Balancing Your Gut’s Ecosystem

I have come upon an excellent video by cardiologist Dr. Steven Guntry that I believe everyone would benefit greatly viewing – well, at least to the first 30 minutes or so. The second half of the video is about his supplements, which are no doubt very excellent products, notwithstanding the high-pressure sales pitch. I think the doctor’s intentions are noble and compassionate and his heat is in the right place.

Disregarding the sales pitch, however, Dr. Guntry’s message is very sensible and worth the listening time. Our gut is truly where our health and our diseases all begin, and we are ignoring this fact by and large.  If you are having digestive and bowel issues, or you can’t lose weight, or crave sweets or junk foods, feel bloated after meals, suffer with joint pains, have food allergies, then listen to Dr. Steven Guntry’s presentation of why we have all these problems and how we can easily solve them just by choosing our foods wisely.  I will simply leave you to your discretion and interest with the link to Dr. Guntry’s video. Enjoy.

http://www.cutthecravings.com

In my practice I use ProSynbiotic by Standard Process (90C $39) and Gut Flora Complex by Medi-Herb (40C $31.50) with excellent results in balancing the gut flora ecosystem. For a consultation and to order supplements, simply send me an email at tpal70@gmail.com.

Here’s to your health

Anthony Palombo, DC – Doctor of Chiropractor and practitioner of Applied Clinical Nutrition and Functional Medicine)

“The Great Nutrient Collapse”

 

The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.

This article reveals new data that indicates our vegetables and fruits, herbs and grasses, are increasingly becoming more and more nutrient deficient due to increased CO2 levels in our planet’s atmosphere. This re-emphasizes the dire need for wholefood supplementation in our diet. It is becoming increasingly necessary, if we wish to live long and healthy lives, that we take daily dosages of wholefood nutrients, such as those grown and produced by Standard Process Labs at their huge organic farm up in Palmyra, Wisconsin. Take a few minutes to enjoy the award-winning documentary vimeo at this site and learn more about the production of wholefood supplements. Now for the breaking news story about . . .

The great nutrient collapse

By 
09/13/2017

CO2-Secondary4-ByGeoffJohnson.jpg

Irakli Loladze is a mathematician by training, but he was in a biology lab when he encountered the puzzle that would change his life. It was in 1998, and Loladze was studying for his Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Against a backdrop of glass containers glowing with bright green algae, a biologist told Loladze and a half-dozen other graduate students that scientists had discovered something mysterious about zooplankton.
Zooplankton are microscopic animals that float in the world’s oceans and lakes, and for food they rely on algae, which are essentially tiny plants. Scientists found that they could make algae grow faster by shining more light onto them—increasing the food supply for the zooplankton, which should have flourished. But it didn’t work out that way. When the researchers shined more light on the algae, the algae grew faster, and the tiny animals had lots and lots to eat—but at a certain point they started struggling to survive. This was a paradox. More food should lead to more growth. How could more algae be a problem?
Loladze was technically in the math department, but he loved biology and couldn’t stop thinking about this. The biologists had an idea of what was going on: The increased light was making the algae grow faster, but they ended up containing fewer of the nutrients the zooplankton needed to thrive. By speeding up their growth, the researchers had essentially turned the algae into junk food. The zooplankton had plenty to eat, but their food was less nutritious, and so they were starving.
Loladze used his math training to help measure and explain the algae-zooplankton. He and his colleagues devised a model that the relationship between a food source and a grazer that depends on the food. They published that first paper in 2000. But Loladze was also captivated by a much larger question raised by the experiment: Just how far this problem might extend.“What struck me is that its application is wider,” Loladze recalled in an interview. Could the same problem affect grass and cows? What about rice and people? “It was kind of a watershed moment for me when I started thinking about human nutrition,” he said.
In the outside world, the problem isn’t that plants are suddenly getting more light: It’s that for years, they’ve been getting more carbon dioxide. Plants rely on both light and carbon dioxide to grow. If shining more light results in faster-growing, less nutritious algae—junk-food algae whose ratio of sugar to nutrients was out of whack—then it seemed logical to assume that ramping up carbon dioxide might do the same. And it could also be playing out in plants all over the planet. What might that mean for the plants that people eat?
What Loladze found is that scientists simply didn’t know. It was already well documented that CO2levels were rising in the atmosphere, but he was astonished at how little research had been done on how it affected the quality of the plants we eat. For the next 17 years, as he pursued his math career, Loladze scoured the scientific literature for any studies and data he could find. The results, as he collected them, all seemed to point in the same direction: The junk-food effect he had learned about in that Arizona lab also appeared to be occurring in fields and forests around the world. “Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising,” Loladze said. “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history―[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.”
He published those findings just a few years ago, adding to the concerns of a small but increasingly worried group of researchers who are raising unsettling questions about the future of our food supply. Could carbon dioxide have an effect on human health we haven’t accounted for yet? The answer appears to be yes—and along the way, it has steered Loladze and other scientists, directly into some of the thorniest questions in their profession, including just how hard it is to do research in a field that doesn’t quite exist yet.
IN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH, it’s been understood for some time that many of our most important foods have been getting less nutritious. Measurements of fruits and vegetables show that their minerals, vitamin and protein content has measurably dropped over the past 50 to 70 years. Researchers have generally assumed the reason is fairly straightforward: We’ve been breeding and choosing crops for higher yields, rather than nutrition, and higher-yielding crops—whether broccoli, tomatoes, or wheat—tend to be less nutrient-packed.In 2004, a landmark study of fruits and vegetables found that everything from protein to calcium, iron and vitamin C had declined significantly across most garden crops since 1950. The researchers concluded this could mostly be explained by the varieties we were choosing to grow.Loladze and a handful of other scientists have come to suspect that’s not the whole story and that the atmosphere itself may be changing the food we eat. Plants need carbon dioxide to live like humans need oxygen. And in the increasingly polarized debate about climate science, one thing that isn’t up for debate is that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising. Before the industrial revolution, the earth’s atmosphere had about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Last year, the planet crossed over the 400 parts per million threshold; scientists predict we will likely reach 550 parts per million within the next half-century—essentially twice the amount that was in the air when Americans started farming with tractors.If you’re someone who thinks about plant growth, this seems like a good thing. It has also been useful ammunition for politicians looking for reasons to worry less about the implications of climate change. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on Science, recently argued that people shouldn’t be so worried about rising CO2 levels because it’s good for plants, and what’s good for plants is good for us.

“A higher concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere would aid photosynthesis, which in turn contributes to increased plant growth,” the Texas Republican wrote. “This correlates to a greater volume of food production and better quality food.”

But as the zooplankton experiment showed, greater volume and better quality might not go hand-in-hand. In fact, they might be inversely linked. As best scientists can tell, this is what happens: Rising CO2 revs up photosynthesis, the process that helps plants transform sunlight to food. This makes plants grow, but it also leads them to pack in more carbohydrates like glucose at the expense of other nutrients that we depend on, like protein, iron and zinc.

In 2002, while a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, Loladze published a seminal research paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, a leading journal,arguing that rising CO2 and human nutrition were inextricably linked through a global shift in the quality of plants. In the paper, Loladze complained about the dearth of data: Among thousands of publications he had reviewed on plants and rising CO2, he found only one that looked specifically at how it affected the balance of nutrients in rice, a crop that billions of people rely on. (The paper, published in 1997, found a drop in zinc and iron.)

Loladze’s paper was first to tie the impact of CO2 on plant quality to human nutrition. But he also raised more questions than he answered, arguing that there were fundamental holes in the research. If these nutritional shifts were happening up and down the food chain, the phenomenon needed to be measured and understood.

For the rest of the story about how difficult it was for Loladze to find funding for such research and study — politics, of course, being the complicating factor — click on the link below.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511

Here’s the conclusion of the article:

In 2014, Myers and a team of other scientists published a large, data-rich study in the journal Nature that looked at key crops grown at several sites in Japan, Australia and the United States that also found rising CO2 led to a drop in protein, iron and zinc. It was the first time the issue had attracted any real media attention.

“The public health implications of global climate change are difficult to predict, and we expect many surprises,” the researchers wrote. “The finding that raising atmospheric CO2 lowers the nutritional value of C3 crops is one such surprise that we can now better predict and prepare for.”

The same year―in fact, on the same day―Loladze, then teaching math at the The Catholic University of Daegu in South Korea, published his own paper, the result of more than 15 years of gathering data on the same subject. It was the largest study in the world on rising CO2 and its impact on plant nutrients. Loladze likes to describe plant science as ““noisy”―research-speak for cluttered with complicating data, through which it can be difficult to detect the signal you’re looking for. His new data set was finally big enough to see the signal through the noise, to detect the “hidden shift,” as he put it.

What he found is that his 2002 theory—or, rather, the strong suspicion he had articulated back then—appeared to be borne out. Across nearly 130 varieties of plants and more than 15,000 samples collected from experiments over the past three decades, the overall concentration of minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc and iron had dropped by 8 percent on average. The ratio of carbohydrates to minerals was going up. The plants, like the algae, were becoming junk food.

What that means for humans―whose main food intake is plants―is only just starting to be investigated. Researchers who dive into it will have to surmount obstacles like its low profile and slow pace, and a political environment where the word “climate” is enough to derail a funding conversation. It will also require entirely new bridges to be built in the world of science―a problem that Loladze himself wryly acknowledges in his own research. When his paper was finally published in 2014, Loladze listed his grant rejections in the acknowledgements.

I think you will agree that this study is crucial to the health of humanity. Thank you for staying with the lengthy article — and for visiting Standard Process’s website.

Until my next post, here’s to  your health and healing.

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspired and inspiring articles.

 

“Food: Weapon of MASS Destruction”

This is a very timely and important video clip. We all need to hear this message and make fundamental, and in some cases radical, changes in the way we grow, process and consume our food. It also points out the absolute necessity for whole-food supplementation of vitamins and especially minerals. The soil that our food is grown in has been depleted of minerals since the 1940’s. Without minerals, vitamins can’t be utilized, leading to malnutrition; glandular (iodine for the thyroid) function fails leading to all sorts of health issues, obesity included. The bottom line is SUPPLEMENT your diet with whole food nutritional supplements. I use Standard Process Labs and Medi-Herb in my practice, the very best in supplementation and botanicals. View the video and be informed. (Click on the YouTube icon at the bottom to enlarge the screen)

My best to your health

Dr. Anthony Palombo

Humble Honey Kills Bacteria

While raw, unprocessed honey is well-known for its health benefits, scientists have recently found that there is a type of honey which has the ability to kill every kind of bacteria scientists could throw at it, especially some of the worst bacteria known so far.

The results of this study were published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and could be of utmost importance at a time when many of the antibiotics are resistant against bacteria, especially against “superbugs.”

We are talking about the manuka honey, also known as jelly bush honey, which is produced in New Zealand. It has become all the rage over the past few years which led to shortages and selling of fake products. Therefore, New Zealand manuka producers demanded trademark protection, similar to Scottish whiskey or French champagne.  After this, the fact that the health benefits of this honey were kept as a secret doesn’t come as a surprise.

THIS Type of RAW HONEY Kills Every Kind of Bacteria Scientists Could Throw At It (Even the Super-Bugs!)

Manuka Honey Kills MRSA, Other Superbugs 

Manuka honey is created by bees foraging on the nectar of Leptospermum Scoparium, the New Zealand manuka bush, as well as tea trees native only to Australia and New Zealand.

According to a report by The Australian, manuka honey killed every bacteria or pathogen it was tested on in the studies mentioned above. It can be either taken internally or applied topically to help fight infections on the skin, insect bites, and cuts.

The best part regarding manuka honey is that none of the superbugs it killed were able to build up immunity, which is a common problem with most of today`s antibiotics.

“New antibiotics tend to have short shelf lives, as the bacteria they attack quickly become resistant,” said Dr. Dee Carter of the University of Sydney’s School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences. “Many large pharmaceutical companies have abandoned antibiotic production because of the difficulty of recovering costs. Developing effective alternatives could, therefore, save many lives.”

Dr. Certer stated that what makes manuka honey effective at destroying the bacteria is a compound called methylglyoxal, which combines other unknown compounds to cause “multi-system failure.”

Where to Find Manuka Honey

Manuka honey is available in health stores and online, even though the supply levels have decreased which led to fake honey being sold. Therefore, when buying manuka honey, make sure you get one that is UMF certified.  UMF stands for Unique Manuka Factor, which is a phytochemical property obtained from the manuka bushes.  Many certified manuka products are available on Amazon.com.

On Amazon, you can find a brand called Comvita manuka honey which is UMF certified and has been said to help erase MRSA :

I had done a fair amount of research when a friend of ours got MRSA, and then, unfortunately, I got it too., said user JoshuaOne9 on Amazon. Thankfully, I had already done the research so I knew exactly what to do. As soon as I saw the red bump (thinking the first day that it was a mosquito bite) I scratched it, but the second day I realized that it had to be something else. My husband immediately knew what it was since we had been dealing with our friend’s case of MRSA. I got my hands on this Manuka honey and put on the area of skin that was affected and then it is very important that you cover it with a bandaid. Within hours, I felt relief and within a few days, it was completely gone…

Even though further research need to be done,  we can definitely say that manuka honey promises a lot when it comes to defeating one of the biggest health issues faced by humanity.

Sources: http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20080922/humble-honey-kills-bacteria

 http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/manuka-honey-antibiotic.html

http://www.organicandhealthy.org/2016/11/this-type-of-honey-is-killing-every.html

Food for Thought: Your Diet and Cancer

“What, if anything, can we do in our own personal lives to possibly hold cancer at bay? Martha Teichner has some food for thought:”

Click on the link and enjoy the video clip and brief article.

http://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/food-for-thought-your-diet-and-cancer/

Here’s to your health and longevity.

Dr. Anthony Palombo

See my other blog at HealingTones.org for an exploration of the eighteen missing years of Jesus as a young man.

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.  

Expression Allows Release

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How To Be Happy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any Moment

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

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

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

Dr. James Sigafoose says it all in this clip:

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

Dr. Tony Palombo

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

   

 

Trophotherapy: Healing with Nutritional and Herbal Protocols

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

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

THE RIGHT MEASURE 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN

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

The Blessings of Functional Medicine

Tony Pics for SA BookTHE BLESSINGS OF FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

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

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

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

Cellular Level Health Care

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

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

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

Allopathic & Functional Medicine’s Forte

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

Wholistic Health Care

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

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

Energy Medicine

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

Contact Reflex Analysis (CRA)

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

Attunement — Vibrational Healing

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

How Vitamins Support Function

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Minerals Support Function

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Levels and Ratios Critical

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

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

Whole Food Supplements Best – Function the Key Factor

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

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

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

Here’s to your health and healing.

Anthony Palombo, DC, ACN (Applied Clinical Nutrition)

Email: tpal70@gmail.com

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

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