“I have bad news for you… you don’t have a disease but it is severe!”

I read a dexascan report today that summarized the patient’s results as “severe osteopenia”. This statement highlights the insanity of our current mentality about disease. Why are we creating these “pre-diseases”? I don’t think it was a physician’s idea to create pre-hypertension, pre-diabetes or osteopenia. What is wrong with saying to someone, “you don’t have diabetes yet but if you continue on the same path, you  might develop it.” I have seen many patients who have never been diagnosed with diabetes come into my office on diabetes medications. And patients with osteopenia on drugs for osteoporosis. Obviously, the marketing efforts of the drug companies are behind the scenes feeding into our paranoia about diseases that don’t exist. And money is the driving force.

There was a great article in the LA Times called Diagnosis is a Disease pointing out that these diagnoses that we are creating are increasing healthcare costs. I couldn’t agree more. The article points out that our thresholds for disease have become too low, and in turn, our thresholds for treatment have become low. I agree with this but, more specifically, our thresholds for pharmaceutical drug treatment have become too low. I really like the idea of knowing if someone is at risk for developing a disease but our focus needs to be on treating the real cause.

Diseases such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis are the end result of poor nutrition, sedentary lifestyle, lack of sunshine, lack of sleep, and chronic stress. These diseases are the body’s reaction to  a deficiency of what the body needs to function optimally. Until we really believe that and shift our focus, these diseases are going to continue to increase.