Prevention vs. Cure – Is It Not Time We Give Prevention and Cure the Same Amount of Attention?
- Brainz Magazine
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Brian writes about human and pet health, Well-being, Neurodiversity, Disabilities, Cancer, and LGBTQIA+ topics, aiming to inform and inspire readers. Brian`s insights and expertise come from his own lived experiences and his professional background in Social Law and Medical Laws.
In a culture that celebrates cure but quietly overlooks prevention, we risk missing the simplest path to long-term wellbeing. This article challenges the reactive healthcare model, highlighting how proactive choices, education, and natural support can reduce disease, empower individuals, and protect the health of both humans and pets.
Prevention and cure: Two sides of the same story
We all know the saying, prevention is better than cure. Yet, in a world obsessed with innovation, pharmaceuticals, and life-saving technology, we often forget the quieter power of prevention.
Prevention stops illness or harm before it begins.
Cure responds when things go wrong. Both are vital, but only one, the cure, tends to get the glory.
According to The King’s Fund, prevention in health means creating the conditions that help people stay well, through good housing, strong communities, fair employment, and education.
“Cure saves lives. Prevention saves futures.”
A culture built on reaction, not protection
In the Western world, we have built a healthcare culture that rewards reaction. We wait for illness, for breakdown, for crisis, and then we pour in the resources.
Prevention, however, is quiet and long-term. It requires trust, education, patience, and less visible outcomes.
When you prevent, nothing happens, and that is precisely why it is undervalued. Success in prevention looks like the absence of disease, not a miracle recovery story.
“When prevention works, it looks like nothing happened. That’s its quiet brilliance.”
Lessons from everyday life
Prevention is not just a medical concept, it is how we live wisely.
We do not drive without insurance. We brush our teeth to prevent cavities. We teach children kindness to prevent bullying.
But when it comes to our health, we often wait until something breaks before we act. Imagine if we applied the same common sense to our bodies as we do to our homes, cars, or pets.
The cost savings in our healthcare systems would be phenomenal, quality of living would be massively improved, but the reduction in profit for the pharmaceutical industry would not sit happily with the shareholders, I suspect.
The illusion of cure
Ten years ago, at age 41, I was told I had prostate cancer. I was terrified, but comforted by a 99 percent chance of cure through surgery.
I had a radical prostatectomy. The pathology confirmed what I longed to hear, cancer removed. You are cured.
For three years, I lived under the warm glow of that word, until seven years ago, I was told it had returned.
Now, a decade on, I am back with Oncology and looking at further radical treatment. That is, unless my own natural approach to arresting the recurrence does not work.
Same disease. Different perspective. The truth? Cure does not always cure.
In fact, the General Medical Council’s Good Medical Practice explicitly forbids UK medical professionals from using misleading language when communicating with patients. This includes leading them to believe they can be cured. They can only give objective information, manage expectations, and acknowledge the uncertainty with the offered treatment.
“We are taught to fight disease. We are rarely taught to understand it.”
The cost of chasing cures
Research published in BMJ Open highlights how health systems are disproportionately geared towards curative measures.
Cures bring hope, and headlines. But they also come with cost, financially, emotionally, and socially. For every pound we spend on treatment, only a fraction goes toward prevention.
And yet, prevention is the very thing that could keep millions out of hospitals in the first place.
This is due in part to the industry built to provide preventative solutions for humans and their pets having to fund its own research, which then leads to criticism that research is biased. With the curative industry having the might of the pharmaceutical industry as its backers, the preventative solutions that have been around for longer than modern medicine, approximately 150 years old, really do not stand a chance at being accepted as genuine, unless in Germany, as German doctors prefer to prescribe plant-based medicines rather than synthetic ones.
Yet, when the pharmaceutical industry funds the trials of its own medicines, they are not afforded the same level of criticism that is aimed at the preventative industry. Which does beg the question, why?
The psychology of the quick fix
As Theresa Marteau of the Bennett Institute notes, we live in a culture of immediacy. We prefer instant results, a pill, a procedure, a promise, over the slow discipline of daily habits, a culture that has exploded due to the COVID pandemic.
Here in the UK, as witnessed by myself when I worked as a medicolegal case manager for the world’s largest medical defence organisation, the pandemic has created a tsunami of people with health anxieties, and instant results are creating an unsustainable demand on our health and social care system.
Prevention requires long-term thinking, something our societies and even our political systems struggle with. We, as humans, do not really have an appetite for long-term goals and forward thinking, even more so now that studies show the attention span of humans is around eight seconds. I like to call it the Uber phenomenon. I want it now.
Prevention requires a commitment to change, to a reduction in profit margins, and to a radical rethink about how we deliver healthcare to humans and their pets.
But the irony is, it is the slow work of prevention that brings the most lasting change.
“We want quick fixes for problems that took years to grow.”
Nature knew first
When I founded Barberras Botanicals Ltd, it was born from personal experience and the healing influence of nature. I started taking CBD oil to control nocturia and dysuria, a serious side effect of having my prostate removed, as nine to ten times per night going to pee meant I could not sleep and therefore could not function or be healthy, and because the synthetic options had side effects that would hinder my physical fitness.
Botanicals and plant-based compounds have been supporting human health for centuries. Many can help reduce inflammation, balance hormones, and support the immune system, all essential in preventing disease.
If small businesses like mine can access this knowledge, surely our vast healthcare systems can too. So why, therefore, is the mere mention of treating prevention as equal to curative seen as blasphemous by the vast majority of healthcare professionals?
The business of sickness
Let us be honest, prevention does not generate the same profits as cure. There is no blockbuster drug for living well. There is no celebrity fundraiser for not getting sick.
But imagine if we flipped that script, if Movember campaigns focused equally on prevention as they do on treatment and survival.
We might just see fewer men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the first place and fewer men, just as I did, having to go through radical treatments that nearly always leave mental scars that are harder to deal with than the physical ones.
The preventative medicines industry reported a worldwide turnover in 2024 of approximately $407 billion, as opposed to the pharmaceutical medicines industry worldwide turnover in 2024 of approximately $1.7 trillion. So with the pharmaceutical medicine industry turnover being very nearly four times larger than the preventative medicines industry, you can draw your own conclusion as to why the business of sickness is a profitable one.
“It is time to make prevention profitable, because health is the best investment we have.”
Prevention and cure in pets
As the proud owner of Barbara, my rescue Saluki-Lurcher mix, I have learned that prevention is not just a human issue.
According to the PDSA Animal Wellbeing Report, nearly half of UK pets are overweight, increasing their risk of diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease.
Vet bills rise, quality of life falls, and yet these are almost entirely preventable conditions.
We are equally quick to book a vet’s appointment as we are to book a doctor’s appointment, and as is the case with us humans, vets are not always the best solution to our pets’ health issues.
I, for one, as my Barbara was adopted with severe trauma-induced anxiety, wish I had known then what I know now about treating his anxiety, because if I had, he would not have had to endure months and months of side effects from taking a prescribed anti-anxiety medication.
And with pet ownership at an all-time high due to the pandemic, we need more than ever to ensure that prevention for our pets’ health is treated as equally as the curative treatments.
We owe them the same care we wish for ourselves. We at Barberras state, “If it is good enough for me, it is good enough for my dog!”
“Sometimes, the simplest acts of care, a walk, a good meal, a gentle touch, are the truest forms of prevention.”
Prevention in mental health
It is not only about bodies. Minds, too, need maintenance to prevent major problems.
Rethink Mental Illness reminds us that while mental illness may not always be curable, it can often be prevented or reduced through early intervention, education, and connection.
There is talk that giving less money to the curative industry, which makes huge profits, can then be used to help prevent mental health crises in humans and their pets. I, for one, did not have access to preventative talking therapies when I was a much younger man, so I only got the help I needed from alternative therapy when I was at a crisis point. We now know, hindsight is a wonderful teacher, that I would not have gotten to that crisis point had I had access to alternative therapies at an earlier stage in life. This early access would also be extraordinarily helpful with the current crisis of suicide amongst men, where at least 50 men per year are successfully committing suicide.
We must treat mental health the way we treat physical health, not waiting until the crisis point before offering support.
Prevention as empowerment
Prevention is not about fear, it is about freedom. It is not about paranoia, it is about power.
It is the power to make small, intentional choices that protect our long-term well-being. To know our bodies. To ask questions. To demand education, not just medication.
That is Barberras’ main objective, to empower humans to take control of theirs and their pets’ health. We are capable, we just need to be reminded now and again that we have the power because it is our body and mind.
“Prevention is not fear, it is freedom.”
My Movember and my message
This Movember, my moustache is not just for show. It is a symbol of conversation about men’s health, prostate cancer, and the need for balance between prevention and cure.
I am a man living with cancer, yes, but I am also living with purpose. I have learned that the most radical act is not surgery. It is self-awareness.
It is the choice to live well before we have to fight for life itself.
Building a culture of prevention
What if every GP appointment included a conversation about prevention, not just symptoms?
What if our education system taught health literacy as much as it teaches maths?
What if our healthcare budgets mirrored the value of prevention, not just the cost of disease?
What if the NHS worked in partnership with the vast array of alternative treatment providers rather than steering people away from them?
What if vets did the same, worked with the vast array of alternative treatment providers rather than persuade pet owners that their way is the only way?
We could build a world where wellness is the norm, not the exception.
“We celebrate survivors, and rightly so, but let us also celebrate those who never needed saving.”
Prevention starts with you
Whether you are facing your own health journey, supporting a loved one, or simply curious about living better, start today.
Visit my website to explore natural remedies for you and your pets.
Follow my journey on YouTube, where I share honest updates, botanical insights, and real conversations about cancer, healing, and hope.
And do not miss my upcoming podcast, Blether with Barberra, where we will chat about all things health, humour, and holistic living.
Let us make prevention not just an idea, but a movement.
Brian Stewart Caldwell-White, Health and Wellbeing Advocate
Brian is a health and wellbeing advocate whose own experiences with mental health, neurodivergency, and prostate cancer inform his writings. Brian covers human and pet health, as the health of the dog he adopted is paramount to his own mental health. Brian is also highly informed about physical and cognitive disabilities and LGBTQIA+ health issues, due in part to his being a disabled gay man. As founder of Barberras Botanicals, where the motto is "If it's good enough for the dog, it's good enough for me", he inspires readers to embrace wellness, inclusive living, and health autonomy for humans and their pets.
