Why People Get Sick

Categories: The Nature and Cause of Disease
Sources: How And When To Be Your Own Doctor

This is the Theory of Toxemia. A healthy body struggles continually

to purify itself of poisons that are inevitably produced while going

about its business of digesting food, moving about, and repairing

itself. The body is a marvelous creation, a carbon, oxygen

combustion machine, constantly burning fuel, disposing of the waste

products of combustion, and constantly rebuilding tissue by

replacing worn out, dead cells w th new, fresh ones. Every seven

years virtually every cell in the body is replaced, some types of

cells having a faster turnover rate than others, which means that

over a seven year period several hundred pounds of dead cells must

be digested (autolyzed) and eliminated. All by itself this would be

a lot of waste disposal for the body to handle. Added to that waste

load are numerous mild poisons created during proper digestion. And

added to that can be an enormous burden of waste products created as

the body's attempts to digest the indigestible, or those tasty items

I've heard called "fun food." Add to that burden the ruinous effects

of just plain overeating.



The waste products of digestion, of indigestion, of cellular

breakdown and the general metabolism are all poisonous to one degree

or another. Another word for this is toxic. If these toxins were

allowed to remain and accumulate in the body, it would poison itself

and die in agony. So the body has a processing system to eliminate

toxins. And when that system does break down the body does die in

agony, as from liver or kidney failure.



The organs of detoxification remove things from the body's system,

but these two vital organs should not be confused with what

hygienists call the secondary organs of elimination, such as the

large intestine, lungs, bladder and the skin, because none of these

other eliminatory organs are supposed to purify the body of toxins.

But when the body is faced with toxemia, the secondary organs of

elimination are frequently pressed into this duty and the

consequences are the symptoms we call illness.



The lungs are supposed to eliminate only carbon dioxide gas; not

self-generated toxic substances. The large intestine is supposed to

pass only insoluble food solids (and some nasty stuff dumped into

the small intestine by the liver). Skin eliminates in the form of

sweat (which contains mineral salts) to cool the body, but the skin

is not supposed to move toxins outside the system. But when toxins

are flowed out through secondary organs of elimination these areas

become inflamed, irritated, weakened. The results can be skin

irritations, sinusitis or a whole host of other "itises" depending

on the area involved, bacterial or viral infections, asthma. When

excess toxemia is deposited instead of eliminated, the results can

be arthritis if toxins are stored in joints, rheumatism if in muscle

tissues, cysts and benign tumors. And if toxins weaken the body's

immune response, cancer.



The liver and the kidneys, the two heroic organs of detoxification,

are the most important ones; these jointly act as filters to purify

the blood. Hygienists pay a lot of attention to these organs, the

liver especially.



In an ideal world, the liver and kidneys would keep up with their

job for 80 years or more before even beginning to tire. In this

ideal world, the food would of course, be very nutritious and free

of pesticide residues, the air and water would be pure, people would

not denature their food and turn it into junk. In this perfect world

everyone would get moderate exercise into old age, and live

virtually without stress. In this utopian vision, the average

healthy productive life span would approach a century, entirely

without using food supplements or vitamins. In this world doctors

would have next to no work other than repairing traumatic injuries,

because everyone would be healthy. But this is not the way it is.



In our less-than-ideal world virtually everything we eat is

denatured, processed, fried, salted, sweetened, preserved; thus more

stress is placed on the liver and kidneys than nature designed them

to handle. Except for a few highly fortunate individuals blessed

with an incredible genetic endowment that permits them to live to

age 99 on moose meat, well-larded white flour biscuits, coffee with

evaporated milk and sugar, brandy and cigarettes (we've all heard of

someone like this), most peoples' liver and kidneys begin to break

down prematurely. Thus doctoring has become a financially rewarding

profession.



Most people overburden their organs of elimination by eating

whatever they feel like eating whenever they feel like it. Or, they

irresponsibly eat whatever is served to them by a mother, wife,

institution or cook because doing so is easy or expected. Eating is

a very habitual and unconscious activity; frequently we continue to

eat as adults whatever our mother fed us as a child. I consider it

unsurprising that when people develop the very same disease

conditions as their parents. they wrongly assume the cause is

genetic inheritance, when actually it was just because they were

putting their feet under the same table as their parents.



Toxemia also comes about from following the wrongheaded

recommendations of allopathic-inspired nutritional texts and

licensed dietitians. For example, people believe they should eat one

food from each of the four so-called basic food groups at each meal,

thinking they are doing the right thing for their health by having

four colors of food on every plate, when they really aren't. What

they have actually done is force their bodies to attempt the

digestion of indigestible food combinations, and the resulting

indigestion creates massive doses of toxins. I'll have a lot more to

say about that later when I discuss the art of food combining.



Table 1: The Actual Food Groups



Starches Proteins Fats Sugars Watery Vegetables

bread meats butter honey zucchini

potatoes eggs oils fruit green beans

noodles fish lard sugar tomatoes

manioc/yuca most nuts nuts molassas peppers

baked goods dry beans avocado malt syrup eggplant

grains nut butters maple syrup radish

winter squash split peas dried fruit rutabaga

parsnips lentils melons turnips

sweet potatoes soybeans carrot juice Brussels sprouts

yams tofu beet juice celery

taro root tempeh cauliflower

plantains wheat grass juice broccoli

beets "green" drinks okra

spirulina lettuce

algae endive

yeast cabbage

dairy carrots



Standard dietitians divide our foods into four basic food groups

and recommend the ridiculous practice of mixing them at every meal.

This guarantees indigestion and lots of business for the medical

profession. This chart illustrates the actual food groups. It is

usually a poor practice to mix different foods from one group with

those from another.