Nutritional Therapy

First to terminology: Nutritional Therapy concerns the use of diet, supplements and herbs to attempt to bring a person to a better state of health. A nutritional therapist does not work for the orthodox medical system whereas a dietician or sometimes a nutritionist can and often does work within that system. A nutritional therapist is trained privately and working within alternative medicine, and will almost always have views about health that are completely different to an orthodox medical practitioner. How nutritional therapy is practiced also varies widely from practitioner to practitioner. The courses they have attended, the books they have read, and their application of them, while having much in common, will also differ. What is written here is an attempt to summarise the particular way in which I work.

There is much confusion in the science behind health issues, and many people are led by certain sectors of science saying one thing, others saying another. For example, orthodox medicine claims that high blood cholesterol is a major factor connected to someone developing heart disease. Many of them working in that field claim it is scientifically proven. Some nutritional therapists will follow this and place major emphasis on dietary factors and supplements which are likely to lower blood cholesterol. According to what I have learnt from a few sources however, this cholesterol story is simply not true, and you can read about another perspective here. So I would work in a different way according to what I know personally.

The point is that the cholesterol story is an example of why I have avoided too much scientific theory over observational fact. Too much trying to get the body to change in certain ways rather than helping it attain the ability to change by itself. The body is not a car which wears out and needs parts replacing, it is a self-correcting organism GIVEN THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT. One framework of the body healing itself is called nature cure or naturopathy. It is less controlling of the body and less victim based than some other approaches - less of using a particular approach to treat a particular condition as labelled by orthodox medicine. The power ultimately rests with the body itself and not the practitioner and his mountain of scientific knowledge. A big problem also is that Medical Science can so easily prove what it wants to prove, especially if there is a lot of money wanting that proof to go a certain way. Other science will have its primary assumptions based on that science, and eventually it becomes a tower of folly. THIS IS PART OF THE REASON I HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO PLACE EMPHASIS ON ALLERGY TESTING, HAIR MINERAL ANALYSIS AND SO ON. MANY SUCH MODERN TECHNICAL TESTS APPEAR UNRELIABLE, CONFUSING, USELESS OR INCOMPLETE TO ME.

The other extreme to biased and dogmatic science in medicine and nutrition, concerns the many books in print where the author has found that a certain way of eating has cured them of something. They include a few pieces of conjecture as to why. Someone buys the book, follows the advice and nothing happens or at worst they deteriorate. Where do you turn next if you can't go to either extreme?

I place a great emphasis upon educating a person about their health from a nutritional and holistic perspective, since this is absent from our education system. Once someone understands how their body works in this way they become more of their own physician.

There is a middle ground of knowledge and experience which is hard to locate amongst all the rest (see my recommended reading page). Several outstanding therapists or alternative clinics have had great success turning around serious diseases. Additionally there is observational research conducted by Dr. Weston A. Price in the 1930's on healthy societies (while there still were some!). He related their outstanding levels of health to that which the societies had in common with their diets, applied it in the USA and found that it worked, in turn helping many people. I hope that the rest of this page starts to unfold the answer to this.

As a therapist I place a great emphasis upon educating a person about their health from a nutritional and holistic perspective, since this is absent from our education system. Once someone understands how their body works in this way they become more of their own physician.

There are so many pitfalls with the standard diet I would not attempt to list them all here! Some of the major ones might be:

1. Dehydration due to insufficient fluid intake (Government recommendation is 2 litres per day) and the taking of (non-prescription) diuretic containing drinks or foods such as tea, coffee, alcohol and chocolate
2. Lack of fats of sufficient quality and quantity
3. Intake of toxic chemicals with the diet - from such things as pesticide residue, food additives ...
4. A relatively indigestible diet compared to our ancestors since many foods are processed with principles that cut corners for speed
5. A lack of fresh raw food.
6. An excess of sugar containing foods
7. A diet depleted in Basic Nutrients such as vitamins and minerals (see below).

The majority of people in the UK are not even receiving the Reference Nutrient Intake (similar to the RDA) for many of these essential nutrients.

One major set of observations about health and nutrition, which are undeniable for the UK now, are the results of studies of vitamin and mineral intakes from government approved scientific studies (thanks to Lamberts for their summary booklet of which you can look at the data from their appendix here). These show that the majority of people in the UK are not even receiving the Reference Nutrient Intake (similar to the RDA) for many of these essential nutrients. A considerable proportion are not even receiving the amount required to keep them out of "serious biochemical abnormality". Did these studies hit front page news? No. Why are the medical establishment and pharmaceutical industry looking for answers elsewhere first when even they know the body cannot function correctly in such circumstances?

Brian Clement of the Hippocrates Institute stated that they get better results than any other clinic in the world for serious diseases, conventional or alternative. What they are saying must be worth listening to.

Of the alternative nutrition based clinics having great success, the Hippocrates Institute in Florida is one of the finest. At a talk I attended by its director Brian Clement, he stated that they get better results than any other clinic in the world for serious diseases, conventional or alternative. What they are saying must be worth listening to. Herbalist Richard Schulze states that he has a similar programme, though based more on herbs rather than nutritional supplements and superfoods, that he says has helped thousands of people who were terminally ill to achieve full wellness. Both Schulze's website and curezone contain a lot of information on his programme for little money.

Hippocrates', Schulze's and similar regimes seem to me to be great at enabling the body to remove some of that debris that has accumulated over the decades. Most people could barely imagine how they would feel if their colon, liver, lymph and blood were clear of hardened mucus, parasites, infections and the like and their tissues clearer of such things as mercury and man-made organic chemicals.

In regimes like these you don't guess that something is happening, you just look down the toilet at the variety of shapes and colours, and you smell the smells. Hippocrates use 100% raw vegetable foods - non-sweet vegetable juices, wheatgrass juice, zero sweet fruit, 50% sprouted seeds, and raw vegetables, which is a diet rich in enzymes, whole proteins (cooked proteins are not whole) and antioxidants to say the least. It gives the body food it can digest rather than being overloaded with food it cannot. This type of regime, modified a little, would be my choice for someone who is very sick - though it is still rare for someone who says they are desparate to get well and will do anything to achieve it, to actually mean it!

I would almost without exception only use supplements that are of natural origin and not something created by a chemical company. They are simply what I have found to give the greatest results. Hippocrates themselves stress this. Schulze tells of his teacher Dr. Christopher lecturing in front of nutritional supplement suppliers, and saying loudly "There is only one thing wrong with everything out there, it's all DEAD!". Schulze seems to use no nutritional supplements whatsoever to achieve his results, only herbs. There is still the caution however, that just because something is living food, natural or alternative does not mean it is good for you.

However what I see is that if this type of dietary regime is the prime focus, after a while on this largely raw vegan diet full of sprouted seeds and non-sweet vegetable juices, most people look and feel much healthier, but often are they not robustly healthy. They are probably underweight if anything. Some still crave sugar. In Britain a long-term rigidly vegan diet is so often particularly a disaster due to the low level of a certain band of ultra-violet light in sunlight - the one which induces the body to produce vitamin-D as it hits the skin. Get a vegan diet wrong and you get tooth decay for starters from lack of calcium uptake this induces, months or years later on you could very easily get vitamin B12 deficiency (pretty severe symptoms) if you don't take it as a supplement. I can think of several people also who have tried desparately to be wholefood vegetarian for years, doing powerful detoxification regimes, only to find that they only feel good if they eat red meat or liver often enough. Different people have different nutritional requirements

This individuality creates problems with saying "this food is good for you". Perhaps most notably, substances called lectins in certain foods are sometimes creating a reaction which looks like a food allergy if your ancestry has not consistently come into contact with the food. If that's the UK it would not include wheat, but would include rye, oats or barley; it also would not include soya. Many lectins are cooked or sprouted out of foods (for example this is why you have to soak and cook kidney beans), though some are not. One of the potential problems with GM food is that ne lectins can be produced which animals are not accustomed to.

Many allergy tests will not even get close to covering the multiple ways the body can react to foods. There are true allergies, intolerances, chemical sensitivities, reactions to lectins and so on. Some are only apparent after several days or weeks or continued use. One surer way to find problem foods would be the elimination diet where all suspect foods and chemicals are withdrawn, and if the symptoms subside, reintroducing them slowly to find the reactive substances.

This picture shows living blood under a dark-field microscope, where the red blood cells are chained together, looking like stacks of coins. Would you not think that blood like this would be able to carry less oxygen and find it difficult to move down the small capillaries? In the teachings of live blood microscopy, this sort of picture could occur in someone with insufficient capacity for digesting the proteins they are eating. Wouldn't you think this would have a bearing on someone's health? Also lectins, one of the things in certain foods that we could have problems with, are virtually defined as substances that stick blood cells together like this.

This is blood where the red blood cells are serparate and looking like bright circles. As far as the study of blood under dark field microscope analysis goes, this is much more normal. Orthodox medicine does not look at live blood in this way. Their only blood tests are done on blood which is dead, and in my opinion could be complemented by live blood cell analysis, but this would take a far greater time and effort which is rarely available.

Studying races around the world in the 1930's for their outstanding levels of health, he [Weston Price] discovered that they ate diets of locally obtainable foods, plentiful in protein and animal fats, whether from meat, fish, dairy products or eggs.

Now to Weston Price. Studying races around the world in the 1930's for their outstanding levels of health, he discovered that they ate diets of locally obtainable foods, plentiful in protein and animal fats, whether from meat, fish, raw and unpasteurised dairy products or eggs. These races were often long lived, always productive into old age, and without any appreciable tooth decay or degenerative diseases such as arthritis, tuberculosis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease etc.. Give this diet to your typical sick Westerner and you could so easily get a disaster. They are likely intolerant to the dairy products and can't digest meat or possibly even fish or eggs too well. Also if you don't get it just right your body acidifies with the break down products of all that protein and you add one more factor to a declining level of health. Price certainly showed how the correct diet maintained exceptional health in the already healthy. WE JUST HAVE TO GET TO THE RIGHT LEVEL OF HEALTH FIRST!

How do you know that your detox is working and getting rid of such things as intestinal plaque and liver congestion? You should not have to ask that question! It is obvious from what comesout

When cleaned out of mucoid plaque lining the intestine, fatty lumps blocking the liver, undigested food clogging the lymph and the like I have seen people I have worked with become able to handle nutrient dense foods that created real robust health in certain societies of the past. How do you know that your detox is working and getting rid of such things as intestinal plaque and liver congestion? You should not have to ask that question! It is obvious from what comes out; quite shocking or amazing to a lot of people I've talked to - the ones who are actually doing something powerful, as it keeps coming out for quite some time.

Most people I see are happy to remove just some of this toxic load and regain a level of health they are happy with. However, I have seen several people go through periods of detoxing and rebuilding for years as, subjectively to them, their health keeps increasing. How do you assess your own increases in health? In your energy levels, sleep, digestive ability, emotional reactivity and so on, as well as a lessening number of debilitating physical symptoms which were there just due to congestion of the body on some level. Looking as an outsider people who have done such work so often look far younger than their years. The shear amount of effort required to keep going and do this however, is under-estimated by almost everyone new to this type of therapy.

Of course there are other factors to physical health other than nutrition and detox programmes. Physical structure is an important factor too. Looking as a therapist, it becomes obvious that it is intimately connected with health. Many women I have seen with uterine problems have lower back problems; many people with thyroid problems have neck trouble or very poor posture in their upper back/lower neck. Such physical problems and the many results of physical and emotional traumas and long term tensions in the body, need addressing to really make a difference to health.

How do you assess how to target your inner blocks to your physical and emotional health if you can't see them on the outside? Orthodox medical tests can be extremely useful, but how many times have you heard the tale "but they could not find anything wrong". Other methods might include iridology, live blood or dried blood analysis, kinesiology, reflexology, EAV (electroacupuncture), Traditional Chinese diagnosis....