So far in this book we've discussed the problem of viral disease and immune deficiency by reviewing the scope of the viral crisis, what viruses are, some of the most important viruses involved in this crisis, how the immune system functions, and how immune dysfunction contributes to viral illness. We've seen how these are all related and how environmental toxins and pharmaceutical drugs contribute to the problem. Now it is time to discuss the solutions, to consider the treatments, and to understand how they affect the body.
To set the stage for the discussion on treatments, the 10 steps to viral immunity, let's first explore why we get sick and how we get better, and define what viral immunity is and how we can achieve it.
Over several millennia of recorded history, humans have accumulated considerable experience concerning health and disease, and we have gleaned from this vast pool of information some very valuable knowledge.1 Still, the ultimate answers to life's fundamental questions remain elusive even in this age of modern science. How do we grow and age, and why do we die? Why is the body designed to be so vulnerable to disease? Why do we get sick, how are we healed, and how do we recover and thrive again?
These are the questions that doctors and philosophers have pondered, struggled with, and strived to answer since the beginning of self-conscious thought in our species, and they still do so to this day. In this section, we will explore some of these questions and how their answers relate to viral immunity.
Different medical systems explain disease according to their own theories. Examples from two of the approaches discussed in this book help to illustrate this. According to traditional Western medicine, diseases are caused by microbial infections, trauma, toxic chemicals, and genetic abnormalities. Chinese medicine says that diseases are caused by an imbalance in invisible cosmological forces, yin and yang, that govern all phenomena on Earth, and by environmental factors that weaken the natural health of the body.
Western medicine focuses on the end product of the disease and treats it with dangerous drugs. Chinese medicine emphasizes health and prevention and provides natural medications to strengthen the individual's system against disease. My clinical experience is that the methods of both systems are applicable for viral illnesses and many other diseases.
Though at first glance these two systems appear to be in direct opposition to each other, upon closer examination they are at opposite ends of the same spectrum. Western medicine focuses on the end product of the disease and treats it with dangerous drugs. Chinese medicine emphasizes health and prevention and provides natural medications to strengthen the individual's system against disease. My clinical experience is that the methods of both systems are applicable for viral illnesses and many other diseases.
Illness is multifactoral. Disease is simply a part of living, and no matter how hard we try to eliminate all illness, it does not go away forever. Whether we get sick or not depends on several factors. These include infectious agents, our immune mechanisms, toxic environmental factors, and stress. They also include the effects of previous treatments, our predisposition to certain diseases, and our beliefs and attitudes. The age of the patient also plays a significant role in the type of illness and its virulence.
Our Inherent and Acquired Disease Vulnerability: Vulnerability to disease offers a part of the explanation of why we get sick. It is easy to understand that if you were under a tree when a branch broke, the bump and accompanying pain you have are the results of it hitting your head. This is the manner in which allopathic thinking proceeds. There is one cause, the branch hitting your head, and one result, a large bump or concussion. If you had worn a hard-hat, you would have been less vulnerable to the bump. However, vulnerability becomes more complex when we consider the risk of infection and immunity.
First, there are inherited factors that accompany you from birth. Genetic defects in the immune system are predisposing factors to whether you become infected or not. Second, you can acquire immune deficiency later in life, and when your immune system is weakened, your vulnerability to viral infection increases. If you are frequently exposed to infectious agents, your vulnerability increases as it does by the virulence of the disease factor.
Virulence of the Disease Agent: The strength or potential of a disease agent to infect and cause disease is another factor in why we get sick. Some diseases are more powerful than others, that is, they have the ability to more easily cause infections to those exposed. Cholera, for example, is very virulent, while the common cold is of mild virulence. The combination of virulence and vulnerability influence the incidence of infection and the outcome.
Stress: Emotion and physical stress play a significant role in why we get sick. One misconception my patients often have concerning the role of stress in their illness is they believe stress is the sole cause, and blame it on others or outside influences. It is true that severe shock, such as experiencing bombing during wartime or a serious car accident, can cause permanent changes to our health. However, most modern Americans do not experience this type of acute and over-whelming stress. Rather, they live under chronic, repetitive, relentless pressure and duress for years at a time with the result that this type of stress, combined with other factors, gradually erodes one's immune foundation.
Toxins and Novel Environments: Environmental toxins are also important disruptors of natural physiological processes, and play a considerable role as immune system disrupters that contribute to making us more vulnerable to disease. Poor adaptability to novel environments challenges our immune functions and is a significant source of stress to our systems; this also contributes to increased vulnerability and disease risk.
It seems that we cannot escape illness and that there are no panaceas. Life remains a great mystery, and disease an unwanted and sometimes feared part of living. We have theories, vast experience, and knowledge, yet disease is as puzzling as how the body heals itself, how a cure works, or why some approaches work better for certain conditions and different people at different times. Before we pursue the question of how we get better, let's look at the difference between healing and cure more closely, and then at a few of the different healing systems. All of this will better equip us to appreciate and apply the 10 steps to viral immunity in part 2.
There are many different styles of medicine, but some characteristics are common to all of them. Each begins with experience and the accumulation of knowledge, and then organizes that body of knowledge into a formal practice administered to the patient. One possessing skill and knowledge in applying the medical techniques of that system, a nurse, provides patient care. The doctor is the one who intercedes between the disease and the patient with his or her knowledge and “power.”
Once a treatment is administered, success or failure to cure or improve the patient's condition is evaluated and the results added to the ever-expanding pool of medical experience and knowledge, which is then passed on to other doctors and medical students. Each medical system has a different way of attaining its medical knowledge.
Western Models of Medical Thinking: In the West, medical knowledge is based upon the scientific method.2 This method first gathers specialized information about individual aspects or parts of something, establishes a theory, attempting to prove or disprove it using a rigorous methodology that is repeatable by another person independent of the beliefs and subjective manipulations of the first person.
For modern medicine, the highest standard of proof is based on the double-blind, placebo-controlled study. In this type of research, neither the patient nor the dispensing researcher knows which medicine is the real one and which is the placebo, the one devoid of medical activity. Western doctors and scientists believe that an ultimate understanding of all phenomena is possible through scientific investigation; from their point of view, in time, the human brain can work out all the details. To these scientists, there is no Mystery, only unsolved riddles.
This is the biomedical model, and its strong point is its ever-increasing body of information about biological systems. Its weak point is that much of this information lacks any knowledge of how the individual patient feels, experiences her illness, or gets better. Instead, in practice, it emphasizes generalities and averages.
Allopathic Medicine: There are two major scientific schools of thought in Western medicine. The first is the allopathic form that dominates modern medicine. It classifies disease into what can be seen and tested in the laboratory and it bases diagnoses on symptoms and observable signs. You feel hot when you have a fever, and this can be verified by an elevated temperature as taken by a thermometer and perhaps an elevated white blood cell count from the lab test. These are symptoms and signs of an infection.
Conventional allopathic medicine is based on a theory that assigns external causes to disease, principally two: microbial infection (referred to as the “germ theory”) and physical injury. It seeks to answer questions about what happens and how things work, and it revolves around the study of structure and mechanisms, offering straightforward explanations about physically observable things. It is a useful system for formulating easily-grasped concepts of health and disease, but its great weakness is that only one hypothesis can be right at one time. This limits new thinking and precludes any other theories that might fall outside the proscribed system. It has led itself down the road towards entrenched and dogmatic thinking.
Evolutionary Medicine: The second school within the Western model looks at evolutionary causes. This evolutionary school is very recent and is an outcome of new advances in biology and physics; it has been deeply influenced by ecology and increasing scientific evidence on natural therapies and the role of functional medicine. Evolutionary medicine answers questions about origins and function; it looks at six categories of explanation for the cause of disease: defenses, infection, environment, genetics, design, and evolution.
Doctors and scientists of evolutionary medicine say there is something inherently wrong with allopathic medicine's linear view of cause and effect, but caution us not to throw out the progress made in science. They would look at the evolutionary nature of things, come to terms with the incongruities at the core of the conventional system, and slow down enough to grasp the deeper nature of living things.
Wenda Trevathan, Ph.D., a professor of biological anthropology at New Mexico State University, says, “Evolutionary medicine takes the view that many contemporary social, psychological, and physical ills are related to incompatibility between the lifestyle and the environments in which humans currently live and the conditions under which biology evolved” (Trevathan 1999).
This relatively new system of medical thought is critically important in understanding and managing infectious disease, especially viruses. It is concerned, among other things, with co-evolutionary history, the relationships between humans and pathogens, and between humans and curative factors in plants and other natural substances.
Evolutionary biologists suggest that disease-causing microorganisms like viruses may have benefits we do not know about. Many viruses are benign and coexist in plants or humans, while others only trigger disease when they, or the host organism, interact with new environments or toxic environmental factors. From the evolutionary viewpoint, coexistence is as equally legitimate to natural systems as competition and dominance. However, ecological thinking like this is very new to the Western scientific mind, and much remains to be known about how biological systems work and how disease shapes evolution.
What we are certain about is that instances of viral diseases increase when environmental systems are disrupted. Here are typical examples: the building of a large dam that prevents fish from swimming upstream, diverts water for commercial agriculture, and pollutes ground water; rainforest destruction that disrupts the evolution of biodiversity and lowers the oxygen content in our air; mass migration of humans from one cultural and geographical region to another, sometimes in a matter of only days; the movement of animals from one bioregion to another precipitated by rapid environmental devastation or civil wars. Scores of other, similar environmental factors cause global changes that profoundly influence the immunity of individuals and therefore their susceptibility to disease.
The evolutionary nature of illness, and viral diseases in particular, is an important theme in this book. It is my prediction that the principles of evolutionary medicine will shape the course of both conventional and alternative medicine for centuries to come.
Functional Medicine: Though the modern allopathic form is the dominant system of Western medicine, there are many variations in styles of practice and therapies, including naturopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, homeopathy, quantum medicine, integrative medicine, and functional medicine. It is well beyond the scope and purpose of this book to describe all of these systems, and therefore I have chosen those that best fit the principles necessary to understand how the immune system works and how to treat viral conditions. One of the most promising of these is functional medicine, a system based on evidence of outcomes—also referred to as clinical outcome studies.
Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D., the system's main spokesman, notes, “Practitioners who follow the prevailing philosophy often prescribe specific medications for specific symptoms. The medications typically work by blocking particular biochemical / physiological processes associated with cellular communication. Uncoupling (i.e., blocking) the intercellular message with a medication may, in some cases, be like shooting the messenger” (Bland 1999).
Very similar to modern naturopathic medicine, functional medicine utilizes herbal medications and nutrients to improve the body's natural ability to heal itself. This system is valuable for the treatment of chronic degenerative diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Type II diabetes, the new diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome, for strengthening the immune system, and can be used as part of an integrated treatment approach to chronic viral diseases.
Until now, we have mostly looked at Western medical models. Now we will learn about the important role Chinese medicine plays in viral immunity. Chinese medicine works in distinct contrast to the Western medical model. The Chinese developed a system of thought just as complex as their Western counterpart, but their approach is fundamentally different. The Western model is based on material science, but the Eastern is founded on a spiritual cosmology.
In this model, observation of the whole and the attempt to understand the interrelatedness of natural phenomena take precedence over detailed scrutiny of individual parts. The Chinese do not have exaggerated expectations of discovering the end of knowledge or an ultimate understanding of the universe, as do Westerners. They accept that all things are constantly changing and that therefore the results, as well as the rules of therapy, must adapt to these changes.
Their model describes all natural processes and all the possibilities and combinations of natural events. The Chinese method accepts that change is inherent in the original design of the universe, but that the underlying principles remain the same. There is one moon and one sun in the sky; water is always wet; snow is always cold. In its essence, it is a practical, empirical, and philosophical system based upon the direct observation of natural phenomena.3
This methodology makes Chinese medicine preeminent in evaluating complex disease conditions in a comprehensive manner and in providing effective and safe treatments for a wide variety of conditions, viral diseases among them. It also has considerable benefits in treating chronic degenerative diseases, chronic infections, and the new environmentally and stress-induced illnesses.
For viral illnesses in particular, the Chinese model has much to offer, for as a nation, China has a long history of analyzing and treating virally induced diseases. As mentioned earlier, most influenza strains originate in China, and one third of all hepatitis cases in the world occur in China. This has enabled the Chinese to form a comprehensive understanding of how the body manages viruses and how clinicians can treat viral diseases using natural and effective remedies.
One of the most useful characteristics of the Chinese system is its emphasis on causes of disease that involve the health status of the host. Among the conditions that affect the host are weakness of the qi and blood, poor defense mechanisms, aging, stress, and emotional factors. This model presents an analysis in terms of patterns of disharmony, which in themselves are not the cause of the disease, but an expression of the presenting imbalance.
The cause will be found at a deeper level in the patient's lifestyle, exposure to the elements (wind, cold, etc.) or other disease, diet, daily habits, environment, and sexual habits. The cause is determined by examining the complete pattern of how the patient lives and how the illness manifests in the individual, not merely by studying the symptoms, as in Western medicine. The pattern of the manifestation of illness is composed of the inherited strengths and weaknesses of the patient, symptoms or the subjective complaints, observable signs like sweating or fever, and additional symptoms and signs like headaches, difficulty urinating, or dry skin.
For the treatment of viral disease and immune enhancement, Chinese medicine is invaluable. In part 2, you will learn to apply effective Chinese medicines as part of the 10-step viral immunity program.
I have intensively studied and applied many different systems of healing for more than twenty-five years, but my preferred approach is simple: do what works best for the patient. The approach I propose is the integrated model that combines the most useful theories, methods, and treatments from different medical systems (see table 7). It may be wise at this point to look at the strengths and weaknesses of each system and see how an individual patient may benefit from the use of an integrated approach, or by using one or the other of the main systems. One of the training techniques in medicine is called the case study, a narrative description of a patient's condition, treatment, and outcome. Several such cases are presented in this book, as well as short clinical anecdotes, to illustrate concepts and principles of immunity and the treatment of viral conditions.
Case Study in Allergies and Immune Dysfunction: George was a fifty-nine-year-old retired man with a life-long history of sinus congestion and allergies. As an executive for a large corporation, he popped over-the-counter antihistamine capsules almost every day to relieve his runny nose and other allergy symptoms so he could function. To treat his recurrent sinus infections, he was on one round of antibiotics after the other, none of which worked.
His symptoms worsened and he finally consented to surgery to “put a drain into it”; this was performed on the right maxillary sinus, the sinus cavity under the eye. The procedure helped his breathing some but did nothing to cure the allergic condition and sinus infections.
More antibiotics and antihistamines, nasal sprays, and decongestants were prescribed. Eventually, George gave up on the conventional medical route, and tried its other, usually final, option: “Learn to live with it.” This failed miserably as well, though he was at least free of aggressive and ineffective interventions, and his body adapted to a continuous level of low-grade infections. He was drug free, but miserable.
George was gradually able to be free of even over-the-counter anti-histamines and nasal sprays, yet he continued to suffer from daily congestion, breathing through his mouth because of it. He had difficulty sleeping due to breathing problems at night, bouts of infection several times a month, facial pressure, and daily headaches. The long-term drain on his system eventually led to immune weakness, and he began experiencing frequent colds and flu, low energy, and a general sense of “feeling lousy.”
Influenced by the increasing flood of information about alternative medicine, George started to take a vitamin and mineral complex, garlic capsules, and an herbal mixture designed for the respiratory system, along with an immune-enhancing substance called beta glucan. He told me that his sinus symptoms were about the same after starting this health regimen, but he did not have the repeated severe colds that he had had for years, and his sinus condition did not have the awful aggravations he often experienced. He considered himself “lucky” and did not want to return to a conventional medical doctor, and he wanted to see if a more specific natural medicine plan would work for him since he had seen some results with the remedies from the health foods store. That is when he came to see me.
My work-up began with a detailed history of his condition and symptoms. I made a list of all George's drugs and over-the-counter medications, including vitamins and minerals and any natural medication self-prescribed or recommended by an alternative heath care provider. I investigated his allergic condition by reviewing the results of his previous allergy testing, and ordered some new tests; I also ordered a comprehensive chemistry panel and complete blood count. Then, after an examination of his throat, ears, and lymph nodes, and taking his temperature, I formulated my conclusions on his case.
George suffered from a common condition: chronically inflamed sinus passages that deteriorated into frequent bouts of a low-grade bacterial sinusitis. He developed a nonspecific immune weakness, allowing for recurrent upper respiratory viral infections and an increased allergic profile. Basically, he had a complicated version of old fashioned sinusitis, a condition that affects as many as 31–35 million Americans each year.
In George's case, once I had determined the diagnosis, I prescribed an herbal antimicrobial, natural antiviral medications, and nutrients to support his immune system. I gave him acupuncture sessions to eliminate the headaches, facial pressure, and neck pain. Within two weeks, all of his generalized symptoms were completely gone and they had not returned after a routine six-month follow-up. His nasal congestion was reduced by at least fifty percent, and his energy improved along with his general sense of wellness.
The Allopathic View of George's Condition: From the perspective of conventional medicine, in a patient with bacterial sinusitis, the cause is a bacterial infectious microorganism and the treatment is a 10- to 14-day course of antibiotics. Acute bacterial sinusitis is such a common condition that it is the fifth most common diagnosis for which antibiotics are prescribed.
According to this view, if the right antibiotic is prescribed, and if there are no side effects from the antibiotic that would cause the patient to discontinue the treatment, the infection should theoretically subside. However, this was not the case with George, nor has it been with many of my patients with chronic sinusitis.
In this approach, other drugs may be used in combination with the antibiotics: decongestants may be given to help open the air passages, analgesics (pain killers) may also be used to help manage facial pain or headache caused by the swollen sinuses, antihistamines may be used to reduce nasal drainage, and systemic or nasal steroid sprays are sometimes used to reduce inflammation. For none of these are there definitive studies that show their effectiveness.
In the case of a viral infection, which is how most sinus conditions start out, conventional medicine has no effective treatment. Even though studies show that only 0.5–2.0 percent of adults with viral sinusitis progress to a bacterial infection, the patient is often prescribed an antibiotic even if it is ineffective against viral agents (Berg 1986). Of course it does not work at all, and the inappropriate use of an antibiotic for a viral condition may lead to antibiotic resistance and cause the antibiotic to become ineffective for future use, as seen in George's case. As is commonly the case in chronic sinusitis, the bacteria learn how to outsmart, and thereby resist, the drug.
Though antibiotics are a mainstay of conventional medicine and are often the drug of first choice for sinusitis, this model does not take into account the relationships between the different microbial infections that can occur in chronic sinusitis (bacterial, viral, fungal), and it only rarely recognizes the allergic aspects. It does not take into account toxic environmental exposure that might have inflamed the sinus membranes in the first place, contributing to easier infection, and it does nothing to improve the patient's immune status or prevent further infections. It only treats current symptoms as they present each time. To be fair, antibiotics do help in many cases of bacterial sinusitis and should definitely be considered for certain, but not all, cases.
The Evolutionary View of George's Case: In the evolutionary model, our patient with bacterial sinusitis may still be prescribed an antibiotic if necessary, but additional questions are asked and the probable outcome of the use of an antibiotic is considered. The doctor evaluates the patient's defense system and considers the past history of antibiotic use. In recurrent or chronic cases like George's, the evolutionary medicine doctor will consider if the illness is now in an adaptive state with the host and if there are co-evolving pathogens or other illnesses. This doctor will also consider other factors, such as occasional irritation by smoke from cigarettes, stress issues that may further weaken the immune system, and hereditary predisposition.
Retracing the medical history, the physician will find stress, environmental factors (such as long hours spent in an office building with recycled air), and the mismanagement of pharmaceutical drugs. George's immune system will be carefully evaluated and allergy tests performed. Since there is considerable viral involvement, antibiotics would not be used because they are ineffective for viruses.
The Functional Medicine View of George's Case: The doctor practicing functional medicine will look at the patient's immune function, nutritional status, age, and hormonal balance. He will suggest different nutrients and herbal medications to strengthen immunity, reduce inflammation and tissue damage produced by the infection, minimize the consequences of antibiotic therapy, and improve general health. If the functional medicine practitioner is not a medical doctor and an obvious acute bacterial infection is present and the body's immune system is not capable of controlling it, he would refer the patient to a medical doctor for evaluation and possible antibiotics.
The Chinese Medicine View of George's Case: Diagnosed in Chinese medicine, the same patient with bacterial sinusitis may fall under a variety of rubrics such as “wind-heat,” or “wind-cold transforming to heat,” or “hot-phlegm,” and be prescribed a complex combination of herbs. Within the same formula are herbs with antimicrobial activity, mucolytics (mucus-dissolving agents), decongestants, and toxin-relieving substances. Viral sinusitis would be treated with a combination of herbs used for “wind-cold” or “cold-phlegm.” Simultaneously, George's immune and general health status would be treated with strengthening qi tonics.
The benefit of this type of treatment is that its comprehensiveness and multi-faceted approach does not interfere with the body's own healing potential. It is most useful for viral infections. The disadvantage is that it is time consuming. The herbs must be taken four or five times daily, and it may take several days or a week before results are evident. In the process, the patient's condition could worsen. The herbs may not be sufficiently powerful to manage a very aggressive bacterial infection.
The Integrated Approach to George's Case: A doctor practicing integrated medicine may combine aspects of allopathic, evolutionary, and functional medicine, and may refer the patient for acupuncture, Chinese medicine, or nutritional supplementation. She may consider the use of an antibiotic, but would first carefully evaluate the patient and perform a nasal or sputum culture to find out which specific organism was the most likely cause of the infectious aspect. Then she would decide which antibiotic would be most effective.
If it is a viral sinusitis, she will not use an antibiotic as the first measure, but she might prescribe a nutraceutical antiviral medication like echinacea, along with a natural decongestant, dietary restrictions, and an immune-enhancing regimen of vitamins, minerals, and herbs. She might also refer George for nonspecific therapies that promote health and are not focused on the treatment of a specific disease, such as treatment with Chinese medicine to strengthen the body's energy, or prescription of stress reduction therapies like yoga or meditation.
She would look in depth at the possible allergic triggers for sinusitis and suggest that they be removed from the patient's immediate environment. Acupuncture might be recommended to relieve headache, neck pain, and facial pressure that often accompany sinus conditions.
The doctor practicing this new style of medicine must take into consideration all of these factors and more, when evaluating a patient like George. It is not enough to simply diagnose the disease or condition. The disease state and stage should be evaluated along with the underlying constitution of the patient, his age and general health, combined with an estimation of his immune status. Each disease must be looked at individually, and far more completely than most doctors are used to.
What then is the purpose of medical practice? From the Western allopathic model, it is to treat the disease, but not necessarily to make the patient feel better. This model breeds a cold and emotionally isolated system in which the doctor becomes a distant provider of medical techniques, estranged from the patient who is expected to be a passive receiver of medical services. In this system, the doctor often treats the lab results and not the person, and patients often complain that, though their lab numbers are improved, they still feel sick.
Modern medicine in itself is not wrong, but it operates in a socioeconomic system that places profit first. For all of its good points, it functions in a very constricted manner, limited in its view-point, confining allopathic doctors to an outmoded paradigm.
Though still within the Western model, evolutionary and functional medicine attempt to improve this situation by focusing more on the broad view, examining why we get sick and how we heal. These approaches consider multiple causative factors, they improve the patient's lifestyle, and they foster faith in the possibilities of healing.
If the goal of medicine is not only to treat the disease but to help the patient, then the Chinese model is the better system as it focuses on enhancing the physical constitution, preventing disease, and restoring health. However, the Chinese model also has its weaknesses. It is a difficult system to grasp in its entirety, even for the Chinese who have been experimenting with these ideas for several thousand years. Yet, they do seem to be ahead of the West in integrated medicine.
Starting in 1949, with the Communist revolution, traditional Chinese medicine was reinstated as a system equal to Western medicine, and in modern China there are now three systems of medicine: Western allopathic medicine and surgery, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, and integrated Western and Chinese medicine.
There is no doubt that we can learn much from the Chinese medical experience. However, on a global scale, especially in light of increasing viral diseases, what is required is a new paradigm in the way people think about disease. We need to move from a linear view of humanity's ever-increasing conquest of nature to a nonlinear model that considers inner and outer causes and sees how these fit into the bigger picture of nature and humankind. This new model of medicine sees individual physical components fully linked with functional body systems in a dynamic web of energy.
In this way, we come closer to a complete system of medicine, one that will serve us in the new viral plague times we are already in. The purpose of medical practice becomes treating the patient in the context of his specific, individual environment and personal spiritual and psychological needs, with the goal of effectively reestablishing systemic balance through safe, natural therapeutics whenever possible.
On a global scale, especially in light of increasing viral diseases, what is required is a new paradigm in the way people think about disease. This new model of medicine sees individual physical components fully linked with functional body systems in a dynamic web of energy.
The Difference between Healing and Cure: If that's how we practice, how do we heal? Healing is different from curing. The word “heal” comes from the old English halen, and carries the concept of wholeness, or as the saying goes, “hale and hearty.” The words “holy” and “holistic” come from the same linguistic root. To cure means to restore to health, with the connotation that a method or course of medical treatment is involved. It comes from the Latin, cura, “to take care of,” and from the same root found in the Spanish word for a traditional healer, curandero.
True healing comes from within and results in a state of health, wholeness, and complete well-being. In a sense, we heal ourselves. Healing invokes the spark of life that originally made us, a restoration of energetic balance, a harmony of mind and body, and the sense of being touched by the Great Spirit who created all things.
But to heal, a variety of factors have to come into play, and, in some cases, this may involve the necessity of a cure. A cure might require an antibiotic to kill excessive bacterial growth that our immune systems cannot fight off on their own, nutritional supplements to improve our immune status, antiviral herbs, or other treatments and therapies.
Curing is what is done to us when we are sick, while healing is stimulated from within our bodies, minds, and spirits. You can both heal and cure yourself by following the ten steps to viral immunity outlined in part 2. By using safe, proven remedies, practicing a healthy lifestyle, restoring organ function, and following the ways of nature and natural medicine, and by the grace of God, you can restore and sustain your good health.