Wellness

The final chapter of the book titled Detoxification and Healing - The Key to Optimal Health by Sidney MacDonald Baker, provides some excellent advice about how to stay well.

Over time I have read and reread this book so many times I think it has a permanent residency in my being. This chapter came from from the revised and updated version published in 2004.

The first version simply titled "Detoxification and Healing" entered and exited my reference library a number of times. I had a habit of discovering friends that needed to read my book, I lent it to them and sometimes it never returned home. It really didn't matter that much, another copy could be bought for a few dollars and I that is what I did.

Dr. Sidney MacDonald Baker both writes from the heart and from a lifetime of experience trying to cure and eliminate disease and pain rather than to make it more bearable. Medicine at its best is surely as much of an art as it is a science.

Someday, when I need to know he or she is there to help me through a crisis in my life, I hope a Dr. Baker or someone like him is there to comfort and treat me. If so I will be in most capable hands.

Now to some of Dr. Baker's thoughts on how we can stay well.

-- Ron Ritch



Some Final Thoughts

When I see a person who is well and wants advice on how to stay well, my checklist is pretty much the same as when I see a person who is sick and wants to get better. I think of the biggest and busiest jobs in the patient's physiologic economy. From that overall perspective I have to see each person as an individual and read his or her symptoms, physical signs, and laboratory test results to get a map of his or her unique physical and spiritual landscape. I heed the words of Oliver Sacks in his advice to a newly qualified physician: "Listen, listen minutely to every patient. Refrain from hasty judgment. See every patient as unique. See their condition from their perspective." I become a tailor trying to fit recommendations for each person.

So it is a different task to guide you with only the knowledge that you are a person who has turned the pages I have written and know some of my story and wants to know what I think is the bottom line while acknowledging that I don't know your story. Keep in mind that among all living things there exists a strong urge and capacity to heal. The following list may guide you in that direction.

  1. The medical application of systems theory says that all approachable sources of imbalance should be addressed to promote healing.
  2. Correcting imbalance means getting the right amount of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, accessory nutritional factors, light, and love and avoiding toxins and allergens.
  3. The "right amount" of positive factors and the tolerable amount of toxins and allergens vary from person to person.
  4. Personal health efforts to solve problems differ from public health efforts because the former assumes that each of us is different whereas the latter assumes that we are all the same.
  5. Your similarities to other people are the basis for making a diagnosis, but the differences between you and others may be the basis for guiding treatment.
  6. Treatment should restore function in as many ways as possible and should resort to suppression of symptoms with drugs only as a last resort.
  7. One of the body's most important functions is the elimination of unwanted used molecules and toxins that come in from the outside world.
  8. Getting rid of used molecules such as hormones and neurotransmitters uses the same detoxification chemistry as does the elimination of toxins from the outside world. The only difference is that when reduced glutathione is used as an usher for the former, it is recycled, but when it binds with the latter xenobiotics, it is lost from the body.
  9. Detoxification is a synthetic process in which a new molecule is made from a substance to be cleared, joined to a carrier needed to usher it safely from the body.
  10. The metabolic cost of synthesizing molecules for detoxification exceeds all other processes except that of growth in children.
  11. Most of the cells that make up your body are transients with a life span of a few days to a few years. A minority of cells is permanent and constitutes the basis for the persistence of your self.
  12. Your immune and central nervous system are the home of your permanent cells, which deserve especially good care.
  13. Good care of your permanent cells means feeding them the right nutrients and avoiding the accumulation of toxins.
  14. The surface of each cell is its protective shield and the interface by which it communicates with other cells. That surface, as well as the work surfaces for all the internal chemistry of the cells, is made of fatty acids. The health of these surfaces is maintained by a good supply of omega-3 fatty acids and protection from oxidization.
  15. When you eat fat, it is not digested in the same way other nutrients are and passed through your liver. Instead, it is absorbed nearly intact and passed directly into your bloodstream.
  16. Your body is relatively indiscriminate when it comes to the use of fats provided in your diet, so that in terms of the composition of your body fat, you very much are what you eat.
  17. Your body can only be so discriminating when it comes to other molecules that enter it; some of the trickiest problems in toxicity come from look-alike molecules that create mischief by their close resemblance to minerals (as does lead), neurotransmitters (as do peptides), and intermediates in energy metabolism (as do microbial organic acids).

About twenty years ago a man came to me with a multiple-allergy problem. I had asked him to fill out a complete questionnaire, and I had interviewed him at length before doing a physical exam, during which I was surprised to find a long surgical scar on his scalp. "Oh yeah," said he. "I forgot to mention that I had that operation." What operation? Removal of a brain tumor. "Oh, some sort of benign growth?" "Nope, it was a cancer that spread from my lung." "You mean to say that you had lung cancer and it spread to your brain." "Yup. First they took out the cancer from my lung and later they found it in my brain and took it out." A long scar on his chest revealed itself to my astonished eyes as I asked, "So what did they say about it?" "They just said stop smoking and don't worry. So I stopped smoking and I didn't worry." I guess you would have to say that he was an exception to the most important rule I have learned from people who have beaten the odds. People with enduring or mortal threats to their health do best when they are able to change. I have read and listened to many discussions in which the issue of compliance is raised by physicians who are skeptical of the role of diet, nutrition, exercise, meditation, coping with loss, and other aspects of what has become known as lifestyle. "When people are sick they have a hard enough time just taking their medicine. All that other stuff just uses up their energy so they are less likely to focus on taking their pills."

It may be true that the "average person" just wants to take a pill and not be bothered by making changes. It may also be true that such a person has a hard time making the distinction between what is appropriate for an acute versus a chronic illness. If so, then the message of this book goes beyond the several key points and has to do with change.

The changes I have in mind differ from person to person. For some it means a new job, for others a new spiritual orientation, and for others learning better ways of loving and being loved. For many it means a change in biochemistry, the subject I have addressed in this book. Those who can face choices without ambivalence do better than others. The ones who do best are the ones who realize that they had been sitting on a need to change and understand the underlying message of this book: illness is a signal to change.



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Document last modified: 04/22/09 12:22:08 PM