Degenerative Diseases

The major killers and cripplers in America now are heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, liver, kidney disease and cancer.  These diseases are also known as the “aging” or “degenerate” diseases, because they actually age or degenerate your body, and whether it’s premature or not, aging can’t be cure.  But it can be slowed down.

Suppose you bought a brand new compact car.  But, when they deliver it, you realize that somehow they made a mistake on the assembly line.  They put the chassis of a mid-side car on top of the frame of your little compact car.  What do you think will happen to your compact frame, suspension system, tires, engine fuel pump, fuel lines, and shock absorbers?  All the part especially designed for a compact care are going to wear out and age, or degenerate, very quickly with supporting a chassis that is too heavy to carry.  You won’t get much mileage on your new car.

That’s exactly what happens to you when you put on 30 or 40 extra pounds on a frame meant to carry a smaller load.  It simply wears out and ages, or degenerates faster.  You won’t even get decent mileage on it!  You can trade in your car, but not your body, unfortunately.  That’s why overweight is considered a degenerative disease.  It’s a health problem that happens internally because you’ll age and wear out before your time!

Let say you put sugar or fat in your gas tank.  Your fuel lines would clog and crack.  The chemical change would age the rubber, and it would harden and crack under the constant pressure.  Your car would not run, or if it did, it would always cause you problems.

In your body the blood vessels deliver nutrients and life-giving oxygen to your cells.  They are your body’s fuel line.  When these fuel lines get clogged or cracked, the target organs and tissue to which they deliver nutrients and oxygen do not get the right amount of fuel or the correct octane level.  That is why it is important to keep your fuel lines healthy, which means maintaining the proper levels of cholesterol, fat (triglycerides), and sugar (glucose) in your blood stream. If these values are too high, they lead to premature clogging and cracking of your body’s fuel lines, your arteries.  If your blood vessels age prematurely, even though you may be only forty but you will have the arteries, the organs and tissue of a fifty-five year old.

So what exactly is degenerative disease?  It is a “fuel-line” disease that results in your body parts aging or degenerating much more quickly than they should and, usually, too early in life.  When fuel lines from your heart harden or get stopped up, we call it heart disease.  (Atherosclerosis is clogging of the arteries.  Arteriosclerosis is hardening of the arteries)

If fuel lines to your brain are clogged, you are at risk for stroke.  Adult onset diabetes is a disease that weakens the large and small blood vessels.  Diabetics usually suffer from poor circulation to the eyes, major organs, and extremities such as arms, fingers, legs, and toes.  Liver disease and kidney disease are manifested when the blood supply to those vital organs is diminished.  Sight, hearing, even the wrinkling of your skin are all related to the basic and common process of aging or fuel –line delivery disease.

If your “engine”, the heart, is not being fueled correctly, it has to work harder.  When the fuel lines harden and cracked or clogged, your heart is forced t pump with greater pressure.  This is called high blood pressure, or hypertension.  If your body is too big for your pump and fuel lines, your blood pressure is likely elevated.

Thus , our bodies’ fuel lines go to and from our hearts delivering the essentials for life to all organs, muscles, and cells.  When these vital vessels aren’t working properly and aren’t doing an efficient job, the cells, muscles, and organs will wear out and age, or degenerate, thus the term “degenerate disease”.

Do you take better care of your than you do of your body?  Your car will eventually wear out, no matter how well you take care of it.  But you would feel cheated if you bought a brand new car and only got 25,000 miles on it before it broke down permanently.  Only if you had known that would happen, you would probably have taken better care of your car.  You might have used a better grade of fuel or oil, you would have paid more attention to maintaining the brakes, plugs, pistons and shocks.

This comparison is important to remember when you think about your body.  Your body is one item in your life you can’t trade in.  You can repair it, but it would be better to think about preventive maintenance.  “Take care” is always better than “repair”