The Health Hazards of Modern Life by Simon J Rees ND

List of contents

Why are the rates of autism, cancer and other diseases worsening? Why do we get sick from all these diseases nowadays?
So why do we get sick and why are so many diseases on the rise?
Why do we get sick from all these diseases – is it due to emotional or physical stress?
Then it must be that we are getting sick for genetic reasons?
Then how about diet – perhaps that is the reason why we are getting so many diseases?
What about lack of sunlight?
Disease factors on the rise since the 1990s
Which are the most harmful to ‘The 5 Key Organ Systems’?

Why are the rates of autism, cancer and other diseases worsening? Why do we get sick from all these diseases nowadays?

Why do we get sick? And why are more and more of us getting sick in our lifetimes? Nowadays none of us can expect to remain free of disease until the day we die. Yet if modern life presented no dangers to health, we would have a civilization where people are born, live and die without unpleasant, degenerative diseases in between birth and death.

My personal vision for humanity is that this can and should be accomplished, as a new standard of living for future generations. Living Systems Medicine (LSM) sets out the tools to achieve this, by explicitly and uniquely basing itself on the science of living systems. This is, in other words, the science of how to help ourselves, since we are all living systems.

Alas, our civilization is not yet one free of degenerative diseases. What, then, are the dangers of modern life which are responsible? Why do we get sick?

If the causes of disease were truly understood and resolved, and if the billions of dollars of medical research were being spent correctly, then people would be getting healthier rather than sicker, with each year that passes. So, are they? A simple analysis shows that the answer is no, and that modern medical research has so far failed us where it counts. The rates of many serious, degenerative diseases are increasing at an alarming, unexplained rate. By way of introduction, I will therefore start with some numbers, which speak for themselves.

Here are the current rates of occurrence of the following small sampling of diseases (reflecting how many people who live to retirement age in the USA will have each of these conditions at some time in their lives, as at 2020 statistics):

With this in mind, I will now consider the grand question of “WHY?”

Why do we get sick? And above all, why have diseases like those listed above risen at such an alarming rate in recent decades, and why are they still continuing to rise?

In considering this fundamental question, I will then present LSM as a revolutionary new approach to healthy living in modern times, in a series of articles building on this one.

So why do we get sick and why are so many diseases on the rise?

Everyone and their uncle thinks they have the answer, but I would like to pose a simple, irrefutable analysis which can help cut through a lot of incorrect answers, and hone in on root causes more effectively.

It is reasonable to suppose that there must be one or more factors in modern life which are different to those which our ancestors had to suffer. For millions of years, human beings lived relatively free of modern, degenerative diseases like those listed above. They had different problems.

So, let us consider some possibilities.

Why do we get sick from all these diseases – is it due to emotional or physical stress?

Could it be that people nowadays are more stressed? Is stress the reason? Perhaps the true cause of modern disease rates is emotional? I am sure you know people who claim this. I have heard it claimed by many people. Yet I will show why this cannot be the root cause, based on simple logic.

In olden times, lives were often cut short by infection or toil. Let’s face it, for most of our ancestors life was hard.

For a start, can you imagine how emotionally traumatic it must have been for the average parent to lose several children before they even became adults? It was normal for this to be the case.

I will take the family of the famous 18th century composer J. S. Bach as an example. Let us consider how stressful life might have been for him.

Even though he is now remembered as one of the greatest musical geniuses of history, and as “the Shakespeare of music”, Bach was not recognized as such during his lifetime. He was considered second-rate, with other composers such as Telemann being far more esteemed, even though few people nowadays know who Telemann was.

Throughout Bach’s career, and in between periods of financial struggle, he had to find and work with sponsors, and do his best to cater to their expectations, rather than having musical freedom. For instance, there was only one period – arguably his most creatively brilliant one – when he had the freedom to compose music that did not HAVE to be religious, because during most other periods that was the expectation. Imagine, by way of comparison, if Shakespeare had only been allowed to write plays about stories that were in the Bible! It would be unthinkable, and would certainly have narrowed his range. (Sidenote: this is not a criticism of religious music or of stories in the Bible – it is a comment on the freedom of an artist to choose his or her themes).

Then when Bach died, his manuscripts were divided amongst his children, some of which were lost because not much was thought of them. About a century later, the composer Mendelssohn discovered the only surviving copies of some of Bach’s manuscripts being used to wrap meat in a butcher’s shop! He managed to save them, but many of his contemporaries considered him an old-fashioned loon for liking Bach’s work.

As a child, Bach was forbidden access to any music manuscript paper, due to the expense. So he would creep downstairs at night to steal pages down from a high shelf and practice copying out pieces of music, at risk of punishment. Unbelievable as it may sound, one of history’s most celebrated musical geniuses was not even allowed manuscript paper in his formative years!

Before he reached the age of 11, the young Bach lost both of his parents.

At the age of 22, he married his first wife, Maria, and they had 7 children, of whom only 4 survived into adulthood.

At the age of 35, Bach returned from a road trip to find that Maria had unexpectedly died in his absence, and had already been buried before his return. I can hardly begin to imagine how that would have felt!

Later he married his second wife Anna, and together they had 13 children, of whom only 6 survived into adulthood.

Just imagine!

How many people do you know who have lost 10 of their children while those children were growing up, as well as losing their first spouse before the end of their 30s?

For most people living nowadays, this would all be considered an exceptionally emotionally traumatic life story.

Yet Bach lived a relatively long and notably healthy life for his era, dying at the age of 65, and even then only due to iatrogenesis (i.e., medically induced causes), namely side effects of an eye operation he received.

I know that this is only one man’s life story. However, I decided to share it in detail in the hopes that you will find it memorable, as I have found it myself, in clearly illustrating the basic observation that anyone who claims there are more chronic diseases nowadays due to “stress” or due to “emotional causes” is not being logical.

Life is emotionally stressful now, and has always been. If anything, it could be argued that our ancestors had more emotional stress than we do, but certainly the argument that we have more emotional stress than they did doesn’t hold water.

As to physical stress, once again it could be argued that our ancestors had far more physical stress and toil than many people do nowadays, or at least that they were as stressed as we are, but it would not be logical to propose that we in general have MORE stress than they did.

It might perhaps be argued that the TYPE of stress has changed. Park that thought for a moment – I will return to that. For now, I wanted to make the basic observation that our ancestors were often VERY emotionally and physically stressed, and continuously so throughout their lives – yet did not suffer the high rates of degenerative diseases that we do today – even in cases where they were long-lived like Bach was.

Then it must be that we are getting sick for genetic reasons?

With the emphasis placed on genetic research nowadays, anyone would think that it must be our genes that are responsible for the illnesses of modern life.

Clearly this is not the case, though, since the epidemic rise of many degenerative diseases in recent decades has happened so quickly that there has not been time for genetic changes to account for it. In fact, the problem is that due to other factors that are making us sick, we have not had time to adapt; our genes are trailing behind.

The field of epigenetics has sprung up, with exciting research indicating that it is not so much our genetic material that causes diseases, as epigenetic factors which activate or inactivate various genes. Think of the genes like a switch which for millions of years did not cause these sweeping epidemics of modern disease, and which is suddenly being “switched on” by modern causative factors. These causative factors are clearly not the genes themselves.

Why, then, is medical research so gene-centric? I know this will sound cynical, but the unavoidable conclusion is financial motives. The mapping of the human genome was something that the boards of directors of pharmaceutical companies – legally answerable to profit-desiring shareholders – looked forward to, because with it came the prospect of patenting many new profitable drugs. However, whether all this genetic research has anything to do with the true causes of disease or not is not a question anyone dares to ask, since who would want to be a party-pooper?

Then how about diet – perhaps that is the reason why we are getting so many diseases?

A better argument can be made for diet, since here, unlike in the previous examples considered, we actually have a factor which has fundamentally changed in recent times. When wondering, “why do we get sick?”, could it be that here we have have found the true, underlying cause?

Weston A Price brilliantly documented the health changes which followed the introduction of modern diets, in terms of processed foods. One of the many examples he wrote about during the 1920s concerned residents of a remote Swiss village. He photographically documented their healthy facial bone structure, dental health and general health until a road was built connecting the village to the rest of society. After the road was built, a local shop was set up, to sell supplies brought in from outside, consisting of many types of processed foods. Following this, the facial bone structure, dental health and general health all significantly declined in the villagers. This was one of many such examples in Weston A Price’s work, spanning several continents where he studied an extraordinary range of traditional versus modern diets.

A related factor, which the Weston A Price Foundation and others have done much to document, is that many traditional diets were rich in different forms of probiotic, prebiotic, unhomogenized, soily (including soil-based organisms) or fermented foods. By comparison, foods nowadays are lacking in microbial diversity. Experts in studies of the gut microbiome (our “friendly flora”) are increasingly recognising this as another factor which has much changed. (And in addition to diet, the microbiome inside of us is affected by various other factors that are more common in modern life – such as heavy metals, Caesarean births and not breastfeeding).

It is reasonable to suppose that diet may be playing a role in the development of modern disease rates, and that it may be a key role.

However, it is also reasonable to suppose that this is not in itself the most important factor, or at least that there have since been even worse factors involved, given that the worst increases in disease rates have happened since the 1990s, whereas the introduction of modern diets had already largely taken place over several generations before that.

Well, let’s expand this point, in order to consider the excesses of the food and agricultural industries, including the depletion of our soils caused by poor soil management practices since the introduction of pesticides. With every decade that has passed since WWII, soils have become more and more depleted of key nutrients – with magnesium topping the list as possibly the most important and widespread nutritional deficiency of modern times, as a direct result of this. And is magnesium important to our health? It certainly is.

We could even point out that all of this has got even worse in recent years – yet not to such a dramatic or new degree that on its own could account for the dramatic rise of diseases in this more recent time period (since the 1990s), compared to previous time periods where these same trends were already long in motion. Nonetheless, we will make a note that changes in diet and agricultural practices may be a major, underlying contributing factor.

What about lack of sunlight?

Moving on from diet, to continue addressing the question, “why do we get sick at such alarming rates nowadays?”, let’s consider also if there might be other aspects of our lifestyle which have radically changed, compared to how our ancestors used to live.

Here, then, is another one that we can pinpoint: most people nowadays live a largely indoor life. Our ancestors, by comparison, lived much more of an outdoor life. Is it possible that this has affected our health?

Yes, it certainly is possible – and in recent decades there has been a deepening of research in this area, especially with regard to vitamin D – a hormone that we produce on our skin following sunlight exposure. Back in the 1950s, vitamin D was recognized mainly because if you become severely deficient you can get a bone condition called “rickets”. Not much more than this was known. Official “adequate levels” of vitamin D are still based on this very outdated science – leading many vitamin D researchers to lobby governments ongoingly to increase the level of vitamin D classified as “adequate”!

More recently, vitamin D has come to be recognized as a CENTRAL substance needed for the healthy function of our immunity, cardiovascular system, brain (including for sleep and mood), musculo-skeletal system, gut microbiome and other areas. To give just one example: rates of multiple sclerosis (M.S.) increase as you move north – leading M.S. researchers to factor in vitamin D research as a major area of ongoing M.S. research. And this is just touching the tip of a large iceberg, in terms of the large constellation of health problems that have been linked to vitamin D deficiency.

So can we say that a lack of sunlight is a key danger of modern life? Yes, we can. And this includes key related observations such as:

  • Sunlight through glass is not sufficient for our vitamin D needs.
  • Sunlight on our face and hands is not sufficient either.
  • If we scrub the exposed areas of skin within 48 hours of sunlight exposure we will interfere with the manufacture of vitamin D there as well – so even over-showering can worsen the problem (unless we shower without scrubbing our arms, legs and torso)!

In addition to vitamin D, we get other important benefits from sunlight, too – including benefits to our hormone and neurotransmitter systems, which are key to many functions such as energy, sleep, circadian rhythms and cognitive function.

Can we say that a lack of sunlight is the main explanation for the rise of degenerative diseases since the 1990s, though? No, we can’t – because we began to lead a mainly indoor life many generations earlier. So we will chalk this one up to being a MAJOR factor but not THE MOST CENTRAL one to answer our main question concerning worsening health since the 1990s. . . as we continue on our quest to find out why we get sick at such concerning and increasing rates in the modern era.

Disease factors on the rise since the 1990s

This all therefore leads me on to ask my main question: what exactly are the dangers of modern life which have become more prevalent since the 1990s? This could then help us begin to answer the fundamental question, “why do we get sick at such alarming modern rates?” If we can identify some key suspects, then we may be closer to identifying the root causes of these disease epidemics.

Here is a partial list of some examples of potentially insidious disease factors which have been on the rise since the 1990s. If you have ever wondered, ‘why do we get sick so much these days?’ then the answer may well be on this list. I will consider the degree of potential harm of each factor afterwards, but first let us draw up a list of key contenders, including a few observations about each along the way:

    • Mercury and other heavy metals

      These are on the rise because it has been established that each generation passes its own mercury body burden on to the next generation. This is due to mercury being a retentive, bioaccumulative poison, which readily crosses the placental barrier. The same applies to other metals, such as lead. This means that most of what goes in, doesn’t come out. What, then, goes in? Unfortunately, each generation has been delivered significant amounts of mercury, via gradual, long-term exposures including mercury dental fillings, vaccine preservatives, large-scale environmental pollution with mercury from coal-powered industry, and many other sources. And whatever does come out (e.g. in the crematorium) usually goes straight back into the environment, with each year increasing the mercury levels in our food, water and air.

    • Synergistic toxicity of mixed heavy metals

      And then there is the largely unknown synergistic toxicity of the unknown combinations of heavy metals in each person’s brain and other internal organs. This alone must be counted as a strong contender for explaining, ‘why do we get sick from so many diseases nowadays?’ – for reasons it is worth pausing to explain.

      The term “synergistic toxicity” means a combination that has been thrown together – think of it like ingredients that got thrown into a soup-pot on the stove. From the few cases of synergistic toxicity which have been studied so far, we know that it can be VERY bad. The toxic effects of Heavy Metal #1 could be 50 to 100 times worse if Heavy Metal #2 is nearby.

      An interesting case example of this is aluminum. At one time, a popular theory was that perhaps aluminum was the cause of Alzheimer’s Disease, because Alzheimer’s patients were found to have higher levels of aluminum in their brains. Yet Boyd Haley PhD discovered in his lab experiments that aluminum DID NOT cause brain lesions like those seen in Alzheimer’s – and nor did any other metals he looked at besides mercury – whereas mercury “AND ONLY MERCURY” (quoting Dr Haley) did. What, then, if anything, was the significance of the higher levels of aluminum found in Alzheimer’s brains? Ah-ha! Aluminum on its own is not very toxic to the brain, but in the presence of a little bit of mercury it makes that mercury FAR MORE toxic.

      That is one of the most important examples of “synergistic toxicity” of our times. How many more have not been discovered yet? The next time you hear about alleged “safe levels” of a toxin, remember this example. The notion of “safe levels” is debunked by a simple consideration of the phenomenon of synergistic toxicity – given that the exact toxins found in combination in any one person’s organs is highly variable in modern populations. It’s a soup – where the exact ratio of soup ingredients is different in each case!

    • Radioactive toxins

      Some countries have seen a proliferation of the nuclear power industry, alongside many leaks involving contamination of the global environment with radioactive toxins. This includes famous examples such as Fukushima and Chernobyl, as well as many less famous or unreported incidents. As with mercury, here we have another bioretentive category of poisons that accumulates in our environment, entering our food and water supplies, and spreading far and wide. Many unsealed vats of radioactive pollutants also remain at large in oceans from frequent nuclear dumping, without any precautions, that took place in the 1950s and 1960s before regulations were introduced for more care to be taken. Thankfully, at least dentists have not been filling our teeth with radioactive elements. They made do with the second most poisonous element (mercury), rather than using the most poisonous one (plutonium). I jest about a matter which is, alas, a matter of scientific fact.

    • Chemical toxins

      Pesticides and thousands of other chemicals with very little toxicology data or safety research having been conducted have filled our daily environment in trace quantities. Little is known about the cumulative, synergistic health effects of most of them. Some have been very widespread in use, and all the more so in recent years, such as the controversial pollutant glyphosate. Glyphosate is a pesticide and desiccant used throughout the wheat and other agricultural industries. Some have claimed it is linked to many deleterious effects to health, which led its manufacturer, Monsanto, into a high-profile class action lawsuit in relation to claimed health damages. So this is clearly a potential cause of disease that we must look at while we continue on our quest to find out: ‘why do we get sick from so many diseases at higher rates – and especially in recent years?’

    • Electrosmog

      From the 1990s onwards, we saw the rolling out of the cellular phone industry, by now blanketing almost the entire landmass of the globe in microwave radiation. This has been a mass uncontrolled experiment, of which little is known about the end outcomes, except that thousands of studies have documented health effects of microwave radiation including DNA breaks, diabetes, cancers, hormone deficiencies, immuno-suppression and increased mercury leakage from dental fillings. So when considering, ‘why do we get sick, and statistically far more so since the 1990s?’, electromagnetic fields are clearly a factor that must be weighed up.

    • Modern medicine

      Side effects caused by correctly prescribed medications have caused “medicine” to shoot up to the top of the list of causes of death in the USA, significantly outnumbering the nearest contenders such as cancer and heart disease – and, to repeat, this is only a consideration of correctly prescribed medications! Beyond this, there is great controversy over the extent of damage which may have been caused to modern populations from diverse medical practices. I will name just two examples, although there are many others:

      • the use of mercury amalgams to fill teeth (already discussed above);
      • the now widely-recognized over-use of antibiotics for many generations, which are cytotoxic and undermine immune health by indiscriminately damaging all types of bacteria inside of us – including the gut microbiome (“friendly flora”) which has increasingly come into focus in recent decades as a core component of our immunity and digestion, and a key source of healthy brain modulation.

    Which are the most harmful to ‘The 5 Key Organ Systems’?

    Finally, let us weigh up the above list from a systems point of view. This, after all, is the main basis of Living Systems Medicine: systems analysis – or in other words: studying the properties of living systems, and then analysing the factors most harmful in relation to those properties, with the aim of singling out priority action areas.

    Which of these factors, then, holds the greatest potential to harm living systems?

    The answer is: those which specifically harm what I call The 5 Key Organ Systems.

    The most important property of living systems is that they self-manage intelligently. (The reason this is their most important property is a topic for another article).

    The 5 Key Organ Systems, then, are those organ systems which play the most important role in enabling a living system to self-manage intelligently – namely: immune, neurological, endocrine, elimination and digestive.

    Any pernicious factors capable of harming these will do the most harm, compared to other pernicious factors. And if a pernicious factor harms all 5 at once, then this will top the list.

    So now we will review our list from above, in light of this:

    All of the examples listed hold the potential to do great harm to The 5 Key Organ Systems. This means that they are all reasonable contenders for being the main causes of modern disease epidemics, to answer our central question, “why do we get sick at such alarming rates nowadays?”

    However, the one which has been most extensively documented to exhibit toxic effects on all of The 5 Key Organ Systems is heavy metals, and especially mercury.

  • Ah-ha!

  • Secondly, synergistic toxicity ticks this box too, for reasons laid out above – this being a factor which makes a mockery of the fallacious notion of “safe levels” promulgated by government officials in relation to many factors including cell phone radiation, heavy metals, pesticides and other toxic exposures.

  • This means that from a scientific point of view, and based exclusively on a logical series of observations as laid out systematically in this article, mercury and synergistic toxicity top the list as the two most concerning (and interrelated) candidates. I hope that this article has shown convincingly that I did not reach this conclusion based on whim or opinion, but through using logic to carefully weigh up the contenders.

    Having said that, though, what we observe in clinical practice is that multiple disease causes are normally involved, including these and others. Most disease states have been multi-factorial in origin – and often we find that several of the factors covered in this article are involved in any given case.

    I will lay this out for you more systematically in my forthcoming article, ‘The 10 Main Causes of Disease.’