There is a curious tendency in conventional medicine to label a
set of symptoms as a disease. For example, I recently spotted a
poster touting a new drug for osteoporosis. It was written by a
drug company and it said this: "Osteoporosis is a disease that
causes weak and fragile bones." The poster went on to say that
you need a particular drug to counteract this "disease." Yet the
language is all backward. Osteoporosis is not a disease that
causes weak bones. Osteoporosis is the name given to a diagnosis
of weak bones. In other words, the weak bones happened first,
and then the diagnosis followed. Another drug company defines
osteoporosis as "the disease that causes bones to become
thinner." Again, the cause and effect are reversed. And that's
how drug companies want people to think about diseases and
symptoms: First you "get" the disease, then you are "diagnosed"
just in time to take an expensive new drug for the rest of your
life. But it's all hogwash. There is no such disease as
osteoporosis. It's just a na