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.

 

 

Depression: Its Causes and Cures, part 2: The Gut-Brain Connection

Tony Pics for SA BookIn part 1 of this series on depression, we had a look at blood sugar imbalance as a cause of one kind of depression. In this post we could have a look at the gut-brain connection to find another possible cause, as all diseases seem to start in the gut.  I will kick this consideration off with a short video clip by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD, author or Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS), on the importance of a healthy gut flora. Here’s a link to a website on the gut-brain connection. http://www.depressionanxietydiet.com/gut-brain-connection-depression-anxiety/ Dr. Campbell-McBride makes a good case for why there is so much mental illness and depression in increasingly more and more people.  Diet and nutrition obviously play major roles in mental health issues.

There’s a great article in Scientific America, which I will excerpt here just enough to entice you to read the entire article.  I highly recommend this article to my blog followers and visitors. 

Think Twice: How the Gut’s “Second Brain” Influences Mood and Well-Being

The emerging and surprising view of how the enteric nervous system in our bellies goes far beyond just processing the food we eat.
olympic butterflies gut second brain
ISTOCKPHOTO/ERAXION 

As Olympians go for the gold in Vancouver, eventhe steeliest are likely to experience that familiar feeling of “butterflies” in the stomach. Underlying this sensation is an often-overlooked network of neurons lining our guts that is so extensive some scientists have nicknamed it our “second brain”. A deeper understanding of this mass of neural tissue, filled with important neurotransmitters, is revealing that it does much more than merely handle digestion or inflict the occasional nervous pang. The little brain in our innards, in connection with the big one in our skulls, partly determines our mental state and plays key roles in certain diseases throughout the body. . . .

 “The second brain doesn’t help with the great thought processes…religion, philosophy and poetry is left to the brain in the head,” says Michael Gershon, chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, an expert in the nascent field of neurogastroenterology and author of the 1998 book The Second Brain(HarperCollins). . . . 

The second brain informs our state of mind in other more obscure ways, as well. “A big part of our emotions are probably influenced by the nerves in our gut,” Mayer says. Butterflies in the stomach—signaling in the gut as part of our physiological stress response, Gershon says—is but one example. Although gastrointestinal (GI) turmoil can sour one’s moods, everyday emotional well-being may rely on messages from the brain below to the brain above. For example, electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve—a useful treatment for depression—may mimic these signals, Gershon says. Given the two brains’ commonalities, other depression treatments that target the mind can unintentionally impact the gut.

The enteric nervous system uses more than 30 neurotransmitters, just like the brain, and in fact 95 percent of the body’s serotonin is found in the bowels. Because antidepressant medications called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) increase serotonin levels, it’s little wonder that meds meant to cause chemical changes in the mind often provoke GI issues as a side effect. Irritable bowel syndrome—which afflicts more than two million Americans—also arises in part from too much serotonin in our entrails, and could perhaps be regarded as a “mental illness” of the second brain.

Scientists are learning that the serotonin made by the enteric nervous system might also play a role in more surprising diseases: In a new Nature Medicine study published online February 7, a drug that inhibited the release of serotonin from the gut counteracted the bone-deteriorating disease osteoporosis in postmenopausal rodents. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) “It was totally unexpected that the gut would regulate bone mass to the extent that one could use this regulation to cure—at least in rodents—osteoporosis,” says Gerard Karsenty, lead author of the study and chair of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University Medical Center.

Serotonin seeping from the second brain might even play some part in autism, the developmental disorder often first noticed in early childhood. Gershon has discovered that the same genes involved in synapse formation between neurons in the brain are involved in the alimentary synapse formation. “If these genes are affected in autism,” he says, “it could explain why so many kids with autism have GI motor abnormalities” in addition to elevated levels of gut-produced serotonin in their blood.

This may give us a new appreciation and meaningful insight into the adage “Listen to your gut feeling.” This article leaves little doubt about the importance of a healthy gut flora.  There are numerous health products out there to help clean up your alimentary canal and keep it well supplied with friendly bacteria.  Fasting is one way to give the gut a reprieve from its primary duty of digesting the seventy tons of food we pass through it over an average lifespan.  

Dr. Depak Chopra recommends a one-day fast every week to foster the production of growth hormones and thereby add years to one’s life.  I haven’t personally heeded his advice, but I have fasted for as much as seven days, and I can attest to the incredible impact fasting has on one’s mental and visual acuity and function.

Fasting is safer under the supervision of a health practitioner or physician and should not be done without proper preparation and professional guidance.   I’m not going to spend time here on all the ways to help keep a healthy intestinal tract.  That is readily available on the web and in health related books.  I will only tout and highly recommend the 21-day total body cleanse put out by Standard Process Labs in their Purification Kit at a moderate cost of $250. That I make my readers aware of the gut-brain connection in mental health and illness issues, such as depression, is sufficient for this post. Until my next post in this series,

Here’s to your mental health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, DC

Visit my second blog at HealingTones.org for inspired writing on the spiritual and energetic aspects of health and life.  

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. 

 

Expression Allows Release

Tony picHere it is the first of March and it’s already time to publish a new post in my blogs. I haven’t even thought of what I might write about. Actually, my reservoir is rather empty. After sharing so much through my Health Light Newsletter over yea these past twenty-five years—a printed issue for twenty years—I simply don’t know what more I have to say—about health, that is. I am truly empty. Besides, others have taken up the torch and are shining light on what has come to be known as “whole health.” Just yesterday PBS had three programs on the subject, two of which featured Deepak Chopra with his “eat the rainbow” theme, and Wayne Dyer with his “I can see clearly now” theme. A third program, which I only watched for a few minutes, featured a woman whose topic was “Whole Health.” What I saw of it was very good, just what many of us in the alternative health field have been teaching since the middle of the last century.

I was intrigued by her visual aid, which was a pyramid made of large smooth rocks with words printed on them that told of several things that affect our lives. The top rock was “Physical Health.”  Below this capstone were other things like nutrition, relationships, job, career, exercise, etc. . . . and in there somewhere near the obscure middle of the stack was the word “Spirituality.”  And it struck me how much we focus on our physical bodies and our physical health. After working in this field for fifty years, I’ve become rather bored by the subject.

So, as I sit down to write this post with an empty reservoir of topics, I  pause to reflect on a simple truth and principle that was stated for me many  years ago by my mentor, Dr. William Bahan: “Expression allows release.”

We give so much consideration to what we put into our bodies. Through our mouths we strive to put healthy foods and beverages into our stomachs and try not to put things that are bad for us. Into our minds we strive to put knowledge and wisdom from books, seminars and workshops, and try to have positive thoughts and feelings and avoid negative ones. Into our hearts we seek to put God, grace and virtue through religion, meditation, spiritual retreats and pilgrimages to holy lands and sacred sites. Not that these disciplines and practices are not valuable and necessary. But our health care and lifestyle practices appear to be all about putting things into ourselves to make us healthier and happier—or taking things out that are bad, or that have gone bad. We exercise our bodies with jogging, walking, gym equipment and Yoga. We steam them, rub them with oils, sauna and sunbathe them and put them on diets to lose weight. When all this fails to achieve promised and desired results, we turn to drugs for relief from pain and suffering and prayer for miracles when our situation seems hopeless.

If you were fortunate and aware enough to know about finding and correcting the cause of your ill health, you found your way to a chiropractor who adjusted your spine to “…release the imprisoned impulse, the tiny rivulet of force, that emanates from the mind and flows over the nerves to the cells, and stirs them into life….”  The word “emanates” means coming from within, not poured in from outside. Chiropractic was the first drug-less healing profession to offer an alternative and about-face approach to health and dis-ease here in the West. Founder and developer respectively Drs. Daniel and BJ Palmer proclaimed loudly their “Law of Life” which stated that life and health in human beings comes from “ABOVE, DOWN, INSIDE, OUT.”  

It was this philosophy of thinking deductively rather than inductively that called me to chiropractic as my life’s work. They called it “The Big Idea,” which gradually faded away in the minds and hearts of many chiropractors as they compromised their profession’s principles in order to accommodate the public’s perception of chiropractic care — and more so the insurance industry’s reluctant and meager willingness to pay for limited chiropractic care for the relief of backaches and neck injuries and a few other related conditions that were medically approved. Chiropractic in by far the majority of its doctors’ clinics became just another palliative application to the physical body for the relief of pain. Its philosophy by and large sadly went by the wayside. I published my attempt to revive that philosophy back in 2000 in our professional magazine Today’s Chiropractic — reprinted in 2005 as a booklet Rediscovering the Soul of Chiropractic — to which I received a precious hand full of letters of response from principled colleagues both here and abroad. (Available from Health Light Publishing in St. Augustine, Florida: healthlightbooks.com) 

We’ve become resource poor. Just look at all the books on health. Look at all the prescription medications in the Physicians Desk Reference and all the vitamin products on the market. We’re left with no excuses for not being healthy and happy.  And yet, we’re still unhealthy and unhappy and addicted to putting stuff into ourselves to change our experience of our selves. 

To paraphrase a Biblical phrase, it’s not what we put into our mouths that makes us health and happy, but what comes out of our mouths. Health is within us. We already have a whole and healthy spiritual body standing in the wings behind our physical body waiting to be enjoyed in the flesh. It’s what gives our very flesh life and function! We cannot live without it. It’s perfect! It’s beautiful! It’s just the right shape and size, too! It cannot be sick! It cannot even die! What we can live without is our physical body. Think about it!

Now, think about this. If you can find a way to put your spiritual body into your physical body completely, your physical body with its mind and emotions would be perfectly healthy and happy. Oh, it will still die, but it will die healthy and happy! YOU, however, will carry on living in your spiritual body. Not on this beautiful earth, of course, but in the incredibly beautiful and wonderful realms of Light in Heaven. (I don’t believe there’s a hell, except for what we’ve made of life here on earth.)

But, of course, we can’t just put our spiritual body into our physical body like we download programs into our computers. We can, however, use our physical body with its mind and heart to express our spiritual body with all of its vibrant life, eternal truth, and its endless and unconditional love. Expression allow release.

A little poem comes to mind that Dr. Bill Bahan often used in his symposiums: 

How To Be Happy

Are you almost disgusted with life, little man?
I’ll tell you a wonderful trick
That will bring you contentment, if anything can:
Do something for somebody, quick!

Are you awfully tired with play, little girl?
Wearied, discouraged, and sick?
I’ll tell you the loveliest game in the world:
Do something for somebody quick!

Though it rains like the rain of the flood, little man,
And the clouds are forbidding and thick,
You can make the sun shine in your soul, little man:
Do something for somebody, quick!

Though the stars are like brass overhead, little girl,
And the walks like a well-heated brick,
And our earthly affairs in a terrible whirl,
Do something for somebody, quick! (George Varghese)

Do you feel all bottled up inside? Then let your Self out of prison! Expression allows release. Though we are constantly reminded by just about every health author, you are not what you eat. You are what you express in your moments of living. That’s what you know, what you experience. We know and experience that which we express in thought, word and deed in and through our hearts, our minds and our physical bodies. You want to be happy? Express joy. You want to know love? Express love. You want to know truth? Express truth. You want to know life? Express life. You want to have peace? Be peaceful. This is what will give your body whole health. It’s that simple. Everything else will follow.

Spirituality rightly belongs at the top of the pyramid. Your spirit, motive and attitude will set the direction of your actions and guide your choices in life. When in doubt, start with thankfulness. When you’re anxious, try patience. When worried and confused, try stilling your mind with the assurance that all is well. Realization of what we need to do in any moment comes through a tranquil mind from within. Be still and know. Like I said, we’ve been given all the resources we need to lead a healthy and happy life. All we need is to be fully present as a conscious being in each moment. My spiritual mentor put it very succinctly in a poem.

Any Moment

Any moment of hating, Any moment of lying, Any moment of resentment, Is a moment of dying. 

Any moment of loving, Any moment of giving, Any moment of thankfulness, Is a moment of living. 

All our moments add together Like the digits in a sum, And the answer tells us plainly Whether life or death shall come.    —Martin Cicil

Dr. James Sigafoose says it all in this clip:

And now my reservoir is full again. Expression has allowed the release of this post. I wish for you a beautiful day. Here’s to your health and happiness!

Dr. Tony Palombo

P.S. I celebrate a milestone in my blogging having now had 31,000 visits to my Health Light Newsletter from readers in 114 countries! Wow! What a feeling of accomplishment! Thank you one and all for sharing my thoughts with me in my blogs. Visit my HealingTones.org blog for more . . . . !   

   

 

Cancer Cure and the pH Factor

Tony's picture 2 from PeggyArticles are being circulated on Facebook and the internet that promote the theory that cancer is a fungus whose cells die in an alkaline environment. Tumors shrink and pathogens are burned up with the intervention of the “treatment” being touted. 

This process can be initiated by swiftly alkalizing the body and bloodstream with baking soda mixed with maple syrup to carry the soda into the cancer cells, delivering more oxygen than the cells can handle.  

Oxygen, a free radical itself, literally destroys cancer cells and other free radicals by supplying them with electrons and thereby neutralizing them and sending a flow of electrical energy through them. This rush of electrical energy simply burns them up — and without doing harm to the healthy cells of the body, as chemo and radiation therapy do. In fact, where this harmless cancer treatment is included by patients who also use conventional therapies, lower dosages of chemo and radiation can be used.  

Anyway, that’s the gist of the story, into which I will attempt to offer some critical thinking in this post. First, let’s review the story, and the “treatment” along with some of the controversy surrounding it.  

This medical news was published in 2010 by Dr. Mark Sircus.

Dr. Mark Sircus

Dr. Mark Sircus

 Dr. Mark Sircus, Ac., OMD, DM (P) (acupuncturist, doctor of oriental and pastoral medicine) is a prolific writer and author of some astounding medical and health-related books. Dr. Sircus’s methods are based on medical science and long years of clinical experience, not only his own but experiences of doctors from around the world who have been practicing brilliant medicine. [View his nine-minute video here.]

When it comes to cancer, Dr. Sircus pays attention to the terrain, to the surrounding cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix, which interacts and shapes cancer cell growth.  Cancer cells cannot turn into a lethal tumor without the cooperation of other cells nearby. It is not just the friendly healthier cells but also the interstitial environment (pH, oxygen and CO2 levels) that plays a role in determining what will happen to a person when they have cancer.

Needless to say, the American Cancer Society frowns upon this theory and treatment, which is popular, if notoriously, in foreign countries, such as Italy.

THE CONTROVERSIAL DR. SIMONCINI

Dr. Tullio Simoncini

Dr. Tullio Simoncini

Oncologist Dr. Tullio Simoncini in Rome, Italy, has been somewhat successfully treating cancer patients with a simple cure for most cancer tumors using a simple remedy (for which he charges thousands of dollars) that swiftly changes the pH environment around cancer cells, dramatically increasing the oxygen in the cell and literally disintegrating it. He uses an IV drip — which got him in a lot of trouble, including conviction for manslaughter (several of his patients died of their cancers and/or complications from the infusion), loss of his license, and imprisonment — but the remedy is simple and easy to concoct and administer at home and reportedly works with all tumors in the body — with the exception of brain and bone tumors.

If you’re a fan of David Icke, you’ll enjoy what he has to say at this link:  http://www.dailypaul.com/276132/david-icke-cancer-is-a-fungus-and-its-curable

ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED BY A FOLK HEALER

The remedy was accidentally discovered by folk healer Dr. Jim Kelmun who proclaims . . .

“There is not a tumor on God’s green earth that cannot be licked with a little baking soda and maple syrup.” That is the astonishing claim of controversial folk healer Jim Kelmun who says that this simple home remedy can stop and reverse the deadly growth of cancers. His loyal patients swear by the man they fondly call Dr. Jim and say he is a miracle worker. “Dr. Jim cured me of lung cancer,” said farmer Ian Roadhouse. “Those other doctors told me that I was a goner and had less then six months to live. But the doc put me on his mixture and in a couple of months the cancer was gone. It did not even show up on the x-rays.”

Dr. Jim discovered this treatment accidentally somewhere in the middle of the last century when he was treating a family plagued by breast cancer. There were five sisters in the family and four of them had died of breast cancer. He asked the remaining sister if there was anything different in her diet and she told him that she was partial to sipping maple syrup and baking soda. Since then, reported by a newspaper in Ashville, North Carolina, Dr. Jim dispensed this remedy to over 200 people diagnosed with terminal cancer and amazingly he claims of that number 185 lived at least 15 more years and nearly half enjoyed a complete remission of their disease. When combined with other safe and effective treatments like transdermal magnesium therapy, iodine, vitamin C, probiotics and other items like plenty of good sun exposure, pure water and clay treatments we should expect even higher remission rates.

The science is rather simple chemistry. Here’s how it works [taken from Dr. Sirius’ International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) website:

All cancer sufferers and in fact every chronic disease patient should hold clearly in mind that pH is the regulatory authority that controls most cellular processes. The pH balance of the human bloodstream is recognized by medical physiology texts as one of the most important biochemical balances in all of human body chemistry. pH is the acronym for “Potential Hydrogen”. In definition, it is the degree of concentration of hydrogen ions in a substance or solution. It is measured on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 14. Higher numbers mean a substance is more alkaline in nature and there is a greater potential for absorbing more hydrogen ions. Lower numbers indicate more acidity with less potential for absorbing hydrogen ions.

     Our body pH is very important because pH controls the speed of our body’s biochemical reactions. It does this by controlling the speed of enzyme activity as well as the speed that electricity moves through our body; the higher (more alkaline) the pH of a substance or solution, the more electrical resistance that substance or solution holds. Therefore, electricity travels slower with higher pH. If we say something has an acid pH, we are saying it is hot and fast.  Alkaline pH on the other hand, bio-chemically speaking, is slow and cool. 

THE TREATMENT

This treatment is a combination of pure, 100% maple syrup and baking soda and was first reported on the Cancer Tutor site. When mixed and heated together, the maple syrup and baking soda bind together. The maple syrup targets cancer cells (which consume 15 times more glucose than normal cells) and the baking soda, which is dragged into the cancer cell by the maple syrup, being very alkaline forces a rapid shift in pH killing the cell. The actual formula is to mix one part baking soda with three parts (pure, 100%) maple syrup in a small saucepan. Stir briskly and heat the mixture for 5 minutes. Take 1 teaspoon daily, is what is suggested by Cancer Tutor but one could probably do this several times a day.

“Sodium bicarbonate therapy is harmless, fast and effective because it is extremely diffusible. A therapy with bicarbonate for cancer should be set up with strong dosage, continuously, and with pauseless cycles in a destruction work which should proceed from the beginning to the end without interruption for at least 7-8 days. In general a mass of 2-3-4 centimeters will begin to consistently regress from the third to the fourth day, and collapses from the fourth to the fifth,” says Dr Simoncini. . . .

. . . Sodium bicarbonate is safe, extremely inexpensive and unstoppably effective when it comes to cancer tissues. It’s an irresistible chemical, cyanide to cancer cells for it hits the cancer cells with a shock wave of alkalinity, which allows much more oxygen into the cancer cells than they can tolerate. Cancer cells cannot survive in the presence of high levels of oxygen. Studies have already shown how manipulation of tumor pH with sodium bicarbonate enhances some forms of chemotherapy.

VIRUS AND BACTERIA REMEDY AS WELL 

There are many ways to use sodium bicarbonate and it is a universal drug like iodine and magnesium chloride. Raising pH increases the immune system’s ability to kill bacteria, concludes a study conducted at The Royal Free Hospital and School of Medicine in London. Viruses and bacteria that cause bronchitis and colds thrive in an acidic environment. To fight a respiratory infection and dampen symptoms such as a runny nose and sore throat, taking an alkalizing mixture of sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate will certainly help.

APPLE CIDER VINEGAR REMEDY 

The apple cider vinegar 1/4 teaspoon and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda taken 2 times or more a day is another treatment as is lemon and baking soda, or lime and baking soda formulas. Perhaps honey could be substituted for maple syrup for those who live in parts of the world where maple syrup is not available but to my knowledge no one has experimented with this.

For more information about this amazing and controversal discovery, visit the IMVA website at http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Lbakingsoda.htm

YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN HERE

Let me be clear: I am NOT recommending this treatment for cancer to anyone on this blog. You are completely on your own. It is a fact that diseases such as cancer and viral or bacterial infections thrive in an acid environment. However, changing the body’s pH so drastically and swiftly by ingesting therapeutic doses of baking soda can have harmful side effects, as the articles I’ve sourced for this blog report and detail.

For example, yeast thrives in an alkaline environment. It is generally present in the colon, which needs to maintain a lower pH, slightly on the acid side. Yeast overgrowth happens when the pH of the colon becomes too alkaline. So you don’t want to mess with the pH of the colon with large and frequent doses of baking soda.

There’s also the digestion factor where meats and grains are concerned. They need undiluted hydrochloric acid to break down the protein. Stomach digestive acid is activated in an acidic environment by the salivary enzyme pepsin, mixed with your food as you chew it thoroughly. If you change the pH of the stomach to a more alkaline environment with baking soda (or with Tums and Rolaids), your stomach is not going to be able to digest that hamburger and french fries. The undigested meat, bun and french fries will start fermenting, causing gas and heart burn, and will putrefy and rot later on in the gut. This condition can lead to all sorts of disorders, including IBS, Crohn’s disease and even cancer.

THE BEST PREVENTION

The best way to prevent and perhaps kill cancer cells, is to keep alkalizing your body chemistry with alkaline-rich vegetables (Here’s a chart to guide you). A quick way to alkalize is with barley green. There are supplements available for this purpose. Standard Process has SP GREENFOOD, which is a blend of alkalizing barley green and anti-cancer cruciferous vegetables, and Morter Health Systems has ALKA-GREEN, which is a barley green tablet. If you’re eating a lot of acid-ash foods (meat, dairy and grains), this is a great way to add alkaline to balance out the acid. Let us not forget the alkalizing benefits of minerals, such as calcium and magnesium. ORGANICALLY BOUND MINERALS by Standard Process is what I take daily and prescribe to my clients. 

It is obvious that this treatment is intended to help those with cancer to do something themselves at home to help cure their disease. I support and applaud such efforts made by anyone who takes an active role in their healthcare. As I said above, I am not recommending it to my blog readers nor promoting it as a “cancer cure.” I do, however, caution my readers not to employ this procedure without medical or professional guidance. (I state this disclaimer as a protective measure and as a requirement by the FDA.) 

I hope this post has helped you in your own critical thinking on this topic. I love hearing from my readers, so please feel free to comment on this post or send me your comments by email at tpal70@gmail.com. Until my next post, 

Tony's picture 2 from PeggyHere’s to your health and vitality,

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspiring reading. The current theme is Our Electromagnetic Universe: The Body Electric. 

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. Products or remedies mentioned in this blog post are not intended to diagnose or treat or cure any disease nor to replace orthodox medical care. 

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.” 

The Blessings of Functional Medicine

Tony Pics for SA BookTHE BLESSINGS OF FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

The human body functions much as a temple. Within its hallowed walls dwells the divine spirit that created and maintains it, and which all body-cells serve. A temple typically has columns that hold it up. The columns of the body temple are the functional systems that manage life in the body and facilitate the processes involved in transforming minerals and vital amino acids (vitamins) into the building blocks of the temple. These processes are what comprise our metabolism.

Our metabolism is a twofold creative process that includes the building up (anabolism) and tearing down (catabolism) of the various structures in the body – for one thing to keep them in good repair and working order. It also includes the chemical processing and conversion of foods into energy.

There are ten of these functional systems:
Endocrine System (hormonal glands),
Nervous System (brain, spinal chord & nerves),
Circulatory System (heart and blood vessels),
Respiratory System, (lungs and bronchial)
Lymphatic System, (thymus & lymph glands)
Genitourinary System (includes reproduction)
Digestive System, (liver, stomach, intestines)
Skeletal System, (bones & joints)
Muscular System, (ligaments & muscles)
Integumentary System (skin and fascia).

Cellular Level Health Care

At the macroscopic level, these systems are comprised of organs and glands, arteries and veins, connective tissues and ligaments, muscles and bones, fluids and marrow. At the microscopic level, all of this functional anatomy is comprised of cells, trillions of them, each one a living organism with systems identical in their functions to those in the larger body they comprise. In other words, cells breathe, eat, excrete waste, grow, reproduce and die. The cell is the basic unit of life in the body. As the cells live and die, so does the physical body. It is important, then, to maintaining cellular health and function.

This is essentially what functional medicine is all about. As its self-defining name implies, functional medicine concerns itself with the function of cells, organs and systems in the body, and the means and methods by which abnormal function may be normalized. Function is at the core of every condition known to medical science. There is not one disease, for example, that does not have at its root cause the failure of one or more organs and/or systems to function normally. Therefore, it follows logically, as well as clinically, that the correction of malfunction leads to healing and recovery.

This is not merely theory. It has been proven out over and over again in clinical settings throughout the civilized world where the natural approach of functional medicine is being used in the treatment of the whole person and not merely the disease. Chiropractic and clinical nutrition lead the way in the field of functional medicine.

Allopathic & Functional Medicine’s Forte

The treatment of disease is the forte of allopathic medicine, which uses drugs and surgery to intervene in the disease process and to relieve its painful symptoms. The restoration of function, and therefore of health, is the forte of functional medicine, which uses natural forces to support the healing process and thereby address the cause of disease. Both bestow their unique blessings, especially when and where they are allowed to work together. Our work is all about removing interferences to normal function in the body.

Wholistic Health Care

Wholistic health care concerns itself with the whole person and the various factors that go into manifesting healthy function in the body. For example, Chiropractic concerns itself with the correction of nerve impingement in the spine to free up the nerve supply essential to normal communication between the brain and the body’s parts and, therefore, normal function. Clinical Nutrition addresses the balancing of blood and body chemistry, both of which are essential to normal function. Bio-Energetic Synchronization Technique (BEST) helps to restore normal function in the body as well as in the mind by removing interferences in the sub-conscious mind and feeling realm in the form of memories of past trauma. These memories can actually be “erased” so that they no longer trigger defensive emotional reactions that keep a person’s physical body in a stress response mode.  In a stress-response mode, the body cannot heal itself nor grow its health.

So, we can see how wholistic (or holistic) health care is more about treating the whole person than about treating disease and pain with “alternative medicine.”  We are more than vitamins and minerals, muscles and bones, organs and blood vessels. We are whole persons. 

Energy Medicine

A whole person is made up of spirit and matter.  The matter of our bodies is shaped and maintained by spirit, namely the spirit of Life.  In Chiropractic philosophy we call this spirit Innate Intelligence and see it as a part of Universal Intelligence (God, if you prefer).  The Innate Intelligence of the body runs the whole show without the input of our educated intelligence, but not without its cooperation.  It knows exactly what’s going on in the body at all times, including what it needs in the way of external help and assistance in correcting deficiencies and structural damage and mis-alignments (such as in the joints and spinal column).  We have learned how to access this information through Kinesology (muscle testing). This in Energy Medicine at its practical best.

Contact Reflex Analysis (CRA)

Contact Reflex Analysis, System Strength Analysis, Nutritional Response Analysis are all energetic methods of “reading” the body’s systems and communicating with its Innate Intelligence, which is more than willing to share with the practitioner information that will guide him in determining an appropriate approach to resolving health issues. This is a non-invasive procedure that is a hundred percent accurate.  I’ve been using CRA for many years and have never found it to be inaccurate.  It not only lets me know what to do but also in what order of priority.  It is truly a gift from God.  There is no question one cannot obtain an accurate answers to with muscle testing when one’s intentions are right and honorable.

Attunement — Vibrational Healing

I offer an energy-healing service called Attunement.  Although Attunement is not a healthcare modality as chiropractic and clinical nutrition are, it does help mend, clarify, and enrich the connecting substance of pneumaplasm with our core spirit and thereby bring about peace, order and harmony within. When body, mind, heart and spirit are functioning harmoniously together, there is peace and harmony in the physical body. In a climate of peace and harmony, the cells of the body are able to function without disruption and interference. This essentially is what vibrational healing brings to the health care field. Everything we do in our service is done for the sole purpose of restoring normal function in the body so the body can heal itself.

How Vitamins Support Function

Vitamin A – supports the function of the eyes and immune system (infection control), the gums and nervous system, and the healing of skin. It’s necessary to cell metabolism, respiration and blood cell generation (platelets).

Vitamin B – supports the function of the heart and blood vascular system, the adrenal glands, the pancreas in producing insulin and digestive juices, and the nervous system. It stimulates and promotes appetite and normal digestion, promotes growth and vigor, and is necessary for carbohydrate metabolism and cell respiration, for normal pregnancy and lactation, and in maintaining muscle tonus.

Vitamin C – supports the function of the adrenal glands, the connective tissue, and the bones. Essential to health and integrity of endothelial tissues (raises resistance to infections), proper development of teeth, to oxygen metabolism, and to blood cell regeneration. It also maintains proper blood-clotting time.

Vitamin D – supports bone regeneration. Essential to proper mineral metabolism; absorption from alimentary tract, utilization and excretion of calcium and phosphorus. Necessary to successful pregnancy and lactation; for normalizing and reducing time of labor; to maintain blood platelets at normal level; to normal respiratory function. Maintains bone growth, muscle tonus and increases strength of capillaries.

Vitamin E – supports the skin, endocrine system (pituitary), heart, and sex-hormone production. Necessary to prevent irreparable sterility in male. Necessary to maintain mental alertness, growth and vigor. Possibly to prevent carcinoma. Necessary to resistance to infections.

Vitamin F – (Essential Fatty Acids) transports calcium from the blood into bones and tissues; necessary to cell respiration, hair health, and to brain function; supports prostate; converts sunlight into Vitamin D in skin.

Vitamin G – is one of the Vitamin B factors and supports circulation and brain function. Necessary to growth and development and cell respiration. As a growth stimulus, promotes normal repair processes and thereby delays senility. Necessary to blood regeneration.

Vitamin K – is not a single nutrient, but the name given to a group of vitamins of similar composition. The two main groups of vitamin K that occur naturally are vitamin K1 (phylloquinone) and K2 (menaquinone). K1 is found in many vegetables and K2 is produced by bacteria. It is more popularly known as a blood coagulant.  However, it appears vitamin K, and vitamin K as MK-7 in particular, plays an important role in keeping calcium in the bones and out of the arteries. (Dr. Susan E. Brown, PhD – see her article for important information about Vitamin K)

Note: Standard Process product labels prefix the vitamin with the word “Cataplex,” as in Cataplex A. This is due to the fact that vitamins do not stand alone in foods but are accompanied by complex co-factors that facilitate their function and preserve their integrity.  Commercially processed supplements do not afford these same benefits. This is why I use Standard Process wholefood supplements.

How Minerals Support Function

There are 12 organic minerals and some 72 trace mineral that support the function of vitamins and the production of enzymes in the body. They also conduct energy into and throughout the body.

Calcium – supports the bones and teeth, helps with blood coagulation, reduces neuromuscular irritability, facilitates and provides fuel for muscle contraction and nerve conduction in the heart muscles.

Magnesium – supports tooth formation, enzyme activation, nerve conduction, and muscle lubrication.

Sodium – plays a large role in acid-base balance, osmotic pressure, blood pH, muscle contractility and nerve transmission.

Potassium – plays a role in muscle activity, nerve transmission, intracellular acid-base balance and water retention, and energy management. It assists in escorting glucose into muscle cells for energy.

Phosphorus – in closely associated with Calcium and its functions with bone and teeth formation. It is used in establishing and maintaining acid-base balance, is a component of nucleic acids and is involved in energy production.

Iron – assists in the formation of hemoglobin and myoglobin, contributes to the production of certain enzymes and iron-sulphur proteins.

Fluorine – is used in bone and tooth formation. Chlorine – is used in acid-base balance, osmotic pressure, blood pH and kidney function.

Silica – plays a role in the alchemical production of bone tissue through a process of “biological transmutation.” It may also play a role in memory storage, similar to that of the silica microchip in the computer.

Manganese – is essential to the function of the Pituitary, the tone of ligaments and cartilage, and plays a component part in the makeup of certain enzymes.

Sulphur – is an antibiotic that also helps with joint motility.
Iodine – is essential to the production of thyroid hormones for metabolism, growth and development.

The seventy-two or more trace minerals play empowering roles in the balancing of body chemistry, especially with the hormones. Just to site a few:

Selenium, found in wheat germ oil, plays a key role as part of the Vitamin E complex in the cardiovascular system.

Chromium promotes the utilization of glucose by the muscle cells, thereby supporting the glucose tolerance factor in the bloodstream.

Molybdenum is a transitional metal that forms oxides and is a component of a coenzyme essential to the activity of enzymes involved in preventing toxic levels of sulfite, xanthine and aldehyde (such as formaldehyde) in the blood stream.

Gold is essential to balanced and clear mental function. Silver is a protective element against pathogens, such as harmful bacteria and viruses.

Levels and Ratios Critical

These elements of the mineral kingdom are not only present in a healthy body, their levels and ratios to one another are critical to maintaining healthy function, strength and vitality in the body. Calcium is in critical ratio to Phosphorus, Magnesium and Potassium; Sodium is balanced by Potassium; Copper and Zinc need to be in balanced ratio, as well as Sodium and Magnesium, Copper and Iron. The degree to which these minerals are present in their proper levels and ratios, the body is healthy. To the degree they are not, the body is sick and dying.

While Copper intensifies cellular activity, activating estrogen in cell proliferation, Zinc, which activates progesterone and testosterone, cools it down. The body contains two to three grams of Zinc, found mainly in bones, teeth, hair, skin, the liver, muscle, leukocytes and in the testes. It plays a role in skin integrity, enzymes, wound healing and growth.

Whole Food Supplements Best – Function the Key Factor

Seeing as how vitamins and minerals  depend on one another for balance and orderly function, it becomes obvious that they are best taken into the body in whole-food form and not as isolated fractions, whether “natural” or synthetic, in “high potency” commercially prepared supplements.  They’re not “natural” if they are not part of their natural environment where they can best function, and are essentially and functionally drugs as they are designed to stimulate or suppress rather than nourish. As such they really should be under the control of a regulatory agency and prescribed and administered by licensed healthcare professionals.

Therapeutic foods, such as those Standard Process provide practitioners, are best administered by a licensed healthcare practitioner.  SP’s products can only be obtained in this manner. ❧

This concludes this reprint from Health Light Newsletter archives. This article was first published in May of 2007 as the last hard-copy publication and marked my semi-retirement from 45 years of practice. I thought it might be helpful to publish it in my blog for many more to benefit from it.  Until my next post,

Here’s to your health and healing.

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN (Applied Clinical Nutrition)

Email: tpal70@gmail.com

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for interesting and inspiring considerations around subject that pique my interest, such as the current article “Sonic Geometry and the Music of the Spheres.”

For deeper and inspiring reading on the body as a temple, you may like to review my book Sacred Anatomy.

Food Our Medicine — Medicine Our Food

As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.

As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.

Greek Physician, Scientist and the Father of Medicine wrote these profound words of wisdom that really were meant to steer medicine in a more natural direction. 

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.  — Hippocrates (460 BC – 377 BC)

I lifted the following article with picture from a post by Veganism on Face Book.  Lots of good information here. Enjoy!

Food as MedicineFood is medicine and organic fruits and vegetables take center stage in achieving ultimate health and longevity. Morally and ethically, what is on the end of your fork clearly defines your approach to compassion, your environment, your health and well being. The following foods are valuable in sustaining your health, embracing life and avoiding surgeries, prescription drugs and the inevitable .

BLUEBERRIES POWERFUL ANTIOXIDANTS

The dye that is released from the blueberries’ skin may well be the most valuable nutrient the fruit has to offer. The pigments in blueberries and also in red crops such as cherries, plums, and red cabbage are powerful antioxidants. They have been determined to be a much-heralded chemical warrior against heart disease and also cancer. Blueberries actually have the highest antioxidant capacity because of their large anthocyanin concentration.

Antioxidants in our food can save us from virtually everything. Most of our health misfortunes are due to the perversity of oxygen. Our cells are perpetually besieged by toxic forms of oxygen which have been proved to have fierce destructive powers. So far scientists have linked destructive oxygen reactions to at least sixty different chronic diseases, as well as to aging itself. Oxygen free radicals can attack DNA, the genetic material of cells, causing them to mutate, which is a step on the path to cancer.

RED CABBAGE A POWERFUL DETOX FOOD

Red cabbage is a good source of phytonutrients that help to detoxify pollutants and other carcinogens that most people are exposed to on a daily basis. Like other cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, it’s high in glucosinolates, compounds which are metabolized by the body to form powerful cancer fighting chemicals known as isothiocyanates. Isothiocyanates activate the liver enzymes that break down carcinogens, allowing them to be safely eliminated from the body. People who consume high quantities of cruciferous vegetables have been shown to have a lower risk of certain types of cancer. Red cabbage is also a good source of indoles, compounds that may reduce the risk of breast cancer by altering estrogen metabolism.

RED BEETS HAVE ANTI-CARCINOGENS

Red Beet is unique for its high levels of anti-carcinogens and its very high carotenoid content. Red beets are high in carbohydrates and low in fat and it is an excellent source of folic acid. It is loaded with antioxidant that helps the body against heart disease, certain cancer especially colon cancer and even birth defects. Betacyanin is the pigment that gives beets their red color; this pigment is absorbed into the blood corpuscles and can increase the oxygen-carrying ability of the blood by up to 400 per cent. Don’t throw away the green leafy tops as they can be cooked like spinach and are also rich in beta-carotene, folic acid, chlorophyll, potassium, vitamin C, and iron.

BEET ROOT FOR LEUKEMIA

Beet root is a traditional treatment used for leukemia. Beet root contain an amino acid betaine which has an anti cancer properties. Red beet therapy, consisting of consumption of approximately two pounds of raw, mashed beets daily, has been favorably reported for cases of leukemia and tumors (includes cancer). Research also shows that beet juice can help inhibit the development of colon and stomach cancer. It is believed that red beets when eaten regularly may help against certain oxidative stress-related disorders. The fiber in red beets helps reduce serum cholesterol by 30 to 40%.Beets can help in normalizing blood pressure.

BEETS FOR HEALTHY ARTERIES AND VEINS

Beets helps to keep the elasticity of arteries, when consumed regularly it can help prevent varicose veins. The iron content of red beets, though not high but is of the finest quality that makes it a powerful cleanser and builder of blood. This is the reason why beets is very effective in treating many ailments caused by toxic environment and surrounding.

BEETS HAVE FOLIC ACID NEEDED IN PREGNANCY

Beet root is recommended for pregnant women because it contains folic acid that can help lower the risk of spinabifida and other neural tube defects in newborn infants.Beet juice helps stimulate the function of liver cells and protect the liver and bile ducts. Beet juice is highly alkaline which makes it effective in the treatment of acidosis. Drinking beets regularly can help relieve constipation. Beet juice and carrot juice when combined is excellent in the healing gout, kidney and gall bladder problem. You can tell that I love beets, I eat and juice at least six beets and the tops everyday religiously. One of my nicknames at the health food store that I frequent is “beet-man.”

CRUCIFEROUS VEGETABLES DETOXIFY THE LIVER

Vegetables that are members of the cruciferous, or cabbage, family not only contain fiber and many vitamins and minerals (including antioxidants) that promote optimal health, they also contain sulforaphane and indole-3-carbinol. These phytonutrients have been shown to stimulate enzymes in the body that help the liver remove carcinogens (and other toxic chemicals) and deactivate a powerful estrogen metabolite that promotes tumor growth.

STOP TUMOR GROWTH IN THE BREAST — ANTI-CANCER FOOD

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, various components in cruciferous vegetables have been shown to stop tumor growth in the breast, uterine lining, cervix, colon, lung, and liver and according to studies monitoring diets, eating calciferous vegetables can lower ones risk of getting prostate cancer. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, mustard greens, radishes and mustard greens.

KALE FOR THE EYES

Kale is absolutely rich and abundant in calcium, lutein, iron, and Vitamins A, C, and K. Kale has seven times the beta-carotene of broccoli and ten times more lutein. Kale is rich in Vitamin C not to mention the much needed fiber so lacking in the daily diet of processed food eating Americans. The “Icing on the Kale” are the naturally occurring all important phytochemicals sulforaphane and indoles which research suggests may protect against cancer. Let’s not forget the all important antioxidant Vitamin E. Rest assured kale spares nothing in providing one with much needed nutrients and associated health benefits. The naturally rich sulfur content of kale deserves a bit more discussion.

Science has discovered that sulforaphane, helps boost the body’s detoxification enzymes, possibly by altering gene expression. This is turn is purported to help clear carcinogenic substances in a timely manner. Sulforaphane is formed when cruciferous vegetables like kale are chopped or chewed. This somehow triggers the liver to produce enzymes that detoxify cancer causing chemicals, of which we all are exposed on daily basis. A recently new study in the Journal of Nutrition (2004) demonstrates that sulforaphane helps stop breast cancer cell proliferation.

BEANS ARE COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES

Beans are an often-overlooked source of incredible health benefits. – They have a lot of carbs, leading people to believe they should be avoided and seen as a weight gain risk only. Nothing could be farther from the truth though, as research has shown that the carbohydrates found in most beans are of the complex variety.

Complex carbohydrates are not contributors to any sort of weight gain, instead providing the brain and muscles with a lot of good, stable energy supplies. Beans actually contain a wider variety of healthy nutrients than most foods. These include calcium, potassium, vitamin B6, magnesium, folate, and alpha-linolenic acid. These nutrients work together on several key areas of the body promoting total health.

SOURCE OF COMPLETE PROTEINS

Beans also happen to be good sources of complete proteins, which is rare in plants. Plants, while having many different nutrients, often lack complete proteins of any kind. This is unfortunate, as protein is a vital ingredient to the healthy and normal functioning of the human body, and the most readily available sources of protein have negative effects on the heart. Beans, however, are plentiful in protein. Most of the commotion that beans are generating in the scientific community has to do with the fact that they are showing to provide protection from many of the most feared and lethal diseases plaguing Americans today.

Studies done in universities have shown that eating beans on a regular basis reduces a person’s risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity. Sometimes the reduction in risk is substantial. The risk for heart disease, for example, may be reduced by as much as 22%. Beans help to curb hunger, and offer the body valuable sources of ready energy that it can burn quickly and effectively. Because of this, beans boost energy levels, and as a result, promote weight loss.

POWERFUL LITTLE FOOD

Beans are powerful little foods that have been ignored for far too long. Associated with Carbohydrates and gas, current studies have done a wonderful job of increasing our understanding of this plentiful food and revealed it to be packed with important nutrition. The benefits that can be attained from eating beans are as varied as all of the nutrients they contain, but what is important is that many of these benefits help to protect people from some of the most feared illnesses of our times. i eat beans regularly, both sprouted and cooked. I only buy organic beans in bulk and the ones that I fine the most nutritional is adzuki, mung and garbanzo.

WHOLE GRAINS PROVIDE UNIQUE ANTIOXIDANTS

Whole grains offer vitamins and minerals, plus high levels of antioxidants and other healthy plant-based nutrients. Whole grains contain protective antioxidants in amounts near or exceeding those in fruits and vegetables. They also provide some unique antioxidants not found in other foods. Studies have shown that eating more whole grains may help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. New studies show that whole grains may lower triglycerides, improve insulin control, help in weight management, and slow the build-up of arterial plaque. Optimal whole grains are hulled barley, wheat berries, buckwheat, rye, spelt, quinoa, black rice and brown rice. Quinoa and buckwheat are actually fruit seeds but look like grains so I call them grains. They are powerfully nutritional loaded with protein and calcium among lots of fiber and many other nutrients.

Tony picVisit my HealingTones.org blog for more interesting and extraordinary articles. This issue features: “The Shaman’s Gift of Healing.”

Here’s to your health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

Picture of Hyppocrates by Shakko.

The Affordable “Disease Care” Law

Tony's picture 2 from Peggy THE AFFORDABLE “DISEASE CARE” LAW

With all the fuss going on over “Obamacare,” I’ve just got to get up on my soapbox for this blog post.

While listening to some of the political talking points and patients’ viewpoints on the current health care crisis a few days ago on television, one woman with MS decried the fact that her drugs alone cost her $4400 a month, and I thought: “Oh My God! This is what we’re getting ourselves into with this so-called Affordable Health Care program!” — a misnomer if there ever was one.  It would be more accurate to call it “Affordable Disease Care,” because that’s what it provides: care for those who have diseases, for whatever the reasons and causes, mostly related to unhealthy lifestyles, poverty, and environmental pollution. 

Just for a perspective on how this pans out where the rubber meets the road: it will take 44 of us paying our minimum $115 monthly Affordable Health Care premiums to pay for this woman’s drugs — drugs that do not even “cure” her MS and restore her health, but that merely treat the symptoms of her disease so that she can go on living a lifestyle that has resulted — and continues to result — in MS.  Now, you tell me what’s wrong with this picture.

But, then, that’s why so-called “health insurance” was invented in the first place — by a group of hospitals during the depression, by the way:

It was during the Depression that hospitals banded together to offer prepaid coverage to citizens. Prepaid hospital coverage was a way for hospitals to avoid the financial failure that befell the banking industry. The approach worked so well that doctors followed suit a few years later and Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations were born. Little did anyone know that the seeds for runaway costs eighty years later had been planted. (THE HISTORY OF HEALTH CARE COSTS AND HEALTH INSURANCE — A Wisconsin Primer by LINDA GORMAN, PH.D.)

Read the article. It’s very enlightening. The primary motive was to make sure hospitals and doctors got paid for their services to the sick — not to the healthy.  So it really should be called “sick care insurance.”  And they won’t let any of us real health care professionals in on their racket. Well, after fighting for inclusion and insurance equality, licensed chiropractors are allowed to dip into the money pool, but only to treat backaches and neck injuries along with disorders related to misaligned spinal vertebrae (known as a “subluxation complex”) — in other words, muscular-skeletal disorders. Diseases can only be treated by an MD and then only with drugs and surgery. Natural medicines, like herbs and therapeutic supplements, are not allowed. An MD’s scope of practice is limited to disease care. Therefore, natural medicines that contribute to health are not covered by any insurance policies that I’m aware of, certainly not by Medicare. Medicare will not pay for chiropractic maintenance care either. The chiropractor, in order to get a relatively puny amount of compensation from Medicare, has to say that the monthly spinal adjustment some of us like to have just to maintain our health is for a “new injury,” even though it isn’t.  You see, one has to be a little bit dishonest in order to play the game. 

Oh, yes, the system can be manipulated and is on a daily basis.  It’s a racket on both sides of the playing field.  We even call it the “health care arena.” It’s all a big and expensive game for which the spectators pay premium dollars every month — plus a co-payment — in order to be allowed into the arena.  Of course, they have to have a treatable disease in order to actually get out on the field and get passed around like a football while the doctor-players dip their hands into the insurance pool each time they pass or run the ball.

IT’S A COLLUSION AND UNHOLY ALLIANCE  

Do you actually believe that medical science will ever find a “cure” for all the diseases they’ve invented in order to have a legitimate reason to play in the healthcare “field” — another game term — and collect a fee from the spectators’ pool of insurance monies — not to mention running the risk of cutting off the billions of research dollars it gets in government grants to find a cure for cancer and alzheimer’s ?  Not on your life.

In case you have forgotten, the “government” is US, you and me, whether we’re paying an insurance premium or not. Our tax dollars go towards keeping this game in play — along with all the dollars collected in countless marches against breast cancer, diabetes and every other disease we can think of that lets us believe we are doing something by paying to walk in order to end disease on the planet.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!

For one thing, it would collapse the nation’s economy. Yes, I’m being deliberately facetious and critical. But,then, critical thinking is what we all need to exercise these days if we are to affect real changes in health care.  First, let’s call it what it is: disease care. Then let’s start demanding that insurance companies start including honest and real health care in their coverage.  I’ve heard that the state of Washington has been requiring insurance companies to pay for alternative health care for several years now. I don’t know how their doing with their law or even if it is still being enforced. Any of my readers know?

Now, let me get real here.  After all, we live in a less-than-perfect world. Disease is a fact of life as life is now lived by humans on the planet, and I am truly thankful we have developed coping methods and technology to help us traverse the toxic and dangerous terrain we have created on the surface of our planetary home among the stars. We simply could not make it without the help of our wonderful and dedicated ER doctors and nurses who get us through traumatic crises we would otherwise not likely survive. Every time I think of my by-pass operation of 2003 I thank God for the blessed surgeon who held my heart in his hands and grafted new veins and arteries into it so that I could live to see another day, another year, another decade now. God bless him and his team.

I tell my patients to be thankful for their doctors and the drugs they are taking to help them through their health crisis while they embark on a new path to health and wellness with alternative health care and lifestyle changes.  But they know and we all know that taking drugs is not the way to go in our health care. I certainly hope the young lady with MS finds her way to an alternative health care practitioner so that she can let go of her expensive drugs and toxic lifestyle.

HEALTHY ALTERNATIVES ARE ABUNDANTLY AVAILABLE 

We’ve got to find another way, and we have in fact made huge inroads into healthier lifestyles and natural healing technologies. Real health care is abundantly available today.  It’s just not covered by medical insurance, and I’m sure it won’t be covered by the Affordable Health Care Law. For now, we have to pay for it out of our own pockets. But, after all, isn’t my health my responsibility? It’s certainly not yours, nor the government’s, nor the insurance industry’s for that matter. Nor is it my doctors’ responsibility. It’s mine and mine alone. If we each took care of our own health, there would be no need for disease care insurance. 

A RADICAL SHIFT IN CONSCIOUSNESS IS UNDERWAY

What I am really talking about here is the need for a radical shift in the way we think about and go about the care of our health, of our precious and faithful bodies. It’s a change in consciousness that is required so that, as we each one awake and contribute into the mass consciousness our own enlightenment and perspective, we help blaze new paths to freedom from disease.

There is an awakening taking place in human consciousness and it will continue to expand and fill the collective human mind and heart with light and love for truth so that those in positions to offer collective leadership and assume responsibility for collective programs that facilitate whole-health care and healthy lifestyles will continue to have realizations that open up new and affordable ways of doing things on the planet. It’s already happening, as my wife and I were acknowledging at the dinner table just yesterday. It’s just happening “under the radar” of today’s media. It’s all over social media and the web. The new paradigm is now well in place. 

THERE’S NO MIND-MADE SOLUTION TO THE MIND-MADE PROBLEM

Is there a solution to the problem we’re facing with our current health care delivery system? I don’t see one. Every new solution seems to produce only more problems in this mind-made world. The ultimate solution is individual assumption of personal responsibility. Until that happens, we can, at best, create stepping stones and bridges to the other side, away from sick care and toward true health care. All it takes is a little interest and education.

I would make one suggestion, and that would be to put in place a requirement in our Affordable Health Care Law that, in order to engage the system, a person would have to show that he or she has first engaged a healthy lifestyle and is doing something to educate him/or herself about alternative health care and sound nutrition. Even then, it would only work in an honest world where people are awake to the way the natural world works in according to natural laws.

“NOTHING’S WRONG. EVERYTHING MATTERS.”

A friend penned those words in a poem. Disease is the body’s natural adaptation to the insults and injury brought on by an unnatural lifestyle. There’s nothing wrong with it. It keeps our species from extinction by helping us adapt to an increasingly toxic and anti-life environment. It is we with our toxic lifestyle who are out of harmony with Natural Law, and we reap the consequences and pay with our good health and very lives to maintain that disharmony. At the rate we are going, we may not be able to adapt fast enough and our species may yet go extinct unless we make radical changes soon.

Some people say alternative health care is expensive. No it isn’t. Sick care is what’s expensive, increasingly so. That’s why that hand-full of hospitals and doctors invented sick insurance back along the way. Their’s was a vision of things big and far. Real health care is affordable and far less costly than drugs and surgery. It’s safer, too. One simply has to get beyond the fear barrier and let go of one’s false sense of security and dependence on drugs. All insurance salesmen know that fear is the driving force that closes the sale in the absence of wisdom and informed decision making. That’s why I have never in my working years bought health insurance, nor professional liability insurance for that matter. I simply would not buy into a fear-based system. The only two so-called “malpractice” law suits ever filed against me in my early years of practice were suddenly dropped when the assailants found out I didn’t have liability insurance. And the only health care insurance I’ve ever owned and used is Chiropractic and wholistic health care. My heart by-pass surgery was a gift from God. Thank you, God, and Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. For that matter, all doctors are gifts from God.

Now, of course, I have Medicare to cover any catastrophic health crises I may encounter in my ageing body. It was a blessing to have when I had a worn out knee replaced a few years ago. I take no medications. Nada. Instead, I take a handful of Mother Nature’s medicines of wholefood supplements every day prescribed by a colleague in Houston whom I visit regularly for my health care. I also exercise moderately and eat sensibly. Don’t need much food to maintain my level of activity anyway. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Not too many of my clients even do that. I also sleep eight hours at night and do things I enjoy — like writing these blogs, reading a good novel, singing with the Masterworks Chorale, cooking, gardening and traveling with my wife and traveling partner. Above all, I find it essential to maintain a spiritual practice to nurture my Soul’s inner life, such as meditation and attunement. After all, physical substance is shaped, nourished and maintained by spiritual substance. “As above, so below. As within, so without.” A conscious working connection with Source within is essential to the health of the whole person.

ABUSE IS INEVITABLE

Abuse is inevitable in systems where billions of dollars are pouring in from the masses. Even Medicare is abused by doctors who know darn good and well that an old person is not going to benefit that much by a hip replacement. My own ageing mother was a case in point. She had hip replacement in her 80’s at the expense of the taxpayers but was too weak to go through rehab and never really walked well again after the surgery, which was, at best, but an expensive aspirin. Between a pace maker and joint replacement, Medicare paid out over thirty-thousand dollars to her doctors and the hospital before she finally used up all her physical substance just surviving to the over-ripe old age of 90. Did her doctors take advantage of Medicare? It appeared so to me. She could have easily been allowed to end her earthly journey honorably at 80 and avoid her last decade of medical disease management. It seems we do things nowadays just because we can and because it’s covered by insurance. What ever happened to allowing the natural process of dying as an honorable way of leaving this world? Does medicine have the right to interfere with that process? Does it have the right to a monopoly on health care, and now to a government subsidized protection plan for that monopoly? Because that’s exactly what the Affordable Health Care Law is. This law says that Americans must have sick care insurance or pay a penalty. Given the current dietary habits and lifestyles of most Americans, it’s really not a bad idea.

The insurance industry itself will eventually collapse, as all dishonest and abused systems must. I think it’s a telling sign that unless the young and healthy sign up for it, Obamacare will not be adequately funded by the people. Many young Americans are apparently opting for the penalty in lieu of the monthly premium. Makes good sense to me. We may yet be forced to return to embracing an honorable death as an alternative to a life of disease management. It is, as one health author put it some years back, “cheaper to die.” Of course, the best alternative by far is health and wellness care.

Well, that’s my contribution to the current conversation on health care. Just one doctor’s viewpoint. You’re welcome to share yours. Until my next post, here’s to your health and healing!

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for more thought-provoking articles on transformation and spiritual ascent.

COUNTRIES VISITING MY BLOGS (114)   WELCOME TUNISIA

 ALBANIA, ARGENTINA, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, AZERBAIJAN, BAHAMAS, BAHRAIN, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELGIUM, BERMUDA, BHUTAN, BOLIVIA, BOSNIA, BRAZIL, BRUNEI DARUSSALAM, BULGARIA, CAMEROON, CANADA, CHILI, COLOMBIA, COSTA RICA, COTE D’LVOIRE, CROATIA, CYPRUS, CZECH REPUBLIC, DENMARK, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, ECUADOR, EGYPT, ESTONIA, ETHIOPIA, FINLAND, FRANCE, GEORGIA, GERMANY, GHANA, GREECE, GUATEMALA, GUYANA, HONG KONG, HUNGARY, ICELAND, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAQ, IRELAND, ISRAEL, ITALY, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JERSEY (island), JORDAN, KAZAKHSTAN, KENYA, KYRGYZSTAN, KUWAIT LEBANON, LATVIA, LITHUANIA, MALAYSIA, MALDIVES, MALTA, MEXICO, MOLDOVA, MONTENEGRO, MYANMAR, NEPAL, NETHERLANDS, NEW ZEALAND, NICARAGUA, NORWAY, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PANAMA, PERU, PHILLIPPINES, POLAND, PORTUGAL, PUERTO RICO, QATAR, REUNION (Island), ROMANIA, RUSSIAN FEDERATION, SAUDI ARABIA, SERBIA, SPAIN, SINGAPORE, SLOVAKIA, SLOVENIA, SOLOMON ISLANDS, SOUTH AFRICA, SRI LANKA, SUDAN, SYRIAN ARABIA, REPUBLIC OF (SOUTH) KOREA, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND, TAGO (West Africa), TAIWAN, TANSANIA (UNITED REP. OF TZ), THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, TUNISA, TURKEY, UKRAINE, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UNITED KINGDOM, USA, VANUATU, VENEZUELA, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZIMBABWE (South Africa)

 

 

 

Violence and Brain Starvation

VIOLENT BEHAVIOR MAY WELL BE THE RESULT OF BRAIN STARVATION

Tony's picture 2 from PeggyThis is not “news.” I’ve been saying it for decades, as have countless nutritional researchers and clinicians the world over. Dr. Royal Lee, called the “Einstein of Nutrition” and the “Father of Holistic Nutrition,” proved it out a century ago. Oh, medical science is so slow in arriving at the truth; so full between its ears of its own mind-made intelligence and arrogance that it hasn’t been able to hear the truth. Read the article and learn the facts about the truth of the matter — that is if you don’t already know them. (My apologies to my already awake, aware and informed readers.)

Dr. Weston Price

Dr. Weston Price

Dr. Weston Price, like Dr. Royal Lee, was a dental physician who considered teeth but a reflection of total body health, being a part of the body itself. Dr. Lee’s approach was to feed the body nutrient rich foods and in that you heal the teeth. In his own words: 

Dr. Royal Lee

Dr. Royal Lee

One of the greatest tragedies of human civilization is the precedence of chemical therapy over nutrition. It’s the substitution of artificial therapy over natural, of poisons over food, in which we are feeding people poisons trying to correct the reactions of starvation. (click to hear his voice).

A contemporary colleague of Dr. Lee, Dr. Price spent his years researching, documenting an publishing scientific information on the impact of nutrition on health and disease. So, your brain is in good hands here. Enjoy this article from the Weston A. Price Foundation.

WASHINGTON, DC,, Aug. 30, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Deficiencies of vitamins A, D, K, B1, B3, B6, B12 and folate, and of minerals iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium, zinc, chromium and manganese can all contribute to mental instability and violent behavior, according to a report published in the Spring 2013 issue of Wise Traditions, the journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

The article, Violent Behavior: A Solution in Plain Sight by Sylvia Onusic, PhD, CNS, LDN, seeks reasons for the increase in violent behavior in America, especially among teenagers.

“We can blame violence on the media and on the breakdown of the home,” says Onusic, “but the fact is that a large number of Americans, living mostly on devitalized processed food, are suffering from malnutrition.  In many cases, this means their brains are starving.”

In fact, doctors are seeing a return of nutritional deficiency diseases such as scurvy and pellagra, which were declared eradicated long ago by public health officials.  Many of these conditions cause brain injuries as well.

Symptoms of pellagra, for example, include anxiety, hyperactivity, depression, fatigue, headache, insomnia and hallucinations. Pellagra is a disease caused by deficiency of vitamin B3.  Zinc deficiency is linked with angry, aggressive, and hostile behaviors that result in violence.  The best dietary sources of zinc are red meat and shellfish.

Leaky gut and gluten sensitivities may exacerbate nutrient deficiencies.  Gluten intolerance is strongly linked with schizophrenia.

Things have gotten even worse since Lee’s and Price’s day with all the chemicals we now have and are adding to our foods, such as MSG and Aspartame, to enhance flavor and attack obesity. Little wonder our guts are eroding and leaking undigested proteins into our blood streams, the underlying cause of food sensitivities and allergies. Read on.

“Making things worse are excitotoxins so prevalent in the food supply, such as MSG and Aspartame,” says Onusic.  “People who live on processed food and who drink diet sodas are exposed to these mind-altering chemicals at very high levels.” In an effort to curb child obesity, the dairy industry recently petitioned FDA to include aspartame and other artificial sweeteners in dairy beverages featured in school lunches, without appropriate labeling. Recent research has established the fact that aspartame actually leads to weight gain because of its effect on insulin.

Other ingredients in the food supply linked to violent behavior include sugar, artificial colors and flavorings, caffeine, alcohol and soy foods. The toxic environmental burden includes mercury, arsenic, lead, fire retardants, pesticides, heavy metals and Teflon.  Adding psychiatric drugs to this mix puts everyone at risk.

Whole foods is the only answer, and you won’t get what your body and brain need from synthetic, isolated vitamins in a “one-a-day” Centrum tablet, or gummy bears. Only from food-based nutritional therapy using whole-food supplements.

“The only solution to the mounting levels of violence is a return to real, nutrient-dense food,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. “We must create a culture in which eating processed food is seen as uncool, and in which home cooking is embraced as a life-enhancing skill.”

The Weston A. Price Foundation has pointed out the poor nutritional quality of school lunches and the flaws in the USDA dietary guidelines, which schools receiving federal funding are required to follow.  At a press conference in January, 2010, the Foundation proposed guidelines that include eggs, organ meats and healthy animal fats.  “Our brains need cholesterol to function properly,” said Fallon Morell, “and our children need cholesterol-rich food for optimal mental and emotional development.” Studies have shown that depressed individuals, offenders who show the most violent behavior, and the most violent suicides have low cholesterol levels.

That’s not surprising, as the brain is one big mass of cholesterol, the stuff cardiologists of today are trying to reduce in Americans with their Statin drugs. I say “Americans” because it’s only in America, where drug companies make Statin drugs, that cholesterol has become a “marker” in diagnosing coronary heart distease — and it became a marker just about the same time Statin drugs appeared on the market. Not only does medicine create drugs for diseases; it also invents diseases for its drugs! Wake up Americans!

If you want the premier hallmark wholefood supplement Dr. Royal Lee formulated and made available to the world called “CATALYN,” drop me an email and I’ll mail you a large bottle (360T for $45), postage included. That’s a 60-day supply if you’re deficient and a 120 days supply if you only need maintenance and insurance against malnutrition.

I welcome and love comments on my blog posts. My email address is tpal70@gmail.comUntil next post,

Here’s to your health and sanity,

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

The Weston A. Price Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nutrition education foundation with the mission of disseminating accurate, science-based information on diet and health. Named after nutrition pioneer Weston A. Price, DDS, author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the Washington, DC-based Foundation publishes a quarterly journal for its 16,500 members, supports 574 local chapters worldwide and hosts a yearly international conference. The Foundation phone number is (202) 363-4394, westonaprice.org, info@westonaprice.org.

For further information: www.westonaprice.org/environmental-toxins/violent-behavior-a-solution-in-plain-sight

www.westonaprice.org/press/press-conference-critique-of-the-2010-dietary-guidelines

113 Countries visiting my blogs. Welcome Azerbaijan!