How to Justify Traveling As A Regular Necessity

Traveling and exploring in general are needed by everybody on a regular basis to keep you sane, healthy and spiritually evolving in the modern world. It has always been a part of the history of our evolution being very integral to our growth as a species. We've traveled and explored out of sheer necessity to find better land to cultivate our crops and have a richer life in general. We would also do plenty of daily exploration to hunt and/or gather our food. So what happens when we get comfortable in modern society with grocery stores and restaurants doing the “hunting and gathering” for us? What happens when we mostly sit in front of our computers day in and day out with only two weeks out of the year for vacation? I say we start to de-evolutionize.

Did you ever notice that you feel more alive when you're traveling to a new place you've never been to. Or when you're exploring a new hiking/biking trail you might find that your mind is not only not racing 200 miles per hour like when you're in your daily routine, but it's also much more creative and alive as is the rest of you. Some of my best ideas and epiphanies come about when I'm in a totally new place. My theory is that our primal beings that tend to run dormant in typical daily life gets exercised when we travel/explore. It's kind of a defense mechanism when we're around unfamiliar territory that our minds have to be sharper, more focused and “more open”

This window of acute awareness can be taken full advantage of for a tremendous amount of personal growth. A perfect example of this is the destination retreat/workshop in some beautiful backdrop where you learn some new form of meditation or personal growth tool. The primary pitfall is that when the person comes back from retreat to routine life, much of the great tools will eventually fade as routine life takes over. The point however is in teaching how to use these valuable tools when not retreating or when you're back in you stress-inducing life.

So my point is that we all have a need to take more retreats in general, to do more exploring/traveling in general so that we can use all that we've been taught more readily. However it does not have to be traveling far to some exotic destination—how often can most of us do that?! I do recommend the regular weekend getaway that might be camping half an hour outside of town. I also recommend (as often as you can) the hike or mountain bike ride through the woods. This I do several times a week—usually in the form of a mountain bike ride—to recharge my physical and spiritual battery.

Hiking/biking is a perfect example of what can be done on a regular basis to exercise the all-too-lacking primal aspect of ourselves in modern society. The combination of great cardio exercise with being in nature where you can truly lose your thoughts and just be with what's in front of you is such a potent remedy for routine of daily life. Adrenaline, endorphin, serotonin and dopamine are at high levels and while meandering through trees with no sight and sound of city life it is such great natural medicine. Here in Boise, Idaho the importance of this access to the daily medicine is so well recognized and valued, the most prized real estate is what's in and around the foothills and very close to the hundreds of miles of trail. It's a big reason why I live here and why so many are flocking to cities like these.

Exercise isn't just for our muscles surrounding our bones, but more importantly for our primal selves that in so many people have atrophied away.

Ten Greatly Effective Tips to Help You Lose or Maintain Ideal Weight

Although exercise is a give in for lifestyle recommendations, the focus of this post is not on exercise. We believe the focus needs to be more heavily on nutrition and food choices including which oils to cook with and avoid. We still recommend doing exercise regularly especially outside so that you get the benefit of solar radiation, but if you're not eating right, exercise is not going to make up for it and can eventually backfire on you. So here are our top ten recommendations for weight loss/management.

1. Slow down! (at least while eating)

   Most people eat way too fast which decreases digestability by not giving your salivary enzymes a chance to do their job. Also the message of “I'm full” will likely get to your brain before you've stuffed yourself full of more-than-needed calories.

1. Eat only whole and organic foods/stay away from anything artificial.

   Artificial flavors and sweetners have been shown to be chemically addictive having you crave more of the same. Also pesticides inhibit the parathyroid and thyroid glands, both of which need to be fully functioning so that your metabolism can be strong. Concentrating your foods to be super-packed with wholefoods nutrition will tend to require less calories to get the “full” message by your body since they're getting their nutritional needs met more efficiently. When I put people on nutritional supplement programs, they typically tell me that they eat less food because they're less hungry due to the super-dense nutrition in capsule form.

1. Avoid diet sodas and other beverages with artificial sweetners.

Diet sodas that contain aspartame, nutrasweet, equal etc. do not increase metabolism. As a matter of fact, they are also chemically addictive, non-nutrative substances that inhibit thyroid function and are also known neurotoxins.

1. Avoid typical commercial dairy, but consume aged cheese and home-made kiefer.

High lactose items foods are extremely hard to digest and produce more phlegm and fat. However aged cheese (more than 3 months) and homemade kiefer are easy to digest because most (about 90%) of the lactose has been converted to easier-digesting sugars (glucose and galactose).  The probiotics in kefir will also improve digestion allowing for better nutrient assimilation, which eventually means increased capacity for weight loss/management.  Go to the website www.rejoiceinlife.com/kefir/kefirlistUSA.php to get free or low-cost kefir grains in your area. 

5. Cook with coconut oil, and avoid unsaturated oils (for cooking)

Coconut oil is known to increase metabolism up to 25 % for its unique medium-chain fatty acids. It is the easiest oil to digest since it does not require bile salt (from gall bladder) to break it down. It is also able to help balance cholesterol (incresing HDL's and decreasing LDL's). Even better, in addition to cooking with it, consume a couple tablespoons raw to get a medicinal dose to help rev up the metabolism. Never consume hydrogenated oil in case you don't already know (margarine, mayonaise, and found in a huge amount of packaged foods—read labels!).

1. Eat your largest meal in the morning, your smallest meal at night.

   Your metabolism according to those who study bio-rhythms of the body know that digestion is strongest at the beginning of the day and weakest at the latter part of the day. Following nature is always wisest as those who eat the biggest meals later in the day will always pay a price.

1. Limit your carbs and avoid white sugar, white flour and white rice.

   Carbs are needed but not in the amount the Standard American Diet (SAD!) leads us to believe. The “whites” are refined “browns” that have been stipped away of their nutritional components. A good example of a metabolism-increasing meal is a large salad with salmon. How about a plate of tuna steak with steamed vegetables and quinoa?

    

1. Increase (especially the fiber-rich) vegetables—especially salads, steamed, or pickeled.

   Pickled vegetables are a great nutrition source (I'm not talking about dill pickles—think homemade kimchi or sourkraut) that are great for digestion.  You may be thinking at this point, wow, he really wants me to do more "homemade," and yes, that's a big point.  With homemade items, you know exactly what's going into the foods and more importantly what isn't going in. 

    

1. Never eat after 7 pm.

              As mentioned before, digestion is weakest at night. Midnight snacks should never be  considered.

1. Don't drink alcohol

   Nothing more than a sugar, no matter what kind of alcohol, it is weight-promoting. It makes me laugh when people tell me that they drink diet coke with their whiskey. That's blasphemy in so many ways.

New groundbreaking research shows that the insertion of an acupuncture needle into the skin disrupts the branching point of nerves called C fibres. These C fibres transmit low-grade sensory information over very long distances by using Merkel cells as intermediaries. Dr. Morry Silberstein of the Curtin University of Technology will publish his research in the Journal of Theoretical Biology later this year.

We have never really had a scientific explanation for how acupuncture actually works,” he said. In the absence of a scientific rationale, acupuncture has not been widely used in the mainstream medical community. If we can explain the process scientifically, we can open it to full scientific scrutiny and develop ways to use it as a part of medical treatments.”

Dr. Silberstein mentions that they have known, for some time, that the acupuncture points show lower electrical resistance than other nearby areas of the skin. His research specifically pinpoints that the C fibres actually branch exactly at acupuncture points. Scientists don’t know exactly what role C fibres play in the nervous system, but Dr. Silverstein theorizes that the bundle of nerves exists to maintain arousal or wakefulness. The insertion of the acupuncture needle disrupts this circuit and numbs our sensitivity to pain.”

Acupuncture for pain relief is actually being taught to American Air Force physicians deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan (2009) by Dr. Richard Niemtzow MD, PhD, MPH and editor of Medical Acupuncture. His technique called “Battlefield Acupuncture” relieves severe pain for several days and is a variation of acupuncture, which inserts very tiny semi-permanent needles at specific acupoints on the skin of the ear that blocks pain signals from reaching the brain.

"This is one of the fastest pain attenuators in existence," said Dr. Niemtzow, who is the Consultant for complementary and alternative medicine for the Surgeon General of the Air Force, and is affiliated with Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. "The pain can be gone in five minutes."

It has taken quite a long time for Western medicine to embrace acupuncture even though it was introduced in the early 1970’s after contacts with China improved.

Professor Tsuei mentions: “In 1972 the respected New York Times columnist James Reston underwent an emergency appendectomy while in China. He later wrote about acupuncture treatment for post-operative pain that was very successful. This report attracted attention and many American physicians and researchers went to China to observe and learn acupuncture techniques.”

Since then, only a few controlled studies were done in the West. Yale researchers proved its effectiveness for cocaine addiction in 2000 and published their findings in the August 14 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

A North Korean researcher, Kim Bonghan, published papers in the early 1960’s and his research was confirmed by the Japanese researchers Fujiwara and Yu in 1967. Unfortunately his research took almost 40 years to be confirmed through studies done on rats, rabbit and pigs with Stereo-microscope photographs and electron microsopy.

The amazing photo shows the stereomicroscopic image of acupuncture meridians:

“Assemblies of tubular structures 30 to 100 mm wide (red blood cells are 6-8 mm in diameter). Apparently these structures have remained undiscovered for so long because they are almost transparent and so thin that they are barely visible with low-magnification surgical microscopes. They are also easily confused with fibrin, which coagulates and obscures these structures when there is bleeding in dissected tissues. Now that they have been rediscovered, researchers are investigating their composition and function. The tubular structures that make up Bonghan channels contain a flowing liquid that includes abundant hyaluronic acid, a substance that cushions and lubricates the joints, eyes, skin and even heart valves. Also visible in the photographs are small granules of DNA or microcells about 1-2 mm in diameter that contain chromosomal material highly reactive to stem-cell antibody stains. When these cells were isolated and then induced to differentiate, they grew into cells of all three germ layers. These may be our body's natural source of pluripotent adult stem cells, with the potential to develop into any cell in the body”

Russian researchers in 1991 at The Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Novosibirsk, USSR, in a research project lasting several years, discovered how the human body conducts light. They found that the light conducting ability of the human body exists only along the meridians, and can enter and exit only along the acupuncture points. Dr. Kaznachejew, a professor of physics said:

“This seems to prove that we have a light transferal system in our body somewhat like optical fiber. It appears that the light can even travel when the light canal is bent, or totally twisted. The light appears to be reflected from the inner surface, appearing to go in some sort of zigzag track. You can explain this through traditional electromagnetic light theory as it is used in optical fiber communications.”

This finding has been confirmed by a 1992 study in the Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a 2005 study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine where moxibustion and infrared thermography were used to trace meridian pathways.

There might be a “light body” after all.

See also: Fiber optics under New York City (short fiber optic tutorial and video in article)

Resources:

via Professor Hex's blog

Meridians conduct light by Dr. Sergei Pankratov, Moskow, Published by Raum and Zeit, Germany, 1991.Translated from the German by Wolfgang Mitschrich

Bonghan Channels in Acupuncture By David Milbradt, LAc, Acupunture Today

Bonghan Duct and Acupuncture Meridian as Optical Channel of Biophoton

Curtin University of Technology

Scientific Evidence in Support of Acupuncture and Meridian Theory  Professor Julia J. Tsuei M.D., F.A.C.O.G.

Medical acupuncture gaining acceptance by the US Air Force

Acupuncture is promising treatment for cocaine addiction, Yale researchers find

Photo Credit: Acupuncture Today: A stereomicroscopic image of the lymphatic vessel around the caudal vena cava of a rat. The photograph (left) and its illustration (right) show the novel threadlike structure (solid arrow) that passes throw the lymphatic valve (open arrow). The photograph was taken in vivo and in situ, and a piece of black paper was put under the lymphatic vessel to exhibit the target clearly. The scale bar is 100 mm.

Sufficient Hydration Is Often A Key Overlooked Health Consideration

Most of us know the importance of staying hydrated especially when we go out and exercise.  When we become acutely dehydrated we’ll likely experience headache, fatigue, foggy-headedness and possible muscle cramping and pain. 

Less obvious symptomatically is when we are chronically dehydrated.  The combination of not drinking enough water throughout the day and occasionally drinking alcohol and caffeine will lead to being chronically dehydrated.  It baffles me in my clinical practice how many people are not sufficiently hydrated—most admit that they don’t drink enough, but some don’t have any idea.  However, most seem to not know the long-term consequences of this major insult to the body.

The organ that can be argued to be the most dependent on hydration are the kidneys  Without sufficient good quality water they would be less-than-ideal functioning in terms of their role in homeostasis or water balance.  The kidneys and the lymph system work hand in hand to properly remove waste from the body.  When the kidneys are not functioning optimally blood pressure regulation can be severely challenged either as high or low blood pressure.  Waste from lymph system can become “clogged,” possibly looking like ankle swelling (edema), and a lower immune system.  In addition, chronic dehydration can eventually lead to chronic constipation.  Like the famous Chinese proverb goes, “You need water to float the boat.” 

As you have heard, we’re mostly water, and when we’re low on water, we’re not going to be functioning as well as we could be when we’re low on one of the body’s key ingredients.  Degeneration of our body and ageing in general is an inevitability.  Think of all the older smokers you know and you can easily see how much older they look and how much more wrinkled and leathery their skin is.  Also, the acute symptom of acute dehydration can turn into more of the same, but chronic headaches, fatigue, etc., with chronic dehydration.

So How Much Should We Drink?

First of all, we need to get out of our minds the outdated concept that 8 glasses of 8 ounces of water is enough to stay hydrated.  In general if there is a rule of thumb for everybody to follow exactly alike, chances are it’s not going to be accurate. 

Pay Attention To The Color

Yes, this means pay attention to the color of your urine to roughly see if you’re in the ballpark for sufficient hydration.  A hydrated person will have clear to very light yellow (straw-like) colored urine.  If it’s darker (and especially if it has a strong odor), your urine is more concentrated with toxins than it should be.  You need to facilitate the removal of the toxins by drinking more water. 

So How Much Water Is The Right Amount For Me?

Obviously this answer is about everybody is different and requires a different amount, but it can roughly be based on your body size.  It also depends on your lifestyle, such as how much you exercise and sweat and how much dehydrating things you consume, such as alcohol, caffeine and if you’re a smoker.  What we suggest is that you shoot for half your body weight in ounces.  For example if you weigh 120 lbs., then drink at least 60 ounces of water a day.  If you’re drinking caffeine and/or alcoholic beverages, we suggest adding 20 ounces of water per serving of caffeinated beverage or alcohol, and add more if you smoke.  I know it sounds like a lot when I suggest this to my typical patient, but it’s usually because most people are drinking too little for our bodies to function optimally. 

Do You Have To Go To The Bathroom Right After Drinking Water?

If so, chances are you don’t have enough electrolytes to properly “hold” the water in the right places, such as in your cell so it’s going straight through you.  You’re likely lacking in either good quality potassium and/or a good quality salt.  High potassium sources are coconut water (the juice of a young coconut), tomatoes and bananas.  As far as salt goes, stay away from toxic salt sources (such as table salt and in packaged foods) and only consume high grade sea salts (yes, even for the hypertensive).  For those who visit our clinic, you likely know about our high quality Pink Salt.  Two other salts that we can recommend are by the brand Alessi, and fleur de sel salt.  I’ll write another post soon about why most sea salt is toxic, but we need to regularly use a non-toxic sea salt to maintain good hydration and health.

What kind of Water Should I Drink

With so many choices of brands and types of water, it’s easier at this point to just talk about what you can do at your house (rather than when you’re buying bottled waters).  We always recommend reverse osmosis  or ozonated-water systems for the home.  These two systems have been proven to thoroughly remove toxins found in water such as chlorine and fluoride and render the water safe to drink.  I will also soon post a list of great-quality brands of water and some not-so-great ones on a part two of the water

Looking Out For A Silent Killer Part 3 (Neurotoxins/Excitotoxins)

Aspartame and MSG are two of the worst food additives you can readily find in packaged foods.  Known as “excitotoxins” they debilitate the nervous system and rest of the body by exciting nerve cells to early cell death. 

Aspartame also known commercially as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful and Equalmeasure is the typical artificial sweetener found in diet foods and drinks and most chewing gums.  When anything packaged says “diet” or “sugar free” be sure and read the label—it likely contains one of these and if so, don’t consume it if you value your health.  A very beneficial alternative to these sugar substitutes is called xyletol which can be found in health food stores.  There are also a couple of brands of chewing gum that contain xyletol.  Having one of the eight healing sugars known as mannose this gum (unlike with aspartame) can actually fight off dental infections.

MSG, or monosodium glutamate is an equally-dangerous neurotoxin that is possibly poisoning us more so than aspartame because of its other names that disguise its presence in packaged foods, spices and drinks.  MSG often associated only with Chinese food, IS everywhere and in order to look for it you need to know the AKA’s.  Monosodium glutamate, glutamate, “spices” and “natural flavors” are the same thing.  These sneaky words can be a percentage of MSG content, hiding these excitotoxins from the typical misinformed consumer.  For more information on how MSG is everywhere and in everything, please visit the site www.msgtruth.org/avoid.htm.  By the way, if you suspect you’ve consumed something with MSG, such as any time you go out to eat, the antidote is live-source B vitamins. 

These two excitotoxins should be sought after and avoided like the plague.  Whether you have a compromised immune system or not, if nerve cells are dying off way too early, you’re predisposing yourself to poor health in general and some of the worst degenerative types of diseases.  MS, ALS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and cancer are some of the neurodegenerative diseases that are connected to early cell death of the nerve cells.  Other symptoms related to excitotoxicity include headaches and migraines, chronic fatigue, joint pain, depression and anxiety. 

One of the best strategies to avoid these dangerous food additives is to eat out less and prepare your own foods with whole foods.  Yes this means avoiding packaged foods as much as possible and it entails more work, but if you really want true wellness, there really are no shortcuts.  The packaged foods and TV dinner phenomenon has really put us into a deep hole and climbing out entails lifestyle changes that require effort.  In other words, just like in all other examples of life, there is a direct correlation in the effort you put out with the rewards you receive.    

Looking out for a Silent Killer—Part 2 (Toxic oils)

Now that we’ve made it clear that hydrogenated oils are great culprits to degenerative diseases especially heart disease and obesity, let’s talk about some other oils that may seem like a healthier option but are proving to be quite toxic.

We’ve heard for many years that there is a need to avoid saturated fats and only consume unsaturated fats.  Unsaturated fats have basically become synonymous with being heart healthy.  So in an effort to curb the rising trend of heart disease (coincidentally as hydrogenation trends also rose) we were educated to cut out the saturated fats and stick only to unsaturated fats.  The less saturated (as in poly-unsaturated) the better. 

So fast-food chains started replacing their frying oils such as beef tallow and lard to soy, corn, and cotton seed and canola oil.  Since this transition in the early ‘80’s, however, we have seen heart disease and obesity rise.  HMMMM?  Could the American Heart Association be wrong?  Could we have been mis-educated because of an overgeneralization once again?  Are we not the most advanced and smartest country in the world especially when it comes to health and medicine?  Oh wait; the CDC reports that more than 50% of Americans are chronically ill and heart disease is the leading cause of death! 

Well with all this room to grow, we certainly should look to other societies that are healthier and thinner and see what the major differences are.  The oils/fats that the healthier societies (especially heart-healthy ones) are cooking with different oils.  Think of India, Sri Lanka, Japan, the Phillipeans, and Vietnam.  The people in these countries where heart health is not nearly the issue it is here cook more with butter, ghee, and especially coconut oil—these are all saturated!

 So why do the seemingly healthy oils, even those rich in essential fatty acids, prove to make us fatter, predispose us to heart attacks and strokes, and even neurodegerative diseases and cancers? 

As these vegetable oils heat up, they easily oxidize and rancidify and create trans-fatty acids.  Without going into the chemistry, basically the less saturated an oil is (especially the ones that are more poly-unsaturated) the less stable it is.  The minute you add heat to these oils, they quickly become toxic.  As a matter of fact, most of these oils, being packaged in clear containers, start oxidizing while on the shelf (because of the light penetrating the bottle). 

I do certainly recommend the consumption of some of the oils that I’m talking about, but only in the raw state and only ones that are packaged in darker containers.  They should also be unrefined, cold-pressed and not solvent-extracted.  Great sources of essential fatty acids (that should only be consumed raw) are flax oil, olive oil, borage oil, and sesame seed oil.  I do not recommend the consumption (raw or heated) of canola oil, soy bean oil, corn oil or cotton seed oil.              

Now when you’re going to cook food, you only want to stick with saturated oils since they are more stable—they are naturally full of hydrogen atoms (not synthetically hydrogenated).  Organic butter, ghee and coconut oil are the only oils/fats that we cook with.  Used in moderation butter is not going to make anyone fat.  As a matter of fact eating large amounts of coconut oil can actually increase metabolism!  And coconut oil has an enormous amount of benefits that we’ll go into at a later post.  Just like with a performance race car if you are using bad fuel and lubrication, it’s going to perform poorly.  If you want your vehicle to run like more like a Porche but currently it’s running like a Pinto, change the oil.      

Get Control Of Your Acid Reflux And Get Control Of Your Health

If you’re like millions of acid reflux (or GERD) sufferers, you likely have been recommended or prescribed an antacid (or proton pump inhibitor, or H2 blocker).  The common antacid will certainly provide for quick and easy symptomatic relief, but many doctors say that you will likely be on them for the rest of your life.  While they’re great for symptomatic relief, they will eventually lead to more of a dependency on antacids and more nutritional deficiency.

First of all, we need to understand why there is heartburn, gas and bloating with GERD or acid reflux patients.  These symptoms arise when our food is rotting and fermenting.  As food ferments as with poor digestion, lactic acid and other waste acids are produced.  The experience of this is gas, bloating, and uncomfortable acid situation is caused by too much waste acid. 

Now the reason for too much production of these waste acids may surprise you.  It is actually because of too little hydrochloric acid (which should be in our stomachs in plentiful amounts).  When our hydrochloric acid (HCL) levels have gone low, we cannot break down our foods very well.  As we age we naturally have less HCL than we did as a young adult.  We also use up more HCL to break down highly heated food (eating more raw foods helps keep up HCL levels).  As a result of this insufficient breakdown of food from a lack of HCL, there is more rotting and fermenting of food and more waste acid production. 

Antacids May Work Temporarily, But Are They A Good Long-Term Treatment?

 While antacids work very well to suppress the high acid content of waste acids such as lactic acid, they will also suppress the body’s ability to produce hydrochloric acid as well.  Since HCL is needed for digestive support and its deficiency has led to rotting/fermenting food producing waste acids, this will only lead to more HCL deficiency and more excessive waste acid production.  This essentially would be a never ending cycle which is the reason many doctors say that you’ll never be able to get off of your proton-pump inhibitor.  In addition to the antacid ball and chain, this also leads to less and less ability for nutrient assimilation as the key digestive acid is missing.  Nutritional deficiency is almost a certainty especially of calcium, iron and B vitamins making people vulnerable to osteoporosis and anemia among other degenerative diseases. 

Fight Fire With Fire!

The real way to get people free of antacid dependence is by repleting the key missing link.  Supplementing your food with HCL capsules will help aid in digestion and eventually lead to repletion of what should be in ample amounts in your stomach.  When back to normal, your food will be able to be fully digested and not rot.  This will mean no gas, bloating, distention and yes, no acid reflux!  This will also mean better nutrient absorption and therefore any other chronic issue is now likely much better able to be overcome.  Remember, no one can argue that someone has an antacid deficiency, but most adult Americans are in fact HCL deficient. 

Getting Ready for Athletic Competition?  Improve your body’s pH to Improve Performance

There is a direct correlation between the higher the body’s overall pH and the amount of oxygen capacity there is to nourish the muscles (and every other organ and gland system).  In terms of athletic performance enhancement, the major factor we look at is the pH of the body, and therefore the oxygen carrying capacity the blood has to offer our muscles during strenuous efforts.  There have been many ways people try to increase oxygen capacity in competition athletes especially at altitude including sleeping in oxygen tents and drinking super-oxygenated water, but those techniques are not only expensive, but they only have short-term effects. 

In order to permanently shift the body into a much richer oxygenated environment, we have our patients concentrate on diet and nutrition therapy.  Mainly we have people monitor (and strictly) limit their consumption of acid-forming foods which work to deplete our mineral stores in the body especially our calcium levels.  The lower the amount of minerals we have in our bodies, the lower our pH will be and the lower our oxygen levels as well.  By increasing mineral-rich foods (highly alkaline), and avoiding highly processed foods which are very acid-forming, we will help to adjust our overall body’s pH to go to a more alkaline range.  Just a tenth of a point increase in pH, (i.e.  5.6 to a 5.7) accounts for 10 times more oxygen available for all of our bodily processes including energy conversion (essentially making you faster and stronger).  

Now the bad news:  acid forming foods include alcohol, caffeine, soft drinks, sports drinks, sugar, white flour and most packaged foods.  If it’s packaged, chances are it’s acid forming, and therefore depleting of our minerals (calcium is needed to buffer the acidity), and in turn depletes our oxygen levels too. 

Typically foods that are mineral-rich are alkaline-promoting, therefore consuming a lot of fruit and veggies will help re-alkalize the body.  A common misconception is that since milk is rich in calcium it therefore promotes alkalinity, but because it’s very hard for the common person to digest lactose, plus a complete lack of beneficial bacteria due to the pasteurization process, it is acid-forming, and therefore requires more calcium to buffer the acidity, usually leaving the person with a negative calcium balance.  This is why as we consume 2-3 times more milk that asian countries we have 7-8 times more bone fractures!

The quickest way we help patients to shift their pH is to supplement with “the pH trio”:  highly ionized (very absorbable) form of coral calcium, cod liver oil (which is nature’s 2nd richest form of vitamin D after sunlight), and aloe juice (which is mainly used as an ideal transporter of the coral).  Coral (specifically the species from the Sango reef near Okinawa, Japan) is naturally composed of the ideal 2:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium with other trace minerals.  The cod liver oil and the aloe also fight off inflammation, which use up mineral stores, and therefore keeps the person from re-mineralization and increasing the overall pH.

So what’s the pH to shoot for?  There have been some studies documenting the pH of the most successful endurance athletes, and they would consistently have a pH of their first morning urine between 6.4-7.0.  Most Americans have a first morning urine pH between 5.0-5.5, and this low-oxygen environment accounts for why more than 50 % of Americans are chronically ill.  Infection, whether chronic or acute, thrives in a low oxygen environment, and cannot live in a high-oxygen environment, and this includes cancer. 

So measure your first morning urine’s pH with pH strips that can typically be found at any health food store, and  if it’s below 6.4 (on average), there’s room for improvement. 

Why Do We at Resonance Natural Health Only Prescribe “Live-Source” Herbal and Nutritional Supplements?

When it comes to the body and ideal function of the organ and gland systems, only nutrition of live-source form (from a once living organism such as a plant) can work to sustainably strengthen the function of the weak organ or gland.   What we mean by that is while taking a vitamin/supplement of synthetic/isolated form can help temporarily, it will always weaken the body eventually leaving the person worse off than before.  If it does not contain DNA, then it will eventually cause DNA damage, which means early cell death, a weaker immune system and accelerated ageing.  There is also a tremendous difference in the body’s ability to absorb and use the nutrition if it is from a plant (or other live-source organism) compared to a lab-derived “nutrient”.  As you may consume synthetic/isolated nutrients (such as the typical multi-vitamin) most of it will likely go straight through you (almost literally) throwing your money down the toilet.

Other considerations we take when choosing a supplement to prescribe our patients is that it must be of organic ingredients (no pesticide residues whatsoever).  When we’re trying to recover a deficient organ or gland, we refuse to use something that will eventually cause harm to the body by adding a toxicity load.  We get enough of those in our environment and we need pure, great quality nutrition to make up for what’s around us.  If there’s a little bit of toxicity accompanying a supplement that’s targeting the body at the cellular level, that little bit of toxicity will certainly have an amplified effect.

Other Additives

The supplements also must not contain any non-nutritive (and toxic) substances known as excipients.  Excipients are very commonly added to a supplement to help mix the ingredients together or to help encapsulate the ingredients smoothly.  Glues and binders that are always in tablets to help form the tablet are also toxic, so we never endorse the consumption of any tablet.  Some common excepients include magnesium stearate/stearic acid (a hydrogenated oil proven to suppress the immune system), talcum powder (a “suspected” carcinogen in the U.S., but labeled a known carcinogen in Europe), silicon dioxide (sand), and calcium stearate.   Other questionable ingredients are methyl paraben, microcrystalline cellulose, titanium dioxide, propylparaben, sodium acetate, and sodium metabisulfite.

My key recommendation is to be a savvy label reader and when in doubt, contact the company and ask some key questions especially since companies aren’t required to write all these ingredients on the labels.  Ask questions such as “What is the source of this nutrient i.e. plants, coal tar etc.?”  “What do you use to slide the capsules closed while encapsulation?”  I would also encourage you to ask the company if there is any amount of talcum, magnesium stearate, steartic acid, etc. just to be safe.