Doctors used to pride themselves on diagnosing a problem by observation and deduction: they’d take a good patient history, listen, and observe. Modern doctors, pressed for time and fearful of lawsuits, heavily rely on blood tests, X-rays, sonograms, endoscopy, and many other laboratory evaluations. In India, working out of our bus–turned– mobile-hospital, with no equipment other than a stethoscope, our ears, eyes, and noses, my colleagues and I returned to the simpler methods of observation. Eastern schools of medicine don’t see patients as isolated from their environment—including family, village, and spiritual path. Changes in environment or the predominant quality of one’s thoughts are considered equally important as changes in body temperature. All aspects of a patient’s life are believed to affect each other significantly and play a role in the maintenance of well-being. The root of disease is also found this way, by looking at both the bigger and the smaller picture together. Physical, mental, emotional, social, and environmental symptoms are all taken into consideration when making a diagnosis. Finding the common thread that ties them together often reveals the underlying imbalance at the origin of disease.
Back in the United States, chronic diseases were on the rise, often with such difficult and intimidating names that patients and doctors forgot to ask how and why. The name “became” the disease. The meaning of the word “diagnosis” changed. It did not mean understanding how and why anymore. It became the title of a list of symptoms and test results that matched most of the ones the patient presented with. It had become a code. A diagnosis could be entered into a computer and a list of medications that were covered by insurance companies for that specific code would appear on the screen. It also showed how many days of hospital stay were approved for that same code. What the doctor thought did not matter as much anymore.
The practice of medicine was looking a lot like the supermarkets that early on had impressed me so much. It was very evident that I wasn’t the only one whose cells were forgetting their chemistry. The growth in the rates of depression was all around me. More and more patients were on antidepressants. Health news was full of reports on the rising epidemic of diseases connected to diet and lifestyle. And the financial news echoed with reports of the meteoric rise in the value of stock in pharmaceutical companies, especially the ones that had patented antidepressants. My specialty, heart disease, headed the list of problems, followed by cancer. The World Health Organization announced that these diseases occurred at higher rates in industrialized countries than in developing nations.
It didn’t make sense. On one hand, science and technology were advancing in giant leaps. We had broken the genetic code, invented nanotechnology, and created robots that perform surgery. There was a false sense of security and hope that, sooner or later, medicine would discover the cure for everything. Yet, when I looked around, I saw that everybody was sick. Everyone was on medications. Judging by the results, our medical system was not working. The more technologically advanced we became, the sicker we got. We had not improved health on the planet or our planet’s health. On the contrary, things were getting worse, sooner and faster.
Diseases seemed to affect younger and younger patients all the time. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and many other chronic diseases used to be seen primarily in the aging population. Now one in three American kids were overweight or obese, and the trend was growing. These statistics and trends were obtained by analyzing data from hospitals and doctors’ offices, where patients are never asked about the bigger picture, and the small-picture inventory was lacking information as essential as diet. Apparently, there was no time for that.
At random times during my days of “factory line” medicine, my meditation teacher’s words would ring in my ears, “Don’t worry, don’t hurry,” interrupting the rush from patient to patient and bringing me into the present moment. I would suddenly remember to apply the same observation methodology in the clinic that I used in India. In this way, another picture started to emerge. I noticed a quieter, but even bigger problem, one that existed off the radar, that was not reported by the media, and had no clinical studies and research: a stream of people who did not have major health problems, yet were physically, mentally, and emotionally “off.” Bloated, tired, itchy, moody, sneezy, constipated, foggy, swollen—it seemed as if most of my patients and friends had some type of disorder about to surface.
Curiously, the blood and other tests routinely ordered at a physical examination were absolutely normal. Without an explanation and reassured that nothing was really wrong by the normal test results, these people accepted their complaints as part of ordinary modern life, often justified as the wear and tear on our body parts, the expected result of aging. But left unattended, these conditions were the beginning of a more serious disorder. Looking at the patients’ bigger picture, one would invariably find parallel social, financial, or emotional distress.
I kept searching for an answer, a diagnosis in the “old school” sense. What was making humanity so uncomfortable, unhappy, irritated, and sick? What was the bigger picture?
As above, so below. This universal rule guides the holistic thinking that is the backbone of most Eastern traditions of healing. To fully understand a cell, one has to understand the organism of which that cell is a part and how it relates to the other cells in it. In the school of meditation in India I learned to look at planet Earth as a living organism. According to this analogy, the rivers are its arteries, the forests its lungs, the mountain chains its ribs, and human beings, circulating by the billions, are one of the many types of cells that inhabit this organism. Humans were getting sick, but what about the planet, the organism they are a part of? That was also in the news, just not in the health section. In those days, it was starting to make headlines: global warming, “an inconvenient truth.” The Earth had a fever.
A fever is a symptom that reveals there is something wrong somewhere. It is a nonspecific sign. Many different diseases can cause a fever as one of their symptoms. It is important to find out what exactly is causing it, so we can treat the real cause, not just bring the temperature down. In order to find the cause, doctors ask questions, observe, and order blood tests to see the circulating cells and also to study the chemicals that reveal the inner climate. With all the information gathered, a diagnosis can be made. In modern Western cultures, because it’s so common, cancer is on the “suspect” list when a fever persists. It is in everyone’s mind even when getting a routine checkup. Very often, when I sit with patients to go over their tests results, before I get a chance to speak, they ask, “Doc, just tell me. Do I have cancer?” It is probably the most feared diagnosis.
Cancer cells are also cells that forgot how to do their chemistry. But cancer cells forgot how to do their math as well, and their geography, and their grammar, and even how to behave within a community. When you look at cancer cells under a microscope, you see cells that kill each other and every other cell in the neighborhood; they grow and reproduce unusually fast, disregarding the natural laws of space, population density, and food availability. They also have a tendency to travel to distant places and conquer new territories. When that happens, it’s called metastasis, and it means the cancer has spread. Cancer cells eat different foods than healthy cells. The waste products they eliminate into the circulatory system are often toxic chemicals that affect the whole organism that hosts them. Cancer cells, like most cells, are microscopic, but size doesn’t matter. Such a small organism can initiate an inner revolution that can kill the strongest of men and women.
These thoughts were on my mind as I searched for the answer to my question. Sometimes a diagnosis takes time. Many times, when someone is obsessed with a question, the answer comes at the least expected moment, when one is doing or seeing something seemingly unrelated. A sudden realization closes an inner loop, and an “Aha!” moment occurs, like an inner detonation that sends waves that can be felt all over the body.
This “Aha!” moment came for me soon after I started my detox program at We Care. The effects of eliminating toxins and the dulling mucus from my body lifted a cloud that had prevented me from seeing.
The planet has a fever. Random chemical analysis and laboratory tests of the planets’ fluids and gases show something alarming. There are toxic chemicals everywhere. These chemicals are affecting everything and every other cell in this organism. The planet is in critical condition. If nothing changes, the prognosis is fatal in the short term.
One type of cell on the planet, the human cell, is behaving erratically, killing its own kind and every other type of cell. This cell has eating habits that are very different from those of all other cells. The human cell manufactures toxic chemicals that are mixed with food and used for many other functions as well as released into the circulation, through which they kill other cells even in distant places. The human cell reproduces fast and disregards the natural laws of population density, space, and food supply. Humans are cutting down all of Earth’s trees and clogging up Earth’s lungs. The balance has tipped: toxins, greenhouse gases among them, are accumulating faster than Earth’s ability to neutralize and eliminate them. Toxicity is killing us and the planet. The planet has cancer, and we are it. This is what I call “another inconvenient truth.”
My question was finally answered at the cellular level. My cells had never forgotten how to do their chemistry. They were actually desperately trying to do it. But the toxic chemicals I was consuming in my food and exposed to living in a large urban center such as New York had changed the inner climate. Many of these toxins were obstacles to normal cell functioning, causing irritation and inflammation. Toxins had damaged cells and tissues, and many systems had started to malfunction. My body’s natural ability to heal itself was further weakened because the chemicals needed for cells to do their chemistry, the nutrients from foods, were no longer present in sufficient amounts.
Starting with my guts and going all the way to my brain, these changes presented as symptoms that matched two lists from the “diagnosis” menu, depression and irritable bowel syndrome. More chemicals were prescribed, which I refused to take. Instead, I had finally found a way to remove these obstacles and provide what was missing, so my cells could do their chemistry. That is what happened in my case, through detoxification and cleansing. I finally connected the dots.
From the way I was feeling and looking, I knew that my cells were getting straight A’s in their chemistry reports. But I also knew that some of them had gone beyond and were not doing chemistry anymore— this was alchemy.
Doctors who are really good at finding the cause of symptoms are called “great diagnosticians.” One such doctor once told me, “We usually end up finding what we are looking for, but we only look for what we already know.”
The toxic attack we are under is so evident to me now. But during my training days in New York hospitals, despite suffering greatly and desperately looking for solutions, I never heard or read about global toxicity as a health hazard. I cannot understand how Western medicine continues to be blind to its existence and its contribution to disease. It was a revelation I stumbled upon outside of the hospital setting, and it allowed me to restore my own well-being beyond what I believed possible after all my study and years of training.
It’s not surprising that I didn’t know about this earlier. Toxicity continues to be a condition that modern medicine barely registers. When the word is used in hospital settings, it describes cases of acute poisoning (such as when a child accidentally ingests hazardous chemicals or someone takes too much of a certain prescription drug) or getting off alcohol or drugs. And when asked about detox from the Detoxification perspective, many physicians discard it as quackery. Doctors who are skeptical about the value of detox programs such as Detoxification will argue that there is nothing in “the literature” to support it. What they mean is that when you search the medical database, you find no scientific studies or published research on such detox programs.
Databases only contain what the editors decide to include, making them biased toward Western medical studies with Western protocols. This perpetuates and strengthens the status quo, which too often discards valuable approaches like chelation as anecdotal or quackery. Furthermore, the research game is biased before it begins. The cost of large-scale double-controlled placebo studies makes pharmaceutical companies the only ones that can afford to fund them. If there is no wonder drug with revenue potential in question, there are usually no funds for research. It is not good for business to prove that vegetables and fruits can be the most powerful medicine. But the new field of Functional Medicine is rapidly filling this void by validating a new database of its own design, taking into consideration the multidimensional matrix of influences that play a role in health. Functional Medicine is the perfect blend of Eastern thinking and Western technology, and the results are great.
Toxicity is not a disease or one specific symptom. It is a condition that exists right now, one we are responsible for and one that is threatening the planet and all life. I use the word toxicity to describe the wider, low-grade state that, to one degree or another, everyone who breathes today’s air, eats today’s food, and lives in today’s cities, suburbs, or rural areas is experiencing inside.
Toxicity can manifest as many different symptoms. It can also show no symptoms at all. Regardless of whether you notice it or not, there is no escaping its reach. And to different degrees, everyone is paying the price.
Toxicity, as I present it to you in Detoxification, is a problem that reveals an evolutionary glitch. Evolution is what happens as organisms adapt and overcome obstacles and threats. Driven by the instinct for survival, organisms grow wings, develop ridiculously long necks, or learn how to transform certain chemicals into others. The human body has developed a very effective and incredibly sophisticated system of organs and functions that complement each other in the effort to achieve one sole purpose—to detoxify. Somehow our physical body has evolved just right. But that evolutionary state must be helped by our thinking and behavior.
The evolutionary glitch I am referring to stems from the fact that, despite an exponential increase in the exposure to and damage by toxins in modern life, our modern “lifestyle” has slowed down the single most important evolutionary tool that was so intelligently designed for our bodies. Our thinking and habits need to evolve or our bodies will die of dust while we hold a state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner in our hands. To help you understand how to plug in and use that vacuum cleaner effectively is the purpose of Detoxification.
Toxins that cannot be eliminated in a timely manner remain in circulation, causing irritation and damage. Cells and tissues trap these toxins and coat them with mucus in an attempt to buffer the irritation. This survival mechanism, like inflammation, is life-saving for a while, but can turn fatal when turned on continuously for a prolonged time.
In Eastern traditions, one of the first things practitioners check is the ability of the body to eliminate toxins. Indian Ayurvedic doctors or Chinese medicine practitioners immediately hunt for clues to toxic-waste retention or accumulation. They look for signs like dullness in the skin, white coating on the tongue, or gray, yellow, or pink tones in the whites of the eyes. They want to know if you have regular bowel movements, urinate a lot or a little, and when and how much you sweat. Their traditions, thousands of years old, consider the ability to detoxify—to eliminate toxic waste and toxic thought and emotion—as the “root” source of your physical and mental health. The loss of this ability helps explain why you might have allergies, headaches, constipation, nightmares, fertility problems, and unidentifiable pain among a host of other ailments.
Toxicity is not a new problem. Long before we added the burden of human-made chemicals to our bodies, toxic buildup could occur from eating too much, especially too many heavy or hard to digest foods, and eating under stress. In Europe and America, there were early proponents of cleansing who taught that damage to the intestinal tract from overeating and ingesting refined foods was the main cause of disease affecting civilized, affluent society. They called the condition that resulted “autointoxication.” Some of them, like the famous turn-ofthe-century naturopath Arnold Ehret, put his patients on a “mucus-less” diet to promote health and longevity, which was his form of the Elimination Diet, which you will experience as part of Detoxification. These pioneers and all those after them who taught natural healing methods understood that the digestive and detoxification systems are well engineered to keep us healthy, but they must be kept in balance. As you will discover, even basic foods, when not well digested and eliminated, can create a polluted inner state. This can then harm the whole balance of health—even before human-made chemicals enter the picture.
Western medicine had this understanding in the past. Many older people will tell you how their family doctor would dose them with castor oil when they were sick in bed, because a big expulsion of toxins could be enough to alleviate the sickness and start recovery. Colonic rooms used to be standard in hospitals at the turn of the century. In the rush to make medical care more “advanced” and more profitable, basic wisdom—and low-cost, drug-free protocols—got dropped. But they’re needed now more than ever. If you live in today’s environment but never pay attention to good detoxification, you end up like a tree that has been growing by a busy highway for years, absorbing smog, dirty water, and the stress of loud cars going by. You end up polluted and wilted, with dull, spindly leaves.
No matter how you look at it, understanding what toxins are, where they are, how they affect your health, and what to do about them in a safe way may save your life, and if things don’t change dramatically soon, this understanding may be needed to save life on Earth, and ultimately Earth’s life.
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