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SIA HOLISTIC HEALTH CENTRE WHAT WE DO: TO HELP YOU HELP YOURSELF GET WELL What is Functional Change? When I examine healthy individuals, the first thing that I notice is balance in the body. This is what HEALTH is…a balance within and between the body's spine and nervous system, its biochemical system and the neuro-emotional system. Applied Kinesiology allows me to identify dysfunction often long before it becomes a disease. This is a true method of prevention. In fact, there are only three causes of poor health; physical stresses such as trauma, chemical stresses which relate to what we eat, drink and breath, and emotional stresses. Dysfunction and/or disease cannot occur without an imbalance in one or more of these three parameters. The body's nervous system works to allow the body to adapt to ongoing stesses. This is okay as long as the body's nervous system is functioning optimally. But when it's not or if the stresses continue to build up to the point where adaptation is not possible, then first dysfunctional illnesses and then disease will develop. This is what we identify, correct and then prevent from recurring. What are some common signs of dysfunction in health? The most common ones I observe in my practice are: 2. Increased Fat Storage and Weight…In males this often shows up as the proverbial "beer belly" and in females, depending on body type, excess fat can be stored almost anywhere, especially the thighs and legs around the world the middle and the upper arms 3. Low Blood Sugar…This common condition also known as "hypoglycemia" is often prolonged and makes people feel shaky, agitated and moody. There is often almost immediate relief once food is eaten. People with low blood sugar also can feel dizziness and generally crave sweets, chocolate or caffeine. These people often experience massive swings in energy levels during the day. 4. Intestinal Bloating…Is often associated with carbohydrate intolerance, candida and parasite problems in the gut. People who suffer from bloating are producing gas and lots of it. 5. Allergies…Dysfunction in health often surfaces as common allergy like symptoms. Hay fever, sinus problems, asthma like symptoms and skin conditions such as excema or psoriasis are the common ones. This is usually indicative of digestive or elimination problems such as a "leaky gut" or constipation. 6. Increased Blood Pressure…People with hypertension (elevated blood pressure) always have elevated insulin levels. This indictes carbohydrate intolerance usually to certain types and amounts. 7. Elevated Cholesterol…This is a grey area and needs to be evaluated carefully and not just after a one off blood test. Cholesterol is essential in the body for hormone production so sometimes individuals with a higher range than "normal" are still fine based on their own specific hormone production 8. Depression…Many people who have been diagnosed with depression and placed on anti depressants are not clinically depressed. Rather, they have been mentally and physically exhausted for long periods of time and their nervous systems can no longer adapt to normal day to day stresses. These people benefit most by fixing their adrenal glands and their diets. 9. Addictions…To alcohol, caffeine, tobacco and other drugs are often a sign of a biochemical stress in the body. Because most of these drugs indirectly affect blood sugar levels, nutritional balance is important in fixing this problem. Carbohydrate intolerance is often the primary problem with drug addiction being the secondary symptom. What are some of the disease states that these dysfunctional illnesses can lead to? The most common are diabetes (type 2 adult onset diabetes), obesity, heart disease, hypertension, hyperlipidemia (high blood cholesterol and tryglycerides), strokes, hormonal changes such as polycystic ovaries, breast cancer and others. What is so important about detoxification? Detoxification should be part of every program designed to improve and maintain health. Ongoing biochemical stresses mainly involving the food we eat will eventually lead to alteration and destruction of the tissues, cells and organs of the body. The liver is a good example of the organ that should be cleansed on a regular basis. When the liver is sluggish and congested, the large intestine does not detoxify properly. This obviously leads to dysfunction in the large intestine and eventually disease. Irritable bowel syndrome is an early sign of this type of dysfunction. Failure to eliminate toxins over a longer period of time also is a key factor in the development of certain types of arthritis. So essentially, the body's inability to detox leads directly to some type of disease. This is not a question of if, this is a question of when.
This factor is so important I can't emphasize it enough. Most if not all people that seek help with their health care at the Sia Holistic Health Centre come into our office because they are experiencing some type of symptoms indicating they may have functional health problems. Our holistic analysis includes many factors of a person's lifestyle, for example, what are their day to day stress levels like. This includes things like taking care of the house/husband/children, part time or full time work, time to relax, exercise levels, bad habits (smoking for example) and especially the diet. In looking at all these lifestyle factors, we determine if the individual's energy levels on a day to day basis are enabling the body to adapt and cope with the day to day stresses we all go through. The most important lifestyle factors often involve diet and nutrition. These are sometimes very difficult for people to change.
In my opinion, nutrition is the biggest part of the health and wellness puzzle. As I've mentioned in my articles numerous times, the dietary guidelines advocated by government health agencies and other institutes recommend a daily calorie intake of 60-70% carbohydrates. I find people who consume this amount of carbohydrate, especially in the refined or high glycemic form, start to feel unwell. Fatigue, fat storage and digestive problems are some of the first indications of this. I find at least 75-80% of people do not tolerate the type and quantity of carbohydrates they eat. In Australia recent studies show 6 out of every 10 Australians are either overweight or obese, and obesity in children has tripled in the last decade. We have really lost the plot when it comes to food. I also find interesting that a lot of people I treat who are feeling unwell think that they are eating a good diet. Most often they are not The other thing I find is that people who are eating conventional food ie non organic food, are often deficient in essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are necessary for health in the body. These people in turn experience low energy states for most of the day and naturally turn to foods that produce "quick energy" pick ups - refined carbohydrates and sugars. These people experience huge "blood sugar" swings and are actually on a disastrous nutritionally deficient "merry go round".
Well you've heard the old saying "you can lead them to water but
you can't make them drink". This is so true, with some people who
come into our centre, the intent and desire to get well is there. These
people, with the right guidance will generally go okay. This is what I
call the ID, the intent and desire to get well. They have taken the first
step of calling up, making and keeping the appointment and going through
a holistic health care analysis. It's my job then to make sure these people
don't waste their time, energy and money by showing them how they can
take the necessary follow up action steps to attain and maintain health
and wellness. To successfully take these steps, people must take responsibility
for their health. People that do well on our programs are people that
assume this responsibility. We do a tremendous amount of work in our centre with fat burning. This is altogether different from "weight loss" which is mainly water loss. What I am interested in doing is showing people how to use the food they eat to reprogram their hormones to burn fat for energy and not store it in or on the body, There is no doubt that people who use a larger percent of fat for energy have less functional health complaints and are less likely to develop the dysfunction and diseases I talked about earlier. So as we shift the body into a fat burning situation, energy picks up and stays balanced unlike with people who try to run their bodies on sugar and experience the ups and downs of that type of fuel. There is no doubt that the body needs some sugar; for example, the brain runs mainly on the simple sugar glucose. Most people however consume far too many refined carbohydrates and sugar. As a result, their bodies store fat and get tired. Fat is far more effective fuel to run the body on, so much of my work involves working with individuals to find the types and amounts of carbohydrates they can consume without moving back to a "fat storage" situation. Without exception, if we are successful in helping the patient to burn fat, he or she experiences increased energy and improvements in health and well being.
NET or Neuro Emotional Technique is a methodology used to normalise unresolved physical and/or behavioral patterns in the body. It is a mind/body technique that addresses a physiological dysfunction. The best example I can give to explain this technique is a case I treated about six years ago. Case History: There is some excellent information the Internet provided by Dr. Scott Walker DC, the founder of NET Bookmark the site at www.netmindbody.com
In my opinion, it is important to realize that practitioners don't heal the body, whether they are medical doctors, chiropractic physicians, homeopaths, naturopaths or acupuncturists. Similarly, drugs, powders, potions, lotions and nutritional supplements don't heal either. Only the wisdom of the body/mind heals but sometimes the body/mind complex needs help in putting the healing process in motion Two main schools of thought exist concerning healing. One is the "mechanism" approach as practiced by conventional medicine and supported by the pharmaceutical industry. The doctrine of mechanism holds that all natural phenomena can be explained by material causes and mechanical principals. Most mechanistic practitioners today use drugs and surgery. The other school of thought is "vitalism". This approach is used by so called "alternative health care" practitioners who focus on the cause of the problem and how they can naturally correct this cause so the body can heal itself. In this last century mechanistic practices (conventional medicine) have peaked and are now falling. Vitalism is in its ascendancy. A study by D. M. Eisenberg in the journal of the American Medical Association, November 11 1998, showed an increase of 47.3% in visits to alternative health care practitioners from 1990 - 1997 in the USA. It appears from this study that people are choosing to move to health and wellness care and away from disease care. That move implies that more people are beginning to understand that there is more to health than just the absence of symptoms and instead are looking at optimising body function. In addition, people today generally realise that all prescribed drugs have side effects. Take for example a patient I saw recently who two years ago was put on cortisone to counter the affects of arthritic type pain in his joints. He's now off the cortisone but has put on 35kg of fat. To me, he looks like a heart attack waiting to happen.
The important thing to remember about hormones is that they are all part of the big health picture and not an entity unto themselves. Hormonal balance in the female body is intricately related to all other systems and dependent on these systems functioning optimally as well. These include above all the nervous system and organ systems such as the liver, the adrenal glands and thyroid gland. So it is vitally important to look at the holistic health of the woman who has signs and symptoms of hormonal imbalance.
By far the most common type of hormone imbalance in females is a state of oestrogen dominance…too much oestrogen coupled with a deficiency of progesterone. The following is a list of symptoms that are caused or made worse by oestrogen dominance.
Many women experience one or more of these symptoms from the onset of puberty and it is now widely accepted that synthetic oestrogens in food, water, cosmetics and the contraceptive pill can set up this oestrogen dominant situation very early in life. To complicate this life long hormonal imbalance, many women also experience anovulatory menstruation, ie a substantial proportion of menstruating women, long before menopause, are no longer ovulating. As a result, progesterone levels take a nose-dive and the hormones get further out of balance. Unfortunately, the medical/pharmaceutical mechanistic knee jerk response has been one of prescribed synthetic hormones. Whether it be in the form of the contraceptive pill or hormone replacement therapy, (HRT) women are being given more estrogen and now in the synthetic form. Already oestrogen dominant, and experiencing symptoms of this imbalance, doctors are giving them more oestrogen. There is something terribly wrong with this approach
Our approach to this type of hormonal dysfunction is both holistic (as mentioned previously) and vitalistic. This involves anlyzing and determining the causes of the oestrogen dominance and the progesterone deficiency, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of early action here. It is my belief that if all women addressed their hormonal situation as soon as possible in life, and fixed the causes of the imbalances, they'd be healthier and happier individuals up to, through and after menopause. John R. Lee MD, in his latest book "What your doctor may not tell you about pre menopause" talks about balancing female hormones from age 30-50. This is the pre menopause age bracket certainly, but prevention can start much earlier than that. Mothers need to learn from their hormonal successes and failures, and educate their daughters. In this respect, natural contraception when you make the effort to understand it and practice it is certainly as effective as the pill with no side effects. All it takes is a little knowledge and accepting responsibility for your hormonal health. I'd like to see women of all ages become more "aware" in this area. Awareness then leads to intelligent action.
There are many sources but perhaps the best are the following: 1. Regarding the use of Natural Progesterone as an alternative to HRT
· What your doctor may not tell you about Menopause And his website: www.johnleemd.com Leslie Kenton · Passage to power: Natural Menopause revolution
Francesca Nash. Dr Pirie is not able to answer personal health questions via the Internet. However, all your emails are read, and your questions and feedback are highly valued and appreciated. General health information can be found in Back Issues of Dr Pirie's column, In Fitness and in Health. If you have made the decision to improve your health and fitness, then now is the time to call the Sia Holistic Health Centre for an appointment with Dr Pirie. CONTACT US: to
make an appointment on (07) 5477 1599 You may also be interested to read a recent interview with Brian Prong, a Columnist with the Victoria Times, British Columbia Canada: Read the interview here: .CHIROPRACTIC, APPLIED KINESIOLOGY AND OPTIMAL SPORT PERFORMANCE |
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