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The Diseases of Civilization

The “diseases of civilization” are those diseases or conditions that were rare or didn’t even exist until modern times. Ironically, we have these diseases even though we live in lands of plenty, clean water, abundant food and drink, and refrigeration! We are also blessed with hot and cold running water indoor plumbing (no outhouses), and we no longer live with cows, pigs, and horses in our homes (thieves would run off with them otherwise).

We are so blessed!

In the olden days, there was much sickness from all the filth. Babies rarely made it past their first month of life. Plagues carried away multitudes! Those good old days were not so good.

New Diseases

While the old diseases and plagues are mostly gone, we now have new diseases: cancer, heart disease, autism, ADD, dyslexia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, and many others. What caused this new epidemic of chronic illness?

Our Modern World

Our modern world is full of poisons our ancestors were never exposed to. There are at least 80,000 chemicals in our environment, including toxins from plastics, pesticides, and herbicides such as glyphosate (RoundupT), arsenic, mercury, lead, aluminum, phthalates, cleaning products, soaps, and many others.

Dental fillings such as amalgam (mercury), fetal ultrasound (radiation to the developing brain), and many prescription drugs cause damage immediately or years later.

We should have the healthiest population. Instead, in the US, over half of our children have a chronic illness,

What to do?

Start before birth – parents-to-be should detoxify with an organic healthy diet, pregnant women should avoid ultrasound and vaccines, and eat traditional high-fat foods, grass-fed meats, and dairy products. Every day you should have food that is good for your gut (fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, yogurt, and other probiotics).

Avoid Frankenfoods (unnatural laboratory creations)

Don’t eat foods our grandparents (and great grandparents) never ate vegetable oils such as corn, sunflower, safflower, canola, and soy that are produced at high temperatures and pressure and are unnatural to our body function (physiology). Other oils include partially hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils such as margarine, CriscoT, and similar products. Avoid all GMO foods (genetically modified). Avoid conventionally grown foods and go organic. White sugar wasn’t known until a few hundred years ago – it didn’t exist. Highly processed products give us almost no nutrition and even take essential minerals out of our bodies as they are digested and assimilated.

Go to www.westonaprice.org to learn about traditional diets and foods.

What do I do now? Detoxify!

Traditional ways to get rid of poisons or detoxify are sunbathing, fasting, sauna, exercise, massage, herbs, gallbladder, and liver flushes. See below for an inexpensive universal detox – clay.

Don’t forget chiropractic adjustments. From infancy to older people, our body detoxes better when it’s subluxation-free. Talk to us.

Call today for an appointment. 627-4547

What foods cause a heart attack?

Most cases of heart disease today involve a heart attack or myocardial infarction (MI) -a blood clot in a coronary (heart) artery causing a blockage and death to the heart muscle.

Most people don’t realize that MI was almost nonexistent around 1910. That’s right – nobody was having heart attacks. However, by the year 1930, MI caused a total of 3,000 deaths. Then, by 1960 that number reached 500,000! At this time, MI was the US’s #1 cause of death. Stroke rates also increased; the cause of MI and stroke is similar: blockages in the large arteries supplying the heart and brain.

Why did this happen?

Nutritional changes in the American diet.

Paul Dudley White, MD, “the father of modern cardiology,” helped found the American Heart Association and introduced the electrocardiograph machine to America. He made these remarks at a 1956 American Heart Association televised fund-raiser:

Heart disease in the form of myocardial infarction was nonexistent in 1900 when egg consumption was three times what it was in 1956, and corn oil was unavailable…I began my practice as a cardiologist in 1921, and I never saw an MI patient until 1928. Back in the MI-free days of 1920, the fats were butter and lard. And I think we would all benefit from the kind of diet we had when no one had heard the word ‘corn oil.’

The changes in diet were two-fold: firstly, people began consuming fewer protective fats like eggs, lard, butter, and tallow (beef fat) and generally began avoiding animal fats. Secondly, the consumption of trans fats skyrocketed! At the time, they were primarily found in margarine, corn, and vegetable oils that were barely used until the 1920s. Now, trans fats are found in most commercial junk foods. It is because of trans fats that a Twinkie can last for a decade- bacteria are unable to break its chemical bonds.

Your body can’t digest trans fats, which become toxic to your liver and other internal organs, especially your heart. Avoid trans fats and eat natural, healthy fats to have a well-functioning heart and avoid heart disease and stroke.

Interestingly, the Framingham heart study found that those who ate the most saturated fat, calories, and cholesterol were the most physically active. They also weighed the least and had the lowest levels of serum cholesterol!

Antibiotics and RoundupT

Your body’s digestive system works best when you have a strong, diverse gut microbiota of healthy bacteria and other beneficial microorganisms. An optimal digestive system is essential for a healthy immune system as it is crucial in helping your body absorb and use nutrients while also working to eliminate toxins.

Two major threats to healthy gut microbiota are commonly used in this country. Both antibiotics and the product, RoundupT, the herbicide, can greatly damage the vital organisms in your gut. RoundupT, a product used throughout the US in home gardens and commercial farms, contains glyphosate, which acts like an antibiotic and damages the intestinal microbiota.

To combat the negative effects of antibiotics and glyphosate on your gut, your body must repopulate the bacteria and other microorganisms damaged by treatment or exposure. To avoid the contamination of glyphosate from RoundupT, commit to eating organic, non-GMO foods and always thoroughly wash produce before consumption. Regularly incorporate foods high in probiotics to heal and strengthen your gut microbiota. These foods are often fermented; popular examples include sauerkraut, yogurt, kefir, apple cider vinegar, kombucha, miso, pickles, and kimchi (always check labels to ensure you buy probiotic-rich brands).

By removing the contamination from RoundupT and working to build and support gut microbiota, parents have reported autism, asthma, and childhood illnesses improving.

Traditional Eating: Why Do We Need Good Nutrition?

Apart from the obvious – to easily maintain our ideal weight, have lots of energy, and live free from disease and infirmity – we must also look at nutrition from an inter-generational or species perspective. Good nutrition ensures healthier children and (later) grandchildren!

Only healthy well-nourished people can produce healthy children. When we are healthy, we look better and are better able to attract a mate so we can produce healthy, strong, fertile children free from physical and mental defects and disorders. The goal of good nutrition is the survival of the species and the passing of good, healthy genes and qualities.

Our current epidemic of infertility – nearly 20% of all couples are unable to conceive-and our current epidemic of children with chronic illness is no coincidence. The pesticides and toxins in our foods are causing generational damage. Only eat organic. And here is another great rule:

A Good General Nutrition Rule

If the food wasn’t around when your grandparents were around, avoid it; make sure your food and preparations are as traditional and as old-fashioned as possible.

Benefits of Infectious Disease

Sickness is good for you?

How could fever, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, headache, overall yucky feeling (general malaise) be good for you? Remember, the body is intelligent and it does things for a reason. What we call uncomfortable symptoms are the mechanisms by which the body heals itself, restores itself to balance (also known as homeostasis).

This has been known by traditional healers for thousands of years. Acute symptoms such as fever, colds, skin eruptions, diarrhea, and vomiting permit the body to expel poisons, purify and cleanse while permitting the immune system to strengthen and mature. These symptoms are uncomfortable and dramatic, but they are temporary and good for you. The “Father of Medicine” said it well:

Diseases are crises of purification, of toxic elimination. Symptoms are the natural defenses of the body. We call them diseases, but in fact they are the cure of diseases. – Hippocrates

Research verifies this. For example, a history of measles and mumps in childhood are significantly protective against deadly heart attacks and strokes during adulthood. Researchers also found that adults who had contracted chickenpox were 33% less likely to develop coronary heart disease. Each additional contagious disease contracted during childhood, such as measles, mumps, or rubella, increased the protective effect against acute coronary events by 14%. (1)

Febrile infectious childhood diseases (FICDs) were associated with lower cancer risk in adulthood (2). In another study, a history of common colds or gastroenteric influenza prior to the interview was found to be associated with a decreased cancer risk. (3)

1.Kubota Y et al. Association of measles and mumps with cardiovascular disease: The Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) study. Atherosclerosis. August 2015;241:682-686.

2.Albonico HU, Braker HU, Husler J. Febrile infectious childhood diseases in the history of cancer patients and matched controls. Med Hypotheses. 1998;51(4):315-320.

3.Abel U, Becker N, Angerer R, Frentzel-Beyme R, Kaufmann M, Schlag P, Wysocki S, Wahrendorf J, Schulz G. Common infections in the history of cancer patients and controls. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 1991;117(4):339-344.

Why do some people get sick and others do not?

Chiropractic Questions and Answers

Q. Why do some people get sick and others do not?

That question was discussed by DD Palmer, the discoverer of chiropractic.

Palmer wrote extensively on the perfection we are born with and the many ways that perfection can be perverted or prevented from functioning. When we function at less than 100%, when we are unbalanced with spine and nerve stress, when we have physical blockages that decrease life energy flowing through us (subluxations), we suffer from dis-ease, which is a common precursor to diseases of all kinds.

Dr. Palmer was very much ahead of his time when he described the three causes of dis-ease (body malfunction) as follows:

Thoughts-emotional stress. The emerging science of PNI (psychoneuroimmunology) studies the intimate and intense relationship amongst thoughts, brain, and immune system function. This confirms Palmer’s original insights into the relationship between the mind and body. See the article below on marriage and longevity for an example.

Trauma-structural distortions affect and weaken our ability to adapt to all environmental stresses. Physical traumas may be from birth, macro-trauma such as sports injuries, car accidents, and similar events, or micro-trauma such as always working in the same position, always swinging a golf club or tennis racket the same way (and on one side), or living on a planet with gravity-meaning everyone on this earth.

Toxins-poisons that we are exposed to that are internal or endogenous (produced from within) or external or exogenous poisons that we are exposed to from the environment.

Internal toxins can be from a poor diet, an unbalanced intestinal flora, dental/oral infections from root canals, and unhealed wisdom tooth sockets. External toxins can be from the pesticides and herbicides that are in our foods (always eat organic foods), vaccinations (a toxic brew of chemicals), air pollution, smoking, anesthesia, drugs (prescription as well as otherwise), and even EMF-electromagnetic frequency radiation (i.e., cell phones and cell phone towers), among others.

Chiropractic care permits your body to function at its best. By releasing old physical/structural stress from your spinal column the chiropractic adjustment also releases stress from your spinal cord and brain. This improves your nervous system (which your mind uses). That improved function helps your ability to detoxify and rid your body of any internal and external poisons you have accumulated.

Many chiropractors have noticed that in addition to the above, regular chiropractic care may increase a person’s sensitivity to their state of health and they naturally begin to eat better and avoid unhealthy toxins and procedures. Every organ, gland, system, and part of your being is interconnected. Improving any physical, mental, or spiritual aspect of your well-being improves the health of every other part of your mind and body.

Make an appointment today and start to feel better.

517.627.4547

Going Meatless…why? Aren’t we supposed to eat meat?

Because going meatless once a week may reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like:

cancer
cardiovascular
disease
diabetes
obesity

And going meatless once a week can also help reduce our carbon footprint and save precious resources like fossil fuels and fresh water.

Recipe for Stacked Vegetable Enchiladas

FOR YOUR HEALTH

Reduce Heart Disease and Stroke

Vegetables, fruit, and whole grains have been shown to protect against cardiovascular disease. One study found that each daily serving of fruits or vegetables was associated with a 4% decline in coronary heart disease, and a 5% lower risk of stroke. Another study found that a diet of 2.5 or more servings of whole grain per day was associated with a 21% lower risk of cardiovascular disease (heart disease, stroke, fatal cardiovascular disease)

Limit Cancer Risk

There is convincing evidence that red meat and processed meat consumption increases the risk of colorectal cancer. There is also limited but suggestive evidence that red meat increases the risk of esophagus, lung, pancreas, and endometrium cancer and that processed meat consumption increases the risk of esophagus, lung, stomach, and prostate cancer.

In contrast, a diet rich in fruit and vegetables decreases the risk of several types of cancers, including mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, and stomach, evidence suggests.

Fight Diabetes

Research suggests that plant-based diets, particularly those low in processed meat, can reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes. Eating a plant-based diet can decrease total calorie consumption which helps you obtain and maintain a healthy weight, a key component to preventing and treating diabetes.

Curb Obesity

Several large studies in Europe and the United States have demonstrated that people on plant-based, vegetarian diets tend to have a significantly lower body weight and body mass index (BMI). This may be in part because plant-based diets are rich in fiber (which is not found in animal products). Fiber contributes to fullness, resulting in lower calorie intake and less overeating.

Recipe for 30-Minute Quinoa Enchilada Skillet

Live Longer

Evidence suggests that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and a limited amount of red meat can increase longevity, whereas red and processed meat consumption is associated with increases in deaths due to cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Improve The Nutritional Quality of Your Diet

Going meatless encourages consumption of plant-based sources of protein, like beans and peas. Consuming beans and peas results in a higher intake of fiber, protein, folate, zinc, iron, and magnesium. Also, diets high in beans and peas are associated with lower intakes of saturated fat and total fat.

FOR YOUR WALLET

Curb Healthcare Spending

Each year in the United States, chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes cause 7 in 10 deaths, and account for 75% of the $2 trillion spent on medical care. In 2008, the estimated health care costs related to obesity were $147 billion. By reducing our risk for these conditions, we can curtail healthcare spending nationwide.

Cut Weekly Budget

Many people save money by adding meatless meals to their weekly menus. Meatless meals are built around vegetables, beans and grains—instead of meat, which tends to be more expensive. This is partly because producing meat requires extra expenses like feed and transportation. Though it can be challenging to serve healthy meals on a budget, going meatless once a week can help conserve money for more fruits and vegetables.

FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Minimize Water Usage

The water needs of livestock are much greater than those of vegetables and grains.

– Approximately 1,850 gallons of water are needed to produce a single pound of beef.
– Approximately 39 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of vegetables.

Americans consume nearly four times the amount of animal protein than the global average. When compared with current food intake in the US, a vegetarian diet could reduce water consumption by up to 58% per person.

Reduce Greenhouse Gases

Studies show that meat production produces significantly more greenhouse gases than vegetables, including carbon dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide – the three main contributing sources of greenhouse gas. Beef was found to produce a total of 30 kg of greenhouse gas (GHG) per kg of food, while carrots, potatoes and rice produce .42, .45 and 1.3 kg GHG per kg of food, respectively.

Reduce Fuel Dependence

About 25 kilocalories of fossil fuel energy is used to produce 1 kilocalorie of all meat based protein, as compared with 2.2 kilocalories of fossil fuel input per 1 kilocalorie of grain based protein produced. The meat industry uses so much energy to produce grain for livestock that if instead we used the grain to feed people following a vegetarian diet, it would be enough to feed about 840 million people.

We want to hear from you

What motivates you to cut back on your meat consumption? We want to know.

You are the world’s greatest drug store!

You create your own drugs (No, I don’t mean illegally!)

The greatest drug store in the world is your own marvelous body, as long as your body is functioning properly.

Your body manufactures:

antibiotics
insulin
painkillers
blood pressure and heart drugs

Your body also creates hormones and chemicals that regulate:

brain chemistry and mood
digestion
elimination
growth
blood chemistry
hundreds of other drugs, many still undiscovered

That’s where chiropractic care helps

Chiropractors help keep your internal drug store functioning optimally by locating and correcting a very common condition that causes your body to malfunction. That condition is called a subluxation. A subluxation is usually found in your spine and although it often causes pain, it may also be painless.

Want to keep your internal drug store (the World’s Greatest) making and delivering all the drugs you need for your whole life? In addition to a nutrient-rich diet, make sure your body is free of subluxations – that’s the specialty of your chiropractor. Come in for a chiropractic checkup. Your internal drug store will thank you for it.

The Germ or the Terrain?

The Germ Theory vs. the Terrain Theory

Everyone has heard of Louis Pasteur who popularized the Germ Theory of Medicine and invented pasteurization. The practice of vaccination is based on Pasteur’s germ theory.

But there is another Frenchman, the scientist Claude Bechamp, who was constantly finding fault with Pasteur’s work. For instance, Pasteur’s experiments that “proved” his germ theory did nothing of the sort because Pasteur had injected healthy animals with the blood of a sick animal. The healthy animals got sick.

Injecting a sick animal’s blood did not prove anything. Béchamp said that Pasteur poisoned the experimental animals and that was what got them sick, not germs. Béchamp said Pasteur poisoned the terrain of the animal and the germs attacked the already diseased tissues.

According to Bechamp, it was the terrain, the overall health of the person’s tissues, that determined whether germs would or would not grow. In one dramatic event, Claude Bernard considered one of the greatest men of science, performed a fascinating exhibition before a professional audience of scientists and medical doctors. Bernard said, “The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing,” and he then drank a glass of water filled with cholera. He didn’t get sick! (1)

Germs seek their natural habitat

Rudolph Virchow, the Father of Pathology, agreed with Bechamp. He believed that epidemics were social in origin and were caused by poor diet, poor waste disposal, bad water, toxins, and other unsanitary conditions. He considered the germ theory as a hindrance to true prevention and cure. As he said:

If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat-diseased tissue-rather than being the cause of the diseased tissue; e.g., mosquitoes seek the stagnant water but do not cause the pool to become stagnant. (2)

Michio Kushi, the founder of modern macrobiotics had strong words for Pasteur and his legacy:

Pasteur originally conceived the idea of germs and destroying them … it has mushroomed into DDT, killing beetles and worms, resulting in food contamination, much sickness, and trouble. Although he is regarded as a hero by modern medicine, Pasteur will be treated in much the same way as a warmonger when he is judged in the spiritual world. (3)

The study of epidemics tells us that Bechamp, Virchow, Bernard, and Kushi were correct. Germs can’t bother a healthy person. Deaths from measles, mumps, pertussis, polio, and many other diseases had dramatically fallen decades before antibiotics and vaccines. As our living conditions improved, our terrain became stronger. We are poisoning our world with our obsession to destroy germs.

Don’t fear germs. Germs don’t make you sick. Sickness occurs first, and then the germs feed on weak tissues (terrain or land). The key to health and healing is proper function, detoxification, and rejuvenation.

Ancient wisdom

This understanding is ancient. The Empirical or Vitalistic school of healing has always emphasized that to avoid sickness, and to recover from sickness, we need proper nutrition, elimination, avoidance of toxins, and detoxification. To that, we’d add chiropractic spinal care.

Spinal care is ancient and is absolutely necessary for the proper function of the body organs to keep germs in their place (eating diseased tissues) and keep your body strong and in balance.

Claude Bernard quotes. https://www.azquotes.com/author/1304-Claude_Bernard
Cayleff SE. Nature’s Path: A History of Naturopathic Healing in America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2016:59.
Michio Kushi quotes. https://www.azquotes.com/author/22254-Michio_Kushi

Researching Chiropractic: Hypothyroidism, Constipation, Trigeminal Neuralgia

Chiropractic clinical case histories have been a regular feature of our patient newsletter since its inception. There seems to be no limit to the health problems that respond to chiropractic care. How many people suffering, on drugs, facing a life of limitation could be helped by chiropractic care? Probably most of them.

Hypothyroidism reduction under chiropractic care.

After a motor vehicle accident a 44-year-old woman suffered from upper trapezius (upper shoulder) and inter-scapular pain (pain between the shoulder blades) for 23 years! In addition, she had been prescribed Armour® Thyroid in order to treat symptoms of low thyroid function (hypothyroidism).
X-rays of her neck revealed a 80.7% loss of normal neck curve (hypo-lordosis) in addition to vertebral subluxations. The patient received spinal adjustments to reduce her subluxations and to improve her spinal and postural alignment over a seven-month period. Thirty days into care the patient began exhibiting signs/symptoms of an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism). After serum lab evaluation, the patient’s endocrinologist instructed the patient to significantly reduce her thyroid medication. In addition, her shoulder and scapular pains gradually disappeared. (1)

Constipation in a three-year old.

A three-year-old suffered from constipation for one year, needing laxatives in order to have a bowel movement. She would have no bowel movements on her own. After 4-5 days her parents would give her laxatives. Chiropractic examination included spinal thermography, postural analysis, supine leg length comparison, range of motion, static and motion palpation of her spine. She was diagnosed with vertebral subluxations of the cervical region with related dysautonomia.

Chiropractic adjustments were utilized to correct the cervical subluxations. After two office visits, the toddler started having daily bowel movements. Within a three-month period of weekly chiropractic visits and adjustments, her constipation resolved completely. (2)

Trigeminal neuralgia (Tic douloureux).

A 77-year-old woman suffering from severe right-sided trigeminal neuralgia (TN) for seven years started chiropractic care. Her TN pain was only initially helped by medication and was made worse by chewing, talking and smiling. When her symptoms were their worst, she was unable to eat or talk well for 4 days.

When she began chiropractic care she rated her pain 10 out of 10; describing it as a constant hot, throbbing, burning sensation that progressively got worse. Subluxations at C1 and other segments were located and adjusted. After six visits the patient saw significant reduction in pain; after four months she went off her medication and at 6 months was pain free. (3)

Do you know anyone with the above issues?

Please refer them to us. We can help! 517.627.4547

1. Bak AD, Engelhardt PR. Improvement in cervical curve and hypothyroidism following reduction of
subluxation utilizing Chiropractic Biophysics: a case study & selective review of the literature. Annals of
Vertebral Subluxation Research. December 10, 2015:226-237.
2. Merkovich AP. Resolution of chronic constipation & dysautonomia in a three-year-old female following
chiropractic care: a case report & review of the literature. Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health,
Chiropractic. August 23, 2019:100-104.
3. Zielinski E, Mankal K, Pirini J. Resolution of trigeminal neuralgia following chiropractic care utilizing
Chiropractic Biophysics and diversified techniques: a case study. Annals of Vertebral Subluxation
Research. November 6, 2014:177-183.