“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.” — Winston S Churchill
Public health is the health of the public—the common man/woman on the street. Medical education, the governments in all countries and the powers that be are all after sickness-care and the vaccine industry. In essence, a doctor should be trained for keeping the public healthy. What are the basic tools of keeping people healthy? The essence of good health is a strong immune system—our inner healer and protector of our health. Indians used to believe that the immune system is needed to protect us only against germ invasion and not as a guard against chronic, lifestyle diseases. I used to believe, and have a hypothesis, that the immune system guards against almost all diseases—from common cold to cancer.
This was my hunch; but a new study gives credence to that view—that a sturdy immune system could protect us from heart attacks, despite conventional risk factors like high blood pressure which, incidentally, has been proven to be of not much use in predicting a heart attack. After studying a group of patients with high blood pressure, researchers found those with higher levels of certain antibodies had a lower risk of heart attack—regardless of other risk factors. They suggest that a blood test to measure antibody levels could help assess a person’s risk of heart attack. The study found higher blood levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin (IgG) were linked to lower risk of heart attack in a group of people with high blood pressure. This study was from Imperial College (London) and is published in the journal Ebiomedicine.
Lead author Dr Ramzi Khamis, a consultant cardiologist and clinical research fellow at Imperial College, was of the opinion: “Linking a stronger, more robust immune system to protection from heart attacks is a really exciting finding. As well as improving the way we tell who is at the highest risk of a heart attack so that we can give them appropriate treatments, we now have a new avenue to follow in future work.”
While this gives us better tools to build our immune system as the foundation of public health against all ills, it reaffirms the Ayurvedic faith in the inner healer to preserve health, right from infancy. On a given day in this world, there might be a few million people sick, while the vast majority of the six-odd billion are healthy. My hypothesis helps the healthy to remain so thereby reducing the rising costs of disease-care in our present medical-care claptrap, most of which is driven by human greed to make money out of fellow human misery, what I call unethical commerce!
Having defined the problem, we have to explore how we can maintain a good immune system living in an unhealthy atmosphere obtaining today in this world driven by industrialisation and chemical poisoning of even our crops from seeds to manure! Indian wisdom had it that boosting the immune system is a guard against almost all ills. That is why the elaborate panchakarma procedures were built into its therapeutic regime. That is for the management of an individual; but the society, as a whole, needs the following for the rich and the poor alike. That said, I must hasten to add that a healthy mind is a good immune booster and a strong insurance against illnesses. Frustration, depression, anger, pride, jealousy and super ego are powerful immune depressors.
Public health can be vastly improved by providing clean drinking water for all; (the bottled reverse-osmosis water could be dangerous as it takes away minerals that might be there in the water and also makes the water marginally acidic in pH); three square meals a day for the lowest of the low—uncontaminated by human and/or animal excreta; roof over one’s head for the poor; a toilet for every house; and proper sewage system for all places.
“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.” — Kurt Vonnegut
Kids must be taught good food and hygiene habits instead of drilling the achievements of Akbar or how great the Mughals were...
Employers can be encouraged (tax breaks?) to hold screening camps, provide sports/gym facilities
Promote Yoga, swimming etc. by providing points which can be used as marks in academics