Good Health - No Silver Bullet

This piece by Robert Paterson caught my attention today. It's kind of long, but thought-provoking.

Now that major studies have dismissed Low Fat diets, HRT and Calcium supplements as the answer to health, what are women going to do to have a healthy life?

Well maybe, the answer is to stop looking for the Silver Bullet. The truth is that our health is not a matter of one pill or one vector but it is a "Whole".

Is it really olive oil or is it the interactive and high intensity lifestyle of Italians that makes the difference to health? Is bone density really about eating more calcium or is it really about having an active life that includes a lot of load bearing? Is diabetes driven by our genes or more driven by what we eat?

Are we machines that can be "fixed" or are we living beings that have to take care? If we accept that we are humans and not machines then there can be no fix. As living beings, we are complex systems. Being a complex system, many factors not one, act upon us to make us more or less healthy? So what do we have to know and then what are our choices?

Later on. . .

The primary issue for having good health is to understand our immune system better and live the life that keeps it strong. But this is not what we do or where we invest. In Canada and in the US, health has been defined as access to the healthcare system. A giant industry tells us that we are only a pill away from health. But most of what drives our health are factors that can be seen as environmental. So instead of looking at how we live, we look for a new silver bullet. Instead of looking at our choices, we become helpless. Instead of taking charge, we blame.

Does that mean that we are helpless? We are immersed in this powerful culture of the consumer world, where we have largely become as domesticated as the poor animals that provide our food. We too live in large pens, called cities. We have stopped moving. We eat the same processed junk that we feed them.