"Catching a Cold" - Germ theory and the immune system

How and why does sickness occur? This is truly a multi billion dollar question. Yet to me it's fairly simple. Here's my take on illness.

I hear people around me make reference to "catching a cold" from someone, or blaming their illness on germs in their environment. It makes me realise what a fantastic job advertising is doing for chemical cleaning products. If it was essential to douse our homes and children with pine-o-clean in order to prevent illness, why is it that we're more unwell now than we were before it was on the market?

In the 19th century in France there was a guy called Louis Pasteur. He proved the theory that disease was caused by pathogenic microbes, which became known as "germ theory". He also provided several solutions to common causes of poisoning, and this is why we now pasteurise milk, to make it hygenic and increase shelf life.

In the time since then we began to discover the fabulous complexity of the human immune system. We still have not finished discovering its fabulousness and complexity, but we do know that its role is to protect us from these nasty germs. In the 19th century the germ was an important discovery which saved many lives, however, in these hygenic and sanitised times of the 21st century, I think we're ready for the next step. It's time we took responsibility for our own immunity.

To my mind, germs are a part of our environment, part of our ecosystem. They inhabit our bodies (skin, mouth, throat, intestines etc) at all times and always have. They live in harmonious balance with our immune system. That is, unless our immune system is under assault. This is inevitably the case for all us city dwellers. In order for our immune system to function well there are several things we need. They are:

Clean air, free of pollutants and chemicals
Clean food, free of pollutnants and chemicals
Clean water, free of pollutants and chemicals
Exercise and
Sleep

In addition to these basics, other immune strengtheners include anything that feels good, such as massage, laughing, dancing, hobbies etc.

Therefore the reason our immune systems are under assault these days is because

our air is full of pollutants and chemicals, from industry and cars etc
our food is full of pollutants and chemicals, from modern farming techniques, refining of foods and food additives
our water is full of pollutants and chemicals, such as flouride and 'cleaned' with chlorine.
we live increasingly sedentary lives
we don't sleep well thanks to caffiene, electricity, stress and late nights

So if these are the true reasons why we're sick, should we treat with more chemicals? I would suggest not. I'd also like to point out that when it comes to germ killing, few chemicals come close to being as effective as a single drop of essential oil. The best choices for cleaning are eucalyptus, tea tree, lemon and lavender. In addition to these, I use Eco Store cleaning products in my home. But when it comes to my immune system, I choose to eat organic foods, limit sugar, dairy and refined foods, drink filtered water, and get good sleep and regular exercise. There's not much I can do about the air, short of vote Green! And I could certainly use more massages! I honestly never get sick unless I'm stressed and or eating badly. I can even cope with a certain amount of sleep deprivation provided my diet is really good. For me, this is totally worthwhile.

Recently I treated a woman who came to me complaining that she'd had a cold for two years continuously. She was on a high daily dose of rhinocort and nothing she took was helping at all. She was certainly not pine-o-clean deficient. I'm sure her home was very hygenic. As it turned out she had a severe milk intollerance. One week later she was symptom free (and rhinocort free) after eliminating the dairy products from her diet. It's worth remembering that dairy is a common cause of excess mucous production, which can lead to cold symptoms and sinus infections.

Finally, my advice if you do have a cold is see your Naturopath! A Naturopath can help you to kill the infection and also bring your health back to 100%, where it belongs, by identifying and treating the cause of the problem. For ideas on how to treat yourself at home, check out my blog "Get Well Soon" from May last year.