Take a few seconds and think about the word "disease." What comes to mind?

Most of us think of a "disease" as a fixed state of decreased health. It's something that can be "caused" and sometimes "cured" or "managed," but it's definitely an "it."  A thing. A noun. Something that either exists or doesn't exist.

Big deal, you say? Howie's been reading the dictionary again. Who cares?

In a meeting with T. Colin Campbell (author of The China Study, the only book ever pitched on bended knee by Gary Player live on the Golf Channel), a bunch of us were examining the current model of health care. Dr. Campbell, who has made a career of looking at the obvious and seeing trends that nobody else notices, threw out a comment that our prevailing definition of "disease" is very limiting, and actually leads us to do things that don't really work very well.

What is he talking about? 

Specifically, we were looking at the way the medical establishment deals with a patient with heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. Everything is about drugs and surgery, and maintaining patient compliance around consuming the products created by the medical industry. Prevention or treatment or reversal of disease by lifestyle is all but unknown to doctors and patients alike.

What assumptions about disease can we reverse engineer from this scenario?

The Existing Medical Mindset

1. Disease just "happens" to people.

We're either genetically predisposed to a disease, or we're not. If we're a ticking time bomb, the best we can do is spend a lot of time and money on screening and early detection. This has been the model of the breast cancer industry, which has, incredibly, sold us on the idea that "screening" - finding cancerous or precancerous lumps already in the breast - is actually a form of "prevention."

2. Once you "have" a disease, it won't go away unless you cut it out or drug it into submission.

In this mindset, a disease is like a tattoo. A tattoo is permanent, unless you agree to some painful and fairly disfiguring intervention to remove it. You can't eat or exercise or relax your tattoo away.

3. If your disease is "cured" by drugs or surgery, there's nothing you can do to decrease your chances of getting it again.

Cancer returned? Tough luck. Need another angioplasty? Let me see your insurance card. If you're one of the unlucky ones, you'll just have to deal with it again.

My friend Robert was talking about Thomas Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (which I used to quote in college papers but never actually read), and how new facts seldom lead to new ways of thinking. Scientific revolutions, according to Kuhn according to Robert, occur when one generation dies off and a new generation can look at the facts objectively and form a totally new mindset.

With that in mind, I present a new mindset about disease that is supported by the research and clinical practice conducted by a number of medical heroes in the field of Lifestyle Medicine:

The New Lifestyle Mindset

1. "Disease" is a process that is either being reinforced or undercut by the way we treat our bodies.

Heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, among many other chronic diseases, are primarily diseases of malnutrition. Not malnutrition as in not enough calories, like we think of, but in two other ways: too much bad stuff (animal protein, processed foods) and not enough good stuff (phytonutrients, fiber).

Diseases don't just "happen." Apples don't just fall randomly from trees at any speed in any direction - they fall in accordance with gravity. Forest fires don't just appear out of nowhere - they start with a spark and grow with dry fuel and sufficient oxygen. Why would the causal laws of the universe so inconveniently suspend themselves when it comes to human biology?

I know this is a hard pill to swallow if you or someone you love has a scary disease. You could angrily protest that I'm hard-heartedly blaming the victim. I apologize if my tone leads you there. But facts are facts. People with cholesterol below 150 don't get heart attacks. Women in China in the 1980s  who ate very small amounts of animal protein did not get breast cancer. Osteoporosis is unknown among populations who exercise and don't consume dairy products. I'm not saying that every single disease is completely preventable, but the evidence is clear that the vast majority - somewhere between 75-95% of cancers, and probably a higher percentage of heart diseases and stroke - need not occur.

If you're visiting a friend in the hospital who got injured in a car accident because they were dialing their cell phone and missed a light, you probably don't want to engage in advice-giving or scolding. It's too late - your "I told you so" isn't going to make anything better. Their fractured sternum isn't going to heal faster if they stop making phone calls on Route 70 West.

But as you'll see, "disease" isn't something that just stays with us once we have it.

2. The same nutritional and other lifestyle habits that grow disease must remain in place to support it.

Disease isn't like getting on a train and going to Redondo Beach. It's more like unicycling to Redondo beach. Stop pedaling, and you stop making progress.

Stop feeding your disease unhealthy foods, and something remarkable often happens: your disease starts to reverse itself. How significantly depends on a lot of factors, but the basic dynamic is: live healthy, get healthier.

Stop feeding processed food and animal products to your cancer, and your cancer will stop growing.

Shut off the flow of refined foods and animal protein to your diabetes, and it will go away.

Cut out the trans fats, saturated fats and animal proteins, and your heart and cardiovascular system will regenerate.

This is the greatest secret in modern medicine, known and demonstrated beyond doubt by maverick practitioners like Joel Fuhrman, Caldwell Esselstyn, Hans Diehl, Dean Ornish, John McDougall, Alan Goldhamer, Robert Rosati and many others.

A disease is not a tattoo - it's most often the body's symptomatic response to an ongoing, not one-time, stimulus. Remove the stimulus before it's too late (before the body's ability to regenerate is exhausted), and in many cases, the disease halts or reverses or even disappears.

3. Since disease is a process that must be maintained, you can largely disease-proof yourself and your family, even if you have a personal or family history of chronic disease

This is a heavy one to drop on you, I know. It's certainly too much responsibility for the average person. And the culture tells us we're killjoys and tight-asses if we deny ourselves and our children treats like ice cream, candy, chicken nuggets, cola, birthday cake, cupcakes at school, and so on. And most doctors would ignorantly disagree with the statement, based on inadequate exposure to the research and the field of lifestyle medicine.

But a revolution is medicine is coming. It's coming because too many young doctors are tired of fighting losing battles against preventable and reversible diseases. Because doctors are tired of being pushed around by managed care limitations on how much time they can spend with patients. Because General Motors can't compete against foreign carmakers after having to increase the price of each car nearly two grand just to pay for the disease-care costs of their workers.

You can wait for the revolution. But you can also be part of it right now. Start by reading Dr. Campbell's The China Study. Next, if you have children, devour Dr. Fuhrman's Disease-Proof Your Child. Check out his website to read story after story of disease reversal through nutritional excellence.

Visit the websites of other mavericks:

Caldwell Esselstyn

John McDougall

Hans Diehl - CHIP

Alan Goldhamer - True North

Robert Rosati

Dean Ornish

If you need practical implementation advice, download the FitFam Action Guide that shows you how to begin to make healthful, disease-preventing and disease-reversing improvements in your life right now.

It's your choice. It's your health - and it's in your hands.