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Human Health and Homeostasis: Why This Series?
Introduction to a 10-part series published in the International Journal of Biosocial Medical Research. This introduction probably accompanied part 1 in Vol. 13, No. 1, 1991.
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Abstract
This introduction serves as a prelude to and justification for a ten-part series on the subject of human health and homeostasis. The point is well-documented that health (not disease) is the fastest growing failing business in western civilization. The bases for this statement serves as the text of this introduction.
Because…
Medical care (often misnomered health care) is in a mess.1
- Today it swallows up about 11% of our gross national product.
- At this writing, it is the single most inflationary item in the American economy.
- Right now, among the 160+ countries studied, America is 17th in life expectancy at birth, meaning that there are 16 nations around the world that can boast that a child born today will live longer than one in the USA.
- According to an article in the 2 May 1990 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (“The Aging of America: Impact on Health Care Costs”), “without major changes in the health of our older population, these health care costs will escalate enormously, in large part as a result of the projected growth of the ‘oldest old’, those aged 85 years and above. Medicare costs for the oldest old may increase sixfold by the year 2040 (in constant 1987 dollars). It is unlikely that these projected increases in health are costs will be restrained solely by cost-containment strategies.”2
Because…
In part we haven’t straightened out where sickness ends and health begins.
- Health maintenance organizations are not the place to go to learn about health but rather to have a sprained back unsprained, a broken leg fixed, a common cold relieved.
- You can’t expect when you sign your check for health insurance to get any health benefits…it pays only for treatment.
Because…
Maxwell Maltz, the famed author of Psychocybernetics3 makes the interesting point that:
“Pasteur was not an M.D. The Wright Brothers were not aeronautical engineers but bicycle mechanics. Einstein, properly speaking, was not a physicist but a mathematician. Yet his findings in mathematics completely turned upside down all the pet theories in physics. Madame Curie was not an M.D. but a physicist, yet she made important contributions to medical science.”
All of these individuals were obviously famous because they significantly contributed to social change. What is not so obvious is that all of these people recognized that the solutions to their problems demanded a fresh and creative approach.
Perhaps, what we need is to take· this different look at the problem of human health and homeostasis.
And the “look” recognizes that it’s just as bad to be too tall and too short, too fat or too thin, too hot or too cold, and too mad or too glad. Incidentally, we discussed this matter in an article entitled “If High Cholesterol is Bad…Is Low Good?” which appeared in The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.4
The new (actually old) philosophy is based on “balance.” The scientific face is “homeostasis.” In other words, this is about balance. Being healthy is being in balance; sickness is imbalance. It’s just that simple!
References:
- Cheraskin, E. “Medical (Not Health) Care Costs are Rising…Stupid!” Journal of Advancement in Medicine, 7: #4, 223-230, Winter 1994.
- “The Aging of America: Impact on Health Care Costs.” Journal of the American Medical Association, 2 May 1990.
- Maltz, M. Psychocybernetics, 1969. New York, Pocket Books.
- Cheraskin, E. “If High Cholesterol is Bad…Is Low Good?” Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 1: #3, 176-183, Third Quarter 1986.