HOW TO OBTAIN OPTIMUM NUTRITION
After the initial consultation, during which patients report all that is not well with them, I am told almost without fail that their diet is reasonable to very healthy.
Biological Terrain Analysis mostly confirms these ‘healthy’ diets to have unhealthy metabolic outcomes. Laboratory tests often confirm and specify vitamin & trace mineral deficiencies. So what patients think is healthy is not necessarily healthy for them. I know it is a tricky subject, misconceptions are rife. Optimum Nutrition aims to give you the best possible diet for your particular set of circumstances and this often involves nutritional supplementation. Patients ask me how long they should take this ‘course of supplementation’ for and the answer is ‘for as long as you have this set of circumstances.
As your circumstances change so does your need for and type of supplementation.
The nutrient balancing act your body performs daily is no different from you making ends meet with your income except that the body has no nice bank which allows an overdraft! The more nutrients are wasted by detoxification, the fewer nutrients remain available for their physiological functions. The British Society for Allergic, Environmental and Nutritional Medicine has written an excellent book in which there are lists of common outdoor and indoor pollutants that everybody has to deal with. The concept of slow, very low dosage poisoning however has not yet percolated through into daily medical practice. The implication is that a deficiency of essential nutrients is in part the cause of chronic degenerative disease.
SO, WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Abandon the established belief that everything your body needs can be derived from the food you eat. Most diets are woefully depleted of nutrients.
Dr.Med. Stephen Davies, Medical Director of BioLab Medical Unit (London) stated: ‘a helpful way of approaching the diagnosis and management of clinical problems is to consider any symptom or clinical sign as a manifestation of the individual’s failure to adapt adequately to the sum total of their environmental challenges’. The problem indeed is that of maladaptation; the world environment and diet have changed so dramatically in three generations that the evolution of man simply could not keep apace. The result is a dramatic and continuing rise in chronic degenerative diseases.
Intensive crop farming is not compatible with full-spectrum mineral-rich soil. Intensive animal farming is rarely compatible with good animal husbandry. By the time farm animals are routinely given preventative antibiotics not only have we lost the plot, but we are also evidently dealing with degenerate livestock. Pesticide & insecticide sprayed fruits are plucked whilst unripe and put in cold storage until the supermarkets signal the commercial need for it. For vegetables, the situation is not much better. If you still believe that everything your body needs can be obtained from the food you buy in your convenience store, you are sadly mistaken!
Taking essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals are very much like paying maintenance services on your motor car. Some patients complain ‘how do I know it is helping me I haven’t been unwell’. Smart thinking, why don’t you stop your car maintenance as well; push the brake pedal one day and tell yourself that its failure had nothing to do with the absence of maintenance. Of course, this requires a certain budget, life is all about making choices and this is just one of them.
Bio-individual supplementation is neither self-indulgence nor a luxury. In a polluted, stressful world full of demineralised foods, and tempting toxins, it is a tool to help you become well and stay healthy.
