What is a Chronic Disease?
Chronic Disease is a slowly progressive disease with a long duration that comes in a variety of forms such as Heart Disease, Stroke, Cancer, Respiratory Disease, Obesity, and Diabetes. Chronic Disease is the No. 1 Killer of Humans worldwide annually. It affects millions of people worldwide. Research and technology exist to end the disease, but humans lack the resources and the will to make healthy lifestyle choices. You could say that Chronic Disease is a mental and emotional disease with physical consequences.
Obesity is out of control in many countries worldwide with no clear solution. Obesity is leading all habitual diseases in morbidity, long term care, and death. Obesity affects the body’s ability to cope with other common diseases, e.g., colds, flu, arthritis, fibromyalgia. Obesity lowers the immune system, clogs the liver and blood vessels, places stress on the heart, disrupts the metabolism and hormone insulin, and creates high blood sugar leading to diabetes. “This will be the first generation of parents worldwide that will outlive their children, because of obesity and diabetes.” This disease has no borders or boundaries and strikes every ethnicity despite their level of industrial development or health care infrastructure. Obesity and diabetes are just now getting the attention they deserve worldwide.
What are the symptoms?
Chronic Disease is seen as a social ill where the major risk factors are: unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, alcoholism, anxiety, depression, stress, or tobacco use. The global medical scientific community doesn’t see Habitual Disease as being infectious or a pandemic, so no resources are being used to eliminate or resolve them. Yet, both of them pose a far greater problem for humanity and medical science than do any infectious diseases. If the major risk factors for the persistent disease were eliminated, at least 80% of heart disease, stroke, and type two diabetes would be prevented; and 40% of all cancers would be eliminated.
Humans and animals experience sickness/illness as the body’s attempt to get our attention that there is an imbalance. We experience a condition, symptom, or feeling, e.g., runny nose, headache, fatigue, back pain. Signs are always present, but we are not trained on how to see or identify them. We only recognize them when they are tied to a big red flag or the body or an organ stops functioning. Many ailments have an onset of twenty to thirty years before showing any outward signs, e.g., cancer, fibromyalgia, heart attack, stroke. YES! The absence of symptoms or physical signs does not equate to being healthy.
How do you acquire Chronic Disease?
The disease occurs when people lack adequate treatment and education about the effects of social ills that all too frequently accompany economic and urban development, e.g., effects of tobacco, cancer, pollution, stress, eating problems, depression, alcohol, drug use, suicide, violence, anger, and mental and emotional pain. The disease does not spread from person to person but leaves the burden with each individual depending on their abilities to seek treatment or support.
How is Chronic Disease treated?
The World Health Organization (WHO), nations, governments, communities, and organizations in the private and public sectors have been trying to get the upper hand with Chronic Disease for over 80 years. The disease claims more than 40 million lives annually and half of the deaths are under 70 years old and female. By far, Chronic Disease is the leading cause of mortality worldwide, representing over 60% of all deaths annually and rising.
There are two schools of thought:
- Complementary & Alternative Medicine sees Chronic Disease as an energy imbalance within the body that affects all areas of the body: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. A holistic treatment plan considers an integrative approach to: identify the causes of the energy imbalances, provide individualized remedies and therapies, prevent a recurrence, and reintegrate health and wellness. This is accomplished through the use of Integrative Medicine, which is the collaboration of Energy, Complementary/Alternative, and Allopathic Medicines. The solution to any imbalance within the body is seen as a process and not a destination. The alleviation of all physical symptoms doesn’t mean that the imbalance is resolved.
- Allopathic (Western) Medicine American Medical Association (AMA), American Psychiatric Association (APA), and Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (Big Pharma)have labeled the symptoms and effects of Chronic Disease as a Disorder or Syndrome. The APA’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) refers to Chronic Disease as physical dysfunction or mental disorder. Once labeled then the use of drugs, invasive surgery, or clinical therapy can be applied to treat the symptoms and effects of the habitual disease. Meanwhile, the causes of the persistent disease and imbalances within the body are never addressed.
What are some other forms of Chronic Disease?
The WHO has stated that Chronic Disease needs to be seen in the same light as an infectious pandemic, in order for the international scientific community to take action and acquire the necessary funding. The WHO has indicated that this is not a complete list. It is only the tip of the iceberg for chronic (mental, emotional, physical) diseases:
- Addictions
- Alzheimer’s
- Arthritis
- Autoimmune Diseases
- Cancer (all forms)
- Cardiovascular Disease
- Chronic Fatigue
- Combat Stress
- Cystic Fibrosis
- Diabetes
- Eating Disorders (overeating, anorexia, bulimia, Obesity)
- Epilepsy & Seizures
- Fibromyalgia
- Heart Disease, Stroke
- Hypertension, Stress,
- Influenza & Pneumonia
- Kidney Disease
- Osteoporosis
- Parkinson’s
- Post Traumatic Stress
- Pulmonary Disease
- Respiratory Disease
- Sexual Assault, Rape
- Suicide
Chronic Disease crosses all education, social-economic, cultural, rural, and urban barriers. It infects and erodes personal lives, the lives of families, and devastates communities as well as nations. Since Chronic Disease is not considered a pandemic or infectious disease it does not attract the medical science community at a local or global level.
