We have been looking at health as a continual process, and in the last article we defined this process according to Dr. Reckeweg’s belief that disease begins on the ‘outside’ of  the body (or in the superficial body), and moves deeper in, through each of six different phases. This process terminates in the very nucleus of the cell, where changes are made by the offending agent, thus bringing on serious illness in the body.

Now, we will consider the work of another pioneer in the health field.

Emanuel Revechee, M.D., wrote a book on physiopathology in which he discussed cancer and the cancer process.  When we think of cancer, very often we picture it as the unabated and uncontrolled growth of cells inside the body. This aberrant growth of cells moves the body out of balance, thus causing the terrible illness that ravages and very often kills. Dr. Revechee, however saw the process on an organizational level consisting of six phases, moving from the inside of the body to the outside.

This is very interesting to me, because it seems to contradict what Reckeweg wrote in his theory about the disease process moving from outside of the body into the center of the body, which would be the nucleus of the cell. But, I would submit to you that the two processes are not mutually exclusive, but connected. The precancerous changes in the cell that Dr. Revechee talks about are, in fact, the continuation of the disease process that Dr. Reckeweg described. In other words, the last step of Reckeweg’s disease process which ends in the nucleus of the cell is the first step of Revechee’s cancer process. At this level, we are not at an end of the disease process, but the beginning of an even more harmful process, which can travel throughout the body and has the potential of turning quite deadly.

According to Dr. Revechee, the cell, whose nucleus has been invaded, is now precancerous.  The next step or non-invasive phase causes chromosomal abnormalities to begin to develop.  If this continues, further changes take place in the cell, which lead to the abnormal cell growth with which we are all familiar. This is known as the invasive phase of the cancer process. The patient has no discernable symptoms, for all this, so he is unaware at this point that he is even in danger.

However, in the next stage known as the painful phase, the changes in the cells begin to move out into the intercellular fluid space, where the nerve endings are located. The result of this is pain in the body. It is usually at this time that the patient discovers he is ill.

In the preterminal phase, the biochemical changes in the body now affect various organs, which may or not contain cancerous cells at this point. This progresses into the terminal phase in which the metabolic function of the affected cells is no longer normal. The disease is now systemic and fully capable of taking life.

With the onset of the manifestation of cancer, the disease process has come full circle. It started in the superficial or outside of the body and traveled deeper in until it reached the cell nucleus. Then, it made its way back through the body via the cancer process until it became systemic and deadly.

This is, in brief, the process that leads to either health and wellness, or sickness and disease, depending on which direction it is moving over the long run, or how we handle it at any given stage in the short run.  In this continuum, we are either progressing toward health or digressing toward death. Understanding this gives us a whole new set of health principles to consider, which are completely different from what, at the present time, is considered to be orthodox in mainstream medical thought.

In the next several articles, we will discuss several different case articles to demonstrate how the health disease continuum process actually works.

To your good health!

Dr. Jon R. Link