Even Buddha had a Bad Back: A quick skim through causes of ill health
When you have a health problem, it helps to know the causes so that you can address them. Wouldn’t it be great if the cause was just one missing vitamin or minor adjustment to our exercise habits. Unfortunately, health reflects our social and physical surroundings—and what is more, the causes stretch back through time.
Illness used to be seen as challenges from God, evil spirits, demons, or Karma working its way through from previous lives. Then, when we discovered GERMS, they got all the blame. Catch a germ, get an illness. Eradicate germs, eradicate illness. But it turned out to not be that simple. A whole population can be exposed to a virus, for example, but only a few become unwell. On the plains of Africa, water buffalo “carry” all the local nasty diseases including deadly leptospirosis and blue tongue yet appear perfectly healthy. It is not exposure to a pathogen (something that causes illness) but conditions allowing that pathogen to take hold. We are constantly exposed to potential pathogens but mostly our immune system fights them off.
In the last few generations, our LIFESTYLE has taken much of the blame for ill health; diet, lack of exercise, too much stress. The message—loud and clear—is that Ill health is now YOUR fault due to YOUR lifestyle choices. We saw this blame kick in during Covid when people with obesity and diabetes (resulting from lifestyle) were far more likely to have bad outcomes from infection. This blame idea now goes too far. When a friend recently suffered a small heart attack, the community whispered about his diet and lifestyle discounting his family history of heart problems. Blame is never helpful, but it is good for the wellness market. Bombarded with advertising and availability, we eat the wrong foods, drink the wrong drinks and smoke the wrong shit. What a boon we are to consumer society because—having bought ourselves sick—we can also buy ourselves well searching for that specific nutrient, gadget, jab, or influencer to fix the problem.
‘Wellness’ is a profitable industry.
If not your personal fault, then we are told that ill health is the fault of your FAMILY dynamics. Addiction, eating disorders, even autism, are frequently blamed on childhood trauma and/or poor parenting. Of course, traumatic childhoods can cause problems, for sure, but children experiencing the same family dynamics can have very different outcomes. There are many factors that impact on mental, emotional and physical wellness.
Inflammation is trending now as a cause of ill health from cancer to post viral fatigue.
Anything that causes inflammation of the brain can also cause mental and emotional dysfunction. Ultra processed foods are one of the many factors which cause chronic inflammation. Viruses—even common ones such as herpes and Covid—can trigger psychosis in some cases. And if infections hit us at critical stages of our development, the impact on mental health can be lifelong. Schizophrenia can apparently result from excessive pruning of brain cells in teenage years triggered by a range of factors including an overreaction of the immune system to an infection. Research into how our immune system impacts on mental illness is called psychoimmunology.
The other contenders are your GENES. Many illnesses (mental and physical) run in families and show up in twins who (for one reason or another) were separated at birth brought up in different households with different lifestyles and different parents. But just as having a germ does not mean you have the disease, so having a gene does not mean you inevitably have the associated disease. Many of us have genes associated with breast cancer but these genes need to be switched on to ‘express’ their effect. We also have a gene that protects us against breast cancer, but this can get turned off by things such as cigarette smoke, alcohol or folate deficiency. Importantly, genes can’t do anything without being instructed; the study of what controls genes is called EPIGENETICS.
Genes are switched on and off by substances inside us (our biochemistry) and/or around us (environmental factors). Even those artificial perfumes in candles, soaps, washing powder and air fresheners can alter our hormones by switching on/off genes—and hormones have multiple effects. Sometimes a gene stays switched and is passed on to the next generation. In terms of evolution, this makes sense as it adapts us rapidly to local conditions, but the downside is that some health problems get worse over generations. Scientists are researching how to switch genes on/off that have been switched by harmful chemicals in our ecosystem.
Because epigenetic changes can pass down through generations, your health can be impacted by what happened to your ancestors, THEIR lifestyle choices or THEIR life events. Research shows that anxiety disorder can pass through at least three generations, that the trauma of your grandparents can make your life an anxious one. Even the diseases your ancestors were exposed to can impact on your health now. The gene for cystic fibrosis is thought to be an adaption to Cholera; helpful if you inherit only one copy from one parent but a problem if you inherit two copies.
Genes for storing fat are activated in populations that are exposed to hunger for generations. It is thought that this ‘thrifty gene’ contributes to obesity in indigenous peoples when suddenly exposed to regular high-calorie food supply. The body is storing as much as it can because, in the past, this was a matter of survival.
Currently, bacteria in our GUT are getting a lot of blame for ill-health. Certain bacteria are essential for good physical and mental health, yet we bombard our gut with chemicals that harm these bacteria via our water and food chain. Gut bacteria produce hundreds of important chemicals including neurotransmitters such as serotonin, vitamins K and B, and butyrate which reduces inflammation.
Gut microbes directly impact on mental health. If faecal transplants are taken from people with schizophrenia and fed to germ-free mice, those mice develop cognitive problems with high anxiety showing that the gut bacteria are influencing brain function. Chronic anxiety can be transferred between mice by transferring gut bacteria from anxious mice. The media picked up recently on a case in which one woman claimed to have cured herself of lifelong bipolar disorder by having a transplant of her partner’s faeces (do not try this at home, folks).
Broad spectrum antibiotics kill essential gut microbes so can damage our health long after the initial infection has been beaten. Nowadays, doctors are reluctant to prescribe them. Even if we avoid taking unnecessary antibiotics, there are traces in our food chain as farmers try to keep sickly animals alive under unhealthy industrial conditions. Our drinking water, even though treated, still contains hormones from the contraceptive pill and cocaine from recreational use and our food is wrapped in plastic (plastic is toxic to gut bacteria). Apparently, we eat and drink enough microplastic each day to make a credit card!
Even antibacterial mouthwash (sold to you as a ‘good’ thing) can cause ill health. Killing bacteria in your mouth can lead to high blood pressure and even diabetes (due to killing off bacteria which convert nitrate to nitric acid). Our mouth biome is essential. Same is true of skin bacteria. Overuse of antibacterial handwash during Covid caused all sorts of problems with contact dermatitis and susceptibility to bacterial and fungal infections which the natural bacteria used to out-compete.
Although humans have always been exposed to POLLUTION we have only had two generations of global exposure to toxic and cancer-causing chemicals in our air, food and water. Extremely nasty “forever chemicals” such as PFAS cause thyroid disruption, cancer and reproduction problems. They are found in 99% of people, rivers, processed food, and even on the top of remote mountains. Just one reason why, if you were born in 1930, you had a 30% chance of getting cancer but those of us born in 1960 have a 50% chance.
Our food chain is highly industrialised. Heavily processed ‘bread’ contains so many artificial compounds and processes as to be more accurately described as “industrial foam”.
And we haven’t mentioned STRESS yet.
Both pressure and excitement are stress in that the autonomic nervous system is on alert, ready for action. This suppresses the immune, reproductive and digestive systems to focus on muscles and action. Modern society is a high stress environment, and it is the type of long-term stress that does the damage. This is why one of the most important things we can do to maintain our health is to learn how to truly relax.
Despondency and depression contribute to poor outcomes whereas the opposite emotions (positivity, love and happiness) flood our body with oxytocin and endorphins which have positive epigenetic effects. Mental health improves; physical health improves. Some healers insist that you can think genes on and off with your intention and certainly our conscious and unconscious beliefs contribute hugely to our recovery. But before you get depressed because you can’t manage to do this, remember that even super positivity has limits due to the embedded nature of health.
Then there is the blending effect of living or working with unhealthy people. The physiological coordination that happens between people when we pay attention to them, means that our mental and physical health can be impacted by other people’s health (see my book ANOTHER SELF).
Bearing in mind that all these factors from the past and present are impacting on our body and mind in combination (and there are many more I haven’t had time to include), it is unlikely to be simply your fault that you have a health problem. What is more, you may be limited in what you can do to bring about improvement. Apparently, even the Buddha had such a bad back that he often had to teach laying down.
I have spent my adult life exploring why there are limits to self-healing. Although in theory we can heal ourselves of almost anything, in practice, there are limitations—and finding those limitations is an individual process. Of course, it is important to try your best to maintain or regain health, reduce harmful habits, increase helpful habits.
I am not suggesting that self-care is a waste of time.
My point here is that you are NOT A FAILURE if as an individual you cannot achieve perfect health in an unhealthy ecosystem. Health is embedded in your social and physical environment back through time.
