|
|
|
|
It's an exciting time to be involved in the healthcare
field. So many changes are going to
be occurring in the near future. People
are simply getting sick and tired of being sick and tired.
In my area of the healthcare community, we see it everyday.
We certainly aren't happy that people with serious conditions aren't
responding well to what have become the conventional treatments of drugs and
surgery, but we are happy that they'll get the chance to experience something
that they'll consider incredible (and that we'll consider natural)...they'll get
better on their own... There was a recent story in the news concerning vitamin D,
which is one of the many vitamins produced naturally in the body.
It has plenty of vitally important functions (it's an immune booster, it
keeps the bones dense and strong, etc.) just as everything else produced
naturally in the body. To put it
frankly, vitamin D is one piece of an enormous puzzle.
The latest buzz around the pediatric community is that industrialized
forms of vitamin D need to given to kids and teenagers because they simply
aren't getting enough... This really isn't a new issue.
Rather, it's now simply being moved into a higher age bracket.
Over the last 100 years, formula milk for babies has become very popular.
Vitamin D deficiency in mothers, among other things, has been the primary
reason. So, a lack of vitamin D for
kids isn't exactly a new problem...and the simple answer to the
"problem" is just as easy to find no matter which age we're referring
to, be it vitamin D for babies, teens, or adults.
As is often the case in the current "healthcare"
model, the wrong questions are asked when people are deficient of something.
"Hey, Tom, mothers are vitamin D deficient...what are
we going to do?" "Well, let's get to work on something to make sure
their kids get vitamin D?" "Sweet, when do we get to work on finding the reason
why the mother's are vitamin D deficient, then?"
"We don't! It's
far more important that we ignore that and come up with a formula for the
babies." Shouldn't we be asking ourselves why these folks are
deficient of that something? If a
mom, kid, or baby is vitamin D deficient, do you think that it's normal?
Raise your hand if you think that's normal.
If you have your hand raised, do some research. We HAVE to start looking internally and stop searching
externally for the causes and cures to such simple ailments.
Sure, milk is A source of vitamin D, but it isn't the BEST source.
The best source for you to get vitamin D is, well, YOU.
Why pediatrician's are now calling for double the recommended daily
amount of vitamin D be GIVEN to kids and teens, I'm not sure.
Call me crazy, but X amount of milk per day isn't getting the job done,
so I can't see how simply doubling the amount of what isn't getting the job done
is going to be solve the problem. The bottom line is that we can't expect something that we
make industrially to be as good as what is produced naturally, according to our
own innate processes. There's a
cellular make up to what our body's naturally produce that even the most
brilliant scientist can't come close to duplicating.
There's a mechanism of action that occurs for the body to naturally
produce vitamin D. It's a
biochemistry thing that annoyingly features words like "isomerize"
that still gives me a headache every time I think about them.
BUT, in order for that reaction to take place, the brain must tell the
body to do it. It isn't a special
reaction. By that, I mean that it is
no different than any other bodily process.
For it to occur, the brain must be able to tell it to occur.
So, this road we're traveling down might seem a bit
familiar. When you break down the
way that this country thinks about healthcare, eventually we arrive back at the
following conclusion: it just doesn't make sense.
Far too much time is spent figuring out how to put a band-aid on the
effect rather than the cause. I brought this particular topic into the forefront to
reinforce an ongoing point I've been trying to make: don't just assume that the
established way is the right way. Do
some research...it's certainly out there... There's another thing I wanted to talk about today.
My fiancée and I were walking our dogs the other day when I was hit like
a ton of bricks with a most unpleasant cloud of cigarette smoke.
It hit me, at that moment, that I had never talked about smoking before
in one of these newsletters. Suffice
to say that I could spend multiple weeks describing how bad smoking is for your
health, I just wanted to point out a few things.
First of all, over 20% of the men and women in this country still smoke
the death sticks. Of that
percentage, 70% are 18-24 year olds. Reader
beware that smoking not only affects your lungs.
If you have learned anything from my weekly diatribes, you should now
grasp the concept that the body (the ENTIRE body) works in unison...as
one...there's not a single external thing that we can put into our bodies that
will simply affect one part of it. Did you know that there are 599 different things that go
into one cigarette? That's nearly
six hundred foreign invaders being inhaled into the body.
No wonder chronic coughing, bronchogenic (lung) cancer, and heart disease
are killing so many people. How
foolish is it to inhale that much junk into your body?
I'm not here to bash, though...I'm here to help you crash
the cigarette party and offer a few helpful hints to those of you who may smoke
or know smokers. No matter your
argument, if you are a smoker, then you are leading an unhealthy lifestyle.
However, quitting smoking is not the first thing that you should do.
Rarely is there a smoker who eats healthily...and contrary to popular
belief, smoking is not the number one preventable cause of disease...poor diet,
coupled with emotional stress are #1 and #2, respectively.
People that quit smoking tend to find a new vice to replace
their cigarettes. Most commonly,
that new vice is a bunch of unhealthy food.
So, before quitting smoking, the diet must be changed.
It is essential that a person seeking to end their nasty habitual death
stick smoking also have a plan to quit and execute that plan.
Stopping cold turkey is a bad idea. It
causes the body to go from one extreme to another.
Allowing the body time to react and adapt is key.
If you stop too fast, you run the risk of plummeting into a depression
that further disrupts the body's ability to recuperate.
In fact, one of the number one side effects of cessation of smoking is
depression. Smokers beware... To give you your "quit smoking guide" in numbered
form (my favorite way to have info presented): 1) Make dietary changes to promote a more healthy lifestyle 2) Begin some sort of exercise routine (**this is a healthy
new vice**) 3) Come up with a plan to quit and execute that plan If we can get people to want to stop smoking, that would be
great. It's obviously bad for you,
but there's a certain hubris exhibited by younger people that makes them feel
untouchable. They don't think about
future consequences. So, in the
first edition of the "Cheers to you" section of "Weekly
Well-Being," I applaud the following... Cheers to you... Thinking good things for all of you, |