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Shifting the Germ Theory Paradigm

Since the founding of the germ theory of disease, scientists have offered a holistic perspective. At long last, their efforts are taking hold.

I grew up in a household afraid of germs. When my sister was born, my father had all guests put on surgical masks to protect her. We all had our tonsils taken out “just because,” and antibiotics were considered a miracle discovered by science. My generation was the one first introduced to fast food—we really believed it was food! Our mothers were sold the idea that formula could be better than breast milk. So began the modern, manipulated, misdirected generation.

Fortunately, before I had my kids, I was introduced to chiropractic. I discovered the body’s amazing intelligence and its innate ability to heal itself. I learned about nourishment, a healthy attitude and a functional nervous system. Among the many teachings of chiropractic’s founder, D.D. Palmer, and his son, B.J., I was most fascinated with B.J.’s comment, “If the ‘germ theory of disease’ were correct, there’d be no one living to believe it.”

Fortunately, my husband and I were able to live the “chiropractic lifestyle” with our kids. Years before the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended breastfeeding (yes, they finally did in the ’90s) we were strong advocates for it. Long before the allopathic healthcare system was recognizing the importance of nutrition, we as chiropractors were recommending and consuming good, wholesome, pesticide-free foods.

In 1951, again far ahead of the times, B.J. Palmer published a statement warning against the use of antibiotics. We knew that germs were not the cause of disease and we cautioned against the overuse of antibiotics decades before USA Today headlined their dangers in the 1990s. We also let our kids play in the sunshine (without toxic sunscreen) and in the backyard dirt, decades before the study came out saying exposure to animals and dirt is healthier than living in antimicrobial households. We insisted that symptoms should not be suppressed with drugs, but rather allowed to run their course while addressing the cause (which is actually the path of healing, not disease). When we questioned the use of vaccines (a practice rooted in mainstream, germ-phobic theories) we were further scorned for our blasphemous perspective.

We met other practitioners—naturopaths, homeopaths, midwives and herbalists, as well as parents who also understood these basic principles—and we rejoiced that there were others who were living from this logical but undermined paradigm. But we remained a marginalized group. Often ostracized, certainly ridiculed…and in some instances, violently opposed.

Understanding the Paradigm

The germ theory proposes that microorganisms are the overriding cause of many diseases. It was initiated by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century when he examined humans and animals that showed signs of being sick and found that they had very high levels of bacteria and viruses compared to those who were not sick. He then made the assumption that germs infect our body and cause sickness and disease. Pasteur, along with German physician Robert Koch, is considered one of the fathers of the germ theory. The practice of allopathic, conventional medicine to this day is still based on this theory.

Less known is that several of Pasteur’s contemporaries refuted his idea that germs cause disease. Claude Bernard, a colleague and physiologist of that era, resolved that the health of the individual was determined by her internal environment. “The terrain is everything,” he wrote; “the germ is nothing.” Other scientists tested Bernard’s theory. Elie Metchnikoff, a Russian immunologist a generation younger than Bernard and Pasteur, suggested that a synergistic interaction exists between bacteria and its host. He, too, claimed that germs were not the problem. To prove it, he consumed cultures containing millions of cholera bacteria; he lived to write about it, and didn’t even get sick.

His contemporary, French chemist and biologist Antoine Bechamp, also believed that a healthy body would be immune to harmful bacteria, and only a weakened body could harbor harmful bacteria. His research contributed to this understanding when he discovered that there were living organisms in our bodies called microzymas, which essentially form into healthy cells in the healthy body and morph into unhealthy cells when the terrain is less than ideal. The conclusion: Germs do not invade us, but rather are “grown” within us when there is diseased tissue to live on.

Rudolf Virchow, another 19th-century scientist (dubbed the Father of Pathology), wrote, “If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat—diseased tissue— rather than being the cause of diseased tissue; e.g. mosquitoes seek the stagnant water, but do not cause the pool to become stagnant.”

In this day and age, we have been taught that germs— bacteria and viruses—are bad, which ignores the vital functions they perform. They are designed to decompose dead and dying material. Germs are our planet’s recyclers; without them, life on earth couldn’t exist.

Out of the billions of bacteria and viruses we have in our bodies, most are considered “friendly germs.” Bacteria is essential for proper digestion and it scavenges dead cells in our body so they can be replaced by new healthy cells. When our body tissues become weak due to poor health management, normal bacteria and viruses start to multiply and scavenge our unhealthy, dying cells. Our immune system responds as a survival mechanism and we develop the symptoms of being “sick,” but the germs are just doing their job.

The question then becomes, what creates sickness and illness? Is it the germs or is it an unhealthy body? It has been said that on Pasteur’s deathbed, he admitted that Bernard was right and he, Pasteur, was wrong. Nonetheless, an era of antibiotic drugs, chemical pesticides and herbicides, vaccines and antibacterial soaps has ensued, resulting in a germphobic society and a pharmaceutical empire to lead the attack. But even worse, all of these weapons have interfered with the body’s natural microbiome and impaired our immunity.

Fast forward to June 2012, when the release of coordinated research from the Human Microbiome Project Consortium organized by the National Institutes of Health rocked the world. As The New York Times reported, “200 scientists at 80 institutions sequenced the genetic material of bacteria taken from 250 healthy people. They discovered more strains than they had ever imagined—as many as a thousand bacterial strains on each person. And each person’s collection of microbes was different from the next person’s. To the scientists’ surprise, they also found genetic signatures of disease causing bacteria lurking in everyone’s microbiome. But instead of making people ill, or even infectious, these disease-causing microbes simply live peacefully among their neighbors.”

Instead of the “one germ, one disease” theory that has dominated allopathic medicine for centuries, these findings imply that there is an entire ecosystem of bacteria symbiotically at work in the body, a concept understood by holistic practitioners for centuries. “This is a whole new way of looking at human biology and human disease,” says Dr. Phillip Tarr, a researcher and professor of pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine. “It’s awe-inspiring and it also offers incredible new opportunities.”

The following quote by Ronald J. Glasser, M.D., sums up the health crossroads we now face. This former assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota writes, “It is the body that is the hero, not science, not antibiotics…not machines or new devices. The task of the physician today is what it has always been, to help the body do what it has learned so well to do on its own during its unending struggle for survival—to heal itself. It is the body, not medicine, that is the hero.” As more doctors realize the self-evident principles of supporting the terrain, perhaps the allopathic model of killing the “bad” germs to fight disease may finally shift to improving the terrain to support the friendly bacteria.

The body, like all of nature, exists by maintaining a state of balance. It is dependent upon an environment that nourishes and nurtures with interconnectivity and cooperation between whole systems, and an underlying recognition of intelligence and a respect for the natural processes and order. Therefore, the essentials for a healthy terrain can be broken into several general premises: Nourishing the Terrain, Coordinating the Function and Trusting the Process.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Treating an Ear Infection

by Joseph Mercola, DO – ICPA.org:

I know antibiotics are not good for my baby, but what do I do if he gets an ear infection?

Avoid dairy. Identify food allergens. Try this safe, economical solution!

The treatment of ear infections in this country is a huge problem. Most of the chronically sick children I see were given antibiotics frequently for recurrent ear infections. The sad tragedy is that nearly all of these are preventable by simply changing the diet. Avoiding milk and dairy is the single largest issue, but clearly other food allergens contribute.

Even with the best diets though a child may get an ear infection. This does not mean that the child needs antibiotics. The simple solution is to put a few drops of breast milk in the ear canal every few hours. This usually works to clear up the infection within 24–48 hours and is far safer, less expensive and a better solution than putting the child on antibiotics. If the mother is not breastfeeding, it is likely she knows someone who is. All that is required for the treatment is about one half ounce of breast milk, so obtaining that from a friend will work just as well.

If you know someone who has a child with ear infections please share this article. You may make a huge impact on the future health of that child.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Whose Prescription Is It, Anyway?

by Author Howard Markel, MD, PhD – ICPA.org:

Attention Deficit Disorder and Ritalin

The boy is 14 years old and has one of the most severe cases of attention deficit disorder (ADD) that I have seen as a pediatrician. He fidgets; there are nonstop hand gestures, leg swinging and tapping. More troubling, he simply will not pay attention to any adult attempting to engage him in conversation, placing him in great jeopardy of flunking out of school.

During his first office visit, the boy explained his predicament to me: “It’s like I’m in a room with 20 big screen HDTVs blaring away in surround-sound. And on them are all the newest videos from MTV. The problem is that I can’t decide which one to watch, so I try to watch them all.”

His mother is less focused on her son’s perpetual motion than on his angry outbursts and what she sees as his refusal to listen to her. The day we met, she had already decided what she wanted to do. I was being told to write a prescription for Ritalin.

As every pediatrician knows, stimulant drugs like methylphenidate (Ritalin) cause most people to speed up their actions and thoughts. But for those with ADD (with or without hyperactivity), these drugs can slow them down, reduce overactivity, increase attention span, and can even improve relationships between a child and parents or other family members. There are, however, some nagging problems: none of us is exactly certain how these drugs work or what their long-term benefits and risks might be. Sometimes, they cause intolerable side effects such as tics and sleep disturbances.

The young man was clearly unhappy with his mother’s decision and let it be known with a slew of scowls and outcries of “Shut up!!” I asked him why he would prefer not being able to pay attention to his schoolwork, to which he replied: “You just don’t get it. I’m a lot more fun when I don’t take Ritalin. I crack great jokes in class and my friends think I am really cool. But when I take that stuff, I’m zoned out. I’m like a log. Ritalin ruins my life.”

This description went a long way in explaining why many teachers (and not a few parents) of kids with ADD prefer their charges to be medicated and why many children resist such attempts. Left untreated, however, many of these kids create problems with disruptive behaviors and can destroy the normal dynamics of a classroom and at home.

Here was my dilemma: The boy’s mother, and not the young man, wanted the prescription. The law defines a 14-year-old as a minor, but given that his condition was hardly fatal and essentially a behavioral issue, to whom should I have listened? The mother, who wants a more controllable child, or the boy, who simply wants to be what he perceives to be his true self? After all, the essence of adolescence is finding out who you are and figuring out who you want to be. As a pediatrician, I am supposed to be assisting youngsters in this difficult process.

That day, I listened to the parent and wrote the standard prescription for 40 mg of Ritalin a day. Like millions of youngsters with ADD, he takes 20 mg before going to school in the morning and another 20 mg at lunch.

Every month, I see the boy to renew his prescription for Ritalin and to make sure that there are no serious side effects. At each visit, he greets me with a deep-rooted but quiet anger. His fidgeting and outbursts seem to have diminished, but there has been little improvement in his schoolwork. Last year, he barely passed the eighth grade and his mother admitted that 2 of his teachers simply elected to pass him to avoid a repeat year with him. Nevertheless, she is delighted with the results.

When the boy is on vacation from school, I have noticed a definite change in his demeanor. Typically, when school is out, pediatricians give children with ADD a “drug holiday.” When he does not take his medication, his fidgeting and inattention are back in full force but he beams with joy, at least when I see him, and tells me that without Ritalin he can again enjoy cutting up in front of his friends.

But in his mother’s defense, I don’t live with him and have no real idea how disruptive his ADD behaviors can be at home. In cases like these, I have to listen to the parent that does live with him. I remain terribly conflicted about pharmacologically altering this young man against his will. Using potent pills to treat a disorder we do not completely understand flies in the face of prudent medical practice, and yet we pediatricians do this all the time with our ADD patients. More than a century ago, the great physician Sir William Osler observed that “the desire to take medicine is one feature which distinguishes man, the animal, from the rest of his fellow creatures.” In the practice of pediatrics, we are often compelled to include the parent’s desire in that rubric.

But still, I wonder, am I doing the right thing?

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

ADHD and Non-Medical Care

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Parents seeking treatment for their child with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) often pursue alternative treatments to those offered by conventional medicine. A study conducted in Australia investigated how many parents with ADHD children did seek some form of alternative to stimulant medication. This study published in the January 2005 issue of the Journal of Paediatric Child Health revealed that over two-thirds of families with an ADHD child sought alternative care. Families of 50 children out of 75 respondents attending the Royal Children’s Hospital in Victoria reported using at least one form of alternative treatment for ADHD.

Diet modification was the most common form of alternative treatment pursued by these parents (66 percent of those who tried alternatives). Other treatments that parents had tried included vitamins and minerals (32 percent), aromatherapy (24 percent), dietary supplements (24 percent), chiropractic (20 percent), naturopathic therapy (16 percent), herbal therapy (14 percent), and neurofeedback and behavioral optometry (10 percent each).

Parents were also asked their goals in seeking alternative treatment, and 89 percent wanted to minimize their child’s symptoms. Avoiding side effects of prescribed medications was rated as important by 67 percent of families.

Most importantly, nearly 60 percent of families rated at least one type of alternative treatment helpful for their child.

This study shows the frustration and general dissatisfaction among parents with the pharmaceutical approach to children’s attention problems. Parents are seeking a holistic approach to these children’s problems, and this study shows the perceived benefit that parents experience from these holistic methods of treatment.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

The Myth of Attention Deficit Disorder

by Thomas Armstrong, PHD – ICPA.org:

Over the past thirty years, attention deficit disorder (ADD), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has emerged from the relative obscurity of cognitive psychologists’ research laboratories to become the “disease du jour” of America’s schoolchildren. Accompanying this popularity has been a virtually complete acceptance of the validity of this “disorder” by scientists, physicians, psychologists, educators, parents, and others. On closer critical scrutiny, however, there is much to be troubled about concerning ADD/ADHD as a real medical diagnosis.

There is no definitive objective set of criteria to determine who has ADD/ADHD and who does not. Rather, there are a loose set of behaviors (hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity) that combine in different ways to give rise to the “disorder.” These behaviors are highly context-dependent. A child may be hyperactive while seated at a desk doing a boring worksheet, but not necessarily while singing in a school musical. These behaviors are also very general in nature and give no clue as to their real origins. A child can be hyperactive because he’s bored, depressed, anxious, allergic to milk, creative, a hands-on learner, or has a difficult temperament, is stressed out, is driven by a media-mad culture, or any number of other possible causes.

The tests that have been used to determine if someone has ADD/ADHD are either artificially objective and remote from the lives of real children (in one test, a child is asked to press a button every time he sees a 1 followed by a 9 on a computer screen), or hopelessly subjective (many rating scales ask parents and teachers to score a child’s behavior on a scale from 1 to 5: these scores depend upon the subjective attitudes more than the actual behaviors of the children involved).

The treatments used for this supposed “disorder” are also problematic. Ritalin use is up 500% over the past six years. Yet, Ritalin does not cure the problem; it only masks symptoms. In addition, there are several disadvantages to Ritalin: children don’t like taking it, children use it as an “excuse” for their behavior (“I hit Ed because I forgot to take my pill.”), and there are some indications it may be related to later substance abuse of drugs like cocaine. Behavior modification programs used for kids labeled ADD/ADHD work, but they don’t help kids become better learners. In fact, they may interfere with the development of a child’s intrinsic love of learning (kids behave simply to get more rewards), they may frustrate some kids (when they don’t get expected rewards), and they can also impair creativity and stifle cooperation.

ADD/ADHD is a popular diagnosis because it serves as a tidy way to explain away the complexities of turn-of-the-millennium life in America. Over the past few decades, our families have broken up, respect for authority has eroded, mass media has created a “short-attention-span culture,” and stress levels have skyrocketed. When our children start to act out under the strain, it’s convenient to create a scientific-sounding term to label them with, an effective drug to stifle their “symptoms,” and a whole program of ADD/ADHD workbooks, videos, and instructional materials to use to fit them in a box that relieves parents and teachers of any worry that it might be due to their own failure (or the failure of the broader culture) to nurture or teach effectively. Mainly, the ADD/ADHD label is a tragic decoy that takes the focus off of where it’s needed most: the real life of each unique child. Instead of seeing each child for who he or she is (strengths, limitations, interests, temperaments, learning styles etc.) and addressing his or her specific needs, the child is reduced to an “ADD child,” where the potential to see the best in him or her is severely eroded (since ADD/ADHD puts all the emphasis on the deficits, not the strengths), and where the number of potential solutions to help them is highly limited to a few child-controlling interventions.

Instead of this deficit-based ADD/ADH paradigm, I’d like to suggest a wellness-based holistic paradigm that sees each child in terms of his or her ultimate worth, and addresses each child’s unique needs. To do this, we need to provide a wide range of options for parents or teachers.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

To Empower! Not Control! A Holistic Approach to ADHD

by Thomas Armstrong, PHD – ICPA.org:

Thousands of studies tell us what children with ADHD can’t do, but few tell us what they can do. This article presents holistic strategies for helping children with ADHD succeed at home and in school by building on their interests, learning styles, and many talents.

Eight-year-old Billy, in the front row, will have nothing to do with my demonstration on new techniques for teaching spelling. During my visit to his elementary school classroom in upstate New York, Billy is out of his seat during most of the lesson. When I ask the children to visualize their spelling words, however, I am amazed to see Billy return to his seat and remain perfectly still. Covering his eyes, Billy “looks” intently at his imaginary words—fascinated with the images in his mind!

Later on, I realize that something more important than a spelling lesson went on that afternoon: Billy was able to transform his external physical hyperactivity into internal mental motion and, by internalizing his outer activity level, was able to gain control over it. This incident occurred some time ago but remains memorable to me. Why? Because it suggests that internal empowerment, rather than external control, is often the best way to help kids diagnosed with ADHD.

A Decidedly Unholistic Approach

Much of the current work in the field of ADHD looks at the issue from an external control perspective. The two interventions touted in almost all books and programs about ADHD are medication and behavior modification. While these approaches are often dramatically effective in young people with ADHD, both have troubling features that often receive scant attention. Some researchers suggest that when children receive medication, they may attribute their improved behaviors to the pills rather than to their own inner resources (Whalen & Henker, 1990). Others may expect the medication to do all the work and thus neglect underlying issues that may be the true causes of a child’s attention and/or behavior difficulties.

Behavior modification programs, which abound, seek to control children’s behaviors through some combination of rewards, punishments, or response costs (the taking away of rewards). Some programs rely on token economy systems, while others use behavior charts, stickers, and even machines. For example, the Attention Training System sits on a child’s desk and automatically awards a point every 60 seconds for on-task behavior. The teacher can also deduct points for bad behavior using a remote control. Students trade points for prizes and privileges. Although behavior modification programs may influence children to change their behavior, they do it for the wrong reason: to get rewards. Such programs can discourage risk-taking, blunt creativity, decrease levels of intrinsic motivation, and even impair academic performance (Kohn, 1993).

Looking at the Whole Child

Most ADHD researchers and practitioners see children labeled with ADHD in terms of their deficits. Thousands of studies tell us what these kids can’t do, but few tell us what they can do and who they really are. Two exceptions are Crammond (1994) and Hartmann (1993). Where are the studies that tell us what these kids are interested in, what kinds of positive teaming styles or combinations of intelligences they use successfully in the classroom? What sorts of artistic, mechanical, scientific, dramatic, or personal contributions can they make to their schools and communities?

A new vision of educational interventions is needed to reflect a deeper appreciation for the whole child based on a wellness paradigm, rather than a deficit perspective rooted in a medical or disease-based model. We need to initiate a new field of study to help children with behavior and attention difficulties—one based on discovering their strengths rather than fixing their faults. Parents and teachers tell me about cases of ADHD-labeled kids who are talented dancers, musicians, sculptors, and dramatists. The ADHD community needs to conduct research on the positive qualities of these children and what their abilities could mean in contributing to their success in the classroom and in life.

Such research could develop assessment strategies geared toward identifying their inner capabilities. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (1983) is one possible framework for developing appropriate assessment instruments to help identify such abilities—a refreshing change from the behavior rating scales and artificial performance tests currently used to assess ADHD in children. We must develop individualized educational plans (IEP) that give more than lip service to a child’s strengths and have goals and objectives that solidly reflect a desire to help children achieve success, rather than to “overcome their problems.”

While the ADHD worldview tacitly approves of a teacher centered, worksheet- and textbook-driven model of education (almost all of its educational suggestions are based on this kind of classroom), current research suggests that all students benefit from project-based environments in which they actively construct new meanings based on their existing knowledge of a subject. Some research suggests that students with ADHD do better in environments that are active, self-paced, and hands-on (McGuinness, 1985). Video games and computers are powerful teaming tools for many of these children. In fact, their high-speed behavior and thinking lend themselves quite well to such cutting-edge technologies as hypertext and multimedia (Armstrong, 1995).

Finally, interventions need to go beyond strategies such as smiley faces, points, and medications, and reflect a full sense of the child’s true nature.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Tend Your Mind’s Garden

by Madisyn Taylor – ICPA.org:

The mind is a curious thing, because it is so powerful yet sometimes so difficult to control. We find ourselves thinking a certain way, knowing that this thought may be creating trouble for us, yet we find it difficult to stop. For example, many people have the experience of getting sick at the same time every year, or every time they go on a plane. They may even be aware that their beliefs impact their experiences, so continue to think they will get sick. And then they do.

Sometimes we need to get sick in order to process something, or move something through our bodies. But often we get sick, or feel exhausted, because we don’t make the effort to galvanize the power of our minds in the service of our physical health, which is one of its most important functions. We really can use it to communicate to our bodies, yet we often regard the two as separate entities that have little to do with one another.

Knowing this, we have the power to create physical health and mental health simply by paying attention to the tapes running in our minds. Once we hear ourselves, we have the option to either let that tape keep running or to make a new recording. We harness the power of the mind in our defense when we choose supportive, healing words that foster good health and high spirits. All we need to do is remember to tend the field of our mind with the attentive and loving hand of a master gardener tending her flower beds, culling the weeds so that blossoms may come to fruition.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

A Wellness Approach for Children

by Jane Sheppard – ICPA.org:

In raising healthy children, it’s not enough to just focus on the physical aspect of health. To be truly healthy, a child’s emotional health must be nurtured and strengthened. Developing a mental attitude of wellness is also essential. When we adopt an attitude of wellness, we take on a belief that being well is a natural, normal state. Our goal is to have outstanding, vibrant health, not just to be free of disease. With a wellness attitude, we know that we have control over our own body and how healthy it will be.

We can teach and help our children to grow up with an attitude of wellness. Children have much more control over their own health than you may think. The mind is a very powerful mechanism with miraculous control over health and healing. The more children learn to use the extraordinary powers of their minds, the healthier and happier they will be. They may also live longer than someone who takes a passive approach to health.

Children can learn that negative, unhealthy lifestyles are choices that contribute to sickness. We all know what a struggle it can be to encourage children to eat the foods that we know are essential for health, and to avoid junk food. When our children are very young, we can pretty easily restrict the things we know to be unhealthy for them. However, as they get older, telling them that they cannot have sugar or other problem food is not productive. They will feel deprived and will probably rebel. Anything that is forbidden is tempting.

Children need to know they have a choice—they can either choose good health and wellness or opt for poor health and sickness. They need to be taught the facts so they are able to make educated choices. Talk to them about the effects that food has on their body. They can understand that sugar lowers their immunity, making them more susceptible to sickness, as well as contribute to tooth decay. You can explain to them how eating healthy foods will give them more energy and make them feel better. This can be taught in very simple, fun and creative ways. It may take a while to actually sink in, and at first the lure of scrumptious tasting sugar and white flour “treats” that all the other kids are eating may be too much to refuse, but eventually the time and energy you put into health education will pay off. If children are raised with a respectful attitude of wellness, as they get older they will most likely choose to turn down things that they know are not healthy for them. Respectful is a key word, meaning not nagging or shaming them about food.

As they get even older, they can be taught that smoking cigarettes or taking drugs is their choice to opt for sickness. Telling them to “just say no” and forbidding them to smoke or take drugs is not enough. They need to understand the health consequences and realities of putting these substances in their bodies. Children are very intelligent, but they need to be reminded that they are powerful and they have choices. They can understand the consequences of their choices.

Talk to your children about how strong their bodies are and the extraordinary things their bodies can do. Show them how their bodies can miraculously heal a cut, how their heart works and how they can strengthen their heart through exercise and healthy food, how their immune system fights off germs and other invaders, and how getting enough sleep makes them feel better throughout the day. All these things can be taught in fun and imaginative ways with drawings, stories, etc. Children are fascinated with their bodies and they want to know how they work.

Dr. Wayne Dyer tells us in his book, What Do You Really Want For Your Children?, “the more children learn from you to rid themselves of attitudes which foster sickness, the more you are helping them to enjoy life each day. They will actually live longer and more productive lives if they learn wellness as very young children.” Parents frequently make statements that reinforce a sickness attitude. Did your mother ever tell you that if you don’t wear a scarf, you’ll catch a cold and be sick? A wellness approach would be to say, “You are so strong and healthy that you probably won’t develop a cold, even if the other kids do, but here is a scarf to keep you warm and comfortable outside”. Dr. Dyer also cautions us to resist taking frequent trips to the doctor and using medications for everyday aches and pains and common ailments such as a cold. When we teach children that there is a pill for every complaint and that a doctor visit is part of every cure, we disempower them and set them up to rely too heavily on drugs and doctors throughout their lives. They need to know they are in charge of their own health.

In order to teach our children to choose health, we must model wellness and take charge of our own health. Wellness is not just having an absence of symptoms. It’s asking yourself how you can attain outstanding health. It’s making exercise and stress reduction a daily part of your lifestyle, choosing healthy foods and modeling this behavior for your children. As Dr. Dyer puts it, “It means simply being as healthy as you possibly can be, and being determined not to allow your wonderful body, the place where your mind currently resides, to deteriorate unnecessarily.”

There has been much research on the relationship between illness and attitudes. The research suggests that even cancer and heart disease are strongly related to a person’s inner attitudes. Dr. Harrison tells us in his book, Loving Your Disease, that “Predispositions to disease are often not passed on in a physical sense but rather through the messages parents give their offspring and the living habits and diet they pass down”.

Dr. Dyer recognizes the obvious elements of wellness that include diet, exercise, and eliminating negative lifestyle habits. In addition, he suggests two elements that will help children as much as the physical components. These elements are using visualization and having a sense of humor. They are just as important as diet and exercise.

Positive imagery or visualization is a powerful tool that children can use to help them become capable, healthy and vibrant people. Visualization puts the imagination to work to help achieve a desired outcome. It is the process of creating positive thoughts and images in the mind to communicate with the body. It is one of the strongest and most effective ways to make happen what you want in your life. Children can be taught to regularly see themselves in their minds as being radiantly healthy, vibrant, and actively participating in whatever activities they want to do. Positive imagery or visualization is very helpful for children who are overweight or who have acne or other skin diseases and need to establish a better self-image. Verbal affirmations can be used with imagery. A good affirmation for a child to say regularly is “I am good to my body and my body is good to me” or “Every day I am feeling better and growing more vibrantly healthy”. Children can also use visualization to help their body to heal. Studies show that there are significant remission rates among people healing from cancer who use visualization as part of the healing process.

Laughter is a strong healer and health builder. Dr. Dyer tells us that “when children laugh they are actually releasing into their bloodstream chemicals which are necessary for the prevention and cure of disease”. Have fun with your children. Be a little crazy and silly and laugh as much as you can. Each good belly laugh means that you and your children are becoming more physically and emotionally sound.

Healthy Child Online is a comprehensive resource providing parents and caregivers with free information and safe, natural products to enhance the health and lives of children. Healthy Child Online is a project of Future Generations, started by Jane Sheppard, a work-athome mother, in 1997. The children are our future, and Future Generations is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the health and well-being of children by:

• Providing information about how to promote vibrant health naturally.

• Raising awareness about how the profit-driven food, chemical, and medical, and entertainment industries have spawned some unhealthy foods, drugs, vaccines, pesticides, and other products and practices, and are perpetuating an unsafe environment for children.

• Supporting parents and caregivers in switching to a more natural, respectful, nurturing way of tending to babies and children’s needs and helping children to become happy, loving, emotionally-secure adults. We advocate natural, holistic, heart-centered, attachment parenting.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

The Real Drug Problem

by Susan M. Brown, D.C. – ICPA.org:

I happened to be watching television the other day and, instead of my usual flipping channels during commercials, I left it on the channel and saw a few interesting commercials. The first commercial showed a parent heading off a potential drug problem with their child. It had a slogan: “Parents – the anti-drug”. It was a nice public service kind of commercial and hopefully one that people will take to heart. Interestingly, the next commercial showed a parent with their child too but in this commercial instead of the parent trying to keep their child off drugs, they were giving them a drug. The child had a cold with a sore throat and couldn’t sleep. So this angelic figure of a mom was saving them from misery by giving them an over counter medicine, which if you look at the ingredients, amounts to sugar and alcohol with a little dye and artificial flavoring in it (none of which help the child to heal whatever is going on). Within the next hour I saw about a dozen more commercials for one drug after another. There were drugs for depression, headaches, low libido, indigestion, and a whole slew of other ailments. There were even commercials that never said what the drug was for but had lively music and showed scenes of very happy people and simply said to contact your physician to see if it was right for you. The extensive list of side effects for all these drugs, many of which were worse than the ailment the drug was being taken for, was of course, tagged at the end spoken very quickly and very quietly…

I have to wonder, where is the real drug problem? How do we expect our kids to “just say no” to drugs with the media portraying drugs as being the great panacea and when many adults are on several prescriptions as well as giving their kids drugs to avoid any type of discomfort? There seems to be such an incredible double standard. You can take these drugs because the “authorities” say they are OK but not these drugs they say are not. The “good drugs” may be just as addictive and have as many or more side effects as the “bad drugs” but that’s OK because with a prescription they then have the magic stamp of approval. It’s OK for this person who is depressed to take Prozac to give them a boost and make them feel artificially OK whenever the world gets to be too much but the drug addict who is most likely experiencing more emotional/mental pain than the average person could imagine is wrong for doing essentially the same thing. Kids grow up having their parents or doctors give them various drugs for the slightest discomfort, drugs that are not intended to strengthen their bodies and help them to heal, but to cover up the symptom, which ultimately weakens the body. Then we wonder why as the kids get older and feel whatever angst they experience in their lives and need a little “pick me up” they go to drugs or alcohol. Maybe it’s because that is what they learned you do when you feel uncomfortable. You “take something” to make the pain go away so you can supposedly feel better. They didn’t learn to see the discomfort as a message from the body asking to make a change or telling you that it was working hard to heal something so please do healthy things. They didn’t learn that discomfort is uncomfortable but not life threatening and that the body given time will heal most things and become stronger in the process. They didn’t learn that the peaks and valleys are part of life and can make it fuller if you learn to flow with it and approach it like a roller coaster ride, sometimes scary and sometimes a blast. They learned that if you are uncomfortable, take a drug to make it better. My body is not capable of healing so I need a drug to do it for me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely against medicine nor do I think that people should never take drugs. I just think that we tend to live in a pill popping society where many seem to think that drugs will make it all better. And bottom line, drugs don’t make it all better. Most of them simply allow one to function in spite of whatever is really going on. I’m reminded of a person I saw when I was first in practice, we’ll call him Max. When Max first came in I saw from his history that he was on several medications. I asked him why so many? He gave me a very typical story that he started on one and then started having other symptoms (actually side effects from the first drug) and so was given an additional drug and then started having more symptoms (more side effects) and was given another drug and so on and so on. Ultimately he was on about 10 different medications, about a third of them for the depression and the rest for various side effects including insomnia, indigestion, pain, constipation, and anxiety. Now keep in mind that the researchers test the effect of one drug on the body and there has been some research that has tested the effects of two drugs in combination on the body, but they have no idea what the overall effect of 10 drugs in combination on the body will be. I’d like to say that Max is an exception, but that wouldn’t be true. Many people are on multiple medications and it is standard care in medicine. The other noteworthy thing on Max’s history was his reason for being in my office. He said he came in because he was uncomfortable all the time and was told I might be able to help. I asked him in what way was he uncomfortable. Instead of what I expected, which was the common “chiropractic complaints” of my back hurts or my neck hurts, he began to tell me about his life. He hated his job as a social worker in which he saw an endless line of people who he described as having the most heart wrenching lives in the world many of whom he could not really help within the system. He was unhappy in his marriage and had been for many years. His wife belittled him constantly and his children had started doing the same, but this was no different than his childhood in which his parents had done it too. He had no hobbies that brought him joy. Any friends that he had were long gone and the only socializing he did was with his wife’s family who made no bones about expressing their belief that his wife had married a loser. I asked if all this had started before he started taking the medication and he said yes that it had been going on for years before. Then I simply said, “Max no wonder you’re depressed. If I had your life I would be depressed too.” He looked at me first with confusion and then with recognition as if a light had gone on for the first time and he started to laugh. The next words out of his mouth were, “You’re right my life sucks.” To make a very long story short, Max started getting adjusted and making changes in his life. He asked his doctor to begin to wean him off all medication, got a new job and was much less depressed. He found a hobby and had little glimpses of enjoying life. I’d like to say that his path to healing was effortless but it wasn’t, it was hard work and required that he begin to looked at himself and his life honestly. He had times when he felt he needed to take an antidepressant but it was to support him through a time of great change while he was on the road to healing his life. It was a short term choice for support and not a long term choice for denial. He realized that the depression he was experiencing wasn’t something that was wrong with him but something that was very right with him. It was a cry from the core of his being saying “I deserve something more in life. I deserve to be happy and to be loved and to enjoy life. I can’t tolerate a life that does not nourish me.”

Max made a choice to heal. Often people make a choice not to heal, but to feel better. Now don’t get me wrong, I love feeling great. I love it when it is an expression of my state of being and not an artificial feeling created by artificial means to hide what is really going on. On some level my body knows what is really going on. And it will continue to give me stronger and stronger signals until I pay attention. So, I can either keep taking more and more drugs or I can pay attention to those “uncomfortable” signals and consider what needs to change. We have to ask the question, is it reasonable to expect that our kids will choose to say no to drugs when most of society doesn’t? Is it reasonable to expect that they will have the tools to heal and integrate the many uncomfortable experiences they may have in life if we as parents never gave them those tools? You may be thinking “but I only give them cough medicine and maybe some antibiotics when they are sick” and “I really need that Prozac or those beers to get me through those stressful days”. Where do we draw the line? Most cough medicine has alcohol to make them drowsy and sugar to coat the throat. It is definitely more comfortable for the child and the parent because the child will often sleep, as most people want to do with a little alcohol in their system, but the sugar coating the throat is perfect food for the bacteria their body is trying to battle, the cough suppressant is inhibiting their bodies from getting rid of the debris, mucous, and bacteria in their lungs, the aspirin is decreasing their fever, which the body needs to fight infection and stimulate the immune system, and the antibiotics weaken the immune system. Most diseases are self limiting and most cold/flu ailments last for about a week regardless of the treatment sought. So, in most cases, why not do things to strengthen the body while it is working to heal. Learn the natural ways to strengthen the body and become an informed consumer for your health and the health of those you love. If you are depressed, distressed, and generally stressed why not consider the reasons why. Learn tools that help you to heal and pass that on to your kids instead of “here take this”. In order for parents to “be the antidrug” we have to provide kids with options and role models for what it means to be drug free. We need to give them tools so they don’t feel the need nor the desire for them. If we do this will it guarantee that our child will never take drugs? Unfortunately, no, but if they do we can know that we gave them the best foundation possible and that at least we were consistent in the message we gave. We can know that we were conscious of the choices we made and did all we could to listen, love, and learn and pass that on to our children.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Great Expectations

by Kevin Donka, D.C – ICPA.org:

A very busy road near my home is under construction right now. I travel this way twice every day, but the other day I noticed a sign I hadn’t seen before. The sign said, “New lane configurations—EXPECT DELAYS!” Now at first, this didn’t seem strange to me, but as I continued to think about it, I wondered why I should EXPECT delays, rather than just preparing for them. What I mean by this is, if I leave a little earlier than I usually do so that I don’t have to worry about being late and I bring an extra CD to listen to in the car, then I am prepared for a delay. And, if there is no delay, everything is still fine. This way, my EXPECTATION is that the situation will be fine no matter what happens.

But again, why should I actually EXPECT delays? If you’re still confused, let me try a different means of explaining what I mean. The fact is, you cannot escape something you are giving your attention to. When I put my attention toward EXPECTING a delay, I am very likely to experience that. But, when I put my energy into EXPECTING to be OK with whatever happens because I am PREPARED to deal with it, I often will experience whatever is best for me.

This concept is true with every area of your life—even your health. My question for you is, what are you EXPECTING to happen with your health? In other words, does more of the energy with your thoughts, words and actions go toward worrying about what might go wrong, or toward what might go right?

Most of us were raised with the belief that our bodies are inherently weak and defective and that they will break down without some kind of medical intervention. This begins in pregnancy with all of the talk about how hard labor is and that drugs will be necessary for the mother to be able to handle it.

Next, we are told that we need lots of vaccines because our immune systems are inadequately prepared to handle life. We are taught that if your body raises its temperature it is a mistake and that we must take some kind of medication to lower it. If we are creative and active in school, we are told we have a condition that doesn’t allow us to focus and function normally. We are basically told that we are not good enough the way we are, but that medications can make us better. This continues on throughout our lives and we unknowingly pass this legacy of lunacy on to our children.

The chiropractic paradigm takes the completely opposite approach to health and life. It says that we are all born with an innate intelligence and that when we fully express this intelligence our bodies are strong, healthy and we are free to happily work toward the actualization of our purpose and potential in life.

If there is any interference in the ability to express this intelligent force, then we end up in a state of “dis-ease.” We call this interference in your nerve system the subluxation process. The chiropractic adjustment process restores the free flow of intelligent energy and allows us to progressively return to the full expression of health and life. By making sure your brain and body can communicate effectively and by living a healthy lifestyle, you are PREPARED for whatever life brings you.

People raised in this mindset tend to progressively apply this way of thinking to every area of their lives, and so the legacy they pass on to their children is one of health, hope and faith that every situation offers an opportunity for growth. So again, I ask you—

What do you expect?

About the Author:

Dr. Donka is a nationally recognized author and lecturer and has shared the stage with many of the chiropractic profession’s leaders. His practice, The Donka Chiropractic Family Health, Wellness & Life Improvement Center in Palatine, Illinois, is a wellness-based family practice. The focus is on maximizing expression of Life by reducing and removing nerve interference in the form of the vertebral subluxation. In addition, there is a very strong emphasis on education and development of a healthy and well-rounded lifestyle that includes physical, mental and spiritual well-being. This with the understanding that there is no “finish line” as far as the process of health development is concerned.