Health Au Naturale!

Our title may evoke a mental image of eating a mango on a Caribbean beach in your birthday suit but in fact it is the gist of a comment frequently heard in my natural health office. It goes something like this, “I don’t want to take a drug if there is something else I can do that is natural”. There is always something one can do that is natural. Before we examine one big difference between choosing natural versus un-natural/medical it is important to clarify and understand just what the patient is really asking. There are basically 2 possibilities. Is the patient wanting to work with their body’s inborn nature to restore and maintain its normal healthy state, or is he/she looking for a natural alternative to a drug therapy without the litany of potential adverse side effects? Using a drug or a natural alternative to a drug does not make the treatment natural. Natural means working with the body’s nature. Un-natural means intervening to manipulate the body’s natural ability to regulate and manage its own health systems. Using a therapy to do something un-natural with a drug or even “natural” substance is not natural. The possibility is not treating to restore the body to health so much as it is treating or managing the disease and symptoms. Often this alleviates the disease or symptoms temporarily but does not correct the underlying toxicity, nutritional deficiency, or nerve deficit issues that may have caused the problem.

The following quote offers an insight to the significance of the choice made between natural and un-natural health care. One of medicine’s most famous doctors, Albert Schweitzer, put it this way many years ago (he did humanitarian work in Africa)…. "The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us succeed. Each patient carries his own doctor inside himself or herself. They come to us not knowing that cure. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work. " ~Albert Schweitzer, M.D.(1875-1965). Think carefully about what he is observing because he has realized the doctor who resides in each patient is the best doctor in the long run. The doctor inside is the one each person is born with and is a powerful force. Dr. Schweitzer’s comment is consistent with natural health care. Today we would be hard pressed to find many medical doctors practicing in agreement with Dr. Schweitzer’s words. Dr. Schweitzer’s point states a self-evident and unchanging fact.

Natural health care supports and works with the doctor inside or, put another way, it supports and works with the body’s innate ability to restore and maintain its own health. Each person depends on their body’s innate ability to keep every body system and part working correctly every moment of every day for an entire life; without it we die. Un-natural health care takes the approach of intervening to manage and regulate the doctor inside. A person can live without the un-natural doctor most of the time, but cannot live a minute without the innate doctor inside. The public is beginning to appreciate and understand more that working with the nature of the body is a good choice when it comes to health matters.

To provide an example we could consider any health condition such as high cholesterol, allergies, osteoporosis, infections, etc. In my September blog is a case study that should work fine. It is about acid indigestion and you can click here to read it. In that blog I wrote that supplementing HCl digestive acid with the meal works with the body’s normal digestive processes to improve digestion - and it does. Understand that the human stomach is designed to produce and secrete HCl and is able to tolerate its high acidity in the stomach during digestion. HCl is absolutely vital for normal digestion and health. It is not something to arbitrarily turn off. Using antacids or proton pump inhibiting drugs result in an un-natural event and counters normal body physiological function. Albeit it often relieves the symptoms of acid indigestion but it does nothing to help the doctor inside restore or maintain normal digestion that good health requires and, in fact, it gets in its way. This is one reason why using such therapies will often result in secondary complications down the road. The natural health care discipline seeks to work with the body’s physiology helping to restore normal functioning. It is one where the function of digestion is not regulated or tuned off but is supported or restored to do what it is designed to do - namely digest food and prevent food born pathology. A person with healthy and normal digestion doesn’t suffer from acid indigestion. In natural health we look to restoring the brain’s controlling neural communication with the stomach if it has been interrupted - usually in the middle back area or upper neck. Pain or stiffness in these spinal areas may indicate nerve interference that is interrupting normal stomach functions. We also will look to external or internal environmental issues. For example, stress, coffee, alcohol consumption, or maybe a prescription medication is impeding normal stomach function. This is a side effect of some of today’s popular drugs. Lastly, the stomach requires specific nutrients in order to make HCl. The goal of natural treatment is to provide what the body needs or removing what it doesn’t so it will again function as it is designed to do.

I know that you have been brought up and schooled to believe and trust in what doctors know and do. But similar to politicians they will have different points of view. It is important for each patient to consider why and what their doctor believes about how health works. It begins with a doctor’s training and results in his/her deeply held beliefs. These beliefs determine what treatment he/she will recommend for a patient - namely you. So your choice of doctor determines the type of treatment that is recommended to you.

Will it be Health au Naturale? Or will it be Health un Naturale? Sometimes it needs to be both.

Contact me at WholeBasics.com if you would like to know more about natural health care and you.

Yours in Health,
Glenn Nicholas, D.C.

Toxicity & Your Body

TOXICITY FROM YOUR BODY’S POINT OF VIEW

A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more even than the whole man; he must view the man in his world.- 

Harvey Cushing (1869-1939), American neurosurgeon

From a functional viewpoint let’s explore what toxicity is and how it manifests itself in our lives.  To begin, here are a few examples of toxicity: dirt on a DVD that causes it to not play properly, a juice or wine that has an unpleasant off flavor due to a contaminant, chemical waste discharged into a river with resulting mutations and death of normal and natural river life, food poisoning resulting in vomiting and sometimes death, a lie that distorts the truth, a drug that has side effects that may result in a liver or kidney disease or death, air pollution that causes breathing problems and prevents outdoor athletic activities, anger or bitterness overwhelming a mind and eating away of the soul, pornography distorting the mind and soul, methamphetamines destroying a life and lives of others.  By now you get the idea.  I purposely included in this list things tangible and intangible and yet real. Toxicity occurs in the external environment, the inner environment within our bodies, in the mind, in the soul, and even in sub-prime mortgages!  In each example above a toxin is the thing or substance that is where it doesn’t belong and where it causes disruption and damage in the things tangible and intangible. 

Protecting and purifying oneself from the damaging influence of toxins is important for good health in every aspect of life.  By so doing it keeps vital body systems and functions operating without disruption and decay while maintaining optimal health.  We learn the value of guarding our minds and souls and of not polluting the air and oceans.  This same precept applies to our bodies as well.  How wondrous it is that innate within our bodies and in the outside world natural processes already exist to purify the toxicities that can cause harm.  Our bodies have several systems that keep us healthy by constantly detoxifying and purifying hazardous toxins.  We witness the same principles when the wind blows, rain falls, and ocean tides and currents dilute and carry away environmental toxicities.  But what happens when the capacity to detoxify is overburdened and unable to keep up with a toxic load?  What happens when a river or the air or soil is overcome by some sort of toxic waste?  What happens in our bodies?  The simple answer is they no longer can support normal healthy life.

Turning more specifically to our health given this discussion how can we use this concept to improve and maintain good health?  First it is important to understand that a toxin is something foreign to the environment within the body- blood, lung, liver, bone, etc.  It might be a chemical in a processed food, drug, vapor, liquid, or whatever else it may be.  The body recognizes the substance and determines either to use or eliminate what ever is swallowed or breathed in.  When a naturally occurring food such as a carrot, plum, or chicken thigh is eaten the body sees and uses it as nourishment. The multitude of nutrients in the carrot, plum, and chicken thigh occurs naturally in perfect balance and will be safely and effectively utilized providing the body with necessary and life sustaining nutrition. There is no fear of toxicity with untreated (pesticide, herbicide, antibiotic, etc) real food. 

On the other hand, any foreign substance including all drugs/medications are toxic in the human body.  The substance is not something that occurs in nature so our bodies see it as foreign and work to detoxify and eliminate it from the body.  There is not a drug or toxin that I am aware of that the human body will use as a protein, fatty acid, carbohydrate, vitamin, or mineral nutrient to build new cells and tissue.  But drugs are not made for that purpose and this is how they work.  This is one reason why the FDA studies new medications/drugs before they are released for sale on the market.  They need to understand the potential harm from the drug’s toxicity to try and protect the consumer.  It is interesting to me that when listening to drug ads on TV that the side effects are many and they are all much the same.  Most all are toxicity issues that result in subsequent problems such as allergies or liver problems and death.  To learn more about how to cleanse your body of harmful toxins visit our website and see the 21 Day Purification Program.

One other area to be savvy about is processed foods.  Reading labels will tell you what is in the product.  I suggest you consider whether, or not, all of the ingredients are actually food and are useful to your body as nutrition and will contribute to your good health.  If not, and you want to be healthy why would you eat it?  They can add to the toxic burden in the body.

Think about what we have covered.  It could add life to your years.  If you have any questions concerning whether a 21 Day Purification Program might be for you please let me know.  Until next time...

Yours in health,

Glenn Nicholas, D.C.