Nutritional Medicine 101

The sun has been out much more these last few days...so trying to catch some rays each day....it is so nice....I just hope I can get out on some more excursions soon to actually see some more of Hawaii's beauty...It is hard to be in Hawaii and not be able to see waterfalls, beaches, etc....they say we are going on an excursion tomorrow...sunday...I hope I will feel up to it!

Ok...so today I will leave you with a 101 class lesson. Nutritional Medicine uses sophisticated labratory testing to examine biochemical imbalances in the body. More simply said....samples of urine, blood, saliva, stool and/or hair are taken to determine your levels of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids and toxin levels. Doctors that use Nutritional Medicine use the test results to design a diet and supplementation, which will regenerate balance into the body. In traditional medicine doctors are trained to diagnose and then use various drugs that can help with a particular symptom. This approach usually does not address the cause of the problem but only improves the symptoms. Nutritional Medicine is not to be confused with Herbal Medicine either. Herbal Medicines are used as alternative therapy that can produce pharmaceutical effects similar to drugs. They are NOT natural to the body. Nutritional medicine consists only of foods, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fatty acids which are part of the body so consequently are very low in toxity compared to herbs.

The lab work I am getting done will help determine the root casue of all my symptoms...whether it is heavy metal toxicity (which the doctor is suspecting), malabsorption of nutrients or simply a deficiency in some vitamin or mineral. One of my very, very first blog entries talks about this....ALL degenerative diseases.....are caused by two things and ONLY two things: Toxins or Nutritional Deficiency. So, my goal is to try to find out what the underlining cause is! All of these findings will only enhance the Gerson Therapy I am already doing. Gerson Therapy is a definite form of Nutritional Medicine, but once I have these detailed labs we can adjust detox methods and supplements accordingly.

So can someone tell me what the heck am I paying a doctor for again? Ok well she did tell me about the website metametrix.com. It is all about your doctor being your 'health partner' as you must learn to be your own well educated health advocate.