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integrative health

154 articles in integrative health

Eat Organic - It's Crazy Not To

Grow Healthy Crops and Stay Healthy Too!

Early on in the twentieth century, a few scientists—mostly in Germany—experimented with chemicals as a means of fertilizing food crops. They found that a mixture of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) would grow big yield crops of good-looking vegetables, grains, legumes and fruits. But little interest was taken in their discoveries until the end of World War II. At that time most foods were still grown pretty much as they had always been—by farmers who manured, mulched, and rotated their crops to keep soils rich and in good condition. To put it another way, most food was grown organically, although nobody had even coined the word; for this was no more than what traditional farmers throughout the world had done for thousands of years. MASS DESTRUCTION BEGAN HERE When the war ended, big chemical conglomerates who had been involved in the manufacture of phosphates and nitrates as war materiel found themselves stuck with huge stockpiles. They went looking for new markets. Aware of the early research into chemical fertilizing, they turned towards farmers, and began to sell them artificial NPK fertilizers at costs low enough to make it all look very attractive. These purveyors of chemicals also spread the false belief that NPK is all you need to grow healthy crops. There were unfortunately two very important facts that the chemical hawkers left out. Probably they did not even know. After all, it was not good for their profit margins to know. The first is that, although plants grow big on artificial fertilizers, they do not grow resistant to disease. The second is that the health of human beings eating food plants grown this way is, sooner or later, seriously undermined. CHEMICAL VICTIMS Plants grown only on NPK are deprived of essential minerals and other micro-substances they need to synthesize natural complexes in roots and leaves, which ward off attack by insects, weeds and animals. So before long the new artificially fertilized vegetables and fruits began to develop diseases. The chemical hawkers were quick to the rescue. The answer to this problem, they said, would be found in using more chemicals. That is how pesticides, herbicides, nemacides and fungicides came into being. They provided chemical companies with yet another exciting business opportunity—especially since the longer you fertilize chemically, the more depleted in organic matter your soils become, and the less they contain of the minerals and trace elements needed to synthesize natural protective complexes during growth, so the more pesticides you need. So as time went on, more and more pesticides and other chemicals were sold. Before long another important fact began torear its ugly head. It was this: like plants, human beings need a lot more than nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus from the foods they eat too, to maintain their own health. Your body cannot make minerals. It has to take them in, in a good balance, from the foods you eat. In addition to nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, it requires magnesium, manganese and calcium, selenium, zinc, copper, iodine, boron, molybdenum, vanadium, and probably other elements as yet undiscovered as well, to stay healthy. These elements need to come from the foods you eat. Generally they do, when foods are grown organically in healthy, traditionally fertilized soils. But they are increasingly missing and unbalanced in the foods we buy today, thanks to our legacy of chemical farming. EARTH’S BLESSED CREATORS The organic matter in healthy soil is Nature's factory for biological activity. It is built up as a result of the breakdown of vegetable and animal matter by the soil's natural 'residents'—worms, bacteria and other useful micro-organisms. The presence of these creatures in the right quantity and type gives rise to physical, chemical and biological properties that create fertility in our soils and make plants grown on them highly resistant to disease. When it comes to human health, they do a lot more. The minerals and trace elements we need to look after our metabolic processes, on which health and leanness depend, must be in an organic form—that is, taken from living things like plant or animal foods. You cannot eat nails—inorganic iron—for instance, and expect to protect yourself from anaemia, or chew sand—inorganic silica—and be sure to get enough silica, the trace element that keeps your nails and hair strong and beautiful, and helps protect your bones from osteoporosis. It is the organic matter in soils that enables plants grown on them to transform inorganic iron and silica into the organic form which is taken up by the vegetables and fruits, grains and legumes. Destroy the soil's organic matter through chemical farming, and slowly but inexorably you destroy the health of people and animals living on foods grown on it. Eating food grown organically protects from significant mineral deficiencies, as well as from distortions in mineral balances. What few people realize is that an overload of one or more mineral elements alters your body’s ability to get enough of other minerals, undermining the people's health. No such protection is available when foods are chemically grown. So eat organic even if you have to grow your own foods in the garden or feed on sprouted seeds you grow in your kitchen window. Your body will bless you with energy, protection from early aging, and the sense of wellbeing that many long for but few as yet experience.

Excess Calcium Is Dangerous

Discover the Dangers of Too Much Calcium - Thomas E Levy M.D. Warns of Health Risk & Shortened Life

For decades I’ve warned men and women not to take calcium supplements—whether in pill form or by drinking and eating many cows’ milk products. All sorts of well-formulated scientific studies now confirm that such advice is right. Having long been bombarded with ill begotten misinformation about calcium it is time we learned some simple truths. For instance, supplementing your diet with calcium can not only be toxic to your body: It may even shorten your life. DANGERS OF TOO MUCH CALCIUM Thomas E Levy, M.D. is one of the world’s leading experts in vitamin C and antioxidants used to treat and protect against a myriad of medical conditions and degenerative diseases. A board-certified cardiologist whose work I have long admired, Levy has also written an excellent book, Death by Calcium, which I urge every man and woman who cares about health and truth to read. Here are a few surprising truths you need to know about calcium: All degenerative diseases, from heart disease to cancer and Alzheimer’s, show increased levels of calcium inside the cells where they do not belong. As calcium deposits both inside and outside the cells increase, this raises the chance of malignancies and encourages the development of cancers. A healthy diet based on organic fresh fruits, vegetables and protein foods can supply all the calcium your body will ever need, so long as you are getting plenty of sunlight or taking a good quality vitamin D3 supplement. Women who have the highest calcium consumption have a death rate two and a half times higher than those with a lower consumption of calcium, according to a long term study of 61,433 women followed over a period of 19 years. We have long, wrongly, been urged to supplement our diet with calcium to avoid osteoporosis. Someone who has unwittingly followed such advice is far more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than from a bone fracture. Women with osteoporosis do not have an overall deficiency of calcium in the body. They have a deficiency of calcium in their bones while they have an excess of calcium in the rest of their body. While calcium supplementation can increase calcium density in bones, this does not decrease the chances of bone fracture. What it does do is lay down potentially dangerous deposits of excess calcium outside the bones. Excess calcium circulating in the blood is far more dangerous than high cholesterol when it comes to strokes and heart disease. Excess calcium over time, without adequate magnesium, sets the stage for the formation of atherosclerotic plaque build-up in the arteries. THE BOTTOM LINE The proofs for all this and much more are overwhelming. Get your calcium from fresh, organic vegetables and a healthy diet while shunning packaged convenience foods, sugars, grains and cereals, and you’ll not have to worry about doing it wrong ever again. So simple really. Meanwhile, I highly recommend that you read Levy’s book Death by Calcium. It’s a great read—clear, honest and so important for your health.

water and weight loss - Tap Into Water Power

Lose Weight with Water: 8 Glasses to Detox & End Water Retention

More than anything else on earth except air to breathe, your body needs water for energy, for health, and for beauty. The water you drink plays a major part in your ability to digest your foods and absorb nutrients, thanks to enzymes which are themselves mostly water. If you fail to drink enough water between meals, your mouth becomes low in saliva and digestion suffers. Water is also the medium through which wastes are eliminated from your body. Each time you exhale you release highly humidified air—about two big glasses worth a day. Your kidneys and intestines eliminate another 6 or so glasses every 24 hours, while another 2 glasses worth are released through the pores of your skin. That makes 8 glasses a day—and this is on a cool day. When it gets hot, when you are exercising, or when you are working hard, the usual 10 glasses lost in this way can triple. On average, in a temperate climate—not sweating from exertion or heat—we need about 6 pints a day for optimal health, although few of us consume as much as 2. The important thing to remember is that how thirsty you are is not a reliable indication of how much water you need to drink. If you want to grow lean and stay that way you need to do as French women have done for decades. Keep a large bottle or 2 of pure, fresh mineral water on your desk and make sure you consume your quota of this clear, delicious, health-giving drink. Here's how to figure it: water and weight loss MAGIC Divide your current weight in kilos by 8. If you weigh 58 kilos, then 58 divided by 8 equals 7.25 big glasses. Then round the figure upwards to the next glass and there you have it: 8 glasses a day. But remember that is only a base calculation for a cool day. You will need a lot more during exercise, or on a hot day. Provided you do not suffer from a kidney or liver disease, drinking 8 big glasses or more of water a day not only helps you lose weight and keep it off permanently; it improves the functioning of your whole body. There is another way in which drinking optimal quantities of water plays a central role in detoxifying the body for regeneration. It has to do with your kidneys. The kidneys are responsible for recycling all the water in your body—some 800 glasses of it a day—and for filtering out any wastes present before they can lower immunity, create fatigue, or make you feel hungry even though you have had enough to eat, and cause the kind of water retention which plagues so many who have gone on and off slimming diets for years. The filtering mechanism responsible for all this in the kidneys is made up of millions of microscopic bodies known as glomeruli. They identify waste products such as urea which need to be removed, as well as screening out other chemicals and unwanted metals and minerals, while at the same time pouring back into the bloodstream the minerals you do need and regulating your body's acid-alkaline balance. DRINK WATER—END WATER RETENTION When some part of you needs more water, your kidneys make sure it arrives. For instance, when you are hot and sweating, a message is sent to the pituitary gland in the head telling it to release the anti-diuretic hormone which in turn tells your kidneys to let more water be reabsorbed into the blood. Your urine at such times can become highly concentrated and a dark color. But provided you replenish the water you are losing in sweat by drinking more, your kidneys remain happy and well-functioning, and the appetite/thirst messages from your brain do not become confused. When your body's water level gets too low, however, from not drinking enough, your kidneys cannot carry out their cleansing efficiently and the liver's role in detoxification becomes overburdened. Water is also the world's best natural diuretic. If your body tends to retain water, this is often because you don't drink enough, so it tries its best to hold on to the water there is. Once you do begin to drink enough, this tendency to water logging decreases and usually disappears completely. And by the way, if you are worried about puckered thighs, the best way to help eliminate them easily is simply to drink more water. Keep a liter and a half bottle on your desk or in your room and see that you drain it every day, regardless of whatever else you drink. Our next foray into water power will look at the vital issue facing all of us today in our polluted world: How to provide for yourself and your family real pure water— free of contamination and full of living vitality that is imparted to you when you drink it. Coming soon...

Nature's Finest Treatment

Secret of Cold-Water Therapy: Kneipp's Healing Revolution

What is Nature’s most powerful healer? The answer will surprise you: WATER applied to your skin’s surface. Would you consider pouring a stream of cold water over your face to banish fatigue and prevent skin from wrinkling and sagging? Would you walk in ice-cold water up to your knees every morning to increase your vitality and ward off aging? Have jets of cold water directed against your back and legs to help you shed fat? Extraordinary as these practices sound, they are natural methods of treatment with over a century and a half of clinical validation behind them. They are part of one of the most elaborate, effective and well-researched European methods of healing, health enhancement and age-retardation in the world: Kneipp therapy. KNEIPP’S GENIUS Applications of hot and cold water have long been standard treatment for regenerating energy, curing headaches, improving lymphatic function, and even eliminating hangovers after a night of partying. In no small part is this thanks to the pioneering work of Father Sebastian Kneipp, a Bavarian parish priest who strengthened his own less-than-hearty health with water treatments. In 1855, Kneipp was sent to the tiny Bavarian village of Worishofen to supervise a Dominican nunnery. Many of his friends insisted that the church had only sent him there to get him away from his fascination with water-healing, in the belief that it was interfering with his clerical life. There he acted as father-confessor to the nuns, revived the village's stagnant economy, and advised farmers on how to improve their agriculture. But Kneipp’s fascination with health and healing prevailed when later he was made parson of the village. Despite the fact that his days were filled with ecclesiastical duties, he found his time increasingly taken up by a growing number of ailing people who had heard of his ‘miracle cures’, and either didn’t have enough money to pay for medical care, or had been given up as ‘hopeless’ by their physicians. Kneipp treated them with his water techniques. He then taught them to treat themselves, gradually developing a complete system for prevention, cure and rehabilitation based on the theory that a human being is a unity of body and soul, and that whenever this unity is threatened, or whenever the harmony of nature is disturbed, illness ensues. As far back as 1900, Kneipp's water therapy was being practiced all over Europe. Since then, his methods have been researched, applied, refined and adapted to contemporary needs by medical scientists—most of them German—who have established the basis of Kneipp’s water techniques worldwide. AMAZING BENEFITS Still little known in English-speaking countries, Kneipp therapy is practiced in some seventy spas and thousands of hospitals in Europe. Treatments are supervised by physicians highly trained in the various methods it involves, the most important of which is a complex set of water applications which have profound regenerative and protective effects on the body. Far from being some kind of far-out alternative therapy used only by nature freaks and old women, Kneipp hydrotherapy is supported by government health-insurance schemes in Europe, and even subsidized by the state both as a preventative treatment against aging as well as a means of curing and rehabilitating the seriously ill. Kneipp therapy is used in many applications—from affusions, where water in a steady stream is poured over specific parts of your body, to hot and cold compresses—as a treatment for conditions from arthritis, abscesses and heart disease to asthma, diabetes and allergic eczema. All of Kneipp’s methods greatly increase your vitality, can enhance athletic prowess, help you handle stress better, banish insomnia, and counteract a myriad of negative effects connected with the aging process. SECRETS OF HYDROTHERAPY This is the secret of using cold water applications on your body. You need to be warm to begin with, and you must keep warm and dry afterwards. Contact with cold water in these circumstances first causes constriction of the blood vessels, momentarily driving the blood inwards. Then, the moment it is stopped, blood rushes to the surface of the skin, warming it. THE PRINCIPLES Not every water treatment has to be administered by a professional in a clinic or a spa. One of Kneipp's most important principles was that hydrotherapy should be simple enough that any healthy person can benefit from it—as a prophylactic treatment against aging, to improve the condition of the skin, to eliminate stress and to treat minor ailments from a headache to a cold without professional help. Simple at-home water treatments fortify your body against sickness in general, improve circulation and calm frayed nerves. FOR GREAT SKIN An affusion is literally a pouring of running water over a particular area of the body. Affusions stimulate blood supply to the skin, restoring lost tautness and freshness to sagging or faded skin. It is a popular natural treatment in Europe amongst men and women who want to retain (or reform) their youthful good looks. It helps prevent premature aging of the skin, eliminate feelings of fatigue and can even cure a migraine. Here's How Make sure your body is in a well-warmed state to begin with. Then, using a hose with an opening of about ½ inch (it can be a bathroom hand shower with the head removed) turn on the cold water so that a sheet of water is delivered to the skin when the hose is held 2-4 inches from it. (There should be no great pressure of water.) When an affusion is done right, the water flows smoothly and evenly and with no `splashback'. Now, resting your neck on a towel and bending over a sink or the bath, begin by circling your face with the water from just below the temple. Then go back and forth from one side of the face to the other. Guide the stream several times from up to down starting at the left side and working towards the right. End by circling the whole face again. The entire process is done with cold water and should take only a couple of minutes. Pat your face gently to remove excess water and then let it dry completely in the air. TO BOOST VITALITY AND STRENGTHEN IMMUNITY There are several techniques designed to increase vitality and bring protection against illness and age-degeneration. Which you choose depends on your current state of stamina and health. They range from the body wash, which is gentle enough for almost anyone, to the cold Blitzguss, which top athletes and other very fit people favor. The Body Wash This is quite different from the usual cleansing wash you carry out in the bath or shower using a flannel. It involves the uniform spreading of water over your skin with a rough linen cloth. Afterwards you do not dry yourself. Instead get into a warm bed for a few minutes. It helps relax the body while bracing and strengthening it. It also activates natural warmth, eliminating and protecting you from the build-up of toxic substances in the blood and tissues which can cause cellular damage and age-related problems. Here's How Having dipped the linen cloth into cold water, begin on the back of the right hand and sweep upwards over the shoulder then down again on the inside to the thumb. Now turn the cloth over and wash the inside of the hand and arm to the armpit, and finally the back of the palm. Dip the cloth in water again quickly and carry out the same movements on the other arm. Then, quickly dipping the cloth in water again, with half a dozen vertical movements wash over the chest, abdomen and the fronts of legs. Another dip and do the back (or have a friend help here since it is easier). Finish your body wash by quickly rubbing the soles of the feet. The whole procedure (which must be carried out in a warm room) needs to be very quick (only thirty to forty seconds). Then remove excess water from your body's surface, dress warmly and move about, or get into a warm bed for a few minutes. This is a superb way of refreshing yourself after a long day before going out for the evening. WATER TREADING This takes a couple of minutes. In Bad Worishofen there are beautiful pools at the clinics and hotels and even in the woods, where you can take off your shoes and socks and walk barefoot in water every morning, summer and winter, even when there is snow on the ground. If you are lucky enough to live near the sea or by a brook, both are ideal. But you can get the same results at home using a bath filled with cold water. Here's How Dressed warmly, but with your legs and feet naked from the knee down, step into the water and `walk on the spot', lifting first one foot and then another up out of the water. The reaction will be either a pleasant warm feeling flooding the feet or a sharp cold ache, followed by warmth. Begin by treading water for only thirty seconds or so, then work up to a couple of minutes as your system gets stronger and more resilient. Immediately afterwards put on dry warm socks and shoes and move about. (By the way, this is also an excellent treatment for insomniacs when done just before going to bed.) BLITZGUSS A real Blitzguss has to be done by a professional in a special shower using a powerful water-force. But you can get many of its beneficial effects in the shower, particularly if you happen to have a hand-held shower which you can direct on to different parts of your body. This is something I do every morning after exercising. Here's How Take a warm shower until your skin is glowing with the warmth. Turn off the hot water and use only cold, directing it over your face, down your arms and legs, over your trunk and abdomen and down your back. This process should take no more than thirty seconds. Get out of the shower, pat off the excess water and dress warmly. This will leave your skin glowing with warmth, thanks to the reaction against the cold water. Practiced every day or so, it will also strengthen your immune system, not only against age-degeneration but also against colds, flu and other illnesses. Blitzguss greatly increases vitality. This is a favorite of top athletes in Germany. It is also my favorite of all the prophylactic treatments with water—and I am a long way from being a top athlete. But I had to work up to it in the beginning by starting with the body wash and with water treading (which I still do when I feel tired but unable to sleep). It’s best not to use Blitzguss until you are already quite strong. DE-STRESS FOR BETTER SLEEP The next two techniques are particularly good if you feel stressed or you tend to wrestle with insomnia at the end of the day. Wet Socks A favourite of Kneipp himself, this is an easy way to apply a foot compress. It is extraordinarily relaxing. Here's How Wet a pair of cotton socks in cold water and wring them out so that they are no longer dripping. Put them on and then cover them with a pair of dry woolen socks, then get into bed. Leave the socks on for at least half an hour, although it doesn't matter if they stay on all night should you fall asleep. Once you begin to experience some of the extraordinary benefits from these simple treatments, you may find you want to explore some of the other natural therapies which are also carriers of vital information for health and ageless aging. They include air baths, saunas and Turkish baths, herbal treatments using the adaptogens and dry skin-brushing. Not only can each one of them leave you feeling vibrantly well and looking good, together with good nutrition, exercise and relaxation, they are some of the means by which your body/mind/spirit can restore balance and help keep you well, youthful and vital, long after those around you have succumbed to the ravages of time.

Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana®

Fast, Healthy Weight Loss

Leslie Kenton’s Cura Romana® has proudly supported 20,000+ weight loss journeys over the past 17 years. With an overall average daily weight loss of 0.5 - 0.6 lb for women and 0.8 - 1.0 lb for men.

Yesterday’s Average Daily Weight Loss:

on the 12th of July 2025 (updated every 12 hours)

-0.50 lb
for women
-0.81 lb
for men
-0.50 lb
for women
-0.81 lb
for men

Yesterday’s Average Daily Weight Loss:

on the 12th of July 2025 (updated every 12 hours)

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