Natural Health - A new perspective
by Ike Crill
Today, more and more people are realizing the importance of natural health practices. The medical and pharmaceutical industries have made big business out of treating health problems and disease but they have lost sight of some powerful ways to improve health like using nutrition and the body's natural power to heal itself. Many health problems can be remedied and avoided through basic nutrition. If you desire to be healthy learning a little bit about proper nutrition could improve your health situation drastically.
Currently, there are many different practices considered to be in the category of natural health including, probiotics, herbalism, aromatherapy, acupuncture, yoga and many others. There are benefits to all these practices but in this article we will focus on nutrition and probiotics. If you want to be naturally healthy in todays world, these two things are absolute basics you must understand.
History
Health has been an important topic of study for thousands of years. The famous Greek physician, Hippocrates is considered to be the father of modern medicine, and the principles he laid down 400 years before Christ are still valid today. Hippocrates practiced surgery but only as a last resort and was careful in the use of strong drugs. Fresh air, proper diet, and change in climate were more common treatments. Hippocrates was a strong believer in natural health and is famous for a quote that says "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food." Today Doctors still take the Hippocratic Oath when entering their profession. The importance of nutrition and natural health practices should not be lost by todays doctors or by anyone else.
In the Bible, in the book of Daniel, you will find the first experiment in natural health. Captured by the king of Babylon, Daniel and his friends are selected as court servants and are to eat of the king's foods and wine. Preferring to eat vegetables and drink water the group is allowed there Jewish diet for a trial of ten days. At the end of ten days, Daniels men and the king's men are compared where upon Daniel's men are found to be healthier and are allowed to continue there diet.
In more recent times there have been many discoveries made and experiments done that have provided a great deal of information about nutrition and health. There is so much information it can seem difficult to know what you should do to take care of your health, but it is really pretty simple if you look at natural health.
Natural Health Today
Today we have gotten so far from our natural state that we miss out on some very simple things that are extremely important to our health. In nature, man is nourished by the food that the land provides and can get enough exercise just searching for this food or working for his next meal. Today, however all we have to do is drive to the supermarket and buy food that has been processed and made ready for us. This food may taste good but is sometimes lacking in nutritional value and is much to easy to catch. Today, we also have to worry about all the the things that work against our health like synthetically produced foods our bodies cannot properly digest or even addiction to smoking and other habits that can negatively affect our health.
A New Problem
Even healthy choices at the supermarket, like fruits and vegetables, are processed and treated so that they aren't as healthy as they are naturally. These processed foods are missing the microorganisms that would naturally exist on and within the food. Food preservatives, chlorine in tap water, and other chemicals are used to achieve a longer shelf-life and to combat problems with undesirable microorganisms. It is important to kill these bad microbes , but killing the beneficial microbes is big problem. Beneficial microbes are an essential part of our health and in the past we were getting these microbes from our food but this is not happening any more. We are actually killing the existing microbes in our body and this is a big problem. Our immune and digestive systems rely on these microbes to keep us healthy and get our bodies all th nutrients we need.
This is a complicated problem to solve, because there are many aspects to it. Growing your own garden is a good solution but it does not solve the problem completely and is not very efficient. Microbes are also lost when you cook food so its not that easy to get your microbes from food like you would if you ate purely fresh, uncooked, organic fruits and vegetables.
The supplement industry has had a boom in recent years because it is a partial solution to this problem. Since we are not getting everything we need from the food we eat, we can take supplements to get some of the things we are missing out on. This however is not complete either, because your body requires a complex array of chemicals, minerals and nutrients that microbes in your digestive system derive from the food you eat and provide for your body. For a reasonably healthy person, the food you eat should provide you everything you need, but your microbial population must be in order for this to happen.
Probiotics are the solution to this problem. You can restore your beneficial microbial population and regain your health with probiotics. With all the things in our world that kill our microbes today it has become absolutely essential for just about everyone to grow the good bacteria back with probiotics.
Probiotics and Nutrition
Probiotics have become a basic in natural health. To be naturally health you must have nutrition and exercise. Well, to get proper nutrition you must have a balanced microbial population, which is difficult in today's world. In the past this was not a concern but in a world of antibiotics and chlorinated water, probiotics must be used to get back to that natural healthy state. Having proper nutrition means getting all the nutrients your body needs for growth, energy, and repair. These nutrients come from our diet. What must be maintained for proper health and nutrition is a diet that provides adequate amounts of the different food groups, your beneficial microbes, and exercise. Everyone needs fats, carbs, and protiens just to keep there body running. It is also important to get sunlight. Sunlight on our skin is necessary for helping our bodies make vitamin D which is needed to utilize calcium which is needed for healthy bones, teeth, and muscles.
Today there are many health problems that could be solved by proper nutrition. If your body does not get the nutrients it needs, many different diseases, ailments and health problems can arise.
Many people are overweight and even obese because of a destroyed microbial population resulting in lacking nutrition. If you do not get all the nutrients that your body needs you will continue to feel hunger and therefore continue to eat. This can obviously lead to being overweight. The obvious answer to a weight problem is to eat less and get enough exercise but this solution can be incomplete if you do not have a healthy microbial population in place. Without your beneficial bacteria, you will not get the nutrients you need and you will not fulfill your hunger or have the energy to exercise. Eating less and not getting the nutrients you need because of unhealthy microbial population can be very bad.
A note
Omega-3 fatty acids have gained much interest recently. These omega-3 fatty acids are essential to our health but we do not get as much in our diet as we did in the past and this is one thing that our microbes cannot provide for us. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential to your health, but I am not saying that taking an omega-3 supplement is basic to your health. I am however saying that about probiotics. Probiotics will have to be taken by just about anyone who has ever had antibiotics, or been around chlorinated water or eaten much from the grocery store. There are many herbs and supplements that can be taken to improve health but in order to put your body in a naturally healthy state, the only new basic that absolutely must be added to your diet is a probiotic.
Conclusion
Today achieving health is a little bit more complicated than it has been in the past but if you can gain an understanding of what is going on around you, you can put yourself in a much better position with a few simple things. I hope this article has atleast interested you in probiotics and hopefully shown you the value to your health. There is great deal of information available on studies in probiotics so look into them for your health's sake.