“Radiation” comes from the Latin verb radiare, which means “to shine” or ‘beam.” A “radius” originally meant a “beam of light.” Radiation refers back to our original source of all light, the sun. In the combustion of gases that give rise to its blinding intensity, the sun emits all types of radiation in the form of highly energized particles. Radiation, like the heat radiator in your living room, is akin to “fire.”

Radiation, of all types, is a fire toxicity, i.e. it burns. How toxic it is directly relates to how “hot,” i.e. how highly energized, it is. Radiation we know causes genetic damage, but then again, if you put your hand in a burning fire, that would cause genetic damage to the tissue it burned as well.

It goes even a step further than this. With the Digimeridian machine I use in my practice, if a measurement shows a toxic imbalance in an energy meridian, it is highlighted in red. This red imbalance points to an area of inflammation in the body. Dr. Ni, who developed the Digimeridian, explained to me, “When you have a yin-yang imbalance, the genetic material starts to mutate.” Inflammation is a toxic heat, and prolonged exposure causes the DNA of cells to change.

Exposure to high-energy radiation damages cells because of the heat transferred to your cells as radioactive particles hit them. Depending how highly energized the radiation is, it can literally melt them down. This is no less true of x-rays and cell phone radiation than nuclear radiation. All such radiation is capable of injuring tissue. It is simply a matter of degree. We live in a high-energy world. Those of us in cities exist in radiation akin to an electric smog. We zip around in radiation-producing jet airplanes. We cook things fast, (i.e. with microwave radiation, which, by the way, you should avoid. It does not so much cook your food as melt it.) All of this affects us.

Counteracting radiation requires a corresponding increase of the element that cools down the hot, melting fire: water. The element of water is associated with the kidneys in Chinese medi cine, and protecting the kidneys becomes a critical goal when one is exposed to radiation. Many foods and herbs that bolster the kidney energy and build vital fluids apply. Below are my suggestions and comments:

1) Avoiding harm from radioactive energy should not be something you adopt when you first hear you may have some exposure. You are likely always being exposed to some degree, unless you live in the wilderness. Because of the excesses everywhere in modern life, “staying cool” and bolstering your vital fluids should simply be a way of life. Call it an “anti-inflammatory” way of being.

It is common for patients I see to be a bit “toasted” these days. That is to say, they live a fast-paced lifestyle, travel a lot, and take many foods and beverages that deplete the body of vital fluids: too much alcohol, too much coffee, too much processed food, too much meat. Then w e take in too little of foods that replenish the lost essence.

2) Those who are out of balance with too much toxic heat in the body may have a much more difficult time healing from harmful radiation than those who are balanced.

3) The substances that bolster water energy (i.e. tonify the kidneys) are highly cleansing (cooling) by nature. Some of my favorites include all sea vegetables (kelp, nori, wakame, nori, kombu, etc), algae (e.g. chlorella and wild blue green algae), aloe vera juice (inner filet is best), wheat grass, sprouts of most varieties, stinging nettles, and salt (use only Himalayan or a good sea salt). Certain legumes also apply, especially mung beans, lentils, and black beans. Most important here are mung beans, which, in addition to being cooling, are a potent kidney tonic and detoxifier. You can cook a kidney tonic by preparing any of these beans with sea vegetables. (After soaking in salt for 8-12 hours, rinse and cook the beans in sea vegetables WITHOUT salt until soft. Then add sea or Himalayan salt and herbs. Adding a bit of unpasteurized apple cider vinegar helps make the beans even more digestible.)

4) It makes good sense to include a bit of kidney tonifying energy in your daily diet. Whole Foods guru Paul Pitchford recommends we take a small amount of sea vegetables every day. Because it takes our body time to adjust and digest sea vegetables, starting with a small bit and then increasing over time is a good idea.

5) If you have radiation exposure, whether through xrays, CT scans or MRI, or possible nuclear exposure, it makes sense to increase your intake of kidney tonifiers. However, because over-tonifying the kidneys can throw one out of balance, it is important to increase them without taking an excess. Eating these foods to excess can make you sick in itself. ; Stay tuned in to your body!

6) A word on salt: Because it holds in fluids and supports the kidneys, it is another type of kidney tonic. Salt is grounding and centering, exactly the opposite of the scattering quality of radiation. When eaten unrefined and in mild to moderate amounts, salt plays an important detoxifying role for radiation. Nuclear waste can actually be stored in salt, testifying to its detoxifying nature. It makes sense, particularly for those in cities, to have about 3 grams of unrefined salt daily.

7) Sea vegetables, because of their high iodine content, play an important role in helping the body get adequate amount of iodine, inhibiting uptake of radioactive iodine. I prefer a healthy intake of sea vegetables to oral iodine tablets, which can cause toxicity.

For the case of known or high-probability intense exposure to nuclear fallout, I recommend one additional step. Homeopathic Radium bromatum of either 6c or 12c potency (30c or 30x would also be ok) can be dissolved (i.e 2 -3 pellets) in distilled or filtered water and taken in sips up to a few times daily, depending on the degree of exposure.

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It is this deeper layer that is most out-of-sight and hardest for people to grasp. As far as successful treatment, it often is the most important. This is particularly true when weight gain involves factors that the person is unable to control–psychological, emotional, or even physical.

An example of this came up recently in my office. I was treating someone who has had a lifetime issue with controlling hunger. Typically this person cannot stop from eating three or four plates of food at a meal. Recently I worked this person up with a classical homeopathic work-up and gave this person a remedy, and after the second round of dosing sent me this email, which I quote with permission:

“I redosed last night. I never really get hungry until around 10 am and was out running errands until almost noon and was absolutely starving. I stopped into my favorite buffet, got my first plate and was only half way through when I started feeling full and the food stopped tasting so good. I did finish the plate and did go back for a little more because I can’t only have one plate at a buffet. Yet I didn’t even finish what I got. I got a little dessert and didn’t finish that either.

This has never happened in my life before. i would normally get 3 plates worth. Also, I was as full the rest of the day as if I had eaten 3 plates.

Pretty amazing!”

Taking this remedy brought a swift and dramatic shift in a long-standing pattern. What is important to understand–in addition to how powerful and deep classical homeopathic medicine can act–is that classical homeopathy treats a deep, out-of-sight energetic pattern. Looked at from a slightly different angle, the remedy acted on this person’s unconscious. For weight loss, such treatment can be essential.

Such a deep, entrenched pattern can be overcome by people trying to lose weight, yet it takes a lot of energy to fight such a pattern. People can and do succeed in fighting it, of course. Nevertheless, frequently, people fight it for a while and then give up. You hear things like “I tried so hard to keep my eating under control, and then I couldn’t do it anymore. I just gave up.” For such patients, the lap band and gastric bypass surgeries have become the way to deal with many of these patients.

This is bad medicine for a number of reasons. It not only requires an expensive, invasive surgery, with its associated pain and recovery. It leaves the patient in an energetically compromised state, which can interfere with proper absorption of nutrients and provoke frequent bouts of nausea and discomfort. Often these surgeries are only marginally effective, because the underlying emotions are as disturbed as ever. Then, they spur on future encounters with the medical system because of the problems they cause.

The purpose of any good treatment is to resolve the underlying energetic cause, making changing the pattern almost effortless. This is the result of expert classical homeopathic treatment. Treatment with a good classical homeopath should be step one for all obese patients for whom the thought “lap band” so much as makes a brief appearance. It is not only far less expensive than a trip to the operating room, it actually resolves the imbalance. All good treatment should free people from doctors, not make them more dependent.

It is gratifying to see that more and more scientists are willing to speak out and support the efficacy of classical homeopathy in treating such a deep energetic layer. The latest has been nobel prize winner Luc Montagnier, who discovered the AIDS virus [see this article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/luc-montagnier-homeopathy-taken-seriously_b_814619.html].

In coming years, we can hope that classical homeopathy becomes a standard treatment for those who struggle with obesity. This is particularly true when there is hunger and overeating that the person is struggling to control. If you have more questions about this and how it applies to you, let me know.

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Contemporary medical thinking focuses on quieting the mind through drugs.  People agree to drug themselves to sleep with pharmaceuticals such as Ambien, Xanax, or Prosom mainly because no other approaches are available.  Rarely is anyone satisfied with this solution.   These medications are addictive, and, if anything, aggravate the underlying cause.  Although I am open to the use of insomnia medicine on an infrequent basis, I do not believe such drugs are wise.  A drugged sleep, although it is arguably more satisfying than a night awake, does not qualify as “good sleep.”  It is no more, no less than what it seems to be:  an artificial sleep produced by a drug, which does not achieve the levels of rest and restoration of natural sleep.

People with insomnia complain that they are stirred up in some way.  Many complain that they “cannot stop their thoughts” at night.”  “Worries” are another common complaint.  People wake in the middle of the night with things on their mind and they cannot get back to sleep.  Others simply complain of an “awake-ness” where they lie in bed for hours and the release of sleep refuses to come.

Looked at from this angle, it would seem that anyone with real worries must submit to the inevitable interrupted sleep.  Yet, when you look at the big picture, something else is going on.  I can find plenty of people with huge worries and stress who sleep fine.   One cannot divide out the population between those who have heavy stress and those who do not and make any sense of insomnia.  As a rule, applicable to all but the most stressful of times, it is not the worries that cause the insomnia.  It is just the opposite:  the energy of the insomnia itself is what causes sleep to be interrupted with awake-ness, worries and racing thoughts.

What, then, is the cause of insomnia?  It is not simple to explain, but even a difficult explanation is better than the misinformation you are receiving.  So let’s start from point one.

In my measurements of people with sleep difficulties (using the Digimeridian machine) one theme stands out:  people with insomnia almost invariably have toxicity or weakness in the Fire meridians (specifically the heart, pericardium, or triple warmer meridians).  There is one exception to this.  Occasionally the toxicity is in the Water element (kidney and bladder meridians).

This starts to drive at some fundamental truths about insomnia.  It is important to realize that energies described by Chinese medicine are not abstractions.  They are real–and actually measurable with new machines such as the Digimeridian.

1) In Chinese medicine, the Fire meridians have to do with “consciousness.”  Weakness or toxicity in the Fire meridians point to a “disturbed consciousness.”  Feelings of un-groundedness at night, eg. floating, of mind racing, of a mind that refuses to settle, of worries coming out nowhere refer to a disturbed consciousness.  This has to do with disturbed energy in one’s heart.

2) Insomnia disturbs the energy of the heart and is a risk for developing pathology with the heart itself.  It does not necessarily mean disease of the actual heart.  If the body has sufficient strength to protect the heart, it will remain fine.  Eventually, though, disturbed heart energy will impact the physical heart.  Take insomnia as a warning sign that you need to take steps to protect your heart.  Depression, which also often relates to heart energy (liver energy can be dominant in certain cases) is also a warning sign for trouble around the heart.  It is a call for action, and anti-depressants do not help.  The may actually create more risk for the heart.

3)  More specifically, insomnia relates to the balance between Fire and Water.  That is, in Chinese medicine language, if there is “dirty water,” i.e. toxicity in the kidneys or bladder, it may not balance the Fire element.  If the Fire “burns out of control,” uncontrolled by the Water element, it disturbs consciousness.  I find a strong heart is protection against insomnia in all cases.  Yet, even those with a strong heart may encounter disturbance if the kidney meridians have a lot of toxic energy.

4) It is often mentioned that people sleep less well as they age.  Elderly people, we are told, sleep less.  Years ago I accepted this as an inevitable consequence of aging.  Now I know it is a problem of energy, not of aging in itself.  Generally people “dry out” as they get older.  They do not have the “vital juices” like they did when they were young.  This most directly relates to the kidneys.  Because of loss of kidney essence, the Water element does not balance the heat in the heart.  This disturbs consciousness and sleep.  Menopausal symptoms in women also relate to this phenomenon.

Most importantly, what do you do about it?  The first step is to find out what is going on.  It could point to one or more of the following energy imbalances:

1)  A weak heart energy, perhaps congenital,

2)  Toxicity in one or more of the fire medians that disturbs its energy and disrupts consciousness–and therefore sleep.

3) A decline in vital essence, in a manner of speaking, you are “drying out” as you age, and there is a resulting heat in the heart region disturbing sleep.  The way to think of it is “there is not enough water to control the fire.”  This relates to hormonal issues.  I also see this lack of vital essence in younger people.  Often it comes with obsessive behavior, bipolar disorder, or other such mental condition.

4) Relating to #3, there may be a deficiency of blood, which causes heat to occur in the heart.  This frequently occurs in very thin people, but you do not have to be thin for this to apply to you.  If you have had a diagnosis of anemia, or have borderline anemia, this possibility increases.  “Deficiency of blood” is not exactly anemia, but they are close.

5)  The kidneys are toxic.  There may be no problem in the heart meridians, but the toxicity in the kidneys creates a problem by its lack of adequate “counter-balance.”  This most often occurs with people who have “panic” somewhere in the mix.   Dreams of intense anxiety or panic, panic attacks point to this.  Occasionally you see this in a deep and suppressed way, that is, there is no panic on the surface, but you find it if you dig a bit.  These people are very “calm and collected” souls–until they tip out of balance and feel panicky.

Treatment of these five causes is a complex matter, which I will leave for another time.  My main modalities are classical homeopathy and Chinese herbals.  For now, it is enough for you to know to search for deeper answers.  You do not need to sell out to an unhealthy “drugged” sleep.

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▪ Conservative. This views menopause as a natural transition where treatment should be minimal. In my practice, women who choose this path use classical homeopathy and perhaps some nutritional and dietary therapy to manage symptoms.
▪ Energy Imbalance Perspective. This point of view reflects the understanding of Chinese medicine (TCM). From the point of TCM, hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms arise out of an energy imbalance that can easily occur at mid-life. The energy of the kidneys, which create cooling vital fluids, declines at menopause, and thus fall out of balance with the fire energy of the body. The water-fire balance tips in favor of heat and leads to hot flashes. In addition, when women stop menstruating, they may load extra toxicity which formerly was excreted through menstruation. If the body does not find a new balance, illness may develop. Women who choose the energy balance path can use herbal therapy to replenish their lost vital essence, and often hold this balance through the transition and beyond. They may or may not use classical homeopathy along with this approach.
▪ Hormonal Imbalance perspective. This is viewpoint of a segment of western doctors, particularly those involved in anti-aging medicine, and has been popularized by Suzanne Somers. In this view, the decline of hormones in mid-life leads to symptoms. To manage the symptoms, this view advocates replenishing the lost hormones with bio-identical hormones. The agreement among all doctors who work at the forefront of this field is that estradiol (estrogen) should not be taken orally. Doctors mainly prescribe transdermal (applied to skin) application for both estradiol and progesterone replacement, although many advocate taking the progesterone orally if there is insomnia. Within this group of doctors, there are many individual variations, but two main groups you should be aware of:

⁃ -Cyclers: This sub-group, whose chief proponent is Susie Wiley, maintains that        women should take hormones in a way that mimics the hormonal rhythms of a younger, menstruating women. In this method of hormone replacement, the first half of the cycle is an estrogen phase and the second half is a progesterone phase. When hormones are cycled in this way it will promote a menstrual period. The Wiley Protocol is the most extreme of the cycler group, because it advocates returning a woman to the higher hormonal levels of a young woman, attempting to exactly mimic the rhythm of young adulthood.
-Non-cyclers: This group usually gives static (i.e. the same dose each day) daily doses of hormones. If a diagnosis of “estrogen dominant” is given, then there will be a daily dose of progesterone alone. Other situations may call for giving both estradiol and progesterone. Some doctors always give a combination of estradiol and progesterone each day.

In reference, to the above three approaches, here is the approach of my practice:
1) If I had to choose only one therapy from the above three, I would choose classical homeopathy. The reason is that this treatment is so deep that it can manage most health problems. With a good homeopathic prescription, a woman feels better than using either Chinese herbal medicine or bio-identical hormone replacement alone, or together. I find that using bio-identical hormone replacement can be limited in cases where the health of the woman is not that good.
2) Treating with classical homeopathy and then supplementing with Chinese herbals to fine-tune and build the vital essence of the body is an excellent way to proceed.
3) Using all three approaches together. This has slowly been evolving into my treatment of choice. First I like to begin with classical homeopathy and see how things balance out. From there, if signs of deficiency exist, I will restore the balance with herbals. I find that then adding in bio-identical hormones optimizes how a woman feels, allowing her to move into a new and higher state of well-being.
4) Although I recognize arguments for both Cyclers and Non-Cyclers, my prescribing sides more with the Cyclers. Before prescribing a cycling regimen, though, a woman needs to be OK with the likelihood of menstruating beyond normal menopausal age. If you give bio-identical estrogen in the first half of the cycle, followed by progesterone in the second half, a woman will build up a uterine lining (assuming she has a uterus). When the progesterone is stopped at the end of the cycle, bleeding will occur. All doctors using bio-identical replacement therapy agree that taking some bio-identical hormones is healthier than not, even when given in a low-dose static way. I agree, however, with the Cyclers who argue that a static dose of hormones tends to “clog” the receptors, inhibiting them from regenerating.
5) Although I have seen no evidence, either in practice or in the literature, that bio-identical hormone replacement promotes cancer or any other disease, I have seen evidence that giving too much of either estradiol or progesterone can create toxicity. Thus, I do not want to say that bio-identical hormone replacement is without risks. It is important to tune in to how you feel when you start taking bio-identical hormones. If you do not feel better, you either need to change the regimen or stop them. When bio-identical hormone replacement works, this is reflected both in measurements (e.g. the Digimeridian I use) and in how you feel.

The above is a brief summary of an evolving field. Use it as general guidelines, asking questions to find answers that suit your individual needs and outlook. Trust that, for those in the know, there are profound interventions that can make the menopausal years healthy and joyful.

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•    No real improvement in the number of breast cancers in the last 20 years.
•    No progress in discovering the cause of breast cancer.

Below find my response and a summary of my current understanding of this highly complex disease:

1)  Breast cancer is caused by persistent toxic energy in the pericardium meridian of Chinese medicine.

In my measurements with the Digimeridian machine, this has been a consistent finding, and my belief is that the Digimeridian points the way to prevention of breast cancer, both through screening of women, and a basis for treatment through methods of relieving the toxicity, e.g. targeted acupuncture.  The pericardium energy meridian originates a couple centimeters lateral to the nipples and flows down the arm and forearm.  Heavy toxicity in the pericardium meridian leads to inflammation of breast tissue and mutations in cellular DNA of breast cells.

As for Dr. Love’s comment that “we are no closer to finding the cause of breast cancer,” using her current investigative methods, she never will find a cause.  That is because the causes lie at the energetic level, not the physical level, i.e. the causes are invisible.

As a general rule of thumb for government and life, if you spend billions of dollars to find a solution to a problem, and still find no success, change your assumptions and your approach.  Currently breast cancer research operates under certain wrong assumptions.   Billions more dollars spent on the same approach will yield the same conclusion.

There are a couple other situations where I see toxicity in the pericardium meridian that relate to breast cancer.  The first is high prolactin levels secondary to a prolactin secreting tumor in the pituitary.  In this condition, the nipple may inappropriately release a milky discharge (prolactin is the hormone that stimulates milk production).  Not surprisingly, breast cancer incidence goes up with prolactinomas.  From a TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) standpoint, if you suppress the milky discharge (e.g. through medicines such as bromocriptine), the risk of cancer increases dramatically.  This is because the breast releases toxicity through the milky discharge.  Suppress this release and the retained toxicity can explode into breast cancer.

The second situation is in younger women.  You can tell if she is going to get a heavy period because toxicity shows up in the pericardium meridian on the Digimeridian measurement.  This is important to consider, because if she would not bleed for some reason (e.g. menopause), there may be difficulty in unloading the toxicity.  It helps us understand why menopause can be a dangerous time.  Toxicity can be loaded in the pericardium meridian, and if the woman’s immune system is not strong enough to push it out, inflammatory changes can occur in the breast.

2) Stage I cancer confined to the breast is not necessarily life-threatening.

I have had breast cancers in my practice that I have treated in collaboration with TCM experts that have disappeared on follow-up radiography.  It is questionable whether such cancers ever would have become dangerous.  A major challenge now is learning to distinguish dangerous cancers from those that are not. 

More disturbingly, a pharmacist friend recently told me the story of a woman diagnosed with breast cancer. Doctors recommended the usual invasive treatments–surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. This woman had a level of suspicion and flew to Great Britain to see a leading breast cancer specialist. This specialist told her that she did not have breast cancer. Talk about a close call!

This story comes to me second hand. Nevertheless, my friend has the highest ethical standards. I have no doubt it is true based on her credibility and what I have seen in my clinical practice. It is problematic for women, because there is no economic reward for finding the non-dangerous cancers. The system probably lost out on $100,000 in treatment because this woman chose to seek a second opinion.

3)  Left-sided breast Cancer and right-side breast cancer are different diseases.  Cancer in the right breast is likely to be more dangerous than breast cancer in the left breast.

Because the left side of the body and right side of the body are energetically different, left-sided breast cancer and right-sided breast cancer are not the same disease.  From a TCM perspective, the right side is the yin or feminine side, the left side is the yang or masculine side.  For a woman to have breast cancer in the right breast represents a more virulent intrusion into her feminine energy.

I have not been able to find studies on left-sided vs right-sided breast cancer.  I am more cautious in cases of right-sided breast cancer, because they frequently appear to be more aggressive than left-sided.

4) Metastatic breast cancer represents an entirely different, much more dangerous disease.

The critical questions in breast cancer are what causes it to metastisize and how to stop it.  There are definite energies that drive breast cancer metastisis.  It is not accidental or arbitrary that breast cancer ends up in the brain or the liver, for example.  An important line of inquiry should be to track the energies that drive metastasis.  A firm understanding of TCM theory, in conjunction with a Digimeridian assessment as well as a study of the emotional state of the woman, should allow insight into the cause and prevention of metastasis.  This will take effort and money, but it would likely yield far more exciting results than we currently have.

Nevertheless, one of the harsh realities of cancer is that there will always be cases that defy understanding.  Cancers are an explosion of toxicity into disease.  The source of that toxicity, particularly in certain aggressive, virulent cases, we will not always be able to understand.  This is especially true in cases of children, where cancer usually makes no sense.  In certain situations, we can speculate that the biblical idea “the sins of the father are visited upon the son” applies, only in this case it likely relates more to the mother.  Toxicity can trace back through a dysfunctional and stuck family history, which an individual is heir to.

5)  If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, detoxification is necessary–at all levels, the emotional above all.

I have taken the homeopathic case of quite a few breast cancer cases over the years.  That means I have had the luxury of 3-4 hour, in-depth investigations of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions of the disease.

The most common theme I have seen in breast cancer cases is a toxic, intimate relationship.  Quite frequently a woman feels she needs to leave the relationship and cannot.  Generally such cases carry deep, unresolved resentment.  I have seen another case where a woman developed breast cancer during a period of uncontrolled anger towards her adopted children.   The themes of nurturing or codependency, often at the expense of one’s individual values, appear to be central to the disease of the breast.

Commonly, the diagnosis of breast cancer forces a woman into an examination of toxic emotions.  There is the feeling that, if one is going to survive, one needs to “clean house” and face up to emotions and situations that have been damaging.  All cancer brings  the search for peace, because at root, its “beyond my control” character, not to mention the harsh treatments, mean exactly the loss of peace.

TCM doctor Yongli Ni has made the observation:  In Chinese medicine, the woman cleans up for the man.  Therefore, if they are mismatched, there is trouble for the woman. I consider it highly possible that certain cases of breast cancer originate because of such a “cleaning up” process.  I consider cleaning up the primary relationship–and ideally that would include getting the husband or mate as healthy as possible–an integral part of recovery from breast cancer.

6)   If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, you need to pay special attention to the liver, and its associated emotion, anger.

Anger, often deeply suppressed, is something I have seen in every case of breast cancer.  From a TCM perspective, anger that is unexpressed brings energy stagnation to the liver,   Although difficult to prove, in my understanding this plays a role in bringing about the spread of breast cancer to other organs, not least of which because proper functioning of the liver is critical for good immune function.   Confronting the issues that are causing anger, releasing anger through meditation, exercising a few times weekly (ideally getting the pulse rate up near maximum for short intervals of time), and herbal medicine to release heat and stagnation from the liver all should play a role.

Summing up, a purely physical level approach to breast cancer–or any cancer–is not enough.  It is a disease that involves all dimensions of the human, and all dimensions need to be involved in the treatment plan.  Most important is addressing the energy toxicity in the upper meridians of the body, as defined in TCM, with focus on the pericardial meridian above all.  Also key is the triple warmer meridian, which is associated with the upper body immune system.  The triple warmer energy is responsible for “pushing out” dampness and toxicity.  The corresponding meridians in the lower body (stomach and gallbladder) also play an important role.  The stomach may be particularly important in certain breast cancer cases,  because the stomach meridian travels directly across the nipple.

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Much attention goes to the hormones that are associated with menopause–estrogen and progesterone.  Production of these hormones begins to drop in a woman’s 30s.  By the time she reaches peri-menopause in her mid-40s, there is quite a drop from the hormonal levels of her teens and 20s.  At a certain point, estrogen production falls so low that a woman is unable to build up a uterine lining, and menstrual bleeding stops altogether.

These hormones are indeed important, but there is more going on here than meets the eye.  Focus only on hormones and we miss the big picture.  Let’s walk it through:

An important matter is that menstrual bleeding is a detoxification of the blood.  This has become increasingly apparent to me in my treatment and clinical studies of women.  The Digimeridian, which measures acupuncture meridians, usually reflects when a younger woman is about to have a heavy period, because it registers toxicity around the heart and blood.  The menstrual bleeding comes and flushes this out, hopefully completely.

The extent to which uterine bleeding can detoxify was impressed upon me by a story Dr. Yongli Ni told to me a couple years ago.  It was a case of a pregnant woman who  developed vaginal bleeding early on in her first trimester.  She was told that if it did not stop, it would likely mean a miscarriage.  Yet, the bleeding continued.  Fearful of losing her baby, and alarmed because her gynecologists did not know what to do,  she consulted Dr. Ni.  After examining the case, Dr. Ni told the woman everything was OK, and that the bleeding was necessary for her to keep her baby.

Why?  The story goes like this.  This was a Russian woman who grew up near Chernobyl, and suffered exposure to radiation.  In Chinese medicine understanding, radiation exposure is a “fire toxicity.”  This woman had this fire toxicity in her uterus and reproductive system.  In order to have a healthy baby, her body had to flush out the fire toxicity of the radiation.  It did this through bleeding.  She was treated with acupuncture and reassurance and had a healthy baby.

Clearly, detoxification through menstrual bleeding represents an advantage for women over men.  Up until they reach menopause, women have an extra route to shed toxicity.  As they cross into menopause, things switch and women catch up with men in their risk of developing debilitating disease–particularly heart disease.  Not surprisingly, the heart, which is closely linked with blood, is most affected by extra toxicity loaded in the blood.

This makes an argument for the Wiley Protocol.  The Wiley Protocol is a bio-identical hormone replacement protocol for menopausal women that mimics the cycle of a younger woman, producing a menstrual bleed.   Susie Wiley, who created the protocol, believes that women are protected when they cycle and bleed.  This argument has some credence.  Nevertheless, things are not quite as simple as the Wiley Protocol suggests.  More on that when I discuss  cutting edge treatment in a future newsletter.

So, why do some women do fine going through menopause and others do badly?  In other words, there is more than just hormones involved.  If it were simply about hormones, then every woman would have difficult symptoms, and this is not the case.  In my studies, women that are heavily toxic before the advent of menopause run a major risk of trouble.  Toxicity creates inflammation.  Inflammation in turn creates disease symptoms.  Our ability to unload toxicity is key.  We take on toxicity from our emotions, our food, our metabolism and our environment.

What does the drop in hormones at mid-life have to do with this?  Hormone production drops gradually because the energy of the kidneys drop.  The energy of the kidneys, in Chinese medicine, is where  vitality and hormone production resides.  In other words, if you keep the kidney energy strong, there would be no reason for hormone production to fall off at all.

This drop in energy also reflects a decreasing ability to detoxify.  Replacing  hormones appears to be the equivalent of giving a kidney tonic, i.e. to some extent they build the energy of the kidneys.  Bio-identical hormones are no cure-all.  I currently debate how much merit there is in saying “This woman has lost her hormones and therefore needs them replenished to help her symptoms.”   It is useful, but it is oversold.  The problem is better set up as “The kidney energy is weakened, and this has produced toxicity in the body and caused symptoms.”   This sets up an entirely different approach to treatment.  This approach yields better treatment results overall.  What role bio-identical hormones should play is an ongoing question that may require a different answer for every woman.

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–Do you have a tendency to be fatigued?
–Do you have high blood pressure?
–Do you have high cholesterol?
–Do you have arthritis or any other auto-immune disease?
–Are you overweight?
–Have you had cancer?
–Have you had an injury to tendons in your shoulder or knees even though the trauma was actually not that substantial?

If you answer yes to any of the above, be suspicious that your liver is not working well.  Even if you answered no to the above, be suspicious that your liver is not working well.

Many problems in our physical, and even, emotional health, can stem from a sluggish, toxic liver.  The liver is like our internal processing plant. It metabolizes and transforms our food into different forms. It alters toxins into non-toxic forms or into a form that can be easily eliminated from the body. Anything that involves taking one substance and changing it to another substance likely involves the liver. It is the largest organ in our body, and it is like a giant factory where millions of chemical reactions take place.

When our liver is unhealthy, our internal processing plant gets sluggish. Toxins do not get processed efficiently. Hormones and blood sugar get out of balance. Food we ingest causes us to bloat instead of smoothly being digested and processed. This can set up lots of problems.

At this point in my career, I give a lot of respect to the liver.  This is in contrast to when I was in medical school.  At that point, if a patient did not have hepatitis, did not drink to excess, and did not overdose on Tylenol, I assumed everything was just fine. Now I think differently.   To give an idea of the depth of the problem, consider these words from a professor of anatomy, Richard Schulze.

Often in bodies of people over 60 the internal organs are in such a mess it is difficult for students to identify things.  They smell so bad students would run from the room and even vomit.  One time…almost every student started to vomit all over the laboratory.  After that incident I always tried to get the bodies of younger people  killed prematurely due to an accident so the internal organs would be more normal.

…What was surprising to me was how many young individuals would have fairly normal looking internal organs, but when you got to the liver and gallbladder, well, it was like an alien encounter.  Often the liver was shaped drastically different  swollen much larger than normal, filled with bloody fluids, pus, tumors, scar tissue and parasites.  Every student was shocked to see such advanced degeneration in such young, supposedly healthy people.

[From Dr. Schulze's Bi-Monthly Newsletter   Natural Healing Publications,  May 2002, with thanks to author Paul Pitchford for finding and quoting it in his book Healing with Whole Foods.]

Dr. Schulze’s comment may make you a bit queasy, but it makes you ask, what is going on? Why are the livers of young people so toxic? We can sum up the answer in two words:  the “American diet.”  Our diet, rich in meats, processed carbohydrates, and refined oils wreaks havoc on the liver.  This is before we factor in the pesticides we spray on plants and the toxic pharmaceuticals products we ingest.

What Dr. Schulze does not make clear is the consequences of having advanced degeneration in our liver.  After all, not everyone is running around with hepatitis. Teasing out the consequences of why this is such a problem is complex, and I plan to begin putting into words you can understand in future entries.  For now, here’s some initial advice on how to protect your liver:

–Avoid all processed carbohydrates, especially sugar.
–Avoid all refined oils. The clearer, the better-looking the oil, the more toxic it is likely to be to the liver. Look for “organic” and “unfiltered” oils. I stick to olive oil, flax seed oil, preferably from freshly ground flax seeds, and organic ghee. Trans-fats, a subject of much media attention, are especially toxic and difficult for the liver to process, but most other processed oils are close behind.
–As a rule, anything created in the laboratory, such as splenda and nutrasweet, is especially toxic for the liver.  Stay as close to natural food sources as you can.
–Avoid Tylenol, especially if you are over 50.
–If you were not breast fed a minimum of 6 months, your potential for a toxic, poorly functioning liver, are greatly increased. If you are in poor health and were not breast fed, your liver is highly suspicious for being the cause. This deserves a consult for a deeper look and advice. Email me.
–Be careful with taking multiple supplements in pill form, particularly if you are in ill health. A lot of these vitamins and supplements stress the liver, which is in charge of processing these and can cause more harm than good. Good guidance can be essential.

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During his first year of life all of his development milestones were met, and he usually was a little bit ahead.  He had upper respiratory, ear infections and vomiting.  During this first year he had multiple courses of antibiotics….

I breast fed him between six and nine months.  I went back to work when he was three months, and after that we began to give some cow’s milk formula.  He had a reaction to the formula, so we switched to soy formula [because] he seemed to have a lot of reflux…

In was during his second year of life that he had multiple vaccinations in one day.  He had the the MMR, DPT, and polio.  After this he got high fevers and encephalopathy [inflammation and swelling of the brain].  He had a very very rapid loss of language and the autistic behavior started.  At 22 months he got the diagnosis [autism].

To sum up, this boy was fine during his infancy.  He had a tendency towards infections in his upper respiratory system along with allergies.  In his second year of life he got a strong stimulation to his immune system (multiple vaccinations) immediately followed by high fevers and brain inflammation.  He lost his language and became autistic.

We are told by the medical profession and FDA that there is no link between vaccinations and autism.  This story is a wonderful example of why there is a lot of anger over this.  First of all, most doctors have had experience with reactions to vaccines.  Like me, they may have watched a child having seizures in the ER, then hear from the mother that the child “just had vaccinations.”  Second, although I do not believe that high fevers need to be present for a vaccination to trigger autism, in this case there is a clear link between the post-vaccination fever and the slide into autism.  It does not take a medical degree to understand how inflammation and swelling in the brain could cause damage resulting in autistic behavior.  [For a deeper discussion on the nature of vaccinations see a previous blog on the HPV vaccine.

Here are my thoughts to parents on how to lower the risk of your child becoming autistic:

•  The first year of life is critical.  It sets up the immune system and a lays a foundation for growth and development.  The first step in doing this is to breast feed at least 12 months.   [See my blog on milk products and ghee.  This is where I detail why cow’s milk in particular sets up immune system problems. ]
•  If you did not breast feed your child for a full 12 months, I would add 1-2 teaspoons of colostrum daily to the diet (This can be cow source.  One source I like is from New Zealand  http://www.colostrumnz.com/colostrum_008.htm).
•  If you must leave off breast feeding for some reason, including adoption, do not use cow’s milk formula.  I would use goat’s milk and find a pristine source.  It is not perfect, but it is preferable.  If you want to use cow’s milk, I would find a source with a very small, organic herd of dairy cows.  This delivers a milk that is much less exciting to the child’s immune system.  Pasteurization is important so you know the milk is sterile.  Homogenization is to be avoided always.
•  Avoid vaccinations.  This will draw fire from the powers that be, nevertheless, vaccinations are problematic, and, unless you plan to be a neglectful parent, they can do more harm than good.  If you do choose to vaccinate your child, I recommend only doing one vaccination at a time, spacing them out preferably at least a week.
It is likely that the multiple simultaneous stimuli to the boy’s immune system in this case caused a certain “confusion” and helped ignite a damaging immune response.
•  Pay attention for signs of an over-reactive immune system.  It does not necessarily mean the risks of autism are high, but it does point to underlying problems.  In this case, the frequent ear infections and strong reaction to milk along with the reflux point to a compromised immune system.  [This reminds me that I need to write a blog on the gut and the immune system.  Stay tuned.]  Pay attention and eliminate the foods which are tying up the child’s immune system, e.g. cow’s milk products.  Be aware that any food other than human breast milk that is introduced too soon in the first year of life can provoke an immune response, because of the child’s undeveloped intestinal environment.
•  In reaching the second year of life, if your child is having issues with the immune system, i.e. allergies and/or frequent illnesses, it is important to have a consultation with a holistic doctor.  In my office, the following is on the table for discussion:

–dietary and nutritional factors that eliminate phlegm and reduce inflammation.
–classical homeopathic treatment to heal the immune system
–an isopathic remedy regimen to regenerate the gut flora and gut immune cells.

I plan on writing more about the treatment of this young man, because we have had success with classical homeopathy.  What is not clear yet is what is possible.  How much can he heal?

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I find your blog one of very few on alternative medicine that dares to speak some of the truths rarely spoken – for example, the one on myths about weight loss – you are clear, concise and to the point – i find that refreshing.  Your answers make a lot of sense, but also provoked a few more questions –here they are:

1) From your answer and articles on your blog, as well as my own observations and experience with TCM, it is not a modality primarily used to address emotional and spiritual healing – is that true?

2) The other question is, can TCM suppress a disease, and/or cause the body to develop a deeper illness?

i am asking questions of this kind because I am troubled by how alt. med. is still being practiced the majority of the time – i.e. focus on or treat only one level, usually the physical, with little or no regard to the other levels, nor the possibility of suppression – yet i know there is a purpose that all modalities are serving… i am trying to understand, to complete the picture for myself

Thank you once again.

Thanks for your questions.  It makes blogging fun.  So please keep them coming.

As for the first question, I agree with you that TCM is not a modality primarily used to address emotional and spiritual healing.  The key word here is “primarily.”  TCM certainly encompasses the emotional and spiritual, it simply rarely creates therapeutic intentions at that level.  As I discussed early on in my blogging, the “therapeutic intention” of a healer is critical, because you are unlikely to accomplish things you do not intend.  This is the greatest weakness of TCM, which is a brilliant modality.  Observe one great Chinese practitioner and you understand what an astonishing accomplishment TCM is.

TCM springs out of a distinct perspective, which has to do with Chinese culture itself.  I find it to be ‘impersonal,” particularly when compared with other ancient cultures, such as the Greeks and ancient India.  The essence of Chinese spirituality is the Tao.  The Tao describes cosmic forces that are orderly, harmonious, mysterious, yet impersonal.  Compare it to the myths of Hinduism and the Greeks, where there is an encounter between the human and personal, even intimate, cosmic forces.  Feel the ecstasy of union of  a Hindu worshiping Krishna.  I am no expert, but such an experience seems rare in China.

Chinese medicine reflects this, and it has a powerful objectivity.  The ancient Chinese were exact observers of nature.  Yet our understanding of the  “spiritual” and “emotional,” which necessarily include the subjective, gets lost.  I have found this out recently in working with top-notch Chinese practitioners.  They conceive the mental and emotional in terms of the energy terminology of TCM.  They listen as you talk about treating a different dimension, but they have no framework to fully understand it.

TCM never developed deeper methods to help the psychologically or socially challenged patient.  It probably is because the nature of Chinese society does not produce such conditions often.  If a society does not recognize psychiatric illness, people are less likely to develop it.  Calling this a “weakness” of TCM is subjective.  Nevertheless,  TCM does not translate perfectly to western culture, where experiences such as “alienation” and “cultural mal-adjustment” are rampant.  “Depression” is an interesting concept here.  For the Chinese, depression is primarily a disease of heart or liver energy.  They are right, yet they miss the possibility of a energetic, spiritual perspective lying hidden beneath it.

As for question #2, I think bad Chinese medicine can promote deeper illness, but you would have to work at it.  A person can usually feel the imbalance produced by wrong treatment and stops it.  For example, if I am very yang and hot, and you give me herbals that rev up my yang energy, I am not going to like you much.  “Suppression” is not a good word for this.  Working with elemental forces of the universe, TCM is not given to harsh suppression.  Acupuncture I think is even more benign.  You can throw a person off with bad acupuncture, but, unless you have quite a sick or depleted person, you would have to work hard to cause any major problems.  There may be those out there whose experience contradicts this.  I would love to know about it if so.

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A question about healing came up for me recently that I wonder if you could shed light on.
When someone is healed physically, i.e. their physical symptoms are gone, do they necessarily heal emotionally or spiritually as well? I know homeopathy aims to do this, but do other modalities such as TCM, reiki, or hands-on-healing? I am thinking particularly of chronic conditions like cancer or diabetes or MS, etc.

I think you raise a fascinating question.  A lot of things can happen that cause physical symptoms to subside. Not all of them come hand-in-hand with emotional and spiritual healing.  Nevertheless, such healing has an effect on emotional and spiritual well-being.

The Chinese medicine perspective helps us understand this. The Chinese focus on energy balance in all the body’s organs (meridians).  Blocked energy in an energy meridian eventually expresses itself at the physical level. Yet, It can also go the other way. For example, if my liver energy gets clogged and stagnant (maybe I decide to eat solely at  McDonalds) I could become depressed and irritable as a result.

I can put in an acupuncture needle, release the blocked liver energy, and cause related physical symptoms to go away. Restoring this energy flow likely helps me become less irritable.

In my experience, if there are strong emotional conflicts, springing from the individual’s state of consciousness and aggravated by life stress,  acupuncture and other vital energy therapies do not help that much.  Vital energy therapies may temporarily relieve the problem, but have difficulty resolving it.   Because the underlying spiritual and emotional conflicts have powerful vital energetic effects, this can continually create physical symptoms that will not go away, or go away only briefly before coming back.  Vital energy therapies treat vital energy problems.  That said, realize that depression is a vital energy problem to a greater or lesser degree.  Just how much so you can find out after the work of a good acupuncturist.  If acupuncture works–and holds–we can say it is predominantly a vital energy problem.

To sum up, healing at the physical level means one of two things:

1)  The person’s energy state is better, allowing the physical symptoms to subside.  This could be because of an energetic intervention such as reiki or acupuncture.  There are countless other reasons a person can get better that have to do with the energies that surround us:   people are affected by seasons, personal energy cycles,  cosmic energy cycles, and so on.  Some of this the Chinese can track, e.g. 2010 for the Chinese is a metal heavy year and problematic for people with liver and gallbladder weakness.

2)  The physical symptoms are suppressed and the body seeks balance by beginning to develop a deeper illness.

In the case of #1, the person has been helped at the emotional level as well, even though it may be too insignificant for them to notice.  In the case of #2, the person is negatively affected at all the deeper emotional, spiritual, and energetic levels.

You ask about deep diseases such as cancer or MS. My current approach is that a healing plan should address all levels–physical, vital energy, emotional, and deeper levels, which include the state of consciousness and spiritual dimensions–to some degree at once. You may know from people who work with cancer patients that it can be unpredictable who survives. Some people who should do well do terribly. This is evidence of getting stuck at the deeper emotional and spiritual levels.

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