Why Wellness is the way to go.

We all know our health is influenced by what we eat, drink and other well-known lifestyle choices that we make. The latest scientific research now shows that for each of us these choices can have greatly differing effects on our health.

Small differences in your genes can influence how well your body metabolizes foods, utilizes nutrients and excretes damaging toxins, all of which can affect your general state of health. By finding out if you have any of these small variations, you can modify your diet and lifestyle choices to achieve optimum nutrition and health.

After 40 years of the American Medical Association saying that three square meals a day could feed your nutritional needs, the statement below totally repudiates that stand. The AMA has been forced to revise its stand in view of the new evidence. They say it takes 25 years before a new idea takes hold in medicine. In 25 years every medical doctor will be studying nutrition thoroughly. Currently average medical education spends 7 to 12 hours out of a 7 year education on food, vitamins, minerals and health.

Vitamin deficiency syndromes such as scurvy and beriberi are uncommon in modern (Western) societies. However, suboptimal intake of some vitamins, above levels causing classic vitamin deficiency, is a risk factor for chronic diseases and common in the general population, especially the elderly. Suboptimal folic acid levels, along with suboptimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12, are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E, and C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases……….
( JAMA. 2002;287:3127-3129)

The average naturopath spends 1.5 to 2 years of a four years diploma/degree program on herbs, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and nutrition and food. This is why naturopaths and natural health care providers excel at prevention and medical practitioners at pathology.

By the time you have a heart attack or a gastric ulcer or a lump in the breast, you may need medical intervention, drugs or surgery. These conditions do not happen overnight. They take anything from 5 to 15 years to develop. Meantime subtle changes occur. In fact people become so used to these changes, that they put it down to ageing. Once you put it down to ageing then you of course can’t do anything about it.

What will early interventions do for you? It will ensure that you will be healthy and well enough to make your next million or more between 45 to 65. For others it will mean that they can be healthy enough to run and play with their grandchildren instead of waving at them feebly from the bed of a hospital or nursing home.

While doing a health checkup is a good practice, conventional medical testing does not provide a full picture. Functional medicine testing will often identify hidden health conditions long before they show up on conventional medical tests.

Most medical doctors will look at the standard tests and be satisfied with its results most times, possibly dismissing nagging pains or discomfort that a patient has experienced over long periods of times. Only a small percentage of medical doctors will look at functional testing to get a truer picture of health. They will also check with the quality of life the patient has.

I was once talking about early Wellness Screening to one of my ex-wife’s very good friend. She heard me politely and said with a shudder, “I’d rather not know”. About a year later, she discovered a lump in her breast and had to see a surgeon to remove it and biopsy it. Fortunately for her, it was benign. It could easily have been otherwise.

If you think that a healthy lifestyle and eating fresh organic food protects you, think again. There are more than 100, 000 chemicals in the environment that our grandparents did not get exposed to. There was this sweet radio personality who used to interview me on radio some years ago. She was famous for her healthy and organic food lifestyle. She was diagnosed early this year with cancer. She came to see me for a visit. A few months later, there was a report about her death.

While I can’t say that I have prevented people from developing cancer, (because if the early method of detection that I use in my practice work so well, they will never develop cancer), I can say that I have found individuals who have come in with cancer markers. Those who clean up their lifestyle and diet do not develop cancer. Those who find out but did not make the necessary changes often do go on to develop cancer. These are general tendencies from a sample population of 10, 000.

I will round up with a positive case history. This lady flew in from Bangkok. She was incidentally an “A” blood type. She had a great diet, exercised reasonably well and was a little stressed. She had recently discovered that she had a breast lump. She had it excised.Biopsy revealed that it was malignant. When we examined her and tested her, we found that a mercury filling in one of her teeth was leaking. It also happened to be in the tooth on the left side that was involved with the stomach meridian. The left stomach meridian by the way also influences the left breast. Mystery solved. If she had come in earlier, she could have even bypassed the cancer. One month later, she came in for a second visit feeling wonderful.

So which would you rather choose? To say, “I’d rather not know” or “Lets nip it in the bud.”

Be well

Dr Sundardas