by Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D.
By using simple natural therapies to lay a foundation
for health, it is often easy to eliminate fatigue and
pain while markedly increasing vitality. This article
will teach you how to do that. At this time, however,
there appears to be a power-play occurring where
groups that have powerful financial interests are attempting
to eliminate or sharply curtail your right to natural health.
Recognizing that the public is strongly in favor of maintaining
this right, these groups often attempt to bypass democratic
processes by using trade agreements and the powers of regulatory
committees (e.g., medical boards). One of the benefits of
a democracy, however, is that you have the power to prevent
loss of access to natural health options by contacting your
elected officials. E-mail addresses for all congressmen and
women can be found at www.visi.com/juan/congress/. An
excellent Web site for information on health freedom provided
by Dr. Julian Whitaker, a tireless fighter for your health
rights (www.whitakerhealthfreedom.com). Because the current American political scene is so evenly divided, your representatives recognize that even a relatively small yet committed group can make the difference between their being elected or not. Please let them know that the issue of health freedom is very important to you.
In this article, we will discuss why the changes of modern life make access to natural therapies critical if we are to maintain our vitality. I will use two of the most common health complaints in the United States, pain and fatigue, as models for the failure of using only allopathic medicine.
How Does Traditional “Pharmaceutical” Medicine Handle Pain?
Unfortunately, most doctors have not yet been trained in proper pain management. I can summarize most of what I was taught
about pain in medical school in one sentence: “Use Tylenol
and/or the Advil/Vioxx family of medications; if the patient has
cancer, you can use narcotics if you have to.” I was given the
impression that chiropractors, and anyone else who offered
remedies that weren’t taught in medical school, were quacks
trying to steal people’s money, and that physicians needed to
protect gullible patients from them. Fortunately, by eliminating
the underlying causes of pain, as we discuss below, most
pain can be eliminated without medications. In addition, many
herbals have been shown to be as effective as Vioxx and Motrin
family medications for treating pain. These include willow bark,
Boswellia, and even cherries (all present in my End Pain Formula
by Enzymatic Therapy). As an aside I would note that I do not
take money from any companies, and 100 percent of the royalties
for products I make go to charity. More information on natural
pain relief can be found in my new book Pain Free 1-2-3! and at
www.vitality01.com.
What Happens When You Combine
Natural and Allopathic Medicine?
Utilizing both natural and allopathic (prescription) medicine
dramatically increases our ability to help you get well. Although
both medicines have their weaknesses, when you combine
them almost all pain can be effectively treated. It’s the difference
between having only one tool—say a hammer, allopathic
medicine—or a whole tool kit that includes the dozens of other
healing arts available in natural medicine. A hammer can be a
very useful tool, but unfortunately when all you have is a hammer,
everything starts to look like a nail! It’s much easier to get
the job done safely and effectively when you are using all the
tools available.
They Didn’t Sell Vitamins 100 Years Ago.
Why Do We Need Them Now?
This is a good time to look at changes that have occurred in
modern life. Changes in our diet and sleep habits, combined
with toxicity from the tens of thousands of chemicals in our
environment, plus the increased pace of modern life, have
combined to result in a national “energy crisis” which has
resulted in an epidemic of fatigue and pain. While it may be
obvious how our “energy crisis” contributes to fatigue, pain
is less discernible. It becomes clear when you observe what
happens when someone dies and the muscles are starved.
Instead of going limp, they become rigid as a board (rigor
mortis). When your muscles do not have energy, they become
stuck in the shortened position, causing pain. In addition, the
amount of inflammatory fats (e.g., grain and grain fed animals,
saturated fats, etc.) in our diets have skyrocketed, leading
to an epidemic of inflammation. Pain is like the oil light on
your dashboard alerting you to a problem. Fortunately, using
chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia as a model, our
research has shown that 91 percent of patients can improve;
half can become pain-free when treated with our “SHIN protocol.”
“SHIN” stands for sleep, hormonal problems, infections,
and nutrition. Treating these areas can dramatically improve
energy and decrease pain. Let’s look at the changes that have
created this epidemic problem, and why natural therapies can
be so effective at restoring your vitality.
Food Processing
Let’s begin with nutrition. The American diet is awful. In fact,
it is often called the Standard American Diet (SAD), and the
initials are appropriate. Let’s look at why this occurs.
The average American’s diet includes 150 pounds of added
sugar per year, accounting for approximately 18 percent of your
caloric intake. White flour, which has lost most of its vitamins
and minerals, accounts for another 18 percent of caloric intake.
Since a healthy diet without white flour and added sugar may
have only a 10 percent margin of safety for supplying optimum
amounts of nutrients, these two changes alone make the
average American diet a disaster. Sugar also suppresses your
immune system, encouraging the growth of yeast in your bowels
and stimulating yeast overgrowth. Yeast grows by fermenting
sugar, and it says “thank you” by making billions of baby
yeasts. This causes chronic sinusitis and spastic colon.
As Dr. S. B. Eaton noted in his study in the prestigious
New England Journal of Medicine, “Physicians and nutritionists
are increasingly convinced that the dietary habits adopted
by Western society over the past one hundred years make an
important etiologic [causative] contribution to coronary heart
diseases [angina], hypertension, diabetes, and some types of
cancer.” This is the same conclusion that was reached by the
authors of Western Diseases: Their Emergence and Prevention
(Harvard University Press.)
I sometimes hear doctors express skepticism about the
importance of nutritional supplements. A typical comment
is: “Five hundred years ago, there were no vitamin tablets, and
people seemed to do just fine.” These doctors forget that 500
years ago sugar was not readily available and was expensive.
The king of England might have sprinkled a teaspoon of sugar
on his food as a sign of power, but when he wanted sugar
and had none left, he had to send someone to the West Indies
to get it.
The argument about people not needing vitamin tablets
500 years ago simply does not apply to the average modern
American. One study reported in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition showed that fewer than 5 percent of the
study participants consumed the recommended daily amounts
(RDAs) of just the two key nutrients they tested for. What is
frightening is that this study was conducted on employees of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research center.
Despite this, some skeptics still say that vitamins go out in
your urine, so all you’re doing by taking vitamin supplements
is making expensive urine. Using this line of reasoning, these
skeptics can stop drinking water (it just goes out in their urine).
That way, they’ll soon stop annoying people who are in the
process of getting themselves well.
As there are literally dozens of different nutrients that are
critical for health, and it would take at least 35 supplement
tablets a day to replace them all, I recommend that you
use a powdered nutritional supplement such as my Energy
Revitalization System (available in most health food stores
or at www.vitality01.com). One good tasting drink and one
capsule replace over 35 tablets of supplements a day and make
nutritional support easy.
Sleep
To eliminate muscle and many other sources of pain, it is critical
to get 8 to 9 hours of uninterrupted, deep sleep each night
on a regular basis. Disordered sleep is, in my opinion, a major
underlying process that perpetuates both fatigue and pain.
Inadequate sleep can occur for a number of reasons. Many
Americans simply do not make enough time for adequate
sleep. One hundred years ago, the average American was getting
9 hours of sleep a night. Anthropologists tell us that 5,000
years ago, the average night’s sleep was 11 to 12 hours a night.
When the sun went down, it was dark, boring, and dangerous
outside, so people went to bed. When the sun came up, they
woke. The average time from sunset to sunrise is 12 hours. The
use of candles initially shortened sleep time. Then light bulbs
were developed, followed by radio, TV, computers, etc. We are
now down to an average of less than seven hours of sleep a
night, and this is simply not adequate to allow proper tissue
repair.
Eight to nine hours of solid sleep each night, without
waking or hangover, is the goal, and natural remedies can be very effective at helping you to get a
great night sleep.
The natural sleep remedies discussed
here are not sedating, yet they will help
you fall asleep and stay in deep sleep.
Many are available in combination formulas
as well. I recommend the following
sleep aids, which can help you to
get a wonderful relaxing and refreshing
nights sleep—naturally!
1. Begin with the herbs wild lettuce, Jamaican dogwood, hops, passionflower, valerian, and Theanine. All six of these herbs can be found in combination in my Revitalizing Sleep Formula. These ingredients may be used as muscle relaxants to treat pain.
Then if needed, add
2. Magnesium (75 to 250 mg and calcium, 600 mg) at bedtime
3. 5HTP (200 to 400 mg) at bedtime and/or
4. Melatonin (1 to 2 mg)
Hormonal Problems
This category is becoming endemic, many
of the chemicals in the modern environment
disrupt our hormonal systems. The
results of these insidious insults cause
numerous hormonal deficiencies which
are not discernible in normal blood tests.
You would think we would have paid
attention to this problem when DDT
almost drove our national symbol (the
bald eagle) to extinction. Instead, we
ignored it and continue to pump tens of
thousands of chemicals into our environment
daily, which is being reflected in a
dramatic drop in sperm counts around
the planet. Once sperm counts drop
below a critical level, infertility may be
the norm, and we may drive ourselves
to extinction one day. As an aside, I
would note that natural therapies can
be dramatically and inexpensively effective
in treating infertility. In fact, my
wife and I are developing a study for the
use of these treatments by couples that
cannot conceive. Because these natural
therapies are inexpensive, and in vitro
fertilization costs tens of thousands of
dollars, guess which one your doctor will
hear about and recommend? Although
it’s beyond the scope of this article, for
more information on highly effective
natural therapies for infertility, as well as
to have a healthy pregnancy, I invite you
to read the articles at www.vitality01.com (see the links at the bottom of the
home page).
Our hormonal system regulates the
body’s metabolism. Although most
hormonal deficiencies (and sometimes
excesses) can cause pain, the key players
are hypothyroidism, inadequate adrenal
function, and low estrogen and testosterone.
Always use the safer natural
hormones.
As you can see, having access to and
information about natural remedies is
critical. It’s time for you to have a life that
you love.
Jacob Teitelbaum is Medical Director of the Annapolis Center for Effective CFS/ Fibromyalgia Therapies in Annapolis, Maryland (410.573.5389) and senior author of the landmark study “Effective Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia—a Placebo-controlled Study.” He is also the author of the bestselling book From Fatigued to Fantastic!, Three Steps to Happiness!: Healing through Joy, and the recently released Pain Free 1-2-3-A Proven Program to Get YOU Pain Free! For more on Dr. Teitelbaum’s work and for related health products, visit his Web site at www.vitality01.com.
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