THE BRIGHT SIDE 30 AUG 2014

THE BRIGHT SIDE: A post providing important info for your health. This post will be written in a conversational manner as if you & I were talking. On Thurs. nite I had the privilege to listen in person to pharmacist Ben Fuchs give a talk for several hours here in Portland. When people describe Ben as “inspiring”, I totally agree. His explanations of how disease is caused & how it is healed is the best breakdown I have heard, so I want to make all my friends aware of him, where to get his info, and how to listen to his shows. One of his sites is found by putting in thebrightside . He also has a blog pharmicistben w/ the dot com. Dr. Mercola is another natural health practitioner who also advocates for people to take control of their own health. His website is mercola w/ the dot com. This post will give you an overview of Ben Fuchs’ approach. When he began speaking…so much of what he said resonated with me that I was fascinated with every word he said for the next few hours.

AN ARROGANT PRIESTHOOD. It wasn’t long ago, I read the recent true story of a man who went in for a circumcision & due to doctor error lost his penis. I believe I have enough personal stories, as well as anecdotes by friends about the arrogance of doctors to easily write a book. One reason I don’t have insurance is that when I had Kaiser Health Insurance the doctors were absolutely dangerous to my health every time I saw them. Having continuously lived in my body for half a century, having an I.Q. of 170, and having tried to understand health issues one might think I had some idea of what is happening in my body. And yet consistently, the arrogant doctors who have only seen me for seconds would automatically assume they knew more about me than me, and typically dismiss my explanations. In fact, when I was Amish it was even worse, the doctor talked to me (w/ a college education) like I was 5 yrs. old!! One of my friends on surgical teams describes how the doctors make sexual comments (& shockingly sexually molest) females under anesthesia that they are operating on. On the flip side… there are good doctors, but many of them are leaving what has become a corrupt “un”-healthy care business.

AT TIMES WE ARE OUR OWN WORST ENEMY. Of course, being intelligent doesn’t mean I don’t abuse my body every now & then (typically by overworking!). When I took a long trip with my LE Dodge Caravan in July, ’93, I knew that I had unwisely given myself ulcers by driving for days w/out sleep & living on just coffee. I suppose ex-West Pointers have a tendency to push themselves & others too hard. Returning home, I tried to get help for my ulcers. It was obvious to me I had one, but the ER doctors would test me for everything but ulcers, and after a month of not eating I almost died until a friend told me I had ulcers and what to eat. I said the Kaiser doctors said I could not have ulcers because I wasn’t bleeding in my stool. Not true, said my friend. Perhaps some of you have similar stories. So when Ben explained off the bat that doctors use Latin terms to intimidate people, he had me silently cheering. I remember one doctor gravely telling me I had “bursitis”, as if he had made some profound diagnosis. “Itis” means inflammation and burs is short for bursa…in other words I had an inflammation in my bursa…well YES, that is why I came in! Tell me something I didn’t know! I remember going to doctors as a child, and my parents paying like $50 to hear some Latin term like this, and then “but we don’t know what causes it.” Well, I finally got to listen to someone who can explain what causes disease on the cellular level…none of this, “we-don’t-know-what-causes-it, but-here-is-a-prescription-for-a-drug” business.

CELLULAR PROBLEMS. Our power is to deal with health problems at the cellular level…something the doctor is not going to help you with. Your body has around 100 trillion cells, & as you know these tiny living entities are very complex. Cells are busy making things. All problems at a cellular level can be broken down to 3 issues: the cell is starving of not getting nutrients, or it has been toxified by poisons, or it is suffocating due to lack of proper oxygen. The body has a natural way to get rid of damaged cells. It isolates them with something like a wall and then kills them. That is inflammation.

2 NERVOUS SYSTEMS. We have a sympathetic nervous system based on survival (one might describe it as fear based). Then there is the parasympathetic system, which helps with anti-aging. It could be described as love based. We want to do activities that stimulate the parasympathetic system, which incl. womb like activities (hot tubing & the fetal position), being massaged, sighing and breathing nice long exhalations, soothing music and getting good oxygen. While some stress is fine, stress can contribute to disease. Ben got a laugh from us when he said, “God wants you to enjoy the hot tub.”

The 3…the DIGESTIVE TRACT, the ADRENALS & THYROID. The digestive barrier is where you and the outside world meet, and where things from the outside world become part of us. That is where we are most vulnerable. Ben broke down how from the time we are born, things are being done that damage our digestion. The intestinal wall gets broken down and things that should not get into the blood stream enter it. Wow, for many Americans they already have had their bodies “damaged” early on, and it gets worse from there! Ben explains how the adrenal glands get stressed, how the thyroid begins slowing down, and how the triangle of disease is begun at the macro level with problems developing in the digestive tract, the adrenals and thyroid gland.

GETTING AWAY FROM THE CORPORATE SWILL. He explained how corporate America began taking out micronutrients in the ‘20s to preserve food. He talked about their unholy food alliance of sugar, salt & fat. He explained the process whereby Americans eat their fast food & processed food, which leaves their bodies malnourished in micronutrients and craving more…which sets up a vicious cycle of overeating. So we develop malnourishment along with obesity.

While Ben didn’t have much time to spend on nutrition, he did begin to explain how we can reduce the burden on the body & help it heal. Some of his ideas were fasting occasionally to un-stress the body, eating bone soup to get micronutrients, not being afraid of cholesterol but understanding its role in the body (so eggs are my friend), avoiding gluten, and the value of things like Kombucha. He explained about how algae is a super food. (I myself used to be a distributor of Celltech’s superbluegreen algae & heard some great testimonies from some users. One of my customers told me the algae had cured his AIDS.) Grass is also powerful but we don’t have the extra stomachs like cows to digest it. He spoke on the importance of B- vitamins. He suggested foods like steamed broccoli w/ butter. That resonated with me because I already have been enjoying that. In fact, I found that many of his nutrition ideas, I have heard before and were incorporating into my lifestyle…and yet I also realized I have so much more to learn. I will have to make myself some bone soup. I got some chicken to do that! He recommended organic food of course.

MORE INFO. Of course Ben Fuchs is not the only one who has realized how disease begins at the cellular level. Raymond Francis has written “Never Be Sick Again”. I want to read this recommended book which provides a basic understanding of health & disease that is similar to Ben’s explanations. The book is said to provide readers, no matter what their present physical condition, a holistic approach to living that will empower them to get well – and stay well. This is what I want for my friends, so I am excited to share all this information so that we can all take better care of ourselves. Be blessed my friend.