The Wild Divine Newsletter

January 2008 - Issue 34

Well, we have finally gotten 2008 started and everyone here at Wild Divine wishes a happy and healthy New Year for you and your loved ones. With short, cold days to deal with, this time of year can get one a bit down. Being stuck inside can also open the door to eating a bit more than we have resolved to do---the refrigerator door, that is.

Here are some useful articles on overcoming the winter blues and sticking to those New Year’s resolutions. With no yard work to do, or soccer games to attend, now is actually the perfect time to focus on a creating a happy mind and healthy body. If you would like some help from us, please visit us at www.wilddivine.com.

We all wish you the best in 2008!

2. The 7 Keys to UltraWellness

—Mark Hyman, MD 

"I didn't know how bad I felt until I started feeling better."  

That's a statement I hear from my patients every day. 

With the right approach, they go from feeling ill or just "okay" to a state of what I call UltraWellness. Most of us accept a suboptimal level of health.  But it is important to understand why you -- and so many others -- may feel sick and not even realize it. 

Most people don't know how poorly they feel until they feel better. We tend to view annoying symptoms like fatigue, digestive problems, aches and pains, allergies, and headaches as just a part of life. But these symptoms are often really a sign of bigger problems. 

The truth is they can be early clues to impending disease that can disable and kill us.

In fact, many conditions have their roots in the body long before they are diagnosed. 

For example, we now know that most heart disease starts in the womb.  We know that brain changes can be detected in teenagers that can predict the development of Alzheimer's disease years later. We know that blood tests in children can predict who will develop diabetes later in life. And we know that most cancers take over 30 years to grow to the size they can be detected. 

So, many of us could be living with diseases now and not even know it. But how can we address problems that we don't even know we have? 

The key is identifying and treating the root of the problem, not just symptoms. 

Unfortunately, that's not the way conventional medicine approaches illness. Conventional medicine does have its uses -- but mainly at the end of diseases. If you are very sick, break a bone, have a raging infection, or have some other emergency, then, yes, conventional acute care medicine is the right solution.  

As former emergency room doctor and the husband of an orthopedic surgeon, I am glad we have this care when we need it.  But when I worked in the emergency room, I felt I was saving people just before (or sometimes after) they were washed downstream and over the waterfall to their death! 

Soon, I began to ask what led them to this point -- what had happened upstream in the process of disease and illness? 

What were the real causes of disease?  

If I could answer that question, I thought, I might then be able to help prevent disease in the first place. The early influences on my thinking -- from Asian philosophy to nutritional biochemistry to the study of ecology and ecosystems -- all helped me form a very new and different view of health and disease. Today, I am part of a revolution in medicine that is on the leading edge of an entire shift in our scientific model of disease.  

It is called systems medicine or functional medicine. 

Functional medicine looks at the roots of illness, not just the symptoms, and works with the fundamental underlying biological forces that power our vitality.  Remarkably there a just a few very basic core forces or systems in the body that can explain almost all disease. 

I have referred to these as the 5 Forces of Illness.  Now I call them the 7 Keys to UltraWellness, but they are just ways of explaining the amazing, interconnected roots of all illness and the keys to health.     

There very few simple ideas are the future of medicine and allow us to explain, prevent, treat and often cure most chronic illnesses of the 21st century such as heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, depression, ADHD, allergies, autoimmune disease, dementia and more. 

It provides a way of understanding all the influences on our biology that are at the root of illness -- and how our lifestyle and environment interact with our genes to create the balances or imbalances that are the real determinants of health or disease. 

This medical view does not reduce symptoms and diseases to their component parts, but studies the entire ecology of the body and its environment. 

What does all this mean for you? 

Well, I have practiced functional medicine for over 12 years -- and have seen miracle after miracle, day after day.  People don't only get relief from symptoms, they get truly well! That is why I have called this approach to health UltraWellness.  

I believe that UltraWellness is the answer to the healthcare crisis we find ourselves in. 

And make no mistake -- it is a crisis. 

We're in the middle of an increasing epidemic of chronic disease and an impending economic collapse as more of our resources are put toward caring for the chronically ill. Today medicine is in a serious predicament.  The way we understand health and disease no longer reflects biological reality, or the biological laws of nature.  

We are good at naming diseases, then blaming the name for the problem, then finding a drug that matches the name. I call this the "name it, blame it and tame it” game. For example, depression is NOT the cause of depression, but simply the name we give to people who feel depressed.   

Depression can actually have dozens of physical and mental causes. But we need to understand that diseases are not fixed things that you catch or that just show up out of the blue -- and are instead related to the environment, your diet, your genes, and your lifestyle.  

We need to understand that the body is an ecosystem and in turn is part of a larger ecosystem.

Understanding how all the parts relate and what disturbs our ecological balance is far more important than naming the disease and thinking that a drug will fix it. 

For example, depression doesn't just show up without cause or reason, but is related to a web of forces that we can influence and affect. Yet that's not how conventional medicine views it. 

Our current way of thinking is outdated, wrong, and will not help us address our declining health as individuals or a society. That's why we are making no progress and even backsliding when it comes to addressing chronic disease. Let's look at the data. 

Chronic disease has reached epidemic levels in this country. 

Right now, 125 million Americans have a chronic disease. That means in the average family of three, at least one person has a chronic disease. The fact is, nearly every modern disease is on the rise.

We are seeing an epidemic of autoimmune (24 million Americans), allergic (50 million Americans), and asthmatic (30 million Americans) diseases in this country. Plus, 20 percent of Americans (or about 60 million people) have irritable bowel syndrome. One in three children born today will have type 2 diabetes. One in two people over age 85 will develop dementia. 

These conditions are increasing in the population at a dramatic rate. And they affect everyone, either personally or through the suffering of someone close to them. This is the problem. 

And I believe that functional medicine – or UltraWellness -- is the answer. 

Every day in my office, I see patients who come to me expecting to suffer their whole lives from chronic problems like bad digestion, headaches, fatigue, arthritis, allergies, hormonal problems, obesity, heart disease, depression, and more.  

What happens when they begin treatment? 

Within just a few months -- or even weeks -- they begin to feel healthy and alive again! 

This week alone, I spoke with a 27-year-old woman could not lose weight and was constantly tired. She finally -- and effortlessly -- lost 20 pounds by treating her mercury toxicity. 

Then there was the 78-year-old woman who was coping with fatigue, memory loss, joint pains, and bad digestion and was ready to give up. She now works out every day and is full of energy, simply because we treated her nutritional deficiencies and helped her get back in balance. 

There was the 30-year-old woman with PMS, migraines, stomachaches, acne, and polycystic ovarian syndrome. She is now completely better after getting her system back in balance. 

And there was the 47-year-old woman with chronic sinus infections and fatigue. She hasn't had a problem all winter. And these were patients from just part of one day! 

I'll say it again: Most of us just don't realize how bad we feel until we start feeling better.  We accept chronic symptoms as a necessary part of life.  It doesn't have to be that way!  All of us have the capacity within us to achieve UltraWellness; we just need to be shown the keys. 

I'm going to share with you what I have learned in the last 20 years of seeing patients, studying the scientific literature, combining my knowledge and observations with other doctors who are also practicing functional medicine, and applying it in my practice. 

I'm committed to sharing it with you because it works. This approach isn't a miracle cure. It isn't perfect and it can't help 100 percent of health problems, 100 percent of the time -- but it IS a better mousetrap!  

This is the promise of UltraWellness. 

It's the opportunity to cure or dramatically improve chronic problems that are poorly addressed by conventional medicine and to discover vital, vibrant, good health at any age. 

Let me briefly introduce you to this new way of viewing chronic illness and the creation of optimal health. There are 7 fundamental concepts that help me discover the underlying causes of disease -- and that will help you achieve UltraWellness.  

These concepts are my roadmap in the landscape of health and disease. This is the future of medicine. Here's are the 7 underlying systems and concepts that can help each of you navigate your way out of illness and into vibrant good health. 

* Environmental Inputs: This is how everything in your environment interacts with your genes to create health or disease -- your diet, nutritional status, air, water, microorganisms, exercise, trauma, psychosocial factors, environmental toxins, and radiation. 

* Inflammation/Immune Balance. Most people suffer from smoldering hidden inflammation that can kill you unless you learn how to control it. 

* Hormones and Neurotransmitter Balance: Hormones and brain chemistry influence nearly every aspect of your health. We know why they get out of whack, and how to get them back in balance. 

* Digestive Function and Balance: Your digestive system is the core of your health. It often breaks down leading to system wide health problems.  But you can repair it. 

* Detoxification: Toxins and problems with your detoxification or waste management systems lead to chronic health problems. The good news is you can get rid of toxins and optimize your detoxification system. 

* Creating Energy:  We all want more energy.  A common link to most disease is the loss of the cells ability to make energy.  You can learn how we make it, why we lose it, and how to create more of it. 

* Mind Body Balance: The power of your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes had enormous influence on the body, and the body also interacts with the mind to influence and affect every other system in the body.  Learning to work with this system is one of the keys to health. 

Remember, these are really not all separate systems.  They are all part of a web of function and physiology that is at the root of both health and disease. This way of thinking about health and disease is nothing less than revolutionary. 

And it will guide you toward something many of you have given up on experiencing OR never even knew existed -- UltraWellness.  The answer to our chronic health problems leads through these 7 keys. 

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