Most people define health as a lack of apparent disease. The Government has a term RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) which is based on the minimum amount you can take to prevent a disease from taking over. Beri-beri, Scurvey, and Rickets are three that come to mind. These are diseases which develop when we are lacking in certain nutrients.

To rate your health, draw a horizontal line across a piece of paper and at the left end put "Death" - at the right end put "Total Vitality". In the center of the line add a vertical mark. From the midline mark (moving towards the left) all the way to "death" are levels or degrees of disease and from the midline mark (moving towards the right) all the way to "total vitality" are levels or degrees of health.

What I have come to realize is that most people believe they are healthy only because they have an apparent lack of disease. I have talked with people who are on blood pressure medicine and as long as the medicine is lowering their blood pressure they don't recognize that they still have hypertension. People taking cholesterol-lowering drugs believe that if the number is OK then they are OK. Cholesterol-lowering drugs do not solve the problem of what caused the high cholesterol in the first place.

Osteoporosis, the silent disease, goes on for years without any outward indicators. You only know you have a problem through testing or when you fracture a hip or some other part of the body, due to an accident or a slip and fall.

Heart disease, the number one killer in the United States today, normally gives us some outward indicators. Being obese or overweight, being out of breath a lot of the time, and certain aches and pains. Most people choose to ignore these indicators and insist that nothing is wrong and that they are healthy. I've read the statistics that the first indicator 50% of the people with heart problems get, is death. It is such a sad state of affairs that 50% of the people with heart problems never get a second chance. They never get to change their lifestyle to enhance their health.

Before any change can take place, people must acknowledge that something may not be as great as they make it out to be. Take a realistic look at your health. Rate your health; put a mark on the line as to how healthy you think you are. Ask a doctor or other health professional to evaluate your health and add a mark on the line. Acknowledge that if you are taking medicines - as painful as it is to admit, you can't be on the right-hand side of the center line.

Ask yourself and your doctor what it will take to get off of the medications you are now taking. If the answer is you have to take it the rest of your life, your next two questions should be 1) WHY? And 2) Do you mind if I get a second opinion?