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Hello and welcome to the Medical Medium Blog articles: Healing Foods. I'm so happy to have you here. Visit this blog anytime for inspiration and valuable insights on foods that will help you to heal and feel your best. Happy reading!
There are currently millions of Americans being diagnosed with chronic illnesses and conditions that conventional medicine still does not understand. Many others never receive any kind of diagnosis but are still suffering with all kinds of symptoms. While medical science and research have done amazing things in the area of surgery—being able to remove an appendix, for example, or perform a life-saving transplant—there's is still very little known about the true causes of chronic illnesses and symptoms and how they can be healed. For this reason I call them chronic mystery illnesses. Because there is almost no knowledge in medical communities of what is truly happening in the body with chronic illnesses, the diagnoses and much of the treatment advice people receive is unhelpful or even harmful in some instances. This lack of knowledge is not the well-meaning doctors' and health practitioners' fault. The truth simply hasn't been discovered yet by medical science and research, which means that people with chronic illnesses are being given inaccurate diagnoses and treatment advice that will not actually bring healing.
The reason it is so important to shed light on this issue is that alongside the misinformation around all chronic illnesses is an obsession with protein that is keeping people sick, and in truth, making them sicker than ever before in history. Today we are going to dive into the truth about protein.
Protein Gone Wrong
Medical science and research, along with a plethora of trendy diets, have been pushing protein on us for quite a while. Our culture has become so inundated with "facts" about protein that people often only consider if a food item is high in protein or not when trying to make a healthy decision for themselves and their family. They don't know to consider the other elements of the food that may be detrimental. Unfortunately, this is not a new problem. The misrepresentation of the place of protein in our diets first appeared in the 1930s. Protein quickly became a buzzword in the food industry as a tactic to direct our food purchase choices to where industry wanted us to spend our money. Unfortunately, like so many of the worst aspects of industry and our culture, this protein obsession was all about making money, not about supporting your health or the health of your loved ones. If industry really had your best interests in mind, a tremendous amount of money would have been thrown into a worldwide campaign to encourage people to eat many more fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables and to choose food items based on their vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant value. It most certainly wouldn't have been the push for protein that we are still experiencing.
What this protein myth has led to is a great deal of fear about how much protein our bodies really need. In actuality, it's not the protein in foods that your liver requires in order to create the healthy proteins it uses. That's right, it's the liver that is responsible for producing the types of proteins your body can recognize. This is one of the liver's undiscovered chemical functions. In truth, as I reveal in my book, Liver Rescue, the liver has over 2000 chemical functions, but medical science and research have only discovered a fraction of them. Most of the proteins the liver produces are created from fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables—not from eating the foods most people see as high in protein like eggs, bacon, yogurt, beef, chicken, tofu, fish, milk, nuts and seeds. While it is ok to eat some of these foods, they shouldn't be the focus of the diet. One of the reasons for that is because these foods are actually high fat foods.
The Protein – Fat Connection
Everywhere you look and every person you talk to says it's important to focus on protein. Unfortunately, that's how entrenched the protein myth has become in our society. Even the most intelligent, smart, well-researched people believe that protein is God when it comes to dietary intake. The industries driving this message have been that successful. One of the biggest problems with this protein myth is that while you think you might be doing the right thing by eating a high protein diet, you are also inadvertently eating a high fat diet—these proteins and fats cannot be separated—and a high fat diet is central to the development of chronic illnesses, autoimmune diseases, and countless symptoms. As I share in Liver Rescue and my other books, the true causes of chronic mystery illnesses like migraines, Hashimoto's, lupus, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, eczema, chronic fatigue syndrome, UTIs, cystic acne, tingles and numbness, diabetes, autism, and more are pathogens, toxic heavy metals, and other toxins that have nothing to do with protein. And when the diet is too high in fat, it's almost impossible for the pathogens, heavy metals and toxins that are responsible for these illnesses and symptoms to leave the body as the blood is too thick from all the fat plus a host of these pathogens, toxins, metals and more in the bloodstream. I call this Dirty Blood Syndrome and I address it in-depth in my book Liver Rescue.
Every single person today has dirty blood due to the world we are living in, the pathogens and toxins we are exposed to and inherit through our family lines (this is different from a genetic issue—for more on the gene blame game check out my book Thyroid Healing,) chronic dehydration that most people aren't even aware of and the foods we eat, so it's critical that everyone knows the truth about Dirty Blood Syndrome. These true causes are still unknown to medical science and research so it's even more essential that you understand what's really behind your symptoms and conditions. If you have to wait for science and research to discover the truth about your illnesses and symptoms, you will be suffering needlessly for a very long time. This is what is happening all over the world right now and it's tragic. The truth is here for you so you can take your healing and the healing of your loved ones' into your own hands.
There's a highly popular belief today that the brain is made out of fat and you need to eat a lot of "healthy fats" to have good brain health and function. Sadly, this is more damaging misinformation. High fat diets are disastrous for the brain. In truth, there is only a microscopic percentage of fat in the brain. Outside of these low traces of omegas, the brain is mostly a jellyfish-like organ made up of sugar. The brain runs on glucose, not fat, and without enough of it the brain begins to shrink we get older and it's deprived from getting enough glucose due to high -fat, high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets that fear fruit and potatoes. It's glucose and mineral salts that enable the brain to perform every single function that it does. Sugar that is naturally derived—sugars found in fruits and natural carbohydrates like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squashes—as well as mineral salts also help build muscle. Fat, on the other hand, stops you from building muscle. For those of you drinking protein shakes, the hidden ingredients in those shakes that are actually responsible for your muscle mass are the sugars and carbohydrates. And it's your time at the gym or doing exercise that builds muscle, not the protein in the shakes or other foods you're eating. Surprised? The fact that we have gotten so far from this truth shows just how how entrenched this hyperfocus on protein has become. If you are interested in keeping your muscle definition, eating enough fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables—drinking celery juice, for example, which is packed with mineral salts—will prevent your muscles from atrophying and help remove the toxins that prevent muscles from expanding.
Protein is also not meant to satiate hunger. I often hear people say they need to have eggs for breakfast to feel satiated, or chicken or tofu with their vegetables. This is where people get confused by the satiety they feel after consuming animal proteins or protein-rich plant foods like soy products and nuts. The reason you feel satiated from a meal of animal protein or soy is not because of the protein in the food but because of the fat. High quantities of fats, however, are harmful to your liver. Instead, the focus should be on eating enough calories of the foods that will be most supportive of your health: fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables, including potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squashes.
How To Reduce Fat in Your Diet
Plant-based people and animal eaters alike are falling into the same trap when it comes to high-fat diets. If you are vegan, you may be eating too many nuts, oils, or avocados each day; loading up your smoothies with almond butter or chia seeds; or eating tofu every night which is naturally high in fat. If you do eat animal products and you are consuming animal protein with each meal, you are also eating too much fat. Dairy products and eggs are also problematic and should be avoided by anyone who has a symptom or condition or wishes to help prevent getting one. Eggs feed diseases and bacteria. To understand more about why eggs and dairy are best avoided (along with pork, soy, gluten, corn, and canola oil), check out my book, Liver Rescue.
Those on both animal protein and plant based diets are worried about aging, but if you are focused on too much on protein, even if you are an athlete with no body fat, it is likely you will experience symptoms commonly associated with aging or suffer with an illness or symptom down the track or from the amount of fat in your diet. This may present as any number of conditions, but most commonly causes heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes—all of which stem from a toxic, sluggish liver and thick dirty blood. I cover exactly how this is the case and how you can heal and prevent these diseases in Liver Rescue. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter which symptoms or which illness you have, the golden ticket to help you move forward with healing is a low-fat diet. Even the celebrated high-protein diets aren't as effective as we would want them to be; they can even make matters worse, because the more protein in a diet, the more fats are in it. To find out more about the high fat and high protein myth, how we got here, and how you can support your liver and overall health so you can heal, check out my in-depth explanation in Liver Rescue.
You might be asking then, what can I eat? The truth is, proteins are in all natural whole foods so your options are endless. Raw spinach and nori contain a great deal of protein. Potatoes are often shunned, but the skin of a potato contains healing protein. Tomatoes have proteins in them. Bananas not only contain protein but also satiate due to their calorie count. In addition, the carbohydrates in bananas kill viruses in the gut, helping to heal celiac, IBS, Crohn's disease, and colitis. They also repel retroviruses like HIV and herpetic viruses like Epstein-Barr, shingles and HHV, both their discovered and many undiscovered strains which I brought to light in Medical Medium and share new information on in Liver Rescue. Oranges and apples contain some protein and play a part in keeping the liver healthy, which should be the priority over protein. If you are plant-based, you can eat some avocado and some nuts and seeds, but if it's healing from symptoms and conditions and the best health possible you're seeking, put your focus on an abundance of fresh fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables, including the carbohydrate-rich vegetables like potatoes and winter squash. If you eat animal products, try to stick to one smaller serving of animal protein per day while bringing in more and more of the fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables.
Satiation should not be based on fats and proteins, but on getting enough healthy carbohydrates and glucose from fruits and carbohydrate-rich vegetables. It is an adequate amount of calories that provides saiation, not specifically eating fat and protein. These foods just seem more satiating because such a small amount of them provides such a large amount of fat and calories. Whereas with fresh fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables, you need to eat more to get sufficient calories but when you do, you will feel satiated and be giving your body the nutrients it so desperately needs. Focus instead on delicious meals and snacks such as the Liver Rescue Apple Sauce, Peach Ginger Sorbet, Caramel Apple Rings, Potato Pancakes with Cucumber Radish Salad, Ratatouille, Lentil Tacos, Cauliflower Sushi, or any of the other many delicious recipes in Liver Rescue.
Moving Forward
It's critical for the sake of your health and your loved ones' health that you know that the high protein trend today does not actually help or support you in healing from symptoms and conditions. Out of the better high protein diets today recommend removing processed foods from your diet, which is absolutely helpful and the reason why some people will see an improvement in how they feel for a while. However, eventually, the high amount of protein and fats in these diets will contribute to illness and decline down the line. Whatever your diet, the point here is that there needs to be less focus less on protein because the fat that inherently comes with the protein is problematic for anyone with any illness or symptom. Regardless of whether you eat animal protein or plant based, when your diet is too high in fat the result will eventually be an illness or symptom. Our obsession with protein has gone too far. It's a trap that will keep you and your loved ones ill. It will also lead to more and more infertility in the years and decades ahead. We may not be able to change the medical or diet industries, but we can change our own diet and belief systems and help those around us. You can hold onto these truths and with this wisdom you can make choices that support you, not hinder you.
This item posted: 07-Sep-2018 - Disclaimer
I have been a fan of wild berries since I enjoyed picking them as a child in Maine with Spirit telling me about their undiscovered healing properties and which ones I could eat safely and which to avoid. Fortunately, you do not have to live out in the country or near the woods to have access to wild berries today. It's quite likely that your local supermarket sells frozen wild blueberries, which are the most healing food on this planet, and it could also sell other types of wild berries dependent on which area of the world you live in. Incredibly, wild blueberries become even more powerful when frozen. But first, it is essential that you know why wild berries are so important in the first place. One important reason is because they are covered with elevated biotics—microorganisms that supersede any probiotic on the market, soil or lab born. These elevated microorganisms exist on unwashed organic produce when it's growing, so when you eat a wild berry, apple, leaf of kale or anything else that you pick straight from the plant or soon after it has been harvested, you'll be taking in these critical microorganisms we all need. The benefits of these microorganisms are infinite, so whether you are struggling with a specific condition or concerned with the effects of aging, freshly picked wild berries are for you. Let's first take a closer look at what elevated biotics do.
Elevated Biotics
Undiscovered by medical science and research, elevated biotics are capable of amazing feats. These microorganisms bypass the hydrochloric acid in your stomach, as well as your bile and the bile salts in your duodenum and small intestine, to find their way into your ileum, located at the end of your small intestine, where they can settle in and do the work of keeping your cells alive. Simply put, elevated biotics have significant rejuvenating powers. This means that you could have consumed a handful of wild berries ten years ago and the elevated biotics from those berries are still alive and kicking in your gut. The reason it is so vital that elevated biotics are present in the ileum is that they help the body to produce B12. Are you already taking a B12 supplement? It is still crucial that your body has these microorganisms in order for your supplement to work. Elevated biotics are responsible for activating your B12 supplement, like flipping a switch. Without them, you are essentially throwing your supplements away. Almost everyone today is deficient in B12, including those who get tested for B12 levels and the tests show they are in the normal or high range. I share why this happens in my book, Life-Changing Foods. Historically, it was the norm to eat fruits, vegetables, and herbs fresh-picked from the field, garden, or wild, so people were getting higher levels of elevated biotics. It's part of why brain issues, digestive disturbances, autoimmune disease, and so many other chronic illnesses were much less common in previous eras.
With elevated biotics present in your digestive tract, your body can also fight off SIBO, stop strep in its tracks, and reduce acid reflux. Additionally, H.pylori and other types of bacteria cannot survive in your stomach or intestines when the powerful microorganisms found on wild berries and other organic, unwashed plants are present.
Wild Blueberries and Other Berry Varieties
While all wild berries are incredibly nutrient dense and beneficial, wild blueberries are the number one powerhouse food. With immense healing properties, the phytochemicals in these berries (also undiscovered by science) act like magnets to attract toxic heavy metals and carry them out of the brain and liver and remove them from the body. They are especially effective when eaten along with the other four foods in the Medical Medium Heavy Metal Detox protocol.
Do not worry, however, if you are unable to get your hands on wild blueberries. Mulberries, wild strawberries, linden berries, gooseberries, and wild black raspberries, to name a few, are also extremely rich in nutrients and full of certain amino acids and antioxidants still unexplored by medical science and research. When I was younger, I took home buckets full of mulberries from the mulberry trees that grew near my house and froze them. Remarkably, the antioxidants in wild berries do not diminish when they are frozen. If you're wondering what it is about wild berries that makes them so nutrient dense, the answer is in their various pigments, which is where antioxidants and amino acids are especially present. If you have ever cut or squeezed fresh wild berries, you have probably noticed that they have bled dark purple or red. This is one indicator of just how packed full of nutrients they are. Their deeply pigmented skins give them their incredible healing power. Their incredibly high nutrient content makes them especially effective at removing toxins and heavy metals from the body, which viruses like Epstein-Barr virus, shingles, and other viruses feed off. You may also have noticed that cultivated berries, or berries that are not wild, are less saturated with pigments—meaning that they are also less saturated with nutrients.
Wild berries, specifically wild blueberries, are the most adaptable fruit on the planet, having survived drought, cold, and floods, so there are thousands of years of unique information resting inside each plant—and no one berry is the same. Plus, the microorganisms in wild berries are a different breed of elevated biotic to those living on other types of berries, making them more potent, but this does not mean that you should stop eating regular berries. If growing or picking wild berries is not a possibility where you live or you can't access frozen wild berries, you still have options. You can use a wild blueberry powder, which is an incredible addition to any diet. Also, there are several plant hybrids and varieties that are not wild, and, at the end of the day, any berry is definitely better than no berries at all. Wild or not, check out the berries at your local farmers' market. There are bound to be raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries on offer in the summer that are also full of many wonderful healing properties. Each offers unique benefits. You can read more about the healing properties of wild blueberries specifically and berries in general in Life-Changing Foods.
Antioxidants are present in all fruits, but those found in wild berries are especially powerful, capable of stopping the process of oxidation. Cells oxidize, or breakdown and die, from poisons and toxins. You might already be aware of free radicals, which the medical and beauty industries proclaim to be a large threat, but this is a generalized term for damaged cells and toxins that your body produces. It does not cover the host of other toxins that we take in from cleaners, detergents, air fresheners, carpet chemicals, exhaust fumes, metals, and so on. We also oxidise from pathogens present in the body that feed and then excrete neurotoxins and dermatoxins, a truth that medical science and research do not yet know. Almost everyone today has at least one pathogen inside their body.
It is important to understand what you are up against—these types of poisons are everywhere—but fortunately, berries have antioxidants that protect us from these toxins. How exactly does it work? Oxidation happens when the toxins that we are exposed to or inherit from our family lines (which is one reason why a baby can be very sick) damage our tissues and cell structures, ultimately poisoning and killing our cells. In the brain, for example, heavy metals cause neurotransmitter chemicals to get dirty, die, and explode. You might experience this as the frustrating and sometimes debilitating symptom brain fog. In addition, these metals feed viruses such as Epstein-Barr (EBV), which is responsible for autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto's, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, eczema, and more. Again, this is also not known by science and research. To find out more about EBV and how it is affecting the health of millions of people, check out my book, Thyroid Healing. On top of all of this, you are also aging faster and faster if this cell death is happening in your body and you are not eating the right foods (think wild berries and the other healing foods I list in my books) to counteract this process and help your body reproduce cells.
The Myth About Fruit Sugar
There are many trendy health diets out there that ward customers off of most fruits but encourage the consumption of berries because they are low glycemic. The quantity of berries allowed on these diets, however, is usually minimal. Consuming only a handful or two of berries a week will not do the job of combating internal aging. The sugars naturally present in fruit are particularly beneficial for the brain. You do not need to be afraid of fruit. I repeat, you do not need to be afraid of fruit. As explained above, fruit is packed with the antioxidants needed to help fight disease and aging. If you are concerned about the sugar in fruit or have been told to avoid fruit, it is vital that you read my article and listen to my radio show on Fruit Fear. It's critical for your health and future that you make room in your diet for fruit.
Your body needs the antioxidants in fruit, especially those found in wild berries, in order to get oxidants out and stop cells from decaying. The undiscovered truth is, the cells in your body do not receive nutrients, minerals, or vitamins without sugar involved. I'm not talking about processed and refined sugars, but the natural sugar in fruit especially and also carbohydrate rich foods like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squashes. If you are depriving yourself of fruit, your body is running on old sugar reserves from your brain and liver. What this means is that your cells are unable to absorb any new nutrients. Why? Because the cells in your body only open up to receive vitamins and minerals when they are attached to natural sugars. As an extra bonus, the sugars in fruit, especially in wild berries, naturally contain vitamins, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and trace minerals. If you are on a no-fruit or minimal fruit diet and also take supplements, your cells won't be able to fully absorb the nutrients in your supplements. The nutrients in foods and supplements both need to be bound to natural sugars like those found in fruit in order to be properly absorbed. This is information that you will not find anywhere else because it hasn't yet been discovered by science.
Moving Forward
Have you ever been berry picking? Simply being outdoors and touching berries recalibrates your blood pressure and heals the soul. Those memories also act as small meditations that bring healing when you think back on them. And then eating them daily or as often as possible brings a multitude of healing benefits. Try to seek out any wild berries or cultivated berries that you can. Have them for breakfast or a snack, add to juices, smoothies, salads, dips, dressings, and desserts. Bring in the heavy metal detox smoothie which is so important for everyone. These are all wonderful ways to enjoy berries. For more ideas, search "berries" on my blog and you'll find many delicious recipes. Read about their many healing properties here and in Life-Changing Foods and then think about what you've read as you eat your berries. This will amplify their benefits even more. You could also take an herbal or foraging class to learn about berries, or talk to someone who can identify edible brambles so you can take advantage of any berries that grow in your area. The most important step is to start eating them as often as possible so you can reap their healing power.
This item posted: 16-Aug-2018 - Disclaimer
Fibroids are growths in the uterus that can be like smooth pieces of muscle. They can be the size of an egg or even the size of a small grapefruit. Fibroids can be incredibly disruptive and difficult to deal with, even causing bleeding and extreme discomfort. In most cases, doctors recommend surgery when a woman comes in with a fibroid, and in many, surgery is presented as the only option because of the large size of many fibroids.
As with most chronic illnesses, medical communities don't yet know the true cause of fibroids. There is only speculation and theory about why women sometimes get these growths in their reproductive systems. And, as with most chronic illnesses, the medical industry has convinced millions of women that their fibroids are related to their genes. In reality, fibroids have nothing to do with genes and are not hereditary at all. Science and research sometimes suggests that fibroids could be caused by estrogen, progesterone, or even too much red meat or alcohol. While some of these things may be connected to fibroids, they are not the true cause.
Fibroids are Caused by a Virus
The true cause of fibroids is a virus called Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV.) I have spoken about EBV at length in my books, especially Thyroid Healing, because it is the unknown root cause of a large number of health conditions and symptoms. As I brought to light in my book Medical Medium, there are over 60 varieties of EBV. Medical science and research only believe there to be one variety. If you are unfamiliar with this virus, you are likely aware of mononucleosis, which is the second stage of EBV. Oftentimes someone contracts mononucleosis as a child or when they are in their teens or 20s and then never truly eradicates the virus from their body. Because they are not given the proper tools to knock down the virus altogether and because science and research aren't aware that EBV has multiple stages, of which mononucleosis is just stage two, EBV then continues to strengthen and proliferate, moving into further stages and causing many other illnesses and symptoms. In truth, almost everyone today has at least one variety of EBV.
Different varieties create different health problems. It is the environment we create for the virus, the toxins we are exposed to, the stress and hardships in our lives, and the foods we eat that dictate whether it will develop into further stages. Another truth medical communities are still unaware of is that viruses actually feed. They feed on specific foods, plus toxins and heavy metals, and create more severe health conditions and symptoms as a result. I discuss many of the common triggers that strengthen EBV in my book, Thyroid Healing. Now that you know the true cause of fibroids, you can learn how to knock out this virus and bring healing to your body,
Estrogen does play a role in creating fibroids in women's reproductive systems. However, it is not in the way that is often explained in alternative and medical health communities. Typically women's own hormones are blamed for creating fibroids, but in reality the estrogen found in foods or other external sources is what can truly cause harm. The harmful kinds of estrogen are in eggs, dairy, red meat, plastics, solvents, and medications. While eggs and dairy are best avoided by everyone because they directly contribute to illness (read how in Thyroid Healing), the key with red meat, plastics, solvents, and medications is to consider if there's ways you can reduce your intake of them where possible. This harmful estrogen is the one that needs to be eliminated from the body because otherwise it builds up in the liver and in turn harms the uterus. The liver gets so clogged up with poisons, toxins, and pathogens like EBV, which I explain in detail in Liver Rescue, that it cannot do its job to protect the reproductive system from harm. The liver traps the estrogen in order to protect you; but when the liver is too overloaded with toxins, the estrogen can be released but isn't able to leave the body properly. The estrogen then saturates the uterus and contributes to the development of fibroids.
What's In Your Diet?
The reason we need to focus on removing certain foods and adding in other ones is because diet is critical to healing fibroids. Certain foods, like eggs and dairy especially, trigger the Epstein-Barr virus to get into the reproductive system and create growths. Unfortunately, the only foods that science and research are willing to scorn in the arena of fibroids is red meat. While red meat does play a role because it contains adrenaline and estrogen, the worst offenders are eggs and dairy, two foods sadly often promoted within medical and alternative health communities as being helpful. Doctors and health practitioners haven't been taught that these foods actually contribute to growing fibroids rapidly and this truth is simply not widely known.
Most women are told that eggs and dairy are good for women's health and are needed for protein and calcium. Products like yogurt and cottage cheese are proclaimed as not only good but very important for women. However, dairy and eggs are the worst thing for women's health and should be avoided at all cost because they feed EBV, the virus that causes not only fibroids but a multitude of illnesses women often struggle with. Fibroids is directly caused by EBV, and EBV is fed by the consumption of eggs and dairy products, including the ones that are considered healthy like milk, eggs, cheese squares, and yogurt. Unfortunately, there are private panels of influencers supporting experts in the health field protecting eggs and keeping the truth from women who simply want to lead the healthiest lives they can. I have dedicated my life to getting this information into the hands of the people who need it most because there is so much misinformation out there misleading people.
Healing Foods
In addition to removing the EBV triggers, we can do something equally as powerful and just as critical: consume the foods that EBV hates. Fruit is the best thing to consume when trying to fight this virus because of the incredible antiviral properties it contains. Even though women are told misinformation about fruit being too high in sugar, do not remove fruit from your diet. You can read more and listen to my radio show on Fruit Fear and why fruit is so critical on my blog. While women are being told to eat yogurt, they should actually be encouraged to eat fruit because fruit goes hand-in-hand with the female reproductive system. Some powerful fruits you can include are apples, berries, mangoes, papayas, cherries, cranberries, and bananas. Eat banana smoothies with frozen or fresh berries, especially wild blueberries. Eat ripe mangoes for breakfast or a bowl full of grapes. Consume as much fruit as you like and experience the healing benefits of this amazing food.
Something everyone can agree on is the importance of vegetables in your diet. Eat plenty of raw leafy greens and vegetables every day. Eat salads daily and add lettuces, specifically romaine lettuce, kale, spinach, celery, cucumber, zucchini, and fennel. You can even juice fennel or steam it and put it in a soup. You can also steam vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes. Make winter squash a staple in your diet and eat plenty of asparagus. Try juicing asparagus to help your fibroids shrink.
There are also some herbs that can be helpful in reducing fibroids. Do not underestimate the power of these simple herbs, whether taken in capsule, tincture, or tea form. The first herb to consider is raspberry leaf, which levels out the bad hormones that feed EBV. Also, nettle leaf is an amazing gift for women, especially when healing from fibroids, because of its antiviral properties. Lemon balm is another herb that EBV hates because there are phytochemicals in this herb that go directly after the virus. Also, some ashwagandha goes a long way when healing from fibroids. Consider including these herbs into your regimen in order to reduce your fibroids and experience healing.
One Woman's Healing Story
Several years ago I helped a woman with her fibroids. She was told by her doctors that she needed a hysterectomy, but she wanted to heal naturally so she came to me for advice. The fibroid in her uterus was the size of a grapefruit and she was experiencing a great deal of bleeding. For 30 days she radically changed her diet and consumed mostly bananas and celery. She took the herbs that I recommended and ate a diet of fruits and vegetables. Then she returned to the doctors and they searched for the fibroid and could not find it. They were utterly complexed. The fibroid was completely gone and they were stunned. When she explained to them what she did, they did not believe her. Eventually, when they spoke to me on the phone about it, they laughed when I explained to them that she got rid of the fibroid by killing off the Epstein-Barr Virus that had caused the fibroids with the right foods and herbs, and that her mononucleosis from 30 years before was an earlier stage of the same virus that caused the fibroids. They may have laughed but she was free and living her live once again without pain and fear. Many women I have worked with over the decades have had healing experiences just like this one with fibroids.
Moving Forward
If you or someone you know is experiencing fibroids, please know I am providing this information so you can take control of your health. Now that you know what is causing the fibroids, you can take the necessary steps to kill off EBV and heal your reproductive system. I often speak about the power of knowing the cause because EBV begins to weaken and your immune system begins to strengthen as soon as you know the truth. Half the battle is knowing what is wrong, and the other half is knowing what to do about it. My book Thyroid Healing would be especially helpful to help you heal from fibroids and help prevent further fibroid growth also.
This item posted: 04-Aug-2018 - Disclaimer
If you are reading this, chances are that you or someone you love is one of the many people plagued by asthma. No matter what age asthma hits—whether you are facing adult-onset asthma or caring for a young person with childhood asthma—living with asthma can be a constant struggle. After all, the quality of our breathing affects our quality of life in more ways than one. The good news? You can heal from asthma. Once you understand its true causes, which are unknown by medical science and research, you can move forward with improving and healing this condition.
What You Believe About Asthma Matters
In a way, asthma is similar to migraines in that you have to plan your life around both of these conditions. Before leaving the house, you may run through a checklist of questions: Will I be in an unfamiliar environment today? Did I pack my inhaler? Should I drive separately just in case? You may even question whether you are able to travel or experience new things. In short, nothing is simple when it comes to having a chronic illness, asthma included. Even if you find relief in knowing that your friends and family members have some awareness around asthma, or that there are millions of others who also struggle with it, this does not mean that asthma is normal or easy.
The first step in addressing asthma, as is true for many things in life, is addressing your belief system. What you believe about your health—particularly what you believe about living with asthma—might be keeping you from truly healing. Take a moment to consider your thoughts around this condition. Do you believe that you can't heal from asthma? Are you convinced that it's just your lot in life and you'll struggle with it forever? Do you believe you'll always have to use an inhaler to manage it? Do you believe it's an autoimmune condition where your body is attacking itself? If any of this sounds familiar, it is time to pause and reframe your beliefs about asthma and your health. As you'll discover below, there are a few major culprits responsible for the onset of asthma and once you know them and apply the healing steps I share here and in my books, you can at least improve or even rid asthma from your life. It's not a life sentence you have to live with anymore, nor is your body or immune system attacking itself. For more on what I call the "autoimmune confusion," why so many health conditions are incorrectly labeled autoimmune, and why this belief could be preventing you from healing, read the chapter on this topic in my book, Thyroid Healing.
Different Types of Asthma
To start, it is important to note that there are different types of asthma, not just one as medical communities believe. These include neurological asthma, vagus nerve asthma and phrenic nerve asthma, toxic heavy metal exposure asthma, and asthma caused by underlying viral conditions such as Epstein-Barr. None of these types and causes of asthma are understood by medical science and research.
Viral, Toxic Heavy Metal Exposure and Neurological Asthma
Low grade viruses in the body can inflame the nerves and result in limited breathing. These breathing issues can leave doctors scratching their heads. A pulmonologist, for example, might not be sure of the cause of these symptoms, but will most likely assume one of two things: asthma or anxiety. Diagnosing patients that have breathing issues with anxiety is a common occurrence—and they can be linked due to the fact that asthmatic symptoms, including tightness of chest, are nerve related, but the cause of the nerve issues are still not understood. And, when the breath is limited, the adrenals start releasing a lot of adrenaline. For many people, this results in a trip to the emergency room where the ER doctor might think their symptoms are indicative of the flu, anxiety, or a panic attack. Or if an asthma diagnosis is given, patients are often told it's an autoimmune condition or a genetic condition. This is another incorrect theory I address and explain in detail in Thyroid Healing. What's really happening is that there is a low grade viral infection in the body. As I share in Thyroid Healing, there are stages a virus like Epstein-Barr virus, goes through and in the later stages, the viruses produce neurotoxins, which are poisons that disrupt nerve function. Medical communities haven't yet discovered this truth so they are unable to give you the correct information about what's behind your asthma, or any answer at all.
From a neurological perspective, when you think about asthma, it is essential to consider the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain into the neck and chest and controls the abdomen and the function of the lungs. Equally significant is the phrenic nerve, which runs through the neck into the chest on each side. Both the vagus and phrenic nerves can do funny things in the chest, especially when there is a viral issue developing. Neuro-asthma, for instance, is common among university students who are staying up late to study and party, and who are under real stress for the first time. What they are likely unaware of is a developing case of mononucleosis (caused by the Epstein-Barr virus which I address extensively in Thyroid Healing) and/or streptococcus that could have been brewing for years, and which is triggered under stressful conditions. For more detailed information on streptococcus, check out my book Liver Rescue. Medical science and research don't yet know that when a virus is present in the system, neurotoxins are released from the liver, float around in the body, and inevitably touch the vagus and phrenic nerves causing inflammation and irritation in the chest—two of the symptoms of neuro-asthma. Viruses are behind a countless number of chronic mystery illnesses. Asthma is no exception.
Another cause of neuro-asthma is toxic heavy metals, which feed viruses that then excrete the neurotoxins that inflame the phrenic and vagus nerves that are affected in cases of asthma. Both children and adults can be exposed to toxic heavy metals easily. Doing the Medical Medium heavy metal detox protocol is extremely important for anyone with asthma. Emotional stress and hardships can also be a trigger to underlying viral or bacterial conditions or lead to the release of excess adrenaline, all of which can lead to the onset of asthma. Emotional neuro-asthma can present with similar symptoms to other brain related asthmas. For any of these types of asthmas, inhalers are often prescribed. While inhalers can ease someone's symptoms because steroids calm the nerves, they don't address the root cause and are not a cure.
Environmental irritants can also play a role in asthma. Separate from these different neuro-asthmas is inflamed bronchial asthma.
Inflamed Bronchial Asthma
When irritants are inhaled into the lungs they can trigger the inflammation of the lungs and bronchial passageways. These triggers—i.e. dust, dirt, asbestos, etc.—can be hard to avoid, especially if you are in a line of work such as woodworking, home construction, or engineering. In these environments, the bronchial tubes can become hypersensitive. Inhalers can help ease symptoms temporarily, but if you are suffering from chronic asthma and use your inhaler a lot, you may become immune to the steroids at some point.
So what exactly causes inflammation? When contaminants enter the lungs and the body cannot expel them easily or quickly enough, they cling to the bronchial walls causing irritation. In this case, these contaminants sit on the mucus lining of the bronchial tubes, shifting back and forth as you breathe and your lungs expand and contract. What this means is that these contaminants are essentially acting like sandpaper. As they collect over time, they get stuck in the mucus lining, causing the bronchial tubes to become increasingly irritated. But environmental irritants are not solely to blame. Mucus plays a key role in the inflammation of the lungs and the weakening of the immune system.
The Truth About Mucus
Mucus exists in everyone's body. At its best, mucus is a protective mechanism. We need to have healthy mucus in order to have a healthy immune system. The throat is an excellent example of this. A thin lining of mucus coats your throat so that you don't get a sore throat when you speak all day. However, there are places mucus should not be: the liver, the lymphatic system, the bloodstream, or our internal organs. Very simply, our bodies cannot get rid of the contaminants in healthy mucus if we have a build-up of mucus where it does not belong. Why? Excess mucus becomes hardened and putrefied. This keeps whatever irritants that are in your lungs from leaving the body. Unlike this unhealthy mucus build-up, healthy mucus produced when you have a cold is the body's way of fighting a virus. Healthy mucus allows the body to locate the virus and destroy it. So what causes this excess of mucus anyway? The answer: what you eat. If your diet is loaded with mucus producing foods, the healthy mucus can't do its job to rid contaminants from the lungs. The body needs to be in good standing to use mucus effectively. Too much mucus increases inflammation, which only prolongs and intensifies breathing troubles and other asthmatic symptoms.
Foods To Avoid
The first step to clearing mucus from the body is eliminating dairy products, including milk, kefir, butter, cream, and cheese. If you are vegan or plant-based, this includes non-dairy cheeses, too, because soy is a mucus producing food and nut and seed based cheeses are typically very high in fat or fermented, which is hard on the liver as I explain in Liver Rescue. Eggs are another food that's critical to avoid because they feed viruses in the body. As you now know, underlying viruses can cause and worsen asthma. Whether you are dealing with viral, neuro or bronchial asthma, eliminating eggs will help you lower the amount of mucus, and therefore the amount of inflammation, in your body. Additionally, removing canola oil, soy, and pork will also start you on the path to healing. The fat content in each of these foods keep mucus from leaving the body in a natural, speedy manner. It's for this same reason that it's helpful to reduce the fat content in your diet in general if you're wanting to heal from asthma. If you eat a plant based diet, lower the oils, seeds, and nuts in your diet by 50%. If you eat animal products, which are inherently high in fat, aim to only have them once a day at most or ideally two to three times a week at most while healing. If you'd like to heal asthma as quickly and easily as possible, it could be very helpful to consider a plant based diet until you are free from your symptoms. Grains are also best avoided when healing asthma, although a small amount of millet can be okay for some people. Learn more about grains and what's good to eat and avoid in my show Truth About Grains. Similarly, try not to eat too many beans while healing from asthma. A little bit of chickpeas, hummus, and the occasional serving of lentils can be ok for some.
What foods can you incorporate more of into your diet? While you shouldn't overindulge on nuts or fats, a little bit of hemp seeds and walnuts are beneficial for healing, along with some avocado. A larger focus should be placed on seeds than nuts, including pumpkin or sunflower. Do eat plenty of fruits and potatoes, including sweet potatoes, as well as different varieties of squash (summer, kabocha, spaghetti, etc.). Eating lots of raw veggies, leafy greens like spinach, and salads will also help mucus find its way out of the body by pushing it out of the liver and intestinal tract and through the body's lymphatic channels. Another healing food to add to your shopping list: ginger. Regardless of the type of asthma you are struggling with, ginger will help boost your immune system, provide you with plenty of brain-friendly antioxidants, and reduce inflammation. And the most important food group of all is fresh fruit. Don't be misled by anyone suggesting fruit is too high in sugar or should be avoided if you're unwell. This is harmful misinformation. In truth, fruit is the most important food for healing any chronic illness, including asthma. To find out more about why fruit is so important for you and yet why it's common today to hear it should be avoided, listen to my radio show and read my article on Fruit Fear.
The Medical Medium 28 Day Cleanse that I share in my book, Medical Medium, is a wonderful way to jump-start your healing and fight asthma, too. You can choose to do the cleanse for one to three months (or much longer if you wish). Also consider bringing in the highly-beneficial (and delicious) Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie, which is the only truly effective way to rid toxic metals completely from the body. Drink this smoothie daily for as long as possible.
Some helpful supplements to consider include B12 with adenosylcobalamin and methylcobalamin, vitamin C as either Liposomal C or Ester C, NAC, and a bit of MSM. Nettle leaf, lemon balm, and some zinc sulfate are also helpful. The key here is not to load up on too many supplements too quickly, but to focus first on cleaning up your diet by removing the Foods To Avoid, adding in a lot more healing fruits, leafy greens, and vegetables, and then slowly bringing in some supplements.
Moving Forward
It is possible to heal and to no longer need your inhaler. Healing foods that don't produce mucus and in fact reduce and eliminate it are the place to start—and the key is consistency. Also be sure to avoid environmental irritants such as artificial fragrances like cologne and perfume whenever possible. These fragrances area a trigger to asthma and all other chronic illnesses. This also includes air fresheners, scented candles, dryer sheets, industrial cleaning products, aerosols, and harsh detergents to name a few. If you are required to be around these items for work or any other reason, protect yourself with a safety mask if possible. Last, but never least, drink your celery juice! Celery juice does wonders for calming and healing the nerves and starves pathogens that produce the neurotoxins responsible for so many chronic illnesses. As with any illness, healing takes time, but now that you finally know the truth about the causes of asthma and the foods you can eat to decrease mucus production, starve pathogens and heal the nerves inflamed in your body, you are one step closer to experiencing the freedom that comes with always being able to take deep full breaths. You deserve nothing less.
Learn more about how to heal and restore your body in the New York Times bestselling book Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic & Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal
This item posted: 02-Aug-2018 - Disclaimer
If you are struggling with a mystery illness that doctors have been unable to give answers for or you've spent time searching for answers to your health symptoms online, you may have come across the rumor that lectins in fruits and vegetables are behind your symptoms. This theory is just that—a theory. It is not true and this false information is contributing to people becoming more confused and in that confusion, people become afraid of the very foods that heal the body, which are fruits and vegetables. It's critical that you get the real answers you need that can help you and your loved ones heal. Part of that is knowing the truth about lectins.
Back in the 1940s and 1950s hoards of people began complaining of mysterious symptoms that now have been given many names and labels, but the true causes of these symptoms are still unknown by science and research. Doctors simply could not explain what was happening to people with fatigue, headaches, brain fog, weight gain, hair loss, vertigo, depression, or anxiety, to name just a few. Rather than admitting they did not know and focusing on discovering a true answer, they told people, mostly women, that it was all in their heads. Dismissing patients like this was common practice.
The next trend to explain away mysterious illness was to blame everything on hormones. This was an easy sell because of how many patients happened to be experiencing symptoms around the time of menopause, even though pre 1940 these symptoms did not exist. I explain more about why hormones have been incorrectly blamed for many conditions and symptoms in Medical Medium and Thyroid Healing.
The next and most common scapegoat today is the autoimmune theory. Nowadays an autoimmune diagnosis is alarmingly common. This theory has become law and is being taken as absolute truth despite it also only being a theory from the beginning. As I have explained in many of my resources, such as my book Thyroid Healing, the autoimmune theory is completely inaccurate. The truth is that our bodies are incapable of attacking themselves. It is impossible for a single cell in the human body to start working against itself, regardless of what you may have been told. It's critical to fully understand this truth.
Another current trend is to say that you create your own illness. If you have been experiencing chronic illness, you may have heard a well-meaning friend or even a health professional tell you that you are not spiritually aligned and therefore it is the plan for your life that you remain sick until you heal on a spiritual level. Or you may have heard that your negative thoughts created your illness, that you manifested it with your actions, or that it's your karma. These are all untrue and should be avoided immediately. They will only distance you further from healing. Another falsehood is believing that foods are causing your illness, which is another example of misinformation. Foods can absolutely contribute to illness but they're not the root cause of illness, though they are related more closely than the other misleading theories explained above. Pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, cause illness, and certain foods either feed these pathogens or fight them. When a pathogen is strengthened by eating its favorite foods, it excretes poisons, causing inflammation and a long list of symptoms medical and alternative health communities still have no real answers for.
The Lectin Theory
One example of a trendy and inaccurate answer for chronic illness is the lectin theory. This a theory that has been confusing and misleading people for years and it is time to set the record straight. Chronically sick people are unable to heal when they are unknowingly being fed misinformation and lies. This particular theory is not merely confusing, it keeps people from eating the very foods that will combat the pathogens they need to be fighting.
The lectin theory essentially claims that we are not meant to eat certain foods because of a carbohydrate-binding protein that is present in all fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and grains. Proponents of this theory claim lectins are the reason for all illnesses today. The concern is that certain foods are particularly high in lectins and should be avoided. These foods include beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and many more. It is easy to convince people that this theory is truth because the overwhelming majority of people today believe carbohydrates, even healthy ones, are bad for you. The theory says that lectins cause the body to turn against itself by triggering autoimmune and inflammation reactions. We are told that we cannot digest lectins and therefore the human body produces antibodies to reject them.
Proponents of the lectin theory only advocate for eating a high-fat and high-protein animal based diet. But whether a diet is animal based, vegetarian, or vegan, high protein and high fat diets will contribute to more illness. They promote fruit fear and often suggest avoiding fruit altogether. This type of diet in turn destroys the liver and makes it that much more difficult to heal. When people do experience some healing on high-fat, high-protein diets (which are one and the same), this could be due to the processed foods they have also eliminated. However, it is not the lectins in processed foods that were causing problems; it was other plant and animal food compounds naturally occuring in bread, eggs, dairy, and rancid oils in those processed foods being consumed that were feeding pathogens.
What Anti-Lectin Leaders Don't Know
The leaders of the anti-lectin movement are completely in the dark about chronic illness. First of all, they believe in the autoimmune theory which suggests that your immune system attacks and destroys your own body and that lectins and genes are to blame. They are unaware that hundreds of thousands of people over the decades have healed from mystery symptoms by eating the very fruits and vegetables they are now being told to avoid because of lectins. In fact, these anti-lectin leaders pretend no one has healed from chronic illness eating fruits and vegetables. People are told potatoes are a terrible food for them because of the lectins; however, I have seen thousands of people heal from diseases like rheumatoid arthritis (RA), multiple sclerosis (MS), and diabetes by making potatoes a main source of calories in their diet. I have also witnessed chronically ill people with severe digestive conditions heal and recover by just eating potatoes alone. If they hadn't had that option, they would either be still sick or gravely worse.
Anti-lectin leaders do not know about how pathogens, the actually guilty offenders that cause disease, truly work and the role they play in our bodies and chronic illness. Pathogens like the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), streptococcus, and shingles are the ones to blame, not lectins in potatoes. EBV, for example, is the true cause of RA, and those who tell you not to eat potatoes do not know this. Nor do they know that potatoes are helpful for healing this condition. If one does not understand the true cause of an illness, what qualifies them to tell you to avoid eating certain foods in order to heal? Rather than avoiding potatoes, avoid the cheese, butter, sour cream, oils, and bacon bits often eaten with potatoes. These other foods are the real culprit, not the potato.
Furthermore, what anti-lectin leaders do not know is that pathogens eat and have foods they favor. On top of not understanding that viruses and bacteria are the true culprits in chronic illness, they do not understand how pathogens work at all because the information I've shared in my books that reveals the truth about pathogens is still undiscovered. When we begin to learn that viruses and bacteria exist just like any other species, eating and excreting their way through life, we realize we need to remove the foods that make pathogens stronger and increase the foods that weaken them. For example, the foods that pathogens love to feed on include eggs, dairy, gluten, corn, soy, canola oil, and toxic heavy metals. Foods that are antibacterial and antiviral are foods like fruits, leafy greens, vegetables, garlic, onions, herbs, spices, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. I have a large amount of material explaining how pathogens feed and excrete, but the most comprehensive explanation is in my book, Thyroid Healing.
Biased Studies
While it is uncomfortable to talk about, in chronic illness most research and science is biased and cannot be trusted because medical research is driven by money. When reading a study, always know investors were most likely involved and outcomes of the study are persuaded by these investors. Science and research in the medical and alternative health world is fraught with non-truths and misleading information that are often intended to be confusing for the general public. Lectin studies are perfect examples of this. Rather than search for the truth in their studies, researchers are searching for ways to make their study fit into the larger current trends of the day. If the trend is around lectins, more studies are going to come out about how lectins are bad for you. Another way researchers are influenced is by their understandable desire to advance their career by fitting into the current trend. It is simply bad for business to conduct a study that does not result in something a researcher can confidently hang their hat on. This is the uncomfortable truth about the medical industry: research and science when dealing with mystery chronic illness is not about getting people better; it is about personal career and income growth and massive funding. To be clear, I'm not talking about the countless incredible health professionals in both the medical and alternative health world who are deeply committed to helping their clients heal. The large majority of these women and men are compassionate and dedicated healers who genuinely want the best for their clients. It's the industries, not the individual doctors and healers, that are the source of the problem.
The Lectins in Fruits and Vegetables Do Not Harm Us
Do not let anyone confuse you into believing the lectins in fruits and vegetables will keep you sick or make you sicker. Do not fall into the trap of believing lectins are like the toxic alkaloids produced by some wild plants that are not fit for human consumption. To understand this further, picture a deer in the wild consuming plants, fruits, acorns, and nuts that it knows are safe to eat. When the deer starts to chew into a twig, shoot, or sapling that humans are not meant to eat, alkaloids and enzymes will surface on the plant to repel the deer, as well as other wild animals, to prevent them from continuing to eat it. Keep in mind, these are alkaloids and enzymes, not lectins on wild foods that are not meant for humans to eat. When you are in your vegetable garden or even in the wild and come across a plant that produces food fit for human consumption, such as a tomato or a blackberry, no such reaction will occur. Fruits and vegetables have been given to us to be eaten in abundance, not to be feared, and they kill off pathogens versus feeding them.
The Truth About Bananas
It is popular today to fear bananas, especially ripe bananas, because of their sugar content. However, this is one myth I am dedicated to debunking. Bananas are one of the most antiviral and antibacterial foods available to us today, and they just happen to be delicious, versatile, typically affordable, and available to many people year round. What a wonderful food! A ripe banana actually has the ability to help heal colitis, and reverse crohn's disease. I have witnessed this so many times I cannot count. Someone is struggling with mystery symptoms, especially those related to digestive health, and then they begin to eat just bananas and celery juice, two incredibly healing foods, and their symptoms completely reverse. Colitis is not the body attacking itself. It is a viral condition where the virus is sitting in the linings of the colon, growing all the more when you eat the wrong foods. Bananas, however, have the power to stop the virus and bring forth true healing. They bring down inflammation by fighting pathogens that cause inflammation.
Proponents of lectin fear will advise you only to eat bananas when they are green due to a lower sugar content. However, green bananas are not a healing food; they are extremely difficult to digest and they irritate the gut linings, only causing more problems. Ripe bananas that have some spots, though, heal the intestinal linings. In fact, we are often naturally more attracted to the bright yellow color of ripe bananas and their increasingly sweet flavor. If you are one of those people who has trouble eating ripe bananas due to the texture, try peeling and freezing them when they are yellow, spotty, and have no green on the tip. Then put the frozen fruit into a blender and make a delicious smoothie or banana ice cream. Most people can consume bananas this way and then can experience the mindblowing benefits they offer.
The Truth About Tomatoes
Tomatoes are another innocent fruit under attack from the anti-lectin movement. A sub-trend within the anti-lectin movement claims that because tomatoes are a nightshade, they are toxic for humans to consume. This cannot be further from the truth. It is another unfortunate myth that has been masquerading itself as fact for too long. The truth is tomatoes can help stop cancer cells from multiplying. They can help reverse diabetes and help heal the liver. They are a powerful food that supports the immune system in ways no other fruit can. The rumor that nightshades are unhealthy keeps people in fear of the very fruit that will help them take massive steps toward healing.
Nightshades are fruits and vegetables that may blossom during the night. Tomato plants do actually need powerful sunlight in order to grow and thrive. However, they have a unique ability to blossom in the moonlight if the moon is strong enough; and when it does, the tomato harbors a unique variety of vitamin C that is stronger than any other. This vitamin C is so powerful that it fights pathogens in a unique way and stops many illnesses from developing. It also helps fight pathogens that are involved with 98% of cancers as I explain in detail in my book, Thyroid Healing. While many people have reported adverse reactions when eating tomatoes, we have to stop and consider what they were eating the tomato with. Tomatoes are very popular to eat with foods that harm us, like dairy in the form of cheese or butter, the gluten in pasta with marinara sauce, the cheese and gluten in pizza, fried with lots of vegetable oil, or as a marinade or sauce on top of a fatty cut of meat that's hard on the liver. Tomatoes are not the reason for bad reactions when eating these foods. Instead, try eating a sliced ripe tomato on top of a bed of fresh spinach with lemon juice and avocado. Or eat them in a fresh salsa with mango, basil and onion. When eaten in their natural form without harmful foods, they will actually bring you closer to healing, rather than holding you back from it.
Moving Forward
The lectin theory has not been around that long, yet so many people accept this theory as truth and are missing out on vital nutrients from healing fruits and vegetables as a result. If you are suffering from mysterious symptoms, do not avoid fruits and vegetables just because they are touted to be high in lectins. I encourage you to eat more potatoes, tomatoes, and bananas because these foods are your greatest weapons against pathogens, both viral and bacterial. If you have come to this article to learn more about lectins and are just now discovering the education material I provide, I recommend looking into my books Medical Medium, Life-Changing Foods, Thyroid Healing and Liver Rescue where I discuss the true causes of certain diseases and conditions. I do this to empower people with the correct answers, the only ones that will bring you true lasting health. The only way to actually heal is to be armed with the truth about your condition and how to fight it.
This item posted: 20-Jun-2018 - Disclaimer
The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has created a secret epidemic. Out of the roughly 320 million people in the U.S., over 225 million Americans have some form of EBV.
Epstein-Barr is responsible for mystery illnesses of every category: For some people, it creates fatigue and pain that go unnamed. For others, EBV symptoms prompt doctors to prescribe ineffective treatments, such as hormone replacement. And for so many people walking around with EBV, it gets misdiagnosed.
Among the reasons EBV is thriving: so little is understood about it. Medical communities are aware of only one version of EBV, but there are actually over 60 varieties. Epstein-Barr is behind several of the debilitating illnesses that stump doctors. As I said in the Introduction, it's the mystery illness of mystery illnesses.
Doctors have no idea how the virus operates long-term and how problematic it can be. The truth is, EBV is the source of numerous health problems that are currently considered mystery illnesses, such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. EBV is also the cause of some major maladies that medical communities think they understand but really don't—including thyroid disease, vertigo, and tinnitus.
This chapter explains when the Epstein-Barr virus arose, how it's transmitted, how it operates to create untold havoc in strategic stages no one knows about, and the steps (never revealed before) that can destroy the virus and restore health.
Though Epstein-Barr was discovered by two brilliant physicians in 1964, it had actually begun taking hold in the early 1900s—over half a century before. EBV's initial versions—which are still with us—are relatively slow to act, and might not even create notable symptoms until late in life. Even then, they're only mildly harmful. Many people have these non-aggressive EBV strains.
Unfortunately, EBV has evolved over the decades, and each generation of the virus has grown more challenging than the one before.
Until the publication of this book, those with EBV would typically be stuck with it for the rest of their lives. Doctors seldom recognize EBV as the root cause of the myriad of problems it creates; plus doctors have no idea how to address the Epstein-Barr virus even when it is recognized.
There are many ways to catch EBV. For example, you can get it as a baby if your mother has the virus. You can also get it through infected blood. Hospitals don't screen for the virus, so any blood transfusion puts you at risk. You can even get it from eating out! That's because chefs are under tremendous pressure to get dishes prepared quickly. They often end up cutting a finger or hand, slapping on a Band-Aid, and continuing to work. Their blood can get into the food . . . and if they happen to have EBV during a contagious phase, that can be enough to infect you.
Transmission can also happen through other bodily fluids, such as those exchanged during sex. Under some circumstances, even a kiss can be enough to transmit EBV.
Someone with the virus isn't contagious all the time, though. It's most likely to spread during its Stage Two. Which brings up something else that until now hasn't been revealed: EBV goes through four stages.
If you catch EBV, it goes through an initial dormant period of floating around in your bloodstream doing little more than slowly replicating itself to build its numbers—and waiting for an opportunity to launch a more direct infection.
For example, if you physically exhaust yourself for weeks and give yourself no chance to fully recover, or allow your body to become deprived of essential nutrients such as zinc or vitamin B12, or undergo a traumatic emotional experience such as a breakup or the death of a loved one, the virus will detect your stress-related hormones and choose that time to take advantage.
EBV will also often act when you're undergoing a major hormonal change—for example, during puberty, pregnancy, or menopause. A common scenario is when a woman goes through childbirth. Afterward, she may feel various symptoms, including fatigue, aches and pains, and depression. In this case EBV isn't exploiting your weakness, but the fact that hormones are a powerful food source for it—their abundance acts as a trigger. The hormones flooding through your body effectively does for the virus what spinach does for Popeye.
EBV is inhumanly patient. This Stage One period of fortifying itself and waiting for an ideal opportunity can take weeks, months, or even a decade or longer, depending on a variety of factors.
The virus is especially vulnerable during Stage One. However, it's also undetectable through tests and causes no symptoms, so you normally wouldn't know to fight it, because you wouldn't be aware it was there.
At the end of Stage One, the Epstein-Barr virus is ready to do battle with your body. That's when EBV first makes its presence known . . . by turning into mononucleosis. This is the infamous mono that we all grow up hearing about as the "kissing disease." It's what thousands of college students contract every year when they run themselves down with all-night partying and studying.
Medical communities are unaware that every case of mononucleosis is only Stage Two of EBV.
This is the period when the virus is most contagious. It's therefore advisable to avoid getting exposed to blood, saliva, or other bodily fluids from someone who has mono . . . or to avoid exposing anyone to your fluids if you have mono.
During this Stage Two, your body's immune system goes to war with the virus. It sends identifier cells to "tag" virus cells, i.e., place a hormone on them that marks them as invaders. It then sends soldier cells to seek out and kill the tagged virus cells. This is the power of your immune system coming to your defense.
How severely this battle rages will vary from person to person, because everyone is different, and it will also depend on what EBV strain or variety a person has. You can have mono for just a week or two with a mild scratchy throat and tiredness, in which case you aren't likely to realize what's really happening, so you most likely won't visit a doctor for a blood test.
Then again, you can get hit hard with fatigue, sore throat, fever, headaches, rashes, and more that hang on for several months. If this happens, the chances are you'll go see a doctor who'll test your blood, and the Epstein-Barr virus will show up as a form of mono . . . most of the time.
It's during this stage that EBV seeks a long-term home by making a run for one or more of your major organs—typically your liver and/or spleen. EBV loves being in these organs because mercury, dioxins, and other toxins are likely to accumulate there. The virus thrives on these poisons.
One other secret about EBV is that it has a best friend, a bacterium called Streptococcus. In such cases your body is dealing with not only a virus, but also bacteria that further confuse the immune system and produce their own array of symptoms. This is Epstein-Barr's number one cofactor.
During EBV's Stage Two, Streptococcus can travel up to create strep throat and/or infest the sinuses, nose, or mouth. It can also travel down to create infections in the urinary tract, vagina, kidneys, or bladder . . . eventually causing cystitis.
Once the virus settles into your liver, spleen, and/or other organs, it nests there.
From this point on, when a doctor tests for Epstein-Barr, she or he will find antibodies and take these to indicate a past infection, when EBV was in its mono phase. The doctor will not find the EBV presently active in the bloodstream. The confusion here is one of the biggest blunders in medical history—this is how this virus has slipped through the cracks. Unless you have already followed the measures outlined in this book to kill the EBV, the virus is, in fact, still alive and causing new symptoms . . . and it's eluding the tests. That's because it's living in the liver, spleen, or other organs, and the test to detect this has not yet been invented.
With the virus hiding undetected in your organs, your body assumes it's won the war and the invader has been destroyed. Your immune system returns to its normal state, your mononucleosis ends, and your doctor tells you that you're healthy.
Unfortunately, the Epstein-Barr virus has barely begun its voyage through your body.
If you have a typical variety, EBV could lie dormant in your organs for years—possibly for decades—without your knowing it. If you have an especially aggressive variety, though, EBV may create serious problems even while it's nesting.
For example, the virus may burrow deep into your liver and spleen, causing those organs to become inflamed and enlarged. And once again, keep in mind that your doctor does not know to connect the dots between past EBV and its present activity in the organs.
The virus also creates three types of poison:
The issues that may result from an aggressive variety of EBV nesting in your organs include:
When the virus is nearly ready to spring, it begins excreting its neurotoxin. This adds to the burden on your system already created by EBV's byproduct and virus corpses. All this poison in your system finally triggers your immune system—and also thoroughly confuses it, because it has no idea where the toxins are coming from.
The immune system response I've just described triggers the mysterious symptoms that doctors can diagnose as lupus. Medical communities have no understanding that lupus is just the body reacting to Epstein-Barr's byproducts and neurotoxins. It's the body having an allergic reaction to these neurotoxins, which then elevates the inflammatory markers that doctors search for to identify and diagnose lupus. In truth, lupus is just a viral infection of Epstein-Barr.
Hypothyroidism and Other Thyroid Disorders
While your immune system is in disarray, EBV takes advantage of the chaos by leaving the organs it's been nesting in and making a run for a different major organ or gland—which this time is your thyroid!
Medical communities aren't yet aware that EBV is the actual cause of most thyroid disorders and diseases—especially Hashimoto's, but also Graves', thyroid cancer, and other thyroid ills. (Thyroid disease is also sometimes caused by radiation; but in over 95 percent of cases, the culprit is Epstein-Barr.) Medical research has not yet uncovered the true causes of thyroid disorders, and it's still decades away from discovering that EBV is the virus that causes them. If a doctor gives you a Hashimoto's diagnosis, it really means that she or he doesn't know what's wrong. The claim is that your body is attacking your thyroid—a view that arises from misinformation. In truth, it's the EBV—not your body—attacking the thyroid.
Once in your thyroid, EBV begins drilling into its tissues. The virus cells literally twist and spin like drills to burrow deep into the thyroid, killing thyroid cells and scarring the organ as they go, creating hidden hypothyroidism in millions of women, from mild cases to the more extreme. Your immune system notices this and tries to intervene, causing inflammation; but between EBV's neurotoxin, viral byproduct, and poisonous corpses confusing things, and with EBV hiding in your thyroid, your immune system can't tag the virus for complete destruction.
While the above may sound unnerving, don't let it rattle you; your thyroid has the ability to rejuvenate and heal itself when it's given what it needs. And never underestimate the power of your immune system, which by the end of this chapter will become activated just by you learning the truth.
As a fallback option, your immune system tries to wall off the virus with calcium, creating nodules in your thyroid. However, this doesn't hurt EBV. First, most of its cells evade this attack and remain free. Second, a virus cell that your immune system successfully walls off typically remains alive and turns its calcium prison into a comfortable home, where it feeds on your thyroid, draining it of energy. The virus cell might even eventually transform its prison into a living growth, called a cyst, that creates further strain on your thyroid.
Meanwhile, these attacks against EBV can hurt you if you aren't eating enough calcium-rich foods. That's because if your immune system can't get the calcium to wall off the virus from your bloodstream, it'll extract what it needs from your bones . . . which can lead to osteoporosis.
Simultaneously, the hundreds of virus cells that aren't imprisoned in nodules can weaken your thyroid, making it less effective at producing the hormones your body needs to function. This lack of adequate thyroid hormones, coupled with EBV's toxins, can in turn lead to weight gain, fatigue, mental fogginess, impaired memory, depression, hair loss, insomnia, brittle nails, muscle weakness, and/or dozens of other symptoms.
Some especially rare, aggressive varieties of EBV go even further. They create cancer in the thyroid. The rate of thyroid cancer in the U.S. has been rising rapidly. Medical communities don't know that the cause is an increase in rare, aggressive forms of EBV.
The Epstein-Barr virus invades your thyroid for a strategic reason—it's seeking to confuse and place stress on your endocrine system. The strain on your adrenal glands produces more adrenaline, which is a favored food of EBV that makes it stronger and better able to go after its ultimate target: your nervous system.
The ultimate goal of the Epstein-Barr virus is to leave your thyroid and inflame your central nervous system.
Your immune system normally wouldn't allow this to happen. But if EBV has successfully worn you down in Stage Three by entering your thyroid, and if on top of that you abruptly get clobbered with some physical or severe emotional injury, the virus will take advantage of your vulnerability and start to cause a multitude of strange symptoms that range from heart palpitations to generalized aches and pains to nerve pain.
A common scenario is being in an accident, getting surgery, or suffering some other physical damage, and then feeling awful for much longer than would be expected from the injury alone. A typical reaction is to "feel like a truck hit me."
Blood tests, X-rays, and MRIs will reveal nothing wrong, so doctors won't be aware of the virus inflaming the nerves. Stage Four Epstein-Barr is therefore a major source of mystery illnesses—that is, problems that cause doctors massive confusion.
What's actually happening is that your injured nerves trigger an "alarm" hormone to notify your body that the nerves are exposed and need repair. In Stage Four, EBV detects that hormone and rushes over to latch onto those damaged nerves.
A nerve is similar to a string of yarn with little root hairs hanging off it. When the nerve is injured, the root hairs pop off the sides of the nerve sheath. EBV looks for those openings and grabs onto them. If it succeeds, it can keep the area inflamed for years. As a result, you can have a relatively small injury that remains flared up and causes you continual pain.
The issues that result from this viral inflammation can include muscle pain, joint pain, painful tender points, back pain, tingling and/or numbness in the hands and feet, migraines, ongoing fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, unrestful sleep, and night sweats. Patients with these issues are sometimes diagnosed as having fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, or rheumatoid arthritis, all of which are collections of symptoms that medical communities admit they don't understand and for which they have no cure. In such cases the patients are given inappropriate treatments that don't begin to address the real culprit—because these mystery illnesses are really Stage Four Epstein-Barr.
One of the greatest missteps of all time is mistaking women's Epstein-Barr symptoms for perimenopause and menopause. Symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, heart palpitations, dizziness, depression, hair loss, and anxiety were and are frequently misinterpreted as hormonal change—which is what launched the disastrous HRT movement. (To learn more, see Chapter 15, "Premenstrual Syndrome and Menopause.")
Let's take a closer look at the chronic illnesses that have puzzled doctors for decades and are the result of Stage Four Epstein-Barr.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
There's a long history of womankind facing denial that there's a physical cause of their suffering. Like those with fibromyalgia (see below), people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)—also known by names such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS), and systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID)—often hear that they are liars, lazy, delusional, and/or crazy. It's an illness that affects women in disproportionately large numbers.
And chronic fatigue syndrome is on the rise.
It's becoming common for young women in college to return home mid-semester with the condition, unable to do anything but lie in bed. Contracting CFS as a woman in your late teens or early 20s can be particularly devastating as you watch friends move on with relationships and jobs, meanwhile feeling stuck and unable to live up to your potential.
Women who get CFS in their 30s, 40s, or 50s have their own obstacles: while you're old enough at this point to have an established life and support network, you also have established responsibilities. You're likely trying to be everything to everybody, taking care of more than you can handle, and so you feel the pressure to act normal when CFS hits.
Compounding the isolation for both age groups are the feelings of guilt, fear, and shame that accompany their misdiagnoses. I'm sure that if you have CFS, you've been in the depths of physical suffering and had someone say, "But you look perfectly healthy." It is so disheartening to feel unwell and hear from practitioners, friends, or family that there's nothing wrong with you.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is real. It's the Epstein-Barr virus.
As we've seen, those with CFS have an elevated viral load of EBV, which systematically afflicts the body by creating a neurotoxin that inflames the central nervous system. This can eventually weaken the adrenals and digestive system, and create the feeling that you have a low battery.
We've had over six decades of medical denial that fibromyalgia is a legitimate problem. Now, medical communities are finally accepting it as an actual condition.
The best explanation doctors are given by the establishment, though, is that fibromyalgia is overactive nerves. What this really translates to is . . . no one has a clue. It's not the doctors' fault. There's no magic book they receive that tells them what will help their fibromyalgia patients or what is genuinely causing their pain.
The medical system is still years from discovering the illness's true root—because it's viral, and it takes place at a nerve level that medical tools currently can't detect.
Those suffering from fibromyalgia are under a very real and debilitating attack. It's the Epstein-Barr virus that is causing this disorder, inflaming both the central nervous system and nerves throughout the body, which creates ongoing pain, sensitivity to touch, severe fatigue, and a host of other issues.
Tinnitus, or ringing in the ear, is usually caused by EBV getting into the inner ear's nerve channel, called the labyrinth. The ringing is the result of the virus inflaming and vibrating the labyrinth and the vestibulocochlear nerve.
Vertigo and Meniere's Disease
Vertigo and Meniere's disease are often attributed by doctors to calcium crystals, or stones, becoming disrupted in the inner ear. However, most chronic cases are actually caused by EBV's neurotoxin inflaming the vagus nerve.
Other Symptoms
Anxiety, dizziness, chest tightness, chest pain, esophageal spasms, and asthma can also be caused by EBV inflaming the vagus nerve.
Insomnia, and tingling and numbness in hands and feet, can be caused by phrenic nerves becoming perpetually inflamed by EBV.
And heart palpitations can result from buildup of EBV's poisonous virus corpses and byproduct in the heart's mitral valve.
If you have EBV, or suspect you do, you may find the virus in Stage Four beyond frustrating. Take comfort. If you take the right steps—which medical communities don't know about yet, but which are covered at the end of this chapter—you can recover, rebuild your immune system, return to a normal state again, and regain control of your life.
As I've noted earlier, there are over 60 varieties of the Epstein-Barr virus. That number is so large because EBV has existed for well over 100 years. It's had generations of people to move through, mutating and elevating its various hybrids and strains in that time. The strains can be organized into six groups of escalating severity, with roughly ten types per group.
EBV Group 1 is the oldest and mildest. These versions of the virus typically take years, even decades, to transition from one stage to another. Their effects might not be noticeable until you're in your 70s or 80s, and then result in little more than back pain. They might even remain in your organs and never reach Stage Three or Stage Four.
EBV Group 2 moves from stage to stage a bit quicker than Group 1; you might notice symptoms in your 50s or 60s. These varieties may partially linger in the thyroid and send only some of their virus cells out to inflame nerves, resulting in relatively mild nerve inflammation. The only variety of EBV that medical communities are aware of is in this group.
EBV Group 3 will transition between stages faster than Group 2, so its symptoms might be noticeable around age 40. Also, these viruses fully complete Stage Four—that is, they entirely leave the thyroid to latch onto nerves. Viruses in this group can cause a variety of ills, including joint pain, fatigue, heart palpitations, tinnitus, and vertigo.
EBV Group 4 will create noticeable problems as early as age 30. Its aggressive actions on nerves can result in symptoms associated with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, brain fog, confusion, anxiety, moodiness, and everything caused by Groups 1 to 3. This group can also create symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, even if a person never underwent any trauma beyond getting inflamed by the virus.
EBV Group 5 will create noticeable issues as early as age 20. This is an especially nasty form of the virus because it strikes just when a young person is setting out to start an independent life. It can create all the problems of Group 4, and it feeds off negative emotions such as fear and worry. Doctors who can't find anything wrong, and perceive these patients as young and healthy, often declare "it's all in your head" and send them to psychologists to convince them what's actually happening in their bodies isn't real. Unless, that is, a patient happens upon a doctor who's up on the Lyme disease trend, in which case the patient will probably walk away with a Lyme misdiagnosis.
The worst type, however, is EBV Group 6, which can strike hard even in young children. In addition to everything Group 5 does, Group 6 can create symptoms so severe that they're misdiagnosed as leukemia, viral meningitis, lupus, and more. Plus it suppresses the immune system, which can lead to a wide variety of symptoms including rashes, weakness in the limbs, and severe nerve pain.
Because it's very easy to catch and hard to detect, and can cause a number of mysterious symptoms, you might understandably find the Epstein-Barr virus overwhelming and its effects disheartening.
The good news is that if you carefully and patiently follow the steps detailed in this section, and in Part IV of the book, you can heal. You can recover your immune system, free yourself of EBV, rejuvenate your body, gain full control over your health, and move on with your life.
How long the process takes varies for each individual and depends on myriad factors. Some people conquer the virus in as little as three months. However, a more typical period is a full year. And there are some people who need 18 months or more to destroy EBV.
Healing Foods
Certain fruits and vegetables can help your body rid itself of EBV and heal from its effects. The following are the best ones to incorporate into your diet (listed in rough order of importance). Try to eat at least three of these foods per day—the more the better—rotating your consumption so that in a given week or two, you get all of these foods into your system.
Healing Herbs and Supplements
The following herbs and supplements (listed in rough order of importance) can further strengthen your immune system and aid your body in healing from the virus's effects:
Case History: A Career Almost Lost to Epstein-Barr
Michelle and her husband, Matthew, both had high-paying corporate jobs. Michelle was a star at her firm and made a point of going to work throughout her pregnancy, leaving only when she was about to go into labor.
After giving birth, Michelle instantly fell in love with her new son, Jordan. She couldn't have been happier. I have it all now, she thought, a career I love, and a family I love even more.
But Michelle's bright future started to dim when she was struck with a fatigue she couldn't shake. No matter how many vitamins she took or how much she exercised, she felt run-down all the time. So Michelle visited her doctor. After giving her a physical, he dismissed her concerns: "You look fine to me. It's natural for a new baby to be exhausting. Just get more sleep and don't worry about it."
Michelle took care to sleep more. After another week, she felt worse than ever. Suspecting a post-pregnancy issue, Michelle went to see her OB/GYN. This doctor drew her blood for a number of tests, including several for thyroid disease. When the lab results came in, the OB/GYN correctly diagnosed Michelle as having Hashimoto's—i.e., her thyroid was no longer producing the level of hormones needed.
Michelle was put on thyroid medication to get her hormone levels back to normal. This made her feel a little better . . . though not quite as well as she had before her pregnancy. She'd been aiming to return to work a month after having her son, and now she had to postpone those plans.
After about six months, Michelle's fatigue was back—and much more severe. That's when Michelle's troubles really began. Soon she had trouble taking care of Jordan. Matthew agreed to help out until she felt better.
Instead, Michelle grew worse. On top of being tired, she started to feel aches and pains, especially in her joints. Michelle returned to her OB/GYN, who ran another set of tests. The lab results showed nothing wrong. Thanks to the thyroid medication Michelle was continuing to take, her thyroid levels were perfect. So were all her vitamin and mineral levels. The OB/GYN was baffled.
Suspecting that Michelle's symptoms were related to her thyroid condition, the OB/GYN referred Michelle to a top endocrinologist (a doctor who specializes in hormonal issues). The specialist conducted a thorough thyroid profile, and tested Michelle's other hormone levels from a variety of angles. He ended up telling Michelle she had "mild adrenal fatigue."
There was some small truth to that. Michelle's adrenal glands were being strained by the Epstein-Barr virus, which her pregnancy had triggered and which was now inflaming her thyroid.
The endocrinologist told Michelle to take it easy and avoid stress. On his recommendation, Michelle handed off the freelance consulting projects she'd been working on from home.
In reality, Michelle's job had nothing to do with her condition. Her source of stress wasn't her work, but the illness that was eating away at her life . . . and her seeming helplessness to understand it or do anything about it.
Michelle continued to get worse. Her knees flared up and swelled, making it difficult to walk. She bought knee supports . . . and decided to pursue help more aggressively. Michelle's intuition told her an invader was present in her body, so she went to see an infectious disease specialist. This would be precisely the right thing to do—if infectious disease doctors actually knew how to recognize and treat past infections of EBV.
Unfortunately, they don't. So after running an exhausting battery of tests and noticing that Michelle had an antibody from a past EBV infection, he dismissed it as a problem right away. This doctor told her she was physically fit. He added that she might be depressed, and offered to refer her to a psychiatrist.
Infuriated at being made to feel she was crazy for trying to address what she deeply sensed was a real physical problem, Michelle (painfully) rose and strode out of the room.
With increasing desperation, Michelle now visited doctors across the spectrum. They put her through ultrasounds, X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, and loads of blood tests. She was told she had Candida, fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, Lyme disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. None of it was right. She was put on immunosuppressant drugs, antibiotics, and loads of different supplements. None of the treatments helped.
Michelle became an insomniac, suffered heart palpitations, and developed chronic vertigo that caused dizziness and nausea. She dropped from 140 to 115 pounds.
Soon, Michelle was spending most of her days in bed. She was wasting away. Her husband, Matthew, was terrified.
After Michelle had spent four years exploring all other options, and based on the recommendation of the naturopath Michelle visited, Matthew called my office as a last resort. When my assistant answered, Matthew burst into tears. "What's wrong?" she asked.
He replied, "My wife is dying."
For our first appointment Matthew planned to do most of the talking while sitting next to Michelle, who was in bed. Less than a minute after Matthew started telling me Michelle's story, I interrupted him. "It's okay," I said. "Spirit tells me it's an aggressive form of the Epstein-Barr virus."
The virus's neurotoxin was inflaming all of Michelle's joints. Her insomnia and foot pain were the result of her phrenic nerves being perpetually inflamed. Her vertigo stemmed from EBV's neurotoxin inflaming her vagus nerve. And her heart palpitations were being caused by buildup of EBV virus corpses and viral byproduct in her mitral valve.
"Don't worry," I told Michelle and Matthew. "I know how to beat this virus."
Michelle exclaimed, with as much joyful energy as she could muster, "I knew it was a virus!"
It was the first critical step in her recovery.
I recommended a blend of celery juice and papaya, which is great for boosting someone in Michelle's condition (e.g., low weight, not being able to eat, high number of virus cells). I followed that up with the recommendations for healing in this chapter, including a list of helpful supplements, as well as the recommendations from Part IV, "How to Finally Heal."
The cleanse diet immediately stopped feeding Michelle's EBV. Within a week, there was a noticeable reduction of the swelling in her knees. The L-lysine shut down Michelle's vertigo. And the other supplements started killing virus cells and/or dampening the production of new ones.
In three months, Michelle was regularly up and walking again. In nine months, she was once again working part-time at her challenging corporate job.
And in 18 months, Michelle's pain and suffering were just a memory—she'd taken control over EBV. Today, Michelle has fully recovered her health. She's returned to juggling her job and her family energetically and happily.
Case History: An End to CFS Confinement
Cynthia was a mother of two. Shortly after her youngest, Sophie, was born, Cynthia began experiencing fatigue. It took everything she had to push through the day, and she relied on increasing her coffee intake just to function. Within a few years, she had to quit her part-time job at a clothing store because long naps were taking up her afternoons. She needed the rest so she could be strong enough to meet her kids at the school bus, make dinner, and help them with their homework.
Cynthia noticed herself becoming irritable, and arguments arose often with her husband, Mark, who didn't understand why she was tired all the time. After all, the tests that Cynthia's doctor had run indicated nothing was wrong. The doctor said she was healthy and concluded that maybe she was just unhappy or depressed.
This made Cynthia want to walk out of the doctor's office without another word. Any blue mood she experienced was because she was tired all the time and could barely function—not the other way around. Yet her husband sided with the doctor and became increasingly resentful toward her.
The ongoing stress put Cynthia on overload; life felt impossible to keep up with. She couldn't find the energy to brush her hair, and the mere thought of running the vacuum cleaner or washing the dishes exhausted her. From the outside, it looked like she was giving up on life. Mark got angrier—he was talking separation now. "I work too long and hard at the office all day to worry about taking care of things at home," he said. "This is supposed to be your department."
Cynthia felt more pressure than ever to get better, but the worries about her marriage and what would happen to her children put her fatigue at an all-time high. She could barely drive to the grocery store or make dinner for her family. All she could do was lie in bed or on the couch.
This is what a moderate-to-severe case of undiagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome can look like. When Cynthia called me, her life had fallen apart. Her husband had left her, and her daughter, Sophie, now seven years old, and her son, Ryan, age nine, had lost their family unit. What her doctor had misconstrued as a psychiatric condition was an actual physical problem: Epstein-Barr virus. The same story applies to far too many women.
I set to work informing Cynthia that she had a case of EBV that her doctor had missed. With an emphasis on getting her viral load under control and addressing nutritional deficiencies, I laid out the background on CFS that I described earlier in this chapter, and I explained the protocols outlined here and in Part IV. Like her life depended on it—because it did—Cynthia followed Spirit's advice.
Slowly, Cynthia began to get better. Her adrenals recovered normal function, and her stamina returned. Once again, she could tend to her children, run errands, keep the house in shape, and do her hair—all without the gallons of coffee she used to rely on. Cynthia finally had the energy to return to work, too.
After witnessing this change in his wife, Mark called Cynthia and asked her out to dinner—his mother would look after the kids, he said. When they arrived at the fancy restaurant, which had long ago been the deli where they had flirted as college students, Mark told Cynthia he'd called ahead and ordered a special healing-food meal for her—and that he'd ordered the same for himself, out of solidarity. Over sundried-tomato hummus and vegetable nori rolls, Mark didn't exactly cry (some things would always stay the same), but he did have to dab at his eyes as he apologized for how he'd behaved.
Cynthia was quiet, then answered with a playful smile: "You can make it up to me."
After a few weeks of testing the waters—Cynthia wanted to make sure Mark didn't just want her back as a security blanket and housekeeper—they moved back in together as a family. Mark now wakes up early every Saturday morning so he can get to the farmers' market before they run out of salad greens.
Case History: Fibro Pain Forgotten
Stacy, a 41-year-old part-time receptionist in a doctors' office, had been married to Rob, who worked at a car dealership, for over 15 years. She never had the energy to keep up with the outings Rob planned with their daughters. In fact, she couldn't remember ever feeling that well. She always felt slightly achy and more tired than her friends seemed to be. And since she'd given birth to her second child, who was now 11, the fatigue and muscle soreness had been more pronounced.
One weekend while Rob and the kids were at a museum, she went for a longer walk than usual—she'd decided to push herself to lose some unwanted weight she'd gained in the last few years. Afterward, she noticed an unusual pain in her left knee. Thinking back to her college basketball coach's advice to "walk it off," she tried to ignore it.
It didn't go away. Two weeks later, she scheduled time for an exam with a doctor at her office. Stacy limped out of the appointment with a prescription for an MRI—which revealed nothing visibly wrong with her knee.
Because Stacy's balance was off from leaning on her "good" leg, she found herself tripping easily—stairs, curbs, and corners of rugs had become major obstacles. Then her right knee started to hurt even though it hadn't gotten injured in any of her falls, and exams showed nothing amiss. Stacy's worry escalated to fear—something was really wrong. The doctors in her office ruled out rheumatoid arthritis, though, and guessed that the extra 30 pounds Stacy was carrying were to blame for her pain.
Soon Stacy started to hurt in other places. Now she couldn't raise her hands over her head without her arms and neck hurting. She was unable to work anymore, and depression set in as she started to spend hours at home on the sofa. At night, Rob would make dinner for the family and send their daughter to serve Stacy her plate of food on the couch.
A specialist concluded that Stacy had fibromyalgia. When Stacy asked what caused it, the doctor responded, "We don't know. It's what we think is oversensitive nerves. This should help, though." She handed Stacy a prescription for a medicine popular for treating depression and fibromyalgia pain. At her next visit to the specialist, when Stacy reported no progress, the doctor referred her to me.
After I explained what her fibromyalgia really was, that the real cause was the Epstein-Barr virus and that it had been in her system since childhood, Stacy recalled having a bout of mononucleosis at age 14. She finally felt she had a real answer. She understood now that poor diet, nutritional deficiencies, and increased stress had triggered the formerly dormant EBV to surface as fibromyalgia. Not knowing what was wrong with her—the powerlessness—had been scarier than knowing the true cause; the mystery of her mystery illness had been the hardest part. Now she had direction and felt confident in her ability to heal.
Within six months of our first call, following the same suggestions I describe in this chapter and Part IV, "How to Finally Heal," she was free from fibromyalgia, back to work, and living life again. She told me she felt happier and healthier than ever, and that she'd planned the next family outing—apple picking at an organic orchard.
The first step of the healing process is to know the cause of your suffering is Epstein-Barr—and to realize it's not your fault.
Your EBV-related health problems aren't the result of anything you did wrong or any moral failing. You didn't make this happen, and you're in no way to blame. You did not manifest this; you did not attract this. You're a vibrant, wonderful human being and you have every God-given right to heal. You deserve to heal.
Much of EBV's effectiveness stems from hiding in the shadows so that neither you nor your body's immune system can sense its presence. This not only allows it to commit its mayhem unchecked, it leads to negative emotions such as guilt, fear, and helplessness.
Now things are different for you. If you have EBV, you now have a mind-body understanding of what's causing your health problems. From this alone, your immune system will strengthen and the virus will naturally weaken. So when it comes to fighting EBV, in a very real sense, knowledge is power.
Excerpt from the New York Times bestselling book Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal
This item posted: 16-Jun-2018 - Disclaimer
With all the superfood talk we have today, artichokes should be right there in the top 10 list. Artichokes are one of the most abundant sources of nutrition, filled with phytochemicals such as lutein and isothiocyanates; vitamins such as A, E, and K; amino acids; and enzymes. They are B12-enhancing stars, wonderful for bringing balance to the gut.
Artichokes are also dense with minerals such as silica, which is one of the foundational minerals of our bodies that's critical for our existence. Artichokes' magnesium content gets attention, and rightfully so. There's a bigger picture to what gives artichokes their sedative qualities, though: In addition to magnesium, artichokes contain sedation phytochemicals that calm all body systems, as well as a compilation of calming minerals. This mineral denseness corresponds with the dense organs and glands (such as the liver, spleen, pancreas, brain, adrenals, and thyroid) that artichokes nourish. Deep within these organs, we have foundational nutrient reserves, and artichokes are one of those foods that replenish our reserves to promote longevity.
Artichokes are incredible for the pancreas, making them an ideal food for people with diabetes, hypoglycemia, and other blood sugar imbalances. They are also one of the best foods for reducing kidney stones and gallstones, as well as calcifications and scar tissue inside the body. Artichokes are remarkable for protecting the body from the radiation of X-rays, cancer treatments, dental treatment, and common exposure.
Artichokes are meant to be taken seriously in our lives, and should be considered medicine—a medicine that tastes earthy, sweet, and delicious. Many people don't bother with fresh artichokes, because they find their appearance off-putting and don't know how to deal with them. Once you learn the art of preparing and cooking an artichoke, though, you'll be bringing an amazing nutritional dish into your life.
If you have any of the following conditions, try bringing artichokes into your life:
Diabetes, hypoglycemia, kidney stones, gallstones, calcifications, internal scar tissue, shingles, osteomyelitis, thyroid disease, insomnia, carpal tunnel syndrome, bone fractures, cirrhosis of the liver, endocrine system disorders, fatty liver, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV, interstitial cystitis, liver cancer, Lyme disease, optic nerve conditions, pancreatic cancer, stomach ulcers, systemic lupus, low reproductive system battery, mystery infertility, Achilles tendon injury, blood cell cancers such as multiple myeloma
If you have any of the following symptoms, try bringing artichokes into your life:
Blood sugar imbalances, food allergies, canker sores, rib pain, sleep disturbances, abnormal Pap smear results (i.e., abnormal cervical cells), food sensitivities, urinary urgency, bone density issues, bone loss, brittle nails, dysfunctional liver, electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), emotional eating, inflamed colon, liver congestion, nerve pain, stomach pain, mineral deficiencies, enlarged spleen
For anyone who is dealing with heart-related emotions—those who are downhearted, broken-hearted, ill-hearted, or coldhearted—artichokes are critical. Eaten on a regular basis, artichokes have the power to open up the heart chakra, and to ignite healing through this sacred channel.
Sometimes we put up armor in order to protect ourselves. Each experience of being hurt or taken advantage of adds another layer between the core of who we are and the outside world. It's a necessary act that we learn from nature—a survival tactic. Just like the artichoke, though, if you take the time to peel back our armor, you'll find that we all have soft, sustaining hearts under- neath. Artichokes teach us that while connection doesn't always come easily—sometimes it takes work to peel back the spikes—it is worth the work to get to the tender, true, and loving centers of ourselves and each other.
* Consider having artichokes on the dinner menu four times a week for promising results.
* The most nutritious way to enjoy artichokes is to steam them. Once they've cooked and cooled, peel off the leaves, dip them in your favorite healthy dressing, and nibble the "meat" from the base of each leaf. Next, scrape off the choke and enjoy the hearts.
* If you buy prepared artichoke hearts that have a preservative such as citric acid, soak them overnight in water to get rid of this corn-derived irritant.
* Enjoying artichokes for dinner helps your liver purge and clean itself in the early hours of the morning, while you sleep. For best results, try eating artichokes at 7 or 8 in the evening.
* Try eating artichokes alongside romaine lettuce. Together, they help dissolve gallstones and kidney stones.
Preparing artichokes can seem daunting. All it really requires is hot water and some patience. When steamed until tender, artichokes are just waiting for you to pull them apart and dunk them into a luscious sauce of honey, olive oil, and sage.
4 artichokes
1⁄4 cup olive oil
1⁄4 cup honey
1⁄4 cup lemon juice
3 sage leaves
Prepare the artichokes by cutting off the top quarter of each and removing the stem. Using scissors, cut the remaining tips off of each of the leaves. Fill a large pot with 3 inches of water. Place the artichokes in a steamer basket inside the pot. Steam the artichokes for 30 to 45 minutes, until the leaves are tender and easily removed.
To make the dipping sauce, combine all the remaining ingredients in a small saucepan over high heat. Stir continuously until the sauce begins to thicken slightly, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and serve immediately alongside the cooked artichokes.
Makes 2 to 4 servings
Excerpt from the #1 New York Times bestselling book Life-Changing Foods
This item posted: 13-Jun-2018 - Disclaimer
If you have ever struggled with a condition like Crohn's, colitis, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), you have likely suffered a tremendous deal. Not only are these conditions painful, they can take away part of your life at times because it feels as if you have to structure your day around bathroom breaks, bouts of pain, abdominal discomfort and bloating which may have affected your sleep, and more. Unfortunately, these can all interfere with your ability to work and complete daily tasks.These conditions inflict all types of people, both young and old, active and inactive, and it does not discriminate against gender.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation out there about Crohn's, colitis, and IBS, which leaves people confused and prevents true healing. These conditions are still a mystery in the medical field. Doctors and other health professionals are unable to explain exactly why the symptoms are occuring. Often, the best answer a health professional has for someone is that there is inflammation in their colon and their body's own immune system is attacking the gut. Sometimes certain foods, like gluten, or something inside foods, like lectins, will be blamed. But inflammation and these foods are not the cause (discover the truth about lectins in this Truth About Lectins radio show). There is something else going on that's causing the inflammation that medical communities aren't yet aware of.
Why High-Fat Diets Are Problematic
There are so many trendy diets that claim to be revolutionizing the way we eat and how healthy we can be. However, if anyone were to take a closer look, they would notice that almost all of these diets are essentially the same thing with a small twist. Most of the trendy diets presented today are extremely high in fat, regardless of whether they're an animal protein based diet, vegan diet, or vegetarian diet. What they all have in common is that they're high in fat. The twist all of these diets take may be a vitamin they sell or a more heightened focus on a particular food, but they are very similar. Because these trendy diets rightfully remove highly processed foods and include more vegetables, some people do experience benefits in the beginning. When this happens, we have to consider what diet someone was coming from in order to experience such a change. Perhaps your poor digestion was improved slightly, you said goodbye to your runny nose, or you lost some weight. However, these trendy high-fat diets are not going to aid you in true healing long-term when you're dealing with a chronic illness. They're just a temporary band-aid.
The biggest reason trendy high-fat diets do not work for deep chronic illness is because they simply do not contain enough fruit. In fact, all of these diets are unanimously against fruit, even though fruit is the most important food for someone trying to heal from a chronic condition, including Crohn's, colitis, or IBS. This attack against fruit has resulted in many people now having fruit fear, where they believe that eating any more fruit than a handful of berries or a green apple is unhealthy or ill-advised. To understand more about how this fruit fear has arisen and why it's so detrimental to your health and the health of your loved ones, listen to my Fruit Fear radio show. Science and research has barely tapped the surface of the healing powers of fruit because there is simply no money to be made in fruit.
If you or someone you love suffers from severe chronic digestive problems and have tried absolutely everything and nothing has worked, there are answers for you here. It's likely that if you've tried one of the high-fat, high-animal protein diets that are trendy today, your symptoms have persisted to some degree, even if they improved at first from cutting out processed foods. The same would be true if you eat a vegetarian or vegan diet but get most of your calories from high fat foods like eggs, dairy, oils, soy, nuts, and seeds. High-fat diets of any kind burden the liver enormously and most of us come into this world with an already burdened liver (more on this in my book, Liver Rescue). Your first question may be why we are discussing the liver when your symptoms are in the intestines. The answer is that Crohn's, colitis, and IBS all begin in the liver. Medical science and research don't know this truth. If you want to get to the root problem of your gut and digestive issues, it's essential you bring your focus to the liver and learn how to truly support this incredible, hard-working organ. For in-depth information on how your liver works that hasn't yet been discovered and the critical steps needed for healing, check out my book, Liver Rescue.
You can begin looking at how our bodies were designed to eat by examining the macronutrients in breastmilk. Breastmilk is the perfect food for babies, as well as an excellent indicator for how we should be eating for the rest of our lives. Breastmilk is made up of almost all sugar with a very small percentage of fat and protein. There are so many incredible carbohydrates in breastmilk that science and research have yet to discover or look into. The key understanding here is that breastmilk is extremely low in fat. As children become adults and begin to consume more and more fat throughout their lives as they age, problems begin. And it all starts in the liver.
Common foods for children include cheese, eggs, pork, fried food, chicken, steak, ham, milk, yogurt, hot dogs, bacon, and foods cooked in oil, all which are extremely high in fat and cause the liver to become more and more overburdened. When there is too much fat in the liver, it sets the stage for Crohn's, colitis, and IBS, as well as constipation, bloating, and SIBO. It also provides a great environment for pathogens to thrive. When the liver is overburdened with fat, it cannot produce the amount, or indeed the quality, of bile that it needs to. This is essential to understand because our livers need to continue to produce strong bile in order to kill off and contain the pathogens we inevitably inherit or contract over our lifetimes. If the quantity and quality of bile is compromised, your health will also be, and it will only continue to get worse with time unless you take the right steps to detoxify and heal your liver.
Crohn's, Colitis, and IBS Begin in the Liver
The pathogens in our bodies are either inherited from our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and beyond, or they are picked up simply from being out in the world. Viruses and bacteria go into the liver, which tries to contain them and kill them off with the liver's own powerful immune system, which medical science and research doesn't yet know exists, to keep us safe from them. However, if the liver is unable to do so because it is too overburdened, the pathogens can then go into the gut and create the symptoms of Crohn's, colitis, and IBS. On high-fat diets, your liver's bile production is dramatically weakened so that it cannot do its job of killing off the viruses or bacteria before it goes into your gut and makes a home there. In fact, livers can become stagnant even in young children due to inherited toxic heavy metals that sit in the liver and interfere with bile production. I cover this and the many other troublemakers that cause the liver to become overburdened in Liver Rescue.
When the liver is sluggish due to a diet high in fat, along with having to harbor other dangerous toxins you've been exposed to, hydrochloric acid is also weakened because the stomach relies on the liver's bile production to support it and stop pathogens from entering up into the stomach. Hydrochloric acid is vital in the discussion about these conditions because the special seven-blend I brought to light in my book Medical Medium, which science and research has yet to discover, is able to kill off pathogens as they enter the stomach from the mouth or up from the gut. This means the pathogens can't travel back down into the intestinal tract and colon again. By killing off the pathogen before it reaches the colon or small intestinal tract, the hydrochloric acid is preventing colitis and Crohn's, respectively. When the liver is not doing its job because it is exhausted, the pathogen does not merely travel to the intestines and then pass through. It has the chance to settle in and make a sort of nest in the linings. It is still alive; however, it may not become active or cause symptoms until later in life. This is why sometimes Crohn's, colitis, and IBS does not occur in someone until they are older.
Another Reason to Avoid High-Fat Diets
Once we understand that diets high in fat, which are also under the name of high protein, are interfering with the liver's bile production, as well as gastric juices and hydrochloric acid, we must also discuss how fat exists within the intestinal tract itself. Pathogens are not being killed off and so they have the opportunity to nestle into the gut linings. This is what is causing inflammation, especially as the viruses and bacteria begin to move through its various stages and produce neurotoxins. Medical communities don't yet understand how viruses work so you won't find this information anywhere else, therefore it's critical to get familiar with the information I share here and in my books so you can help yourself and your loved ones heal. Fat plays a very specific role in this scenario. The fat that we consume, especially that of animal protein, is quite difficult to digest in the first place, let alone when we consume such unnaturally high amounts of it. The linings of the intestine become smothered with thick layers of fat that harden and eventually go rancid, making the home for pathogens that much more habitable. Pathogens prefer to hide in fat-laden intestines because they can burrow in deep and stay there for long periods. When someone's intestines are not loaded with fat, pathogens have a much harder time of getting stuck and causing problems.
Viruses and Bacteria Feed
Something still unknown in science and research is the all-important truth that pathogens actually eat food, and there are some foods pathogens like better than others. This is critical because when you know what pathogens like to eat, you can begin to starve them of their favorite foods, which will then strip them of their ability to grow and proliferate. While it is thought that certain foods like gluten and dairy cause inflammation, those foods are actually feeding the pathogens that then cause the inflammation. This is a critical difference that's essential to understand. Some of the foods that feed pathogens are gluten, eggs, all forms of dairy, corn, soy, canola oil, and toxic heavy metals and other toxins. You can read a full list in my book Thyroid Healing or Liver Rescue. Avoid gluten, eggs, and dairy if you are suffering from Crohn's, colitis, and IBS. It would also be very helpful to include the five heavy metal detox foods I recommend into your diet everyday: cilantro, wild blueberries, Atlantic dulse, spirulina, and barley grass juice powder. These five foods work together in synergy for the only truly effective heavy metal detox. If you would like to learn more about the heavy metal detox foods as well as try out a smoothie recipe that includes all five, see the Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie article.
The Truth About Colitis
While not every case of colitis is the same, in truth it is caused by a viral condition that both medical and alternative health communities are unaware of. In fact, the term colitis is often used when medical doctors are unsure of how to diagnose someone's symptoms. For them, colitis is essentially a term that means your colon is in crisis. These days it is quite common for health professionals to blame colon issues on the autoimmune theory that your body is attacking itself. However, this autoimmune theory is exactly that - a theory, and a misguided one at that. To find out the truth about autoimmune diseases and why your body has never and will never attack itself, read the Autoimmune Confusion chapter in Thyroid Healing. Colitis is not caused by your body attacking itself. It is an undiscovered viral condition. Specifically colitis is caused by a herpetic virus, one of the undiscovered 31 varieties from the shingles family that I brought to light in Medical Medium. This virus nestles into the colon and feeds off of foods like gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, corn, and canola oil, all while hiding behind the rancid fat in the linings of the intestine. The shingles virus then proceeds into a later stage of harm where it releases neurotoxins, which then also get trapped in the fat, irritating and inflaming the colon. Even when the fats break off and leave the intestines, the colon lining is so inflamed and irritated that the virus itself can eat away at intestinal cells. This is when someone may notice hemorrhaging.
The Truth About Crohn's
Just as with colitis, not every case of Crohn's is going to be the same. In truth, there are even more possibilities as to the answer for each person's condition. Crohn's can be viral, bacterial, or both. If the condition is viral, it could be caused by Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), which is a virus I have written about at length in all my books, especially Thyroid Healing. If the condition is bacterial, the specific bacteria is streptococcus. Crohn's in particular has a large amount of toxic heavy metals at play in the small intestinal tract, especially mercury. The pathogens or toxic heavy metals, or the combination of all of these factors, create a chronic inflammation that is highly uncomfortable and often painful. However, regardless of what specific variety of Crohn's, or colitis or IBS you are struggling with, the plan of attack for healing is essentially the same.
The Truth About IBS
Irritable bowel syndrome is a common diagnosis many receive from doctors and health practitioners when they report almost any gut-related symptom such as poor digestion, gut and intestinal pain, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and so forth. In truth, IBS occurs when the colon is lined with waste products from pathogens such as streptococcus and E. coli, rotting food that wasn't digested properly due to low bile and hydrochloric acid production, and ammonia gas. For more on ammonia gas, read Medical Medium. The more fats and unhealthy foods in the diet, the worse the IBS symptoms will be.
For an in-depth explanation of each of these mystery conditions, including how to heal them, check out Liver Rescue.
Stay Away From Liver Cleanses
While the focus needs to be getting the liver back in healthy shape, it is not wise to jump onto a trendy liver cleanse you may hear about. Unfortunately, the liver cleanses available today are not helpful and in most cases are actually harmful. No one truly understands how the liver works, nor how to cleanse it, so these cleanses often aggravate the liver even further and make the symptoms that much worse. However, I do have a 28-day cleanse in my first book, Medical Medium, that is gentle on the liver and deeply healing. It does not assume you can force your liver to cleanse itself in a matter of days like the liver cleanses you will find available today. The 28-day cleanse in the book is helpful for all chronic conditions and can be especially helpful for those with a chronic digestive condition. It can be done for an extended time if desired also. The guidance I share in Liver Rescue would be especially helpful also for these conditions.
What About Leaky Gut?
It is considerably popular these days to talk about leaky gut syndrome; however, this too is a mystery and misunderstood condition. If someone truly had leaky gut, meaning a perforation in the intestinal wall, that person would be suffering severely. They would have a high fever and would be laying in the hospital due to a serious infection. Do not become confused from articles online that try to convince you that you have leaky gut syndrome. Rather, if you are experiencing digestive issues, focus on the advice given here. What is actually behind many cases of misdiagnosed leaky gut is ammonia permeability, a condition I brought to light and explain in Medical Medium.
How to Heal from Crohn's, Colitis, and IBS
The first thing you need to do when healing from one of these conditions is to lower your fat intake. Lowering the fat in your diet, no matter what type of diet you subscribe to (whether you like animal protein, are vegetarian, or prefer a plant based diet), will give the pathogens less of a chance to proliferate and you a greater chance to heal. If you eat animal protein, try to lower it to once a day, simply because it is inherently so high in fat. Even chicken breast, which is often touted as a lean meat, is loaded with fat and should be reduced or consumed minimally or avoided while healing. Pork, eggs, and dairy should be avoided altogether as I explain in my books. If you eat a vegan diet, lower the amount of nuts, avocado, oils, and coconut you consume as these foods are also high in fat.
Now that you are aware how much the liver plays a role in these conditions, you can focus on building up the liver's strength and bile reserves. Celery juice is an absolute miracle when it comes to healing from Crohn's, colitis, and IBS because it builds up the bile salts that serve in killing off the pathogens causing the condition in the first place. The cluster salts in celery juice also do wonders in removing the toxins created by the pathogens by systematically binding onto them and pulling them out of intestinal tract. These salts are a gift to you and a poison to pathogens because they strip off a pathogen's membrane shield. Read more about celery juice on the blog.
Bananas are another miracle food and should be eaten in abundance when healing from Crohn's, colitis, or IBS. While some health professionals will advise you to stay away from bananas completely, they are giving you incorrect information. Bananas, when properly ripened with no green at the tip and a few brown spots, have powerful anti-pathogen properties that can aid you in your healing tremendously. Maradol papayas are another powerful fruit that can be incredibly helpful for those suffering. If you do not like papayas, you likely have not had a good one. Talk to the people who work in the produce department of your grocery story about how to pick a good papaya and when is the best time to eat it. If you cannot find good papayas at your regular store, try visiting a local Asian grocery store. Those stores often have an abundance of good fruit that never makes it to conventional stores.
Additionally, if you have been told that you are allergic or intolerant to fruit, or if you experience discomfort when eating fruit, check out my Fruit Fear radio show to have a deeper understanding of this. In reality, fruit is the number one food that should be consumed when suffering from chronic digestive conditions. It would be a shame to continue suffering by avoiding fruit when this food is actually safe and in fact healthful to consume.
Some other things you can incorporate include making aloe water daily by scooping out the gel from the leaf and blending it with water. You can also consider taking antiviral and antibacterial supplements like alcohol free cat's claw, licorice root or licorice tea, and lemon balm to give your immune system an extra boost to fight off the pathogens. Also, try drinking high quality coconut water, incorporate cucumbers into your diet, and try steamed potatoes or sweet potatoes for dinner. These are simple but healing foods to get you started healing. Also, be sure to read Thyroid Healing and Liver Rescue for more information that can help you understand your condition and how to heal.
Moving Forward
If you have found this article and now know that your chronic condition is actually related to a pathogen and overburdened liver, you are already halfway toward your destination of true healing. Now that you have a greater understanding of your condition, you can begin to lower your fats and drink your pure celery juice to build up the liver. You can include more and more fruit into your day while eating less and less gluten, eggs, dairy, corn, soy, canola oil, and pork. Wake up each day with the decision to make at least one healthy choice that will bring you closer to healing. And remember that I am here for you every step of the way. This article will be here for you if you need to refresh your memory or remind yourself why you are making those healthy steps. I am so proud of you and I believe in you.
This item posted: 05-Jun-2018 - Disclaimer
It might come as a surprise to you that there are no two kinds of bipolar disorder that are the same. The same is true for anxiety and depression. Each person experiences symptoms differently, which makes it that much harder to understand. In truth, this disorder is so difficult to understand that its name is not really appropriate at all, especially if you understand the true cause of all the symptoms. The name bipolar was given because the episodes people experience reflect two opposite extremes. They are either up or they are down. However, this is not a true expression of the disorder because it implies that one day someone is low and depressed, and the other they are high and manic. If you or someone you know has bipolar disorder, you will be aware that this is not necessarily a true representation of this condition.
Furthermore, there are so many different levels of bipolar disorder that it is impossible to classify each one properly. The only way the medical community knows how to classify the levels are from mild to severe. However, bipolar disorder is so unpredictable that it may hit one unassuming person radically one day and then creep up slowly over the years for someone else. This is due, as I will explain further, to the triggers that occur in one's life as well as what is happening to the brain after the triggers happen. But these are not the cause, simply the triggers. In all cases of bipolar, there is an underlying cause that medical communities are unaware of.
The Limitations of Research and Science
First of all, we have some amazing neurosurgeons today that have developed and regularly perform life-saving procedures, and for that I am very grateful. For example, there is a surgery that miraculously removes aneurysms from people's brains, saving many people from premature death. I have immense respect for how far we have come in various areas. However, when it comes to the majority of chronic illnesses, research and science are woefully behind. This may sound hyperbolic, but research and science essentially know very little when it comes to what is going on in the brain. Because it is not an area of the body science and research can effectively probe and study, there is very little progression in the study of conditions of the brain. Unfortunately, due to this lack of progression, we are in the same place we were many decades ago in understanding bipolar disorder.
In the 1950s, mostly women, but some men as well, were filing into doctors' offices complaining of depression and extreme mania, to which the medical professionals could only shake their heads because they had no idea what was causing such symptoms. Since most of the patients were women in their late 40s and 50s, doctors' first reaction was to blame menopause. In fact, those who were deep in research and medication development were in the process of creating synthetic hormones and were just about to put them on the market. So, when people started having symptoms now referred to as those of bipolar disorder, doctors blamed hormones. This made it vastly simple to turn around and prescribe the hormone medications they were primed to release. More than half a century later, science and research has the same exact answer for the cause of bipolar disorder: hormones. This lack of progression has caused many to continue their suffering for so many years and prevented healing from this disease. In recent years, they have tacked on environmental issues and trauma to the list of causes, which is some advancement; but these are mere triggers, not actual causes.
The True Cause of Bipolar Disorder
A common theory for an answer for bipolar disorder is a chemical imbalance in the brain. The truth is, however, that it is impossible for the body to naturally disrupt its own chemicals and cause an imbalance when there are no outside factors. There is an actual tangible substance that is disrupting the brain and its mental functioning. The answer is toxic heavy metals.
Research and medicine stay away from the discussion on toxic heavy metals. There is little to no conversation about them in medical communities, let alone in relation to how they cause mental disorders. There is so much controversy surrounding heavy metals that scientists do their best to neglect them altogether. As a result, medical communities are completely unaware of just how many illnesses toxic heavy metals play a role in. Toxic heavy metals are present in petroleum, plastics, antibiotics, and countless other drugs so it is no wonder science and research ignore them. The idea that the very things doctors are prescribing for healing and managing diseases contain ingredients which are harmful would be damaging to the pharmaceutical industry. Toxic heavy metals are also in our water supply, falling out of the sky, and found in a multitude of other places.
If you could examine the heavy metals in the brains of those who have bipolar disorder, you would begin to see why this disease manifests itself so differently in each individual. Heavy metals of all kinds, including copper, mercury, lead, and aluminum, find their way into the body either at conception, during pregnancy, at birth, or afterwards. People can also get heavy metals later in life from pesticides, which contain heavy metals, the metals in kitchenware, old copper pipes, and many other sources. Heavy metals are passed down generationally, which is one reason why children can have heavy metals in their systems when they are so young. This truth is still unknown to medical communities and science and research. It's critical to understand how these toxic heavy metals can impact you and your loved ones and be contributing to chronic illnesses, which is why I addressed them in my books Medical Medium and Life-Changing Foods.
On their own these metals are poisons. What is worse is that they tend to oxidize, causing even worse problems, such as toxic runoff that damages any tissue in its path and disrupts the path of electrical impulses. Sometimes the heavy metals oxidize quickly in people's brains; at other times, it takes a bit longer for the metals to oxidize. Additionally, there is the factor of where the heavy metals have made a home in the brain. They could be in the frontal lobe, by the pituitary gland, in the cerebral midline canal, or scattered about. Toxic heavy metals are also a food for viruses and bacteria, a truth that medical science and research are not yet aware of. When viruses and bacteria eat toxic heavy metals, they excrete neurotoxins, which can worsen the condition of someone with bipolar or another condition caused by toxic heavy metals. All these factors and more (to come below) play a part in someone's neurological health and why no two people can have exactly the same bipolar.
When someone has deposits of heavy metals in the brain, it disrupts the proper functioning of electrical impulses. Instead of running down a neuron in a smooth path of communication, the electrical impulse fires down a neuron on neurotransmitter fuel and runs into a heavy metal deposit as though it is a wall. As a result, the electrical impulses short circuit. And as the metals oxidize and runoff occurs, surrounding brain cells are damaged and more electrical impulses are short circuited. This is what is happening with someone who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. As you can now understand, there is much more to this condition than science and research have discovered yet.
It's critical to understand the difference between the underlying unknown cause of bipolar that I revealed above and its triggers. Just because someone has heavy metals in their brain does not mean they automatically have bipolar disorder. There needs to be a trigger first. Without a trigger, the metals can remain cool and calm inside the brain, not causing much trouble. The trigger can be any sort of emotional experience that sends adrenaline to the brain. A childhood trauma, a sudden death of a loved one, a car accident, a divorce, or other devastating news can all be examples of traumatic events that push massive amounts of adrenaline to the brain. Sometimes the emotional event triggers the bipolar disorder immediately. At other times, it takes a bit longer and isn't recognized until many months or many years later. To help manage the release of excess adrenaline, especially when someone is going through a difficult time, it's critical for someone with bipolar to employ the adrenal grazing method I outline in my book Medical Medium where you snack every one and a half to two hours on the right kinds of foods.
Another example of a trigger could be getting mercury fillings removed all at once. While this may seem like the best thing to do for your health, it can lead to an extremely high level of exposure to mercury, regardless of the protective measures a dentist goes to to protect you. IIt is better to remove only one at a time months apart from another, if at all. This is something I also talk about in my book Medical Medium because so many well-intentioned people do it but it's critical to know how it can trigger more health issues, including bipolar.
The Manic Storm
What people do not know is that when you are facing a difficult situation, you can experience an emotional storm in your brain. When I use the word "storm", it is not an analogy. There are actual storms inside our brains when we are full of emotion such as anger, confusion, and heartbreak. Emotion creates so much heat, like a fire and lightning storm swirling around the brain. Many people might be skeptical about how heated your brain can get just from emotion because the brain itself does not melt from emotional experiences. In other words, people do not die because they are angry. The reason is the brain has the incredible capacity to cool and protect itself against these storms. The worrisome aspect of these storms is what the heat does to the toxic heavy metals inside the brain. When you apply heat to metal, the metal becomes malleable and can run. And this is the same thing that happens with heavy metal deposits in the brain.
These heightened emotional experiences can then be considered triggers because the heat melts the metals causing runoff, which as I said damages any tissue nearby. And the adrenaline that is being pumped to the brain during these emotional storms acts as gasoline, fueling the fire even further. These emotional triggers are heightened even further because there is so much confusion surrounding bipolar that people often feel very alone. They do not know why they are acting this way, and even more fear and anger heat the brain. The storm slams against the heavy metal deposits and alters them.
Bipolar is not due to malfunctioning hormones. The only aspect of bipolar disorder that is related to hormones is the adrenaline that pumps up from the adrenals into the brain that contributes to the emotional storm that melts the heavy metal deposits. It's also important to know that when someone has adrenal health issues, they can be misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. What is actually happening is that when someone's adrenals are exhausted, they can produce both too little or too much hormone for any particular situation. This can result in something like the massive mood swings in someone with bipolar. To find out more about adrenal fatigue, read the chapter on this topic in Medical Medium. This is another reason why the adrenal snacking technique I describe in that book is so important. It's essential that medical communities become aware of this information so they know what's really behind bipolar and how they can most effectively help their clients and patients.
High Fat Diets Oxidize Metals
While emotional storms oxidize metals instantaneously, certain lifestyles and diets can have a slower effect. High fat diets have become extremely trendy over the years under the guise that carbohydrates are harmful for us. Trends like these low carb, high fat/high protein diets are not helpful for anyone suffering from bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses. The reason is because too much fat in the diet promotes oxidizing of the heavy metal deposits in the brain, which then causes corrosion. This creates a problem over time and short circuits the electrical impulses, which then causes more manic episodes.
The reason you may hear many authors and experts today endorse high protein/high fat diets is because they claim the brain is made of fat. This one of the biggest misconceptions about the brain that is currently becoming popular. This just shows how little the medical community actually knows about the brain if this misguided theory has been allowed to be considered truth. The brain is mostly made of and runs on glucose. There are only tiny traces of fat in the brain because it's made almost entirely of carbohydrates. In many countries, animal brains are eaten as delicacies. If you have ever tried lamb brain, monkey brain, or rabbit brain, it has a very sweet flavor. This is because brains are made of glycogen (glucose). If someone experiences regular brain fog, or any other malfunction of the brain, it could be because they simply are not eating enough healthy carbohydrates like fruits and sweet potatoes. Instead, they are eating high fat and high protein diets (which are one and the same.)
I must mention as well that someone's high fat diet may not be due to following a trendy regimen. Most Americans and other Westerners who eat standard diets full of oils, meats, cheese, eggs, milk, and yogurt have an extremely high intake of fat. Therefore, keep in mind that a high fat diet may not be intentional, but rather an inevitable consequence of eating in the standard way. The same is true if someone is eating a plant based diet but they're consuming a lot of oils, nuts, nut butters, soy, or processed vegan foods or eggs and dairy products if someone is vegetarian.
Inherited Toxic Heavy Metals
It is common to talk about mental illness running in one's family. In fact, most people assume that if there is evidence of depression or bipolar disorder in the family that the rest of the family members have the potential to develop such illnesses because it is in their genes. However, the reason mental illness often shows up in family lines is not because of genes. Genetics have absolutely nothing to do with it. To understand more about how illnesses are being inaccurately blamed on genetics, check out my chapter on this in Thyroid Healing. The reason is due to the way heavy metals are so easily passed down in family lines. If your father had bipolar disorder and your aunt has it and now you have just been diagnosed, it is not the fault of your genes. It is because of the heavy metals in your brain and environmental or emotional triggers. You don't have mental illness in your family; you have heavy metals in your family. This is an important distinction because when a disease is considered hereditary, people tend to put up their hands in defeat and believe there's nothing they can do about it. There is very little we can do to manage a disease if it is inevitable and in our DNA. However, when there is an actual cause that you know now, there is hope for recovery and healing. And that's what I am here to share with you.
How to Detox Heavy Metals
The good news is there are ways to remove the heavy metals that are behind bipolar disorder. The most important step to take is to incorporate the five heavy metal detox foods I shared in Medical Medium and my other books into your life every single day. This is not any old heavy metal detox you might read about online or hear from your practitioner. There is a great deal of misinformation out there that can lead you to try something which doesn't actually work. This detox, the Medical Medium heavy metal detox, does work. If you truly want to heal from bipolar disorder, these foods will help you get there. Cilantro, Atlantic dulse (a sea vegetable), spirulina, barley grass juice extract powder, and frozen or fresh wild blueberries (or wild blueberry powder if you can't find fresh or frozen) all work together synergistically to safely and effectively carry out the heavy metals from your body like no other foods, practices or detoxes you might hear about do. While all of them are detoxifying foods on their own, the synergy of the five together is what ensures total elimination. Many people who have been incorporating these five foods have enjoyed the Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie because it is a simple way to get them all in at once and the five foods must be enjoyed daily within a 24 hour period of each other. However, if you prefer to consume these foods in other ways over your day, feel free to get creative. Find out more about the heavy metal detox on my blog.
I will just make one note about the blueberries because many people get confused about which ones to buy. While cultivated blueberries have many wonderful benefits and health supporting properties, they are put to shame when compared to the wild blueberry. Wild blueberries are much smaller and have much deeper deep blue/purple skins. They are so packed with nutrients and healing properties that simply including these alone can be helpful if that is all that you can do today. Wild blueberries help remove heavy metals from the body, not cultivated blueberries. Wild blueberries are most commonly found in the freezer section of your grocery store, and, thankfully, they are available in most grocery stores around the United States these days. Be sure to buy the blueberries that are wild so that you can properly complete your five foods to detox from heavy metals daily.
Other Important Healing Foods
For any kind of disorder involving the brain, it is crucial to consume plenty of electrolytes from natural sources. Drinks like coconut water, fresh squeezed lemon or lime in water a few times a day, and pure cucumber juice provide vital electrolytes that help repair the brain and protect you from some of the effects of adrenaline being released. It is incredible what these simple elixirs can do for those who struggle with bipolar, depression, and anxiety. In fact, if you are with someone during an emotional experience, like getting bad news or being in an accident, and you have the ability to do something helpful, consider offering them one of these drinks instead of a simple glass of plain water. The electrolytes and glucose will help counteract the storm that is happening in the brain and protect and restore brain tissue. Another source of electrolytes is the right kind of B12, which contains both adenosylcobalamin and methylcobalamin.
Mineral salts are amazing secret powerhouses for brain recovery. Drinking a glass of plain celery juice every morning can help you heal from the emotional storms you have experienced due to bipolar disorder. Many vegetables are high in mineral salts as well, especially spinach and other leafy greens.
Healthy sugars from fruits are essential to healing disorders in the brain. As we discussed above, the brain is made almost entirely from glucose. If you starve it too long from the right kinds of glucose, you will be setting the stage for a manic episode to occur. This is why it's so critical to focus on healthy high carbohydrate foods such as all fruits, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squashes, as your main source of calories when healing from bipolar disorder. Some doctors may prescribe high protein, high fat, low carb diets and for some the symptoms may improve initially, but eventually an even bigger episode will occur because you are being starved of glucose. As I shared earlier, glucose is needed for the brain to cool down so that when another trigger happens it helps to protect your from the emotional storm happening in the brain. Triggers are inevitable because the only predictable thing about life is that it is unpredictable. While you can do your best to set up emotional boundaries and live a low-stress lifestyle, there will still be things that cause emotional storms and surges of adrenaline. This makes being prepared by getting your brain the food it needs to protect itself even more important.
Instead of withholding these precious sugars from your brain, begin to incorporate more fruits, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, raw honey, and winter squash. Bananas are one of the secret weapons against bipolar disorder and should not be underestimated. Dates are an amazing way to get glucose to the brain quickly. Try not to restrict your fruit, especially bananas, in any way. No matter what you may hear about bananas being bad, I have seen them save lives. Restricting your fruit intake is like refusing to feed your brain what it needs to truly heal. In truth, someone with bipolar or another neurological illness requires far more glucose to support the brain than someone who has no health issues. Fruits as meals, snacks, and alongside greens throughout the day are very important. Potatoes, sweet potatoes and squashes with your evening meal are also incredible.
Any kind of young greens can be amazing tools against bipolar disorder. Eat sprouts and microgreens of all kinds because the mineral salts in them have a different healing quality when they are in that stage. Baby spinach, radish sprouts, broccoli sprouts, and kale microgreens are examples of amazing vegetables you can put into your salad, juices, or smoothie to help in recovery, or simply top steamed potatoes and baked sweet potatoes with a big handful. Also, include radishes and asparagus, which have unbelievable properties to fight bipolar disorder. Asparagus helps to repel new metals and toxins from taking up residence in the areas where heavy metals once were as you remove them through the heavy metal detox. Radish greens are one of the most powerful leafy greens on our planet and also help to remove heavy metals. Read more about the healing properties of these foods in Life-Changing Foods.
Keeping your fats low, as I have discussed above, is essential. If you eat animal foods, try to reduce your intake to once a day or every other day because they are some of the highest sources of fat. If you're vegetarian, it's important to remove eggs and dairy in your diet (read why in any of my books). If you are vegan, try not to overdo too many plant sources of fats such as avocado, coconut, nuts, and oils. While these plant fats are not bad foods, in fact they can be quite healing, you want to be mindful of your intake because too much fat in your system makes it harder for the toxic metals to leave your body. Additionally, by keeping your fat intake low, you are creating more room on your plate for the most healing foods like fruit, potatoes, vegetables, and leafy greens, not to mention your heavy metal detox foods or smoothie every day.
Healing Supplements
As with any type of supplement regimen, it is largely about personal preference and what works for each person. Because everyone's bipolar disorder is different, so will be the supplements that work for them. It can be helpful to work with a skilled practitioner when beginning to work with new supplements to discuss dosages. Also, when purchasing supplements, be sure to purchase ones without alcohol.
Supplements that can be helpful for for bipolar disorder are the right kind of B12, a good B complex, and methylfolate, which is helpful for the brain and central nervous system. I also like magnesium l-threonate. Other helpful supplements include 5-HTP, California poppy, Ester C, and zinc sulfate.
Moving Forward
Knowing what is wrong gives you freedom. If you have been struggling with bipolar disorder, you may have felt lost because the answers that were given to you in the past did not leave you hopeful for a better future. Maybe you have been hearing countless explanations about why you are sick and the solutions being offered in tandem do not seem to result in true healing. Or perhaps you keep getting the same answers from different people but you are still sick. With the information in this article, you will be able to take real steps toward healing every single day. That is what it looks like to have real answers. I have seen good people live in misery, which is why I care so much about getting the truth into your hands so you can take the necessary action to detox from heavy metals and experience healing.
Do as much as you can today and try not to beat yourself up over imperfections. Find community in your lifestyle adjustments by doing it with family members or making friends with those on the same protocol. Healing is possible when you have bipolar disorder, no matter how long you have had it. I have found that baby steps are what keeps us going. Try to think of it like with each bite of healing food and with each supplement you take, you are that much closer to recovery. Healing takes time so take it one day at a time and keep moving forward. And remember above all that you are not alone in this. I am with you and believe in you.
This item posted: 31-May-2018 - Disclaimer
Throughout the centuries, fruit has been known to be one of the most healing foods available to us on this planet. In the past couple of decades, however, you may have noticed a shift in our perception of bananas, apples, melons, and mangoes. Many people have begun to fear fruit so much so that they avoid it altogether. This incredible deviation from our historical worship of fruit is due to the lies that originate from the very top of our health industries in both conventional and alternative health. If you yourself are afraid of consuming fruit, let the information in this article set the record straight on the powerful healing properties of this food group and the countless critical benefits they can bring you and your family.
Fruit is actually the most important food to eat when healing from disease; and yet many people are avoiding it intentionally because they have fallen prey to fruit fear propaganda, unaware that they are hurting their health by avoiding fruit. Three things are happening concurrently in this disturbing reality. First, there is more fruit available to more people than ever before. We are now able to import fruit from other countries during off seasons, and most people living in the Western world have access to at least some fruit year round. Many areas have access to an abundance of fruit all year long, something that was not available a century ago before the dramatic improvements to refrigeration and transportation systems, which has ultimately improved the lives of millions. Take advantage of the access we now have to fruit in abundance.
Second, while more people around the globe have access to fresh and even organic fruit throughout the year, people are consuming less fruit than ever before. This is due to hidden agendas and misinformation that have warned us to stay away from fruit because of the sugar content, the misleading and inaccurate tests that tell some they are fructose intolerant, and the heavy focus on trendy high-fat diets that are claimed to be healthy. Supermarkets have mountains of gorgeous fruit in February that customers are passing by because someone told them fruit should be avoided.
Third, people are suffering from more chronic illness today than ever before. More and more people are going to their doctors and practitioners due to chronic fatigue, insomnia, brain fog, vertigo, depression, anxiety, heart palpitations, acne, gallstones, kidney stones, arthritis, Lyme disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis, ALS, parkinson's, candida, eczema, hives, diabetes, acid reflux, and other unexplained symptoms and conditions. My work is dedicated to helping people heal from symptoms and conditions that are mysterious to their practitioners with the undiscovered truth about what's behind these and countless other mystery chronic illnesses and symptoms. But research and science is decades behind where it should be in order to get people to their greatest sense of health and more and more people are becoming sicker. Over the past several years, fruit has been blamed for this rise in illness and symptoms. However, people are eating less fruit and getting more sick.
The Anti-Fruit Movement
There is a movement at the top of our health industries, both conventional and alternative, that is intentionally trying to steer you away from eating fruit, even though fruit has been known to be healthful and necessary for our well-being since the beginning of time. It may be difficult to believe that those in the medical world do not have our best interest in mind. However, the medical industry is just that: an industry. As much as we try to think of the entire world of health care as pure in motive, it is still a business, and a massive one at that. When money is involved, especially to the degree it is in the medical industry, motivations are skewed and greed creeps in. If the population eats less fruit, the medical industry makes more money from pharmaceuticals, procedures, and care that suddenly become vastly more necessary due to the increase in chronic illness. Please know that I am not talking about the incredible doctors, surgeons, and carers we are blessed to have. Doctors and health practitioners of all kinds are life-savers and compassionate healers. They are highly intelligent people with the best of intentions and are unfortunately trapped in an industry that runs on hidden agendas.
Fruit, on the other hand, has very little money involved. It is not an industry with lobbyists, interests groups, and heavily funded research profiting off of illness. In fact, this is why there is very little funded scientific research surrounding fruit. No one wants to fund a study on bananas because there is no money in bananas. There's only money lost in the medical industry due to consumers eating bananas and as a result improving their health and having less medical dependence. And, unlike pharmaceutical companies and interest groups, banana farmers do not have the money to fund their own scientific research in order to convince the population to eat more of their product. It is uncomfortable to think about science and research in this way, but it is the reality we are dealing with that is dramatically and negatively shifting the way and types of food people are consuming. As a result, people are sicker than ever.
Another major factor in the anti-fruit movement is the individuals that have been intentionally perpetuating these fruit fear lies. The idea that bananas are bad for you stemmed from one person originally, as did the idea that you should stay away from watermelon, apricots, and oranges. This person was about to release a line of fruit pills, which consumers would not buy if they were eating fruit in its natural form. This person marketed the product as a healthier alternative to fruit, which of course wasn't true. Sadly, many people believed the clever marketing and a wildfire of misinformation started to spread. It's easy to still be affected today by this early attack on fruit that happened in years past. The internet has since been aflame with the idea that avoiding fruit is the healthiest choice, that fruit causes health problems and weight gain, and that the sugar in fruit is the same thing as the sugar in cookies and candy. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Fruit is the healthiest and most healing food available to us and it's essential for anyone suffering with a chronic illness or symptom. The anti-sugar movement has convinced people that cutting sugar from your diet in the forms of candy, soda, and frosting, should also including cutting out peaches, pineapple, and strawberries.
The amount of work that has been put into the anti-fruit movement has been rewarded, and millions of people around the world are now convinced fruit is unhealthy. It is more than easy to fall for the idea that fruit could be dangerous, especially because the health industries and magazines create so much confusion around the idea. And the strongest tactic the anti-fruit movement takes is fear. They scare you with poor science and calling diets with fruit incorporated in them risky. Many people are not sure on the matter and have simply decided to avoid fruit just in case what they are currently being told is true. The trendy high-fat diets of today in particular perpetuate this mass wave of fruit fear, placing fruit and processed sugar in the same basket instead of understanding and differentiating between the two. As I share in my Fruit Fear chapter in Medical Medium, fruit contains water, minerals, vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants along with its critical glucose. This is not even remotely the same as the processed and damaging sugar found in a piece of candy, chocolate cake, or ice cream cone that has no nutrient value.
The Truth About Fruit
The reason this issue is so important is because fruit is in fact the most important food group to consume in order to protect you and your loved ones from chronic illness and a lifetime of unnecessary suffering. As I will explain further below, fruit not only prevents illness, it slows down aging, kills off pathogens, and heals our bodies on a cellular level. When we are told to fear fruit, we are essentially being told to avoid the very thing that will bring us the most life. There is so much misinformation surrounding fruit that is essential to debunk for the sake of yours and your family's health and well-being.
Out-of-Season Fruit
There is a rumor circulating that we should avoid eating fruit out of season that has been shipped from another part of the world in which the fruit is in season. This is one of those lies that has perpetuated fruit fear. While a melon may not be in season in your part of the world, it was grown while in season in another part. This means the fruit contains all of the same vitamins and minerals as when you purchase it during your local melon season. If you can get your hands on fruit that is not in season for your area, do not be afraid of it because it is a miracle that it is in your store. In fact, this is a good reminder of the old times centuries ago in which kings and queens would have fruit delivered from exotic lands in order to keep eating fruit throughout the year to stay healthy. Royalty would have access to fruit that the peasants would not. Yesteryear kings and queens lived for much longer than peasants because of the fruit they consumed. Undoubtedly, the ample amounts of vitamin C they consumed from fruit kept their immune system stronger. Let this be a way for us to remember how grateful we should be that we have access to fruit all year long.
The Truth About Ripening
Another fear surrounding fruit is that the fruit sold in stores is not healthy because it is not picked when ripe. However, the truth is that fruit can ripen when it is picked within the appropriate window of time. Growers and farmers are very knowledgeable about the fruit they have spent lifetimes learning to nurture and harvest. Fruit that is picked unripe, as long as it is within the right window, will ripen correctly off the tree or vine and contain all of the same nutrients as when it is picked when fully ripened. Unfortunately, this misinformation has deterred people from consuming the fruit that is available to them in stores. If you have fruit on your counter and it never ripens, which is extremely rare, it means it was picked too early and you obviously wouldn't eat it. When a piece of fruit like a banana turns from green to yellow and spotty, that means it was picked within the right window and will deliver all of the same benefits to you as if it ripened on the tree.
The Truth about Hybridization
Many people avoid fruit due to hybridization; however, this is another example of where information went bad. Hybridization is not the same thing as GMO (genetically modified organisms). When a fruit is GMO, that means the plant was altered on a genetic level, and it is one of the most devastating things that is happening to our food right now. Thankfully, the anti-GMO movement is doing an incredible job at ensuring non-GMO foods get labeled appropriately so consumers can start to be aware of this issue, which has disastrous effects on our health. Hybridization, on the other hand, is completely different. We have been conducting hybridization for centuries, as far back as 3,500 years ago in China; and it is a perfectly natural process given to us in order to discover all of the varieties of fruits and vegetables.
For example, when you create a new kind of apple or cross a plum with an apricot, this is not a genetic modification process. In genetic modification, genes from unrelated species are isolated, collected, and tweaked in order to produce a certain desired outcome. The processes of hybridization, on the other hand, include cross-pollination and grafting, which are perfectly natural and should not be considered dangerous at all. Furthermore, hybridization opens up new spheres of nutritional and phytochemical possibilities. Newly created fruits from cross-pollination and grafting create undiscovered antioxidants and anthocyanins that can benefit us greatly. In fact, hybridization is how we have come to where we have. It is how our own species has made it this far. A very long time ago, there was only one kind of apple. But through hybridization, we have thousands of varieties of apples growing around the world today, which has created more and more nutrients that are helping to keep us alive.
When we hybridize, the new kind of plant changes in a way we cannot even perceive. Some roots go deeper, some roots stretch wider, some plants draw up different nutrients from the soil, and some absorb the sun in a different way. All of these characteristics not only bring a different flavor and appearance to the new fruit; it also brings that new platter of nutrients to the table. There are so many examples of the beautiful varieties of fruit we can now enjoy thanks to hybridization. The boysenberry is a hybrid between a blackberry and raspberry. The meyer lemon is a hybrid between a lemon and a mandarin. The tangelo is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit, or a pomelo.
We Need Vitamin C
There are many nutrients that are not necessary for our survival, but we need vitamin C. We cannot live without it. It is absolutely necessary in order to continue living. And what are the highest vitamin C sources? All of the different fruits available to us. The question will probably be asked, if this were true, how could someone who never eats fruit be able to continue living? The answer is that a lot of people accidentally get vitamin C without realizing it because many processed foods are fortified with synthetic vitamins, or they take multivitamins that contain a small amount of vitamin C, or they simply eat a piece of fruit randomly from a blueberry muffin, slice of apple pie, or snack on an apple on occasion.
Fruit is Antiviral and Antibacterial
One of the biggest reasons fruit is so important to eat is because it stops pathogens in their tracks. So many people have viruses and bacteria that cause the mystery symptoms and conditions I mentioned above. This is information I brought to light in my books, Medical Medium, Life-Changing Foods, Thyroid Healing, and Liver Rescue, and that I've shared with tens of thousand of people I have helped in their healing process heal over the past few decades. But the degree to which pathogens are responsible for chronic illnesses and symptoms and how many mutated strains and types there are isn't yet known by medical science and research. In the midst of trying to heal from these conditions, fruit is our best friend because it stops viruses and kills bacteria. For example, when someone has streptococcus, which is the true undiscovered cause of SIBO, sinus pain and congestion, otitis media, UTIs, intestinal disorders, sore throats, styes, and cystic acne, the bacteria is often living in various parts of the body. When you eat fruit, it kills off the bacteria and begins to remove it from the body. However, fruit often gets the blame for the conditions mentioned here, when it is actually a pathogen that's taken up residence and is causing the issues. When people have SIBO, they are told to stay away from sugar, including all fruit. Of course, sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup should be avoided because this will wreak havoc on your intestinal tract, especially if you are dealing with something like SIBO. Fruit, though, should be eaten in abundance to kill off the streptococcus causing the condition.
Fruit Stops Aging
We all hear that fruit has antioxidants, but what does that mean? In short, fruit stops and prevents oxidation, which is the process that ages us. Additionally, fruit prevents toxic heavy metals, which almost all of have some of in our brains (find out how this happens in Medical Medium,) from oxidizing. When toxic heavy metals oxidize, it creates a poisonous chemical pool that contaminates brain cells and lowers electrical impulse activity. This oxidation process can lead to many different neurological conditions, including Alzheimer's, ADHD, memory loss, parkinson's, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and more. Fruit, wild blueberries especially, help prevent this oxidation and stop the brain from rotting in response to these poisons. Fruit helps not only neurological conditions, but every single one of the thousands of symptoms and illnesses people are suffering with.
Our Cells Run on Sugar
Sugar, while it may sound like an enemy to avoid because of our conditioning, actually runs every single cell in our body, especially our brain. It's just a matter of having the right kind of sugar that's found in fresh fruits and high-carbohydrate vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squashes. You might have heard that the brain is made up mostly of fat. This is a trendy theory that is popular today, but also inaccurate. In truth, the brain is made of stored glycogen, which is primarily glucose. When you experience brain fog, it typically means your brain is not getting enough sugar to keep it running properly. In fact, if you do not have sufficient glucose getting into your cells, you will die. It is absolutely essential to keep us going. Fat, on the other hand, is non-essential for survival. If you try to cut out all sugar and carbohydrates from your diet entirely, your body will use up every bit of its glucose reserves to keep you alive but eventually you either will not live long or you will soon cave and find yourself "giving in" and eating a chocolate bar in the middle of the candy aisle before you make it to the register, pinching sweet potato fries from your friend while you eat your lettuce wrapped grass fed beef burger, or find yourself craving a glass of wine or beer at the end of each day (all of which contain sugar, although not the healthy kind.) We crave sugar and sweet things for a reason. It's also critical to know this undiscovered truth: every nutrient we need can not be absorbed unless it is accompanied by glucose! That means that no matter how many supplements you eat or how organic or pure your food is, unless you have enough glucose to deliver the nutrients into your cells, they won't be helping you. I discuss this in much more detail in my book Liver Rescue.
What Happens with Fruit on High-Fat Diets
Many people who blame fruit for pain, discomfort, or any of the conditions or symptoms listed above (or others that may not have been listed) may simply have too much fat in their diets. This is also the case for those who think they cannot eat fruit due to "fructose intolerance." A high-fat diet does not necessarily mean one of the trendy diets calling itself low-carb. Almost any diet can be too high in fat. In fact, the Standard American Diet (SAD) is extremely high in fat without meaning to be. Hamburgers, french fries, bacon, yogurt, milk, cheese, and chicken breasts, oil, foods consumed regularly on the SAD, have very high fat content. If someone is eating a low-carb diet, they may not realize they are actually eating high amounts of fat. Even though these diets claim to be high in protein, it's actually impossible to eat the high-protein foods people are told to eat without avoiding the fat. Even chicken breast without the skin is loaded with fat. Additionally, if you eat a vegetarian diet, you may still consume a great deal of dairy products like cheese, milk, yogurt, kefir, sour cream, ice cream, and butter, all of which are full of fat. A high-fat vegan diet is also very common with too much consumption of nuts, seeds, avocado, coconut, and oils.
The reason too much fat in the diet is problematic with fruit consumption, and the reason people may point the finger at the fruit, is that the sugar has nowhere to go. When your blood is filled up with that much fat nonstop, even the healthiest kinds, your liver becomes congested with fat cells from year after year of consuming a high-fat diet. Your liver has to exhaust itself creating the bile composition and amount necessary to help prevent your high-fat diet from hurting you, which is an unknown truth I explain fully in Liver Rescue, and your liver starts to break down and its reserves begin to diminish. Over time, this leads to weight gain and a whole host of illnesses and symptoms. Additionally, the linings of your intestinal tract and the bottom of the stomach become lined with fat and eventually the fat goes rancid. The fat hardens on the linings as it is putrefying; however, the liver's bile is not strong enough to clear out the the fat so it continues to rot and stay exactly where it is, which also causes health complications.
Then when you try to eat some fruit, such as an apple, the pulp, skin, and pectin start to move the rancid fat and push it down. When this happens, you may begin to detox and purge these fats and other toxins, possibly causing you to experience discomfort, acne breakouts, indigestion, headaches, rashes, or other symptoms. If you do not detox, you may still experience discomfort because you are feeling the old fat lining move out, which is not always pleasant in the intestinal tract and stomach. However, you cannot blame the fruit for doing what it is meant to do, which is helping you to stay alive and heal you. You also can't blame fruit for the discomfort caused by the fat still sitting in your intestine from a lifetime of knowingly or unknowingly eating high fat foods which can lead to heart attacks, liver disease, diabetes, heart disease, and so much more.
The Truth About Fructose Intolerance
Many people believe they are not allowed to eat fruit because they are allergic to sugars and intolerant to fructose, according to a test they took at the doctor's office. However, in this case, it is also the fat to blame, and not the fruit. When old fat is putrefying as it sits in the linings of the intestinal tract, or new fats are constantly filling the bloodstream every day, any sugar in the fruit you eat will be very difficult to assimilate because the sugar cannot absorb past that thick layer of fat. Thus, a breath test will indicate you have sugar in your breath because the sugar was unable to go anywhere. It was blocked by all the fat.
Furthermore, the fructose intolerance tests administered today are simply inaccurate. I have seen people who are labeled as fructose intolerant but have no problem eating fruit. In fact, when they do eat fruit, they see their health problems go away. Fructose intolerance tests pick up on any sugar that is present in the body. Even if you ate a chocolate bar five days before, this can trigger the test. Something that almost always triggers the test is the lactose in dairy, such as a piece of cheese, which is actually loaded with sugar. For this reason, the test simply isn't an accurate tool in the first place and is inherently flawed.
Another test that puts fruit fear in people is an enzyme test that concludes whether someone is Hereditary Fructose Intolerant (HFI). If someone is told they are HFI, the doctors cannot find an enzyme in the liver called aldolase b. However, do not be confused. Everyone has this enzyme in their liver, but it is diminished when the person eats a high-fat diet, as are hundreds of other enzymes. If you begin to eat plenty of fruit and lower your fat levels, this enzyme will return. In truth, it is not possible to have a real fructose intolerance. The tragedy is that the thing being taken away from people, fruit, is the very cure for not having aldolase b. HFI is a neglectful diagnosis.
When you bring fruit back into your diet and lower your fat intake, no matter what kind of diet you subscribe to or whether you're paleo, ketogenic, vegetarian, or vegan, you will be able to experience healing in the liver and your so-called fructose intolerance can disappear. Fruit feeds every single one of your cells with vitamins, nutrients, minerals, and phytochemicals. No matter where your family line is from, fruit is meant for your consumption. Fruit from all over the world provides the most amazing healing benefits that people are missing out on due to false information about fructose intolerance.
Tomatoes Under Attack
Currently people are developing a fear of tomatoes, even though tomatoes are one of the most amazing foods for us to eat. Tomatoes contain a special kind of undiscovered vitamin C that stops at least 20 different kinds of cancer. They also prevent fibroids, cysts, tumors, lipomas, and nodules on the thyroid from growing and are antiviral and antibacterial. Do not believe the misinformation surrounding tomatoes that is so popular today. Tomatoes are not dangerous nor should they be avoided. Tomato has always been scrutinized because it's classed as a nightshade. The new trend of the day suggests we should remove seeds from the tomato, which isn't helpful. This trend stems once from well-meaning experts who don't know what causes thyroid and chronic illnesses in the first place. They are offering food advice based on outdated studies that have a "thumb on the scale" that have influenced their outcomes, which in turn can hinder healing.
Moving Forward
Before you believe information someone is about to tell you, make sure you think twice. Fruit is not the enemy. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Fruit is our savior and I have seen it save peoples' lives time and time again. For example, bananas are another fruit that has a bad reputation due to the constant barrage it experiences from the anti-fruit movement. But I have seen people with crohn's disease who were suffering for years and were about to get major surgery start to eat ripe bananas and celery juice and their symptoms completely healed.
The most ironic part about people being afraid of fruit, due to the misinformation as well as the discomfort they may experience when too much fat is in their diet, is that the very thing they are avoiding is what is going to make them feel better. Fruit will not make you fat; it may help you lose weight. Fruit does not cause acne; it helps heal you from the bacteria that causes it. Fruit does not cause indigestion; it is running into the fat lining the interior of the intestine. Fruit does not cause diabetes; it is the fat that is blocking the sugar from getting into the cells and creating insulin resistance. Fruit does not cause brain fog; it can help you have a clear mind because your brain actually runs on sugar and is made of glucose. When it comes to fruit, there truly is nothing to be afraid of. It is your ally, your best friend, your healer, and your savior.
No matter what diet you subscribe to, begin lowering your fat intake and start to bring more fruit into your diet every day. You can take it as slowly as you need. If you feel wonky or symptomatic, try dropping your fat intake even lower so you can bring more fruit in. Take it one step at a time and one day at a time. You can also read a comprehensive explanation of Fruit Fear and why fruit is so important for you in my book Medical Medium.
This item posted: 30-May-2018 - Disclaimer
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