Natural Health Care

Updated on December 22, 2008

With few exceptions, disease and dysfunction do not develop quickly. Disease and dysfunction tend to develop slowly, usually over many years as subtle and overt signs that mark loss of health are ignored.

I have found that many people feel that they are fine until they get diagnosed with a named condition like diabetes or hypertension. The reality is that degeneration is a fact of life - with each passing day, we lose some of our health potential. It's the pace at which our bodies degenerate that we influence through our daily choices. By understanding the main causes of disease and dysfunction, we can make dietary and lifestyle choices that promote longevity.

The main causes of acceleration of disease and dysfunction can be categorized into three groups:

Updated on December 9, 2008

One of the first points that I learned about during my education in contemporary medical acupuncture was GV-26, also known as Governing Vessel 26.

Updated on November 30, 2008

Acupressure is a healing art that involves applying pressure to specific points on your body to produce health-promoting effects.

How can applying pressure to different areas of your body help your health? The answer lies in understanding your nervous system.

Our instant-gratification society teaches us to reach for quick solutions to specific health problems. Look in any direction and you're bound to come across products and procedures that fit into this mold. Have joint pain? Take glucosamine chondroiton. Have chronic acne? Take high doses of vitamin A. Want to look and feel sexier? Follow the golden rule to a flat stomach (for 39.95).

Updated on October 11, 2008.

After reading the responses to the article Should Parents Spank Their Children?, some of which support spanking, it occurred to me that perhaps many parents just don’t know how else to influence their children’s behaviour. Some parents feel that spanking is the best way to teach their children not to misbehave. Some parents feel that everything else has failed and so, having run out of other options, they turn to spanking. If you are a parent, especially one who would like to begin learning about alternatives to spanking, please consider the following points.

When researchers from l'Universite de Montreal recently tested the waters of the St. Lawrence River downstream of Montreal, they discovered levels of estrogen 90 times the normal rate. These estrogens were both the natural type (estradiol) occurring in all women and men, and synthetic estrogens, like the ones found in some contraceptive medications and medications used in hormone replacement therapy.

A Canadian-led study on the usefulness of arthroscopic surgery for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knees revealed that many people benefit as much from physical therapy and mild pain relievers as they do from arthroscopic surgery.

The study, whose results were published in the September 11, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, was conducted over a period of two years, involving 178 men with osteoarthritis. The average age of those in the study was 60.

A thorough discussion of how your body works best begins with an overview of your nervous and endocrine systems, as these two organ systems act as co-directors of all of the activities that occur in your body.

To put it simply, your nervous and endocrine systems continuously monitor the well-being of each of the billions of cells in your body, and they continuously take action through messenger systems to keep all of your cells as healthy as possible.

The next time that you experience a cold or the flu, remember this: giving your body plenty of rest while allowing the cold or flu to run its course is good for your health.

Conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry would have you believe that there is no "cure" for the common cold, that you should protect yourself against the flu with a vaccine that is laden with toxic chemicals, and that during the midst of a cold or flu, it is favorable to ease your discomfort with a variety of medications that can suppress your symptoms.

Unfortunately, all three of these positions represent a lack of understanding of what colds and flus really are, and what they mean to your body.

Colds and flus are causes by viruses. So to understand what colds and flus do at a cellular level, you have to understand what viruses do at a cellular level.

What do toe pain, mid-foot pain, heel pain, ankle pain, knee pain, hip pain, lower back pain, mid-back pain, upper back pain, and headaches all have in common?

You guessed it - they can all be caused by wearing high heels on a regular basis.