staying healthy principlesnow) for health professionals is to wait for disease to happen, then
jump in and fix it—just the part that is broken and not the multiple
pathways (spokes) that led to the broken part.
For a fracture or torn cartilage, this type of medicine is needed
and appreciated. For chronic diseases (heart disease, diabetes,
cancers, bone loss, etc.), there is some initial benefit, but in the
long run, because you are only dealing with the spoke and not the
whole wheel of why this chronic disease exists, it is bound to fail
therapeutically, economically, and for the individual and society.
I look at your health this way: You come to me with a variety of
complaints and a few major ones. I look at these complaints as the
endpoint of a group of loose spokes. Some I will be able to identify;
some I won’t. Maybe I can’t help you tighten all the loose spokes,
but if I help you tighten four or five spokes at once, then your wheel
(wellness) begins to turn a bit better. With time, if we do things right
and keep tightening four or five of these spokes (or a few more that
we discover), your wheel begins to “self-tighten” its own spokes,
and your wheel of health begins to really turn smoothly. You begin
to cruise with your health. Then we just keep gently tightening the
majority of the spokes with good lifestyle (i.e., TRIAD Wellness
Program) and you ride smoothly through life.
Why Traditional Medicine Fails
Traditional medicine has specialties for each individual spoke
in your wheel of health. There is nothing wrong with that if you
“bust” that spoke. When I needed both my ACLs repaired, I wanted
the orthopedic knee specialist whose expertise was ACL recon-
struction to do the job.
Yes, we need specialists—but we should be in a position to
need a lot fewer of them. As long as the vast majority of reim-
bursement in our medical care model goes to those who fix the
“busted spokes” (i.e., heart surgeries, angioplasties, hip and knee
replacements, cataract surgeries, etc.) and not to those who help
the public keep the daily self-tightening of their major spokes in
check (hopefully primary care physicians and other allied health