If everyone on the internet joined forces to ensure a healthy planet for future generations, it could solve the existential problem that no government dare tackle, climate change and environmental pollution and damage. All you need to do is to commit to changing your lifestyle over the next twelve months with a twelve step programme, just a month at a time. Click “HERE” for tips!
Podcast # 28 Your Challenge to Save The Planet & Your Health
Hi, this is Michael Lingard introducing you to podcast twenty-eight entitled “Your Challenge to Save The Planet & Your Health” in 2020.
If everyone on the internet joined forces to ensure a healthy planet for future generations, it could solve the existential problem that no government dare tackle, climate change and environmental pollution and damage. All you need to do is to commit to changing your lifestyle over the next twelve months with a twelve step programme, just a month at a time. Click “HERE” for tips!
January: Try to avoid buying anything made of or packed in plastic. Plastics are based on fossil fuel for production and produce an almost permanent environmental pollutant that will take many years to start to rectify. There are biodegradable alternative materials produced from plants. . HERE
February: Buy local produce wherever possible. This would both stimulate farmers to shift to plant food production for humans, reduce the vast energy consumption involved in shipping food to and from warehouses and from abroad. . HERE
March: Cut back on your consumption of “stuff”. We all are encouraged to consume or buy far more material things than we really need, we need to remind ourselves that every article represents a substantial use of the earth’s scarce resources. HERE
April: Help plant a hundred trees. With the estimated 4 billion internet users worldwide this would produce 400 billion trees, the most efficient carbon dioxide consumers would remove around 8 billion tons of CO2 per year, that would help balance the residual fossil fuel use. Global production of CO2 from transport is about this quantity. HERE
May: Support your local community any way that helps the environment. There is a close connection between the health of the planet, the health of individuals and the health of a community. By building stronger communities we would be find mutual support in building a sustainable future for our only planet, the earth. HERE
June: Cut out all meat, fish and dairy foods from your diet. This alone would cut greenhouse gases by between 25 – 50%, stop the loss of the earth’s lungs – the rainforests, reduce the need for food production by 75%, with the right distribution system ensure adequate food for everyone, improve the health of everyone, reduce the incidence of chronic diseases, reduce the pollution of coastal waters from agricultural medicine run-off and animal waste, permit the regrowth of our fauna and flora, especially endangered species, and much more. Currently estimates suggest between 50 – 75% of all grain and pulses go to feed animals! . HERE
July: Conserve fresh water whenever possible, it’s a scarce resource. Fresh water will be more valuable than oil in a few years’ time. Sources of fresh water are increasingly being depleted due to pollution or over exploitation. Producing animal and dairy foods is a major reason for this. HERE
August: Make your own health your responsibility. If you have already shifted your diet to a whole plant diet and are getting more exercise walking you are well on the way to meeting this challenge. HERE
September: Reduce the use of your car by walking more/using public transport. This will go towards the August challenge; taking more responsibility for your health. HERE
October: Turn your home thermostat down a few degrees lower. Just a few degrees drop will save you over a hundred pounds a year and reduce the consumption of energy nationally. HERE
November: Try to reduce food waste to close on nil. Currently we waste over a third of our food. That would feed most of the undernourished or starving throughout the world. . HERE
December: Switch your car to any that halves your fuel consumption. Today there is no technological reason why we cannot produce cars that will give over 100 miles per gallon; even this would make a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. This needs to be the most important criteria for car purchase, not its sporty performance. . HERE
To learn more about each of these challenges go to the transcript of this podcast to click on related links.The global environmental destruction, pollution and our impact on climate seem problems too big for you and I to have any significant impact on their solution, but just remind yourself that if billions of humans can generate the problems so we can just as easily fix them, one step at a time.
All that is needed is ,an awareness, a will and our actions. We have the RESPONSE-ABILITY, let begin to use it!
Tissue hypoxia, or tissue oxygen deficiency, can occur in many ways but the effect on the affected tissue is usually the same, its healthy functioning and energy is weakened. Hypoxia could be the most significant factor underlying most chronic diseases and general sickness, and like chronic hidden hyperventilation it is almost ignored in modern medicine.
Hypoxia & Its Treatment
Tissue hypoxia can occur in many ways but the effect on the affected tissue is usually the same, its healthy functioning and energy is weakened. Hypoxia could be the most significant factor underlying most chronic diseases and general sickness, and like chronic hidden hyperventilation it is almost ignored in modern medicine.
Perhaps the key problem arising from tissue hypoxia is impaired energy production by the cells’ mitochondria, the cell’s energy source. This reduced cellular energy lays the foundation for an unhealthy cell and susceptibility to disease and poor health.
The evidence is now well established to link most chronic disease to hypoxia, this includes heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and almost every other disease of modern man.
So how can we combat hypoxia?
There are two proven approaches, one involves improving the way we breathe and eat, the other is a radical new discovery that uses oxygen-enriched water.
Breath Training to Aleviate Hypoxia
Poor breathing or more specifically chronic hyperventilation is a 21st century epidemic in modern societies. Over 75% of people in the West suffer some degree of hyperventilation or over-breathing. This arises from the lifestyle of modern western man; stress and diet being the two main factors causing this. Stress triggers the primitive fight/flight responses that includes increased respiratory rate. Chronic hyperventilation leads to loss of carbon dioxide and subsequent poor delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissue due to the Bohr Effect. Diet, the second major cause, arises from excessive over-consumption of meat, dairy and over-processed junk food that leads to metabolic acidosis. The body tries to correct this by eliminating large amounts of acid-forming carbon dioxide simply by hyperventilating or over-breathing..
Usually both these factors are involved. My recent research has shown a high correlation between the way we breath and what we eat, and between what we eat and the quality of our breathing.
Thus long-term health benefits can be achieved by learning better breathing and improved eating habits, and the good news is that as we improve the one it leads to improvement of the other!
The Buteyko Method of breath training improves tissue oxygenation long-term and a progressive shift to a Whole Plant Diet that eliminates the metabolic acidosis associated with SAD (Standard American Diet) not only improves oxygenation, but gives many beneficial effects from the reduction of meat, dairy and highly processed foods.
As part of any lifestyle changes, efforts should be made to ensure adequate hydration, as the vast majority of the public today also suffer from some degree of dehydration. Remember we are water-body creatures with liquid conductors for electric nerve impulses not copper wires, and it is water that transports all the nutrients to our cells, and it is water that carries away waste products and toxins and it is water that carries hormones that control body functions!
If there is poor circulation of blood in any area of the body, cells there may still be suffering from hypoxia even with improved respiration and normal oxygen delivery to the rest of the body. This is especially the reason for using the second approach to deal with hypoxia, the use of oxygen-enriched water. Since every cell must have water for its survival, the oxygen-enriched water will be well absorbed and the oxygen supply will be increased to eliminate the hypoxia.
Hydration with Oxygen Enriched Water
To speedily address hypoxia it is now possible to achieve this by drinking oxygen enriched water and even bathing in this water. Because our body circulates water to every cell, if oxygen enriched water is used, every cell in our body is better and rapidly oxygenated, hypoxia is eliminated, even in areas where blood circulation is impaired, where improved respiration would have little effect.
The oxygen enriched water is not simply water with added oxygen but it is the result of a special treatment that extracts hydrogen from the water leaving highly active and readily available oxygen. It is available internationally under two brand names, Kaqun Water or Elo Water.
The great advantage of this latter approach is that it does not demand any lifestyle changes, re-training of our breathing habits or changes to our eating habits. Improved oxygenation is achieved almost regardless of the individual’s current lifestyle.
What appears to happen is that over time, as the individual’s health improves, they tend to change their lifestyle towards a healthier way. This is similar to the effect of better breathing leading to better eating that my research has already demonstrated.
Practical Considerations
For anyone not suffering from any chronic disease and just wanting to improve their general health and well-being it would make sense to combine these two approaches initially and then to reduce the use of the oxygen enriched water over time. Such an approach would give a kick-start towards improved oxygenation and all the health benefits that derive from this. In the real world, the additional cost of oxygen-enriched water must be taken into account.
For others with significant ill health associated with hypoxia, a more intensive use of oxygenated water for longer periods would be better combined with lifestyle changes as and when they felt ready. If the hypoxia has been causing damage for some time, a longer period of such water support would speed up repair and normalization of tissue oxygenation. Improved oxygenation may reduce the need for other medical interventions that would offset the additional cost of this approach.
A balance should be met for each individual, depending on their state of health, their specific illness, their commitment to lifestyle changes and their financial status.
The Orthopath sees health as based on restoration of all functions and physiology to normal. Structural correction is always part of their work but structural correction is not enough. Usually nutritional screening and advice is offered to their patients but that is still not enough to help the patient to optimal health.
Hi this is Michael Lingard Orthopath, Buteyko Educator and Plantrician introducing the ninth podcast entitled “What is an Orthopath?”
The Orthopath sees health as based on restoration of all functions and physiology to normal. Structural correction is always part of their work but structural correction is not enough.
Usually nutritional screening and advice is offered to their patients but that is still not enough to help the patient to optimal health.
Advice on suitable exercise and rest is routinely included in their therapy and this adds a little more to the health promotion plan. The patient’s work and environmental factors are reviewed to check whether there are health issues here that need attention. Some orthopaths will routinely check the patient’s breathing to assess any deviation from normal optimal breathing. Even all this may not uncover other hidden problems that are having an adverse effect on the patient’s health that may be from stress and mental attitudes. When all these factors and more are brought together we start to give a holistic approach to health care, this is the ultimate aim of an orthopath that may never be fully realized but it is the aspiration the orthopath works towards in their practice.
Does an orthopath have training in physical therapy? Yes just like an osteopath, chiropractor or physiotherapist. Does an orthopath have a fundamental holistic approach? Ideally yes, this is not necessarily so with other physical therapists. May an orthopath use adjunctive therapies to benefit the patient? Yes, invariably. Many other physical therapists are restrained as to what they’re allowed to use or, what they want to use, in addition to their physical therapy. Is an orthopath’s work primarily based on structure? No, unlike the other physical therapists, the orthopath tries to expand their realm of therapy and support beyond just physical structure. Is an orthopath expected to teach the patient health promotion? Yes indeed, this is a prime part of the orthopath’s work, to try to make the patient more and more self-reliant by helping themselves to better health. So can orthopaths advise on all aspects of health promotion? Yes indeed, that is what most orthopaths need to do and want to do. An orthopath is constantly updating and enlarging their therapy base and exchange experiences regularly with other therapists to develop a more holistic approach to health care. Every orthopath has to meet all legal, professional and ethical requirements like any other physical therapist.
So you could say an orthopath is an osteopath-plus, a chiropractor-plus, a physiotherapist-plus, a sports therapist-plus, etc.
Whenever I have asked an audience this question most people intuitively know that health is far more than freedom from diseases. Although health is a very difficult concept to define we do know what are the main causes of good health. If you have ever wondered what are these key factors that determine our health and longevity and would like some practical, reliable, information on this subject then stay tuned to this podcast. It is unfortunate that modern medicine has been primarily concerned with disease, illness, and pathology for the past century and has not given the public much advice on health promotion. The main reason for this omission is that doctors are not trained as health practitioners; they receive very little training in the fundamentals of health promotion: the need for good body mechanics, for good nutrition, for adequate exercise, good breathing, good relaxation, a healthy environment, and a supportive community. Because of this disease model of medical practice, the system is overloaded with a sick population that is creating increasingly impossible demands on finance and resources. We also have trained an entire generation of the public to rely on their doctor to keep them well and have lost the sense of self-responsibility for their own health or are just unwilling to do anything to help themselves.
Hello, welcome to podcast # 26 I’m Michael Lingard Orthopath, Buteyko Educator and Plantrician introducing perhaps the most important question for us all today,
What Is Health? Is It More Than an Absence of Disease?
Whenever I have asked an audience this question most people intuitively know that health is far more than freedom from diseases. Although health is a very difficult concept to define we do know what are the main causes of good health.
If you have ever wondered what are these key factors that determine our health and longevity and would like some practical, reliable, information on this subject then stay tuned to this podcast.
It is unfortunate that modern medicine has been primarily concerned with disease, illness and pathology for the past century and has not given the public much advice on health promotion. The main reason for this omission, is that doctors are not trained as health practitioners; they receive very little training in the fundamentals of health promotion: the need for good body mechanics, for good nutrition, for adequate exercise, good breathing, good relaxation, a healthy environment and a supportive community.
Because of this disease model of medical practice, the system is overloaded with a sick population that is creating increasingly impossible demands on finance and resources.
We also have trained an entire generation of the public to rely on their doctor to keep them well and have lost the sense of self-responsibility for their own health or are just unwilling to do anything to help them selves.
There is today a prevalent view that “It’s pointless worrying about our own health and quality of life or longevity, just carry on & enjoy yourself as we all have to die of something don’t we?” The truth is we can have a profound effect on our health and longevity and we can usually choose either a long healthy, active life or a chronically sick existence for many years maintained with increasing medical & surgical interventions.
If we follow the American lifestyle over the next few years we can expect the same outcomes; according to good medical authority we may be seeing parents routinely outliving their children for the first time in our history. It is now commonplace in America for young people to be suffering strokes or heart attacks and other chronic degenerative diseases that were usually found among the middle or old aged in the past. The major reason for this catastrophic decline in health and increased premature death appears to be largely due to diet, lack of exercise & an unhealthy lifestyle with increasing medical interventions with drugs and surgery.
After thirty-five years in the healthcare profession I have tried to find an answer to this question from past doctors who have devoted time to research this topic. A few years ago I decided to put all my findings into one small book called “Connection – Towards a better understanding of health in medicine.”
The conclusion I came to was that our health depends on almost everything! However there are just four factors we can all control ourselves. Let’s look at each of them now:
Our Body.
We must not forget that our body is an amazing mechanical structure that can suffer many of the problems that might affect any machine. It needs to be kept in fine adjustment to function optimally. We wouldn’t dream of driving a car with a twisted chassis or faulty wheel alignment, but most people happily try to get around with many mechanical problems in their spine. Luckily this is where your body is radically different from your car; it is able to compensate for many mechanical faults but at a cost of either pain or poor functioning. The first chapter of “Connection” explains the details of our body mechanics and what we can do to help ourselves.
Our Food.
We are what we eat, or “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.
Our diet is the most important factor underpinning health or laying the foundation for serious diseases for most of us in the West. I would heartily recommend you read an amazing best selling book giving the research behind this concept it is entitled “How Not To Die” by Dr. Michael Greger. My book “Connection” gives a very brief summary of some of the research findings that have led to these conclusions. Unfortunately the diet and nutrition industry has totally confused people and is driven by commercial interests that are very much like the drug industry. The truth seems to be that the most health promoting diet is the simplest and cheapest to follow. It is described as Whole Plant Nutrition and recommends you eat all you want of whole plant based foods and dishes and you will not need supplements (with just two possible exceptions), enzymes, special training or calorie counting. This diet drastically reduces the risk of developing most of the chronic diseases, normalizes your weight and will often reverse pathologies such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. This same diet may also be the fastest way of tackling global warming and the destruction of our planet if most of the world’s population followed it.
Our Breath.
Your doctor checked your blood pressure, your weight, your reflexes, your blood chemistry, your heart & lung sounds, you may have had Peak Flow tests, even given you X-rays or MRI scans but why didn’t he check your breathing rate?
We can live for three weeks without food, for three days without water but only three minutes without air. That life’s most fundamental activity, BREATHING, is not routinely checked by Western doctors (unless you are complaining of breathing difficulties like asthma, COPD or bronchitis) is a serious omission. If there were just one measure allowed when checking the health of a person I would suggest THEIR BREATHING would be the best choice. Why?
Firstly it’s a quick, easy and cheap test. It takes less than a minute, is none invasive and does not require special expensive equipment.
Secondly, many medical researchers have claimed dysfunctional breathing may be the cause of over a hundred modern diseases, so wouldn’t it make sense to at least diagnose it and then perhaps address this problem first?
Thirdly, although our breathing is normally automatic and unconscious – like our heart, liver, & kidney activity – we can take conscious control of it and change our bad breathing habits for good normal ones, with just a little training.
Fourthly, this route to better health and wellbeing empowers the patient and reduces their reliance on medical care and drugs. Surely a very desirable aim?
My third chapter of “Connection” explains how to check your own breathing and how most diseases are associated with poor breathing. You may decide to study my free podcast breath-training course. “Better Breathing Means Better Health” found on most podcast sites.
Our Mind.
Did you know that your brain tomorrow will be different from how it is today? This is the latest thinking of how our brain functions; it is about “the plastic brain”. The most amazing thing about the human brain is that it has the ability to grow, change, re-arrange all our thoughts and mental processing from birth to death. We have a plastic brain that can do remarkable things such as cope with a stroke and re-organized all the activities that were done in one area that is damaged and allow them to be done in another area. Areas of the brain that are normally associated with speech can be used for sight or hearing. The old thinking was that we were born with a brain divided up into little boxes, each was allocated a specific job, this has all changed with the latest research.
What does this mean to you and me?
The first lesson we need to learn is “never to say never!” We cannot tell what is possible and what is not possible.
The second lesson is that we can change the way we think, feel or behave in remarkable ways with a little help and effort.
The third lesson is that despite the fact that we function much of our waking time with habits learned since childhood (it would be tough to have to learn how to talk, walk or clean our teeth the new every day! ) all these habitually programmed activities can be reprogrammed. How we can do this is the subject of this section of my book. The phrase used today is “If it fires, it wires!” Repeated nerve signals create stronger pathways.
Did you know that every child, at birth, has a greater potential intelligence than Leonardo da Vinci ever used? That includes your own children and grandchildren. This finding is based on many years of clinical research and practical application by the mothers or fathers of tens of thousands of babies guided by Dr. Glen Domam and others.
Watch the video on YouTube entitled “Glenn Doman Introducing The Institutes (Part I) Working with Children for over 50 years.”
Finally, remember your mind is closely linked to all of the body activities and is perhaps the most significant connection discussed in my book. We are emerging from a long period of study and thinking based on reductionism, or the analysis and study of increasingly smaller and smaller parts of our whole, but now there is a move towards the more difficult task of understanding how every part is connected to every other part and every system is affecting every other system, this is Holism or Wholism. We must remember we need both reductionism and holism if we are to make any sense of the universe we live in.
My book “Connection” discusses other key factors related to our health including family, community and even cosmic factors! It also offers an alternative theory of the universe to deal with the awkward question “What happened before the Big Bang?”
Every parent has become increasingly aware of the need for good nutrition, good exercise, supportive home and school environment for the health and wellbeing of their children. The government campaigns have advised “Five a Day” and more sport in schools, but as yet there has been no recognition of the equally vital matter of good breathing for good health. Poor breathing has been the hidden, silent factor responsible for many childhood health problems that can lay the foundation for a wide range of modern diseases in later life. Here is another “five a day” recommendation to help your child:
**The Other “Five a Day” for Children**
Every parent has become increasingly aware of the need for good nutrition, good exercise and supportive home & school environment for the health and wellbeing of their children. The government campaigns have advised “Five a Day” and more sport in schools, but as yet there has been no recognition of the equally vital matter of good breathing for good health.
Poor breathing has been the hidden, silent factor responsible for many childhood health problems that can lay the foundation for a wide range of modern diseases in later life.
Here is another “Five a Day” recommendation to help your child:
1. Ensure your child is a good breather.
A simple test is the “Step exercise” Get your child to take a normal breath in then a normal breath out, then while they hold their nose see how many steps they can do, keeping their mouth closed before they need to release their nose to take another breath.
This is a simple measure of how well oxygenated their body is:
120 to 80 steps indicates excellent breathing
60 to 80 steps is very good
40 to 60 steps is good
30 to 40 steps is poor and will be impairing their health.
20 to 30 steps is very poor with an almost certain adverse effect on their health
Fewer than 20 steps is a dangerously low result and efforts should be made to correct this.
Older children may be able to measure their breathing with a “Control Pause”
Keeping their mouth closed, take a normal breath in then a normal breath out and see how many seconds they can hold their nose for before taking another breath in. This exercise should be easy and stress-free, it is a measure of their maximum COMFORTABLE breath hold.
45 to 60 seconds is excellent, 35 to 45 is very good, 25 to 35 is good, 20 to 25 is poor, 15 to 20 is very poor, 10 to 15 is seriously poor and under 10 suggests an urgent need to correct this.
Why not check your own breathing with a Control Pause as well?
2. Help teach better breathing habits.
Encourage quiet nose breathing all the time. Set a good example by improving your own breathing!
3. Watch for signs of bad breathing habits.
The signs of poor breathing include mouth breathing, upper chest breathing, breathlessness, snoring at night.
Set a good example by being aware of your own breathing faults!
4. Encourage relaxation and quiet when stressed.
Teach quiet relaxation, breathing as gently as possible with all the body relaxed.
Set a good example by learning to relax yourself!
5. Tell them why they need a nose & how to make it work well.
The nose is for breathing & the mouth is for eating and talking.
“They should breathe through their mouth as often as they eat through their nose!”
Teach nose-clearing exercise: Breathe in then out through the nose, keep the mouth closed, hold the nose, gently nod the head until they need to breathe in, release the nose and take a breathe in. Repeat two or three times.
Check their progress from time to time with (1) above.
If your child, whatever age, mouth breathes rather than using the nose to breathe most of the time they could be heading for many health problems that could be easily avoided.
Children who habitually mouth-breathe will usually develop crooked, crowded teeth and fail to develop normal facial features.
They will be more at risk of developing asthma especially if there is a family history of asthma.
They will probably suffer more throat and chest infections than others simply because they are not using their first line of defense; nose breathing that kills most airborne bugs and aids the immune system.
As they get older and continue to mouth breathe they will begin to suffer the many health problems of chronic hidden hyperventilation, anxiety, panic attacks, hypertension, heart diseases, angina, hay fever, gastric problems, breathlessness, low energy, and the list goes on.
Finally, there is a strong connection between what we eat and how we breathe, so this additional “Five a Day” is going to help with the original “Five a Day” and any improvement in diet will lead to an improvement in breathing.
Don’t take our word for this, watch and hear a number of children from a Glasgow school who have trained this way, telling their own story on a video. HERE
All this is not new, the dangers of mouth breathing were brought to the attention of the medical profession over a hundred years ago in a book published, not by a doctor, but by an artist who recognized the problem while painting the indigenous population of the Americas. “Shut your mouth and save your life”.
Visit our website “Thebreathconnection.com” HERE to learn more about the health connections with our breathing, and if you want to understand the orthodontic relationship watch the video by Dr John Flutter, an Australian dentist HERE
Learn the Buteyko Method on Skype at any distance and at your convenience,
download pdf details HERE
There is a lot of interest in keeping fit, getting fit and fitness training systems. But what is fitness? Is it about improving one’s health? Is it about developing muscle bulk and strength? Is it about building stamina and physical abilities? Wikipedia has a definition: Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of sports, occupations and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate-vigorous physical exercise, and sufficient rest. Wikipedia
Health & Fitness, Are They The Same?
There is a lot of interest in keeping fit, getting fit and fitness training systems. But what is fitness? Is it about improving one’s health? Is it about developing muscle bulk and strength? Is it about building stamina and physical abilities?
Wikipedia has a definition: Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of sports, occupations and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate-vigorous physical exercise, and sufficient rest. Wikipedia
My question is “Could a person be physically very fit yet not be healthy?”
We hear many stories of top athletes and bodybuilders suffering strokes, heart attacks or any other serious diseases despite the fact that they had achieved excellent physical strength and stamina.
On the other hand, I would expect physical health for any person, would be an essential part of being healthy in mind and body.
The confusion lies in the latter part of Wikipedia’s definition in my opinion; “nutrition, exercise and rest”.
How many fitness centers and gyms promote the increased intake of quality meat for protein, the increased consumption of nutrient supplements such as milk protein, vitamins, and minerals without offering adequate advice on what might constitute optimum nutrition?
There are many myths that are dispelled by solid scientific research, they include the belief that to be fit and strong we need quality protein from meat sources, that we couldn’t thrive on just a plant-based diet, that vitamin and mineral supplements are good for providing all the body’s needs and that with physical fitness comes improved health and increased longevity.
Taking each myth in turn, it is a simple fact that the protein content of meat is about 30 grams per hundred calories consumed, and for plant-based food, it is the same 30 grams per hundred calories.
To rely primarily on a animal product diet for ones protein needs would lead to a severe deficit of micro-nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, for the simple reason that the animal has already used up these nutrients for itself and with the consumption of the animal products come added toxins, residual antibiotics, or growth hormones generally found in factory farmed meat.
As regards the use of mineral and vitamin supplements to make good such deficits, we discover things are a bit more complex, the body cannot process and absorb efficiently individual vitamins or minerals without the many other complex phytonutrients found in whole plant food. For instance, to replace the vitamin C benefit of an apple for our nutrition, we would have to consume many more times the quantity of vitamin C as a supplement, most of which would not be absorbed.
Finally, although no one could disagree that we need a physically healthy body to enjoy optimal health, by over-concentration on this to the detriment of our diet, sleep, rest, lifestyle and mental state we can lay the foundation for other serious health problems including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and cancer.
So my recommendation is to take a more holistic approach to your health and wellbeing, yes, exercise, especially if your work is desk-bound, but don’t neglect your diet, your stress management, your breathing, your sleep quality, and get advice on all other lifestyle factors that will improve your health and longevity.
The TotalHealthMatters! Lifestyle Course could be a step in this direction and can be accessed in the comfort of your own home on Skype. Details HERE
“What is Asthma?” This question was posed in the Lancet over twelve years ago (Vol. 368, No. 9537, 26/8/06) and demonstrated there is no consensus to the answer. To add to the confusion recent research suggested that up to 40% of those diagnosed with asthma had been wrongly diagnosed and should not be on the medication prescribed. (Middlemore & Green Hospitals March 25th, 2007)
What is Asthma? – Big Business or Medical Confusion?
“What is Asthma?”This question was posed in the Lancet over twelve years ago (Vol. 368, No. 9537, 26/8/06) and demonstrated there is no consensus to the answer. To add to the confusion recent research suggested that up to 40% of those diagnosed with asthma had been wrongly diagnosed and should not be on the medication prescribed. (Middlemore & Green Hospitals March 25th 2007)
This must seem confusing for all those suffering the many symptoms that constitute the diagnosis of asthma. The wheeze, the breathlessness, the high mucus production, the acute allergic reaction to many triggers, the irritating cough, the low energy, the disturbed sleep that all appear to be relieved with prescribed asthma medication. Surely with this array of symptoms we can rely on an accurate diagnosis of the condition?
There is no doubt that modern medication helps manage the symptoms associated with asthma, but what if the underlying cause of asthma symptoms were something as simple as dysfunctional breathing?
This was exactly the conclusion that Dr Konstantin Buteyko came to after forty years of careful research. He discovered that every asthmatic over-breathed and that their asthma attacks occurred when their over-breathing was excessive. He discovered that if patients were taught to normalize their breathing and make minor adjustments to their lifestyle, their symptoms would disappear and would no longer need medication. His teaching came to the West initially in Australia in the 1980’s and has spread across the world since then, much to the relief of hundreds of thousands of asthma sufferers who now either need no medication or far less than they used to need. But here lies the major problem. The medical profession rightly demanded more research papers to verify the Professor’s findings and the experiences of all those happy asthma sufferers who had supposedly benefitted from their breath training.
In fact, all the clinical trials of the Buteyko Method for the support of asthma patients have demonstrated up to 90% reduction in the need for reliever medication and up to 50% reduction of steroids, reduced coughing, reduced wheezing and less breathlessness along with improved sleep and general quality of life. However additional large trials would need financing and the usual source of funding of clinical trials is from the drug companies who benefit from the sales of asthma drugs, often around twenty percent of their earnings come from this product group. They reasonably have not offered to fund such trials, as the confirmation of this relationship would severely hit their profits and their first responsibility, as for any company, is to their shareholders.
You may want to see two videos on my website: Asthmacarekent.co.uk entitled “Understanding Asthma“ and “Understanding Asthma- A Different Viewpoint” that compare these two views of the origins of asthma.
Meanwhile, millions of people are being treated with ever-increasing doses of asthma drugs with poor results. The UK is one of the worst countries in Europe for asthma treatment according to the latest reports. Why should this be? There are many reasons besides the fundamental one of treating symptoms rather than the root cause. Inappropriate prescription of asthma drugs, inadequate A&E support, poor compliance of patients with their asthma management programs and excessive reliance on medication rather than greater education and training of asthma sufferers have all led to the current situation.
The reason for our failures is being put down to inadequate funding, but more cash is not always the panacea.
If every asthma nurse were to teach their patients the significance of breath control based on the clinically proven Buteyko Method there would be two major outcomes; the asthma drugs bill for the NHS would be reduced by half and patients would be better able to manage their asthma with less reliance on drugs and enjoy a better quality of life.
The cost of the additional training would be offset within months by the ensuing savings on drugs, doctors’ appointments and reduced A&E admissions. Two doctors who referred a number of their asthma patients for Buteyko Training found they were saving thousands of pounds on drug prescription and medical intervention; the cost of training was quickly offset by the savings in the first year and since the training is a one-off, the savings continued into the future.
At present Buteyko, Training is only available from private centres but considering a course may cost less than the servicing of your car and could transform your life, this ought not to be a barrier to asthmatics paying themselves. My Skype Training Course is available anywhere in the world and costs £150, it is based on five sessions over three weeks.
You don’t want to pay anything to learn the Buteyko Method? Why not try to learn how on your own to start with?
