We’ve used the words “Root Cause” for decades. It is now a buzz word in the health industry. But what exactly does “Root Cause” mean? It’s different for different professionals. I can only tell you what it means in our clinic.
Root Cause to my staff and I, means uncovering what caused your health issue in the first place. So often, when something goes wrong in your body, health professionals brush it off as “you’re just getting older”, or “things just happen”, or “it doesn’t matter” – if you take this drug or do this surgery, you’ll feel better. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a cop-out. There is always a reason why the body does what it does – likely several reasons. The body doesn’t just say one day “Hey, I have nothing else to do today, I think I’ll cause myself some misery!”
Uncovering the root cause means you have to dig deep. If you have heartburn for instance, it’s not enough to just take a medicine to relieve the sensation of heartburn. Yes, it can be miserable, and can lead to more serious problems, and yes, the drugs work, but is that enough? Since digestion is the root of most diseases, it only makes sense to get it working right. If you don’t digest well, and especially if you take medications that actually suppress your body’s ability to digest, your body doesn’t get the vital nutrients it needs to sustain life – to heal tissue damage – to continue to build new cells, every day!
So why do you have heartburn or high blood pressure, or arthritis, or even constipation? If these and other diseases are just because you’re aging, for instance, then everyone who is aging will get these challenges. But not everyone does. So why not? Why does one individual get these challenges and others don’t? As usual, there are a variety of reasons. If it were one reason, again most people would get the same disease in the same time period in their life.
We look at it like peeling an onion. We find one level where the body isn’t doing its job, then ask “why”. After we’ve discovered the “why” to that question, we ask “why” that is the case and keep asking why, keep peeling back the layers of the onion to get to the core. The core is the root cause. When we resolve that, it has a ricochet effect on other systems, getting them to function better as well. When we treat the core, we treat the whole body, not just the symptom. To me, it is a much better, much more effective and longer lasting solution to improving health. The core, the root, is everything!
Want to hear more from Dr. Carling? Check out our podcast. Search for VitalHealth4You on your favorite podcast listening app or go to vitalhealthcda.com/podcasts/
©2025 Holly A. Carling, O.M.D., L.Ac., Ph.D.
