The Three-Headed Hydra of Disease
Below is an excerpt from Dr. Chris Chlebowski’s upcoming book, The Virus and The Host: How to Get and Stay Healthy in the Age of Novel Infectious Disease, published by Chelsea Green.
In Greek mythology there is the famous tale of the multi-headed beast known as the Hydra. Mother Earth’s first and finest sons, the Titans, were impeding Zeus, Mother Earth’s grandson, zealous attempts to rule the heavens and Earth. Zeus, the upstart, young god, banished the Titans to the dark pit of Tartus for an eternity. In a rage that only a mother could muster, Mother Earth whipped up the two great beasts Echida and Typhon to exact never-ending revenge on Zeus and his offspring. The most famous of Echidna and Typhon’s progeny was the many-headed beast the Hydra. The multiplicitious nature of the Hydra made it a fierce and deadly creature. It could appear many ways depending on the angle at which you viewed it.
It is fruitless to talk about how to get and stay healthy without including a discussion of the many-headed hydra of disease effecting mankind. This beast of many faces lays the groundwork for susceptibility to every other malady that plagues mankind, including pandemic-scale viruses. These are the patterns that our bodies customarily sink into when we eat and live the way most humans do. And the overwhelming majority of people who died from SARS-COV2 had these motifs painted deeply into their physiology long before they were ever exposed to the infectious data stream known as COVID.
They are the poster child diseases of the 20th century, birthed of our Twentieth century addictions, lifestyles and proclivities. They are the direct and modifiable results of our diets, toxic exposures and stressors. And if we want to lower our susceptibility to the effects of future, more deadly pandemics, these are the patterns we need to resolve.
In a lot of ways it’s not even our fault.
We are gifted this mélange of ailments when we buy into the “faster, better mentality” that is now produced and shipped the world round in less than 24 hours. Empty calories at rock bottom prices, air, water and soil tainted by a century of pollution, and a constant bombardment of stress are all the unintentional consequences of our lifestyles and they lead directly to these diseases. This syndrome is marketed to us at an irresistible price, we merely strike a few keys and Mr. Bezos and others like him conveniently deliver a package to our door.
There are three main syndromes that cause the majority of illness and all three are intimately connected. The development of one predisposes you to the others. Overlapping, they are tangled together like a pile of ear bud cords in the junk drawer. They lead to each other, they feed one another, and they slowly and sneakily become the same spreading and infesting design. To work them apart you must untwist all three. Cheap, nutrient-bereft food, toxicity and stress are the keystones of this pyramid of disease.
The three diseases are cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes.
The Hydra started as a tiny beast suckling at Echidna’s breast and these three disease patterns all start as tiny worms, indistinct from one another. The triad require inflammation and poor circulation to turn into the fire-breathing dragons they eventually become. Once they are full-fledged disorders with distinct patterns they differentiate enough to require different treatments to eradicate them, but when they are little beasties, the exact same things stop them in their tracks.
Worldwide Death Tolls from Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD), Cancer and Diabetes
Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) – 18,000,000 deaths per year
Cancer – 9,500,000 deaths per year and 18,000,000 new cases per year
Diabetes – 2,000,000 deaths per year. 10% of the adult world population has diabetes
The hallmarks of these disease patterns are inflammation and poor circulation. They all need them, they all have them, and they are underlying causes of their destructive and invasive nature. The names of the diseases are different but they are all heads on the same beast.
Cardiovascular Disease – Inflammation in the presence of poor circulation
Cancer – Inflammation requiring poor circulation
Diabetes – Inflammation leading to poor circulation
Our blood is meant to flow smoothly throughout our entire body without restriction and when it doesn’t it, this leads to problems. The way these disorders march down their warpath of destruction is to perpetuate poor circulation while keeping the inflammation blazing. When circulation is poor and inflammation gets stuck somewhere, it burns and it destroys, like a fire hidden within the walls.