John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

Last week we looked at the role of nutritional therapy with health problems that are both untreatable and unresponsive to modern medicine.

In many cases a problem is so well established that medical treatment is really used to manage symptoms, rather than repairing the problem. Nutritional therapy takes a different but complementary approach by addressing the underlying disease process. This encourages the body's systems to change from dysfunctional back to more normal operation, resulting in overall health improvements. On one hand then, medicine provides beneficial symptom relief, while nutritional therapy focuses on helping to kick-start healing processes so that at least to some extent the body can start to heal itself.

This year I have worked with hundreds of people with various inflammatory problems. A common example has been people suffering from Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR). The number of people suffering from this appears to be rapidly escalating. The medical mainstay is the potent immune suppressing, steroid anti-inflammatory drug prednisone. While this is extremely effective in lowering immune system generated inflammation, it of course has many long term side effects.

Those that have adopted a clearly defined nutritional strategy have noticed that in most cases they have been able to reduce prednisone more rapidly and in some cases completely. Invariably there have been improvements in the fatigue associated with PMR. The nutrients have created a situation in the body where it effectively starts to heal itself.

Another example of nutritional therapy at work is in the much less serious yet annoying problem of night cramps especially in the lower leg. I remember too well being soundly asleep to be woken as my calf muscle cramped, and having to hop around the room in pain trying to stop the spasm. I no longer suffer from cramps and this is one problem that really responds to nutritional therapy especially certain combinations of antioxidants, minerals and vitamins.

If you are experiencing problems that are either untreatable or unresponsive to medical treatment it is well worth considering a programme of nutritional therapy. In my experience, the key to its success is a more intensive first 3 months where we try to put pressure on the disease processes and allow healing to begin.

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health. For product information visit www.abundant.co.nz If you have questions or would like a free health plan you can contact John at john@johnarts.co.nz or phone 07 578
9051 or 0800 423 559. You can join his newsletter at www.johnarts.co.nz Read more from John at www.sunlive.co.nz