Why are we talking about “curing” disease, let’s please get to the root cause first. I was listening to the radio the other day while driving and hearing a conversation about wanting to cure Alzheimers disease. The program was about an interview with a man who treats this disease and watching so many people enter into this unknown world of dementia. It is incredible sad as he stated something like, people die twice. They die when they lose their mind but still have a body, then they die again when they lose their bodies. Tears came upon me, it is so incredible sad, scary, and unknown. But then again, is it? unknown? Why are we not looking into the root cause instead of thinking it’s just something that “happens” to you. What do you think?
I was at a lecture years and years ago when I started to enter the nutrition field around 2006. I was working with a wonderful company that had free conferences for their reps and I went to as many as I can remember. I went to the celiac lecture and the Doctor talked a lot about dementia and showed his patients MRI scans of his patients brain over many years and how he was connecting gluten to his patients brains’ plaque that kept getting worse and worse over years. My grandmother had Alzheimers and watching the life she had at the end of her years was painful. I thought in that moment no more gluten ever again, if there was a chance to reduce plaque in the brain by not eating gluten, OK I’m in! Fast forward many years to around 2018 I was at another conference in CA and I out of many lectures through the conference we got to choose which ones we wanted to go to. I choose an Alzheimers lecture on the last day. I was exhausted, through with information, and wish this lecture was on the first day where I had total brain power to hear every word. As the Doctor spoke about dementia and the different forms, I hear a pattern in what we eat really determines what is happening in our brains, and of course we know how our bodies react when we eat poorly, but our brain is also taking a huge “beating” from poor food choices. The Doctor then said words that just stuck, we need to start “treating” dementia, especially Alzheimers disease, 30 years before it starts. 30 years! Now, no one in their mid 30’s is thinking about their later life, let alone dementia. I know I wasn’t that strict, and thought I was invisible. As we age we start seeing signs of aches and pains we never had before, forgetting certain things, walking into a room and realizing you completed forgot why you were in there. I remember a few years back, I was actually talking on the phone and telling the person on the other end, “Now where did i put my phone, and if I could just find it I could get going and meet you for lunch.” She even proceeded to help me look by telling me to look in the couch, and even in the fridge, then I stopped and started laughing so hard, my friend said, What? you OK? What is going on? I said, How do you think I am talking to you? She then starting to burst out laughing…snorting and couldn’t breath from laughing so hard. Now this is funny, but really – not really funny either.
Listening to the radio and thinking this man, Doctor of science, a researcher, who is getting interviewed is talking about a cure for Alzheimers. He says they are getting closer everyday and found some new thoughts. But this is for people who have already developed the disease, so what is this drug going to scrape off the plaque? I really wanted to call in and say, why can’t we as people start to look at life as not curing disease but actually prevent all of us from getting these diseases in the first place. This is not a contagious disease, possible to have some genetic component, however, knowing that genetics do not determine anything in your outcome for disease, it’s how we eat, our lifestyle choices, our mindset, and how we deal with stress are the biggest things to look at, and what really determine whats happening on the inside of our bodies.
Wondering, could we ever get there, one day look at your life and ask, and I healthy? am I as healthy as I want to be, or do we just not “look” at what’s really there, and ignore our bodies warning signs, (like my episode of not finding my phone) and put a bag over our heads and wait till its bad enough to then say, I want a pill to “fix” the problem. This is how our world looks at disease, there is no help beforehand. How many of you have gone to a Doctor and said I need help with -fill in the blank, and the Doctor responds with, you aren’t sick enough yet, so come back when you are worse and we will give you something for it. AND, what is this pill, it’s just a pill to block the pain, or block the issue, it’s not really helping anything. YOU have to do the work if you want to heal yourself. Let’s get to the root cause of why the body is forgetting things, why its in pain, why are you depressed, why is there anxiety, etc, etc. I only wish this would change, so I am wanting to be part of that change, I have decided to get on board and do the digging to find the root cause of what is going on. We all should be taking care of ourselves daily, so that “30 years before” is like, yea, no problem, I am helping myself now to be healthy so when I am older I am healthy as well.
Functional nutrition has changed my life, I see results in my body when I can heal myself. Well, the body heals itself when we are back in balance, it absorbs the nutrients its needs, and expels the ones it doesn’t. We need an on going lifestyle of love, respect, positivity, balance, excitement, means of stress reduction, joy, and you can add to this list. Eating for health is my goal for everyone. Eating for life, eating for balance within. Nurture yourself from the inside out.
