askdoctoryung » Health and Wellness

Why Are so Few of us Really Healthy?

Editor — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 02:29:15 +0000

Or to put it another way: With all this money being spent on health care, why do so many people stay sick?

Part of the answer, I believe, is our over-reliance on drugs. Most prescribed medications cause side effects; they help relieve or suppress one problem but cause others problems down the track.

Toxins also affect our health. If we donâ€™t take specific steps to help our systems detoxify and to limit our exposure to more toxins, our organs and eventually all body systems, including the central nervous system can be affected.

And thereâ€™s stress. If you still donâ€™t know that stress is a major cause of illness and disease, including heart disease, you just havenâ€™t been listening.

Our attitudes to illness and health can also keep us ill:

Symptom-based definition of health â€“ Has this happened to you? You go to a doctor complaining of general unwellness or vague aches or pains, but you have no clear symptoms. Your doctor does a few tests, finds nothing and tells you youâ€™re healthy. When we define health simply as the absence of disease we are considered healthy until we have recognisable symptoms. Yet symptoms often arise long after our health has begun to deteriorate and body systems have been affected.

Symptom-based treatments – Let me give you an example of how treating symptoms rather than looking for underlying causes can cause needless misery. Thousands of children with chronic ear infections had little tubes surgically inserted to help drain fluid buildup. Later research showed that most of the surgeries were ineffective or unnecessary. Because food intolerances or allergies can cause ear infections in small children, many of these problems could have been prevented just by avoiding milk or other problem foods.

Of course, there are many other reasons why people might remain unwell. For instance, they may not be aware of natural treatment options; they may be confused by conflicting professional opinions; they may not be willing or able to afford treatment or they may not consider real health important enough.

Are You Missing Out on Natures Powerful Disease-Busters?

Editor — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:33:13 +0000

For years, I’ve been advising my patients to eat a Rainbow Diet, that is, a diet based on a wide variety of fruits and vegetables of all colours. Why? Because the natural colour in plant foods is provided by chemical compounds known as Phytochemicals, and these compounds have been found to provided enormous health benefits.

Phytonutrients protect your body’s cells, keep you youthful, cleanse your insides of toxins, strengthen your organs, and prevent and fight major diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases and cardiac disease. In addition to that, when you eat more phytonutrients, your body is getting more of the nutrients it needs to function at its peak and give you loads of energy.

Yet most of us just don’t eat enough of the foods that are rich in phytonutrients. Some of us stick to the same familiar foods – apples, carrots, perhaps a few greens now and then. Some people hardly even do that, or if they do eat plant foods, they’re so processed and overcooked that the food’s just plain dead.

If that’s you, then you’re missing out on some powerful protection. Here are just a few of the valuable phytonutrients you could be getting from Nature’s rainbow larder:

Chlorophyll – essential for all plant life, this compound is a powerful detoxifier, cell rejuvenator and energizer. It also protects genes from damage that leads to cancers. Found in wheat grass, spirulina, barley grass and leafy greens.

Ellagic acid – In a 9 year study, the Hollings Cancer Institute at the University of South Carolina found that this Ellagic acid is inhibited cancer cell division with 48 hours, and normal cell death within 72 hours for breast, pancreas, oesophageal, skin, colon and prostate cancer cells. This cancer-preventing compound is found in pomegranates, grapes, raspberries, and strawberries. Glutathione – a powerful immune regenerator that is essential for liver health and maintaining your DNA found in red foods like watermelon and green foods like asparagus

Lycopene – this cancer-fighting compound that also benefits the heart is found in tomatoes, guava, papaya, pink grapefruit, watermelon and rosehips

Quercetin – an anti-inflammatory antioxidant that has been used to treat cancer, prostatitis, heart disease, cataracts, and respiratory diseases like bronchitis and asthma. A study in the British Journal of Cancer reported that skin and prostate cancers treated with quercetin and resulted in 90% death of the cancer cells within 48 hours. Quercetin is found in many foods, including apples, citrus, onions, grapes, broccoli, leafy green vegetables, cherries, cranberries and turmeric

Resveratrol – this compound helps prevent cancer and inhibits the progression of existing cancers, and also reduces the risk of age-related diseases. Research at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine and Ohio State University found that resveratrol can also help to inhibit cardiac disease. Find high levels of resveratrol in the skin of purple/red grapes (especially Muscatel grapes), blueberries, raspberries, mulberries, bilberries, and cranberries.

As you can see, a colourful, varied diet is not a luxury. It’s vital to your and your family’s health and wellbeing. And to ensure you’re getting the very best protection from disease without toxic pesticides and additives, eat what’s in season and grown as close to home as you can find…if possible, organic.

Raw Food Ideas

Editor — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:16:06 +0000

If cooked food is so good for you, why do we often feel so tired after eating it, and head for the couch?

The main reason is that cooked food can take much longer to digest, and our bodies have to work harder to process it. That’s because cooking kills off the enzymes in plant foods that help digestion. Our bodies can’t produce these enzymes, so if we don’t get them from our food or destroy them with high heat, our digestive system has to work that much harder.

Slower digestion means that more food can collect in the folds of the intestinal lining and ferment there. That’s bad news. If you’ve ever taken spoiled food out of your fridge, you have an inkling of what it looks and smells like when it’s been collecting in little pockets in your gut where it’s warm and moist.

Aside from giving you lots of the plant enzymes you need, raw food has many health benefits:

· Raw foods scrub your system clean of accumualted toxins and waste

· You get heaps more energetic

· You are eating live, nutrient-rich good rather than dead, over-processed food

· Foods moves through your body faster (cooked food can take around 72 hours, and can start fermenting in the gut)

· Your weight naturally stabilizes

· You get healthier red blood cells that transport oxygen more efficiently

· Your tissues and organs (including liver and heart) are healthier

· Your mind becomes sharper and your emotions more balanced

You don’t have to eat only raw foods to reap enormous benefits. If your idea of daily raw food is a small lettuce salad, then you might aim to add a bigger variety of raw vegetables to your salads and snack on raw veggies, fruits and nuts instead of baked or fried stuff. If you’re ready for a big change, be more adventurous. Try new vegetables, sprouts, and nuts. Aim to make raw food 25% then 50% of your diet.

Here are a few recipes to get you started, and to give you an idea of the different ways you can add more raw foods to your daily diet.

Breakfast: Soak 1 cup of barley in water overnight. Mix together the soaked barley, 1 cup of almond milk, 1/2 cup fresh blueberries, 1/2 cup fresh raspberries, 5 tables agave nectar and enjoy.

Fruit Jam: Blend together 2 cups of good quality dried fruit and 1/3 cup of water. You can use this with any dried fruit. Adjust water to make a thick mixture.

Underground salad: Finely chop fresh fennel, a small piece of fresh ginger. Grate a rutabaga, a turnip, 1/2 cup celeriac and 1 daikon radish. Mix the vegetables with 2 tablespoons olive oil, juice of 1/2 an orange, and salt to taste, and serve.

Tahini spread: Blend some raw honey into a jar of tahini.

Cashew dessert: Blend together 1 mango, 1/3 cup raw cashews, and 1 teaspoon honey.

Tired? Achey? Your Filters May be Clogged

Editor — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:54:56 +0000

Toxins are a major cause of health problems and disease. Normally, our bodies can safely neutralize and/or eliminate toxins through natural metabolic processes, but in our increasingly toxic world, we are under constant seige from toxins. If we are not eating enough of the foods or drinking enough of the pure water our bodies need to flush out toxins, or eating too much junk food or fatty, sugary, processed foods, toxins can easily accumulate in our tissues and cause all sorts of health issues. Also, medication, stress and infection can add to our toxic load, until the body can no longer cope. The body’s natural filters (gut, liver, kidney, lymph) can become clogged, and eventually, stop working properly.

Signs That Your Filters Are Not Working Properly

Because the body’s filters interact with all your body systems, clogged filters can create all kinds of symptoms. That’s why I always suspect toxic overload when a person comes to me with mysterious, chronic or recurring symptoms affecting different parts of the body. For example, if a client comes to me complaining of frequent sinus congestion, aching muscles, and painful swelling in her joints, I can usually tell that one or more of her filters is not working properly. Her sinus may be telling me that the digestive filter (the first one in the sequence) is faulty. Her muscle aches and pains are advising me that the second filter, the Liver, is finding it hard to do its job. Finally, aches and swelling at her joints warn us that her last filter, the Kidney, is not performing at its best.

If you frequently experience any of these symptoms, then one or more of your filters is probably clogged:

hay fever or sinus problems
unexplained pains, muscle aches, cramps
persistent fogginess or gloominess
stomach problems
headaches
frequent illness and/or slow recovery from illness
inflammation and swelling
frequent nausea
lethargy or lack of energy
sallow skin and dry or oily hair
weak, ridged nails
excessive mucous production.

It’s time to get your filters cleaned so that your immune system and other systems can function properly to keep you healthy and repair daily wear and tear instead of struggling with toxins. Talk to your health practitioner, or do it yourself. You can find lots of detox info on the net, or if you don’t like research, there’s my ‘The Complete Detox in 7 Days and Beyond’ available on www.renewyoujourney.com. Once you experience the benefits of detoxification, you’ll want to make it a regular part of your health routine.

Eczema May Be First Stage in a Pattern of Allergy

admin — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:19:36 +0000

Eczema may be the first sign that your child has an allergy. It is often the first indicator of allergy in small children, and as the child grows, it can develop into other allergic diseases such as allergic rhinitis or asthma. If not properly treated, almost half the infants with eczema will later develop asthma. So if your child has eczema, save you both a lot of future distress by dealing with it now, even the rash is mild and only occurs now and then. If untreated, even mild allergy can escalate into something more serious and could be masking a hidden allergy .

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What inspired me to write “Your Allergy Free Child”

admin — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:51:39 +0000

My inspiration for writing “Your Allergy Free Child”
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Candida â€“ The Invisible Enemy in Allergy

admin — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 03:53:57 +0000

Candida the invisible enermy in allergy is a yeast infection that plays an important role in autoimmune and chronic immune disorders, and also in allergies. Yeasts are single-celled organisms, and different forms of yeast normally exist in our bodies on the outside of mucous membranes. Of the different forms of Candida, the yeast most commonly associated with allergy is Candida albicans. Normally, it lives in the colon and mouth with other organisms, without causing harm.

However, if the body is weakened, or the delicate balance between harmful and beneficial microbes is somehow changed (perhaps by chemicals or certain foodsor an allergy), Candida populations can quickly grow out of control.

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