the condition is serious.

But consider: This heart attack didn’t just occur this morning. It was preceded by decades of plaque buildup caused by oxidation (or rusting) of fats in the bloodstream, which became deposited in the wall of the artery, followed by activation of the immune system leading to inflammation (or heat) in the wall of the artery, aggravated by (the sludge of) malnutrition, and tipped over by the resulting stress on the detoxification (waste) system, which finally made one

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