As a Clinical Exercise Physiologist, my role is to promote health and fitness — not to manage disease. That’s the job of medical doctors, who, for the most part, manage disease by suppressing symptoms with drugs.
But it’s not the symptoms you should focus on — it’s the cause. If you truly want to cure a condition, you need to get to the root of the problem. As Dr. Rangan Chatterjee pointed out during his TED talk: “If we do not address the cause, we will never get rid of disease. Diseases are the symptom.”
You can label a condition anything you like — cancer, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, diabetes, depression, whatever — but the approach is often the same: restore health and let the body heal itself. Instead of a laundry list of pharmaceuticals, let diet, exercise, and lifestyle be your drugs of choice.
The causes of disease can involve many factors, most notably:
- Stress
- Infections
- Environmental toxins
- Nutrient deficiencies
- Lack of sunlight
- Poor gut health
- Sleep deprivation
- Physical inactivity
That last one — physical inactivity — is where I come in. That’s my role in the circle of health. As a fitness expert, I can help design an exercise regimen specific to your needs.
Don’t get me wrong, I can also guide you in many of the other areas mentioned above. Often, that’s enough to get you back on track. But sometimes we need to call upon other experts to address specific issues.
Bottom Line
Start making healthier choices and stop chasing symptoms with drugs. That’s how you make chronic disease disappear.
