Category Archives: Drugs

by

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

My Chorale Pic

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

HERBS THAT HEAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ARE HERBS DANGEROUS?

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

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

SAFE FOR THE GUT FLORA

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

MEDICAL IGNORANCE OF HERBS

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

WILL HERBS EVER REPLACE PHARMACEUTICALS ?

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

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

Here’s to your health and natural healing.

Anthony Palombo, DC

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

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

 

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

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

by

Living Medicine Vs Pharmaceuticals, part 3: Herbs that Cure

Scan_Pic0002

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

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

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

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

Ahuja: What was your first experience with herbal medicine?

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

Ahuja: What was the plant?

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

HERBAL MEDICINES AND THEIR HEALING GIFTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anthony Palombo, DC

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

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

by

Living Medicine Vs Pharmaceuticals, part 1: The Antibiotic Crisis

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

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

My Chorale Pic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

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

by

Your Lab Numbers Do Not Measure you Health

My Chorale PicI sat next to a long-time friend at a social event recently and, being a doctor, I asked him how his health was. He immediately proceeded to tell me about his cholesterol and blood pressure, both of which he said were “normal.” Now, that’s a pretty well accepted way most people measure their health, by their lab numbers, which don’t really say much about a person’s health. One can have “normal” numbers and still have a stroke or heart attack, especially if one is medicating to mask their symptoms to keep their lab values looking well within “normal” ranges and them feeling better.  But, what’s really “normal?” One man’s normal is another man’s illness and worry.

I put “normal” in quotation marks to emphasize that there really isn’t a one-fits-all norm — and so-called “normal ranges” are based on the medical model of treating the symptoms of disease, not fostering health. Medical students study cadavers that died from diseases and medical studies are based on treating the sick, not the well.  Generally, doctors don’t treat the well.  They treat the sick.  So their standards are based on the sick and not the well.  Also, what is “normal” for one person may not be appropriate for the next fellow.  I’ll give you an example. The “normal” range for triglycerides in the average person is <150.  The healthy range for triglycerides is much lower than that at <80, so I’m told by my brilliant colleague, teacher and clinical nutritionist at Whole Health Associates in Houston.  This points to a choice we have to be merely outside the range of health failure and disease or to be well above that range experiencing great health and vitality. 

THOSE WORRISOME CHOLESTEROL NUMBERS

Another example is the worrisome cholesterol numbers. In the first place, cholesterol has nothing at all to do with cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is caused by inflammation. Cholesterol is simply the body’s way of dealing with inflammation and the damage it does to the blood arteries and vessels. It’s a patch material used to keep the eroding  blood vessels from springing a leak. It’s an adaptation and not a marker for coronary heart disease (CHD).

It’s only in America where high cholesterol is said to be a marker for CHD, and that’s only been so since Big Pharma developed and started flooding the market with statin drugs (Lipitor and its cousins) to suppress the liver’s production of cholesterol, a fat that every cell in your body needs to build its outer membrane that protects it from free radicals and oxidation.  A fat that your body makes hormones, nerves and brain tissue out of.  An essential fat in your skin needed to turn sunshine into Vitamin D.

We elderly need more of this essential fat than you youngsters for our brains cells to regenerate as they begin to die off as we age.  So, higher numbers are normal and good for an aging person.

It’s the ratio between the HDL and LDL that’s important and not the total cholesterol.  Your HDL needs to be at least 25% of the total cholesterol.  For example, if your total cholesterol level is 200, your HDL level needs to be around 50.  The total cholesterol number will vary with the level of demand for cholesterol in the body. LDL’s carry the cholesterol from the liver out to where its needed in the body. HDL’s go around collecting what’s not used and then taking it back to the liver to be eliminated as bile from the body. Cholesterol is an essential fat in your body. There’s no such thing as “bad cholesterol.” That’s medical programming designed to engender fear in people so they will buy Lipitor and other Statin drugs. It’s pure and simple propaganda folks. Mute those commercials.  Don’t let that programming into your subconscious mind.  

The logical thing to do is not treat the cholesterol but rather determine why there’s an increased demand for it in the first place and treat the cause of the demand.  When you remove the necessity for more cholesterol, the numbers will come down.  In most cases, the cause is stress and high insulin in the blood stream from consuming to many starches and sweets. Insulin erodes the inner lining of the blood vessels if it accumulates too much. Food allergies and sensitivities are another trigger for inflammation.  Uric acid in the blood, as in gout, is another common trigger.

ALLOPATHY, HOMEOPATHY AND FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE  

Your lab numbers do not measure your health. They measure a momentary snapshot of the current conditions of your body fluids. That’s all. Your blood and your urine. That’s the terrain in which allopathic medicine works.  Your lab numbers say nothing about the health of your body’s organs and tissue cells.  That’s the domain of “functional medicine,” which is what I practice.

Allopathy is defined in my New World Dictionary as the “treatment of disease by remedies that produce effects different from or opposite to those produced by the disease: loosely applied to the general practice of medicine today, but in strict usage opposed to HOMEOPATHY.”  Those “different” effects are what mask the symptoms of disease.

Homeopathy puts a small dose of the same disease in the form of a coded water solution into the body in order to trigger an immune response in the body so that the body learns how to deal with the actual disease on a safe “do-no-harm” level. This works beautifully, and is completely harmless. 

Functional medicine explores organs and systems malfunction and then supports the body’s own innate healing intelligence with nutrition and herbs in order to catalyze the healing process into action.  Chiropractic also takes the functional approach, offering spinal care to restore nerve flow to organs and tissues and thereby restore their normal function.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE IS NORMAL

Here’s another example of numbers dictating one’s sense of health and well being.  High blood pressure is normal, given the circumstances in the body that require it. Blood pressure, like cholesterol, will increase in response to a need in the body for more pressure behind the blood flow.  It could be thick blood caused by toxins in the bloodstream.  It could be constricted blood vessels due to cortisol pouring into the bloodstream to handle stress.  It could also be kidney failure causing fluid to build up in the tissues and around the heart and other organs.  Whatever the cause, it doesn’t make a bit of sense to lower the blood pressure with drugs — drugs that deplete CoQ10, the very energy source for the heart and kidneys — without finding out what’s causing the necessity for higher pressure in the circulatory system and correcting that. That’s what we do in functional medicine: find the cause and correct the interference to the normal function of organs, hormonal glands and body systems.  Now, the person would be wise to take the HBP medicine to avoid having a stroke — and take 60 mg. of Coenzyme Q10 daily to replace what is leached out by the medicine.  This goes for anyone taking Statin drugs as well.

YOUR BODY KNOWS BEST– TRUST IT 

Well, I think that’s enough for one post. I hope you learned something from this one.  I will leave you with these encouraging words: Trust your body. It doesn’t make mistakes. It knows exactly what it is doing. Help it do its job better. See an alternative healthcare practitioner.  Stop measuring your potential for disease and focus on building up your health . . . and don’t sweat the numbers.

Here’s to your health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

dranthonypalombo@live.com

Visit my Healing Tones blog for inspiring reading on a variety of timely topics.  

by

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.” 

by

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)

 

 

 

by

Acid Indigestion and GERD

Don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough with TV commercials selling drugs.  If it’s not Nexium, it’s Prilosec or Prevacid for indigestion and GERD.  Then there are the erectile dysfunction drugs with warnings to men with hypertension and prolonged erections. And don’t you just love the monotone side-effect warnings drug ads add onto the commercial with pleasant music playing so you’re led to think this is a good thing and not harmful.  Don’t they know most of us just mute our TV’s during commercials? Apparently these commercials work because the drug companies keep doling out millions to television stations and show billions of dollars in sales and profits.  And they even tell lies to program people to think within the box of the medical model.

 One Prevacid commercial shows a graphic of the inside wall of the stomach pumping digestive juices into it and states that this purple pill stops the stomach pumps from doing their job.  The lie is that they state that these secretions are what cause “acid indigestion,” and this is simply not true.  It’s the acids of fermenting foods that cause indigestion and “heart burn” that leads to GERD, or “acid reflux,” and not the digestive acids which the lining of the stomach is designed to handle.  It can’t handle fermenting acids which burn the tissues of the  stomach and the “cardiac valve” leading from the esophagus into the stomach.  This fermentation burns the upper region of the stomach near the heart.  That’s why we call it “heart burn.”  It’s not the heart that’s burning but the cardiac valve (named for its close proximity to the lower tip of the heart).  The valve gets soft, looses its tone, so that it can’t close tight.  The result is GERD.   

Fermentation occurs when foods stop digesting due to diluted stomach acids (Betaine Hydrochloride).  Dilution of stomach digestive acids — in anyone under 45 years of age — is caused by improper food combining — mixing sweets and starches with meats primarily — or by a lack of pepsin and ptyaln amylase, enzymes from the salivary glands that, when mixed with foods in the mouth while chewing it thoroughly, activate acid and alkaline digestive juices respectively so that the proteins get broken down and digested and the starches get converted to sugar, a process that actually starts in the mouth.  Chew on your french fries long enough and they’ll turn sweet in your mouth.  Without the salivary enzyme ptylan amylase starches will ferment in the stomach.  This will occur if you eat too fast — like on the run — or wash you food down with a soda, or even water, without chewing it properly.  

Eating while under stress is a frequent cause of indigestion these days, simply because stress shuts down the digestive system.  The body doesn’t want food while it’s under attack.  It wants to run away from the treat, real or imagined, or at least fight back and defend itself against attack — again, real or imagined.  So it switches from nourishing and growth mode to defense and survival. 

You see, indigestion can be prevented simply by eating properly and enjoying your meal with a relaxed composure.  And if you’re over 45, your stomach just doesn’t produce as much Hydrochloric acid as it did when you were younger with abusive eating habits wearing out  your stomach’s acid pumps.  So you need to take ZYPAN, a digestive enzyme with activated  Betaine Hydrochloride made by Standard Process Labs out of Palmyra, Wisconsin.  Drop me an email and I’ll mail a few bottles to you. A large bottle of 330  tablets is only $40 and their 90 tablet bottle is $12.50 (add $13 for drop-shipping).

If you want a correct remedy for indigestion and acid reflux,  add some Betaine Hydrochloride to the fermenting contents of your stomach to start up the digestive process.  That’s right, add acid to your stomach, only the right kind.  Two ZYPAN tablets will do the trick nicely.  

One caution: if your stomach has an ulcer from whatever cause, you don’t want to put Hydrochloride in your stomach.  You’ll have to take “GASTREX” (2 just before eating) for a couple of weeks to heal up the ulceration first, then you can take ZYPAN.  Add a couple of CHLOROPYLL COMPLEX PERLES” on an empty stomach and heal it up even faster.  Chlorophyll is Mother Nature’s healing balm.  It will stop pain immediately upon contact.  Best remedy for burns, too.  You can get it in a tube from Standard Process through a licensed health practitioner . . .  such as myself. (-: 

This is the truth of the matter.  Let’s have an end to drug commercials that tell lies.  Let’s have an end to them period.  Of course, that may mean an end to some of my favorite programs, like national news programs. We love the Turner Classics, especially since they’re commercial-free.  (-:

I always love hearing from my readers.  What are your thoughts on this subject?  Any suggestions on possible topics for future posts?  With readers of my blogs in 47 countries now, surely someone would like to share their thoughts.  See you in two weeks with another Health Light Newsletter post. ‘Til then,

To your health and healing,

Dr. Anthony Palombo

Call 337-802-5510 to schedule an appointment or a telephone consultation

Holistic Health Center, 213 Dr. Michael De Bakey Dr., Lake Charles LA 70601

email: tpal70@gmail.com

Visit Healing Tones blog for a fascinating article on global warming, “Global Warming a Galactic Event. 

by

Alternative to Drugs: Change in Perception and Consciousness, Part 2, Healing the Body-mind

As I stated in the last post, we can’t address mental health without considering physical health, since the mind arises out of the body.  Conversely, we can’t really address the causes and conditions underlying physical heath without considering mental health.  Further, we can’t address mental and physical health without including and addressing emotional health. The three simply exist together as a whole, an energetic continuum.  

If we look even deeper in our search for cause, we can’t address health issues that arise in the outer man without considering the health of the inner man, spiritual health.  The outer man is but an extension of the inner man.  Now, the inner spirit is perfect, whole and healthy.  If the outer man does not reflect the inner perfection, wholeness and health of the inner man, the spirit, then there’s a reason for this failure.  The obvious reason is that the inner spiritual man is not able to get through to the outer material man.  The reflection is either distorted or not there at all.  This seems simple enough, doesn’t it?  But, then, the truth is simple.  

The rationale of any worthy healthcare service would, therefore, be to assist the individual inflicted with disease in removing the interference between the inner spirit and its perfect manifestation in and through the whole outer man.  It would be, in other words, a wholistic approach. 

This is why alternative healthcare is often described as “wholistic,” or “holistic,” as it is often spelled.  The whole person is taken into account when searching for the cause of illness and putting together a protocol for treatment.  In this post, I will offer some practical solutions along with a few  natural, holistic approaches I’ve used in my practice of 49 years, as well as some that I’m aware of in the alternative healthcare field.  

ALTERNATIVE HEALTHCARE GROWING EXPONENTIALLY 

In the video of a conversation between Drs. Rupert Sheldrake and Bruce Lipton I posted in my current Healing Tones blog — and which I’m posting again here below because it contributes so much to our understanding of ourselves in the context of the new paradigm emerging — Dr. Lipton makes the observation that we have now past the 50% mark in this country of the numbers of those who seek alternative healthcare before going to a medical doctor.  I find that most encouraging, and I feel it incumbent upon me to continue making a contribution into the process of transformation in consciousness underway and moving forward at an exponential rate.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND CONTROLS OUR BEHAVIOR

At the end of the video, Dr. Lipton makes a very important statement about the influence of sub-conscious programming upon our behavior.  He states that 95% of our behavior is controlled by our subconscious minds while only 5% of our actions are consciously directed.  That’s a bit scary.  Basically, we are walking around in a state of post-hypnotic suggestion where triggers in our environment push buttons in our psyche that turn on tapes in our subconscious minds that play out in our behavior and outbursts of suppressed emotionally charged energy.  

As an example of this, he explains how illness can be induced in our physical body by subconscious memories from childhood of how when we got sick we received lots of love and attention we didn’t get when we were well.  So, in order to get the love and attention we deeply crave now as adults, we may subconsciously set about getting sick — physically and mentally, as well as emotionally.  

So, I just wanted to bring this dynamic into the picture as we explore some of the natural healthcare solutions, always keeping in mind that while we may ease the symptoms of illness and balance body and brain chemistry with nutrition and herbs, the underlying cause remains untreated until we address the memories of past trauma and synchronize body and brain with present time conditions where there are no threats to fear and fight or to run away from.

NATURAL HOLISTIC SOLUTIONS 

1. Bio-Energetic-Synchronization Technique (BEST) was developed by Dr. Milton T. Morter of Rogers, Arkansas.  Dr. Morter is a chiropractor, researcher and developer, teacher, biologist and author of several books on health and consciousness.  His work is a seminal contribution to the field of holistic health care.  BEST practitioners are usually chiropractors who are trained and certified in this technique.

In just a few words, BEST is a non-invasive healing modality that accesses subconscious memories of past trauma that influence current behavior and underlie patterns of disease in the body-mind continuum.  It includes a means of communicating with the innate intelligence of the body, using kinesiology (muscle testing — which Dr. Lipton explains toward the end of the video clip) to ascertain information that helps guide the practitioner in a process of finding and then “erasing” the memory ingram where the traumatic experience is filed away in the subconscious.  

With BEST we can now erase past memories from the subconscious mind that are keeping a person in chronic stress mode of fight or flight and desensitize “buttons” in the psyche that trigger habitual emotional reactions to environmental stimuli.  

Muscles remember trauma and can become locked in defensive physiology caused by sympathetic dominance.  BEST can erase those memories and restore timing and synchronization between brain signals and muscle contraction and relaxation to take them out of fight or flight mode.  When muscles of the back are so released from tension, the spinal bones to which they are attached and pulled out of alignment are able to return to their proper alignment without being forced to do so by manipulation, a discovery that was met with strong resistance by the powers that be in the chiropractic profession.

 As Dr. Morter describes it, we can remove the “necessity for disease,” as disease is nothing more than a necessary adaptation to a deeper aberration in the energetic field.  Healing the aberrations in the energetic field removes the necessity for the adaptation and, therefore, the manifestation of symptoms.  The symptoms of disease remiss when the blockages in the subconscious mind are removed.

THE PROMISE OF CHIROPRACTIC  

This is the fundamental principle underlying the philosophy and science of chiropractic and the rationale for the spinal adjustment, which is to remove nerve interference to the flow of intelligence between the brain and the body so that the body can heal itself, as the founder of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer, envisioned and proved out clinically over a hundred years ago, and his son, Bartlett Joshua Palmer (“BJ”) further explored and developed into a professional science, philosophy and healing art.  

Chiropractic brought to the world a great promise that spearheaded the emergence of alternative healthcare.  That promise was in BJ’s “Big Idea,” whose time had come, that “The power that made the body can heal the body” and his “Law of life” which stated that healing comes from “above, down, inside, out.”  Unfortunately, Palmer’s original philosophy gradually got watered down by a profession that failed to “get the Big Idea” and chiropractic devolved into a physical manipulative modality for relieving back aches and other musculoskeletal disorders.  But its purpose had been served as alternative health care was given birth into the healthcare arena, which was already medically dominated and monopolized by the drug-based, diseased oriented, so-called “healthcare industry.”  Chiropractic brought health-oriented consciousness to the fore of alternative health care thinking. 

2. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) was founded by Dr. Gary Craig, who developed it into a practical methodology for emotional healing with fellow psychotherapists Drs. David Feinstein and Donna Evans.  Their work is presented and detailed in The Promise of Energy Psychology – Revolutionary Tools for Dramatic Personal Change. 

Basically, EFT involves a sequential “tapping” of specific energy meridians in the face, upper torso and hands that are connected to neurological pathways in the brain.  You tap with the finger tips while repeating a mantra articulating the issue being addressed and an affirmation of deep love and appreciation for oneself.  For example, “Even though I’m afraid of heights, I deeply and completely love and appreciate myself.”  This plants into the subconscious mind a positive statement that will override negative feeling-reactions to situations in life, such as fear of heights, or even a physical conditions, such as obesity. For example, “Even though my body is overweight I deeply and completely love and appreciate myself.”  There are psychotherapists who use this technique to give their clients something they can do between visits when issues arise, and it really does work in disarming triggers by “unwiring” emotional buttons.  

You’ll have to purchase the book in order to study and learn the simple “basic recipe” for tapping.  The book is worth its weight in gold for anyone having trouble managing emotions . . . but not just for emotional management and overcoming phobias. EFT works for physical conditions, such as chronic illnesses, like diabetes and arthritis, because it accesses and affects transformation of underlying emotional causes of disease. For example, “Even though I have diabetes/arthritis/heart disease/asthma/etc, I deeply and completely love and appreciate my body with its limitations.  

EFT works for transforming one’s self-image and redirecting emotional energies toward creative enterprises.  It works in clearing addictions of all kinds.  I can’t think of any situation or condition where EFT would not be helpful in setting emotional energies free from suppression by old and limiting beliefs and inhibiting patterns of thought.  I highly recommend the book. 

3. Trophotherapy — the science of balancing blood and body chemistry with nutrition, specifically by the ingestion of high concentrations of whole-food nutrients.  This approach often includes a form of reading the body’s nutritional profile and needs through kinesiology — muscle testing specific points in the energetic meridians of the body to ascertain information the body’s innate intelligence is willing to share about its biological, physiological and anatomical health status and remedial needs.  Contact Reflex Analysis (CRA) and Quantum Reflex Analysis (QRA) are two popular methods of this science and art. 

For example, the brain has a “master reflex” point above the forehead at the hairline.  If this reflex point is “active,” it indicates the brain is in need of nutritional support.  The practitioner then proceeds to test other points to try and determine what is causing the brain’s weakness.  Sometimes it’s simply a need for vitamins and minerals, in which case placing a bottle of CATALYN (by Standard Process Labs) in the field of the person being tested will make the reflex point strong again, indicating that this multiple vitamin and mineral wholefood supplement will feed the brain and make it healthy and strong again.  I have often found that the brain is simply starving to death.

OMEGA 3 FISH OIL ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL

The brain is made of fat, cholesterol.  So feed it fat.  Good fat, that is, and not the Omega 6 peanut oils used in commercially fried foods, most of which are overheated and rancid, nor saturated fats in beef and pork.  Butter is a good fat, but not margarine.  Margarine is hydroginated oil and is rancid.  Rancid oil destroys “good” cholesterol (HDL) and tissue cells upon contact.  People who take Statin drugs are hurting their livers and brains by preventing the liver from making cholesterol. The liver makes 85% of the cholesterol needed by every cell in the body, especially hormones, which are made of cholesterol, and brain cells.    

HERBS FOR BRAIN ENERGY & MEMORY  

To boost brain energy, one can use herbs like Ginkgo Biloba. To enhance memory retention, Bacopa Complex (by Medi Herb).  To enhance memory recall, Ginkgo Forte (MH). I’ve had students take these herbs with astounding results: Bacopa during lectures and study hours, and Ginkgo before and during exams.  They work great!

ADD & ADHD (click on it to see my blog post on the subject)

The problem with ADD is one of focus and concentration.  I’ve treated many children with ADD over the years and all of them responded favorably to inositol supplementation, often the next day.  They were able to get off Ritalin.  They were able to focus and concentrate on their lessons.

The brain’s primary fuel is sugar in the form of inositol, which facilitates the transmission of electrical energy and signals between cell membranes.  This sugar is made in the liver from glucose.  Eating too much dietary sugar can compromise the production of inositol.  That’s why kids who eat too much sugar don’t produce enough inositol for the brain.  The brain doesn’t even have the energy to shut down at night.  It runs all night and throughout the day.  This is what ADD and ADHD are all about. They need to get off the sugar and take Inositol, along with Catalyn, Min-Tran, and Tuna Omega 3 Oil (SP).  Email me for dosages.  Inositol is also known to help with depression.

BALANCE MALE AND FEMALE HORMONES TO BALANCE BRAIN CHEMISTRY

Hormonal support is essential in balancing brain chemistry.  First, we need to support the hypothalamus, the stress-response center at the base of the brain.  Next, we need to support the pituitary gland, the master gland of the endocrine system.  Then we need to support the adrenal glands, as every cell in the body and brain needs adrenalin to function. This is called the HPA Axis. Email me for a protocol and to obtain products.

I hope you have learned something about your brain and mind in these last few blog posts.  I welcome your comments and inquiries.  In my next blog post, we will go beyond the outer terrain of physical, mental and emotional health issues and remedies to consider a very special healing service called “attunement” which addresses the healing of the connection between the inner spiritual man and the outer form created specifically for its perfect manifestation.  Until then, 

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

Email: tpal70@gmail.com    On the wed at www.healingandattunement.com 

Visit my other blog Healing Tones for thought-provoking articles from weird science to personal transformation and quantum leaps in consciousness. Enjoy the video clip below.  It’s lengthy so you may want to watch it in parts. 


 

by

An Alternative to Drugs: A Change in Perception and Consciousness, Part 2: Healing the Mind

In the last issue, we gave in depth consideration to the problem of identifying with one’s disease, and I suggested one could easily identify oneself as a human being who simply has a limitation, for example, in handling alcohol in the case of alcoholism, or sugar in the case of diabetes, rather than continuing to identify oneself as “an alcoholic” or “a diabetic,” thereby fixing the condition firmly in consciousness as incorrigible.  We looked at the roles that consciousness and imagination play in creating reality.  Essentially, to use an old aphorism, As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

We are human beings with physical, mental and emotional capacities, which are subject to disease and dysfunction.  In the next few issues we will take each of these capacities and examine their purpose and, more to the point, what causes them to become ill and what nourishes them back to health.  Let’s take the mind first, since it is probably the capacity we use and abuse most in our lives. It’s also the capacity that is generally over-medicated with drugs that have very dangerous side effects.

BODY AND MIND ARE INSEPARABLE 

  First of all, the conscious mind is a capacity of the physical body.   It is a fluid, energetic substance that arises out of the physical body as long as life is present.  So, in addressing mental health, we have to address physical health, which I will do in my next issue of Health Light. Let’s consider in this issue the design, purpose, and function of our mental capacity. 

Like the water in this picture, the conscious mind is designed to reflect and focus the light of intelligence, or truth.  In other words, the human mind is a light-bearer, to use a Biblical metaphor. Ideally, it has a luciferous quality about it that lends insight to our thinking and contemplation by casting light on an issue or situation. 

NOURISHED BY TRUTH

The mind is driven and nourished by truth.  Truth is what the mind is ideally interested in and seeking.  Nothing settles the honest mind like truth. Conversely, nothing unsettles it like untruth and being lied to.  

Untruth is at the root of all mental illness.  There are other factors, of course, such as chemical imbalance in the brain, malnutrition and physical illness, all of which affect the mind’s ability to function. Ultimately, however, at the root of all mental illness and insanity is the lie, the untruth, the dishonesty, the deceit and denial, the ingenuine, the pretense, amnesia from past trauma, and buried memories of unresolved hurt, just to name a few factors. These form the underlying cause of mental illness.   (I will address the physical and chemical factors and some natural solutions, along with alternative solutions to emotional trauma, in the next issue.)

Nourish by truth, the mind will function happily and healthfully. It’s when the mind is starved from truth that it becomes a liar that lives in denial of problems in life, problems that are seeking resolution in the truth.  A mind that is disconnected from truth and from reality becomes flighty, unstable and untrustworthy.  Counselors and spiritual guides  can help reconnect the  mind of a person with truth and reality.  Drugs, which too many psychotherapists administer these days, do nothing to get to the real cause of mental illness.  They only help a person cope with their dysfunction by manipulating brain chemistry.  Nutritional and herbal therapy offer more natural support to the healing of the mind, mainly because they address the chemical/nutritional imbalances in the physical body, which includes the brain, a topic we will explore next issue.  

USE ACCORDING TO ITS DESIGN AND PURPOSE

As with all things, our human capacities function well and give no trouble as long as they are used according to their inherent design and intended purpose.  A simple way of looking at the function of the mind is to understand its design and purpose. 

The individual human mind is a very thin layer of rather fluid energy that is designed to be focused and concentrated in such a way as to form a lens through which one may look at things as through a microscope or a magnifying glass.  Spread thin, it is of no value as a lens. It gets spread thin when we give it too much to think about at one time, or when we allow it to wander off into areas that are not its business, such as minding other people’s affairs or trying to see into the future or figure out the past.  This is the state of a self-active mind.  Anytime my mind wanders off, I simply call it back.  You can talk to your mind, you know.  “Come back here! That’s not your business! Stop worrying about that!  Pay attention to what is right here in front of you!”  And do it in a loving way.  The mind always obeys the command of love and is drawn to love.

The conscious mind has a partner in the sub-conscious mind and memory.  Like a water wheel, it dips down into the subconscious memory to pick up thought forms.  It then forms new thoughts out of these stored thought forms.  As long as it is connected and listening to the sub-conscious mind, the conscious mind shares in a stream of thought and ideas that makes it easy to re-member them, i.e. put them together in a new way for new thought forms pertinent to the moment at hand.

The conscious mind sometimes gets into trouble trying desperately to gather lots of “knowledge” in order to become “smart” or “educated.” It prides itself sometimes on how much it “knows,” most of which is nothing more than concepts and beliefs borrowed from others and from books.  It can get so busy in its self-active state gathering information that it forgets its connection to the sub-conscious mind, its true source of stored information, causing memory failure, or the inability to re-member things. It even forgets its connection with the All that is, with God and truth, its Source of nourishment.  Disconnected from Source, it spins out of control at times and can even lose its way in the dark and devious mind-made world of greed-driven production and consumption. 

A RIGID MIND WILL BREAK

We can know only what we experience. Our experiences establish our authority. Concepts and beliefs we do not own from experience give us no real authority. We know “about” but we do not know in fact. This knowing about is illusional and can be dangerous as it sets us up for disillusionment. Disillusionment can be a blessing, but it can also be a breaking point for a rigid mind. We’ve all had a pet belief or concept challenged, even shattered. A mental break down may occur when one’s core beliefs about reality are shattered and the mind doesn’t have anything to hold onto that gives it a sense, though false, of “knowing” how things are. I wonder sometimes if the mind itself can be lost and shattered to the point of dissipating altogether, and if the substance the mind is made of can be regenerated. A broken mind can be mended and made whole again by love, compassion, and understanding.  These are truth to a fragmented mind.   

LISTEN TO YOUR TRUTH 

Just as thoughts come in from without, thoughts are also coming from above and within.  These are the thoughts that we really need to hear and entertain because they are coming from out of the River of Life and bear messages of truth.  They are “our truth” that is looking for “our voice” to speak it into our world.  We are often too busy listening to others’ thoughts and processing information from outside to hear what Life is saying to us from within. This is another way the mind can lose it connection with Source. 

In that state of disconnection the mind is no longer turned by the River of Life, which flows at a steady pace and is never in a hurry.  This is the proverbial river that we sometimes find ourselves pushing to get ourselves down stream into the future quicker so we can get what we think is good for us, or what we want NOW.  Pushing this river is tiring and can lead to exhaustion, even insanity.  The mind gets tired of cranking out life instead of letting the River of Life turn it in its own steady flow and rhythm.  

GUARDIAN OF BODY & SOUL

Not minding its own affairs, the mind easily forgets its responsibility to the body, to which it owes its very existence.  Our minds can get so busy that they can’t even think clearly about proper nourishment for the body.  Junk food and comfort food become our diet, eating on the run most of the time, or just skipping meals to have more time to work on a project.  Some people skip breakfast altogether, the most important meal of the day, and ask their body and mind to function on a cup or three of coffee.  Caffeine is a drug not nourishment. Little wonder our minds, kick-started with caffeine, spread thin and break down.

LOVE THE TRUTH ABOVE ALL ELSE 

Truth, like water, seeks its own level.  Let the mind be in love with the truth.  If you love the truth above all else, you will always be drawn toward truth.  Your body is one with truth.  You can trust it.  It cannot lie.  Let your mind be still and gathered around the body to serve its needs.  The body is in the moment – where the River of Life is flowing.  Let the mind be in the moment with the body and open to the flow of Life from within.  Trust the river flowing through the subconscious mind like a wellspring to bring you what you need to know in each moment.

RE-MEMBER WITH TRUTH  

Let the mind get connected again to its storehouse of memory in the sub-conscious mind — re-member with truth.  That’s where its connection with God is, with truth, with YOU.  And if it tries to wander off into the past or the future, simply say to it. . .

Hey, get back here. Get behind me, not in front of me leading the way.  I will lead the way with my spirit.  I am the way for you. Trust me and I will lead you forth into creative ventures all in good time.  I am the truth for you, offering you balanced control and freedom in truth.  I am your life.  Eat and drink at my table and fountain. You belong to me.   I love and appreciate you. Take leave of your wanderings – and wonderings.  Tend to the needs of my body, and my soul.  That’s your soul purpose.  I need you to keep watch over my heart and to shine my light into my world.  You are my light bearer, not the light itself.  I am the light of my world. How can I shine into the world if you are busy trying to be the bright one, the know-it-all?  Be still and know Me and you will know all you need to know. Be still and know that I am.  Be still and know all you need to know in each moment.  Focus so that I can see what’s right in front of me needing my attention.  

I’m not talking about the human ego here driving the mind to do its bidding like a task master.  I’m talking about the authentic Self, the divine being you are, taking the mind in hand in a loving but firm way. In that identity, speak to your mind and retrieve it from its lonely wanderings.  Heal your mind.

This poem by Martin Cecil speaks to the healing of the body-mind:  

THUS IT IS

From age to age Love’s word rings forth,

“The truth is true and all is well

Unconquerable life prevails.”

O man, whose strident dreams Lead gravewards,

Return to calm and noble Character of Life.

Blaze forth pure virtue;

Depart false ambition’s restless schemes.

Busy thought and troubled feeling

Trespass not in virtue’s wise serenity

Where firm control and awful power Eternally abide.

Here earth’s pains are healed

And cruel chaos of mind’s spawning

Is called again to order and to beauty.

Thus it is, thus it has always been, and thus will it ever be so.  My prayer for you is that you will come to know, if you don’t already, how it really is.  Be still and let your truth find you.

To your health and healing,

Dr. Tony Palombo

Visit my Healing Tones blog for an inspiring journey through the quantum world of space-time and time-space, where we literally live on the threshold of infinity. 

Tips on curcumin (curry) for brain, heart and sugar metabolism.

When you have 15 minutes to spare, you must take the time to view this video, “The Unconscious Mind Unveiled” by cellular biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton.  “Evolution implies that creation is incomplete.”  

by

An Alternative to Drugs: A Change in Perception and Consciousness, Part 2

YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR DISEASE 

Being a holistic physician, I notice how sick people often identify with their disease. They will say “I am an alcoholic” or “I am a diabetic” or “I am a drug addict” or “I am depressed.”  Some even say they are a chocoholic.  But they are none of these things.  They are human beings . . . with some limitations, yes, but they are human beings.  

I no longer wonder because I know first hand how a change in perception of oneself might turn a person around and lead him or her to a permanent “cure” of one’s disease.  One could simply say, for example, “I am a human being and I have a limitation of addiction to alcohol, or drugs, or chocolate.  Or “I have a limitation in processing sugar” in a case of diabetes.  I recall the day I quit smoking many years ago.  While choosing my seat on an airplane, I had to choose between “smoker” and “non-smoker” sections.  The way the question was put was “Are you a smoker or a non-smoker. I chose to be a “non-smoker” and it felt so good changing my “identity” at that level of my addiction to tobacco.  

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS

So, let’s look at how we perceive ourselves.  We can perceive ourselves as one acting or one being acted upon, depending on our state of consciousness and self-awareness.  Since consciousness is where everything first takes place in our lives, even before external events happen, what I perceive myself to be in consciousness, who I imagine myself to be, will determine how I behave in any given external event or circumstance. Some say that external events are not real but are creations of our consciousness.  I believe that external events are real in that they are reflections of our reality, created by us through our capacity of consciousness – one of its many aspects and levels of function being imagination.    

Imagination is at the heart of creation.  Our whole world arises out of our imagination.  We act upon our worlds from out of our imagination, literally where images of things and events we want to create are formed. First there is an image in consciousness, or what is sometimes called “the heaven,” and then a form appears in the earth from out of the mist of imagination. The heaven and the earth are one, and in consciousness is where these two come together and interact, the earth being shaped by the image in the heaven.  Imagination, and ultimately consciousness, can be conditioned by perception, and vice versa. Perception can be “jaded” by imagination.  

For example, I can imagine horrible things are going on, especially when there’s chronic pain in my body or a state of depression in my mind. The big bad “C” is feared by most and held suspect, as is “mental illness,” and if I hold that image of cancer or of mental illness in my consciousness, I am setting myself up for creating that condition in my body-mind out of fear.  Fear has been defined as faith in evil, belief that the worst is going to happen.  So, be careful what you fear as it may well come upon you. Some people have an “evil eye.” They are always looking for what’s wrong, and they’ll usually find it . . . or perhaps create it as “wrong” in their consciousness.

Or, I can imagine wonderful things are going on through a bright and cheerful outlook, and they seemingly appear from out of nowhere.  Some people have a natural knack for always seeing things “on the bright side,” as we say.  It all depends on one’s state of consciousness which conditions perception. In this sense, we do create our world out of our consciousness, and in this sense alone it isn’t real but just the way we’re looking at it. Perhaps accurate is the better word to use.  We rarely see things as they actually are.  Makes one ask, “What’s real anyway?”

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR IDENTITY

We live and function out of an identity, an ego, which is either true or false, authentic or fabricated. We are either a creator, our authentic Self, or a creature, our fabricated self.  We perceive ourselves as acting or as being acted upon, depending on whom we perceive ourselves to be, creators or creatures.  

I believe that all disease, physical, mental and emotional, is a symptom of an identity crisis disrupting the status quo so that a process of transformation can take place. I’ve heard prominent health authors express the same conviction.  (These words are mine.)  

In truth, we are creators, and we create our own reality out of our imagination and consciousness.  You could say that consciousness is where Reality meets and interacts with form in the factual world.  As said earlier, heaven and earth are one in our consciousness . . . or, they are separate, if we want to see them that way.  It depends, again, on our state of consciousness.  And, let’s be honest, all of us have been conditioned to see things as separate entities by the beliefs implanted in our subconscious minds during our so-called “education,” which was actually programming. In this sense, we live in an illusory world where things appear to be separate. In the real world, all things are connected and whole. 

Young children naturally see things as whole and connected.  They see an apple as a delicious fruit before they are taught to spell the word with separate letters, a-p-p-l-e, or dissect it into Vitamins A, B, C, and over a hundred other nutrients vital to our health. They don’t even have a concept of God, the devil, or good and evil. In their fluid state of freedom they are too busy knowing God. To them the world is one beautiful and wonderful place to be and in which to live and play. To them it is all good and whole.

THERE’S ONLY ONE ADDICTION

We are taught to separate things into isolated parts, as though such dissection would lead to understanding.   To use a Biblical reference, we are taught to “eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” to judge what is good and condemn what is “evil.”  Mental judgement is an addiction that is hard for anyone to break who is identified as a creature.  It is the only addiction.  All other outbreaks of addiction stem from this one addiction to judgement of good and evil.  The irony of this is that what we judge to be “good” often turns out to be “bad” for us.        

If we see ourselves as creatures, we are always being acted upon by external forces. If it’s not the economy, it’s the weather.  If not the Republicans then it’s the Democrats. If it’s not a virus or a flu bug, it’s an ulcer or cancer. Something’s always trying to “do us in.”  Our genes are wrongly blamed for many of our diseases and even our behavior, when all they do is determine the shape of our bodies and the color of our eyes and hair.  All else is learned behavior — our habits and lifestyles, what we eat and drink, whether we use tobacco and alcohol, how to medicate our bodies and minds when they feel sick and tired — all these things we inherit, not in our genes but through our perception that shapes our consciousness of who we are and how life is lived.  

And you know what? We are all disillusioned . . . if we are lucky. And if we’re not lucky, we believe the illusion and live out our lives in quiet desperation drugged by the opiates of mind-altering chemicals . . . and/or religion, in the hopes of having a better life in heaven. But we don’t enter the kingdom of heaven as creatures, only as creators.  Heaven is within us and all around us.  We destroy it or create it in our consciousness, and, depending on which we do, we either perceive it or we don’t.  The fact that we don’t perceive heaven “at hand” doesn’t mean that it isn’t present. The instruction was to “repent” — literally turn around and see it, change your perception in other words so that you can see that you are truly in heaven and that heaven is within you . . . a place where “firm control and awful power eternally abide” to call on a line from one of my favorite poems, Thus It Is by Martin Cecil.

LIVING OUT OF YOUR REAL IDENTITY 

On the other hand, when we see ourselves as creators, we are always leading forth with positive and creative force — and that need not be something loud and contrived or imposing. It can be as simply and easy as being thankful and appreciative.  These are positive forces.  If the economy is poor, rather than being stressed out we simply adjust our spending so we can continue being creative, being thankful for what means we have and creative in finding ways to live within them.   If a virus or flu bug has gotten past our immune system, rather than thinking the worst we simply appreciate our immune system, perhaps support it with Echinacea and Vitamins A and C, and/or take measures to cleanse the blood and lymphatic system with garlic, herbs and lots of fluids . . .and movement. Yes, movement helps circulate the lymph and blood that carry out the toxins.  Unless a dangerous fever comes on, it’s best to keep moving during a cold or flu.  If you feel you have to see a doctor, then go to one you can easily believe in.  Your belief alone will see you through the crisis.  

If our minds become confused trying to understand the complexities of life in this world, we turn to God within and pray for understanding, and we focus on what’s right at hand that we do understand.  If our hearts are broken and saddened by disappointment, we turn to love and find wisdom in releasing what’s hurtful through forgiveness rather than thrashing out in anger to hurt the one(s) who hurt us, or fall victim to self-pity.  If we fall, we get up and walk again, because we are creators acting and never victims being acted upon.   

ALL THINGS HAVE DESIGN AND SERVE ONE PURPOSE

I am trying my best to keep this as simple as possible, because the truth is really simple and easy. There is design and purpose to everything under the sun, and everything under the sun serves one purpose: the creation of life and beauty on earth. Outside this design and purpose things have no meaning and value, and life gets complicated, painful and hard.   

Take our most personal possessions, our human capacities.  They serve only two purposes (which are actually one), and that is our incarnation as spirit beings and our creative activities in the material world with others.  That’s it.  Any activities outside of this have no meaning or value to these capacities, and when these capacities of body-mind and heart are not serving their purpose, what they are designed to do, they become bored and confused, at best.  At worse, they become incoherent and eventually malfunction, get sick and start falling apart.  That’s what physical, mental and emotional illness is: a confused, incoherent falling apart of our capacities due to abuse, our failure to use them according to their design and for the purpose they were created to serve.  It’s that simple.  

The cure is just as simple as restoring them to their intended purpose and nourishing them with love and appreciation, wholesome food and fresh water, along with plenty of rest and exercise.  Health is not complicated.  It’s simple because it is the truth of life, and the truth makes us free.  That’s why we’re always looking for it.  We want to be free from disease and from the drugging of our capacities.  Well, here it is, right at hand!  Embrace it and relinquish any and all dependence on drugs of every kind, and that includes tobacco and alcohol. We can do it because we have the power as creators to re-create ourselves and our worlds in our consciousness. See yourself and your world as whole and it will be so for you.  

NOURISHING THE SPIRIT

In that remarkable movie “Awakenings,” Dr. Malcolm Sayer  (played by Robin Williams) — after his futile attempt to permanently awaken Leonard Lowe (played in a stunning performance by Robert Di Nero), and a number of other patients who were damaged in their childhood years by encephalitis, with an experimental mega-dosing of Dopamine — concludes his compassionate and hopeful project, turned failure by an onslaught of adverse reactions to the drug, with these insightful words:

The Human spirit is more powerful than any drug — and that’s what we need to nourish . . . with kindness, compassion, friendship — things as simple as that.

I felt his pain of frustration, limited as he was by orthodox medicine in finding a cure for his client’s mental illness, with the only thing between his determination to find a cure and his patient was a drug that offered only promise with adverse side-effects — not at all unlike modern medical doctors today. I felt his ache of heart as Leonard, speaking through his facial tic and spastic limbs, cried out to him “Don’t give up on me!”  That brought me to tears, because I know first hand what compassion mixed with frustration can do to a doctor’s heart.  

Thankfully, we have natural solutions to modern day ills today — not that modern medicine has embraced them.  The business of masking symptoms and managing diseases is too profitable.  Breaking the addiction to drugs is the largest hurdle patients have to face when their medical doctor won’t cooperate with them, at best, or expresses anger at them for not wanting to take their medicine, at worse, even threatening them with discharge for non-compliance.  Our healthcare system is broke at this level alone.  Forget the economical issues.  We doctors can turn this system around simply by putting the patient first . . . and patients can break the cycle by embracing Mother Nature’s cornucopia of natural solutions back to health.       _____________________________________________________________

In my next blog post we will take each of our capacities and see them in a new light, individually and as a functional whole.  Thank you for joining me in this vital consideration.  Until we’re together again, I pray good health and happiness for you.

Dr. Anthony Palombo

email: tpal70@gmail.com

Visit my other blog Healing Tonesfor a deeper understanding of your body temple as an energetic symphony of sound and light.