THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
Our choice of food, around the waist obesity, and lack of physical activity, all fuel a variety of chronic illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease, and cancer. These diseases could be thought of as the tips of an iceberg because they all form in the same auspicious waters. And just like icebergs, we could also say that they incubate or grow for a long time before surfacing. All the while most of it remains an invisible interconnected mass underwater.
Medical tests will pick up a high sugar, high cholesterol, a silent heart attack, or a cancerous growth. Such findings will trigger the use of an array of drugs, impressive technology, and targeted expertise! All good but for one deadly fault - this approach lacks context.
Institutions that pride themselves in exterminating one disease are capable of turning a blind eye on another! How else could we explain eggs in the first meal after cardiac surgery? Or mostly fried foods at the cafeteria of a cancer hospital. Or hot dogs served at the children’s hospital while adults are scoped for colon cancer next door?
There is abundant scientific evidence linking foods and disease, but where is the link to our medical establishment?
10/08