If We Are What We Eat...
In the first year following my cancer diagnosis, I tried a variety of nutritional approaches to healing, including highly restrictive diets, juice-fasting, Chinese herbs, vitamins, and others. All of them had healed some people, and all are worth investigating for anyone facing health challenges.
If we are what we eat...
Diets and nutritional programs and products (vitamins, herbs, minerals, and other compounds) often derive from the same general medical model as conventional medicine: the body is viewed as a mechanism that can be corrected with the application of certain chemicals, whether foods or other ingestible products.
But nutritional approaches to health have helped many people, just as conventional medicine has. This may be due to the specific qualities of the foods or vitamins interacting with the body’s systems to promote health; or it may be due to “vibrational” qualities in certain foods. It could be the result of the placebo effect (see below), or of fields of morphic resonance(1) developed around certain foods or treatments. In the case of healing centers such as those using Gerson (2) juicing protocols, it is easy to imagine that a combination of loving care and past successes is extremely beneficial to patients, and is enough, in many cases, to kick-start their bodies’ healing.
One application of the nutritional approach to healing in recent years has been to seek out food allergies in the patient, systematically eliminating these foods from the diet. Often the results are dramatic, providing relief from numerous symptoms ranging from skin problems to migraine headaches. But again, how do these treatments fit with the most recent findings about the body? Some energy practitioners suggest that food allergies may develop when a person has eaten that food at the same time an emotional trauma occurs.(3) The body then associates the food with danger, and reacts to it. When the initial trauma is cleared, the allergies disappear.
However, any explanations of how nutritional treatments work are speculative until more data is accumulated. In the meanwhile, the nutritional approach has the great advantage of being without the horrendous side effects common to conventional treatment.
The Phenomenal, Ignored Placebo
In the medical community, the placebo effect is believed to account for one third of all healings.(4) This astonishing figure means that in one out of every three cases where people are cured, their cure is attributed to their belief in their treatment. The placebo effect applies not only to drugs, but to surgeries as well.(5) Yet, in medical schools, the placebo effect is barely mentioned.(6) The most likely explanation for this oversight is that the placebo effect does not fit into the mechanistic model of the body on which standard medical practice is founded.
Next time we'll take a look at the new science that is changing our ideas of what the body is and how it heals.
(1) Sheldrake, Rupert PhD., A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance, 1981, 1995.
(2) See an explanation of the protocols developed by Dr. Gerson at http://www.chipsa.com/gerson_juicing....
(3) See for example Sandy Rodomski’s Allergy Antedotes http://www.allergyantidotes.com/overv...
(4) Beecher, H.K., The Powerful Placebo, Journal of the American Dental Association, 1955.
(5) Moseley, J. B. et al., A controlled trial of arthoscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee, New England Journal of Medicine, 2002.
(6) Lipton, B. H. PhD., The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, 2008.
If we are what we eat...
Diets and nutritional programs and products (vitamins, herbs, minerals, and other compounds) often derive from the same general medical model as conventional medicine: the body is viewed as a mechanism that can be corrected with the application of certain chemicals, whether foods or other ingestible products.
But nutritional approaches to health have helped many people, just as conventional medicine has. This may be due to the specific qualities of the foods or vitamins interacting with the body’s systems to promote health; or it may be due to “vibrational” qualities in certain foods. It could be the result of the placebo effect (see below), or of fields of morphic resonance(1) developed around certain foods or treatments. In the case of healing centers such as those using Gerson (2) juicing protocols, it is easy to imagine that a combination of loving care and past successes is extremely beneficial to patients, and is enough, in many cases, to kick-start their bodies’ healing.
One application of the nutritional approach to healing in recent years has been to seek out food allergies in the patient, systematically eliminating these foods from the diet. Often the results are dramatic, providing relief from numerous symptoms ranging from skin problems to migraine headaches. But again, how do these treatments fit with the most recent findings about the body? Some energy practitioners suggest that food allergies may develop when a person has eaten that food at the same time an emotional trauma occurs.(3) The body then associates the food with danger, and reacts to it. When the initial trauma is cleared, the allergies disappear.
However, any explanations of how nutritional treatments work are speculative until more data is accumulated. In the meanwhile, the nutritional approach has the great advantage of being without the horrendous side effects common to conventional treatment.
The Phenomenal, Ignored Placebo
In the medical community, the placebo effect is believed to account for one third of all healings.(4) This astonishing figure means that in one out of every three cases where people are cured, their cure is attributed to their belief in their treatment. The placebo effect applies not only to drugs, but to surgeries as well.(5) Yet, in medical schools, the placebo effect is barely mentioned.(6) The most likely explanation for this oversight is that the placebo effect does not fit into the mechanistic model of the body on which standard medical practice is founded.
Next time we'll take a look at the new science that is changing our ideas of what the body is and how it heals.
(1) Sheldrake, Rupert PhD., A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance, 1981, 1995.
(2) See an explanation of the protocols developed by Dr. Gerson at http://www.chipsa.com/gerson_juicing....
(3) See for example Sandy Rodomski’s Allergy Antedotes http://www.allergyantidotes.com/overv...
(4) Beecher, H.K., The Powerful Placebo, Journal of the American Dental Association, 1955.
(5) Moseley, J. B. et al., A controlled trial of arthoscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee, New England Journal of Medicine, 2002.
(6) Lipton, B. H. PhD., The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, 2008.
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Brilliant remarks, Erik. Some progressive people are saying now that doctors should never, ever give a dire prognosis because of the "nacebo" (negative placebo) effect. But you're right that the potential for lawsuits is paralyzing to this kind of evolution!
Consciousness is surely what it is all about. Will add more comments at another stage. late here already in the southern hemisphere! Sleep is such an excellent remedy ... Rest, relaxation, deep breathing, letting go, surrender...
Thank you so much for your comment, Susan! Rest is indeed sublime, and I hope you got plenty!
Of course the cases where it became true would be phenomenal, and the cases where it didn't would be lawsuits. So maybe we aren't ready for something this radical yet, but harnessing the power of belief is essential to the medical establishment's evolution.