SOUTH SHORE FAMILY CHIROPRACTIC
Monthly News - August 2006

Anything Can Cause Anything
Some years back a well-known doctor wrote a book with the above title. While his title would lead you to conclude that there is no specific cause of something, there is some truth that we often overlook. He would have been more correct to say "Everything Can Cause Anything". That may very well be the key. We don't have single causes to something like disease, we have many factors.

The latest so called cause among the health care community is heredity. Yet many times family members, even identical twins do not "get" the disease that are supposed to be hereditary. There is no doubt that heredity is a factor but it is not the cause.

Stress is another so-called cause. Yet two people can work at the same "stressful" job and one ends up with ulcers and the other doesn't. Or one has a heart attack and the other one doesn't. Is stress bad? Sure. Is it the cause of heart attacks? No. At best it is a factor.

No one would say that smoking is not harmful. Yet, there are heavy smokers who do not get lung cancer and there are those who never smoked a single cigarette that die from the disease. Bacteria and viruses are probably most commonly thought to be the cause of disease. Yet even in epidemics, the vast majority of a population does not manifest the disease. We say they had a "higher resistance".

So, it is either a high or a low resistance that is the cause and not the germ. Or is resistance just another factor? Perhaps we need a major change in our attitude. Perhaps we need to focus on what causes health, what causes proper body function, what causes increased performance on all levels.

It's really rather simple: eating right, exercising, maintaining a nerve system free of interference (regular visits to your chiropractor) and having a positive mental attitude. In fact, it is so simple that most people in the health care/ scientific community would rather look elsewhere for something they can do.

You see the "causes" of health are the responsibility of each individual person. And frankly, a health care provider cannot appear important turning the responsibility of health back over to the person. So science muddles along trying to find a new cause, one they can treat. Do you want to be healthy? Take control of your life instead of waiting for "Something to Cause Something."

-Dr. Bill