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BASIC HEALTH IMPROVEMENT

by Walter Last

Initially, most health seekers are mainly concerned with overcoming a specific health problem, using a specific method or remedy promising the quickest result. However, in the long run and as we get older more and more health problems or diseases pop up and become increasingly more difficult or impossible to overcome by just using a magic bullet. This then makes the idea of serious lifestyle changes towards natural living and holistic healing more attractive, giving us a much better chance to become and remain healthy and fit right into old age.

I have no doubt that it is our natural birthright to be healthy and that it is actually unnatural to have a disease. A disease means that we or possibly our parents did not live according to our biological, social or spiritual nature. At present most of humanity lives in rather unnatural conditions surrounded by a minefield of technological and chemical health hazards. Even worse is our ignorance about the nature of these hazards that are mainly hidden from our awareness.

Therefore, in order to live more naturally we need to become aware of the main health hazards in our environment and learn to avoid or minimize them. We can learn from our own experiences and from those of others and we can also develop our intuition or ask for guidance through prayer and meditation. If in doubt about a choice try to imagine which course of action is more natural or more in harmony with our biological, social and spiritual nature.

The main biological influences on our health are nutrition, exercise or how we use our body as well as environmental factors. In addition to improving these conditions there are numerous natural healing methods to help us in our quest. These range from herbs and other remedies to working on muscle and bone structures and using electro, magneto and vibrational medicine.

Become aware of the factors that cause our diseases

THE ROAD TOWARDS DISEASE

People in Western society are rarely healthy. Real health - the perfect functioning of all parts of body and mind - is so rare that people mistake the temporary absence of disease symptoms for health. Formerly, people suffered mainly from violent, but short infectious diseases; now they are afflicted with chronic degenerative diseases for a lifetime.

The main factors causing widespread health degeneration are as follows:

• Unnatural nutrition: food refining, lack of 'living food' rich in vitamins, minerals and enzymes; incorrect food combining; unsuitable diet for our metabolic type
• Chemicalization: pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, medical drugs, food additives and synthetic garments
• Electromagnetic pollution and radiation
• Lack of sufficient physical activity or exercise in natural, unpolluted surroundings
• Harmful negative feelings and emotions - and lack of positive feelings and emotions
• Harmful mental attitudes, lack of spiritual or humanistic goals, lack of faith
• Emotional damage during birth, childhood and adolescence, lack of positive role models
• Inherited genes of poor and deteriorating quality

The general sequence leading to the development of poor health and chronic diseases commonly is as follows. 'Emotional injuries' received during birth and childhood, as well as negative attitudes and emotions experienced during later life, block the free flow of bio-energy within the body. This weakens the blood circulation and the glandular system, as well as the functions of affected organs. In addition, inherited metabolic weakness and poor nutrition as well as chemical pollution combine to cause an inefficient use of biochemical building blocks and poor cellular energy production.

Metabolic Residues

As a result of this metabolic weakness and the overuse of unsuitable food, toxins and metabolic residues accumulate in the body. Toxins (toxic waste products from our chemicalized food) accumulate mainly in the fat tissue. Metabolic residues consist of protein debris, mucus, fatty sludge and organic acids.

• PROTEIN DEBRIS accumulates when we eat more protein than we metabolize. Small protein fragments clog up the basement membrane through which nutrients move into cells and waste is being removed. Also tiny blood capillaries and lymph channels become congested, contributing to a wide range of degenerative diseases.
• MUCUS: Originates from the lactose (milk sugar) in dairy products, from gluten (in wheat products), refined carbohydrates, egg white, molds and food allergens. Mucus has a special affinity to mucous membranes, causing catarrh, ear and sinus problems, respiratory diseases and malabsorption of food.
• FATTY SLUDGE: Mainly formed from oxidized cholesterol and polyunsaturated fatty acids, hydrogenated fats and trans-fatty acids but also by the interaction of chlorinated water with vegetable oils or body oils. It leads to poor circulation, senility and heart problems by clogging the blood vessels and congesting the lymph system.
• ORGANIC ACIDS: General overacidity contributes to the accumulation of organic acids in the tissues and induce inflammations and mineral deficiencies. Overacidity results from insufficient cellular oxidation and by the formation of lactic acid after eating sweet food or food to which we are sensitive or allergic.

Infections

Wastes accumulate wherever the blood circulation slows down whether because of emotional blocks (muscle armoring), injuries, or insufficient use of muscles.

Up to 30 per cent of the volume of cells in elderly people may be filled with waste material, usually called 'old-age pigments'. This is comparable to 30 per cent of a city or a household being filled with refuse dumps. Just as dumps become infested with rodents and insects, the waste accumulations in the body provide favorable breeding-grounds for microbes and parasites.

Infections are healing efforts of the body designed to destroy any foreign invaders in addition to reducing the heavy load of toxic and obstructive residues (mucus) accumulated in the body. The use of drugs in fighting these infections prevents this cleansing action and reduces our vitality still further, while the body's immune system - its ability to defend itself against foreign invaders - is simultaneously damaged.

If the body is still reasonably strong, it fights these invaders and simultaneously reduces the load of stored wastes. This is experienced as an acute (sudden and severe) infection, often in the form of a cold or fever. However, as the body becomes weaker and the amount of stored wastes increases the body does not fight any more. It will be content with limiting the invasion to a certain part of the body and chronic (low-key but long-lasting) infection results.

Finally, the immune system becomes too weak to limit the chronic invasion and it becomes more generalized as in autoimmune diseases, cancer and leukemia. However, it should be understood that this 'invasion' does not necessarily occur from the outside. Especially in the case of cancer, it is more an 'uprising of germs' created by the disintegration of diseased body cells - similar to a revolution spreading in a country with dissatisfied inhabitants. This is the so-called cancer microbe, a fungus-related pleomorphic organism also active in most autoimmune diseases and AIDS.

The German cancer researcher P.G. Seeger demonstrated in thousands of experiments that the virulence of cancer cells depends on the nutritional status of the host. Another interesting study found that viruses breeding in hosts that are deficient in protective nutrients, such as selenium or vitamin E, tend to mutate and change from benign into very virulent and lethal forms. With sufficient levels of these nutrients someone was immune against the benign form of the virus but not against the mutated form that came from a deficient host. Most of the influenza epidemics that periodically sweep the world with new virulent strains originate in selenium deficient parts of China. Furthermore, the African HIV epidemic appears to have emerged in northern Zaire were many people are selenium deficient. The lesson from this is that poor nutrition breeds deadly viruses.

Food Addictions and Allergies

Parallel health deterioration, closely linked to the weakening of the immune system, takes place with the development of addictions and allergies. These are extremely widespread in our society.

Whenever the body is confronted with a difficult food it enters a state of stress. The glandular system is induced to pour adrenal hormones into the bloodstream and this may be felt as an uplifting stimulation. Eventually, the body begins to crave this stimulation and this leads to an addiction to that particular food. In our society, these food cravings develop mainly for sweet and fried foods, bread, dairy products and red meats.

After many years of using addictive food the glandular system is markedly weakened and stronger stimulants are required. You then become addicted to alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco or various drugs. Eventually, even these will not achieve the desired effect or only for shorter and shorter periods.

The body becomes chronically fatigued and disease symptoms begin to surface evermore forcefully. Some symptoms can be linked directly to incompletely digested foods that are absorbed through a weak intestinal wall this is then called a food allergy. Disease symptoms develop selectively in parts of the body with hereditary defects or in those weakened by subsequent misuse or injured by accidents.

PROBLEM FOODS

Almost any food, if used to excess by susceptible people, can cause allergies. However, certain foods such as rice and vegetables rarely cause allergies while others carry a high risk of causing them. These high-risk foods are called 'problem foods' because in addition to allergies they frequently cause health problems in people who are not susceptible to allergies.

People who are prone to allergies are generally overacid with a weak sugar metabolism and hypoglycemia or diabetes, low blood pressure, a weak immune system, permeable intestinal wall and lack of digestive enzymes. Alkaline individuals, on the other hand, rarely have allergies. Instead, they are insensitive to pain and skin irritants and may suffer from chronic degenerative diseases or become victims of an unexpected heart attack or stroke. However, the same problem foods are major contributing factors in the development of disease of both groups.

The main problem foods in our society are:

1. Cows' milk and its products, also lactose added to processed foods
2. Wheat and oats and to a lesser extent the other gluten grains rye and barley (beer!)
3. Sweet foods, especially household sugar
4. Hydrogenated fats (for example margarine) or heated oils and fats
5. Stimulants: overuse of alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco and drugs

These five groups should generally be used sparingly. Sweet and acid fruits, honey and salt are often incompatible with people of a certain constitution or metabolic body type. Also foods that are incompatible with our blood group often cause problems. In addition, any food that contains pesticide residues or added synthetic food chemicals is a potential health hazard. I do not believe in a safe limit for these chemicals, especially as limits are set for each item individually while ignoring the cumulative and potentizing effect of multiple chemical residues and additions.

Social and Economic Factors

With the present poor eating habits deeply ingrained in our society and the all-out chemicalization of our lives it is almost impossible to remain reasonably healthy - and very few people do. Almost everyone has obvious or hidden health problems. From attending to children, parents and grandparents of the same family I have seen how the level of health rapidly deteriorates in the youngest generation.

This trend is also clear from statistics and general observations for anyone who wants to see it. Statistics showing increased life expectancy due to greatly reduced infant mortality are irrelevant for judging the health of a population. These figures simply mean that more babies survive the early-childhood infections, that we have better plumbing and that more elderly people are kept artificially alive by organ transplants or on life-support machines.

But this is not health. More relevant statistics show that most people in Western countries suffer from chronic diseases and that the percentage of chronically disabled people is increasing rapidly. Arthritis, cancer and Parkinson's disease used to be diseases of old people. Now they are affecting children and juveniles. Health authorities so far have ignored the claims of natural medicine that it is the superior form of treatment for chronic and medically incurable diseases. The very fact of a high rate of chronic disease in our society attests to the inability of the medical profession to successfully treat these diseases.

This is highlighted by the embarrassing phenomenon of the falling death rate during doctors' strikes. Statistics show that whenever there was a strike by doctors, the death rate in the affected population fell dramatically. In 1976 the death rate fell by 35 per cent in Bogota, Colombia. In Los Angeles County, California, it fell by 18 per cent during a strike in the same year, while in Israel it fell by 50 per cent during a strike in 1973 (Mendelsohn, R.S. Confessions of a Medical Heretic. Contemporary Books). Only once before had there been a similar drop in the death rate in Israel and that was during another doctors' strike 20 years earlier. After each strike the death rate jumped again to its normal level.

During these strikes emergency care was provided. This means the patients who lived longer during the strikes were those with chronic diseases. They obviously benefited from a reduced exposure to medical drugs, operations and other technological interventions. There are an abundance of statistics, estimates and case reports of the great number of patients who are in hospital or worse because of disease caused by medical drugs and medical technology. One of the many books exploring this subject in detail is Medical Nemesis by I. Illich (Pantheon Books).

Selfish Motivation

However, our medical and economic leaders do not want to face reality. They brainwash the public into believing that the present health situation is completely normal. Finally and most importantly, the whole economic structure of Western civilization is based on the production and distribution of goods and services that are contributing to poor health. These include chemicalized agriculture and food processing, the pharmaceutical industry, technological medicine and the petrochemical and plastic industries.

The guiding motto for industry is 'profit', while for the consumer it is 'convenience'. The price for all to pay is the loss of health. This situation is the natural outcome of a society based on selfish motivation. A change for the better can only come when more and more people realize that ultimately they harm themselves with selfish attitudes.

Learn the Principles of Natural Living to Restore your Health

THE ROAD TOWARDS HEALTH

The first and most important step in reversing the deterioration of your health is to realize that you may have caused it yourself. Because of ignorance and habit, we select the wrong foods; because of laziness, we do not exercise; because of lack of self-control, we create destructive emotions. Therefore, only the realization that poor health is the result of a lifetime of wrong living - including the living habits of our parents - can initiate a real change for the better.

The next step is to find guidance on the road towards health. There is so much contradictory advice on offer that it is utterly confusing for the aspiring health seeker. Worldwide, the healing arts are in a state of chaos. The sterile healing monopoly of the medical establishment is beginning to break down and multitudes of different healers are rapidly filling the gap.

Find out by reading, listening, meditating and experimenting which healing system is most appropriate for your own needs. Then start a determined healing program using careful self-observation.

Measuring Health

It can be seen from the above discussion that disease is not something that happens suddenly - for example one day you are healthy and the next day you are sick because cancer has just been detected. Instead, your state of health has greatly deteriorated over many decades to only a fraction of what it might be in true health. Even suddenly appearing infections are only possible because of a gradual deterioration of the immune system.

Health should be measured as vitality, as the body's ability to regenerate itself. An indication of the inherent vitality of the body is given by the speed of wound healing or bone mending and possibly hair and nail growth or, in a more scientific way, by the electric potential of body cells. Sometimes radionic methods may be useful in giving an estimate of vitality.

A reasonably objective way of measuring health is with electro-acupuncture diagnosis. There are different systems, such as Dermatron, Vega, Thera and others now commonly linked to computer programs. Basically, the electrical resistance of acupuncture points on hands and feet are measured. From this it can be seen which meridian, organ or gland is overactive or underactive and to what degree. Suitable remedies may be selected by introducing them into the electric circuit and observe their reaction on an abnormal reading. Also the health of teeth and jawbone positions can be assessed in this way. At a return visit a repeat diagnostic read-out will show the effect of the treatment program and point to necessary modifications.

According to this yardstick, hardly anyone living at present may be more than 90 per cent healthy, while most people in 'normal' health live at below 50 per cent of their personally attainable health potential. When a chronic degenerative disease becomes manifest, the health rate drops to below 10 per cent and at death, of course, it is zero.

It is meaningless to be elated about the success of conventional medicine in greatly reducing the number of people contracting certain infectious diseases. It is the overall number of unhealthy people that counts. If one disease is eliminated, unhealthy people will simply contract a different one. What is needed is a general health improvement that will effectively reduce the total number of people becoming sick and ultimately hinder the development of any disease.

Eventually with better genetic stock and improved living conditions we should be able to live an active and enjoyable life until the age of about 120 years and then quietly withdraw from the body. This is the presently unknown 'natural death'. For most of us who have serious inherited weaknesses and misused our body for many decades this may not be possible to achieve. Nevertheless, better health and an enjoyable life are possible for almost everyone. The key to success is in your mind!

The Health-Improvement Program

The basic requirements for real healing involve the reversal of the factors previously listed as the cause of health degeneration. They include natural living - good nutrition, proper breathing, sufficient physical activity, improved emotional and mental attitudes - as well as specific procedures, uppermost of which is cleansing, the purification of body and mind.

A fundamental aim of all healing is to provide the body with more vitality. True healing is always a holistic process, involving all levels of the personality - physical, bio-energetic, emotional, mental and spiritual. A health improvement program may include the following steps.

1. Improve your nutrition: discover and break addictions and allergies; avoid chemicalized, refined and other problem food; pay attention to food combinations; select food suitable for your body type and condition; use suitable supplements.
2. Remove metabolic wastes and toxins: drink plenty of unpolluted water and use colonics, laxative foods, suitable packs; stimulate the skin; have repeated cleansing periods.
3. Eliminate microbes and parasites from your body using electronic zapper, colloidal silver, oxygen therapy and herbal parasite cure.
4. Strengthen the body with regular exercises such as yoga, tensing and stretching or suitable outdoors activity.
5. Improve energy flows and work out specific problems with reflexology, acupressure, ear acupuncture, magnet and meridian therapy, massage and homeopathy.
6. Create natural living conditions for yourself and your family by minimizing synthetics and plastics, pollution and harmful radiation in your home. Frequently be in fresh air with mild sun exposure; bathe in the sea or unpolluted streams; walk on grass barefooted.
7. Learn meditation and mind control, learn to express your negative emotions appropriately, practice generating positive feelings and emotions; love yourself as well as your neighbor; adopt a positive or spiritual philosophy of life. Find a worthy goal or ideal and strive to manifest it.
8. Form or join a health or healing group to support and heal each other.

In addition to these self-help measures it is advisable to seek professional or expert help for specific problems. However, it would be self-defeating to see your health-improvement efforts as a deadly serious matter, as a 'life-or-death' struggle. Like everything else in life they are best conducted in a light and playful way, exploring and enjoying yourself - even if it sometimes hurts.

True Healing Means Growing - Learning and Applying the Laws of Nature!

Balancing

An important general principle in healing is to aim for an overall balanced condition. Generally, every condition within our body is the result of the interaction of two opposing forces. In oriental philosophy there are the concepts of yin and yang. Yin is female, cold and passive; yang is male, hot and active. In our Western thinking we see body processes as interplay between overactive and under-active conditions, tension and relaxation, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems.

As part of our healing, we aim for balance not only on the biochemical level, but also in our emotions and thinking. As an extrovert, for instance, aim to go into inwards by meditating and learning to listen. If you are an introvert, then try to become more outgoing and open in your relationships and social interactions. The following table shows the general principle of opposing forces that rule our body.

CONDITION

OPPOSITE BODY FORCES
Sympathetic Nervous System	Parasympathetic Nervous System
tension, contraction	relaxation, expansion
aggression, extroversion	placidity, introversion
anger, fear, activity	resentment, rest
rapid pulse and breathing	slow pulse and breathing
pupil dilated, mouth dry	pupils narrow, mouth waters
good muscle tone, body rigid	poor muscle tone, body soft
poor digestion	good digestion
overexcited, hyperactive	low energy, depression
high blood pressure	low blood pressure
far-sighted	near-sighted
overactive thyroid/adrenals	underactive-thyroid/adrenals
inflammation, pain	debility, weakness
diabetes, schizophrenia	hypoglycemia, allergies, arthritis

REMEDY
blue, indigo, purple	red, orange, yellow
vegetarian diet	animal protein
more potassium, magnesium	calcium (sodium), iodine
lecithin, choline, insulin	adrenaline, cholesterol
sedation, releasing energy	stimulation, giving energy
magnetic south-pointing pole	magnetic north pole
deep, slow acupressure	rapid, light acupressure

As an example on how to use this table, if you often feel tense, fearful, aggressive, or have high blood pressure, inflammations or pain, then blue color therapy may help, or using more magnesium, lecithin, or apply the south-pointing pole of a magnet.

Good Nutrition – Bad Nutrition

Nutrition was the main tool with which I helped patients overcome a wide range of diseases claimed to be medically incurable. Unnatural nutrition is one of the major causes of our diseases, while natural nutrition is an equally powerful agent in curing these diseases, and rejuvenating our body.

Most of our commonly eaten food contributes to gradual health deterioration, and the development of chronic diseases. This is a main reason why there is such a high incidence of chronic degenerative disease in our society.

Diet rules are designed to guide us towards healthier eating habits. There are different schools of nutrition, which do not always agree on the same principles and sometimes even contradict each other, just as in politics, religion and other areas of human endeavor. The diet rules in these pages are based on the principles of the earlier 'nature cure' movement, but modified according to the findings of modem clinical nutrition research and my own experiences in overcoming diseases.

For the successful elimination of diseases, I have found that the less ideal the patient's diet was, the more specific the remedies, supplements, or other therapies needed to be. Conversely, on an ideal diet, specific interventions could be kept to a minimum. I have also noticed that the different nutritional requirements between the various metabolic types begin to disappear when an ideal natural diet is adopted and all can eat similar food, although in different proportions.

Changing our diet to an ideal natural one requires a considerable shift in eating habits, and re-educating our taste buds. It often also requires greatly increased time and energy for food preparation. For most of us this is not easy. While some take to it enthusiastically, others need to be driven by the hope to overcome a debilitating disease, and most are content to make just minor adjustments or gradual improvements as a preventive measure or to overcome an existing health problem. Therefore, I use a graded approach with a high-quality diet for gradual health improvement and maintenance of good health, and a raw-food diet for maximum healing, rejuvenation and maintenance of optimal health into old age.

While I have presented each diet in its pure form, most individuals will not be able to adopt fully one or the other diet but rather move gradually towards their dietary goal in a period of months or even years. You may also need to modify the diet according to your special requirements, as described in the chapter on Metabolic Types and Blood Groups. However, ultimately it is best to learn to trust your body in telling you what it needs. If you are not addicted to a certain food but crave it, then it is probably good for you.

We need to realize that we ourselves can choose to a considerable degree how healthy we want to be and how long we want to live in good health or, alternatively, which diseases we are willing to accept for the comfort of satisfying our present taste preferences, and maintaining potentially harmful living habits. Of course, other factors such as our mental and emotional condition, the environment, how we use our body, have a strong influence as well, and are covered in other articles.

Experiment!

For overall health improvement I suggest that you experiment with as many of the methods in these pages as you can. On the biological level these are mainly intestinal sanitation, allergy testing and cleansing. Some idealistic individuals may embrace these measures enthusiastically while others will try a little here and there but generally wait until poor health launches them more determinedly into a program of health improvement. For those, however, who want to start right now, here is the prescription.

Many natural therapists believe that most disease starts in the bowels or, more generally, in the gastro-intestinal tract. This certainly is a common factor in many diseases and requires our initial attention. Allergy testing is most important for sensitive individuals and children with health problems.

Fasting and cleansing are required to remove the heavy load of metabolic wastes and toxins that most of us have stored in the body. This cleansing process often leads to unpleasant symptoms - healing reactions, also called healing crisis - which we frequently must endure before we can advance to a higher level of health. This is especially the case for those with a chronic degenerative disease.