I really want health care reform to succeed. In fact, much of my book, "Your Inner Pharmacy", is dedicated to the necessity of reforming our approach to health care. Clearly, the only way in which health care reform will succeed is for it to bring us better (more efficient and effective) health care in a sustainable manner. Current proposals, however, have primarily focused on expanding our broken system to cover more people, without correcting the underlying faults of our existing broken system.
If we want health care reform to succeed, it is essential to address two critical issues that are nowhere near the forefront of current discussions.
First is the prevailing attitude of American people that somehow our health is the responsibility of our government, our employer, or our insurance provider.
The second is the fact that over seventy-five percent of the dollars spent on health care are for chronic disease, much of which is self-inflicted by our lifestyles. The chronic diseases are not ones that we "catch" or get infected with; they are ones that we develop when the regulatory systems of our bodies become overwhelmed, depleted, and cease their normal function.
A new and realistic way of looking at chronic disease is in order. The first 30 pages of "Your Inner Pharmacy" address this in depth.
Until we deal with these societal and cultural factors that have created our health care crisis, the discussion will continue to be entangled in issues of who is going to pay for the expansion and continuation of a broken system.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Friday, October 5, 2007
Want to get more oxygen to your brain, twenty-four hours a day?
The diaphragm is the second most important muscle in the body, second only to the heart. Yet the average person's diaphragm muscle is working at far less than 100% of its ability. Because the diaphragm is the pump that determines how much oxygen comes into our systems, anything less than 100% of normal function of this vital muscle means less oxygen to our brains as well as all our muscles and internal organs.
In my book, Your Inner Pharmacy, I explain more about the diaphragm and how its function can be improved to help you to be more healthy, whether you are an aspiring Olympic athlete, an average person with frequent heartburn, or concerned about and perhaps battling with dementia.
I am including a few exerpts from my book that may get you interested in optimizing the function of your own diaphragm muscle.......
Good diaphragm function is important for your health and vitality. Antioxidants, found in fruits and vegetables, can be quite helpful. But the best antioxidant is oxygen itself. If you improve your body’s ability to deliver oxygen to its own tissues, you reduce oxidative stress and tissue damage throughout your body and slow the decline in body function that occurs with aging.
While I recommend that many of my patients take antioxidant nutrients, I definitely want to optimize the vital function of their diaphragm muscle. I test for it in almost every patient, regardless of their symptoms, because I know that by correcting it, I have a good chance of helping their digestion, mental function, and overall energy and well-being.
One reason for the recent increase in diaphragm-related problems in younger people is that a sedentary lifestyle generally means more sitting, poor posture, and shallow breathing. Like any other muscle, the diaphragm must be used. I turn on the switch through treatment, and the patient puts in a fresh bulb by breathing properly and exercising. If we each do our part, the light goes on.
Dr. Blaich is an internationally recognized natural healthcare expert, both as a physician and a teacher. Dr. Blaich has recently released Your Inner Pharmacy, a book which bridges the divide between traditional and alternative medicine; showing how patients can receive the best from all modalities of healthcare. For more information on his book and his philosophies on health and wellness, visit www.yourinnerpharmacy.com.
While I recommend that many of my patients take antioxidant nutrients, I definitely want to optimize the vital function of their diaphragm muscle. I test for it in almost every patient, regardless of their symptoms, because I know that by correcting it, I have a good chance of helping their digestion, mental function, and overall energy and well-being.
One reason for the recent increase in diaphragm-related problems in younger people is that a sedentary lifestyle generally means more sitting, poor posture, and shallow breathing. Like any other muscle, the diaphragm must be used. I turn on the switch through treatment, and the patient puts in a fresh bulb by breathing properly and exercising. If we each do our part, the light goes on.
Dr. Blaich is an internationally recognized natural healthcare expert, both as a physician and a teacher. Dr. Blaich has recently released Your Inner Pharmacy, a book which bridges the divide between traditional and alternative medicine; showing how patients can receive the best from all modalities of healthcare. For more information on his book and his philosophies on health and wellness, visit www.yourinnerpharmacy.com.
Why Take Nutritional Supplements, When You Already Have a Powerful Inner Pharmacy?
Which chemicals your inner pharmacy produces, as well as the quantity of those chemicals, is highly influenced by the raw materials available in your body.
In other words, the building blocks that you provide to your inner pharmacy through your diet and nutritional supplements greatly determines what chemicals can be created within your body that govern your physical and mental state.
Want to produce more anti-inflammatory chemicals of your own? Your body will naturally do it, but it requires specific building blocks including omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, niacin, vitamins B-6, E (although not too much E), C, magnesium, zinc, and calcium.
If you really want to get your body making more anti-inflammatory chemicals, my recent book, Your Inner Pharmacy, will guide you in the process.
Your lifestyle, including your exercise, can stimulate the conversion of these raw materials into good chemicals that can help to minimize the deterioration of your body. While everyone's body battles excesses of inflammation in the aging process, to a great extent, it is our genes that determine where we are most prone to inflammation. It could be joints (arthritis), the cardiovascular system (heart disease and dementtia), the digestive system, or the respiratory system, to take several examples. Regardless of its location in your body, the inflammation is a similar process, and your lifestyle (including your diet and the supplements you take) can either aggravate it or improve it.
Here's another huge reason for taking nutritional supplements.
The right supplements for you will bring you mental clarity, give you more energy, and help you to feel motivated to be more healthy.....all of which means you will be more inclined to persue a healthy lifestyle and to stay on a balanced track of eating and thinking "healthy" and exercising regularly.
It's true, and "the right supplements FOR YOU" is one of the keys. The other key is having and taking extremely high quality supplements.
This is pretty basic, but the two biggest reasons most people don't take supplements are: 1) they don't what to take or how much, and 2) they don't know the quality of various supplements or even how to tell if they contain what the labels say they do.
My website, yourinnerpharmacy.com, offers a solution to bothof these dilemmas.
The start2health section of my site contains a questionnaire that helps to match you to a set of high quality supplements that would be most beneficial for YOU. These supplements will provide your inner pharmacy with building blocks that it can then use to make more good chemicals that improve your health and well-being.
Remember, the supplements are only one piece of a healthy lifestyle, but they are an extremely important piece....especially if they help you to feel more naturally energetic and motivated, you will be much more likely to make healthy decisions about the rest of your lifestyle.
Dr. Blaich is an internationally recognized natural healthcare expert, both as a physician and a teacher. Dr. Blaich has recently released Your Inner Pharmacy, a book which bridges the divide between traditional and alternative medicine; showing how patients can receive the best from all modalities of healthcare. For more information on his book and his philosophies on health and wellness, visit www.yourinnerpharmacy.com.
In other words, the building blocks that you provide to your inner pharmacy through your diet and nutritional supplements greatly determines what chemicals can be created within your body that govern your physical and mental state.
Want to produce more anti-inflammatory chemicals of your own? Your body will naturally do it, but it requires specific building blocks including omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, niacin, vitamins B-6, E (although not too much E), C, magnesium, zinc, and calcium.
If you really want to get your body making more anti-inflammatory chemicals, my recent book, Your Inner Pharmacy, will guide you in the process.
Your lifestyle, including your exercise, can stimulate the conversion of these raw materials into good chemicals that can help to minimize the deterioration of your body. While everyone's body battles excesses of inflammation in the aging process, to a great extent, it is our genes that determine where we are most prone to inflammation. It could be joints (arthritis), the cardiovascular system (heart disease and dementtia), the digestive system, or the respiratory system, to take several examples. Regardless of its location in your body, the inflammation is a similar process, and your lifestyle (including your diet and the supplements you take) can either aggravate it or improve it.
Here's another huge reason for taking nutritional supplements.
The right supplements for you will bring you mental clarity, give you more energy, and help you to feel motivated to be more healthy.....all of which means you will be more inclined to persue a healthy lifestyle and to stay on a balanced track of eating and thinking "healthy" and exercising regularly.
It's true, and "the right supplements FOR YOU" is one of the keys. The other key is having and taking extremely high quality supplements.
This is pretty basic, but the two biggest reasons most people don't take supplements are: 1) they don't what to take or how much, and 2) they don't know the quality of various supplements or even how to tell if they contain what the labels say they do.
My website, yourinnerpharmacy.com, offers a solution to bothof these dilemmas.
The start2health section of my site contains a questionnaire that helps to match you to a set of high quality supplements that would be most beneficial for YOU. These supplements will provide your inner pharmacy with building blocks that it can then use to make more good chemicals that improve your health and well-being.
Remember, the supplements are only one piece of a healthy lifestyle, but they are an extremely important piece....especially if they help you to feel more naturally energetic and motivated, you will be much more likely to make healthy decisions about the rest of your lifestyle.
Dr. Blaich is an internationally recognized natural healthcare expert, both as a physician and a teacher. Dr. Blaich has recently released Your Inner Pharmacy, a book which bridges the divide between traditional and alternative medicine; showing how patients can receive the best from all modalities of healthcare. For more information on his book and his philosophies on health and wellness, visit www.yourinnerpharmacy.com.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Want to get more oxygen to your brain, twenty-four hours a day?
The diaphragm is the second most important muscle in the body, second only to the heart. Yet the average person's diaphragm muscle is working at far less than 100% of its ability. Because the diaphragm is the pump that determines how much oxygen comes into our systems, anything less than 100% of normal function of this vital muscle means less oxygen to our brains as well as all our muscles and internal organs.
In my book, Your Inner Pharmacy, I explain more about the diaphragm and how its function can be improved to help you to be more healthy, whether you are an aspiring Olympic athlete, an average person with frequent heartburn, or concerned about and perhaps battling with dementia.
I am including a few exerpts from my book that may get you interested in optimizing the function of your own diaphragm muscle.......
Good diaphragm function is important for your health and vitality. Antioxidants, found in fruits and vegetables, can be quite helpful. But the best antioxidant is oxygen itself. If you improve your body’s ability to deliver oxygen to its own tissues, you reduce oxidative stress and tissue damage throughout your body and slow the decline in body function that occurs with aging.
While I recommend that many of my patients take antioxidant nutrients, I definitely want to optimize the vital function of their diaphragm muscle. I test for it in almost every patient, regardless of their symptoms, because I know that by correcting it, I have a good chance of helping their digestion, mental function, and overall energy and well-being.
How can the function of the diaphragm be improved? The first step, as with any malfunctioning muscle, is to identify what could be inhibiting or weakening the muscle. With the diaphragm, there are common patterns of weakness. The nerves that stimulate the diaphragm exit the spine in two areas, the neck or mid-cervical spine and the lower thoracic spine, where the ribcage ends. If these spinal areas are misaligned or fixated (failing to move properly), there can be a reflex inhibition, or weakness, of the diaphragm.
Other common faulty mechanisms can affect the diaphragm. If the rib cage is not moving freely on either side, usually from past injury, the motion of the diaphragm can be limited. A common pelvic or lower-back misalignment creates a torquing in the body that limits diaphragm motion. If the cranial bones are misaligned or limited in their normal respiratory motion, this can prevent a person from breathing deeply. An important lower-back supporting muscle, the psoas, attaches indirectly to the diaphragm. A common imbalance of this muscle can also compromise the diaphragm. Many people with low-back problems have an imbalance of this muscle.
All of these are switches that commonly disturb the normal function of the diaphragm. To obtain normal function of the diaphragm, a healthcare provider has to determine which biomechanics are impeding its normal function. Treatment then entails manipulation or adjustments to specific areas of the spine that affect nerves leading to the diaphragm, or the correction of other muscle imbalances as well as a manipulation to the stomach itself.
Consider what frequently happens to the stomach over a lifetime. As we age, our shoulders and upper back can become increasingly hunched over. In mechanical terms, thoracic kyphosis increases, or we get more kyphotic. Try this: hunch over for a moment and try to take a deep breath. It’s difficult, because there is no room for your diaphragm to move when you are in that position. If you were constantly in that position, you’d never be able to take a deep breath and, of course, your brain would receive less oxygen. Furthermore, in that position your stomach is compressed up into your diaphragm, putting extra pressure on the esophageal sphincter and challenging its ability to keep the contents of your stomach out of your esophagus. Now, sit or stand up straight and take in a deep breath. Not only can you inhale more oxygen, but you might even feel your head clear immediately.
One reasons for the recent increase in diaphragm-related problems in younger people is that a sedentary lifestyle generally means more sitting, poor posture, and shallow breathing. Like any other muscle, the diaphragm must be used. I turn on the switch through treatment, and the patient puts in a fresh bulb by breathing properly and exercising. If we each do our part, the light goes on. For most people, a couple of visits are sufficient to correct a diaphragm imbalance. They may need to have it checked or fixed periodically to maintain the correction, especially if they don’t exercise, if they overeat and lie down too soon after eating, or if they are under a lot of stress. For some older people who are already quite hunched over, I may not be able to fully correct the problem, but usually I can maintain some significant amount of improvement through periodic treatments.
Stress can adversely affect the diaphragm in several ways. In stressful situations, you naturally tighten up. You breathe less deeply and sometimes feel tightness in your chest. I frequently remind people to breathe deeply during stressful times or even when working intensely in a stationary position. A more extreme example of diaphragm tightness is caused by a physical trauma. Most of us have had the wind knocked out of us from a fall or a physical injury, which is a good reminder of what a spastic diaphragm feels like.
Emotional traumas and stresses can have a similar tightening effect on the diaphragm. On a deeper level, chronic stress can really upset the diaphragm. The body’s sphincter muscles, such as the esophageal sphincter, are controlled by the autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic nerves tighten the sphincters, while the parasympathetic nerves relax them. When you are exhausted from constant encounters with saber-toothed tigers, your sympathetic nervous system (which enables the fight-or-flee response) is depleted and may be unable to maintain the normal tone of the sphincters. This laxity of the sphincter then predisposes you to gastric reflux. If you are chronically stressed, adjustments and corrections that selectively stimulate specific parts of the nervous system are useful, as is taking specific vitamins and nutrients that will provide the building blocks to rebuild exhausted parts and functions of the body. And of course, you must commit yourself to lifestyle changes that reduce the effects of the saber-toothed tiger on your body so your body can heal itself.
In my book, Your Inner Pharmacy, I explain more about the diaphragm and how its function can be improved to help you to be more healthy, whether you are an aspiring Olympic athlete, an average person with frequent heartburn, or concerned about and perhaps battling with dementia.
I am including a few exerpts from my book that may get you interested in optimizing the function of your own diaphragm muscle.......
Good diaphragm function is important for your health and vitality. Antioxidants, found in fruits and vegetables, can be quite helpful. But the best antioxidant is oxygen itself. If you improve your body’s ability to deliver oxygen to its own tissues, you reduce oxidative stress and tissue damage throughout your body and slow the decline in body function that occurs with aging.
While I recommend that many of my patients take antioxidant nutrients, I definitely want to optimize the vital function of their diaphragm muscle. I test for it in almost every patient, regardless of their symptoms, because I know that by correcting it, I have a good chance of helping their digestion, mental function, and overall energy and well-being.
How can the function of the diaphragm be improved? The first step, as with any malfunctioning muscle, is to identify what could be inhibiting or weakening the muscle. With the diaphragm, there are common patterns of weakness. The nerves that stimulate the diaphragm exit the spine in two areas, the neck or mid-cervical spine and the lower thoracic spine, where the ribcage ends. If these spinal areas are misaligned or fixated (failing to move properly), there can be a reflex inhibition, or weakness, of the diaphragm.
Other common faulty mechanisms can affect the diaphragm. If the rib cage is not moving freely on either side, usually from past injury, the motion of the diaphragm can be limited. A common pelvic or lower-back misalignment creates a torquing in the body that limits diaphragm motion. If the cranial bones are misaligned or limited in their normal respiratory motion, this can prevent a person from breathing deeply. An important lower-back supporting muscle, the psoas, attaches indirectly to the diaphragm. A common imbalance of this muscle can also compromise the diaphragm. Many people with low-back problems have an imbalance of this muscle.
All of these are switches that commonly disturb the normal function of the diaphragm. To obtain normal function of the diaphragm, a healthcare provider has to determine which biomechanics are impeding its normal function. Treatment then entails manipulation or adjustments to specific areas of the spine that affect nerves leading to the diaphragm, or the correction of other muscle imbalances as well as a manipulation to the stomach itself.
Consider what frequently happens to the stomach over a lifetime. As we age, our shoulders and upper back can become increasingly hunched over. In mechanical terms, thoracic kyphosis increases, or we get more kyphotic. Try this: hunch over for a moment and try to take a deep breath. It’s difficult, because there is no room for your diaphragm to move when you are in that position. If you were constantly in that position, you’d never be able to take a deep breath and, of course, your brain would receive less oxygen. Furthermore, in that position your stomach is compressed up into your diaphragm, putting extra pressure on the esophageal sphincter and challenging its ability to keep the contents of your stomach out of your esophagus. Now, sit or stand up straight and take in a deep breath. Not only can you inhale more oxygen, but you might even feel your head clear immediately.
One reasons for the recent increase in diaphragm-related problems in younger people is that a sedentary lifestyle generally means more sitting, poor posture, and shallow breathing. Like any other muscle, the diaphragm must be used. I turn on the switch through treatment, and the patient puts in a fresh bulb by breathing properly and exercising. If we each do our part, the light goes on. For most people, a couple of visits are sufficient to correct a diaphragm imbalance. They may need to have it checked or fixed periodically to maintain the correction, especially if they don’t exercise, if they overeat and lie down too soon after eating, or if they are under a lot of stress. For some older people who are already quite hunched over, I may not be able to fully correct the problem, but usually I can maintain some significant amount of improvement through periodic treatments.
Stress can adversely affect the diaphragm in several ways. In stressful situations, you naturally tighten up. You breathe less deeply and sometimes feel tightness in your chest. I frequently remind people to breathe deeply during stressful times or even when working intensely in a stationary position. A more extreme example of diaphragm tightness is caused by a physical trauma. Most of us have had the wind knocked out of us from a fall or a physical injury, which is a good reminder of what a spastic diaphragm feels like.
Emotional traumas and stresses can have a similar tightening effect on the diaphragm. On a deeper level, chronic stress can really upset the diaphragm. The body’s sphincter muscles, such as the esophageal sphincter, are controlled by the autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic nerves tighten the sphincters, while the parasympathetic nerves relax them. When you are exhausted from constant encounters with saber-toothed tigers, your sympathetic nervous system (which enables the fight-or-flee response) is depleted and may be unable to maintain the normal tone of the sphincters. This laxity of the sphincter then predisposes you to gastric reflux. If you are chronically stressed, adjustments and corrections that selectively stimulate specific parts of the nervous system are useful, as is taking specific vitamins and nutrients that will provide the building blocks to rebuild exhausted parts and functions of the body. And of course, you must commit yourself to lifestyle changes that reduce the effects of the saber-toothed tiger on your body so your body can heal itself.
Friday, September 7, 2007
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