Disease or Disorder? The difference is important!

What is the difference between “disease” and “disorder”? 

Some people say they are used interchangeably. But if there is no difference, why have two terms?

To me, a disorder is a condition in which the body does not function the way it was designed to function. A disease is the state in which the body is suffering from the effects of an invading organism—a virus, bacteria, fungus, parasite, etc. The distinction between these two terms has become blurred.

The body is designed to heal itself. If the body is not healing itself, the way it was designed to work, that is a “disorder”. Probably the two most common disorders are immune system disorders and genetic disorders.

Immune system disorders 

If the immune system is malfunctioning, the body may experience any or all of the following possible results:

• The immune system will attack healthy tissue (over-active immune system leading to auto-immune disorders),
• The immune system will over-react to benign particles (over-active immune system leading to allergies and sensitivities),
• The immune system will not destroy an invading organism (under-active immune system leading to frequent and prolonged diseases),  
• The immune system will not identify and destroy cancer cells (under-active immune system leading to cancer).

Auto-immune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, lupus, asthma, are the most common. Auto-immune disorders fall into the category of over-active immune systems.   

What to do about an immune system disorder? 

The medical community has a drug for any and all of these conditions.

A drug may help the body fight an invading organism. That is certainly an appropriate application for a drug.

But the cause of an immune system disorder is not a missing drug. A drug may relieve pain and discomfort, but it does not address the cause of the disorder.

The mostly likely cause of an immune system disorder is a deficiency of one or more nutrients that leads to the malfunctioning of the immune system. One of the most common missing nutrients is polysaccharides, which are critical to having a properly-functioning immune system.

Personally, I believe that many of our nation’s immune disorders could be resolved with proper nutrition, consequently resulting in a check on the nation’s sky-rocketing medical costs.