Positive Health Online

Most PH readers are familiar with the wide variety of expert shades of opinion which prevails within just about every health discipline. This includes fields as diverse as Healing, Bodywork, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition, Herbal Medicine, Naturopathy; in fact in certain instances there are probably as many divergent points of view in each profession as there are practitioners!

If you cast your eyes in any one of the more than 120 Article Subjects on PH online, say Allergies, or Allergy Testing, Nutrition, or Bodywork, there you will discover several thousand articles, written mainly by eminent authorities in their fields, happily espousing divergent views regarding which are the most effective treatments for a host of  different conditions.

This is entirely similar to reading published medical journals with experts vigorously disagreeing about just every aspect of the correct way of approaching medical issues. Ditto for Physics, Mathematics, Geology and just about every scientific discipline.

This diversity of opinion is not confined to health and medicine; we see such disagreements played out in full view of the media, online and on the streets with regard to the financial world, the military and political and religious life.

And that is the point of information - to inform and teach all of us that there may not be any absolute truths or rights or wrongs. This applies equally to health treatment approaches as it does to why the banking and free market casino system experts have not been perfect nor diligent in their practice of financial matters.

If there were a perfect and unassailable health system that would cure everybody and keep all of us healthy, there would be no disease. However, as it is self-evidently true, people and illnesses are incredibly complex entities; health and illness are governed by complicated interactions between genetics, biochemistry, environment, psychology, attitude, nutrition, exercise and lifestyle. That is why there is no one formula to keep healthy which fits everybody and why we don't all succumb to the myriad of toxins, viruses, bacteria and other pathogens which fill our world.

Therefore, to hear and read, day-in, day-out, the relentless repetition by the broadcast and print media of erroneous misconceptions in many aspects of health and treatment approaches astonishes and distresses me in equal measure. For the best part of 100 years, there have been various apparently effective nutritional, herbal, homeopathic and naturopathic approaches to many of our most annoying and life-threatening conditions, including heart disease, cancer, asthma, arthritis. Of course, not all these approaches have been effective, but equally not all drug or surgical approaches have been effective either.

Yet there is an almost daily rant from members of the medical, scientific and pharmaceutical professions that there is virtually no evidence regarding natural approaches, i.e. non-drug approaches, and that evidence-based medicine is one of humanity's greatest achievements.

The very point of PH Online and many other non-ideologically based publications is to acquaint us with as many points of view as possible, so that when we have to make a critical decision for our patients, family or ourselves, we are properly informed, and at least we realize that they may be more than one opinion.

This April Issue 157, as the majority of the preceding issues, has a wide array of features, ranging from the application of gem therapy for healing of man and beast, of Black Tourmaline crystal to counter computer electromagnetic radiation, to an hypothesis regarding the cause of ME / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and an effective retraining recovery programme, to extreme athletes espousing the virtues of meat-free sources of protein, the application of craniosacral therapy for chronic headaches and the need for bodywork practitioners to be aware of how specific drugs may interact with massage and bodywork.

Sometimes, as with the tragic and premature death of Jade Goody, our survival could lie in taking a very round view of the various options, and not simply pursuing the most aggressive treatment which, if not successful, could wipe out all of our defences.