To understand the essentials of health we need to understand the essentials of life. Many things could come to mind in different categories such as physiological, psychological or social. However, in terms of basic physiological essentials for survival, we can name four:  food, water, oxygen, and nerve impulse.
    What makes these essential is that if any of them were to stop, you would die. If any of them were interfered with, your health would not be at its optimum potential.

    Food is the fuel and building blocks for growth and reproduction of cells and tissues. It consists of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. If any of these were to stop you would die. If their balance is interfered with your health potential would not be at its optimum. For example, if you ate high fat foods (french fries, doughnuts, etc.) what would be the possible condition of your arteries in 10-20 years? If you said more closed with fat, you are probably right. Result - lowered health potential.
    Fluids - Seventy-five percent of your body is water. It is used in almost every body reaction. If you stop fluid intake, you die. If you drink unhealthy fluids (caffeine, alcohol, pollutions, additives, preservatives, dyes, etc.) or not enough fluids, your body's health potential is decreased.
    Oxygen is also used in almost every reaction of the body and is carried by the pulmonary (lungs) and circulatory (blood) systems. Interference to these systems could stop oxygen and result in death. We should exercise and breathe deeply to increase our oxygenation to cells. Researchers say that oxygen deprivation can cause almost anything from fatigue to cancer. If oxygenation is not at its optimum, neither is your health potential.

Nerve Impulse

    Nerve impulse is the most commonly overlooked essential for life and health. Nerve impulse is an electrochemical charge transmitted by the brain through the nervous system to the body. It is the life force that keeps us alive and "charged". All body function is dependant on this life force or brain impulse. Cells must be electrically charged in order to vibrate and function. If your brain stopped (generating these electrical impulses) you would die. In fact in order to be legally dead, brain impulses must stop. If you severed the nerve to your heart, would it stop? How about you stomach, lungs, or hand? What if you just interfere with the normal nerve transmission? Would these organs and tissue function at their optimum potential?

One of the major causes for such nerve interference is misalignment of the spine, commonly termed by chiropractors as a subluxation. Subluxations can interfere with the nerve, the spinal cord and reflex nerve pathways resulting in abnormal functions and a lower health potential. If your spine is subluxated you cannot be at your optimum health potential regardless of how good your food, water, and oxygen is, because you are still interfering with one of the essentials of life and health.

The chiropractor's primary role is to locate and correct subluxations, thus removing nerve interference and allowing the body to restore the normal function. It is not a treatment for symptoms or a cure for disease, but merely a way of improving the body's optimum health potential, through proper nerve integrity. This is why everyone should see a chiropractor from the time they are born, and regularly throughout their lifetime. Maintenance of a healthy spine means optimum nerve integrity and optimum health potential.

So remember, to achieve and maintain optimum health potential maintain the most optimum quality of the four essentials of life and health- food, water, oxygen and nerve impulse. But pay special attention to the most neglected one- nerve impulse- by having your spine checked for subluxations by a chiropractor. It would be the answer you have been searching for.