John Arts - Natural health researcher John Arts is a natural health researcher and supplement formulator. If you have questions or would like a free health plan you can contact John on 0800 423 559 or join his newsletter at www.johnarts.co.nz.

While I get calls from healthy people wanting to stay that way, the majority of those making contact with me have some sort of health problem.
I would guess I spend 80 per cent of my time either creating personal health programmes or monitoring those who already have them in place.

What this means in practice is, to look at the diagnosed health problems and using research and experience create a diet and nutrient programme that is designed to enhance damaged or dysfunctional healing processes.
I like to think of disease as a river that has an actual source. This river, as it flows down the mountain, may divide into several other channels before it meets the sea. If someone has heart disease and arthritis, these can be different manifestations of the same inflammatory disease. The cause is that over a long period of time the diet has been lacking in anti-inflammatory nutrients that have led to systemic inflammation and associated breakdown in antioxidant defences. The problem - the river is inflammation but this manifests in several different diseases.
I recently wrote an article on the autoimmune disease, Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR), where I commented that this is a systemic inflammatory disease. Once triggered, this disease dramatically alters the ability of our cells to create energy efficiently, which is why people with PMR and other autoimmune diseases are always tired.
Nutritional medicine firstly looks at creating the right type of diet, in this case, one that has anti-inflammatory fats and the most potent antioxidants. We then start to add the nutrients needed to allow our dormant healing processes to return to life. Interestingly, we started dozens of people with PMR on a nutritional programme and most have reported real improvements, even after a few months.
If you are not well, the first step is to see your health professional for a thorough diagnosis and this may involve treatments to reduce the severity of symptoms. Once we have this information we can then address the underlying disease processes and proceed to building the failed defences through introducing diet and micro-nutrients needed to try and return the person back to health.

John Arts is a natural health commentator and researcher. If you have questions or would like a free health plan you can contact John at john@johnarts.co.nz or phone 07578 9051 or 0800 423559. You can join his newsletter at www.johnarts.co.nz