Seven Canaries
Chronic fatigue — I write in the preface — will be the dominant chronic health disorder of the 21st century. This is the first core message of this book.

"Chronic fatiguers" are human canaries. In old mining days, miners carried canaries in cages deep into their mine shafts. The birds were a sort of intelligence system. If there were any poisonous gases in the shafts, the birds would warn the miners. When the birds collapsed or died, the miners knew there were toxic gases in the shaft even though they could not smell them. They left the birds and ran out to escape the poisonous mine gases.

Why did the canaries die when exposed to poisonous mine gases but not the miners? Why did the miners not suffer any ill-effects most of the time even though they were exposed to the same poisons that killed the canaries? The canaries died because of their small size — there was so little of their molecular defenses to be destroyed, so little of their energy and life span enzymes to be poisoned. Yet, the miners didn't die because there was so much of them to be poisoned. The differences between the canaries and miners are entirely quantitative — the basic chemical equation of life — the redox reaction — is the same in both. Oxidative molecular defenses in man and canary are identical, and so it is for such diverse living beings as single-celled bacteria, monkeys and monstrous dinosaurs.

Chronic fatiguers are human canaries. This is the second core message of this book. It must be understood by those who suffer from chronic fatigue states, and those who care for them t, hat chronic fatiguers are different. Viral infections that common people can clear in days leave chronic fatiguers exhausted for weeks and months. Ordinary people do not even recognize when they are exposed to common environmental pollutants such as formaldehyde, organic solvents such as xylene and toluene, perfumes, paints and car exhaust fumes. Most chronic fatiguers are debilitated by such exposures. Most people breeze through sugar, insulin and adrenaline roller coasters without blinking an eye until degenerative and immune disorders make their appearance years later. Not so with chronic fatiguers. Even an occasional ice-cream cone can put them in bed for hours. Most people are not aware of foods that cause adverse bowel responses and allergic reactions. Not so with chronic fatiguers. Minor indiscretions exact major tolls from them. A large number of common people go about their business with aluminum, mercury or lead overload, never knowing how these toxic metals are poisoning their life span enzymes. Not so with chronic fatiguers. Their immune and molecular dynamics cannot sustain such burdens. We all recognize what stress is and how it injures us — at least theoretically. Stress has altogether different dimensions for chronic fatiguers. Most people intellectualize about anger at dinner tables. Not so with chronic fatiguers. Anger is a constant companion for chronic fatiguers — except for those few who find new spiritual dimensions through windows of suffering opened by chronic fatigue.

Chronic fatiguers are different. The critical element for chronic fatiguers is not what microbes and toxins do; rather, it is how their molecular defenses fail to cope with such injury. For the human canaries, the soil (molecular and immune defenses) is more important than the seed (the virulence of microbes and toxicity of chemicals).

Environmental elements, of course, include those that surround us externally and those that exist within our internal ecosystems. Looked at another way, chronic fatiguers are people who have been genetically programmed to respond differently to microbial invasions and environmental toxins. Their vulnerabilities are woven into their genes.

GENES, ENVIRONMENT, CHRONIC FATIGUE AND CHOICES

Diseases, I wrote in The Cortical Monkey and Healing, are burdens on biology. These burdens are imposed upon our genetic makeup by our external and internal environment. The intensity of suffering — diseases as they evolve with time — caused by these burdens is profoundly influenced by a third element: the choices we make in our response to these burdens.

The core problem of medicine today — my friend Choua often says — is that we have raised generations of physicians who believe treatment of diseases without drugs or surgical scalpels is quackery. Choua calls the prevailing drug medicine in the United States N2D2 medicine — a medicine that starts with the name of a disease and ends with the name of a drug. It is a medicine, Choua says in elaborating his theory, in which all our deliberations, concerns, thinking and efforts are limited to finding a disease name for a patient and then finding a drug for that disease. He expresses it with the following formula:

N2D2 medicine = Name of Disease X Name of Drug

We are paying a prohibitive price for N2D2 medicine. There are effective, natural, nondrug and nonsurgical methods for the reversal of degenerative and immune disorders. Acute diseases, with rare exceptions, are not sudden departures from health. These are the protocols of nutritional medicine, environmental medicine, medicine of self-regulation and medicine of fitness. This is a different and much less expensive medicine.

The universe of electrons and cells within our skin is just as fascinating as the universe of Star Wars technology outside. The marvels of biology within us are much more relevant to our health and life span than are the miracles of medical technology. Patients need us physicians to help them look inward for disease reversal much more than they need the output of our prescription pads. This is the central issue facing medicine today.

Perhaps nowhere are these considerations and the relationships between genes, environment, illness and suffering as relevant as in chronic fatigue states. Chronic fatiguers have to make some choices.

First,

whether to search for one or more of those trendy diagnostic labels in vogue among the practitioners of drug medicine, or dispense with such frivolous notions and to think holistically about the energetic-molecular events that cause chronic fatigue states.

whether to opt for one of the megabuck, tail-end work-ups that definitely "proves" that we suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome or whether to select tests that reveal burdens on our biology that impair our energy and detoxification enzyme pathways and lead to chronic fatigue states.

Third,

whether to seek treatment from one or more of the "experts" of drug medicine who prescribe antidepressants, steroids, toxic antiviral agents and a host of other drugs for chronic fatigue, or to consult one of the physicians who integrate in their care protocols of nutritional medicine; environmental medicine; medicine of self-regulation; and slow, sustained exercise for restoring impaired energy enzyme pathways back to their normal states.

The essential issues in chronic fatigue states are mold and pollen allergy, food sensitivities, body burden of environmental pollutants, toxic metal overload, body temperature dysregulation and electrophysiological patterns that set us up for states of absence of health. These conditions lead to accelerated oxidative molecular injury and subsequent chronic fatigue states. Sound, long-term strategies must address these issues in order to restore normal energy pathways. The tools of Star Wars medicine have little to offer chronic fatiguers. Long-term success depends upon choices. Nothing is more important than those choices for chronic fatiguers.

CONTINUE CHAPTER 1 THE CANARY AND CHRONIC FATIGUE >>>