The role of nutrition in alternative health care
Alternative health care deals not only with treating medical issues as they arise, but a heavy emphasis is placed on prevention. One of the best ways to avoid the need for alternative health care is to eat a healthy balanced diet. Because food is the building block of our cells, healthy dietary practices can help prevent and reverse health problems.
It is never too late to use the healing power of nutrition to cleanse, heal
and balance the body. The following diets are both curative and preventative
and represent some of the nutrition paradigms within alternative health care.
Alternative health care and the candida diet
Candida albicans is an opportunistic bacteria that exists naturally in everyone.s gut. It only causes health problems when it is allowed to overgrow. Antibiotic, steroid and birth control pill use can cause candida overgrowth, as can a high sugar, high carbohydrate, low fiber diet.
Symptoms of candida include yeast infections, thrush, fungal infections, food allergies, bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea or constipation, fatigue, lose of interest in sex, malaise and brain fog. It is a common complaint seen by many alternative health care practitioners.
Candida must be starved and supplanted by beneficial bacteria. The candida diet consists of cutting out processed sugar, white flour, white rice, pasta, starchy foods, vinegar, fermented foods, fruit juice, yeast containing foods, alcohol, caffeine, mushrooms, sugar substitutes, and peanuts.
Alternative health care providers also recommended supplementation with acidophilus and various antifungals that are individualized to the patient based on culture sensitivity tests. Not only does this diet clean out the body of bad yeast but it balances blood sugar and often results in weight loss if the patient is overweight.
Alternative health care and the raw food diet
The raw food diet is perhaps one of the most extreme and restrictive diets in comparison to the standard American diet. All food, consisting mostly of fruits, vegetables and nuts, must by eaten raw.
This diet is excellent for both the prevention and reversal of disease. It works by cleansing the body and providing it with the natural enzymes it needs to break down the food. Also because the food is living, it provides the body with the most potent form of nutrition. Most raw food devotees also try to eat as much organic produce as possible to stave off the harmful effects of consuming commercial pesticides, fungicides and waxes. The challenge with this diet is getting enough daily protein intake.
A diet that is high in this many phytochemicals and antioxidants and lacking in processed chemicals is bound to improve health. Because today.s soil is so depleted of nutrients and minerals, the produce grown does not contain as many vitamins as it used to. Cooking the produce further destroys and breaks down those vitamins. So even a healthy cooked food vegetarian diet these days does not provide a fraction of the nutrients it used to.
There have been many miraculous cases of people healing serious and chronic diseases without the help of a doctor or alternative health care practitioner, by simply adopting a raw food diet. One of the ways raw food helps heal is by alkalinizing an acidic body environments. Acidic body Ph has been shown in studies to lead to disease.
Alternative health care and the liver cleansing diet
The liver is one of the most important organs in alternative health care, particularly in Chinese medicine. Because it is the primary regulator of detoxification, metabolism, blood purification, digestion and elimination a poor diet, a toxic environment and unhealthy lifestyle habits can take its toll on the liver. Once the liver is overburdened, all the other organs in the body can be thrown off.
Gall stones can form, digestion and elimination can suffer and fatigue can set in. Also the metabolism can slow down as the liver struggles to deal with all its multiple duties when it.s stressed, toxic and overburdened.
Cleansing the liver could be one of the most powerful things anyone could do to improve overall health. Doing so could save a subsequent trip to the office of your doctor or alternative health care provider. A diet that is low in saturated fat and high in raw fruits and vegetables is recommended to help the liver mend. Avoiding fatty meat, dairy products, alcohol and fried foods is essential.
It is important to eat as many cruciferous vegetables as possible, avoid white sugar and refined flour products and supplement with vitamin C, E, A, and essential fatty acids. Lean free range chicken and fish are good sources of protein for this diet. So are bean and legumes and organic lean meat.
While alternative health care providers espouse a variety of diets depending on the patient, they all agree that a healthy diet that is minimally processed and consists of whole, organic foods and no white sugar is the best preventative medicine alternative health care can provide.
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