The ecology of health

Four months into the DipSIM course and only a fortnight from our next residential teaching week, the anticipation grows. I look forward to exchanging experiences and understanding with my student colleagues.

A little bit about what we have been learning then. Our initial studies revolved around something that we all touched on at university to a greater or lesser extent, but at which most of us were probably fairly rusty: research! How to source a paper, how to read a paper, and how to critique a paper. Perhaps not the most riveting of topics, but nevertheless fairly essential.

We also looked at the anthropology of integrated medicine, its progress and evolution here and abroad.

Before long we approached the exciting area of Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). PNI investigates the connection between behaviour, psychosocial factors, the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. In essence, we looked at the relationship between stress (of different types and origins) and disease, as well as, importantly, immune function enhancement. A fascinating field, with an abundance of potential for clinicians, patients and the public at large.

The study of Ecological Medicine was another real ‘eye-opener’ for me. So little that most of us realise about so much of what we do. From the toxins in our food and our nutritional deficiencies to the hazardous effects of sunscreen, the high mercury content of medical and dental waste and the hair dye being found in the mitochondria our cells!

The clinical stats of populations in the vicinities of waste incinerators are truly mind-blowing. It certainly made me look at the way I recycle in a whole new light.

Other key components of the course have included the physical and psychological benefits of physical exercise and its protective effects against a wide range of diseases. 

We have also been looking at the various aspects of emotional and spiritual health and their positive effects on physical and mental health. The latter of these was something really quite new for me and which initially loaded me with resistance. However, once I had understood the true, and surprisingly broad, definition of spiritual health, that resistance melted away and it has become, in my mind now, a necessary and blindingly obvious element of what it means to be human, and healthy at that.