As defined by MedicineNet, a chronic disease is a disease that persists for a long time, lasting at least 3 months, and usually much more, often many years, even decades. The most common chronic diseases are arthritis, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, epilepsy/seizures, and obesity, but there are many more, including some that were previously unknown prior to the age of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Yet despite their variety all chronic diseases have several undeniable features in common.
- The incidence of all chronic diseases (without exception?) have increased, often exponentially, during the last 100 years, and these rates are still increasing.
- Conventional medicine will offer explanations for these huge increases in sickness, but most of them are either irrelevant, or insufficient to explain the inexorable rise of these chronic diseases.
- Conventional medicine usually offer only palliative treatments for these diseases, but rarely any treatment that treats the disease successfully, or reduces the ever-rising numbers of people suffering from them.
- The side effects, the adverse drug/vaccine reactions to pharmaceutical medicine are known to cause the symptoms of all these chronic disease
As a population, after 70-100 years of burgeoning pharmaceutical medicine, we are not getting healthier. We are getting progressively sicker. We might be living longer (largely owing to improved sanitation, housing, diet, nutrition, and less poverty and destitution) but certainly most people are not able to spend these additional years positively, and in good health.
So let's examine the impact of some of the more common forms of chronic diseases, how they impact on our lives, how CHE explains them, and how it can cause them. But before doing so let's first consider an alternative view about what chronic disease is, and what causes it. This is broadly the view of homeopathy, and more broadly it is the view held by all natural medical therapies.
Chronic Disease and Homeopathy. Natural medicine believes that the human body has everything it needs to keep itself fit and healthy, long into old age. Chronic disease develops if and when we put our body under some kind of stress. Perhaps we have poor nutrition, and unhealthy diet; or we don't exercise sufficiently or sensibly; or we get into bad habits - smoking, drinking, insufficient sleep, and the like.
But chronic disease is also caused by suppressing illness, and this belief is one of the key differences between natural medical therapies and conventional medicine. For instance, homeopathy believes that suppressing minor ailments/illnesses/conditions with pharmaceutical drugs is ultimately injurious to our health.
- So natural medicine recognises that pain is a sign that something is wrong, a warning, not something should be suppressed with painkilling drugs, that killing or suppressing pain actually worsens pain over the longer-term, and drives it deeper into the body.
- It recognises that a fever is the body's natural attempt to fight off an infection, again, not something that should be suppressed by anti-inflammatory drugs.
- It recognises that suppressing, killing, blocking, inhibiting the normal functioning of the body in any way is what causes adverse drug reactions, and that this suppression can result in long-term chronic disease.
So one of the major insights provided by homeopathy, and natural medicine generally, is that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are likely to be a major cause of chronic disease. They are one explanation for the rising levels of chronic disease. So when examining each of the following chronic disease, we can examine whether conventional medicine is a possible explanation for the rise and rise of the disease.
The last 70-100 years has seen pharmaceutical medicine become the dominant medical system, and during this time the consumption of prescription drugs has risen to levels never previously known.
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
People with ADHD have trouble paying attention, have problems with concentration, daydream, have impulsive behaviour, act without thinking, have difficulty getting on with other people, or are just overly active. These traits are, to an extent, normal but for a diagnosis of ADHD to be made the symptoms have to be quite severe.
There is probably little doubt that there have always been people in society, throughout history, that might have been diagnosed as ADHD. It is the scale that matters, and this Healthline webpage states quite clearly that ADHD was "first mentioned" in 1902, that it was not until the late 1960's that it was "formally recognised" in the USA, and that now it is "a common neurodevelopmental disorder most commonly diagnosed in children". In Britain, the NHS did not recognise ADHD as a condition until 2009. So ADHD is both common, and recent!
- The ADHD Institute in the USA says that "A mean worldwide prevalence of ADHD of about 2.2% has been estimated in children and adolescents (aged over 18 years). The mean prevalence of ADHD in adults (aged 18-44) from a range of countries .... was reported as about 2.8% overall".
- This UK website says that between 2% and 5% of school aged children now have ADHD, and that the prevalence of ADHD in the adult population is between 3% and 4%, but "the majorityof these individual are undiagnosed".
- This link refers to the Journal of Attention Disorder which published a UK research survey of 10,438 children between the ages of 5 and 15 years that found 3.62% of boys, and 0.85% of girls, had ADHD. It also says that the Lancet has estimated that the global prevalence of ADHD is now between 2% and 7%, with an average of 5%.
Most conventional medical websites suggests that there is not known cause of ADHD. For instance, the Journal of Learning Disabilities says that "there is no one cause of ADHD. It is considered to be a result of an often complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors" placing 70% to 80% of the blame on genetic factors. The CDC website does suggest that it might be caused by brain injury, exposure to environmental toxicity during pregnancy or childhood, premature delivery and low birth rate.
However, none of these causes provides an adequate or convincing explanation for the rapid recent rise in the incidence of ADHD.
Pharmaceutical Drugs
The role of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines is rarely mentioned in the conventional medical literature, except that known adverse drug and vaccine reactions include many that accurately describe the symptoms of ADHD. I have written about the ADHD / Pharmaceutical Drug link elsewhere, and the drug and vaccines implicated include drugs now commonly prescribed, such as painkillers, antibiotics, antidepressants, and a wide variety of childhood vaccines.
The increased consumption of these pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, especially with children, almost exactly mirrors the increase of ADHD. It might be asked why this link has not been more actively investigated by the pharmaceutical medical establishment!
Allergy
There are many kinds of very different allergies, from hay fever to food allergies, from asthma to sinusitis, and so many more. Perhaps the one thing they have in common is that they have all risen to epidemic proportions during the last 70 to 100 years, and are still growing. Allergy UK bluntly states the dire consequences of this allergy epidemic to so many people.
"Allergy is the most common chronic disease in Europe. Up to 20% of patients with allergies struggle daily with the fear of an asthma attack, anaphylactic shock, or even death from an allergic reaction".
Incidence
Allergy UK says that the World Allergy Organisation (WAO) estimate of allergy prevalence of the whole population by country ranges between 10-40%; that more than 150 million Europeans suffer from chronic allergic diseases and the current prediction is that by 2025 half of the entire EU population will be affected; that the UK has some of the highest prevalence rates of allergic conditions in the world, with over 20% of the population affected by one or more allergic disorder; that a staggering 44% of British adults now suffer from at least one allergy and the number of sufferers is on the rise, growing by around 2 million between 2008 and 2009 alone; that almost half (48%) of sufferers have more than one allergy; and that in the 20 years to 2012 there was a 615% increase in the rate of hospital admissions for anaphylaxis in the UK.
The USA fares no better. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology delivers a variety of statistics including: about 7.8% of people 18 and over have hay fever, that worldwide, allergic rhinitis affects between 10% and 30 % of the population, that adverse drug reactions may affect up to 10% of the world’s population, and affect up to 20% of all hospitalized patients, that drugs may be responsible for up to 20% of fatalities due to anaphylaxis; that 8% of children (infant to 18) have a food allergy, and 38.7% of food allergic children have a history of severe reactions; that the prevalence of general allergy has continued to rise in the industrialized world for more than 50 years.
Allergies have, no doubt, always existed; but not to the enormous scale that is being witnessed at this time, and rising.
Conventional medicine appears to have no explanation for this prodigious and ongoing rise in allergy. An allergy is usually described as a reaction to a particular food or substance, but 'causation' is rarely addressed. It is often blamed on the immune system, whose role is to destroy harmful substances in the body; allergy happens when the immune system reacts to a substance that is not harmful, but still tries to destroy it.
The fact that an allergy is a reaction to an allergen is a description, not a cause; because all identified allergens are normal substances that most people have always lived alongside quite happily. The 'cause' of allergy is something that makes an individual allergic to that allergen, or which makes the immune system turn against the allergen..
Pharmaceutical Drugs
Conventional medicine rarely mentions that the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines now routinely prescribed, especially to young children, are known to cause allergy. Most drugs, and probably all vaccines, have 'allergy' acknowledged as a side effect in the Patient Information Leaflets. This is conventional medicine's own literature. I have written about the main pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines implicated as a cause of allergy, including most vaccines, antibiotics, painkillers, anti-epileptics, sleeping pills, and many others.
Incidence:
- Worldwide, nearly 50 million people have Alzheimer’s or related dementia, according the the Alzheimers.net website. It says that only 1-in-4 people with Alzheimer’s disease have been diagnosed, and that Alzheimer’s and dementia is most common in Western Europe, followed closely by North America. It says that there was an 89% increase in deaths due to Alzheimer’s between 2000 and 2014, that more than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, and that by 2050 it is estimated there will be as many as 16 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s.
- Alzheimer's Research UK says that there are now 209,600 new cases of Alzheimer's disease diagnosed every year in the UK.
- The Alzheimer's Society, in a major study in 2014, said that the number of people with dementia in the UK was forecast to increase to over 1 million by 2021, and by over 2 million by 2051, that the total population prevalence of dementia among over 65s was 7.1%, which was equal to 1 in 14 of the population aged 65 years and over
Conventional Medical Explanation for the rise of Alzheimer's disease, and dementia generally, is that it is the result of an ageing population. However, the most serious problem with this explanation is that younger adults, and even children, are now contracting this disease, which is usually referred to as 'early onset dementia' for those under 65 years old. Alzheimer's Research UK admits this when it says that "it is a common misconception that dementia is a condition of older age, over 42,000 people under 65 years old have dementia in the UK." The Alzheimer's Society study in 2014 found that there were over 40,000 people with early-onset dementia in the UK.
It should also be noted that there is a widespread acceptance that conventional medicine has no effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
Pharmaceutical Drugs. Conventional medicine rarely admits that the adverse drug reactions of a large number of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines mention many of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease or dementia, such as confusion, loss of memory, disorientation, and others. I have listed some of these pharmaceutical drugs here, and they include vaccines, antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, sleeping pills, statins, anticholinergic drugs, and many others commonly taken by older people.
Arthritis
Arthritis is a generic term incorporating many separately diagnosed conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, gout, and many others.
Incidence:
- In the USA, 2013 to 2015, the CDC estimated that 54.4 million adults (22.7% of the population) had some form of doctor-diagnosed arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia. It further estimated that by 2040, an estimated 78 million (26% of the population) of USA adults aged over 18 years are projected to have doctor-diagnosed arthritis.
- In the UK, Versus Arthritis states that musculoskeletal conditions sch as arthritis and back pain affected an estimated 18.8 million people across the UK in 2017. This accounted for more than 22% of the total burden of ill health in the UK.
The Conventional Medical Explanation is usually that the massive increase in arthritis pain in past decades, and as well as future projected increases, are the result of an ageing population. Lack of exercise and obesity is also regularly cited as an important factor in the increase levels of arthritis.
It should also be noted that there is a widespread acceptance that conventional medicine has no effective treatment for arthritis.
Pharmaceutical Drugs. Yet arthritis is treated, mainly by painkilling drugs, often for many years. These provide (at best) temporary relief for pain, but in the long-term most arthritic conditions get progressively worse, patients need stronger, more toxic drugs.
Yet conventional medicine rarely recognises that most, if not all pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause 'pain' as a 'side effect'. I have listed some of these drugs here, and they include not only painkillers, but corticosteroids, antibiotics, and many others.
Summary of Conventional Medicine's contribution to the rise of arthritis?
- No effective treatment.
- Lots of non-medical reasons/excuses.
- Pharmaceutical drugs that cause the condition.
Asthma
Asthma is a chronic disease of the airway to the lungss, where the bronchial tubes becomes inflamed, narrowed, thus causing a blockage and consequent breath difficulties. The disease is closely linked to the functioning of the immune system.
IncidenceAsthma is an ancient condition that can be traced back to 2600bce in China, and to ancient Egypt and Greece. Yet however far it goes back into history Asthma is not running at epidemic levels, and rising. It has been estimated that since the 1980's there has been a 60% increase in the incidence of asthma, and that the death rate from asthma has doubled during the same time.
WHO has estimated that more than 339 million people had Asthma globally in 2016, and that it caused 417,918 deaths.
The British Lung Foundation has found that 8 million people, over 12% of the population, have been diagnosed with asthma. They says that this means more people have had an asthma diagnosis than have been diagnosed with all other lung diseases combined.
Conventional Medical Explanations
As usual, conventional medicine has no adequate or sufficient explanation for this exponential rise in the incidence of asthma. It will often refer to 'risk factors' of inhaling substances and particles that may irritate the airways and provoke and allergic reaction.
Nor is there any indication that conventional medicine has any successful treatment, just treatments that can reduce the severity of asthma attacks.
Pharmaceutical Drugs
Autism
Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is usually described as a developmental disability. It can cause significant social and behavioural problems in young children, many have developed normally for the first year or two years of their lives. Its most notable features concern communication and interaction difficulties with other people. Autism affects children along a broad spectrum, with the ability to learn, think, and problem solving ranging from severely challenged to gifted.
Autism was first described in the 1940's in the USA. Yet this unknown disease has become one of the most astounding stories of the last 70 years. From a virtually unknown disease, the CDC website gives the following statistics on the rise and rise of autism in the USA. In 2000, 1 in 150 children were diagnosed. In 2010 this had grown to 1 in 68 children. It is now thought to be 1 in about 45 children.
The situation is similar in other parts of the world, notably where pharmaceutical medical treatment is dominant, and the use of childhood vaccines has increased alongside the rise of autism.
Conventional medicine has no cure or indeed treatment for autism. Moreover, it usually states, quite unequivocally that it does not know what causes autism, although increasingly it is focusing on a 'genetic' aspect. Despite this, it does know that childhood vaccines are not to blame.
Pharmaceutical Drugs
There are many pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines implicated in causing autism, all of them heavily prescribed during the rise of autism. I have outlined some of these drugs and vaccines here, alongside some of the evidence linking the two.
However, such allegations are always met with resolute denials from the conventional medical establishment. The CDC, for instance, states that "some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD". They then provide a reference to a piece of research - paid for by the pharmaceutical industry!
A similar analysis can be done for many other chronic diseases - autoimmune disease, cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, osteoporosis, Parkinson's disease, and many others. In each and every case there is"
- a massive increase in the incidence of the disease,
- an inadequate explanation for these rise by the conventional medical establishment,
- pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that are known to cause the disease, or the symptoms of the disease.
CONCLUSION
If we want to know what is happening to health, after 70 to 100 years when conventional medicine has been dominant, when vast sums of money has been spent on medical treatment, especially in the 'advance western world', we just have to observe what has been happening during that time.
- We are getting sicker,
- The medicine in which we have invested heavily is failing,
- A significant reason for the increased sickness we are witnessing is conventional medicine.
The failure of conventional medicine is the result of a medical system that believes it knows better than the body, that it can out-think and out-perform the body with drugs that 'kill', 'inhibit'. block', the natural functioning of the body. It has had its time.
Albert Einstein once defined insanity. It is a definition that can be ascribed to the health policies that have been pursued in most countries of the world through these decades, namely, to spend more and more on pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines to deal with the ever-burgeoning levels of illness and disease.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".
It is not more money, or more resources that is needed to reverse increasing levels of sickness. It is a change in what that money is spent on. The time for natural medical therapies has arrived. Natural medicine has a different understanding of what good health is. They are more concerned with wellness and well-being, more focused on the immune system, and supporting and strengthening natural immunity. Natural medicine recognises that our bodies have everything that is required to keep us well; that wellness requires sensible lifestyle choices, and that medicine is only successful if it supports, and works alongside the body.
This is why so many people are now choosing homeopathy, and other natural medical therapies, and positively rejecting pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.
