Key Factors to Health: The Iceberg and the Titanic

Drs. Tom and Laura Gross, Mills River Family Chiropractic / ABC Learning Lab

The Iceberg analogy is not new to a dynamic model of health.A very small percentage of an iceberg is actually visible.It is the same with our health.A symptom is not the cause of itself.Indeed, like an iceberg, a symptom is merely the visible tip of an underlying process that needs to be understood in scope to be reckoned with and to avoid disaster.

When people come in they can have certain things that are above the water that they can see and of course those are the symptoms.Pain and fatigue are the most common complaints in any doctor’s office.To ask the question, what do you do for more energy is to ask the wrong question. Is the patient low on energy because they are suffering from toxic overload?The symptoms of chronic poisoning as published in Clinical Chemistry, 1996 are

fatigue, sleep disturbance, gastro-intestinal distress, allergy symptoms, headaches, confusion and anxiety.

Is there a problem with methylation?Methylation is a process that the body does 2 Billion times a second.It is the process by which our body repairs damage to our DNA. It is now known that about 20 percent of the population are poor “methylators” and do not convert Folic acid into its active forms. Methylation is a necessary part of detoxification.Methylation activates the brain receptors and the brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters.So if someone doesn’t methylate well they may be depressed. Depression goes along with fatigue, tired brain, tired body.

Dysglycemia could be the cause of fatigue.One third of the population has insulin resistance.When people have problems with their blood sugar regulation they have highs and lows in their energy.

Inflammation causes the production of a chemical in the body called nitric oxide.Nitric Oxide can damage the energy factory of the cell called the mitochondria.A chemical called cis-aconitase inside the mitochondria is blocked by nitric oxide resulting in fatigue.

Stress is pro-inflammatory, stress increases fatigue; stress increases a hormone called Cortisol which inhibits the conversion of Thyroid hormone to its active form.Thyroid hormone controls the metabolic rate of more than 99 percent of tissues in the body. Stress reduces thyroid function which increases fatigue.

Immune activation can contribute to fatigue.Immune over-activation induces inflammation which can interfere with mitochondrial function leading to fatigue. When do you have more energy, when you are well or when you are sick?

Hormone dysregulation contributes to fatigue.In addition to the inhibitory effects of Insulin and Cortisol dysregulation, Estrogen toxicity increases Thyroid Hormone Binding Globulin decreasing Thyroid hormones availability to the tissue.This is why more women are Thyroid deficient than males.

Mitochondrial dysfunction causes fatigue.Mitochondria manufacture more than 99 percent of human energy.Mitochondria are 20 times more susceptible to oxidative damage to it’s own DNA.As the body becomes successively more oxidized it experiences successively more fatigue.

You can not fully understand an iceberg by naming the visible tip.What is wrong with the patient who is suffering with fatigue, arthralgias, headaches, autoimmunity, neuropathy, insulin resistance, blood lipids (Cholesterol/Triglyceride) dysregulation, depressed and who simply does not seem to function as well as they should.The answers to all these questions are found in the major processes that effect every single cell in the body.By correcting problems in these major cellular processes you can have tremendous health benefits no matter what the name of the condition.

A health care model that focuses on the symptom, like the Titanic, is likely to cause harm by ignorance of what is possible.A magnificent ship, foolishly driven into dangerous waters, arrogantly ignoring early warning signals, manipulated by greed and pride and control, in the event of disaster resulting from ignoring early warnings and sensible precautions, foolishly relying on backup mechanisms to do what they were never intended to do, what they could not possibly do at this point, mismanaging the acute situation to cover up their bungling and allowing their very intervention to become, according to some, the leading cause of death in our country.For more information on the leading cause of death in our country please visit:http://www.mercola.com/2004/jul/7/healthcare_death.htm

WE HAVE THE ANSWER TO HEART DISEASE! WE HAVE THE ANSWER TO CANCER!

DON’T GET THEM!!!

P r e v e n t i o n

This article was part in our Informative Discussion Series on Genuine Health and Healing. Mills River Family Chiropractic offers cutting edge techniques in the restoration of health.If you or your loved ones need help healing, please consider the resources available in our clinic.You may call for an appointment at 828-891-8868.