The biochemistry of disease is similar to the chemistry of rusting metal.

Seven Stress Factors

The following stress factors cause disease by contributing to oxidative stress and can damage your cells, and tissues, and organs.

1. Excess Psychological Stress
2. Inadequate Personal Care
3. Environmental Disasters
4. Toxic Matter and Energy
5. Faulty Food Supply
6. Infectious Agents
7. Genetic Factors

Excess Psychological Stress

Excess psychological stress, whether arising from your thoughts or emotions, leads to physiological and oxidative stress through your stress hormones. However, just as the lack of exercise weakens bones and muscles, insufficient psychological stress weakens your capacity to handle normal levels when they arise.

Negative thoughts and emotions, such as anxiety, fear, and depression, increase the levels of oxidative stress in your brain cells. Oxidative damage in your brain can impair your ability to feel and express love and be happy if not corrected by your cell's repair mechanisms.

Imbalances in your physiology also induce oxidative stress. These imbalances include too much or too little physical and mental activity, sleep and rest, and other functions, such as the frequency of bowel movements.

Inadequate Personal Care

Personal care involves personal hygiene, physical exercise, mental attitude, dietary habits, sleep habits, and choice of music, recreation, religious faith, and work. Inadequate personal care due to poor choices or involuntary imposition can lead to overwhelming physical, psychological, and spiritual stress.

Environmental Disasters

Environmental disasters occur in five forms:

1. Increasingly destructive storms
2. Earthquakes and mega-quakes
3. Volcanic eruptions and volcanic ash
4. Near-earth objects
5. Man-made disasters

The growing signifiance of each of these threats is covered in the article,  9 Threats To Your Health in 2017.

Toxic Matter and Energy

Toxic matter and energy impact you from every source imaginable plus some. Filters cannot stop all toxins carried by air and water. Most commercial foods carry a toxic load of pesticides, herbicides, and genetically modified organisms. In addition, commercially prepared foods typically include chemical additives and toxic byproducts of processing. Adverse drug reactions are now the fourth leading cause of death in the USA, ahead of pulmonary disease, diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia, accidents, and automobile deaths.

Toxic energies include radiation from nuclear fallout, CAT scans, and radiation therapy, all of which create free radicals and oxidative stress. Toxic energy surrounds you in the form of an electromagnetic fog that can disrupt your cell's magnetic field. Water can carry the energies of toxic substances even after purification. This occurs in the same way that homeopathic remedies carry imprinted energy although the original substance is absent.

Faulty Food Supply

The poor quality of commercial foods reached a critical level years ago. Most commercial foods carry a toxic load, and depleted soils yield tasteless, low-nutrient fruits and vegetables. Locally grown organic foods appear more expensive but are far below the costs of a diseased body and mind. You may also be able to grow a variety of seed plants and vegetables at home.

Infectious Agents

Infectious bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites can cause disease but a weakened immune system is usually the real problem. Psychological and physiological stress, toxic matter and energy, and a faulty food supply impair your immune system and increase your susceptibility to all kinds of diseases, including the infectious diseases. Nevertheless, chronic infections burden your immune system even more, increase oxidative stress, and contribute to oxidative damage throughout your body

Genetic Factors

Bad genetics is often blamed for the epidemic chronic diseases. Genetic testing may reveal (or your family history may suggest) an inherited predisposition to diabetes, cancer, or some other degenerative disease. However, current research indicates that oxidative stress is responsible for most gene dysfunctions, as explained in the article,  Epigenetics Overrules Genetics. Degenerative diseases develop primarily as a consequence of excess levels of oxidative stress, as explained in How Stress Causes Disease - Parts 1, 2, and 3.

Recommendation

Strive to reduce the sources of oxidative stress that impact you. Also, do what you can to fortify your antioxidant reserves and promote the repair of oxidative damage in your body. For specific recommendations, see  Anti-Inflammatory Diets and Anti-Inflammatory Dietary Supplements.

Back to How Stress Causes Disease Part 3, Part 2, or Part 1.

About Horton Tatarian

I’m a biochemist who examines scientific findings on health and disease. My degree in biochemistry is from U.C. Berkeley. UCLA School of Medicine granted an M.D. degree in 1974. Since then, independent research prepared me to advise clients on natural ways of self-care.

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