The Triad of Health

The Triad of Health

There are many ways to look at health.  In Applied Kinesiology we like to consider health as a “Triad” or triangle. The three legs of the triangle are structural, chemical and mental.  Ideal health is when all sides of the triad are equal to one another (equilateral triangle); this means that the person in question has ideal or optimal health.  The individual with less than optimal health will have an imbalance on one or more of these areas of health.  It’s important to note that nowhere in this discussion is pain or lack of it part of health, because it isn’t.  Pain is a natural response to noxious or abnormal stimuli.  It is normal for someone to have pain after they hit their hand with a hammer, but they are no less healthy.  Health is the optimal function that should have minimal noxious stimuli present.

Structural

The structural part of health includes the relationship between the muscles, bones and nerves.  This can be taken further to include all the joints of the body, in addition to the spine.  Since we stand on two feet, improper movement of the bones in the feet, ankles or the muscles and ligaments that support them can cause symptoms in more distant joints. This is due to our ability to adapt to a problem subconsciously and overstressing other regions to compensate.

The bones of the skull need to move slightly, if they don’t they can put an abnormal stress on the brain through the very thick protective covering called duramater (Latin fortough mother).  Also, live bone is much more flexible than most realize. This flexing of these bones help circulate the cerebral spinal fluid which bathes and provides nutrition for the brain and central nervous system. The term for this in the chiropractic realm is the sacral-occipital respiratory mechanism.  On average there are 206 bones in the body. In the spine with 26 moveable segments there are 6-8 joints for each segment. This translates to approximately 180 joints just in the spine.  So just giving a good spinal adjustment can be a daunting and extremely powerful task.

Chemical

The chemical portion of the triad is the nutrition, diet and the biochemistry of the patient. We have approximately 5000 chemical reactions occurring each second in each of the billion cells of our body.

In biochemistry we know that we are all unique based upon our genetics.  A new field of study called Nutrigenomics looks at ones diet in relation to their genes.  This field of study breaks it down into a three-part equation.  This is accomplished by looking at an individual’s genes and how their diet and environment influence them. 

We have no control over our genes.  However, we do have control over the other two thirds of this equation.  We control what we put in our bodies by way of the foods that we eat.  We also control the environment that we live under.  Our environment includes where we live, work and play everyday.  If we live under stressful circumstances this will then have an adverse affect on our over all health.  By ignoring the environmental and dietary influences of health, this can then have an influence on an individual’s genetic profile.   Thus, bringing out their inherited diseases versus the opposite possibility of suppressing it and letting it lay dormant. 

With our needs dictated by genetics, our internal and external environments are all overseen by the nervous system.  Even something as simple as nutrition is very complex.  In order to get proper nutrition the food must enter the mouth where it is chewed and identified by the brain through the senses of smell and taste.  The brain then signals the glands to secrete the proper chemicals which mix with the food to start breaking it down.  The food enters the stomach where more chemicals mix with food in the proper proportion at the proper time. Once it leaves the stomach the food must be raised to a much higher pH so that it doesn’t burn the small intestines.  After getting mixed with other chemicals it gets selectively absorbed.  Upon entering the large intestines the remaining food with help of a friendly array of bacteria breaks down some more and gets selectively absorbed.  If all this goes well, at the proper time with the proper proportions and of course the proper food entering the stomach then the body should get adequate nutrition.  Notice nutrition is not an easy subject.  Arriving at the proper solution is not possible from laboratory tests at this time in our lives.  Applied Kinesiology is an approach in which many of these questions can be answered in a safe, cost effective manner.

Mental

This aspect of health is crucial.  You don’t have to want to be healthy to get healthier.  You don’t have to believe something will work for it to work, but it helps.  There are many psychiatric problems that have a physiological or physical cause.  Whether it is depression due to inadequate blood sugar control, food sensitivities or constant pain as in fibromyalgia.  These are chemical and structural causes of “mental” problems.  They can be evaluated using Applied Kinesiology.  The sides of the equilateral triangle interrelate with each other.  A constant structural strain will affect ones emotions.  The emotions can then affect the digestive system, which will affect the chemistry in terms of nutritional deficiencies.  This can then lead to muscle weaknesses, which will further aggravate the structural strain.  A unified and cohesive approach is important and necessary.

Unfortunately, today’s health care has promoted extreme specialization.  This has provided for good results in highly specific conditions but not necessarily in overall health in the general population.  Problems exist when a specialist maybe treating a patient for a problem on one side of the triangle and the actual problem lies on one of the other areas of the triad. An example of this is the use of painkillers and muscle relaxants for structural problems with a known cause.  You fix the cause and you will fix the problem.

Applied Kinesiology is another tool that a qualified health care practitioner may utilize to help gather more information about the patient and their condition.  It’s a thorough system that looks at the body from a global perspective to help the patient achieve optimal health.