04 Nov 2021
“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”
– Hippocrates
Ever wonder to yourself why you can have two people with similar exposure to a specific pathogen, yet one person has only mild symptoms, maybe even no symptoms, and the other is laid up for weeks on end?
In the 1860’s Louis Pasteur introduced the “germ theory” of disease, and our war on microbes began. It was theorized that germs were the cause of illness and that we needed to destroy the germs to survive. His contemporary, Antoine Bechamp, argued that the underlying condition of our body determines the risk of disease, not just the germs themselves. In his “terrain theory,” he postulated that a weak body attracted disease while a healthy body resisted it.
When it comes to our health, the Western world has broadly adopted the germ theory, meaning we need to identify and destroy anything we deem as a foreign invader as it is directly responsible for causing disease. However, we are seeing more information coming out that supports terrain theory, which believes that it is not the “germ” that determines illness but rather the state of our internal health and its ability to maintain homeostasis in the face of “unfriendly” organisms.
So… how to do we create a strong “terrain?”
- Eating real, whole, unprocessed foods (bye, bye sugar!)
- Exercise
- Hydrate
- Spend time outside & in nature – get daily sun exposure
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Reduce expose to toxins
- Minimize stress – rest & relax
- Don’t smoke
- Use sparingly, or abstain from, alcohol
- Get adequate sleep each night – turn OFF those screens!
- Reduce inflammation
- Support your mental health & seek help if needed
- Supplement when necessary
Does this mean a person will never get sick? No, but you can put yourself in a position that when you do fall ill your “terrain” (body) can better deal with a pathogen. Moving through an illness with more ease, less complications, and less severity.
