As we get closer to ‘retirement age’, whatever that really means, it just gets you thinking.

1. “Man, I’m getting old and I wonder how much time I have left?”
2. “Am I going to get cancer? My Mom/Dad/Uncle/Aunt died when they were 62.”
3. “How can I afford to live on my reduced 401K and Social Security? What will I eat?”
4. “I sure don’t want to die in a hospital hooked up to all those machines.”
5. “I don’t want to drop dead of a heart attack before I get a chance to enjoy my retirement!”
6. “I am ‘pre-diabetic’, I don’t want to suffer, loose my eyesight or leg like old Charlie did.”

Yes, if you are over 55 you can’t help but think some of these things. If your cholesterol is over 200, your blood sugar is close to 100 or worse if you don’t even know what these are, it just wears on you as each birthday approaches. Have you had a heart attack, bypass surgery? Yes, all these things worry you and just help to keep your blood pressure way too high.

Do you currently take medication for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes? Do you get headaches? Is your waist line more than ½ your height? Are you considered ‘obese’, or just a little heavy with a pot belly?

Well join the crowd! As Americans age, the lifestyle of the young and restless starts to catch up with us all. All the stress of 24X7 work schedules and availability (cell phones, internet, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) causes huge amounts of stress which can damage the body, suppress the immune system and raise your blood pressure.

Look around you. Observe the folks at the office, local coffee shop, in church or anywhere else in the USA. Do you look like them? Are you one of the many citizens who are too busy to eat right? As the stress of everyday life continues to wear and tear at our bodies and psyche, it can have a devastating effect on your internal bodily functions. Yes, no one likes to discuss ‘bodily functions’ but how often do you poop? Twice a day? People laugh when I ask that and often tell me that it is lucky if they go once every few days! Ever wonder what happens to all that ‘stuff’ you put in your mouth? It has to go somewhere! If it isn’t eliminated, it is still in your gut. You know what happens to a piece of steak if it just sits around? It rots. Think about it!

It seems that everyone is telling us how and what to eat, how to live our lives and conduct our business. Federal, State and local bureaucracies have taken it upon themselves to over-regulate everyone else’s lives! We are bombarded with commercials that tell us how wonderful the burger place is, the pizza parlor, local steak/rib place is and if we just eat there, we will feel so much better, be happy and content! Drug companies advertise strange and hard to pronounce medications to the public; shouldn’t they be talking to medical professionals? What the heck does the ordinary public viewer know about pharmaceuticals, their side effects or interactions with other medications? Are we supposed to self-medicate? You need a prescription for all these things, so why on earth do they spend million$ on advertising to the public?

It is a simple thing. Drug companies expect you to go to your doctor and ask for the latest thing you saw on TV last night. If it said it will help with high cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetic insulin, or whatever and you ask the overworked doctor at the clinic, he probably will go ahead and just write you a prescription for what you ask for. After all, he saw the same commercial and the pharmaceutical representative probably just dropped of an amazing booklet about just this new drug. It’s easy, quick and gets you out of the office; happy and pleased with yourself.

Did you think to ask about the ‘side effects’ that the commercial sped through? How likely will this new fancy drug interact with your other medications? How about the risk of ‘suicide, depression, heart attack, stroke, pain, etc. that the commercial quickly glossed over. You have been so inundated with these lists of side effects, you really don’t hear it any more. Think that is an accident? Not so much, these guys are experts at SELLING. They have absolutely NO interest in curing any ailment, disease or condition. There is NO money in a cure; only the treatments of the disease! Always follow the money trail!

Crave coffee and doughnuts (high sugar) and such in the morning. These high calorie ‘foods’ give you the ‘pick-me-up then crash’ effect that plagues you all day long with yo-yo ups and downs instead of a nice stead calorie burning day you should be experiencing.

At the office around 11:00 am, do you talk to your co-workers about where to eat for lunch. Not many folks ‘brown bag it’ these days. It is just easier to ‘grab a bite’ near the office. So what are the choices? Since you only have a short time for lunch, by the time you leave the office, walk/drive to a place, order and consume and return to the office, it just doesn’t leave much time to actually EAT. So you pick a quick and easy place like a burger joint, taco jungle, hot-dog stand or other quickie place. You order a burger, fries, soda or milk shake, wolf it down while chatting with your friends, then rush back to the office to continue your stressful day.

As the afternoon approaches, and the sluggishness of a heavy, saturated fat lunch bogs you down, do you reach for a high caffeine soda? Laced with sugar and caffeine, it does provide a short duration boost, but like any narcotic, the following crash of your metabolism can just wear you out so you have no energy for the late afternoon. Maybe before getting home, you stop for a ‘drink’ with friends. Again, alcohol is a very high calorie beverage usually totally lacking in any nutritional content. Then, you go home and are totally exhausted and sit in front of the TV and have a highly processed food dinner. As evening in front of the TV wears on, you get the munchies and go for the chips & dip, ice cream or other high sugar snack; maybe a nice cocktail or three. Then, exhausted you go to bed.

Don’t sleep so well? Tossing and turning? Well that high carbohydrate, sweet evening snack (or alcoholic beverage) is full of calories that turn to sugar/glucose that causes your metabolism to go into glucose high, energizing you when you should naturally be tired and sleepy.

All these high calorie, sugar dense processed foods have little wholesome nutritional content. They provide loads of empty calories that just contribute to the weight and health problems of those over 55.

It is and has been the biggest problem with getting older. You get sick more often. Flu, colds, allergies seem to plague the aging more often than they did when you were younger. Unfortunately, this is happening to younger and younger folks. This lowering the age limit of disease is progressing at an all to rapid pace.

Sometimes many get very sick, all too often, way before you get to 55years old. How many people have you heard stories about (or personally known) that have dropped dead of a heart attack, had bypass surgery, suffer from early onset adult diabetes (Diabetes 2), or even cancer.

No one likes a cold or flu, but everyone fears contracting the dreaded ‘Big-3’; heart disease, diabetes 2 and cancer! Rightly so, as these big three are the main reasons for early onset Death. If you don’t die from them, you are seriously impacted as to quality of life and ability to enjoy your family, friends and life in general. Not only are they detrimental to your lifestyle and happiness, they are downright depressing and often contribute to the downward spiraling of your health.

Depression suppresses your immune system and contributes to the downward spiral of your health. If you are depressed by your illness, because your physician says it’s incurable, gives you just a few years to live or describes the future debilitation side effects that the medical community ‘treatments’ will cause, it is no wonder people get depressed.

This very discussion could and should depress you! It is an unfortunate ‘side effect’ of the American health-care system. The treatments are only for symptoms, there is no rush to find a CURE by the traditional allopathic medical community. There is no money in cures, only in treatments.

Now after all this gloom and doom, comes the ‘hallelujah moment’.

What if the traditional allopathic medical community is wrong? What if there is a cure for the big-3. Well, ‘my doctor would tell me.’ is the common response. What if he was never trained, ignores the documented proof and is just plain ignorant of the facts? What if the usa federal government made it illegal for your doctor to prescribe a cure; but only allowed them to prescribe a treatment?

Well the truth of the matter that this is just the case! There are documented cures for the big-3. Yep, all of them, with a few rare exceptions. Better yet, there is a preventative process to help you avoid the big-3 altogether! Pretty amazing isn’t it; yet why are you just hearing about it now?

What are you selling is the first thought that might come to mind. Well nothing, it is free. Yes, almost every American and most other ‘western’ cultures plagued by the big-3 can take advantage of this curative process!

The Big-3 is all, what I term, lifestyle diseases. Yes, it is how you live your life, your style that causes or significantly contributes to these debilitating diseases. Sure, genetics, environment and many other factors contribute and act as triggers for these devastating diseases, but for the most part it is the lifestyle of the individual that makes these diseases life threatening!

There are just too many documented facts, documentaries, research papers, case studies, medical trials and so on to list here. I won’t even try. I will provide some reference links at the end of this article to help direct you to significant research and information.

The terrible truth is that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is killing you! If you aren’t suffering from one of the ‘Big-3’, Heart Disease, Cancer, Diabetes 2, you undoubtedly know someone who is. It is a tragic and terrible fact that Americans (and many in the rest of the World who follow an American diet) are becoming more sick every day. Just talk to friends, look around you. FOOD (to put it loosely) is killing US.

It is not ‘real food’ (whole foods), but fast food, junk food, sugar laced food, overly processed food. All the stuff you find in the grocery store ‘center isles’. We are not talking about fruits and vegetables here, but junk food and fast food you get from the local drive through. Calories upon calories, saturated fat, chemicals and preservatives, this is what Americans are eating.

Then there are the dairy products. Laced with various hormones, growth drugs, antibiotics and lord knows what else. The animals are fed high quantities of genetically modified (GMO) corn, soybeans and other GMO feed crops. These genes that contain lovely stuff like genes that create pesticides internally and other ‘disease resistant’ features in the crops so chemical poisons don’t kill them when they kill everything else. Of course the casein in milk is proven to cause cancer in animal studies (see the china study by t. Collin Campbell).

Beef, chicken and other animal protein for food is similarly altered, treated and tainted. The animal food you consume is typically sourced from production facilities (feedlots and slaughter houses) where they are pumped full of GMO based feed, pumped full of growth hormones, antibiotics and other drugs to prevent disease and other contaminants while these animals are fed a diet that totally destroys their naturally balanced flesh when eating natural grass or free range foods. In beef, the feed lot meat is so imbalanced with high omega 6 (bad fats) and reduced omega 3 (good fats).

Fish? Not much better off there as the runoff from the feedlots, farm pesticides and other wastes pollute our rivers and streams. Mercury and other contaminants increase in most fish species except for the deep, cold-water varieties and they are being impacted too. Just think of the feedlots of thousands of animals eating and doing what comes naturally. If you have a home with a septic system, you are regulated out the wazoo with inspections, regulations and such. Not so much for the fecal matter from animals and feedlots, it just runs where it will into the ground and surface water supplies that we often drink! Think about it the next time you consider a water filtration system for your home!

Then the real puzzle. When diagnosed with one of these big three diseases by doctors, the recommendation is usually drugs and drug therapy (chemo), surgery, and maybe radiation. People jump on this, lay down on the operating table, take poisons into their systems and generally suffer terrible side effects of the so-called ‘treatments’. Now these diseases didn’t happen overnight, like a car accident causing you to go to hospital. No, they were building up gradually over time. Why the rush to slice and dice and take all the drugs? Doctors push, rush and almost force the issue to get ‘treatment’ started almost immediately. Why? What are they afraid of? That someone may tell you to wait, do some research and get second, third, fourth opinions? How about a change in lifestyle and nutrition? No way would they ever recommend that; much less be aware of any alternative treatments. They could lose their license to practice ‘medicine’ if they do that (the wonders of the ama).

Yet, case after case, time after time, the proof is in the reality that a change in lifestyle and nutrition can remediate these big-3 diseases and in many cases cure them. Don’t take my word for it! Research, study and take a few days, weeks or even months to educate before you medicate!

Change your nutritional basis, your diet! If you have radical surgery, radiation or chemo-therapy, you will most certainly not feel like eating your normal diet (fast food, meat, sugar). If you are going to be forced to change by these radical procedures, why not avoid the pain and suffering they cause and just change your diet before all the pain and suffering? Just take 30days with a radically different lifestyle and change what you eat. Get some exercise, try yoga or other holistic practices. See an acupuncturist for more natural healing, relief of pain and strengthening of you immune system. Supplement your new nutritional intake of whole foods with natural immune system boosting foods. You will see results in days not months. It may take months or even years to gain the full benefit of a lifestyle change, but immediate and dramatic results are felt within days.

Will your heart bypass surgery, chemo-therapy, insulin therapy do that for you? Doubtful so what in the world do you have to lose. Try it; it can’t hurt! It will certainly help. Ask your doctor; he/she won’t like it but it is your body. Just take a few weeks and do some change in eating and nutrition and lifestyle. Even if you do decide to do the radical medically recommended approach these nutritional changes will help in the long run by helping to repair the damages done by the conventional treatments.

If you are or have been sent home do die by your doctor because they admit that all the torture you have suffered has done nothing but ruin your immune system, don’t listen. Many of the people who die of the big three have been told to do so by their doctors! Amazing and disgusting! Ignore these idiots! They don’t own or control you or your body. They don’t know much of anything when it comes to holistic health & wellness. Ignore them!

What do you have to lose? My goodness, the choice is between life and death. Choose life!!!! Change your lifestyle change your nutritional approach, life a whole foods healthy and vibrant life! It is your choice. Choose wisely; choose life!

Ok, now that you have chosen to choose to live; good for you! Unfortunately, like most other things in life, things are not as easy as they first appear. Once you start your research and exploration in the lifestyle change arena you will find hundreds, no thousands of opinions, products, foods, supplements, clinics, machines and so on. It makes it really hard to figure out just what to do.

Unfortunately, there are all too few practicing medical holistic nutritional therapists, naturopathic doctors (ND) or nutritionists to help all those who need it. You will be exceedingly lucky to find one in your search; one who can support your decisions, guide you in your lifestyle change and help you achieve your health and wellness goals.

There are too many charlatans, fakers and ignorant ‘practitioners’ who will try to sell you weird treatments, herbal remedies, strange foods, drinks, drugs and so on. Most of these will do no good and some may actually cause harm. Many of these folks have themselves been fooled into getting into the health and wellness ‘racket’ to make fast money. Many multilevel marketing schemes try to sell you all kinds of magical cures, all for the sake of profit. Most of the money you spend will to supporting a vast network of marketing folks and provide you with a product that may not be harmful, but may do little or nothing.

Many of the products sold have good intentions, basically good content but are seldom sufficient to actually provide the curative impact that the lifestyle we will discuss can perform; naturally, inexpensively and totally within your control. Just like the medical pharmaceutical treatments of the ‘magic pill’ there is no quick fix to long term disease. It has taken you years of immune system suppression to get you into this ‘fix’ of disease, illness or obesity. You won’t cure it overnight.

For centuries, since man became man, the primary defence against disease has ALWAYS been the body’s immune system. This hasn’t changed! The immune system of your very own body is the key to your achieving health and wellness.

The problem is that your lifestyle suppressed your body’s natural ability to fight disease. Whether is is clogged arteries, out of control cell growth (cancer), diabetes 2 or so many other diseases, you got sick because your natural immune system failed!

The failure of the natural immune system has its cause in multiple things. As in any other complex organism, there is no single thing, but a plethora of things that may make us sick; the same goes for what makes us healthy. The human body is the most complex biological organism known to man on this planet. Don’t think that the advances in medical research, genetic engineering and so on prove that anyone really knows how our body/mind/soul actually works. They don’t have a clue!

Our environment is one of the things that impacts our health and wellness. Pollution, toxic waste, microbes, radiation exposure and physical damage all negatively impacts your immune system. Is this the cause of disease?

Certainly nasty germs, viruses and such have plagued humanity forever. Pollution and toxins in the environment (asbestos, lead paint, etc.) all contribute to potentially devastating impact on your immune system.

Clinical research (mostly on rats and animals) show that environmental toxins do indeed cause cancer. The thing to remember is that these laboratory tests expose the animal subjects with doses many hundreds of times what you would otherwise expect in the normal environment. Do they cause cancer? Sure they do, but in huge dosages.

Normally, modest exposure to these toxins (outside massive doses of toxins, radiation or pollution), will have little impact on a person with a healthy robust immune system. We fight off the negative effects by the body’s ability to fight disease, filter out toxins and repair damaged tissues and organs.

It has been shown that certain genetic anomalies may contribute to the manifestation of disease. There seem to be genetic pre-disposition to some cancers and other diseases. Do these genetic pre-disposition actually cause the disease? That remains to be proven. There are cases where individuals with the same genetic marker get the disease, while others seem to not manifest the disease.

So far the analysis is still a work in progress. There are some indications that a genetic pre-disposition may be triggered or activated by certain lifestyles, nutritional intake and other environmental situations.

Certain lifestyles have been shown to impact the immune system. Indeed, one primary component of lifestyle is nutrition and diet. More than anything else, this has a direct impact on the body’s immune system; to either boost the immune system or to depress it.

Anyone with a computer can search and get numbers on the rise of Heart Disease, Cancer and Diabetes 2 in the USA. Then a simple plot correlation or chart of the growth of ‘fast food’, processed foods, GMO foods over a similar period (it doesn’t matter which one, just match it up). The correlation is there for anyone to see. The more processed food consumed the higher the rates of the Big-3 diseases (of course numerous others as well; pick one).

None.

Author declares that there is no conflict of interest.