Welcome back and thanks so much for all your supporting comments. Can we have a little digression from the norm this week and talk once again about your actual life…?

Doctor: “So what seems to be the problem sir?”

Patient: “Well, I don’t really know but I saw this commercial on TV last night showing lots of happy people and it told me to ask my doctor if this drug was right for me.”

Doctor: “Sir, I can’t really give you a prescription for something if I don’t know what the problem is. Do you have any symptoms?”

Patient: “Yes- I’m kept awake all night with Nausea, Diarrhoea, and Vomiting… but that’s just the side effects of the drugs I’m taking for insomnia.”

Hopefully you’re laughing at this point. But the reason that’s funny is because, like all good comedy, it’s very close to the truth…

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Americans consume more pharmaceutical drugs per head than any other nation in the world. The reason for this can only be one or a combination of 3 things:

a)   Americans are more prone to sickness than anyone else in the world.

b)   Americans have more medicines available than anyone else and the means to buy them.

c)   Americans are the biggest hypochondriacs in the world (i.e. they imagine themselves to be sick when they aren’t really).

Which is it? I think a little of all 3, perhaps?

More prone to sickness? Barring countries with serious famine issues, probably so- for example, cancer is largely a Western world phenomenon and mostly non-existent in the less developed countries. There are way more toxins in our food chain and way more pollution. This combined with probably THE biggest root causes in all sickness: stress (of modern life).

More medicines available and the means to buy them? Absolutely. We’re one of the richest countries in the world and this is where most drugs are manufactured and more importantly, where they’re actively marketed.

No arguments so far then. But the third point is the one I want to focus on here today, and in a way, this point is related to the other two and could easily be the root cause of the whole mess… we are a nation of hypochondriacs to a degree, thanks mostly to the media and their sponsors, not to mention the entire mess that the health system is.

Here’s the definition of hypochondria: “chronic abnormal anxiety concerning the nature of one’s health.”

A hypochondriac is perpetually imagining they have something wrong with them- usually the illness they’ve just heard about from somewhere. This of course becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because your imagination can make you sick. That’s right- Your imagination can make you sick (or healthy!). And medical science backs me up 100%…

When scientists want to test a new drug, they will use live people as guinea pigs- people who suffer from the ailment the drug is supposedly aimed at tackling. They will give half the people the drug, BUT, they will give the other half a ‘placebo’- a dummy pill which does nothing.

Why do they do that? Quite simply, to ensure it’s a fair study and that people aren’t curing themselves because of the psychosomatic effect of the act of taking a pill. In other words, medical science has, by default, stated that a person’s imagination can drastically affect the health of that person.

Yes, your imagination truly is awesome. But once again, it’s also a double-edged sword- sadly too many people use their imagination to make themselves UN-healthy through hypochondria rather than healthy. Let’s look at how the stage is set over time…

It seems every time my young son bumps himself even a tiny bit, he asks for a band-aid. I’m sure you and I were no different, parents teach us that a magic wand can make any pain or discomfort go away when in fact it does nothing of the sort. It’s psychosomatic, and our hunger for a ‘quick-fix’ is already in play.

As we grow older we find ourselves exposed to clever TV commercials. Why do you think ads for cold remedies show people sneezing and coughing? Millions of dollars of research goes into these to sell products- don’t you think there’s a reason for that huge investment? After watching that commercial, people are more inclined to say to themselves: “Hmmm… yes I do feel a little like that… I guess I’m sick!” Close to two-thirds of all TV advertising is for drugs.

Then there’s the ‘drug-culture’ which has emerged courtesy of the pharmaceutical corporations. What used to be called heartburn is now called “Acid Reflux Disease”. The prescription used to be to stop eating the sort of foods which give you heartburn, now the prescription is drugs. What used to be called being overweight is now called “Obesity Disease”. The prescription used to be to go on a diet, now the prescription is drugs once again. Each drug gives us ‘mysterious’ side-effects which give us more problems and so we ‘need’ more drugs for that new problem!

Our bodies are highly evolved machines with one sole function- to keep us alive and thus ensure the survival of the species. Ol’ Mom Nature is very clever indeed. But phrases like “Side effects may include Nausea, Diarrhea, and Vomiting” seem to go unnoticed. Hmm, doesn’t that mean our bodies are rejecting these substances as poison??

Drugs have their place. If I’m in a car crash and my life is on the line, take me to hospital and pump me full of all the drugs you want, it’s the increasing grey area caused by hypochondria I’m talking about here.

Don’t you think it curious that animals in the wild don’t get cancer or suffer from heart attacks? Something is very wrong in how we’re living… and more specifically, what we’re eating.

Have you ever stopped to consider the idiotic fact that the following is actually used as a sales message (i.e. a special benefit) on food packaging?

“Contains REAL Fruit!”

“Wow… you mean REAL fruit? I gotta get me some of that!” We now imagine it’s okay to eat artificial substances, basically through brainwashing and ignorance. We imagine it’s normal to have at least one sickness and hence have at least one prescription, when in fact it’s NOT normal to be sick at all. Whenever I have to complete a medical questionnaire it usually asks what prescription medicine I’m taking, and I always answer “NONE”. And each time the surprised receptionist asks if I made a mistake.

I know you read this column each week to help in your quest to achieve your goals, and that’s usually what I tackle head on, but don’t you think your biological mental state has a part to play in your success? Your creativity, your focus, your motivation??

If you’re sick, or if you’re making yourself sick by taking copious quantities of drugs that may have natural alternatives, or because your lifestyle is just plain unhealthy, this will have a drastic impact on your success. Please trust me on this one. Your good health is the entry-ticket to the game we talk about here each week. Healthy body, healthy mind.

I’m proud to say that our new, free, online newsletter will be ready to launch soon, so I hope you’ll join me there each week as well as here. I’ll have a lot more opportunity to talk about health there, but let me leave you with this crucial point, especially if you’re a bit of a skeptic regarding natural health…

The people you are NOT skeptical of- the official medical establishment (FDA, AMA, etc. etc.) have agreed on two fundamental truths. These truths are so accepted that one does not need to back up these claims in any promotion. Here they are:

1.    Cancer, like many diseases, is the result of a faulty immune system (the immune system keeps on building new tissue at a damaged area when it is not longer needed and a tumor forms).

2.    Vitamin C greatly boosts the human immune system. Vitamin C is critical for ALL life. Humans are the only animals whose bodies do not produce their own vitamin C, and require it as food.

Why isn’t anyone making the connection??

You see plenty of money-grabbing drug commercials, but do you ever see a commercial telling you to get your vitamin C that wasn’t a commercial for carton orange juice? Ever see oranges being cut on cancer wards, or vitamin C IVs (clinical studies have shown IV administered vit C cures cancer patients).

No, neither have I. I guess there’s not as much money to be made from oranges…

So do you get your vitamin C?

Yes? Because you drink orange juice every day?

Think again if you drink it from a carton of pasteurized juice, because pasteurizing is heating, and heating kills enzymes, thus rendering it virtually useless.

Read those two truths above again. Then invest in a manual juice press, and squeeze fresh orange juice every day. 2-3 oranges a day, ideally, and spread out over the day. That’s a good start, and much more to come in the free health newsletter I’ll tell you more about soon…

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Best health,

Jim Sheridan.