The advancement of complementary medicine
and natural healing
As we observe the health trends taking place in this country, the evidence is becoming clearer that the U.S. is now poised to make significant progress in creating a safer, more open environment for effective, accessible, and viable alternatives to our now entrenched and sometimes deadly institution of conventional medicine.
This reality coming into existence is being borne out of an alarming and urgent necessity. As we witness the frightening failures of our current medical system, we can see how this is now taking place. Examples pointing to these circumstances include:
- This report that states one out of every fifteen children who enter the hospital--approximately 540,000--suffered from a medical dosage mishap, such as overdosage, adverse chemical reactions, and improper administration
- The unaffordable costs of health insurance and its flawed coverage
- The staggering cost of healthcare that isn't covered by insurance
- The dangers of prescriptions drugs and unwanted side effects such as weight gain, dizziness, headaches, blood clots, immune system suppression, decreased liver function, etc.
- Desperate for relief when conventional medicine fails, alternative remedies are seen as a final hope.
The source of desperation for many people comes mainly from obtaining any long-lasting relief from their chronic, debilitating illnesses. Many prescription drugs are currently being used to only manage symptoms; safe and gentle treatments to cure the underlying causes do not exist within the practice of modern medicine. Since the symptoms are only managed, such as in cases of high blood pressure, and very likely to never go away, pharmaceutical companies have been blessed with the promise of steady income from repeated purchases of these types of prescriptions. If you notice the ads on television and in print media, you'll see these dependency-type drugs make up the bulk of their marketing.
FDA testing has shown to be an unreliable factor in the safety of many prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Alarms are going off over the safety of ingredients. Here are just a few of the drugs pulled since 1997: infant cold medicine, Vioxx, Bextra, ergotamine, Rezulin, Lotronex, Prepulsid, Redux, Pondimin, Duract, Seldane, Hismanal, Posicor and Raxar. How many others are there that should be pulled but are still being prescribed?
Although not every form of medicine is 100% safe, the wisdom from herbalism, Oriental medicine, yoga, Ayurveda, massage, naturopathy, and Tai Chi has been practiced and handed down for centuries. Our collective knowledge about the chemicals put in most of today's medicine has only been around for a few decades, if that long.
With the associated risks being relatively smaller, the popularity of herbs and supplements has grown. However, natural supplements can also have health risks, especially if they are imported. Many tend to be brought in from other countries because of their low costs and availability, and because of U.S. import rules, they must be thoroughly sprayed with pesticides. Practically speaking, this negates many of the sought-after natural healing effects. Careful research as to the origins of healing components would ensure against encountering these risks. Care must also be taken when self-prescribing and mixing with prescription drugs.
Integrative medicine is looked upon as a feasible solution to our health woes, since both conventional medicine and alternative therapies have their place in our society. Today's medical institutions are on the cutting edge with treatment of trauma--when serious injuries and extreme physical emergencies occur. Alternative remedies, on the other hand, have the potential to positively affect an individual holistically and address the underlying or core health issues and eliminate them as a constant health threat. Many respected holistic MDs, such as the ones I have listed on my resources page, are now in the forefront of consumer and patient education, and are leading the way to establishing safe and effective practices for integrative medicine.
More practical solutions to healing
To begin to solve these healthcare problems, it would serve us better to return to our natural, supportive basics of living to improve our outlook for healthier solutions and assume personal responsbility for our own wellbeing. This lifestyle includes:
- Eliminating contaminants and noxious substances from our foods, water, and consumer products
- Increasing our exercise; idealistically, including more purposeful exercise such as walking instead of driving when possible, and gardening
- Dedicating more time to our spiritual practices; i.e., meditation and prayer to encourage stress reduction, peace of mind, and higher feelings of wellbeing that come from being connected to spirit
- Consuming an increased amount of whole, fresh foods, when possible from our own gardens and local growers, especially from farmers markets
- When an imbalance occurs, seek a form of healing that appeals to you that gently increases your circulation of both blood and chi energy, such as yoga, Tai Chi, or other gentle body movement. Consulting an accredited herbalist or naturopathic physician to determine the best choice for any herbal or nutritional supplements can also help support your healing process.
- Hypnotherapy is becoming a feasible option, recognized for its ability to demonstrate the effects the mind has to impact the body's functioning.
Aside from stress-related or other mental- or emotional-related disorders, Dr. Elson Haas believes there is only one primary disease--cellular malfunction. This is caused by two scenarios: 1) toxicity from intake of unnatural substances such as chemicals and heavy metals; and 2) deficiency of vital nutrients that are lacking in our food supply. Reducing ingestion of chemicals and increasing vital, natural nutrients from whole foods and natural supplements will ensure the continuation toward improved good health.
Organic is becoming extremely important because we are beginning to understand the dysfunction an overload of pesticides can create within the body, especially on children and pregnant women. Organic means crops have been grown without synthetic pesticides, artificial fertilizers, irradiation, or biotechnology, or animals have been raised without antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and aren't confined 100% of the time. The most used group of pesticides, organophosphorous compounds, are used extensively because of their low cost and wide range of application, and include such chemicals as malathion and chlorpyrifos. These compounds are derived from World War II nerve gas agents and have been shown to cause a number of health maladies. Chlorpyrifos poses the highest risk, with repeated, excessive exposure shown to cause cholinesterase depression with symptoms such as nausea, neurological problems, seizures, respiratory distress, and even death in farmworkers who handle the pesticides (pdf report), and heavy exposure has been linked to brain cancer. Because of the associated high costs, not every produce purchase has to be organic, but you may want to choose the "dirty dozen" as your strictly-organic selections: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach, and potatoes.
Organic produce is believed to be healthier simply because without the application of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, plants are more likely to develop increased phytochemicals (vitamins and antioxidants) that strengthen their resistance to unwanted forces, such as extreme weather, pests, and diseases. Limiting the application of pesticides also reduces the run-off into our soil and ground water. Dr. Andrew Weil recently wrote about a ten-year study by the University of California at Davis that showed organic tomatoes have higher levels of nutrients in them compared to synthetically grown tomatoes.
This is important because our food supply can be a reliable form of healing and a guarantee for maintaining good health. Observation has taught us that the types of food we eat has to power to heal or make us ill, so we need to make wiser, more informed choices as consumers. However, it is not just the phytonutrients but also the subtle energies that are a part of our foods that have a great impact on our wellbeing. There is a specific, intricate intelligence incorporated into nature's food. The old axiom, "You are what you eat," becomes crucial to remember when we realize and accept the concept of energetic and intelligent complexities that make up our food sources. Love heals, and through nature's bounty, we can ingest directly into our bodies the highest form of love that nature has provided for us. Using this as a measurement, we can determine how beneficial a food product is for us by knowing what energies—natural, human, or manufactured—were put into making it. There are many movies that demonstrate this principle, such as Like Water for Chocolate or Chocolat. Another rule I follow is determining how processed a food is; the more processed, the less beneficial.
Most importantly—and I cannot stress this enough—is this essential piece of advice: you must begin to recognize and transform your feelings toward consumption of food. Emotions play a major role in affecting your body's biochemistry and also the choices you make about determining what is a healthy diet. Constant anxiety, obsession, and guilt over the purity of foods you ingest is no healthier than a diet laden with unwholesome ingredients. Moderation, variety, balance, gratitude, and peace of mind are vital to an optimal way of eating.
The tide is turning on our approach to health. Instead of reacting to illness, we are being proactive in maintaining good health through seeking a holistic balance of mind, body, and spirit. No matter what conventional practitioners say about our 'dangerous trend' toward relying too much on self-treatment with alternative therapies, the truth is we are becoming empowered and more aware of how to take care of our whole selves. On the healthcare front, we are headed in a new direction and there is no turning back, and modern medicine will eventually have to face the real meaning of their fundamental precept, primum non nocere, or "Do no harm."
As we experiment and experience the different popular alternative healing modalities, eventually we will discover exactly which ones have validity and which ones have been perpetuated by myths (such as ear candling). More importantly, however, as we expand our understanding of true healing and the real mechanisms of our own wellness practices, what we may ultimately learn is that the placebo effect, or our very own mind power, already exists as the most prolific, spontaneous, and consistent form of healing of them all, and that it is the primary ingredient in every form of healing. When our collective humanity arrives at this juncture of realization, we will finally experience true freedom and expanded awareness of our inherent powerful abilities to shape our lives.
