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1 Free Radicals

Every day, each of your cells are bombarded by up to 10,000 free radicals.

These are usually oxygen molecules that have been stripped of one of their electrons during one of the normal metabolic processes such as digestion or breathing.

Once processed, these molecules become unstable and go looking to replace their missing electron fromsomewhere else. This is when they become dangerous - they will steal the first available electron they can from healthy cells. This sets up a chain reaction within the cells which, in order to replace their own now missing electrons, combine with each other.

What does this do to your body?

As an example: when this happens with collagen cells, it causes them to become hard. This cross-linking between them stops them from retaining water and maintaining their elasticity . . . and the cross-linked collagen then collapses on itself resulting in wrinkled skin.

Now imagine that tens of thousands of your cells in every tissue and organ of your body are losing their ability to function, just as these collagen cells do, and you can see just how free radicals impact your health and contribute to the aging process.

It's not suprising that free radical damage at the cellular level is the one common factor contrbuting to the top seven deadly, degenerative diseases in the United States - Heart Disease, Cancer, Stroke, Alzheimer's, Arthritis, Diabetes and Osteoporosis.

The way to tackle free radicals is to flood your system with antioxidants. What these do is replace the free radicals' missing electron and neutralize them before the free radicals have a chance to damage healthy cells.

The more antioxidants you have swimming around in your system waiting to stabilize free radicals, the stronger your immune system. You become healthier and less prone to disease or allergies.

But with the average daily diet being low in minerals and vitamins - and with many supplements currently on the market having very low rates of absorption - the majority of the US population just doesn't get enough of the vital nutrients - including antioxidants.

And because synthetic supplements can actually strip the absorbable vitamins and minerals out of your body - it's vital to choose a nutritional source that really supports cell function and is easily absorbed.

One of the best sources of antioxidants is a natural whole food containing over 100 of them - RiSoTriene.

Put this together with natural sources of minerals, plant nutrients, enzymes, protein, fiber and healthy bacteria, And you have ALL the essential nutrients you need in one power packed superfood.

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2 High Homocysteine Levels

Heart disease accounts for 50% of deaths in the United States - making it the number one killer with 2,700 people dying from heart disease and 1,000 people being disabled by heart attacks every day.

Strokes are the number 3 cause of death - every minute of every day, someone has a stroke, and every four minutes, one of these stroke victims dies. Cardio-vascular disease is rampant.

We all know about cholesterol and its connection with cardio-vascular health . . . what many of us don't realize is that cholesterol is our body's natural response to blood vessel damage - the cholesterol acts as a protective coating. Unfortunately this is what causes blockages - a continuing build up of cholesterol on artery walls.

But what causes the blood vessel damage in the first place?

One key answer is homocysteine!

First identified as a possible cause of arterial damage in 1969 by Dr Kilmer McCully, then working at the Massachusetts General Hospital . . . over 50 studies since 1992 have shown homocysteine to be a major indicator of heart and blood vessel disease.

Normally harmless (it's used to help manufacture proteins and perform cellular metabolism), when produced in excess, homocysteine causes blood platelets to clump together, damages and scars artery linings - It's this scarring that gives cholesterol a place to stick - and it causes cholesterol to change into 'oxidized low-density lipoprotein which damages arteries even more.

Fortunately, the process of reducing your level of homocysteine is pretty straightforward. You simply need to increase methylation - the process which converts homocysteine into the essential amino acid, methionine. And this just requires increasing your digestion of the necessary nutrients.

For more information about homocysteine, how methylation works and which nutrients are vital to reduce your homocysteine level and reduce your risk of heart disease.

An added bonus of increasing methylation is that you also naturally increase your levels of S-adenosylmethionine (commonly referred to as SAM or SAM-e). This natural antidepressant is vital for healthy DNA - helping to relieve hypertension and protecting your cells from disease and aging - and has also been proven to reduce pain and inflammation.

This Methylation Supplement is the first of its kind designed specifically to reduce your homocysteine levels and reduce your risk of heart disease.

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3 Mineral Deficiencies

Over the past 30 years, nutritional approaches to disease prevention and treatment have become increasingly popular. In fact it has been estimated that between 70 and 100 million North Americans regularly take vitamin and/or mineral supplements. And though this is still less than 40% of the population, research indicates that the vitamin-takers are better educated, more affluent, and tend to be healthier.

Despite this trend, the evidence is that many people have nutrient deficiencies. In the USA, for example, a recent survey showed that 41% eat no fruit and only 25% eat a fruit or vegetable containing either vitamin C or A.

Another US study showed that adolescents have diets low in several essential vitamins and minerals and high in nutrients related to increased risks of chronic disease.

The question is: how many of us can say we consume the recommended quantities and quality of foods on a daily basis, sufficient to give us the nutrients we need?

How many of us can say we consume: l

2-3 servings of low-fat milk or other low-fat dairy products

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4-6 ounces of protein-rich foods

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6-9 servings of fruits and vegetables

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6-11 servings of bread, grain or cereal products

Each and every day - or even every other day?

Given how processing and preparation depletes our food's nutritional values - it's not suprising that the level of vitamins and minerals in the diets of over 90% of the American population is even less than the RDA.

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Heating and over-cooking food destroys its essential enzymes.

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Radiation kills a foods' nutritional value completely.

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Freezing food causes a 40% loss of its nutritional value.

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Many commonly used prescription drugs deplete nutrients.

The fact is we need a full range of nutrients to be healthy, and for one reason or another most of us don't get them from the food we eat.

Prime among these nutrients are minerals. Without them we can't process the other nutrients - without them our bodies can't perform the thousands of biochemical processes we need them to.

17 key minerals and their impact on your body.

But there is much confusion about how much of each mineral is required to ensure our bodies function properly.

Many still advocate sticking to the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) as a guide to optimum mineral consumption . . . but the RDA, although widely used by manufacturers to demonstrate the nutritional value of their products, was in fact established during the 40's as a minimum requirement to avoid deficiency diseases. And the quantities do not represent the levels necessary to achieve optimal health! (Currently the USA and Canada are collaborating on a revision to be called the "Dietary Reference Intake" (DRI) to replace the RDA).

It's also just as important, if not more so, to have the correct amount of each mineral in balance. If you don't, mineral deficiencies can still occur.

For example:

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If you take in an amount of potassium that is within the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance), but then also take in a large amount of sodium, such as with salty foods, the sodium will attempt to replace the potassium in certain cell functions - rather like a game of musical chairs. The result: potassium deficiency - symptoms of which include insomnia, rapid heartbeat, stiff cramping muscles and anxiety.

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You also need slightly more calcium than magnesium. Too much magnesium can cause diarrhea and can steal calcium from bones and muscles, including the heart. On the other hand, too much calcium can lead to a magnesium deficiency leading to heart problems such as irregular hearbeat.

This mineral balance is particularly critical when harmful minerals such as heavy metals have similar characteristics to essential minerals.

The harmful minerals bind to cells, locking out the essential minerals so the body can't benefit from them - rather like putting a broken key in a lock: it not only doesn't open the door, it prevents the right key from being used.

A common example of this is where the toxic metals, mercury (found in dental amalgam fillings) and cadmium (found in cigarettes and elsewhere) pevent the beneficial mineral, zinc, from being utilized, resulting in symptoms of zinc deficiency such as a loss of appetite, impaired taste and prostate problems.

This is why a person who quits cigarettes often has an increase in appetite even without taking zinc supplements - with less cadmium coming in from the cigarettes, more zinc can get to the cells so their appetite isn't suppressed.

With so little nutritional value in the food we eat, it's no wonder the Standard American Diet (SAD) is damaging to the liver - resulting in allergies, digestive problems, low energy, pain, and more serious disorders.

And supplementation as a way of making up deficiencies is really only partially effective for several reasons:

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There are studies showing that taking isolated nutrients can actually do more harm than good. We are much better off - when we can - to take our nutrients in a whole food. But, as most foods don't have the nutrients we need, we are more or less forced to look at supplementing with a whole food instead. Isolated nutrients are not a good idea.

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Many supplements are non-absorbable - they don't break down sufficiently for your body to be able to utilize the nutrients.

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Synthetic vitamins and minerals strip the absorbable vitamins and minerals out of your body.

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Synthesized vitamins are not balanced and miss some necessary nutrients - and they also release into your system at the wrong time.

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Vitamin-mineral supplements that are not balanced can cause greater deficiencies.

One of the reasons that taking isolated nutrients can actually do more harm than good is that vitamins and minerals in your body are linked together. Vitamin E is linked to selenium, and vitamin C is linked to copper. If you take high doses of Vitamin C - which many supplements supply in the form of 'ascorbic acid' - your body doesn't recognize it as vitamin C. Vitamin C is a compound with bioflavanoids and a link to copper. So if you take high doses of ascorbic acid without these other nutrients, first of all your body probably won't absorb it and second, when the ascorbic acid does get into the body, it will pull the needed copper out of the tissues. You can end up with a copper deficiency and a depleted immune system because your body needs copper to fight infection.

It is these nutrient deficiencies that cause us to experience food cravings - which are just the symptoms of a lack of true nutrients in our diet. Chocolate cravings, for instance, are our body's way of crying out for magnesium.

So - if you want to use supplements - opt for those that are derived from natural sources; that provide balanced ingredients; and that your body can use at the cellular level. Like these naturally balanced supplements and whole foods that provide the nutrition your body needs - including the first Scientifically Developed, All-Natural, Whole Food - The Seven Essentials - that gives you all the nutritients you need: Enzymes, Vitamins, Minerals, Protein, Fiber, Essential Oils and Probiotics.

4 Toxins

In a 1989 Report, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that:

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Over half a billion pounds of industrial chemicals were dumped into the public sewage system.

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1.2 billion pounds of chemicals were released into the ground, threatening our natural water sources. (Many toxic heavy metals, chemicals and radioactive wastes are being recycled as fertilizer and spread over farmers' fields nationwide - and there is no federal law requiring that they be listed as ingredients. Manufacturers can get rid of low-level radioactive waste by licensing it as liquid fertilizer and spraying it over crops. Substances considered hazardous if found to occur naturally in a plant, are for some reason not considered hazardous when included in fertilizer.)

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Almost 2 million pounds of chemicals were discharged into surface waters (lakes, rivers and the sea).

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Almost 2.5 billion pounds of chemical pollutants were released into the atmosphere.

Since then, the EPA has further estimated that there are half a billion chemicals in use worldwide, with about 5,000 new chemicals being introduced each year - at least 20% of which are considered to be carcinogenic or cancer causing on their own. What we don't know is just how much more toxic they might be in combination - there are no studies available!

What we do know is that half a million chemical toxins, approved by the FDA, are used in the manufacture of pre-packaged foods.

Given this bombardment, through the air and from our food and water, it's no wonder our immune systems and detoxification processes are stretched to the limit and start breaking down.

Many common symptoms such as headaches, mental confusion, muscle pain, fatigue, poor coordination, nerve problems, skin irritations and emotional imbalances are all now being linked to an over exposure to toxins.

What can we do about it?

The three organs directly involved in the detoxification process are:

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The intestinal tract - which controls bowel movements, eliminates harmful microorganisms and internal toxins and provides a barrier to prevent toxins leaking from the intestines into the bloodstream.

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The kidneys - which eliminate water-soluble toxins through urine.

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The liver - which extracts toxins from your blood and transforms them into water-soluble forms for elimination by the kidneys.

When any of these three stop working properly your ability to safely process toxins is endangered. As your liver is the main processor of toxins - taking them from your bloodstream and converting them for elimination via your kidneys - it is the one that carries the heaviest load. Particularly if your intestinal tract or kidneys start to malfunction.

So if you can improve your liver function, your whole body will benefit.

Some very simple actions that can all help detoxification are:

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Drinking lots of purified water. This is probably the easiest. Drinking at least 8, 8oz glasses a day really helps you flush out toxins more easily. And if you drink distilled water, you can also help leach many metallic chemicals out of your body at the same time.

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Using a loofah in a hot bath can help release toxins through your skin.

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Adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet helps to provide the enzymes you need. (A short 2 or 3 day vegetable juice fast can also help to detoxify your liver.)

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Eliminating refined, processed, high-sugar foods, and foods with hardened fats, reduces the quantity of toxins your body has to process.

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Losing weight. Excess fat is a ready-made storage site for toxins and once the toxins are in your fat, they are a continual source of toxicity. And they're very difficult to get rid of - unless you get rid of the fat itself.

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Increasing your intake of antioxidants - Most toxins generate free radicals when they are processed by your body.

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Maintaining or increasing your levels of essential oils, containing Essential Fatty Acids (EFA's). This can help prevent the absorption of oil-based and petrochemical toxins and assist in their elimination.

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Stopping smoking and limiting your alcohol consumption. Your body gets bombarded with enough unwanted toxins you can't avoid without having to deal with the self inflicted variety.

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Giving your body the nutrition it needs to boost detoxification.

Some of these are:

For the Intestines: Zinc, pantothenic acid, the amino acid L-glutamine, probiotics like acidophilus and bifidus, certain carbohydrates known as fructooligosaccharides.

For the Liver: Vitamins A, B3, B6, C and E, beta-carotene, the amino acids L-cysteine and L-glutamine, glutathione and phospholipids.

For the kidneys: Vitamins A, B6, C, magnesium and potassium.

Protect and regenerate your liver while boosting its ability to process toxins with this all-natural herbal-based Liver Cleanse.

Boost your immune system and keep your intestinal tract healthy with this all-natural Digestion Support that gives a powerful daily blend of enzymes and beneficial flora.

And this complete 8 day Program gives you all the nutrients you need as you clear yourself of parasites, toxins and impurities.

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5 Parasites and Bacteria

It has been estimated that somewhere between 50% and 80% of the U.S. adult population has at least one form of parasite living in their bodies - in most cases undetected.

Parasites compromise your health. They live off your body and the food you eat, destroying healthy bacteria, breeding fungus and stealing the nutrients you need, contributing to cellular damage and increased toxicity. Many diseases and symptoms of poor health can be attributed to continued exposure and infestation.

Contracted from pets - known to be able to transfer more than 30 parasitic infections to people - from other animal and food sources and even even from other people, parasites bury themselves deep in your body, hiding themselves and their activity so they can continue to survive and reproduce undisturbed. Certain parasites can produce up to 200,000 eggs every day they are allowed to thrive.

Intestinal parasites weaken your body’s natural immune system, making you susceptible to other diseases. The symptoms are surprisingly common place, and are usually thought to be caused by something other than a parasite. As a result, the recommended cure does not actually treat the root cause of the health problem. Serious complications can arise, and often do. Without a doubt, parasites have become commonplace and are undermining healthy living.

Parasites aggravate, if not cause, immune dysfunction, juvenile diabetes, allergies, hypoglycemia, constipation, diarrhea, depression, and liver or lung difficulties. And many other mild or vague complaints such as lack of energy, headaches and gastro-intestinal disorders often disappear when you eliminate parasites.

The only way to deal with this problem is to use a parasite cleansing program.

This powerful two-stage Parasite Cleanse Program contains safe and effective herbs to clean out your system and then create an inhospitable environment for worms, amoebas and fungus.

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6 The side effects of medical treatment

This is damage inadvertently caused by medicine - a medication, surgical procedure, a side effect of an outpatient surgery - basically a medical mistake or harmful drug reaction.

Each drug used for therapy involves a risk for the patient. This risk is partly due to the drug's characteristics, the dose and the type of administration, and partly due to the patient's susceptibility.

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Every year between 100,000 and 140,000 Americans die of adverse drug reactions.

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The group of drugs (NSAID's) used to treat arthritis is now the 15th most common cause of death in the US. More people die of these products than die of AIDS, and that's classed as an epidemic.

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And every year another million people are so severely affected or have such bad reactions to legally prescribed or over-the-counter drugs that they require hospitalization.

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Of a further two million people injured by drugs each year, it is estimated that only about 1% of the incidents are actually reported.

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Each year 90,000 people die from infections they contract while in hospital.

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A further one million are injured by medical intervention each year.

These numbers are a strong indication that the American population is paying a high price for the strong bias the traditional US medical community - including insurers and the FDA - has shown toward drug therapy and surgery to solve health problems.

Obviously drugs and surgery have a place if there are no alternatives. But how about exploring the alternatives first.

Many people only turn to alternatives, often against their doctor's advice, as a last resort. Either because traditional medical methods haven't worked and, in many cases, have made their conditions worse. Or because the medical solutions offered seem less appealing than living with the condition.

One of the keys here is that traditional medicine, by its very nature, is set up to deal with symptoms not address the underlying causes.

And the truth is that if you want to avoid the symptoms or stop them reoccurring, you MUST address the causes.

If you want to address causes and avoid symptoms:

First: Do the best you can to prevent discomfort and disease by eating healthy, making sure you are taking in the nutrients you need and by excercising so that your body stays strong and flexible.

Second: Have any changes in your health, energy levels, sleeping habits, appetite etc. checked out.

Third: Regardless of the diagnosis, take a serious look at whether nutritional deficiencies are contributory factors. This is something you can do something about NOW. Improving your nutrition will cost you a lot less than conventional medical treatments . . . and you can do this before any symptoms show up or become serious.

Prevention is the best insurance money can buy.

The Six Foundations of Healing, Parts I & II

By, Daniel H. Chong, ND

From: http://mercola.com/2004/mar/3/healing_foundations.htm

Illness, acute or chronic, is a multi-faceted event. Even a simple cold needs more than one condition in place in order for it to occur. You must do more than simply come into contact with a virus. If contact with a cold virus was all you needed to do to catch one, everyone would have colds all the time, as cold viruses are ubiquitous in our environment. In addition to viral exposure, your bodily terrain must be a place that a virus is able to overrun, meaning a place that is worn out from stress or fatigue; a place that does not have the level of nutrients available to it from a good whole foods diet to be able to fight off a virus; a place that simply can no longer resist disease.

The same conditions and often more must be met for chronic disease to develop, but they must be in place for much longer. If this is true of the nature of disease, why would healing be any different? If numerous conditions must be met in order for acute or chronic illness to occur in your body, why wouldn’t numerous conditions need to be met in order to heal?

Six Fundamental Areas

There are six fundamental areas I believe must be addressed in order to heal from a chronic condition. I call them the six foundations of healing. These areas are nutrition, detoxification, structure, genetics, thoughts & emotions, and spiritual health. Sometimes only one or two of these areas may be involved, but more often than not, they all affect the illness on some level or another. If these areas are not investigated and subsequently treated, if necessary, the illness will likely linger.

A typical conventional medical approach addresses none of these areas, but instead focuses on identifying and suppressing symptoms, often with powerful drugs or surgery. Both of these treatments can be dangerous and may potentially add to the level of stress the body is under. This can, in turn, compound the original problem at some point later on. The only healing that occurs in cases where extensive drugs or surgery are used tends to happen in spite of these treatments, not because of them.

Nutrition

If you have read anything on mercola.com, you are likely aware of the importance of nutrition to attaining, or maintaining, health. You are also likely aware that by nutrition I don’t mean multivitamins, soy isoflavones or whatever the next miracle supplement may turn out to be. I mean food. Whole food. The type of food you are likely to find on the outer rim of a typical grocery store, rather than in the middle aisles--the type of food that will spoil in a week if you don’t eat it.

However, you may not be aware that nutrition not only involves healthy, whole, organic food, but much, much more. Nutrition involves everything in this world that nourishes your body. The most obvious form of nourishment is food, but pure water, air, sunlight and auditory and visual stimuli all fall under this category as well. Anything that comes in contact with one of your five senses is ‘feeding’ your body.

Pure water and air are hard to come by these days, but doing your best still counts. Get a water filter and an air filter if you need one. Open your windows. Try and take a trip into nature, away from the toxic, city air most of us breathe everyday. At least take five or 10 minutes out of everyday to stop what you’re doing and JUST breath, deeply and evenly. You’ll be surprised at how much better this makes you feel.

Unfortunately, for many or us sunlight may be a difficult thing to come by this time of year, and I don’t recommend artificial tanning booths either. However, sunlight is extremely important to you as a human being, and we should all try our best to get a little of it as often as possible. Spending some time outdoors everyday, regardless of whether or not you can see the sun through the clouds, is helpful, as some sunlight still gets through. Dr. Mercola’s articles on Vitamin D are a must-read for everyone in this respect, and talk in depth about the positive affects that sunlight has on all of us.

If you are in a place where sunlight is not very available, you should also consider including good sources of vitamin D, such as cod liver oil and high-quality organic eggs, and raw cream, kefir, yogurt, butter and cheese from organically raised, grass-fed and finished cows and goats, in your diet.

Like food, auditory and visual stimuli are types of nourishment that can also come in many different forms, and by no means are they all good for you. For example, watching the news every night might not be the best thing for your health. The stories told, and images shown, are rarely positive and often times leave us feeling horrible about the world we live in. This is certainly a form of stress and is not very conducive to healing. If you are a nightly news watcher, consider decreasing your normal viewing, and maybe even cutting it out all together.

If you must watch television, pick a sitcom. Laughter never hurt anyone. However, television watching of any kind is really a poor choice for visual and auditory stimuli. A great option for positive auditory stimuli is the Holosync method mentioned on this Web site. It can provide numerous benefits to your mental and physical health.

The best choice for good auditory and visual stimuli is nature. An earlier article on this site mentioned that studies actually show exposure to scenes of nature, real or in pictures, can actually have a positive effect on your health and ability to perform daily activities. So again, I encourage everyone to take a day, a week, even just half an hour a week, to step outside, go to a park, to the ocean, or to the mountains, and just look around. Oh, and while you’re there, PLEASE REMEMBER TO BREATHE!!

The final of our five senses is smell. Your sense of smell often times gets overlooked, but is extremely important nonetheless. Positive olfactory stimuli can again come in many forms, but the most important and easiest to come by is good-smelling food. There is something very special about walking into your home and smelling the wonderful aroma of a good quality home-cooked meal cooking in the kitchen. Unfortunately, with the growing popularity of microwaved meals and fast food, this is something that less and less people are experiencing these days.

Years ago cooking used to be an all-day event. There was always a pot of soup brewing on the stove, and usually something cooking in the oven. Cooking used to be a common human pastime, but in these days of double income households and working overtime, the art and pleasure of cooking are quickly becoming things of the past. This situation can be turned into an entire article in and of itself, but for the purpose of this article, I will simply say that we should all start or restart the hobby of cooking, if not for the smell of it, then for the taste! **For a wealth of information on the lost art of traditional cooking please see the wonderful book Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price foundation.

Detoxification

Most of us are aware that we live in a very toxic world these days. For example, Dr. Mercola writes at length about the horrible state of seafood these days, and how most of us would do well to simply avoid the majority of this type of food altogether. Not only is this a sad thing for the poor animals that can’t escape their saltwater homes, as well as for those of us who enjoy good seafood, but also it speaks to the urgency of the entire situation. The ocean takes up the majority of space on our entire planet. If it is almost universally toxic, what else is left?

With the state of toxicity in our environment at an all-time high, it has become increasingly important for all of us to be sure that our bodies are as capable as possible at dealing with all of the chemicals we come in contact with. The better our bodies are able to process and eliminate the various toxins we accumulate, the better our bodies will function, and the stronger and more resistant to disease we will be. In situations where one’s health has already been compromised, any treatment, regardless of what type it is, will be more effective if the body is ‘cleaned out’ first, using one or more forms of detoxification.

One of my teachers liked to compare this idea to putting a new coat of paint on your house. When it comes time to do so, do you just buy some paint and start slathering it on there? Of course not! First you have to scrap off the old stuff, and clean off all of the dirt. Doing so will help to ensure that the new paint will stick better and last longer, or in essence, that it will work better. If you are chronically ill, and you want to heal up and become shiny and new again, you also need to clean out the gunk that has collected in your body first! After all, most of this gunk is what has likely contributed to your problem in the first place. Doing so will help any subsequent treatment you undergo to work better, and ensure that its effects are long lasting.

Fortunately for us, even though our environment is as toxic as it is, there are a huge number of detoxification options available to us. Everything from detox books, to detox clinics, to detox teas are out there waiting to be used, and many of these options can be quite helpful. I consider some treatments to be essential in my practice. The treatments I typically recommend to my patients are the castor oil pack and constitutional hydrotherapy treatments, one- to three-week cleansing programs using one of a variety of cleansing kits available at most health food stores and naturopathic clinics, and homeopathic drainage, which is a powerful treatment used to affect detoxification on the deepest of levels in your body.

Exercise, yoga postures, water drinking, deep breathing exercises, and dry skin brushing are additional detoxifying measures you can actually incorporate into your daily life to not only help treat chronic disease, but to help prevent it as well.

Finally, some detoxification treatments can be as helpful in acute disease as they are in chronic disease. In many cases, an acute illness is actually just a way for your own body to detoxify itself. The symptoms of a cold may just be your body’s method of choice for eliminating certain toxins that it has accumulated. At the very least, they are there to eliminate the virus, which has settled in during favorable conditions.

Taking suppressive medications like antihistamines, aspirin, and even some herbal medication during a cold is really only hindering your body’s efforts. Instead you should choose treatments like hydrotherapy, homeopathy, and herbal medicines, which support your immune system rather than suppress symptoms. These treatments do nothing more than assist your body in what it is already trying to do. Classical naturopathic medicine employs this approach to treatment, although some naturopaths these days are simply suppressing symptoms using natural treatments instead of drugs. Classical naturopathic medicine is really just a highly specialized way to assist your body’s own healing efforts, much of which is based on its ability to detoxify.

The Six Foundations of Healing, Part II

By, Daniel H. Chong, ND

Structure

Misalignment in your body’s physical structure, or blockages in the energy flow that normally courses freely through your body, can often slow down the healing process. Aside from typically causing pain, these problems can decrease blood flow, nervous stimulation and the flow of ‘chi,’ or healing energy, to an affected area. All three of these things are needed for a rapid and complete healing response.

In fact, classical chiropractic medicine bases most of its treatments on this single theory. In many cases that I see, I always try to take the time to investigate whether or not a structural problem is contributing negatively to the overall situation. I use naturopathic spinal manipulation, Bowen therapy (a treatment very similar to NST used by Dr. Mercola), and trigger point injection therapy in my practice to help relieve any misalignment or blockages I find in my patients, and I find that it helps immensely in many acute and chronic conditions.

Other methods practiced by naturopathic physicians and other like-minded practitioners to get your body’s structure realigned include massage therapy, acupuncture, osteopathic manipulation, chiropractic, craniosacral therapy, physical therapy, yoga and exercise, to name just a few. If the flow of blood and/or energy is impeded, recovery from disease or injury of any kind will be slower and less complete. Because of this, one’s structural integrity should always be investigated and treated, if necessary, when treating chronic disease.

Genetics

To a certain extent, our genetics cannot be changed. We are who we are, and if we are born with the predisposition to a certain illness, there may be nothing that we can do to change that. However, as most of you who have read anything about genetic engineering now know, the idea that we cannot change our genes is turning out to be less and less true with each passing day. In fact, some in that industry believe there is a genetic basis to every disease, and with enough time and money we should be able to discover these things and cure any disease.

I’m a little less optimistic and choose instead to believe that every creature on this earth is born into the body that nature had intended, and that we should not try and alter that. Time and time again we have seen, and continue to see, that when we try to change or improve upon nature, sooner or later it comes back to bite us in the behind. The wonderful thing about nature and our incredible bodies is that we are all designed to be healthy. As Dr. Mercola and others like him continue to show, the majority of chronically ill people do not need to change their genes for the better, they need to change their lives for the better. If they can do that they will find that optimal health is soon to follow.

This is because we as human beings, and as part of this universe, have been designed to be healthy. People get sick either because of what they are doing to themselves, or because of what someone or something else is doing to them. The symptoms they get are a result of their bodies’ best efforts to return to a state of health. This is obvious in a simple condition, such as a cold.

The symptoms of the cold are the cure. A fever, if it occurs, is there for a reason--to kill the bugs! The nasal discharge is there to provide a means of excretion for the toxins that accumulate in your body during the illness, as well many toxins that were there beforehand. If you suppress these events with fever-reducing medications or antihistamines you are suppressing your body’s effort to return to health.

In more complicated illnesses, like Crohn’s disease or cancer, the answers are usually still there, they are just harder to see. However, both of these diseases, and many more like them, are in fact being caused by something that the person is doing and/or is exposed to, and if these things are changed health will return.

The point to all of this is that genetics and heredity do play a part in illness. When someone is sick, their genetic make-up and family history should always be considered. When potential ‘weak’ areas are discovered, they should be supported as best as possible. This support can come in many forms. Hydrotherapy and herbal medicine both provide excellent options for supporting or tonifying different, potentially weak areas of the body. In homeopathic theory, general traits or predisposing conditions are referred to as ‘miasms.’ These miasms, in turn, influence the types of symptoms you get when your body comes under stress. Certain remedies can be used to support you and your particular miasm and, in turn, lessen your chance of getting sick in that area.

We may not be able to change who we are, and we shouldn’t try to. What we should do instead is to try to make the most of what we have.

Thoughts & Emotions

One of the most important factors in the prevention of or recovery from illness is the state of one’s mind. Mental/emotional stress in all of its many forms is a common denominator in the cause and prolongation of chronic illness. If your life is overly stressful and, more importantly, you don’t take steps to help relieve the burden that stress places on your body, you will inevitably get sick.

If you are already sick it will be that much more difficult to recover if your stress levels are not dealt with properly. On the same token, when we look around us we see time and time again that the healthiest people, and those with the greatest longevity, are the ones with the best attitudes in life. Someone once asked one of the oldest living human beings on the planet, a 114-year-old man, what his secret to longevity was. His response was simply, “If it starts to rain, I let it.” Nothing could sum it up better than that.

We all must learn to relax, let go, and just be. Unfortunately, the hard part is learning how to do this. It is also important to realize that the methods you choose to accomplish these feats may be totally different than the next person. Some people may choose to pray or meditate, some people may choose exercise, still others may choose drag racing! The point is that it doesn’t really matter what you do. However, to be truly healthy we all must find a way to diminish the effects that the daily stresses we experience have on our minds and bodies. We all must choose something.

On his Web site, Dr. Mercola has written in depth about two particularly effective methods of stress reduction or ‘calming of the mind’: EFT and the Holosync Method. I strongly recommend looking at these two methods as possible avenues to stress reduction in your life. Like Dr. Mercola, I am also a very big believer in the positive effects of exercise not only on your body, but your mind as well. In fact I don’t believe it is possible to be healthy without exercising regularly.

The most important point to emphasize in this discussion is that stress reduction techniques come in many, many different forms. While your chosen technique may be different from the next person, the similarity lies in what happens to your body when you do what you do to relieve stress, or what happens when you don’t. If you don’t know where to begin, start by smiling. Better yet, rent a funny movie and laugh out loud. When you’re done with that, find something, or someone, to love. It doesn’t really matter who or what that is, as long you love it with all your heart.

As with most things involving healthy living, there are many available options for stress reduction and the pursuit of positive mental health. You really only need to choose one, but do choose something. We must not forget that as human beings, we have the capacity to become sick for no reason other than because of what we think. At the same time, we must try and remember that we also have the ability to change our minds.

Spiritual Health

The most fundamental level of your being is your spirit. At the same time, your spirit is the most important thing to consider when trying to prevent or recover from chronic illness. The nourishment of your spirit is as fundamental to health and well-being as breathing. Fortunately, although many of us are unaware of it, nourishing your spirit is also one of the easiest health-promoting practices to perform.

As it is with stress reduction and mental/emotional health, there are many ways to support your spirit, and they can be so simple. Is it a simple thing to take a walk in the park? Is it a simple thing to watch the sun go down? Is it a simple thing to call your mother, father, sister, brother, or old friend and say hello? For most of us, these things are very simple. So simple, in fact, that we often forget to do them, or at least to appreciate them. Would you remember more often if you knew that these are the sorts of things that truly nourish your spirit?

There are, of course, more involved ways of nourishing your spirit, and probably one of the hardest ones is the cultivation of a positive mental attitude. This is something that, for most of us who try, takes daily effort and reminders. However, everyday that you go through with a positive attitude will not only make those days easier and your spirit lighter, but they will help you recover from the ones when you feel like hating the whole world.

Finally, developing a spiritual practice of some sort is a vitally important one. I encourage many of my patients to start, or restart, a spiritual practice of their choice in their daily lives. There are many to choose from, and whether you go to church and pray, sit on a pillow in a quiet room and contemplate your place in the universe, or hike in the mountains and just look around, doing something along these lines is very, very good for you. Think about it for a while and give something a try. You won’t regret it.

Reading through the ideas in this article may be overwhelming to you, and trying to put some or all of them into practice may seem downright impossible. That’s OK. You’re human. You’re entitled to feel a little overwhelmed once in a while. All I ask of you is that you try, because as a human you must remember one thing: You’re also entitled to your health.

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Dr. Daniel Chong is a licensed naturopathic physician practicing in Portland, OR. His practice focuses on chronic disease and pain management. In his practice, he strives to integrate the treatment and healing philosophies of classical naturopathic medicine, Dr. Joseph Mercola, and Dr. Weston A. Price. He may be contacted at:

Chiropractic and Naturopathic Physicians Clinic

12195 SW Allen Blvd.

Beaverton, OR 97005

(503) 646-0697

and

Beeson Chiropractic Center

7215 SE 13th Ave.

Portland, OR 97202

(503) 238-7025

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