Five things you can do to become more medically self-sufficient
rpautrey2
Five things you can do to become more medically self-sufficient
by Pamela White
America is in the midst of a health care crisis. Medical costs
continue to soar, while the number of families who have access to
affordable health insurance is in decline. Across the nation, people
are waiting to see what reforms President Barack Obama and Congress
plan to make to our current system, while some states, like Colorado,
have explored initiating changes on their own.
Many Americans hope to see a single-payer system put into place, but
the ideas coming out of Washington, D.C., include disappointing
options such as taxing employer health benefits to help fund an
expansion of government health care programs; requiring every American
to buy health insurance; and increasing private-sector competition
among health-insurance companies.
These are options that attempt to preserve our current health care
system, health-insurance industry and all.
So far, the debate on health care reform, which seems to be making
little progress, centers on one question: who is going to pay for
health care?
Meanwhile, Americans, worried about pesticides, E. coli and the cost
of produce, are growing their own food. Seed sales are up across the
country 20 to 30 percent, as families replace part or all of their
lawns with vegetable gardens. The term "victory garden" has been
resurrected from World War II Americana and now stands for a much more
personal kind of victory — one involving lower monthly food budgets
and knowing how one's food has been grown.
What if Americans were to quit waiting for the federal government to
act and take a "victory garden" approach to health care reform?
Are there things we can do to reform our own health care, striving for
increased self-sufficiency and lowered medical costs?
That's the question asked to Dr. Charley Cropley, a Boulder
naturopathic physician, author and an oft-featured presenter on the
subject of "self-healing." In response, Cropley shared five key things
we can all do to take our health care into our own hands in order to
improve the quality of our own lives, decrease our need for medical
treatment and thus reduce our dependence on the health care system.
Some of his suggestions are controversial. Cropley doesn't believe in
immunizing children. He thinks people's health would be improved if
they stopped seeing conventional doctors. He doesn't believe in taking
medications or dietary supplements. For Cropley, health is about
bringing your life and body into balance.
"You hear it all the time," he says. "Eat well. Begin a regular
program of exercise and rest. Reduce your stress. In truth, that's
largely what it comes down to."
But that's not the whole picture.
"Here are five huge challenges," Cropley says. "Implementing any one
will improve your life more than any medicine."
5. Breastfeed your babies
In the United States, more than 70 percent of babies are breastfed at
birth. But by three months of age, only 32 percent are exclusively
breastfed. By six months, only about 43 percent are still getting any
breast milk at all, and only 12 percent are still receiving
exclusively breast milk. By 1 year, only 21 percent of mothers are
continuing to breastfeed.
And yet the benefits of breastfeeding both for mothers and babies are
numerous and well documented. Breastfeeding releases oxytocin, which
not only helps mothers and babies bond, but also helps the mother's
uterus contract to its pre-pregnancy size.
Mothers who breastfeed may have lower rates of certain breast and
ovarian cancers, while babies who are breastfed have better digestion
and enhanced protection against diseases and infections.
"I like to see mothers breastfeed for at least three months," Cropley
says. "Breast milk is what colonizes the digestive tract of the infant
with its natural flora that it will have for the rest of its life. Our
ability to digest depends on this healthy flora, which also protects
the intestines against colonization and growth of pathogens or foreign
flora. This floral imbalance then creates significant digestive
problems that, in turn, poison the liver and contribute to myriad
health problems."
Colostrum, produced by the mother the first few days after her baby's
birth, is key to helping establish healthy digestion in a newborn, and
also contains immunoglobulins that prevent illness and help the baby's
immune system to develop. Breast milk continues to provide infants
with antibodies as the baby grows.
Babies who are breastfed are less likely to get sick with common
ailments like middle-ear infections than bottle-fed babies. They're
also less likely to be overweight. The benefits to both women and
babies are such that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends
that breastfeeding continue for at least 12 months, while the World
Health Organization recommends continued breastfeeding up to 2 years
of age or beyond.
By insisting on breastfeeding their babies — even to the degree of
requiring their employers to accommodate their needs — mothers will
set up their children and themselves for healthier lives both short-
and long-term.
4. ID your food allergies
"I consider food allergies to be about as destructive as smoking,"
Cropley says. "Do a 30-day trial period without wheat, milk or soy.
You will be amazed. Currently, about 70 percent of us are allergic to
one or more foods, and that number is growing. Our population is
growing sicker. Our damaged, underdeveloped immune and digestive
systems — both due, in part, to not being breastfed — combined with
the devitalized foods we're putting into our selves, are making us
sicker."
Untreated food allergies and intolerances can result in a variety of
different symptoms, including upper respiratory problems, nausea,
stomach pain, heartburn, gas, diarrhea, cramping, headaches,
irritability and anxiety.
"If these symptoms are treated with medicines and the allergic foods
are not eliminated, they continue to poison the system, just like
cigarettes, and lead to more serious illnesses, such as cancer,
arthritis and multiple sclerosis," he says.
3. Get a good suntan
"More than 90 percent of skin cancers are basal cell carcinomas, which
are largely innocuous," Cropley says. "Basal cell carcinomas almost
never metastasize. The only thing they do is to grow locally. When you
don't like the looks of them, you get them removed.
They are a cosmetic problem, hardly on the level of other cancers."
While we've all been taught to wear sunscreen and limit our sun
exposure, Cropley insists that sunlight is not only not harmful, but
essential. Sunlight does, however, age the skin, he says.
"Sunlight enables the skin to produce Vitamin D, which affects almost
every system and function in the body. Check out Dr. [Joseph]
Mercola's articles on sunlight and Vitamin D on the Web. Or read Dr.
[Zane R.] Kime's book, Sunlight."
Mainstream medical researchers have shown that exposure to full-
spectrum sunlight can cut a woman's risk for breast cancer markedly.
One study found that sunlight exposure lowered the risk of breast
cancer by 30 to 40 percent. Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine conducted a 10-year epidemiological study that exposure can
prevent breast, colon and rectal cancers.
Other studies have suggested that lymphomas and some kinds of dementia
are positively impacted by sunlight, as well.
"There is even debate going on as to whether the most dangerous kind
of skin cancer, which is malignant melanoma, is not actually benefited
by sunlight," Cropley says.
Cropley is quick to say he's recommending natural sunlight, not
tanning beds.
"That's not to say there's no use for tanning beds, but when I'm
talking sunlight, I'm talking natural sunlight," he says. "Human
beings are made to be in the sun. A society that is afraid of the sun
is a sick society."
2. Deal with addictions
Our common addictions include coffee, alcohol, smoking, marijuana,
television, media, sex, porn and gambling.
"Addictions produce suffering and regret — period," he says. "They
destroy your body, mind and relationships. Nobody would wish their
addictions on their children. In our hearts we long to be free of
them. Listen to this voice of healing."
The most common addiction Cropley says he sees is addiction to
carbohydrates: bread, cereals, pastas, pastries, sweets. His
challenge: for 30 days, stop eating all carbohydrates except
vegetables and fruit.
Eating carbohydrates tells the body to convert food to fat, he says.
"Carbs increase our insulin levels, and insulin causes the carbs to be
stored as fat. This then makes us hungry again so that we eat more
carbohydrates and again store them as fat. Carbs are designed to keep
us eating them so we will become fat in order to survive the food
scarcity and rigors of winter."
Carbs naturally abound only for three months of the year in most
climates, but we now have easy access to processed carbs and sugary
treats all the time.
The impact of too many carbs and too much sugar on the body is
devastating, he says.
"In addition to weight gain and obesity, it is associated with the
most prevalent diseases in our civilization: high blood pressure,
cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, depression and the most
common cancers."
1. Sleep like a baby
Stop using an alarm clock. Go to bed early enough that your body
awakens naturally.
"Sleep deprivation has roughly the same effect on you as overeating
sugar," Cropley says. "It sets an array of biochemical imbalances in
the body. It elevates insulin, and insulin creates cravings for
sweets. It also causes weight gain. One of the best things you can do
to lose weight is to get enough sleep."
Sleep deprivation is also proven to raise a person's level of the
stress hormone cortisol, which can affect the immune system and cause
weight gain. Sleep deprivation is associated with obesity, high blood
pressure, Type II diabetes, breast, colon and prostate cancer, as well
as depression, cardiovascular disease, irritability, decreased
reaction time, impaired immune system and several forms of dementia,
Cropley says.
Caffeine, stress, medications, illness and physical pain can decrease
a person's ability to get enough sleep. But there are also lifestyle
issues. Watching television can lead to people staying up later than
they intended. And then there's the relatively new factor of electric
lights.
"If we went back 2,000 years and it was December, how much of the day
is darkness?" Cropley asks. "When the sun goes down, the body starts
converting serotonin to melatonin, and you get sleepy."
But electricity has enabled people to surround themselves with bright
light at any time of the day or night, and light has an impact on
people's ability to sleep, he says.
Cropley recommends the book Lights Out by T.S. Wiley for those
interested in looking into the issue of light and sleep and the role
that lack of sleep plays in modern health problems.
"The simple change of getting sufficient rest balances a biochemical
cascade that affects the foods that we crave, not to mention the
feelings of fatigue and all these patterns of illness that come out of
that," he says.
Lack of sleep can also make it difficult for a person to manage his or
her addictions, as a feeling of fatigue leads to cravings for
caffeine, sweets and other stimulants, he says.
The big picture
"People who want to have self-sustaining bodies need to recognize that
doctors are part of a cultural system that produces the very sickness
they claim they are trying to cure," Cropley says. "Commercial food
production, education and media, the FDA and insurance industry are
all expressions of the same sick system. This system has produced such
sickness that, as a culture, we literally cannot find a way to pay for
it. It is sick to the point of dying. Get yourself out of it. Stop
eating corporate food, believing conventional education/propaganda,
and relying on corporate medicine."
Overall, Cropley believes the goal ought to be to find the deeper
causes for your health problems. Sure, you have the flu. But what
about your lifestyle weakened your immune system to the degree where
exposure to the virus led to illness?
"Illness has causes," he says. "If you don't have a health care person
on your team who encourages you to search for the causes in your
personal life, you will continue to repeat the self-harming behaviors
that are causing your headaches or your high blood pressure. These
actions will continue to destroy your body in other ways. Taking a
pill for it doesn't address the real causes at all.
"Our conventional way of looking at our health as something for which
someone else is responsible is the very thinking that has led to our
present health crisis. Genuine health reform must be founded on a
reformation in our understanding of the causes of illness.
"We must refuse to accept as the total answer that our health problems
are due to diseases, genetics and other factors beyond our control.
Our personal health, just like the health of our environment, is our
responsibility."
Pamela White is editor of the Boulder Weekly, where this story first
appeared.
Happy Oyster
>Five things you can do to become more medically self-sufficient
[...]
>"We must refuse to accept as the total answer that our health problems
>are due to diseases, genetics and other factors beyond our control.
The critical words: "factors beyond our control"
The implication is that we CAN control our health. And THAT is a damned lie. The
liars behind the mega-scale craze is the naturopathic mafia, which sells their
junk to the people it betrays.
--
" Ich glaub, ans gro�e Weltgericht
glaubt selbst manch Pfarrer heute nicht."
rpautrey2
You get around.
VD?
On Jul 3, 8:17 pm, Happy Oyster <happy.oys...@ariplex.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Jul 2009 12:42:14 -0700 (PDT), rpautrey2 <rpautr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Five things you can do to become more medically self-sufficient
>
> [...]
>
> >"We must refuse to accept as the total answer that our health problems
> >are due to diseases, genetics and other factors beyond our control.
>
> The critical words: "factors beyond our control"
>
> The implication is that we CAN control our health. And THAT is a damned lie. The
> liars behind the mega-scale craze is the naturopathic mafia, which sells their
> junk to the people it betrays.
>
> --
> " Ich glaub, ans große Weltgericht
Raymond
" I believe, in the big Last Judgement
if even some priest does not believe today. "
Raymond
> http://www.csindy.com/colorado/dr-diy/Content?oid=1379267
>
> Five things you can do to become more medically self-sufficient
> by Pamela White
>
> America is in the midst of a health care crisis. Medical costs
> continue to soar, while the number of families who have access to
> affordable health insurance is in decline. Across the nation, people
> are waiting to see what reforms President Barack Obama and Congress
> plan to make to our current system, while some states, like Colorado,
> have explored initiating changes on their own.
>
> Many Americans hope to see a single-payer system put into place, but
> the ideas coming out of Washington, D.C., include disappointing
> options such as taxing employer health benefits to help fund an
> expansion of government health care programs; requiring every American
> to buy health insurance; and increasing private-sector competition
> among health-insurance companies.
>
> These are options that attempt to preserve our current health care
> system, health-insurance industry and all.
>
> So far, the debate on health care reform, which seems to be making
> little progress, centers on one question: who is going to pay for
> health care?
There seems to be no problem with who will pay for the Empires wars
and
the fact that we have troops in over one-hundred countries around the
globe.
We never question the costs of these unjustified conflicts or how long
they can
go on. Yet, the health of the many Americans, without health care, is
not as
important as killing millions of people because we do so well as
warmongers.
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move
in the opposite direction."
— Albert Einstein
> pressure, Type II ...
>
> read more »
Happy Oyster
>On Jul 3, 9:17?pm, Happy Oyster <happy.oys...@ariplex.com> wrote:
>> --
** " Ich glaub, ans grosse Weltgericht
** glaubt selbst manch Pfarrer heute nicht."
**
** http://www.reimbibel.de
>" I believe, in the big Last Judgement
> if even some priest does not believe today. "
"I think, that in the Last Judgement even a lot of priests do not believe
today."
It is a quote of the book "Reimbibel".
--
Spr�che Salomos:
"Wer reich ist, der herrscht, das ist keineswegs schlecht,
wer arm ist und borgt ist des Herrschenden Knecht."
Die Schreckliche Schrift in Reimen und Versen: http://www.reimbibel.de