Disease vs. DIS-EASE
“New work is new work because it brings forth new explanations, differing from older explanations; therefore either demands new terms with present-day explanations; or using older terms with newer understandings and explanations…new interpretations of old terms bring forth new definitions.” - BJ Palmer, DC
Chiropractors focus on correcting DIS-EASE and not with treating disease. What's the difference? Why the capital letters and hyphenation of the word disease? Are Chiropractors just trying to be quirky or alternative?
While disease and DIS-EASE look and sound alike, their definitions are somewhat antipodal. Quoting Dr. Joseph Strauss, DC on DIS-EASE and disease: “The words are vastly different in their meaning. In fact, they are, to a degree, opposites.”
Simply put, disease is a medical term and DIS-EASE is a Chiropractic term. Disease is a term used by physicians to indicate sickness. In medicine, disease is the entity, the thing to be treated.
Chiropractors on the other hand don’t treat disease. Not because they think it doesn’t exist or is not worth treating. It is just not Chiropractic’s focus. Instead, the focus is on health. Health is the entity, the thing to strive for.
DIS-EASE is a term developed by Chiropractors to indicate a lack of EASE in the body. The word is hyphenated and capitalized to highlight this perspective. ‘DIS’ is a prefix that characterizes a lack, deficiency or inadequacy in the thing specified in the attached word. In this case, the thing lacking is EASE. So what is EASE?
EASE at its core is the expression of health. Other words such as coordination, transmission, adaptation, well-being, 100% quality, and soundness build upon the umbrella term of EASE and how it expresses health. When you lack health, you lack proper coordination, adaptation, well-being and so on.
DIS-EASE is the condition the body finds itself in when lacking its health potential. A vertebral subluxation causes a ‘lack of health’ in an individual. A vertebral subluxation puts the body in a state of DIS-EASE. This is what Chiropractic aims to correct.
A vertebral subluxation is when the top bones of the spine misalign, impinge nerves and interfere with how they function. How does this cause DIS-EASE?
Nerve function is foundational to all operations of the body. The Nerve System is the “Master” system that controls all the movements we make, senses everything we feel, regulates all our body organs and relates us to the outside world. The Nerve System controls these functions through direct and indirect nerve connections. These connections are mainly through pathways called nerve tracts. They are found and protected within the spinal column. The highest concentration of nerve tracts is at the upper cervical spine region.
Pressure on nerve tracts at the upper cervical spine causes an interference with how the Nerve System coordinates and transmits information. Dr. Chang H. Suh, PhD, a spinal biomechanics expert from the University of Colorado concluded from his research that “the weight of a dime on a spinal nerve will reduce nerve transmission by as much as sixty percent.” A lack of nerve function equates with a lack of health expression, hence, DIS-EASE.
Is correcting DIS-EASE instead of treating disease saying the same thing but in a different way? No. Correcting DIS-EASE fits into a different paradigm or model of care than what medicine uses. That model of care is called Salutogenesis.
Salutogensis is a term first coined in the 1970s by Dr. Aaron Antonovsky to describe aspects of health that didn’t fit the contemporary model of medicine. He developed his theory by studying how people manage stress and its effect on their health outcomes. His observations noted that even though stress is unavoidable, the better a person manages and resists stress, the healthier the individual is. Once he realized that health could be seen through a different lens, a different paradigm was warranted.
Salutogenesis literally means “that which gives birth to health.” It is the complete opposite of pathogenesis, which means “that which gives birth to disease.” Pathogenesis is the foundation of the contemporary medical model.
For example, when you are sick, medicine talks about the pathology of disease X, Y or Z. Or that a pathogen (germ agent) caused a disease. There are specialists within medicine, called Pathologists, who study the process of disease.
Pathogenesis is the focus on disease or illness and its prevention or treatment. Salutogenesis is the opposite. Salutogenesis asks the question: How do we create and maintain health? In a Salutogenic model, health is the starting point. Disease is the absence of health, not the other way around.
Even though the term Salutogenesis wasn’t coined yet when Chiropractic was discovered in 1895, Chiropractic has always embraced the “health first” mentality. Quoting Dr. Lyle Sherman, one of Chiropractic’s pioneers and clinical director at The B.J. Palmer Research Clinic: “All down through the ages, man has been looking for the cause of disease. Have you stopped to think that maybe there is no cause for disease; that perhaps what we are looking for or should look for is the cause of health...because we know that disease is not due to the presence of something but rather the absence of something.”
That absence is the expression of health. Chiropractic is concerned with how to improve overall function, not how to treat individual dysfunctions. Disease is characterized as an effect of dysfunction and DIS-EASE is described as a cause of dysfunction. Disease is an effect of something going wrong. A DIS-EASE, on the other hand, causes something to go wrong.
No matter the presence or absence of a singular disease, the body can’t function as well as it can with a vertebral subluxation.
Let me give an analogy. Let’s say you have a tight rubberband wrapped around your wrist. That tight rubberband is impinging tissue and the flow of information between the hand and forearm. Communication between these two areas is impaired. Depending on the character of the constriction, the function is less than 100%. You might say to yourself: it's just a rubberband, how much trouble can it cause?
But what if that rubberband remains there for days, weeks, months or even years? What negative effects could result from that? What types of problems could arise from the impingement? No matter what else is going on in the body, it can’t function as best it can with that impingement.
One more analogy. The aorta is the largest artery that extends off the heart and connects oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. What if there was a tight rubberband wrapped around the aorta? That tight rubberband impinges the flow of blood between the heart and the rest of the body. What would that do to the function of the cardiovascular system? Depending on the character of the constriction, the function is less than 100%.
What if that rubberband remains there for days, weeks, months or even years? What negative effects could result from that impingement? No matter what else is going on in the body, it can’t function as best it can with that impingement.
Now for a reality. A vertebral subluxation does impinge nerves at the brainstem and interferes with how the Nerve System functions. The Nerve System coordinates and transmits information less than 100%. How our body moves, senses, regulates and relates lacks its true potential.
No matter what else is going on in the body, it can’t function as best it can with a vertebral subluxation. It is in a state of DIS-EASE. A Chiropractic adjustment removes a stumbling block to your well-being.
A specific Chiropractic adjustment removes a significant ‘DIS’ to the ‘EASE’ of our health expression. When health is unmodified, we can live closer to our potential.
- Jarek Esarco, D.C.
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