Are you tired of hearing about risk factors, genetics, toxins, diet, stress and germs all being the cause of dis-ease? Do you suspect that there must be a more meaningful reason, a ‘missing link’ behind any illness?

In 16th century, Rene Descartes proclaimed that the mind and body were separate. Since this time, medicine has focused on understanding the bio-mechanical and bio-chemical aspects of dis-ease, while the cause remains a mystery. Medical dictionaries describe almost all diseases as ‘idiopathic’, meaning ‘of unknown cause’, or ‘autoimmune’, meaning the immune ‘system’ attacks the body. Beyond this, medicine can only offer hypotheses in the form of risk factors, including germs, genetics, lifestyle, mechanical malfunction and stress.

Complementary and alternative therapists often look deeper, exploring body type, psychology, energy systems, our milieu, astrology and other data. Yet even within alternative and complementary approaches there remains a gap in understanding: a definitive and scientifically robust explanation of why specifically we get dis-ease. Why does one person develop a cancer while another remains healthy? Why do some people have chronic digestive issues, while others get frequent colds or heart problems? And why do people get a particular illness at a specific time in their life?

Let’s explore some of the current theory about why we get ill.

Genetics: The ‘Primacy of DNA’ is the latest media bandwagon and increasingly seen as the answer to many dis-eases. Yet Bruce Lipton’s work in the field of cell biology and epigenetics has proved that the environment influences our genes, not the other way round. Furthermore, only 5% of illnesses are due to genetic heredity. So what about the other 95%?