The Probiotic Cure: Harnessing the Power of Good Bacteria for Better Health - Softcover

Whittekin CCN, Martie

 
9780757004230: The Probiotic Cure: Harnessing the Power of Good Bacteria for Better Health
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0757004237 ISBN 13: 9780757004230
Verlag: Square One, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

In 1982, it was discovered that the vast majority of stomach ulcers are caused by H. pylori, nasty little bacteria found in the gut. In spite of the evidence, it took the U.S. medical community ten years to accept this finding and change their treatment of ulcers. In 2015, scientists have come to an equally startling conclusion: An imbalance in the bacterial community of your stomach can cause not only ulcers, but also a host of other serious and painful disorders— from allergies to diabetes to osteoporosis. Now, best-selling health author Martie Whittekin has written The Probiotic Cure, a guide to overcoming many of our most common health issues. The Probiotic Cure is divided into two parts. Part One is designed to explain what our internal flora is and how it works in our gut. It examines what comprises this living community, specifically focusing on the natural balance of bad and good bacteria. It details how this community can become unbalanced from a poor diet, a toxic environment, or a number of medications, causing negative consequences for your health. It then goes on to explain how balance can be restored safely and effectively by using probiotics—good bacteria that are readily available in supplement form. Part Two provides a listing of the most common health disorders that may arise from a bacterial imbalance. Each entry includes a look at conventional treatments for the disorder along with the probiotics approach. Practical suggestions and points to consider are offered so that you can make the best decision possible for your well-being. Hopefully, it will not take another ten years for the medical community to recognize the power of probiotics. But with this book in hand, you can benefit today from groundbreaking research. The Probiotic Cureprovides a safe, natural, and wonderfully effective alternative approach to treating many of the major health problems of our time.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Martie Whittekin, CCN, is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally syndicated radio host. For over thirty-five years, she has been a nutritional counselor, lecturer, and an integral part of the functional medicine movement in the United States. While serving as president of the National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA), she helped pass the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act and received the NNFA's Crusader Award. She has also served on the Board of Trustees for Bastyr University. As an activist and the host of the popular radio show "Healthy by Nature," the author has been privileged to interview and learn from hundreds of leading figures in the fields of nutrition and natural medicine. Her previous book, Natural Alternatives to Nexium, Maalox, Tagamet, Prilosec & Other Acid Blockers, is a national bestseller.

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The discussion of health-giving bacteria may make more sense if I put it in the context of a much bigger picture. I’ve listed a number of serious health concerns on the cover and indicated that they might be overcome by helpful bacteria. If that seems a bit bold, it may be in part because we have become accustomed to managing diseases and using medicine to quiet symptoms.

The conventional approach may be common, but that doesn’t make it ideal. We can obviously be fooled into complacency by what is around us constantly, but history is replete with examples of times when we did not know until too late that “the parade was out of step.”

Fortunately, there may actually be two parades from which to choose.

Modern high tech medicine is unequalled in crisis care. It excels at putting us back together after an accident and keeping us from falling off the edge with an acute disease. However, when compared to most other developed countries (and even some in the third world) our chronic disease statistics look quite grim. Medications alleviate symptoms, but often at a significant expense and reduced long term wellness. One underlying problem is that conventional medicine is thoroughly trained in those interventions that it may discount the impressive self-healing force of the human body. In fact, we’ve spent the last several decades trying to defy the laws of nature when it might have been at least as productive to invoke the power of nature. Our microorganisms are an important component of that force.

The approach I will describe in this book is more aligned with healing disciplines that are less mainstream . . . a different parade if you will. According to the Institute for Functional Medicine (functionalmedicine.org), “Functional Medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership.” I added the emphasis because that is a key point we will come back to frequently. Although functional medicine offers specific training to practitioners, I will use the term “functional medicine” as generic shorthand to cover a broader scope of disciplines that have much in common, such as integrative medicine, complimentary medicine, naturopathic medicine, nutrition-based preventive medicine, and even alternative medicine.

These systems have in turn gained valuable insight from ancient gentle arts, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda from India, and Native American Shaman healing. (Practices that have worked for thousands of years shouldn’t be discounted simply because they didn’t come out of a white coat Western laboratory.) The functional approach is gaining traction in mainstream medicine as evidenced by the fact that the prestigious Cleveland Clinic has opened a Center for Functional Medicine.

Functional medicine deals successfully with preventing and healing (curing) chronic disease in part because it is personalized. These professionals also tend to view symptoms not as the enemy, but as almost blessings which alert us to an imbalance. Identifying and correcting an imbalance can achieve a sustainable reversal or cure of disease. As a bonus, the rebalancing approach can restore health without creating further damage in the process as might often be the case with some mainstream treatments, such as surgery, radiation, and pharmaceutical drugs. An imbalance usually involves an insufficiency of one or more factors that the body needs for optimum function and/or excess of one or more factors that are interfering with normal function.

A valid treatment yardstick that applies to any style of medicine is the “risk versus benefit ratio.” Let me use a familiar example of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), such as aspirin. The benefits include reduction of pain and inflammation. On the other side of the equation, aspirin’s risks include bleeding disorders, such as ulcers, intestinal bleeding, and hemorrhagic stroke. In fact, Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAID) are blamed for over 16,000 deaths per year. That figure may be higher given that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently required warning labels on non-aspirin NSAID pain killers noting that they increase the risk of heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. (The higher the dose the higher the risk.) Therefore, there is ongoing debate about the risk/benefit regarding these drugs. Tylenol is another example. The drug has been approved to reduce pain, but it is not expected to address the root cause of the pain. Under regulators’ view of the risk-to-benefit ratio, Tylenol is expected to cause side effects like liver damage (especially when it is combined with alcohol), but that is allowable as long as deaths don’t exceed the number that had been predicted.

Probiotics look fabulous when subjected to this same risk-to-benefit test.

On the risk side there are really none—probiotics are organisms that are supposed to be in our systems—they are a key part of the original plan. Probioticsoften help medications work better and reduce their side effects. On the otherhand, most pharmaceutical drugs have negative effects on our friendly bacteria. Probiotics are viewed by some scientists as “living drugs.”1 A rapidlydeveloping new field of study is called “Pharmacobiotics.” Perhaps that medicalsounding term will make probiotics more acceptable to mainstream docsthan might be the case with quaint-sounding “fermented foods” and humble“over-the-counter probiotic supplements.” Since there is almost nothing to sayabout risks associated with probiotics, most of the rest of this book will beabout clarifying the benefit side of the equation.

The reader may be one of the many who still have no earthly idea what probiotics are. Thanks to massive advertising especially by yogurt companies, the majority of consumers do seem to understand one tiny bit of the story—that probiotics are bacteria which help with constipation. Constipation is indeed a common concern and we will discuss it in the second part of the book. More serious clinically-diagnosed digestive diseases, such as chronic diarrhea, ulcers, and gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, are responsible for over 200,000 deaths annually in the U.S. Probiotics may be an important part of the solution to those as well. But, perhaps even more interesting are “sub-clinical” digestive issues related to an imbalance of microorganisms. (Sub-clinical means they are ones that we don’t even know we have.) They are often directly or at least indirectly responsible for many other discomforts, diseases, and deaths that at first seem unrelated to the GI tract.

Readers will learn that the benefits of having a thriving and well-balanced assortment of microbes range from clearer skin and a healthier weight to better control of allergies, asthma, depression, osteoporosis, and potentially deadly diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. For that matter, we should consider supporting the body’s team of beneficial microorganisms as a key part of the plan to resolve virtually any type of health complaint. As I mentioned in the Preface, our collection of probiotic microorganisms is like an organ with functions every bit as health-defining and complex as that of our liver or kidneys. Our team of microorganisms creates hundreds of metabolic substances in our circulation that help direct functions all around the body. Happily, it is not as difficult to create a proper healing community of microorganisms as it would be to say . . . build a kidney...

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Verlag
Square One
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0757004237
ISBN 13 
9780757004230
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande