Category Archives: Herbal therapies

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“The Price of Fear”

“Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision.” —Winston Churchill

FEAR IS RAMPANT and ubiquitous in these days of so-called “pandemic” bringing about a catastrophic upheaval in all areas of society and commerce, including health.  Fear triggers the flight or fight stress response shutting down the immune system’s response to pathogenic invasion.  It’s been said, fear is faith in evil.  People are afraid of this virus as well as the mRNA vaxx.  They’re afraid of loosing their jobs if they don’t get vaxxed.  They find themselves between a rock and a hard place, because they have faith in what both of these evils can do to disrupt their lives. The price of this fear is mounting by the hour.  I received these comments and observations from a friend in Norwalk, CA, Stewart Berger, in response to my last post:

Thank you Tony for your thoughtful essay. I’d call my reply “The Price of Fear.” That’s because the jobs report shows the U.S. economy added about 200,000 jobs last month, when 500,000 were expected, and we still haven’t gotten back all the jobs lost early on in the pandemic. Many say this is due to the vaccine mandates and threats to fire workers who won’t get vaxxed. Some are quitting or retiring, further pressuring companies, some of which already have a hard time hiring.

This is the price of fear of the virus, even though in my personal view the fear is largely unfounded; as you pointed out, the chance the average American has of surviving the virus, if they even get it, is currently about 98%! Johns Hopkins University has that figure too. Yes, sadly, many people have died, including some close to people we know, and many remain at high risk; bless all those who’ve cared for them. Trillions in Covid relief funds have already been spent, and I think it would be wise to make it as easy as possible for people to work and to strengthen the economy, so as not to add to a national debt that’s approaching $29 trillion and is now 108% of GDP. That’s being pushed to future generations. And despite the push for vaccinations, even the World Health Organization says Covid may never totally go away.

I agree with you about doing everything one can for optimal immune system health, and there are easy solutions. I also think those who want to be vaxxed should (I did), but those who don’t want that should be respected fully for their choice. After all, trying to force someone else to do something they don’t want to do tears at the fabric of health or integrity in a national sense, and we’ve even seen this around the world.

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HEALTH TIP:   Quercetin is as effective as Chloroquine (or Hydroxychloroquine) in providing a gateway for zinc to enter the cell and ward off viruses as well as preventing the replication of the coronavirus in the lungs.

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“Something wicked this way comes”. . . CENSORSHIP

The following story dispels any residual doubt in my mind that the news and social media — NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, FOX NEWS, FACEBOOK & MESSENGER, TWITTER and YOUTUBE—are the censoring arms of Big Pharma, the Medical Industrial Complex (CDC, FDA & NIH), and the United States Government.  Something very sinister and criminal has erupted in our world, and it’s much bigger than this pandemic of a genetically manufactured virus and vaxx.  The real virus is the fear being cultivated by the media in the minds and hearts of the people causing so many to act irrationally, against their better judgment, even with hate and violence.  Read Jessica’s story to the end if you really want to know what’s afoot in America and in the world.  Fear and vaccine mandate cost Jessica her life.

Jessica Berg Wilson, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother from Washington, was a healthy and vibrant woman who passed away suddenly on Sept. 7. According to Jessica’s obituary, doctors diagnosed her with vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).  VITT is a rare, and sometimes fatal, blood-clotting condition triggered by COVID vaccines. 

In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Tom Wilson, Jessica’s husband, and Thomas Ivancie, her uncle, said Twitter’s fact-checkers — who have never spoken with their family to verify Jessica’s story — affixed “misleading” and “misinformation” labels to her obituary.  Because of the Twitter labels, people couldn’t interact with Jessica’s obituary, or share the story. 

In late August, Jessica went to a Seattle pharmacy to get her COVID vaccine and was told she would be receiving the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shot. Jessica had no underlying health conditions, her husband said. Jessica was “vehemently opposed” to taking the vaccine, “considering her stay-at-home mom status, state of good health and young age in conjunction with the known and unknown risk of an unproven vaccine,” Wilson said. 

But Jessica was pressured to get the vaccine due to a vaccine mandate at their child’s school requiring “room moms” who wished to serve in the classroom be fully vaccinated. 

According to Ivancie, Jessica became ill after receiving J&J’s vaccine, and went to the emergency room at UW Medical Center. Ivancie said Jessica had been vaccinated and was suffering various severe symptoms. But attending doctors insisted on giving Jessica a COVID test and sent her home. They did not pursue any other treatment.

Once at home, Jessica lost consciousness and was taken by ambulance to UW Medical Center in Seattle, where doctors diagnosed her with VITT, Ivancie explained. A team of doctors worked to relieve pressure on Jessica’s brain, but ultimately, it was too late.

As a young mother, Jessica was a dedicated listener to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “RFK, Jr. The Defender” podcast. She was well-informed about COVID vaccines and adamantly opposed to getting the injections, Ivancie said.

In Ivancie’s eulogy he said: “Jessica died as a direct result of an experimental vaccine — a vaccine that she vehemently opposed taking. Jessica felt coerced. She felt robbed of her ability to choose. Her ability to say ‘no’ — to say no to a medical procedure she did not want — was taken from her.” 

Her obituary said: “During the last weeks of her life, the world turned dark with heavy-handed vaccine mandates. Local and state governments were determined to strip away her right to consult her wisdom and enjoy her freedom. “Her passion to be actively involved in her children’s education — which included being a room mom in her child’s classroom — was, once again, blocked by government mandate.” 

Ivancie said Jessica “was informed she could not enter her daughters’ school campus for any reason unless vaccinated, and as a dutiful mother, Jessica wanted to be able to take her children to school and volunteer there as needed. Thus, under duress, she relented and took the vaccine.”

Jessica’s husband said he received Pfizer’s vaccine “several months back” because his work involved traveling and being around a lot of people.

“It was best for our family that I got the vaccine,” Wilson said. But Jessica was “in a limited bubble as a stay-at-home mom, was of a young age and was concerned about the unproven nature of these vaccines.”

“She didn’t feel it was needed for her,” Wilson said. “But then as the mandates came out, Jessica and those mothers who are very very involved in their children’s lives — she wanted to be involved in every step of their lives. That was her main priority, her kids.”

In a memorial to his wife, Wilson wrote: “Ultimately, this one-size-fits-all government policy cost Jessica her life, my children their mother, me my forever love and resulted in the loss of a very special person who touched many and was just making her dent felt on this world.”

Wilson told The Defender: “My view on this whole story is — I want the world leaders to take notice because Jessica’s life is irreplaceable. There was a high value on her life and what she did for our family and for others. She touched a lot of people and there’s no replacing Jessica.

“I just hope that those people who are in control, who are setting these mandates at the top, are listening to her story and how we can protect the next Jessica from having to take this vaccine should they not think it’s necessary for them.”

Wilson said physicians at the hospital “100%” recognized she had a vaccine adverse event and told him they reported it to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, no government official has contacted him about the report, he said.

Twitter censors Jessica’s obituary attributing her death to J&J’s vaccine

Twitter was slammed on Monday for fact-checking Jesscia’s obituary, which attributed her death to blood clots brought on by J&J’s vaccine, the New York Post reported. 

The tribute, published by The Oregonian, said the mother of two died from “COVID-19 vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia.” It was marked as “misleading” by the social media giant over the weekend, according to Twitter users. Twitter fact-checkers put a “misleading” label on Jessica’s obituary and prevented people from replying to, sharing or liking the tweet.

The fact-check warning was removed by Twitter on Monday morning following the backlash.

Wilson said he’s not on social media, but said he was disgusted when he learned from others that his wife’s obituary was being censored by big tech companies for being “misleading” or for containing “misinformation.”  Ivancie said he also received reports that Facebook was censoring Jessica’s obituary, and confirmed the family had not been contacted by fact-checkers from either tech company to verify Jessica’s story. 

Ivancie said, “When you can’t have the truth come out, you’re thwarting people’s ability to make decisions. It is scary how these entities have the power to censor.”  Ivancie said it feels like a second death — a death of the truth at the hands of these massive powerful entities. “Imagine if we had a free and open exchange of truth, how this could change the narrative for others,” Ivancie said.“We aren’t telling people not to get vaccinated,” Jessica’s husband said, “that’s not what we’re doing. We want people to understand Jessica’s story and her right to choose, and in her mind, she had no choice in the matter with all these mandates.”

“We’re just hoping people in these positions of power setting these mandates will listen to our story,” he said.

But of course they won’t listen.  If they do it would only be to see how successful and effective their plandemic and “vaccination” campaign have been.  But this story is not nearly over.  Disclosure is already happening. Stay tuned, and be safe.  Fear not, but take courage in deciding what’s right for you.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

tpal70@gmail.com

A MUST SEE VIDEO by Dr. Peter McCullough of Texas A&M at Baylor in Dallas: “This ‘can’t be about COVID at this stage,’ It’s about ‘some type of totalitarian takeover that’s occurred all over the world. Something very dark is going on.”

I invite you to visit my HealingTones.org blog for more profound insight and spiritual perspective.

 

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Chiropractic and “The Hero’s Journey” in Health Care

I My Journey in Chiropractic and the Healing Field

My professional journey in life began when I turned twenty-one and left the seminary to pursue a career in Chiropractic. The year was 1961. I graduated from Chiropractic college in 1963 and immediately moved south with my family and opened my first practice in Crowley, Louisiana, in the Winter of 1963-64. The Healing Field was ripe for a new paradigm of health care and I was eager to deliver it. 

Little did I know then that my journey through the field of health care was to be a journey of the profession I had joined that was already engaged in a political battle with its nemesis: the medical profession, the Guardian of the Threshold leading to licensure as a separate, distinct and independent profession with a vitalistic philosophy and a drugless healing science and art.

A Battle for Licensure and Freedom of Choice

 

I joined in the fight for licensure here in Louisiana, my home state — as well as the battle for patients’ “Freedom of Choice” in health care, a separate journey and battle led by a group of passionate Chiropractic patients with whom we shared a common cause and a common nemesis.

After several years of legislative efforts — and court battles to stop the arrest and jailing of chiropractors — we finally defeated our nemesis in 1974 when Louisiana became the last state in the Union to license Chiropractors. It also became the last state to grant patients the freedom and right to go to the doctor of their choice.

The victory was a partial one, however, as licensure was not the ultimate goal of the profession’s quest. The ultimate goal, the Elixir of Immortality, was access to health insurance, the Golden Goose, well guarded by the insurance industry: equality under the law with Medicine in the reimbursement for Chiropractic services. Licensure was only a means to this end — an end that, to this day, Medicine is bent on denying chiropractors by controlling how freely and deeply they are allowed to dip into the Golden Goose’s nesteggs. After all, health insurance was a creation of medical doctors as a way of insuring they got paid for their services. So it’s their game and they don’t want anyone else dipping into their fee-pool. Stiff restrictions and fine-bearing compliance laws have been put in place via HIPPA, making it costly and time-consuming for doctors to file and follow up with reimbursement claims. Documentation has become one of the dreaded aspects of modern day health care, seconded by the escalating cost of malpractice insurance in a litigious society to which healthcare providers dedicate their lives of service. So, the insurance industry has become a nemesis to both professions by determining the amount of the reimbursement for services rendered. 

All this to say the field of healthcare — a misnomer in itself — does not have the same lure of attraction it had when I entered it some fifty-six years ago. Medicine continues to be a nemesis to the Chiropractic profession — but only as long as chiropractors worship at the altar of the insurance industry and hold financial remuneration as their primary goal, their Elixir of Immortality.

There is a trade-off, however, in this pursuit for insurance equality alongside Medicine. That trade-off is the surrender of the very soul of Chiropractic, nourished by its philosophy, which honors the Innate Power of the human body to heal itself naturally and without the toxic and invasive intervention of drugs and surgery. A motto of the chiropractors, once held religiously, was “Chiropractic first—Medicine second—surgery last.”

Sadly, that trade-off was made by the bulk of the members of our beloved profession, along with all but a few of its colleges, who continue in the sacred philosophical tradition of our Beloved Founder and developer, Drs. D.D. and B.J. Palmer, respectively.  

A schism has rocked the profession at its very foundation, sending it down the same lost path Osteopathy took, as many chiropractors began to look and act more and more like medical doctors, prescribing diagnostic tests, and in some states even delivering babies, all the while abandoning “principled chiropractic” and the holistic model of natural health care to embrace the reductionistic medical model of relieving pain and treating symptoms, settling for acceptance by their medical colleagues as musculoskeletal specialists, an area of expertise in which chiropractors excel. I suppose the saying “men must do what men must do”– as well as women — applies here. Change is what it is, neither good or bad, right or wrong. 

Heralds of Vibrational Healing

Chiropractic was born on September 18, 1895, through the heart and hands of a magnetic healer by the name of Daniel D. Palmer in What Cheer, Iowa. That places it at the fountainhead of vibrational healing and what today is being called “energy medicine.” Daniel Palmer had a large vision of his new healing art becoming more an energetic than a physical remedy for all of mankind’s diseases — or dis-eases, as his son, BJ, spelled it in order to describe illness as a lack of ease. This vision became the Palmers’ quest, their Elixir of Immortality. Their belief in the innate healing power of the body, along with the discovery of the spinal adjustment, led them to the central principle of natural healing: Remove the interference to the unfettered flow and expression of life energy and let the body heal itself. They took the “whole man” into consideration to determine the cause of dis-ease, along with the solution. That cause was seen as being “quantitative” as well as “qualitative”– physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual — or a combination thereof. In other words, they looked for the cause of dis-ease in higher levels than just the physical and chemical. They sought the cause of the cause of dis-ease. The obvious solution and cure, then, was to correct or remove the cause, the interference, and the manifest symptoms would simply no longer be necessary to signal a need for change — change in lifestyle and/or mental and emotional stress and attitude. The symptoms would then simply abate naturally. 

This was and is the essence of the Holistic model of healthcare, an entirely new and different model from the medical reductionistic model of disease management — both being essential in the healthcare arena; the ideal being for both to work together for the benefit of the patients they serve. 

Evolution of Health Care

As health care itself evolved, our professional journey merged into a collective and global journey of the Human Species in search for the Elixir of Immortality in the field of health-and-wellness care.  Building and maintaining a healthy physique has become the focus of health-and-wellness centers throughout the land. “Functional Medicine” is the latest buzz word among chiropractors who are exploring the benefits of nutrition in restoring function to failing organs, tissues and glands. “Clinical Nutrition” has come into the holistic model here in the West, as the cause of more and more diseases was found to be related to poor dietary habits and an “Empty Harvest,” as Dr. Bernard Jensen describes our commercially grown fruits and vegetables in his book by the same name. Depleted soil can only render foods deficient in vital nutrients, resulting in missing cogs in the nutrient chain, thereby creating an interference to the flow of vital life force in and through the body. This is a modality that I have found to be indispensable in my practice.

Acupuncture and several other techniques, such as BioEnergetic Synchronization (BEST), have also emerged as energy-based healing methodologies to take their places in Western Holistic Medicine.  Eastern healing traditions have long been harbingers of holistic healing and many of their traditions have found their way into our healthcare systems. Practices such as meditation and yoga have become popular, and gyms are popping up everywhere.

This revolution in health-and-wellness care has drawn the attention of the Guardian of the Threshold, the FDA and the AMA, as chiropractic boards began expanding their scope of practice to include procedures that heretofore have been the exclusive domain of Medicine.  With the emergence of Applied Clinical Nutrition, Contact Reflex Analysis (muscle testing) and Functional Endocrinology, such conditions as diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and even autoimmune disease are being treated and reversed by chiropractors and other alternative practitioners, much to the objection of medical licensing boards. Law suits have been filed and fines levied.

This is not stopping the evolution of health care, however. People have awakened and started to assume responsibility for their health, a responsibility that had been placed with trust in the willing and able hands of Modern Medicine — which unfortunately has cornered the market on the treatment of disease, especially of Diabetes, Coronary Heart Disease, Cancer, and other autoimmune diseases. 

“Keepers of the Flame”

“Alternative healthcare” made its debut in the last half of the twentieth century carrying the torch of holistic healing into the New Age of Aquarius. Holistic practitioners began popping up throughout the healing field. The words Attunement and Sound Healing entered our vocabulary as energy healing modalities. I was introduce to a model of Attunement in the late nineteen-sixties that works with the energy fields around the endocrine glands, as well as with the Chakra energy centers of the Eastern tradition and Reiki. I later incorporated Sound Healing into my attunement service. The consciousness of humanity has begun to shift to a higher frequency of awareness that has awakened a realization that we are spiritual beings having a human experience rather than physical beings having a spiritual experience.

This realization was actually dawning as early as the turn of the twentieth century when BJ Palmer published The Bigness of the Fellow Within in which he tells stories about the “Giant and the pigmy”– the inner spiritual Self and the outer mental self, or the “Innate Intelligence” and the “educated intelligence.” This realization lit up his mind and put a fire in his heart that burned passionately for several decades and was carried forward by those who came to the light of his shining and became inspired to bring forth a new paradigm of vibrational healing.

As the fire began to cool in their hearts and the light began to dim in their minds, the torch was set aside in lieu or a “more scientific” approach to Chiropractic. Now the torch has been given to others to carry forward, along with a new paradigm of health care which honors once again the innate healing powers of the body. We’ve come full cycle back, or forward, to our humble beginnings as magnetic healers, only now calling ourselves “Holistic Healers” and “Energy Workers.” A few colleges still teach principled chiropractic and a small but passionate number of chiropractors still carry the flame in their hearts and in their clinics. The Torch has not been entirely dropped.

The table has been turned

Alternative health care has now become Medicine’s nemesis as more and more doctors are returning to school and abandoning the reductionistic model in lieu of the holistic model of true health care. Physicians of all disciplines are attending seminars to educate and certify themselves in clinical nutrition, herbal medicine and other modalities emerging with the holistic paradigm. It’s what the people want and are asking for, and the people have the final say in such personal matters as their health. And the irony of it all is that health insurance doesn’t generally cover alternative health care, a forty-plus-billion-dollar industry. 

The wave has been set in motion and it will dissolve the monopolistic stronghold Medicine has assumed over health care.  It will ultimately be defeated by its nemesis and be forced to vacate its self-appointed role as the Guardian of the Threshold to the health care arena.  Licensing boards will not be able to stem the tide of this revolution as doctors and non-medical practitioners in the field of healthcare dare to take on the reversal and cure of diseases only Medicine has held the legal right to treat symptomatically. 

It’s a new day . . . thank God! And I am glad to have lived long enough to see it and be a part of its dawning. God bless our doctors, especially our surgeons, whose hearts are in the right place of compassion for the sick and suffering and have only a prescription pad and a scalpel between them and their patients.  The vast world of Mother Nature’s Cornucopia of natural medicines lies open and ready to heal all our ills. 

Thank you for sharing my thoughts. Do feel free to share yours. 

Here’s to your health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, DC

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Mushroom Science and Cancer Cures

My Chorale PicI received this good news video on mushroom science and cancer cures from the mushroom guru himself, Paul Stamets. He helped his own aged mother cure herself of stage 4 breast cancer after her oncologist gave her little hope with chemotherapy alone. The doctor actually suggested she look up Turkey Tail mushrooms for their promising cure of  non-estrogen responsive breast cancer.  I’m impressed! Enjoy and spread the word.

Great story, yes? According to a publication of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, they’re doing research right now into empowering the human immune system to fight back and kill cancer cells with hopes of eliminating chemotherapy. I believe they are exploring “Myco-Medicinals”, specifically Turkey Tail mushrooms, for their immune-boosting properties. Promising research.  Stay tuned.

Here’s to your health,

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

P.S. Go to www.hostdefense.com for more details about Myco-Medicinals.”

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspiring articles. Current theme is on Human Relations: “A New Relationship with Iran?”

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Living Medicine Vs Pharmaceuticals, part 3: Herbs that Cure, page 2

My Chorale Pic

I’ve been sharing and commenting on an interview in the December, 2014 issue of The SUN magazine with master herbalist Stephen Buhner, a magazine that traditionally carries quality writings by little-known authors. We’ve been talking about herbs as “living medicines” as opposed to pharmaceutical drugs, and I thought my readers would be interested in knowing more about specific herbs and their benefits. So, here are some of the more popular herbs I use in my practice to support the healing process and healthy function in general. I will highlight in this post some of the herbs that help circulation and the immune system in the body and support the body rather than do its job for it and thereby depriving it of its education on handling environmental toxins and invasive germs, viruses and bacteria. So, read on if you want to know more about these living medicines and their benefits to your health and longevity.

HERBS THAT HEAL

BilberryBILBERRY — is the herb of choice for eye conditions such as macular degeneration and cataracts. That’s because it supports microcirculation through the small capillaries in the eyes. But not just in the eyes, also in the brain and throughout the entire body. Additionally it . . .

  • Promotes vascular integrity
  • Builds healthy connective tissue
  • Eases the effects of occasional aching or throbbing discomfort
  • Supports and maintains normal fluid levels
  • Supports healthy peripheral circulation
  • Supports healthy response to environmental stresses
  • Enhances urinary tract function
  • Maintains healthy eyes
  • Provides antioxidant protection

HORSECHESTNUT SEED — is another herb for improved microcirculation of blood through small capillaries. Medi-Herb has an excellent Horsechestnut Complex that is a synergistic blend of Butcher’s Broom root & Rhizome, Horsechestnut seed and Ginkgo Biloba leaf. Together these herbs and the compounds within them help to:

  • promote venous integrity
  • promote normal vascular tone
  • ease the effects of heavy exercise
  • support health peripheral circulation
  • support and maintain healthy fluid levels

Scan_Pic0002ANDROGRAPHIS — is especially supportive of the immune system during acute infections. Medi-Herb has an effective product called Andrographis Complex which is a combination of Andrographis, Echinacea root and Holy Basil leaf. Together they work to:

  • enhance immune system function
  • support healthy respiratory function
  • support and maintain normal body temperature within a normal range
  • promote healthy liver function
  • support health immune response following stress, sudden changes in weather or temperature
  • encourage adaptive response to occasional everyday stress

ASTRAGALUS — is a great companion to Andrographis in that it supports the immune system during chronic infection and auto-immune conditions.  Medi-Herb combines Astragalus root, Echinacea root and Eleuthero root in their Astragalus Complex. Together these herbs work to:

  • enhance immune system function
  • maintain feeling of general well-being
  • assist the body during convalescence
  • facilitate the body’s normal response to occasional stress
  • promotes a healthy response to environmental stress.
  • Caution: Contraindicated in known allergy to plants of the daisy family. Discontinue during an acute infection or fever.

Cat's ClawCAT’S CLAW — is an herb for the intestinal flora. I use it with yeast infection for its support to the immune system in the intestinal tract where the largest portion of the immune system operates. Medi-Herb combines Cat’s Claw inner stem bark, Pau d’Arco stem bark and Echinacea root in their Cat’s Claw Complex. Together these herbs and the compounds within them help to:

  • enhance immune system function
  • support respiratory system health
  • maintain healthy mucous membranes
  • promote healthy bowel flora
  • regulate bowel function
  • support and maintain healthy blood
  • provide antioxidant protection
  • promote healthy response to environmental stresses

Pleurisy rootPLEURISY ROOT — is a great herb for bronchial conditions such as bronchitis and acute or chronic cough. Medi-Herb combines several herbs together in their Broncafect to give powerful support to the bronchial tubes: Licorice root, Pleurisy root, Echinacea root, White Horehound herb, Thyme essential oil, and Ginger.  Together these herbs and essential oils help to:

  • support health respiratory tract function
  • maintain healthy mucosal tissue
  • support normal mucous flow
  • support the body’s natural ability to break up respiratory secretions
  • support the body’s normal cough reflex
  • encourage a healthy environment to help maintain normal respiratory flora
  • enhance immune system function
  • promote healthy white blood cells
  • promote healthy throat tissue
  • assist the body in maintaining normal body temperature within normal range
  • promote the body’s normal resistance function
  • CAUTION: Licorice root’s inclusion in Broncafect makes it contraindicated in high blood pressure, edema, (water retention), congestive heart failure, low blood potassium, pregnancy and lactation. Pleurisy root alone is not contraindicated in the conditions mentioned.

Mullen LeafMULLEN LEAF — also known as “lamb’s ears,” is a mucous removing herb.  Medi-Herb combines Mullen Leaf with five other herbs in ResCo that work together in removing mucous from the lungs and sinuses. They are Licorice root, Euphorbia, Grinellia, Ginger, and Fennel. These key phytochemicals and other compounds within this herbal formulation work to:

  • support healthy mucous membranes within the respiratory tract
  • encourage healthy removal of mucous
  • help maintain throat health
  • support healthy respiratory function
  • assist in maintaining healthy airway passages
  • support the body’s normal cough reflex
  • encourage normal secretion removal from the respiratory system
  • promote the body’s normal resistance function
  • CAUTION: Licorice root’s inclusion in ResCo makes it contraindicated in high blood pressure, edema, (water retention), congestive heart failure, low blood potassium, pregnancy and lactation. Mullen Leaf alone is not contraindicated in the conditions mentioned.

Golden SealGOLDEN SEAL ROOT — The herb of choice for the mucous membranes. Medi-Herb’s Golden Seal contain alkaloids (especially hydrastine and berberine) and other phytochemicals that work together to:

  • help maintain healthy mucous membranes
  • cleanse the gastrointestinal tract
  • assist in maintaining healthy breathing passages to support free and clear breathing
  • help maintain healthy mucus function
  • stimulate digestion
  • support the normal production and flow of bile
  • help support the body’s response to environmental stress
  • CAUTION: Contraindicated in pregnancy, lactation and high blood pressure.

ARE HERBS DANGEROUS?

Not nearly as dangerous as drugs — both prescribed and so-called “recreational.” We don’t hear about people dying from an overdose of or “complications” from herbs or nutritional supplements.  It is drugs that kill people. There are some precautions to take where herbs may interfere with medications. St. John’s Wort is a good example. It will neutralize and destroy all drugs as they are processed in the liver. That’s why St. John’s Wort is such an effective liver detoxifying herb, and why you don’t want to take it while on vital medications. It’s also a powerful anti-viral agent. However, there are relatively few contraindications and fewer negative side effects taking herbs and nutritional supplements.

There are too many herbs to review in a blog such this. Some are best used under professional supervision. Chaparral is one such herb that is so powerful as an antimicrobial and immunostimulant that it should be used only on a short term basis, 10-14 days in most cases, and in cycles of two week on and two weeks off. People with pre-existing kidney and liver diseases such as hepatitis and cirrhosis should not take Chaparral in large dosages and then only with professional supervision.

SAFE FOR THE GUT FLORA

As mentioned in an earlier post, the use of antibiotics will often destroy the beneficial bacteria in the GI tract. Probiotics should be taken while dosing with oral antibiotics to replace the friendly bacteria that are being destroyed. Natural antimicrobial herbs do not harm the intestinal flora, and in most cases help to bring about a balance.

MEDICAL IGNORANCE OF HERBS

Your medical doctor will usually ask you to discontinue taking herbs if he or she is not well informed and educated in their uses and contraindications, and that is very wise. Medical doctors study pharmaceuticals in medical school, not nutritional and herbal therapies. Some herbs do have potential interactions with prescription drugs, most at a low level of risk. Medi-Herb provides its doctors with ample information and quick-reference charts to guide them in prescribing herbs and their dosages. It is always best to consult with an herbalist or eclectic (alternative) practitioner about the possible interactions of herbs with any prescription medications you may be taking.

WILL HERBS EVER REPLACE PHARMACEUTICALS ?

Eventually, but not in my lifetime. I believe we will soon be forced to abandon antibiotic dosing simply because it will become increasingly ineffective against the super-bugs antibiotic overuse is creating — and not only in our health care system but in our agricultural practices as well. I am obviously enthused about the potential Living Medicines have in offering alternatives to pharmaceuticals. Currently, we humans are not healthy enough in general to abandon our dependence upon prescription drugs.  Therefore it is the better course of wisdom to use nutritional and herbal therapies as “integrative” therapies rather than as “alternatives” to drug interventions. The word “alternative,” as I use it in my practice and writings, is not meant to be construed as “instead of.” So, I would caution my readers to align with my way of viewing alternative healthcare as an “integrative” methodology in the current pharmaceutical-dominated health care system.  In most instances, alternative therapies such as nutritional supplements and herbs actually help prescribed medications work better and more safely in the body.  They are second only to the placebo and prayer.

I trust you have benefited from these posts on Living Medicines Vs Pharmaceuticals. This post will conclude this series of considerations. Until my next post, then. . .

Here’s to your health and natural healing.

Anthony Palombo, DC

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspiring articles. Current theme is “Golden Age and Golden Race.”

I JUST REACHED 51,000 VIEWS OF MY BLOG!  36,000 OF MY HEALING TONES BLOG!

 

CAUTION: Herbs are powerful natural medicines and should not be used indiscriminately. None of the above information should be construed to diagnose or treat any disease nor to preclude sensible medical care and professional supervision. Medi-Herb and Standard Process products are only available through licensed physicians and certified healthcare practitioners and should only be used under the supervision of such. The intention of the author of this blog is to provide information only about natural alternative and integrative medicines. However, it is left to the sole discretion of the reader to determine if the considerations or suggestions included herein are appropriate for his or her health condition and/or needs.

Reference Sources: MEDI-HERB Product Catalog put out by master herbalist Dr. Kerry Bone; Herbal Formulas for Clinical Practice by Nicholas Weed, D.C., Herbalist and owner of Weed Botanical Company, Wimberley, Texas.

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Living Medicine Vs Pharmaceuticals, part 3: Herbs that Cure

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When you use a living medicine and get well, you feel that the world is alive and aware and wants to help you. People often talk about saving the Earth, but how many times have you experienced the Earth saving you?

My Chorale PicI’ve been sharing an interview with herbalist Stephen Buhner in THE SUN magazine on the efficacy of herbal medicine and the dangers of placing our healthcare system in the hands of the pharmaceutical industry, which the Medical profession relies entirely on when it comes to prescribing chemical drugs to relieve the symptoms of disease. While drugs do relieve symptoms – the reason people go to doctors in the first place – they do not effect a cure. They’re not designed to. Besides making huge profits for the Big Pharma, drugs are designed to relieve pain and mask symptoms — a purpose that has great meaning and usefulness in a hospice care facility but little if any meaning and value in a facility that claims to render “health care.” Herbs, on the other hand, are designed by Mother Nature to effect a cure. The main requirement, however, is patience on the part of the patient. (Pun intended.)

Herbs do not cure. Rather they give the body living medicine the body can work with to cure itself of disease. It is the inborn Intelligence of the body, of course, that directs the healing process–Life. And Life works within the time frame of its own wisdom and cycles. Drugs interfere with those cycles by nullifying the symptoms of pain and malfunction that trigger the healing process. Herbs facilitate the healing process. It just takes time.

For example, anti-inflammatory drugs reduce the inflammation in tissues and joints that, for one thing, stop us from doing what is damaging the tissues and joints. We won’t do what hurts. That’s the body’s wisdom at work, which we defeat when we take pain killers.  The other and main thing, however, is that inflammation is the first and initiating phase of the healing process. When you nullify this phase, you stop the repair process of the damaged tissue, which means you’ll never experience healing as long as you’re taking Ibuprofen or Tylenol or any number of other pain killers. It’s that simple.  Stephen Buhner tells his personal story working with herbs.

Ahuja: What was your first experience with herbal medicine?

Buhner: When I was thirty-four, I became quite ill with severe abdominal cramping. The doctors didn’t know what it was. I met a local herbalist, and she mentioned that a certain plant growing in the forest around my house was good for my condition. The doctors wanted to do exploratory surgery, but instead I ate some of the plant. The pain was about half as severe the next time it happened, and the next time about half again, until finally it just went away. After that, I began to take control over my own health.

Ahuja: What was the plant?

Buhner: It was a perennial herb called osha. I just dug up the root and began eating it. It’s got a spicy, celery-like taste. Not only did I feel my body getting better, but I could feel, inside, some living entity that cared about me. It’s difficult to explain, because it’s not something we generally talk about in the West. When you use a living medicine and get well, you feel that the world is alive and aware and wants to help you. People often talk about saving the Earth, but how many times have you experienced the Earth saving you?

HERBAL MEDICINES AND THEIR HEALING GIFTS

Here are a few herbal medicines with which I am familiar:

BoswelliaBOSWELLIA – is a natural anti-inflammatory that does not interfere with the healing and repair process. It rather helps it work faster. It is especially effective in the intestines when they become irritable. Cases in point are IBS, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s Disease. I use Boswellia Complex by MediHerb and Standard Process Labs, which is a synergistic combination of Boswellia gum, Celery seed,  Ginger, and Tumeric.  These and other compounds work together to:

  • Support the normal function of the kidneys to clear acidic waste products effectively, like uric acid that causes gout.
  • Maintain and support healthy joints.
  • Promote the body’s normal resistance function.
  • Support healthy circulation.
  • Support healthy response to environmental stresses.
  • Provide antioxidant protection.

Scan_Pic0005ECHINACEA – here is an herb for the immune system, and its healing gift lies primarily in its root and less in its foliage.  This herb does not stimulate or activate the immune system, as is commonly thought, but rather acts as a modulator to the immune system, regulating its response to various stress needs in the body. In the case of infection, it up-regulates the immune response and boosts the white cell count. In the case of autoimmune disease, it down-regulates the immune system. As with all systems in the body, balance is the key to healthy function.

Master Herbalist Dr. Kerry Bone of MediHerb has thoroughly researched this herb and here is what we now know about Echinacea:

  • Echinacea is both misunderstood and underestimated. There are many Echinacea products available which differ according to species, plant part, quality markers and dosages. The wide variety of products available is why there is controversy surrounding Echinacea and its effectiveness.
  • Echinacea is commonly thought of as an herb for winter season stresses and only for short-term use. Kerry Bone’s applications for Echinacea are much broader than this and you may wonder why this is. Kerry has spent many years both researching and prescribing Echinacea for thousands of patients. His passion for Echinacea led to the MediHerb research project and a greater understanding of Echinacea and how it works. For full details of MediHerb’s Research visit mediherb.com and search for The MediHerb Echinacea Research Story on the Echinacea – A New Understanding page.
  • The research results validate the traditional wisdom of Echinacea, and that is to achieve good clinical results you must use only a root preparation with high levels of alkylamides. An important aspect of any herb, or nutrient for that matter, is its bioavailability. Echinacea angustifolia and E purpurea contain high levels of alkylamides which are easily absorbed in the body.
  • MediHerb’s Echinacea Premium is the best Echinacea product on the market because of its high levels of alkylamides. You can tell if the Echinacea product you are taking is derived from the root by how it imparts a persistent tingling sensation on your tongue.
  • Daily dosage with Echinacea Premium (1 a day) will help keep your immune system balanced and ready to respond to the stress needs of the body.

BacopaBACOPA HERB – helps in the retention of memory. I have had students taking Bacopa while listening to lectures and studying for exams. This helped them retain what they were hearing and reading. Then, when exam time came along, they would switch to Ginkgo Biloba, which helps in memory recall.  MediHerb’s Bacopa Complex combines the herbs Bacopa, Schisandra, Eleuthero and essential oil of Rosemary. These herbs contribute key phytochemicals that combine with many other compounds to:

  • Enhance mental clarity and support cognitive function.
  • Support normal memory function.
  • Support physical endurance.
  • Ease the effects of temporary and occasional environmental stress.
  • Nourish the nervous system.

Ginkgo BilobaGINKGO BILOBA – helps in memory recall and has a variety of healthy benefits.  MediHerb’s Ginkgo Forte contains flavonoids, terpene lactones (including ginkgolides and bilobalide) and other phytochemicals that work synergistically to:

  • Support memory and cognition.
  • Promote alertness and mental clarity.
  • Help support healthy mental function.
  • Support good health in older adults.
  • Promote healthy circulation to the brain and peripheral areas of the body which is important for the delivery of oxygen and vital nutrients.
  • Support a healthy cardiovascular system.
  • Support and encourage healthy blood.
  • Provide antioxidant support to help protect nerve cells and other tissues.
  • Support normal hearing.
  • Support eye health.
  • Beneficially modulate cortisol during periods of stress.
  • Reduce the congestive symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.

GYMNEMA SYLVESTRE – is the herb of choice for diabetics in Australia, which many folks use exclusively to regulate their blood sugar. It literally nullifies the sweetness in sugar. When you put a little bit of Gymnema tincture into your mouth, or suck on a tablet, you will not be able to taste the sweetness in candy for several minutes. You will taste the flavor of a mint, but not its sweetness.  MediHerb’s Gymnema 4g tablet and its Gymnema 1:1 tincture deliver a powerful dose of this amazing sugar-destroying herb, which is effective in diabetic and hypoglycemic conditions alike. The complex mixture of saponins (gymnemic acids) and other compounds work together to:

  • Maintain healthy blood sugar levels when combined with a balanced diet.
  • Maintain normal cholesterol levels in a normal range.
  • Help support normal cravings for sugar in the diet.

I will continue sharing information about popular herbs and their benefits in my next post in two weeks. Until then, here’s to your health and natural healing.

Anthony Palombo, DC

CAUTION: Herbs are powerful natural medicines and should not be used indiscriminately. None of the above information should be construed to diagnose or treat any disease nor to preclude sensible medical care and professional supervision. Medi-Herb and Standard Process products are only available through licensed physicians and certified healthcare professionals and should only be used under the supervision of an certified herbalist or healthcare practitioner.

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for an interesting series of articles about the Golden Age of Aquarius.

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Living Medicines Vs Pharmaceuticals, part 2: Healing Herbs

“When you use a living medicine and get well, you feel that the world is alive and aware and wants to help you. People often talk about saving the Earth, but how many times have you experienced the Earth saving you?”

Healing Herbs
Stephen BuhnerI find it interesting that toxic plants often move into damaged landscapes. Some specimens are harmful to cattle or sheep who graze the land. Others interfere with industrial agriculture or threaten people. They all have the same purpose: stopping the source of the damage so that the landscape can regenerate itself. —Stephen Buhner

My Chorale PicTo heal means to make whole again that which has been fractured or fragmented. What Stephen Buhner describes above about “toxic plants” moving in where landscapes have been damaged speaks to the intelligence of healing herbs. These botanical plants have a living, functioning intelligence. As part of our Mother Earth from which our physical bodies arise, their energetic fields are connected to our energetic fields by way of which they speak to us. When we give them our attention, ask them the right questions, and then listen to their answers — which may come in the form of an attraction toward them, or even an aversion — they reach out to help us with their healing essences.

We’ve all had the experience, when out in Nature, of being attracted toward certain plants and flowers. Could that attraction and repelling be telling us something about the gift of healing being offered to us by the plants and flowers?  Of course, some plants warn us to stay away from them, such as poison ivy or poison oak, if we have an allergic condition.

I love the way Stephen Buhner goes about introducing his clients to herbs in this interview by Akshay Ahuja in the December, 2014 issue of The SUN magazine.

Ahuja: How do you go about treating patients as an herbalist? 

Buhner: It’s a relationship, not a technique. My clients often feel lost and alone in their suffering. They need human companionship and also a sense of companionship with the living world. If I can, I’ll take them into the woods and introduce them to the plant that will be helping them. 

In my book “The Lost Language of Plants” I tell the story of a twenty-eight-year-old woman who was going through a messy divorce. Her periods were extremely irregular, with heavy cramping and bleeding, and her hands were always cold. I could see that her whole body was closed off, curled in on itself. Her fingernails were chewed back deeply, as if she were eating herself alive. 

I told her there was a plant I thought she should meet. We went for a walk through a pine forest, and when she saw the plant at the edge of a stream, a kind of force drew the woman and the plant together. The plant was Angelica, which has been used for thousands of years to help treat menstrual cramping. She spent a long time with it, then said a prayer and asked for help, and then we went to look for just the right Angelica. When we found it, she dug up the root, which has a beautiful smell. On the walk back she held it close to her. She was already carrying herself differently. The healing had started. 

She took a tincture made from the root, and within a month her period had normalized.

HERBS GROW WHERE THEY ARE MOST NEEDED

We are more connected to our immediate environment than we may be aware. I am convinced that many of the viruses and bacterial infections we encounter are an integral part of our local habitat — unless they are transported by travelers from other parts of the world, as was the case with the Ebola virus.  It’s common knowledge as well that for every disease and ailment there’s a plant remedy in the botanical world. I would be curious to know what kind of herbs are growing in that part of Africa where the Ebola virus erupted. I am equally as curious to know what kind of herbs grow abundantly in my neck of the woods. Buhner addresses this subject in the interview:

Ahuja: Many of the plants in Herbal Antibiotics aren’t native to North America, Do you think people should look first to the plants around them for medicine?

Buhner: The book was written to offer alternatives to people who might die of a resistant infection, so I wanted to list anything they could reliably use in that circumstance. Still, many natural antibiotics do grow in the United States. I live in the Southwestern desert, and Bidens grows all around our house. It’s invasive. Sida grows along the Gulf Coast, and some Sida species grow in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They’re all considered invasive. In fact, the most potent medicines for emerging infections tend to be invasive botanicals that people are busy trying to eradicate.

These invasive plants don’t move into a region for no reason. Take, for example, the berberine-containing plant Phellodendron. Berberine-containing plants are used to treat parasites and infections from yeast, fungi, bacteria, and viruses. Goldenseal was probably the most potent berberine plant in the U.S. until it was harvested to near extinction in the late 1800s. Phellodendron, which is a massive tree,is invasive in exactly the same range that goldenseal was removed from. And if you cut just one branch, you’ve got enough berberine
plant to last a year.

I’ve found that if people are ill, the plants they need are almost always growing in their vicinity. I’ve watched plant populations change around me in places I’ve lived for thirty-some years, and they seem to shift in response to changes in my own disease complexes. This sounds airy-fairy to the Western reductive mind-set, but people have been commenting on it since Hippocrates. Plant populations rise and fall according to the needs of the ecosystem in which they grow, and that includes the animal life there, which includes us.

Ahuja: Yet we act to remove invasive plants from ecosystems.

Buhner: Yes, these plants are seen as alien invaders…. It‘s not understood that dandelion and burdock and a host of other common plants are non-natives that moved in and established a balance with local ecosystems, or that many of the plants targeted for eradication happen to be effective against the exact diseases that local people are contracting. Japanese knotweed is invasive all up and down the East Coast, and its root is the most specific medicine there is for the treatment of Lyme disease. There‘s a Lonicera species – a honeysuckle that reduces mosquito egg–laying wherever it grows. The mosquitoes that it discourages happen to carry dengue fever and a number of other viruses that cause encephalitis – inflammation of the brain. And it turns out that the plant is also a treatment for inflammation in the central nervous system.When plants move into an ecosystem, they do so because the ecosystem has been disrupted. The problem is that people don‘t ask, Why is this plant here?

Buhner offers suggestions on treating specific health conditions which I thought my readers would find helpful.

Aruja: My father is around sixty. I don‘t think he could imagine being without his daily blood-pressure pills. What are some alternative treatments for his condition? 

Buhner: Regular fasting will lower blood pressure and keep it low. Certain kinds of simple, focused meditation will lower it. And many herbs, such as hawthorn and garlic, will do the same.

Ahuja: Have you worked much with cancer? 

Buhner: I haven‘t. The only type I have regularly treated is skin cancer, usually on the face. I learned the use of a traditional herb for it from a Mexican curandera many years ago. The root of Swertia radiata – also known as monument plant or green gentian – is finely powdered, then mixed with Vaseline (nothing else will do) and applied to the cancer. It‘s left covered for three days. Once the bandage is removed, the cancer generally comes with it or lifts off with minimal effort. I have never had that treatment fail. It is easy, efficient, and noninvasive. . . . 

I apologize for the lengthy excerpts, but I wanted to share with you the spirit and energy of the interview as well as the content, which sometimes direct quotes best convey.  We will explore some of the more specific uses of healing herbs in the next post. Until then, here’s to your health and haling . . . naturally!

Anthony Palombo, DC

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspiring articles on various topics. Current theme is “Golden Age and Golden Race.”

Also visit Laurence Layne’s Herb Shop online at HerbShop.HealingWatersClinic.com for great information about herbs along with easy ordering of products.

Credits: The picture above is by Roger Davies and is used in the article in The SUN which I am referencing.

CAUTION: Herbs are powerful natural medicines and should not be used indiscriminately. None of the above information should be construed to diagnose or treat any disease nor to preclude sensible medical care and professional supervision. Medi-Herb and Standard Process products are only available through licensed physicians and certified healthcare professionals and should only be used under the supervision of an certified herbalist or healthcare practitioner.

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Living Medicine Vs Pharmaceuticals, part 1: The Antibiotic Crisis

Stephen BuhnerPhysicians continue to utilize antibiotics without much thought. We focus on the misuse of painkillers, when the most dangerous thing we do is overuse antibiotics. Resistant bacteria are a more severe problem for the survival of this civilization than oil depletion, global warming, topsoil erosion, and water scarcity. —Stephen Buhner

“Stephen Harrod Buhner On Plant Intelligence, Natural Healing, And The Trouble With Pharmaceuticals”

My Chorale Pic

The December issue of SUN magazine carried an insightful, though sobering, interview with an herbalist that I thought would be an inspiring and deeply meaningful article to review and share in my Health Light Newsletter blog.  The interview is by Akshay Ahuja, writer for the SUN and production manager for Ploughshares, an organization that works with churches, governments and civil societies, in Canada and abroad, to advance policies and actions to prevent war and armed violence and build peace.

Stephen Buhner was born in 1952 in the Midwest where he was introduced to his healing ministry through his great-grandfather, a country physician in rural Indiana.  At the age of sixteen he left home to attend college in California. From there he traveled and settled in the high mountains of Colorado, where he built a “turn-of-the-century cabin that he lived in for four years.” His path to becoming an herbalist started out with a personal healing of severe abdominal cramps with the perennial herb osha root.  His encounter with this herb was more than remedial and had a spiritual and vital quality to is, as he recalls in the interview.  He currently lives in Silver City, New Mexico.

I just dug up the root and began eating it. It’s got a spicy, celery-like taster. Not only did I feel my body getting better, but I could feel, inside, some living entity that cared for me.  It’s difficult to explain, because it’s not something we generally talk about in the West. When you use a living medicine and get well, you feel that the world is alive and aware and wants to help you. People often talk about saving the Earth, but how many times have you experienced the Earth saving you?

I love this man’s insight into the natural botanical world of herbs and his thoughtful perspectives on both the natural healing and modern medical models. He covers a lot of territory, so it may take a couple of posts to do the interview justice. This is, I feel, a very timely and important mile-stone article.

Let’s start with the heart of his message: the overuse of antibiotics that has resulted in the evolution of bacteria into “superbugs.”  To gain a perspective on how this has come about, we need to consider the history and evolution of our medical system. Buhner, who has spent his entire life exploring herbal medicine and has published several books on this and related topics, gives some very thoughtful consideration to this in the interview, which can best be presented in his own words. In his 1999 book “Herbal Antibiotics” he speaks to the heart of the “flaws” of what he calls “technological medicine.”

“By declaring war on bacteria,” he writes, “ we declared war on the underlying living structure of the planet.” Buhner maintains that, through indiscriminate use of antibiotics, we have created “superbugs” with few effective pharmaceutical treatments, wreaking havoc in hospitals and making future pandemics likely.

Asked what is wrong with the medical system in the USA, Bunher gives a very interesting synopsis of its relatively brief history, starting at the close of the nineteenth century when homeopaths were plentiful and allopaths were fewer and the poorest of the various groups of physicians.  The discovery of penicillin changed all that.

Allopathic physicians argued that their training was based on science and was thus more legitimate than other medical traditions and would provide safer interventions. With a lot of lobbying, they managed to get control over medical practice and have the other approaches outlawed. After the discovery of penicillin in the 1920’s, antibiotics became a primary aspect of allopathic practice. The drugs were so effective against previously difficult-to-treat problems, such as infections in burn patients, that Western cultures completely embraced allopathic healing. In 1942 the entire world‘s supply of penicillin was 8.5 gallons – about seventy pounds. By 1999 the production of antibiotics in the U.S. alone reached 40 million pounds per year.

Unfortunately medical researchers‘ beliefs about bacteria were very wrong. Researchers said it would take roughly a million years for bacteria to develop widespread resistance to antibiotics through spontaneous mutations. They assumed bacteria were stupid, when in reality bacteria are highly sentient. They communicate by means of a sophisticated language – as sophisticated as ours. They recognize their kin. They protect their offspring. They create chemicals designed to produce specific outcomes in living systems, which certainly fits any definition of tool-making.

We‘ve tended to view bacteria as a collection of single-celled entities, but when many of them join together, it‘s more proper to look at them as a swarm intelligence. And complex organisms such as plants, animals, and insects are, in essence, communities of bacteria.

Ahuja: How does bacterial resistance challenge the current medical model?

Buhner: Since the end of World War II, the medical establishment has been promising that we are heading for some sort of disease-free future in which we will live to be 120 and never get sick. They almost imply that they can cure death. Scientists’ inability to predict the bacterial response undermines the entire world view that the allopaths disseminated – and still disseminate – about disease and the nature of the world around them. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that, in 2011, 722,000 people picked up infections in hospitals. About 75,000 of those patients died during their hospitalizations. And some sources give a much higher figure for annual deaths from hospital-acquired infections.

The allopaths’ lock on medical practice, which they insisted would create safer outcomes for the public, has not done so. All it has done is give one orientation toward healing a virtual monopoly on practice.

Ahuja: How would you treat a resistant infection with herbs?

Buhner: One woman who had undergone multiple antibiotic regimens over several years for a resistant staph infection (MRSA) came to me for help. She was about to lose her foot to the disease. It took a month to turn her condition around using an African herb called Cryptolepis sanguinolenta. Commonly used to treat malaria, it is also a broad-spectrum, systemic antibacterial with no side effects – at least, after twelve years of use, I have seen none.

Vancomycin is the antibiotic often used for staph infections. Besides being frequently ineffective, it has a long list of side effects. In general, herbal medicines have fewer or no side effects. They are composed of hundreds of synergistic compounds, whereas pharmaceuticals have just one compound, or perhaps a few. We have been at this antibiotic business only a century or so. Bacteria have been around for 3.5 billion years:

This begs the question, will not bacteria eventually become resistant to plant medicines? I love Buhner’s answer.

Buhner: With a pharmaceutical, the bacteria analyze the single compound and generate solutions to it, which they then pass on to other bacteria. Plants, on the other hand, generate multiple compounds that deactivate resistance mechanisms in the bacteria and enhance the activity of the plant’s natural antibacterials. Bacteria cannot easily counteract that kind of complexity. Also, plants aren’t trying to kill all the bacteria on Earth. They merely want to create a balance in which the plants and bacteria set limits on each other’s behavior.

Ahuja: There seems to be a general view that herbal medicine is fine for coughs and colds, but when something gets serious, you go to a conventional doctor.

Buhner: The pharmaceutical companies’ advertising campaigns are very good. We have been trained to think of technological medicine as the only reliable type and other approaches as outdated remnants of a prescientific age. Yet the majority of people I have met don’t much like doctors or hospitals. The one thing modern medicine is good at is trauma. If I get hit by a car, I will go to a hospital. But other than antibiotics and some surgeries, hospitals have little they can offer to cure disease. They can only address the symptoms.

Pharmaceutical companies are in business to make as much money as they can. They try to develop drugs you have to take for years and years, such as medicines for high blood pressure or depression. You don’t get well; you just keep taking the drug.

Buhner then cites an example of herbal practice in Africa, where the people can’t afford Western drugs and the infrastructure there doesn’t support drug manufacturing.  Local healers in Nigeria, for example, were asked what herbs they were using. Researchers then took the seeds from the best and most effective herbs and gave them to the people so they could grow their own plant herbs. This had a very empowering impact upon the people, not to mention its ecological friendliness.

I will continue sharing Stephen Buhner’s perspectives in the next post. I will close this post with words of a colleague in the healing field. “Nothing is wrong. Everything matters.” Allopathic medicine has played an important role in healthcare and continues to play a crucial role in the emergency room of our hospitals. On the other hand, pharmaceutical medicine’s days are numbered. Already pharmaceutical companies are getting out of the antibiotic business for two reasons. One, they don’t make a lot of money with the drug’s short-term usage. Two, “they know antibiotics are going to fail, and they don’t want to be the one holding the bag when they do.” According to Buhner’s latest information, the U.S. Government is taking over antibiotic research and production and will take all the blame when it crashes, and crash it will. “As David Livermore, the top antibiotic resistance researcher in Britain, put it, “It is naive to think we can win.”◊

Until my next post, here’s to your health and prosperity throughout the coming New Year.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Visit my HealthTones.org blog for more exploratory articles in the field of healing and transformation.

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Depression, part 4: Addiction and Suicide

Tony's picture from PeggyWith the recent suicidal death of comedian Robin Williams still fresh in our minds and hearts, I thought I would spend the last part of this series on depression considering the physiology of addiction in general and the nutritional profile of an alcoholic, along with some helpful nutritional and herbal support protocols.

The question I would like to explore and hopefully shed some light on is,  “What comes first: depression or addiction? ”  My immediate suggestion is that addiction comes first.  Here’s why I think addiction comes before depression.

Quite simply put, alcohol depletes B Vitamin in the blood stream and over time literally cooks and petrifies the liver. The liver then can no longer process its chemistry, chief among which is the conversion of blood sugar to glycogen (inositol) for brain fuel. The brain’s energy depends on glycogen, and without B Vitamins, the pancreas cannot make insulin. Without insulin, blood sugar cannot be delivered to the brain and the cells of the body. A severe drop in energy occurs which triggers a craving for sugar. Alcohol turns to sugar in the blood stream.  The social drinker turns more and more to alcohol for sugar, not to mention inhibition and escape from reality.  As liver function is compromised, vital nutrients such as iron and glycogen, as well as hormones, fail to be released into the blood stream, and left-over hormones do not get deactivated.  Without nutrients and sugar, the brain cannot function. Its chemistry becomes desperately imbalanced.  Depression sets in.  

This is not to say that clinical depression doesn’t come before addiction, especially to prescription drugs and, of course, recreational drugs. Alcohol, of course, is a drug. So, a person who is depressed may turn to drugs and alcohol for a mental and emotional “high.” In this instance, depression does come first. 

As I considered in the previous post of July 22nd, depression is a spiritual event. It is the suppression of love, the imprisonment of the Self; a prison from which escape seems increasingly impossible. Suicide is often chosen as the only way out.

WHAT SUICIDE ISN’T

Suicide is not a cowardly act nor a show of weakness. On the contrary, it takes a huge amount of courage and compassion. Courage to do the irreversible and compassion for one’s family and close friends upon whom the person will no longer be a problem or a burden.  Suicide totally removes one from the stressful and overwhelming reality of one’s world. If you have time to read a well-written and thoughtful article which appeared on Facebook in the wake of Robin’s suicide, click on this link to open a separate window. “The Death Of Robin Williams, And What Suicide Isn’t” by Elizabeth Hawksworth.

A NUTRITIONAL PROGRAM TO SUPPORT THE BODY WITH ALCOHOLISM AND DEPRESSION

St. John’s Wort has been known to relieve depression, and here’s why. This herb has a way of detoxifying the pathways in the liver that process and release stored vital nutrients into the bloodstream. (See the commentary below). It’s a liver detox herb, so powerful that it even destroys drugs, prescription and so-called “recreational” drugs, rendering them impotent and ineffective. That’s a drawback for someone on heart and other crisis intervention medications.  You cannot take St. John’s Wort if you are taking prescription drugs for crisis intervention and prevention (such as heart attack, hypertension and stroke.)

A LIVER DETOX AND REPAIR PROTOCOL

You can detox your liver with a 21-day program. All you have to do is refrain completely from refined carbohydrates and take a few pills and capsules with your daily meals. There are two phases to this detox program.

Phase I:  neutralizes many chemicals directly and excretes them in the bile.   St. John’s Wort-IMT (3 capsules per day: 1 with each meal.)  will destroy drugs by doubling the liver P450 enzyme action that makes drugs ineffective.   NOT TO BE TAKEN WHEN ON CRITICAL PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS.

FOODS THAT FACILITATE LIVER DETOX

Phase II: Those not handled by Phase I must be further processed by: a) Sulfation: egg yolk, red  peppers, garlic, onions, broccoli, Brussels sprouts; b) Glutathione conjugation: asparagus, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts; c) Glucoronidation: sulphur containing foods as in Sulfation (above); d) Methylation: choline, betaine, Folic Acid, B12, raw beets.

THE 21-DAY PHASE I AND PHASE II LIVER DETOX PROGRAM

(NOTE: The following products are by Standard Process Labs and Medi-Herb and are available only through healthcare professionals. It is not recommended to take these products without the professional management of a qualified healthcare practitioner.)

Hepatrophin (3/day) – Helps repair and rebuild the liver.  Helps the liver release iron and other stored nutrients and hormones into the bloodstream. 

St. John’s Wort-IMT (3) – NOT TO BE USED WHEN ON CRITICAL MEDICATIONS (See commentary below)

LivCo (3) – A synergistic combination of Schisandra fruit, Rosemary leaf and Milk Thistle seed (Silymarin).

A-F Betafood (6) – Raw beet tops for liver and gallbladder detox. Thins thick bile for passage through the bile duct.

Garlic  (2 capsules/day) – Contains sulfur, allicin and methyl allytrisulfide. Purifies the blood. Kills yeast.

SP Green Food (6) – A cruciferous vegetable blend contains barley grass juice powder, buckwheat juice powder, Brussels sprouts powder, kale powder and alfalfa sprouts powder, all of which support the P450 enzyme system of liver detoxification.

Spanish Black Radish (6) – Supports gastrointestinal tract function, promoting the body’s detoxification mechanism by cleansing the colon through excretion of toxic materials.  It also contains sulfur, which has an antibiotic action. It acts as a diuretic and promotes systemic detoxification by activating the liver’s primary detoxification mechanism, the cytochrome P450 and the Phase II enzyme system.

Cholacol II (4 tabs. 15 minutes before meals) – Bentonite clay grabs and absorbs toxic metals and chemicals being excreted by the liver and dumped into the intestinal tract for elimination.  This prevents toxins from being taken up into the body during elimination through the gut.

The following commentary on St. John’s Wort-IMT is excerpted from the CLINICAL REFERENCE GUIDE put out to professionals by Standard Process and Medi-Herb.  It is such an important herbal/nutritional supplement that I want my readers to fully understand it. So I am re-publishing it here.

Commentary: ST. JOHN’S WORT- IMT includes INOSITOL and MIN- TRAN and is present in a base of calcium, magnesium, alfalfa, carrot oil, and kelp, which all function synergistically to support the nervous system. St. John’s Wort is used in cases of mild to moderate depression particularly when side effects from standard anti-depressant drugs become intolerable to the patient. Also, it is usable with symptoms of menopause, neuralgia, sciatica, and spinal injuries. In addition to offering the known therapeutic benefits of ST. JOHN’S WORT, this product specifically supports thyroid function. This is critical as even sub-clinical hypothyroidism can be associated with incidences of mild to severe depression and manic-depressive episodes. Clinical studies have shown ST. JOHN’S WORT to
produce similar and/or better results when compared to antidepressant drugs in the treatment of mild to moderate depression (Vorbach ED et aI., 1997; Pharmacopsych 30:S81-5). An additional benefit found was the absence of significant side effects. INOSITOL has therapeutic effects in mood disorders that are generally responsive to selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. Clinical studies suggest that conditions including depression, pain and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) show beneficial results with the use of INOSITOL, but without the adverse side effects of TCA’s (Benjamin 1., et al. Psychopharmacol Bull 31(1):167-75, 1995).

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO THE ABOVE

At least do this for your liver over a period of six weeks to help it detoxify, repair and rebuild. 

(NOTE: The following products are by Standard Process Labs and Medi-Herb and are available only through healthcare professionals. It is not recommended to take these products without the professional management of a qualified healthcare practitioner.)

Livaplex –  Start with 2 per day and build up to 6. This is a liver detox formulation of synergistic whole food nutrients.

Catalyn –  6 tablets per day, 3 with breakfast and 3 with dinner. This is a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement, the best on the planet.

Albaplex –  6 capsules per day (3 morn and 3 eve).  This will help the kidneys and liver detox and support the immune system in dealing with infection.

Protefood –  3 capsules per day (1 with ea. meal).  This will take sugar cravings away by balancing blood sugar.

Cataplex B – 6 tablets per day (3 morn and 3 eve) to build up the blood. Alcohol depletes B Vitamin.

Silymarin – 3 tablets per day.  An herbal support for liver repair. 

Disclaimer: None of the above recommendations and products are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease but are solely intended to support normal organ and tissue function in the human body. 

If I can be of any assistance to you with these programs, feel free to contact me by email. Until my next post . . . 

here’s to your health and healing. 

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Email: dranthonypalombo@live.com

Visit my other blog at HealingTones.org for inspirational reading. As of today, 120 countries have visited my blogs.

 

 

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Depression: Its Causes and Cures, part 1: The Blood Sugar Connection

Tony Pics for SA Book Over the last three days, I’ve had 277 visitors to this blog.  This sudden surge is likely due to a reader and fellow blogger reblogging my blog. The post that piqued her interest was one I published back in January under the title “Cancer Cure and the pH Factor.”   I am duly impressed. You might find her blog interesting as well.

Let’s talk about depression and its causes and cures. Orthodox medicine treats the brain for depression. The underlying cause of depression, however, has less to do with the brain and more to do with the body — especially the gut, as we will see. The brain may control the body’s functions via the central nervous system, with the help of biofeedback through the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. But the brain is nourished by the body and is only as healthy as the body.  

CAUSE AT A DEEPER LEVEL

Depression is fundamentally about the suppression of energy.  In a certain sense, it is a spiritual event. All energy is love. Love is all that IS. Energy expresses through form, and when that expression is thwarted, suppressed or shut down, pressure begins to build behind the dam of resistance to whatever is trying to find expression, which is love or joy.  The expression of love and joy allows for release of this energy. Elation is the result. On the other hand, suppression of love and joy prevents the release of this energy. Depression is then the result.

This is a simplified explanation of the essential dynamics of depression at a core level, and must be kept in mind as we consider the various causes of resistance that results in depression.   There are at least four areas that need to be taken in consideration when searching for the cause of a person’s depression: 1) blood sugar, 2) the liver, 3) the gut flora, 4) the endocrine glands (hormonal response to stress).  These four areas overlap in most cases of depression, so I will be addressing more than one area at times. I will cover the entire territory in two or three consecutive posts.

DEPRESSION AND BLOOD SUGAR

Blood sugar imbalance is highly suspect in cases of acute  and chronic depression. Low blood sugar — clinically known as hypoglycemia — deprives the cells of energy they need to function. This includes brain cells, which depend on sugar for energy entirely. A classic symptom of low blood sugar is sugar cravings.  If you crave sugar or shake if you miss a meal, you can be sure that you have hypoglycemia.  Hypoglycemia, of course, can lead to diabetes if not corrected. So, let’s look at hypoglycemia, how it can cause depression, and what one can do to reverse this dis-ease.

Blood sugar is regulated by the endocrine system, specifically the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands. The Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas play a non-regulating role of taking blood sugar and attaching an insulin molecule to it as an escort into the cells where is can be used as fuel. The liver is also involved, as it’s a storehouse for hormones, glucose, iron and several other important nutrients, not to mention its primary function of detoxifying the blood stream of metabolic waste, which includes unused hormones. We’ll come back to that later, but first, let’s look at the three chief endocrine regulators, which make up a family of endocrine glands called the HPA Axis. Here’s an excerpt from CNS Forum explaining the chemistry involved in depression:

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in

depression

In depression, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is upregulated with a down-regulation of its negative feedback controls. Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) is hypersecreted from the hypothalamus and induces the release of adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH) from the pituitary. ACTH interacts with receptors on adrenocortical cells and cortisol is released from the adrenal glands; adrenal hypertrophy can also occur. Release of cortisol into the circulation has a number of effects, including elevation of blood glucose. The negative feedback of cortisol to the hypothalamus, pituitary and immune system is impaired. This leads to continual activation of the HPA axis and excess cortisol release. Cortisol receptors become desensitized leading to increased activity of the pro-inflammatory immune mediators and disturbances in neurotransmitter transmission. (Click on picture to enlarge it for easier reading.)

HPA_DPN_DPN_3

If you had a difficult time following the sequence of events, don’t sweat it, so did I. Body chemistry is a miracle that, like all miracles, cannot be fully grasped by the human mind. What you just read above is someone’s explanation based on a somewhat limited understanding of the complexity of human endocrinology.  As a brilliant colleague, Dr. Janet Lang, once put it in a seminar on functional endocrinology, the endocrine glands are a family and behave like one. We might think we gain understanding of them by taking them aside and studying their function and behavior.  Put them back with their siblings and their behavior changes as they interact with them.  So, we need to understand and treat them as part of a family and not as isolated hormonal glands. (This is why blood tests for thyroid function, for instance, are virtually useless in gaining an understanding of this gland’s output. Saliva tests are far more accurate.)

Now I’ll give you the simplified explanation along with what can be done to correct this one cause of depression using food supplements and herbs.

THE HPA AXIS 

The hypothalamus acts as a mediator between environmental activity and hormonal response to that activity.  Environmental activity is perceived through your five senses and sent via your central nervous system as information to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus receives, interprets and evaluates this information, then sends signals to the pituitary gland in the form of hormonal precursors that solicit a response in this Master Gland that results in the production of stimulating hormones — such as TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), ACTH (adrenocorticotropin hormone), and FSH (ovarian follicle stimulating hormone), etc. These hormone precursors are sent to the appropriate ductless hormonal glands in the body via the bloodstream, which then produce hormones that will trigger an appropriate response in body cells , depending on the type of activity being called for. 

The environment, by the way, includes the internal terrain of the physical body as well as the mental and emotional terrain and the activities therein.  An example of the physical terrain’s influence on the HPA Axis would be poor nutrition and toxicity resulting in a health crisis.  An example of the mental and emotional influence on the HPA Axis would be arousal of the stress fight or flight response simply by thoughts about your seemingly impossible situation in life, be it your health, your job, your marriage or relationships, or any number of stressful life situations.  Think about it long enough while doing nothing about it results in chronic stress. It also frustrates and confuses the hypothalamus, which hypes up its secretion of CRF precursors to the pituitary, and exhausts the adrenal cortex causing the pituitary to hype up its production of ACTH to stimulate the exhausted adrenal glands.  So you can see how these glands act in concert with one another and not on their own. 

HELPFUL NUTRITIONAL AND HERBAL SUPPORT

If you know your have sugar handling issues — either hypoglycemia or diabetes — then you can help your body restore balance in this area so that energy can be released to the cells of the brain. This is treating the underlying cause of one form of depression. Here are my recommendations: 

  1. First of all, the liver needs to be detoxified, which means the pathways in the liver need to be opened up to allow chemical processes to work their miracle on metabolic waste, mainly devitalizing it and eliminating it from the body. There are some very excellent nutritional protocols that can accomplish this in just 21 days. They include St. John’s Wort, garlic, beet tops, cruciferous vegetables, herbal detoxifiers such as Schisandra fruit, Rosemary leaf, Milk Thistle seed, and herbal toners and tonics such as Globe Artichoke leaf, Dandelion root, just to list the few main herbs. All these nutritional and herbal remedies are available in product formulations from Standard Process and Medi-Herb, partners in providing health professionals with exceptional and highly effective wholefood supplements and Australian herbs.  You may contact me for professional guidance and product procurement. 
  2. Secondly, the endocrine glands that make up the HPA Axis and the brain need nutritional support and herbal nourishment. Some of the main products in this protocol are Hypothalmex, Paraplex, E-Manganese, Drenamin, Adrenal Complex, Min-Chex, and Niacinamide B6.
  3. Thirdly, your sugar-handling systems need support. Products by Standard Process include Diaplex to nourish the pancreas, Cataplex GTF for chromium to facilitate sugar consumption at the cellular level, Gymnema to balance blood sugar, Inositol for brain fuel, Zypan for digestion of proteins, and Protefood to provide the 8 essential amino acids needed to utilize the amino acids in your food after proteins are broken down by your digestive system. (Details on products are available on Standard Process‘s website.)

DIETARY CONSIDERATIONS

  1. Hypoglycemia conditions need frequent meals and snacks.  Five small meals daily is the recommendation. Some protein needs to be included in these meals and snacks.  Nuts are a good source of protein and are much better than sugars and carbohydrates as they help raise blood sugar without spiking insulin.
  2. Eliminate all processed foods and refined carbohydrates entirely from your diet. 
  3. For Type II Diabetes (a.k.a. insulin-resistance diabetes), refrain from sugars and starches entirely for 30 days. Eat only foods that are low on the glycemic index. The rationale here is to free up insulin receptor sites on the cells by cutting back on insulin production by the pancreas, which occurs every time you eat sweets and starches. It will take approximately 30 days to use up the sugar-laden insulin floating around in your blood stream. The cells are really not “resistant” to insulin, they simply have no room left to receive any more sugar-laden insulin . . . thus the need to stop spiking insulin. A liver detox could be done at least once a year.
  4. For Type I Diabetics (a.k.a. insulin-dependent diabetes), the best you can do is give ample support to your body’s sugar handling systems and, of course, observe a diabetic diet. You would be wise to eliminate all refined carbohydrate and processed foods from your diet. Nutritional therapeutic support could be incorporated into your daily regimen of meds, especially for the insulin-producing B cell in your pancreas which may be able to be regenerated if they are not entirely burned out. The protocol would include Diaplex, Cataplex GTF, Gymnema, Cataplex B and Inositol. A liver detox could be done at least once a year. 

The products recommended above are only available through licensed healthcare professionals. You are welcome to consult with me by email or by phone for a modest fee, as well as to order products. 

(Note: These blog articles and recommendations made therein are not intended to diagnose or treat any disease and are not to be construed to preclude appropriate medical attention.)

In my next post we will consider the impressive role the gut flora plays in depression and health in general. Until then, here’s to your health and healing.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Email: dranthonypalombo@live.com 

See my second blog, HealingTones.org, for inspiring articles on handling sacred energy. Recently I’ve been writing about our Electromagnetic Universe and the Body Electric. 

 

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Trophotherapy: Healing with Nutritional and Herbal Protocols

Tony's picture 2 from PeggyIt has been a month since my last post on this blog. With the Christmas holidays behind me, I have time to write another article. What I would like to write about in this post is one of my most favorite subjects — and one that is understood by precious few among my clients, family and friends.  If it were truly understood by all of them, I would be swamped with people asking for help with their health issues. The precious few among my clients, family members and friends who do understand and appreciate healing with nutrition and herbs are down right enthused about this form of natural health care. The clinical name for it is “Trophotherapy” (pronounced tro-fo-therapy).

Dr. George Goodheart penned these words that capture some of the essence of trophotherapy:  

THE RIGHT MEASURE 

The body is intricately simple and simply intricate. If you produce the right measure for the right condition you get the right response.

Unlike the shotgun approach of most self-designed vitamin supplement programs too many take in an endeavor to treat their body’s ills and build their health, doctors and other healthcare practitioners who specialize in clinical nutrition take a more focused and specific approach in designing nutritional and herbal protocols for their clients.

As we considered in my previous post, trophotherapy is the backbone of what is known as “functional medicine” in that it addresses the primary factor is all health and disease issues, and that is the function of human anatomy, physiology and body chemistry. Where there is normal organic and glandular function and balanced chemistry, there is health. Where there is abnormal function and chemical imbalance in the body, there is disease. It’s that simple.

To restore normal function and balance body chemistry, the “right measure” of nutritional and herbal support for the “right condition” will bring about the “right response” that leads to health. 

The key word here is response. It is your body’s response to the medicine your are ingesting for an ill condition that brings about a reversal of a disease process and triggers a healing process. This is how it works with all medicines, be they natural or pharmaceutical.

Many drugs, for example, are toxic substances designed to “kill” disease-producing pathogens in the body and manipulate body chemistry in such a way as to engender a response. Your body’s immune system responds by rising up against these poisonous chemicals to neutralize them and/or eliminate them from the body, and in the process of combating the drug, the pathogens are dealt with as well. This is how medicine works. And, as we all know, it often results in undesired and in some cases deadly side effects, for which other drugs are prescribed to counteract the harmful effects of the primary prescriptions.

Trophotherapy, or applied clinical nutrition, takes a different and more supportive and safe approach. Using natural and therefore harmless wholefood and herbal preparations, the alternative healthcare practitioner designs protocols that support the body’s own natural healing and repair processes. The body responds favorably when the right protocol is used. Hormonal glands begin to function properly again, blood and body chemistry balance out, and normal function is restored to organs and body tissues. Only a practitioner who is educated in applied clinical nutrition has the expertise to prescribe and monitor such a process.This is why it is always best to employ the services of a holistic practitioner in your natural health care rather than embarking on a do-it-yourself supplement program touted by some advertisement or internet solicitation.

It is not wise to self-diagnose your condition and then treat it with store-bought and internet-bought nutritional products. Your local healthfood merchant is not necessarily a qualified healthcare practitioner, neither is your local pharmacist.Taking high-potency vitamins and inorganic minerals will do more harm to your body than good. The best your body will do with them is treat them as drugs, which is what they are, and eliminate them before they do any harm. That is the body’s natural response to non-food substances you put into it.

You might argue that they make you feel good so they must be good for you. My reply is that they may make you feel good, but be assured that the only thing they do is stimulate energy and function in the body, which may perhaps make you feel energetic taking them, but they do nothing for your health and healing process. In that sense, the anti-vitamin propaganda we see on television put out by Big Pharma is accurate: Vitamins do little or nothing to reverse diseases and may be doing your body more harm than good.  

In conclusion, trophotherapy is not vitamin therapy. It has nothing to do with taking vitamins to reverse disease and build health. It is a science, philosophy and art of natural healing with wholefood and herbal supplements that are designed to be administered by a licensed healthcare practitioner. That’s because they have to be prescribed in the “right measure” for the “right condition” in order to bring about the “right response” from the body’s innate intelligence that knows best how to heal and repair itself.

Stop poisoning your body with drugs and high-potency vitamin pills. Start nurturing your body and supporting its natural healing response with holistic trophotherapy. I’ve been using Standard Process and Medi-Herb products for decades in my holistic health care practice in clinical nutrition. Dr. Royal Lee, who founded Standard Process over a hundred years ago, led the way in forging a path to better health through trophotherapy. Master herbalist and professor Kerry Bone of Medi-Herb joined forces with Standard Process to make superior Australian herbs available to physicians in the USA. When you can have the very best, why settle for anything less? 

I wish you each one a Healthy and Happy New Year and a prosperous 2014.

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

Visit my other blog at HealingTones.org for inspiring article on a variety of subjects. The current consideration is around the theme of “Our Electromagnetic Universe.”