Know Where Chronic Disease Comes From

Weston Price, a dentist and researcher, lived here in the United States, in Cleveland. He was interested in disease origins, the factors that cause disease.

Price noted his patients had the obvious dental problems of tooth decay, gum problems, poor jaw structure and crowded teeth, but he was curious why they also were victimized by chronic diseases. They suffered from infertility, cancer, arthritis and heart disease, the same lot that plagues us as we enter the new millennium.

As a matter of fact, things haven't changed very much since Dr. Price's day. 98% of our people are afflicted with dental decay; 24 out of 25 children have become victims of dental disease before age six; and degenerative disease is rampant.

The genius of Weston Price lay in his deciding it made no sense to run with the crowd whose research efforts centered upon the diseased. Instead of focusing his efforts in the U.S., where people are predisposed to degenerative disease, he decided to look at healthy folks. To find healthy folks, Price decided he had to go elsewhere.

So he packed up, went to the mountains in Peru, remote South Pacific islands, the back country of Africa and Australia, distant villages in the Swiss Alps, Alaska and northern Canada, and some obscure islands off Scotland.

Instead of walking through the door of disease and treatment, as does the medical research establishment, Price walked through the door of health and prevention.

What exactly did Price do?

By looking in distant people's mouths he generated a lot of statistics, and he took many pictures of the healthy people he studied.

From a dental standpoint he found good jaw structure, straight teeth, no gum disease and no decay. And, lo and behold, the dentally healthy did not suffer from obesity, nor arthritis, cancer or heart disease.

Dr. Price's research showed how healthy people eat. By examining their diets he discovered the foods they ate were nutrient-dense. Their diets were very rich in minerals and vitamins. Their foods had four times the amount of minerals found in the American diet of Price's time, back in the 1930's & 40's.

Price's healthy ones ate foods naturally rich in minerals, either seafood from mineral-rich waters or meats and vegetables from animals and plants that were nourished by mineral-rich soil.

Price discovered a routine pattern developed when those healthy people adopted our refined, processed foods based upon sugar and white flour, what he called the "foods of commerce." Without fail, wherever the trading post was located, tooth decay and gum disease began to skyrocket, and people soon developed arthritis, followed by the other degenerative diseases found in modern Europe and America.

You and I are just like those folks. When we consume food and water deficient in minerals, our metabolic enzyme systems break down, and we too begin to lose our immunity to degenerative disease.

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Copyright 2004 William R. Quesnell

Bill Quesnell, health educator and author of 'Minerals: The Essential Link to Health,' helps people recover energy and vitality.