The Balance Point Blog » Metabolic Typing®

Early Warning Health Signals

drbruce — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:17:30 +0000

I’m continually learning things from my patients.

For example, the other day I was reviewing Metabolic Typing® results with someone. I was encouraging her to notice how she felt after eating a meal with a specific ratio of fats, proteins and carbs.

Every time I would mention it, she’d say, “I don’t know how to do that.”

I finally said, “Think about it this way – an hour or two after you eat, pay attention to your energy level, how satisfied you feel from the meal and whether or not your thinking and emotions are in a good place. In other words, notice how well your body is functioning in relation to the meal you’ve just eaten.”

“Oh,” she said, smiling, “I think I get it. I want to eat in ways that give me solid, long-lasting energy, that help me think more clearly and that let me respond to whatever is happening with a steady, even emotional reaction.”

“Right!” I said.

She is already aware of many important health concepts. But this conversation got me thinking about how even the most intelligent and educated people sometimes don’t make the connection of how they are functioning with the foods they eat.

The signals are continually there, but we often don’t pay attention to them. Ironically, they are very easy to notice, which may be the problem. They’re so obvious that we miss them. I think of these body responses as early warning signals about our health.

It’s kind of like pulling weeds in the garden. When they first show up, they’re pretty easy to pull out with just your hands.

But ignored, these small signals gradually increase until there’s no way to ignore them. To use the gardening analogy, fixing the problems when they’re big is like waiting for the weed to turn into a fully grown tree. To remove it takes a chain saw and a backhoe.

What are these early warning signals?

There are a number of signals you can pay attention to, but they can be placed in three categories:

Appetite Signals – If you are hungry again only an hour or two after eating, something was off about your last meal. If it was ideal for you, you’ll feel satisfied and not need additional food before the next regular meal.
Body Signals – These include changes in energy level. A drop in energy or hyperactive energy tell you the meal wasn’t your best. Pain levels may also go up or down depending on if you’ve zeroed in on your best choices.
Mental & Emotional Signals – These can be very important signals about how you’re responding to food choices. If you are focused, clear and emotionally resilient after a meal, you’re seeing the results of great choices. If you feel more anxious, depressed, fuzzy-headed or otherwise not clear, it’s time to notice and adjust what you’re doing.

Since you’re going to eat anyway, I recommend you use your body’s signal system to dial in exactly the right foods and the right proportions of fats, proteins and carbs for you. Once you do, you’ll see a huge improvement in how you experience your daily life.

Dr. Bruce

P.S. – The absolute best way to figure out the right foods for your unique requirements is with Metabolic Typing^®. Learn the best ‘fuel’ for your body by contacting me to get started today.

Effective Healing

drbruce — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:25:16 +0000

When I was growing up during the 1950s & 1960s, I learned that whatever the doctor said must be correct.

I no longer think that’s true.

It probably sounds funny for a doctor to be saying that. Even so, I stand by it.

The reason is that the human body is extremely complex and each individual uniquely different. This fact means that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to health is destined to fail. At the very least such a standardized approach will miss things and won’t be effective for a significant portion of the population.

That’s not to say that there aren’t procedures and techniques that apply to pretty much everyone. For example, if someone gets a broken arm, the process of setting and casting the arm is consistently effective for everyone. It stabilizes the break and prevents further injury.

Of course how well someone heals from that treatment is another story.

A case in point is a woman I treated who had a broken arm. She came in with a cast on her lower right arm and asked me to help it heal faster.

I asked, “How long has that arm been in a cast?”

She replied, “Two years.”

Then she continued by saying, “About every six months I go back to the doctor. He x-rays the arm, and when he finds it hasn’t healed, he cuts the old cast off and puts a new one on. Then he sends me home for another six weeks.”

I was surprised by that and asked, “That’s been happening for two years?”

“Yes,” she replied.

If you know anything about the typical healing process for a broken bone, it usually takes between 6 and 8 weeks for a well-set bone to heal enough that a cast is no longer necessary. For the process to take 2 years is very unusual.

In this case, the doctor was doing what he knew how to do to fix the problem – putting on a cast. However what he didn’t know how to do was to support her body’s ability to heal the break.

He had recommended she take calcium, and she had done so faithfully. But the bone hadn’t healed. It was obvious to me that something else was the cause of the slow healing.

We took a two-step approach to solving the problem. The first step was getting the bone to heal. We accomplished that with acupuncture. Six weeks after starting acupuncture she had her next visit to the doctor. The x-ray showed the bone had healed. This time he removed the cast for good.

Although we were both very happy with this result, I was still concerned about the underlying imbalances that prevented the bone healing in the first place.

To uncover these factors, we started with a Metabolic Typing® assessment. It turned out that she was eating many foods that were wrong for her body. These wrong foods placed a long-term, low-grade stress on her system and set up a state of sub-clinical malnutrition. No wonder her arm didn’t heal!

By changing to eating the ideal foods for her body, she started seeing improvement in many areas of health. She lost weight, her energy level increased and she even mentioned that she was thinking more clearly.

She was so encouraged by this that she also wanted to correct some of the damage that eating the wrong foods had caused her over the years. One of the things we discovered was that her adrenals were in an advanced stage of fatigue.

Through testing and treatment, we were able to turn that around as well.

I mention this case to reinforce the idea that if we simply assume that our doctor knows everything there is to know, we could be missing out on other effective approaches to healing, especially if our body is giving us other signals.

And, if we don’t listen to what our body is telling us, we will be left with only the information our doctor or someone else gives us. Effective healing always means paying attention to the signals our body gives us.

Dr. Bruce

P.S. – The absolute best way to figure out the right foods for your unique requirements is with Metabolic Typing®. Learn the best ‘fuel’ for your body by contacting me to get started today.

Others Writing About This…

Can Exercise Alone Make You Healthy?

drbruce — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:35:39 +0000

We’ve all been exposed to the idea that exercise is a crucial factor for being healthy, and it is.

But is it the only factor when it comes to being healthy?

For seven years, from 1978 to 1985, I was the co-administrator for a martial arts school in Los Angeles. I also taught several classes at the school. That experience was an amazing opportunity to see the effects of choices people made regarding their health.

When it came to exercising, one student who stands out in my mind. Jim was as dedicated a student as I’ve ever seen. He meditated 2 hours a day from 4:00 to 6:00 am. He also practiced qigong and kung fu several hours a day each. All of this was in addition to his full time job as a professor at USC and spending time with his wife and kids.

If you would have asked me at the time, I would have said that Jim was among the healthiest people I knew. But during the third year I knew Jim, he had a shocking turn of events with his health.

On his birthday that year, his wife made him his favorite desert, key lime pie. Being his favorite, after he finished his first piece, he asked for a second. After all, he told me later, it was his birthday and besides he did so much exercise that certainly one more piece of pie couldn’t hurt.

As it turns out, he was wrong.

Within an hour of eating that second piece of pie, his vision started fading. By the next morning he was almost blind.

Fortunately for Jim, this loss of vision wasn’t permanent. After a few days some of his vision returned. But even so, his night vision was extremely impaired and he could no longer attend classes at the school because they were all held at night and he couldn’t see well enough to drive.

Jim’s unfortunate experience was a great lesson to me. It brought home the fact that even though exercise is important, what we eat can have a very powerful effect on our health no matter how much exercise we get.

I’ve come to think of it this way – if you don’t put the right fuel in your car (food in your body), it doesn’t matter how much or how well you drive it (exercise).

Food for thought…

Dr. Bruce

P.S. – The absolute best way to figure out the right foods for your unique requirements is with Metabolic Typing^®. Learn the best ‘fuel’ for your body by contacting me to get started today.

“Physician Heal Thyself”

drbruce — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:59:57 +0000

You’ve probably heard the biblical phrase that is the title of this article. Today I’d like to tell you a very personal story of applying this old proverb.

The proverb refers to the fact that many doctors have skills in the healing arts, but when it comes to healing themselves, they’re pretty much in the same boat as everyone else.

A deeper understanding of this idea is that each of us is our own best physician. Usually all we are lacking is the right way to interpret and correct the symptoms our body gives us. Which brings me to my story…

As an doctor of alternative medicine I’ve studied numerous natural approaches to healing over the many years I’ve practiced. But all my studies and successes with patients didn’t help me when I started having chronic pain 14 years ago around age 45.

I did all the things I knew at that time to alleviate the pain. I changed my qigong routine. I did acupuncture. I researched the causes of the pain and started taking herbs and supplements to help alleviate it.

Probably all the things I did slowed the progression of the pain, but it still gradually got worse. The worst pain was on the bottoms of my feet. Here’s an example of what that was like:

In the morning I’d wake up and lay in bed as long as possible, knowing what was ahead. When I couldn’t put it off any more, I would swing my feet out of the bed and v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y place my feet on the floor. Usually I’d increase the weight on my feet by a few ounces at a time.

Each increase in pressure led to an excruciating increase in pain. I’d breathe and let the pain subside a bit before adding more weight. It would take about 10 minutes to finally get the weight of my legs resting on my feet.

Then there was standing up. I would do this as slowly as possible, but the simple act of standing jacked up the pain exponentially. I’d just grit my teeth and bear it. After about another 10 minutes of walking, the intolerable pain would reduce down to what I then called, ‘tolerable pain,’ where it stayed the rest of the day.

By the way, I no longer think the phrase, ‘tolerable pain’ is acceptable.

After 3 years of trying anything and everything I knew or could find out about how to treat it, the pain was worse than ever. I was extremely frustrated, to say the least.

Finally, I discovered an MD in a town 2 hours away who took an alternative approach to healing. I went to see him. He ran $1,000 worth of lab tests. The end result was that he sat me down and said, “The pain is coming from what you’re eating. Unless you change your diet, you’ll be in a wheel chair sometime in the next 10 years.”

Ouch! That hurt more than the foot pain. My immediate response to the wheel chair comment was, “The hell I will!”

He also told me about Metabolic Typing. So I immediately changed my diet according to the results from my Metabolic Typing questionnaire.

Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much from it. In fact, I was so out of balance that when I started changing my food, I actually felt worse for about a week. Still, I was determined not to live in pain, so I persisted.

After about a month of the new way of eating, my pain was down by 30% and I no longer took 20 minutes to be able to walk in the morning.

Other changes began happening as well. My thinking became clearer, my moodiness and emotional swings went away and my energy level started increasing dramatically. I also lost about 7 pounds that first month even though I was eating far more than I had been.

I continued to improve every week, but it took a year and a half before I was completely free of pain. By then I was lifting Olympic style weights, hiking up mountains and feeling better than I had since… well maybe my entire life.

What does this have to do with you? Only this – we are all our own best physicians, but only if we have the right information to work with. So if you have symptoms that are interfering with your life, there is no better time to get that information to begin making the changes that will restore your health and bring back your quality of life.

The best first step I know of for that journey to better health is Metabolic Typing®. Since my original experience with it I’ve been certified by the top Metabolic Typing trainer in the country. I can take you through the process even if you live outside of the Reno area. We can do everything by email and phone. Of course if you are in Northern Nevada you can also come into the office.

Ready to feel better? Contact me to get the process started by replying to this email or clicking this link. You can also call me at the office at 775-827-6901.

Wishing you all good health,

Dr. Bruce

P.S. – I look back on the 3 years I spent trying to fix my health problems and wish I’d found the right approach more quickly. It would have saved me 3 years of unnecessary pain and suffering. If you’re suffering, don’t wait like I did. Contact me today to get started.

Two Kinds Of Health Knowledge

drbruce — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:05:29 +0000

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

- Buddha

Modern life brings us lots of advantages, but one very large disadvantage.

The disadvantage I’m referring to is that we are awash in secondary knowledge that keeps us from being able to be certain about many things.

Let me explain.

The original kind of knowledge, what Nietzsche called “primary knowledge,” is the knowledge we gain from our own direct experience. When we’re young we touch a stove and it’s hot so we pull our hand away. That way we learn first-hand to be more careful around stoves.

Secondary knowledge is theoretical knowledge. It comes from books, media, friends and family. In other words, anywhere but from direct experience.

Both kinds of knowledge have their place in life.

However in modern times, there is a massively higher ratio of secondary knowledge compared to primary knowledge than ever before. It’s so common that we’ve come up with a new term for it, “information overload.”

Information overload applies in practically every area of life, including our health. It’s quite easy to find more health information than you could ever use on just about any topic with a short search on the internet. And some of it may even be true…

But even well-intentioned and honestly presented information might not apply to everyone. That’s why a remedy that works wonders for one person might do nothing for another, or even make them feel worse.

How do we deal with this issue when it comes to our health?

The simplest way is to increase our skills at listening to the signals our body gives us. These signals are present 24 hours a day.

Some are obvious, of course. We usually know when we’re hungry or tired.

Other signals are less obvious unless we have learned to notice them. These forms of body signals, what I call real-time biofeedback, show up in the small changes we experience throughout the day.

For example, your general energy level is an outstanding indicator. When you’re tired for no reason, or hyper and jittery, it’s your body’s way of letting you know something is off.

The same rule applies to your appetite (hunger too soon after eating, cravings for junk food, etc.) as well as to your mental and emotional well-being.

In other words, if you feel satisfied after eating, if your energy is plentiful without being excessive and if you are mentally clear and emotionally resilient, your body is saying, “good job!”

But if you have any other type of experience in any of these realms, your body is giving you feedback that you can use. The trick is to isolate the influence that is most likely causing the symptom.

Here’s a short list of some possible contributing factors that might trigger such symptoms:

Food, particularly processed, denatured food, and also food that is wrong for your Metabolic Type®.
Lifestyle factors such as too little, or even too much exercise.
Relationship issues (work, social, family) that trigger strong negative emotions.
Time factors such as stress caused by deadlines.
Environmental exposure, including exposure to toxic metals (lead, mercury, etc.), pesticides, electromagnetic fields.

For more on how to recognize which factors are triggering responses, see this article: Black Box Medicine.

The bottom line here is that by honoring the signals your body gives you (primary knowledge), you have a much greater chance at sorting out what secondary knowledge (books, doctors, internet) that best applies you your situation. The result is that you continue moving towards better and better health while cutting away some of the information overload.

I recommend this approach to all of my patients and I recommend it to you. If you decide to approach your health this way, let me know how you do!

References:

Black Box Medicine, Reno Alternative Medicine website.

Tough Decisions… Made Easy, Michael Masterson, Early to Rise, December 7, 2009.

Deep Systemic Rejuvenation™

drbruce — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:03:19 +0000

Have you noticed the signals?

I’m talking about the signals from your body when it’s out of balance. I like to compare these signals to a series of escalating messages your body gives you telling you something isn’t quite right.

At the beginning, they are usually subtle and easy to ignore. They might show up as a decrease in your usual energy level, or a vague sense of not feeling ‘right’. Sometimes they’ll be subtle aches and pains you haven’t noticed before.

Almost always you’re able to ignore these early warnings of internal imbalances.

Unfortunately, unless something changes for the signals to stop, the problem will escalate. The messages get louder and louder. Eventually you can no longer ignore them.

Over time these stronger signals become chronic health problems that typically don’t respond well to the usual medical interventions. At worst they end up requiring surgery or other powerful invasive procedures.

——————
Subtle Overload
——————

The above description of how chronic illness comes about is a great example of how small things can add up to something much bigger. I call this process, “subtle overload” because our bodies are constantly adapting to the stress of each subtle little thing. When this goes on long enough, eventually our ability to adapt to diminishes.

It is this loss of adaptive ability that leads us to chronic long-term health problems. Once we reach this point it takes only a small push to send us into a health crisis. Sort of like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The best way to deal with this subtle overload doesn’t simply address symptoms. In other words, we can’t just take a pill and make the problems go away. They are too complex and systemic for that.

A better approach is to do what I call Deep Systemic Rejuvenation™ (DSR).

———————–
How does DSR work?
———————–

The best way to illustrate how DSR works is by using a diagram:

All imbalances in our health originate in the communication between the brain and the body.

As you see from the top of the diagram, brain and body communicate via the nervous system, blood and signaling hormones. This communication is also influenced by the food we eat, exercise and our thoughts and emotions.

Symptoms show up when there are chronic stressors. The body must constantly adapt to rebalance itself.

Some of these chronic stressors are obvious. They include:

Mental/Emotional – fear, guilt, excitement, worry, anxiety, grief, depression, financial, divorce, job-related, overwork, trauma and abuse, relationship stress.
Physical – fractures, muscle injuries, nerve compression, over-exercise, lack of sleep, chronic illness, dieting.
Sense of Purpose – lack of purpose or meaning in life, hopelessness, despair.

Other stressors are more difficult to spot. These ‘hidden stressors’ include:

Pathogens – parasites, bacteria, fungi, viruses.
Toxic Exposure – pesticides, herbicides, chemicals, tobacco residue, drugs, toxic metals, metal in teeth.
Food-related – wrong foods, blood sugar problems, alcohol, food additives, food allergies.
Physical – structural stress such as misalignment, poor ergonomics and bad posture.

Although the above list seems like a lot to think about, there are ways to address imbalances by starting with the most likely influences in someone’s situation. Since everyone is unique, this may be different for each person.

Fortunately, it is possible to make changes at these deeper levels that pull the plug on chronic symptoms. When there is nothing driving the symptoms, your body returns to its natural, healthy state of balance

======================

Deep Systemic Rejuvenation uses a combination of time-tested ancient healing methods such as herbal medicine, combined with the very best of modern approaches for correcting systemic imbalances. These modern approaches include Metabolic Typing® and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition.

Assessment and treatment can be started by phone and email communication and often doesn’t require direct office visits.

For more information, contact my office at (775) 827-6901 or email me by using this contact form.

References:

Hyperhealth Pro Database, In-Tele-Health, Hansville, WA, 2008.

Reed Davis’ Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Web Site.

Bill Wolcott’s Healthexcel Web Site for Metabolic Typing®.

Dramatic Relief for Intractable Pain

drbruce — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:02:00 +0000

Food is the most powerful drug you’ll ever take.

And like any drug, food can have positive effects on health. But if it’s not the right food, it can also have very serious, unwanted effects. As an illustration of this, here is a case study of a woman who experienced extreme, severe nerve pain in her legs, feet and hands.

10 Years of Pain

For 10 years this woman had excruciating pain in one foot. 3 years ago it spread to the other foot. She described it by saying it felt like she was walking on shards of glass every moment of every day.

Ironically, the only relief she got came from walking. This was because after a while her feet got so numb that she couldn’t feel them. The numbness was so extreme that one time she stepped on a nail and never felt it.

The pain was so severe that even morphine didn’t touch it. To add insult to injury, numerous doctors told her it was all in her head. This typically happens when a doctor is frustrated because they can’t fix a problem.

She periodically had suicidal thoughts because of the relentless, severe pain. Although she said she’d never act on it, she had wished many times that the doctors could have just cut her feet off so she’d be done with it.

After many years, it spread to her hands. Her hands got so bad that at one point it took her several minutes to turn the page of a book.

Finally After 10 Years, Relief

The first relief she ever found came after doing Mediator Response Testing (MRT). This is a test that determines food sensitivities for 150 different foods and food additives.

She eliminated all foods that tested reactive. 2 days after starting to follow the recommendations, she was able to sleep for the first time without soaking her feet in hot water. That was a major breakthrough for her.

Even better, by day 9 the pain was completely gone. Her feet still felt “thick,” but there was no more pain.

Think about that. 10 years of pain eliminated in only 9 days. And done entirely by modifying her food choices.

If you wanted proof that food is powerful, I can’t think of a better example.

Mediator Response Testing (MRT) is the most advanced method available for identifying hidden food sensitivities. Along with Metabolic Typing® it is the basis for identifying and correcting chronic health issues that are unresponsive to conventional treatments.

For more information to determine what approach will be most effective for relieving your health problems, contact me by email (use this form) or by calling the office at (775) 827-6901.

References:

Bland, Jeffery, Your Health Under Siege: Using Nutrition to Fight Back, Stephen Greene Press, 1980

http://www.nowleap.com/

Hyperhealth Pro Database, In-Tele-Health, Hansville, WA, 2008.

Where Are You on the Wellness Meter?

drbruce — Sun, 24 May 2009 19:16:32 +0000

There’s a huge difference between feeling perfectly healthy and having a total health breakdown.

In the first state, a person feels physically strong, emotionally balanced and mentally clear. In the extremes of the the second situation, a person’s body shuts down, leading to death.

Symptoms, such as physical aches and pains, poor digestion, lack of energy, etc. signal us that something is wrong. They motivate us to take action. But as you can see from the following diagram, these symptoms only show up after deeper functional imbalances become serious enough to trigger them.

You can see from this diagram that the first stage of reducing wellness (1) happens when internal and external stressors trigger functional imbalances. The signs of these stressors are subtle. We’ll go over what those stressors are in a moment.

Even though these early imbalances are subtle, it is possible to identify them using lab tests and by paying a different kind of attention to body signals.

What this illustrates is that even before a person experiences acute symptoms, if they’ve been exposed to chronic stressors they’ve already started having functional imbalances.

Once these internal functional imbalances reach a certain level, symptoms appear. This is the second stage of the process. Early symptoms are usually mild and include things like fatigue, indigestion, frequent colds, skin problems, etc.

Over time these symptoms tend to become worse, leading to pain, blood sugar issues, heart disease and other chronic health problems. Unless you reverse the process, eventually the body can no longer adapt and the person dies.

What are the external and internal stressors that set off this shift? Here’s a short list:

External (more obvious) Stressors:

Mental/Emotional – fear, guilt, excitement, worry, anxiety, grief, depression, financial troubles, divorce, job-related, overwork, trauma and abuse, relationship stress
Physical – fractures, muscle injuries, nerve compression, over-exercise, lack of sleep, chronic illness, dieting
Existential Angst – lack of purpose or meaning in life, hopelessness, despair

Internal (less obvious) Stressors:

Pathogens – Parasites, bacteria, fungi, viruses
Accumulated Toxins – pesticides, herbicides, chemicals, toxic metals, tobacco & recreational drugs
Food-Related Stressors – eating wrong foods, blood sugar overload, alcohol, food additives, food allergies & sensitivities
Medically Caused – prescription drugs, metal in teeth
Structural Stress – spinal misalignments, poor ergonomics

These are all considered stressors because the body has to compensate to overcome them. When they happen over time, adaptive body mechanisms become overwhelmed casing symptoms to emerge.

Reversing this Trend

Some would argue that reduced levels of health are just a natural part of aging. And of course at some level they’re right. Everyone dies of something.

At the same time, since the alternative to getting older is death, it makes sense to think about getting older, but without feeling older.

The process for making this happen takes place in 3 stages:

Rebuilding the body, starting with optimal food intake.
Identifying & reducing or eliminating the causes of stress.
Correcting remaining imbalances – supporting the adrenals, reducing inflammation, clearing the detoxification pathways, and building the immune system.

There are effective natural ways to accomplish each of these steps.

Metabolic Typing® helps identify which foods & nutrients act as medicine to support and rebuild the body’s resiliency.
Mediator Response Testing (MRT), Hair Analysis, and reviewing lifestyle factors help uncover the hidden stressors.
Finally, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition locates and corrects the internal functional problems that led to symptoms in the first place.

It’s never too soon to think about catching these problems and reversing them. Although there are situations where return to 100% health is impossible, it is almost always possible to make dramatic improvements for the better.

References:

The Healthexcel.com, online information library of Metabolic Typing®.

Reed Davis, founder of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, http://BonesAndHormones,com

Biohealth Diagnostics Resource Library, Biohealth Diagnostics, San Diego, CA.

Why You Shouldn’t Take Vitamins

drbruce — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:24:00 +0000

Foods we eat these days have substantially less nutrition that they had 100 years ago. They’re grown in mineral-depleted soils and transported long distances before we eventually eat them. The nutrients, natural enzyme levels and freshness of our food suffers as a result. This is true even of organic foods and much more so of conventionally grown foods.

That’s why supplementing with vitamins and minerals seems like it should be a good idea. And generally speaking, it is a good idea. But there are important considerations to take into account. In fact, in some ways you may want to consider not supplementing your diet.

There are two reasons for paying particular attention to supplementation.

First, in the same way it’s possible to get too little of a nutrient (vitamin, mineral, enzyme, etc.), it’s also possible to get too much.

Second, the same exact nutrient can affect one person the opposite way it affects another.

I’ll mention a specific example of this in a minute, but first here’s an illustration of what I mean.

If you were in Canada and wanted to go to Mexico, anyone familiar with geography would tell you to head south. Therefore it seems obvious that the way to get to Mexico is by going south.

But what if you were in South America? Heading south from there to get to Mexico would only take you further away from where you want to be.

In other words, getting to where you want to go depends in large part on where you’re starting from. Or put another way, if you don’t know where you’re starting from, how can you know which way to go?

All right, back to supplements.

As it turns out, the effect of specific supplements might be good for you or possibly not. Just like our directions to Mexico example, it very much depends on where you start.

A case in point is Vitamin D. There’s a lot of talk lately, especially in alternative medicine circles, about the benefits of taking more Vitamin D. It helps strengthen bones, improves immunity, and supports heart health among many other benefits.

But how much you need depends largely on where you’re starting. You can have too much Vitamin D in your system. And among its other effects, Vitamin D increases cellular oxidation. That’s how fast your body burns fuel in the cells.

Based on that you might think everyone should take it since increasing metabolism might have some good benefits.

But what if your metabolism was already fast? Here’s what I mean:

Can you see the potential problem here? For someone who’s a Fast Oxidizer, taking Vitamin D is only going to push them further away from balance.

Now consider that too much Vitamin D can cause serious health issues including muscle weakness, fatigue and calcium deposits in soft tissues (hardening of arteries, bone spurs, kidney stones). As you can see from the above illustration, a Fast Oxidizer runs the risk of becoming less balanced & healthy if they get too much Vitamin D.

And Vitamin D is not unique among supplements in this way. Other nutrients affect a person’s oxidation rate, autonomic nervous system balance (master regulator of balance in the body), and even how efficiently cells are able to rid themselves of toxins and make energy.

Let me repeat: whether or not a specific nutrient will benefit you depends on your current state of balance.

This might explain why some people feel great when they start taking over-the-counter vitamins while others feel nothing or even feel worse.

Now in spite of the title of this article, the point isn’t that you shouldn’t take nutritional supplements. There are abundant reasons to take them. The real point here is that if you are going to take them, it pays to know where you’re starting from metabolically and take only those nutrients that will support your healthy balance.

And if you decide for whatever reason that a nutrient contraindicated for your Metabolic Type is important for you to take, you need to know what other nutrients will counteract any negative effects.

The best way to determine which nutrients (and which foods) are best for you is through Metabolic Typing®. If you’d like to learn more about how to make sure you’re getting exactly the right nutrients for optimal health, call the office at (775) 827-6901 or contact me using this link. Even if you can’t come into the office, you can go through this process by phone and email.

References:

Hyperhealth Pro Database, In-Tele-Health, Hansville, WA, 2008.

The Healthexcel.com, online information library of Metabolic Typing®.

Root & Branch

drbruce — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:22:04 +0000

When you have pain or other health problems, or you don’t have all the energy you used to, the first thing you want to do is get rid of the symptoms.

And that’s a good thing… but it’s not the only thing you want to think about. Here’s why:

In Chinese Medicine, there is a concept called “Root & Branch” referring to the cause (root) of an illness and the symptoms (branch) of it. Root & Branch is an excellent metaphor describing what’s going on when we experience any sort of illness.

Here’s how it works. The most obvious part of any health issue are the symptoms that get our attention. Whether it’s pain, fatigue, digestive problems, or any other departure from being happy and healthy, we know it when we don’t feel well.

But underneath all of it the obvious, attention-getting symptoms are the real causes. These ‘roots’ are mostly invisible to us, but they are the real reasons for the symptoms we experience.

If you address health issues at this deeper level, then nothing remains to keep the symptoms around. The result is long-term healing.

An Example of “Root & Branch” in Healing

Let’s take the example of a specific health issue, fatigue. Here are some things people do to get rid of this symptom. They might:

Drink coffee or ‘energy’ drinks
Eat more sugar
Take sleeping pills (thinking more rest will help)

Each of these approaches has the possibility of helping reduce the immediate symptoms of fatigue, at least for a little while. But the problem is none of them get down to the underlying issues creating fatigue in the first place.

What might those underlying issues be? Since each person is different, it pays to uncover the situation in each specific case, but here are a few of the possibilities:

Inefficient digestion meaning the body lacks sufficient nutrients for energy production.
Eating foods not ideal for specific metabolic needs, a factor that is different for each person.
Stage 2 or Stage 3 adrenal fatigue resulting from chronic stress, which “steals” energy from other body requirements of good health.
Inability to efficiently detoxify the body from metabolic waste products, causing sluggishness
Exposure to environmental toxins creating a toxic overload.

Once uncovering the deeper issues and correcting them, there is no need for artificial ‘energy’ foods and drinks, nor for drugs to facilitate sleep. After the ‘root’ is corrected, the ‘branch’ will be healthy and strong.

How Do You Uncover These Deeper Issues?

Because the underlying problems leading to symptoms aren’t always clear at first, it’s a good idea to understand the history leading up to whatever health problem someone experiences.

In addition, the factors that influence all of our symptoms have a natural order of priority. This means some are much more important than others. In virtually every case, the first and most important influence is food.

Why food?

Think of it this way: if you put the wrong ‘fuel’ (food) in your car (body) – diesel fuel in a gasoline car, for example – how well will it run? For anyone not mechanically inclined, the answer is, “not well.” Eventually it will stop running altogether.

And as long as diesel fuel goes into the gasoline tank, literally nothing else you do will make the car run correctly. No amount of ‘fuel additives’ (supplements, herbs, drugs) or ‘tune ups’ (acupuncture, massages, chiropractic) or even replacing or removing parts (surgery) will correct the problem more than temporarily. Only when the right fuel goes in the tank is it possible for real healing to occur.

That doesn’t mean that all of these other approaches aren’t good. In fact, once you get the right fuel in the tank, all of the other ways to address the problem will be more effective. With the right fuel mix at the start, you actually have a shot at correcting the problem permanently.

Note:

The fastest way to discover your best ‘fuel mix’ is through Metabolic Typing®. For more information about this powerful technique, contact me directly by clicking here.

References:

Hyperhealth Pro Health Database, In-Tele-Health, Hansville, WA, 2008.

Biohealth Diagnostics Resource Library, Biohealth Diagnostics, San Diego, CA.

The Healthexcel.com, online information library of Metabolic Typing®.