Ancient Medical Wisdom: All Disease Begins in the Gut
All Diseases Begin In the Gut
Hippocrates 460-370 BC
The traditional healing systems such as Ayurveda from India and the Traditional Oriental Medical system both saw the body as an energy field and built elaborate healing sciences around the concept that the body is an energy field. Today we know from Einstein that this is indeed correct, that what is energy is matter and what is matter is energy, from the famous equation E=MC2.
One of the greatest gifts that the energy science of Ayurveda gives us is the understanding of how all diseases begin in the body. Ayurveda began with this understanding 5000 years ago and the Greeks who were students of the medical disciplines of India began to realize this as well, hence leading to the above quote from Hippocrates that all diseases begin in the gut.
And this has been my experience in practicing the matter field discipline of urology in the office over the past 14 years. I have even written a scientific paper showing among other things that acidity in the gut as experienced with acid indigestion is associated with increased acidity in the urinary tract as experienced with nonbacterial cystitis or interstitial cystitis. Or using acid as the molecular marker, this same gut imbalance can lead to elevated PSA.
So this simple observation from the energy science healing traditions can give our current matter field healing discipline valuable insight as to the propagation of disease and the interrelationship of disease.
And this observation is why nutrition is central to prevention of disease! Eating foods that resonate with your own physiology on a regular basis, avoiding poor food combinations, ensuring a good digestive fire to burn slip ups, and paying attention to the interrogatories of nutrition will ensure optimal health.
Have a great week To Health as a Skill Love DrBill
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5 Ways to Assess Bowel Health
If you have good bowel health you won't need any medication but if you have poor bowel health all the herbs in
the world won't help you
The above aphorism says much about the importance of bowel health Unfortunately little is said about bowel health in the current matter science practice for many different reasons but one of the most salient is that the matter science medical model does not place much emphasis on the topic This may be changing as studies on bacterial systems and their importance evolve but for now, bowel health is really up to you
The energy science medical model of Ayurveda says that the origin of all disease is from the GI tract This is in great contrast to how we view the bowel Currently the bowel is a mechanical tube that takes what we give it, wholesome or not
A video I did some months ago on the GI tract discusses a healthy GI tract in reference to some well known chronic diseases such as IBS, GERD, and fibromyalgia
Click on the link above to watch the video
5 Ways to Assess Bowel Health
1 Evaluation of the tongue This check in the morning after scraping your tongue is valuable in telling whether there is stagnant energy in the body by whether there is a coating or not
2 Strength of agni The digestive fire that I talk about in the video is the most important aspect to maintaining health We don't have this type of concept in the matter science medical discipline You can assess this by asking "How's my appetite?" If it's balanced and there is no challenge for overeating or snacking this is a good sign The second and more important question is "How do I feel after eating?" If you aren't satisfied or you have bloating or other complaints then you have problems with agni
3 Bowel elimination or regularity You should have a bowel movement each morning on awakening and usually within 2 hours after each meal Otherwise you are constipated or having too loose movements with diarrhea
4 Clarity or confusion This is sometimes a difficult symptom to assess since we all feel we have clarity But at times we become aware of the fact that we are having trouble figuring things out This is a directly related to poor bowel health
5 Frequency of nail trimming This may seem way out there but mineral absorption from the GI tract is related to good bowel health and if you're regularly trimming your nails then you're absorbing properly and bowel health is good
All the best To Health as a Skill Love DB
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5 Energy Science Ways to Deal With The Common Cold
When the qualities of Kapha(heavy, slow/dull, cool, slimy/smooth, oily, liquid, dense, static, gross, and sticky/cloudy) pile up during the winter months the mindbody naturally wants to shed these in the springtime to restore balance(eg too much heavy, liquid, dense, slimy smooth, sticky/cloudy qualites) If excessive these qualities are released in the form of mucous from the nose and airways(trachea, bronchi) It is the cool quality of Kapha that gives the name to this condition as the common "cold"
Qualities accumulate due to foods consumed with inadequate digestive fire, foods inappropriate for your body's energy makeup, and incompatible food combinations, with less accumulation due to wintertime's environmental factors, At other times there can be releases(cold, cough, and congestion) from past years if the individual is moving to higher states of health
Green Is Mean
The color of Pitta the energy of transformation is yellow to green The excess accumulated Pitta energy pattern is always present with inflammation so when these colors show up in the mucous you can be certain infection is present On the other hand the color of Kapha mucous is clear or white If just Kapha release is happening then no antibiotic is necessary
At the first sign of green or yellow mucous you should begin using antibiotics This is particularly the case when there have been previous bouts of bronchitis or not feeling strong during the wintertime season Green to yellow mucous implies that the body's immune status working to clear an infection And it doesn't make any difference if the green appears late or early For example if the green shows up in the first one or two days of mucous discharge antibiotics would still be the first choice in management Probiotics should be considered if you begin antibiotics to maintain a healthy gut bowel flora
Reducing Metabolic Load
You've heard of the common adage starve a cold, feed a fever Or is it the opposite feed a cold starve a fever? The energy science of Ayurveda can help us here Since Kapha is a hypometabolic state to begin with, it doesn't make sense to feed it more The digestive power is compromised
Therefore it makes sense to starve a cold and feed a fever Obvously I'm not talking about complete water fasting but doing juices is best eg apple and pomegranite or foods that are Kapha pacifying So chicken soup with rough(counters the slimy smooth quality) soda crackers becomes an excellent choice for the diet when going through Kapha release but not milky creamy soups
Remember Incompatible Food Combinations
If you are going to use foods be sure that the foods are compatible with one another Poor food combining can result in congestion and interfere with the Kapha release It makes complete sense that if you have excess heavy, slimy/smooth, cloudy/sticky being released you would not want to add more of these qualities in your nutritional format Examples include all dairy(cheees, yogurt, milk) almond milk is OK, nuts(heavy and oily), oils unless light, uncooked foods, heavy grains(oatmeal,wheat, yeasted breads) and of course no sugar Best to emphasize the tastes of pungent, bitter, and astringent
Buck Up Your Digestive Fire
Because Kapha is heavy, it takes a lot of energy to burn up Kapha molecules so the stronger your digestion through this process of Kapha release the better Of course the first rule of thumb is don't add any more Kapha molecules to the system in terms of food but at the same time by stoking your central digestive fire you strengthen all the digestive fires in the body including those that are trying to release these heavy qualities So for example the sweet taste is Kapha provoking so using sugary cough drops makes no sense
I mentioned probiotics above as intestinal bacteria are integral part of the concept of digestive fire I have covered other nutritional techniques in another post including ginger pickle which is a great way to enhance digestive fire
Herbal Remedies
The best remedy for colds is ginger and using it in combination with cinnamon, cardamom to make teas for a straightforward cold For colds with a productive cough making teas with dry powdered cloves, cinnamon, dry ginger is useful These heating spices(herbs) help with warming the cool quality of Kapha
Simple black pepper from the table is good to use since it burns off the Kapha qualities Pippali is a great herb to use for the lungs and should be considered when there are repeated bronchitis attacks in an individual's history Honey is heating and using this with or without ghee(in equal volumes) is useful as tissue buildup(improves immunity) but also aids in the clearance of Kapha qualities
Just remember you can take all the herbs in the world but if you haven't done anything about your nutritional choices you're wasting your time
Until next time To Health as a Skill Love DrBill
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