Extreme Health—A Concept Whose Time Has Come!

Olympic winners didn’t get there by moderation. Moderation isn’t the key to anything except mediocrity. We are under-utilizing the benefits of pure air, sunlight, absteemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet and use of water.

While a lukewarm tub-bath is relaxing example, but the extremes of hot and cold offer more health benefits as they open and close blood vessels and can even double the white blood count to aid immunity, etc.

Applying this principle to other natural remedies for health can help us. The use of water isn’t limited to externals. Drinking more water can help cleanse the body by carrying more poisons to the kidneys for elimination. A recent online source suggested 12 ounces a day. Why not go to extremes by doubling or tripling it to increase your energy and reduce fatigue poisons?

Pure air is another example. Millions live in areas tainted with tobacco or pollution. Stale air from commercial air conditioning lacks the negative ions that help charge our immune system. Men jogging by the roadside had less carbon monoxide in their blood than drivers with their air conditioning on.

When we go to extreme with a serious dose of exercise that pushes our limit daily, it aids our resting heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, triglyerides, converts bad LDL to good HDL cholesterol, and it helps circulation, digestion, elimination, mental attitudes while rewarding us with sounder sleep.

Another beneficial extreme could be sun bathing. We’ve been conditioned by media to fear skin cancer that comes from polyunsaturated oils in the diet plus sunburn, for thousands of years, skin cancer was not a problem until scientists said we didn’t have to quit lard or butter, just switch to soft margarine and Crisco.

This brings us to another important area, absteemiousness. We should abstain from all things harmful, because “moderation” is not a good thing with chemicals or poisons. This includes all drugs.

If you think caffeine is a friend, you might be surprised at how hard it is to quit—most people get a headache on withdrawal. Caffeine can cause trouble for nerves, sleep, extra heart beats, breast lumps, stomach acid and gastritis, cancer of the bladder and pancreas, cleft palate and hare lip. Pavlov called it “Bad Habit Glue.”

Included in this area of absteemiousness is alcohol. They now find two drinks a day can weaken the heart. It’s the leading cause of major and minor accidents, from the Exxon Valdez to the fall at home. It’s also the cause of interpersonal problems at work or home.

The thirst for strong drink is enhanced by the use of stimulants and spices. Going to extreme would be to get used to a simple diet with fruits, nuts, whole grains and vegetables that are well-cooked and lightly seasoned with salt or herbs like onion or garlic while avoiding mustard, pepper, spices and pickles that irritate the stomach.

Avoid a high fat, high protein diet—they go together, and visible fats like oils or mayonnaise. This is not only good for heart disease and cancer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvA55xj8iMI but also diabetes–Dr. Neal Barnard has scientific proof of this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VytweMzhU00 Whole grains, vegetables and legumes (beans or peas) offer an abundance of protein as most dieticians know.

Going to extremes can also mean avoiding medical (Rx) care. While doing physicals on executives, I had one say that sugar bothered his joints. Another executive said cheese made his joints ache. A third said meat gave him arthritis. These were smart men who had figured it out. If you’ve had a symptom that has come on you gradually, change your diet as suggested in the paragraph above, leaving out your favorite things and eating foods that you don’t usually eat for a week to see if you can detect the cause.

If you have severe symptoms from time to time, keep a diary of all the factors that may relate, especially of all the foods or medicines that could be a factor. If you take a prescription, read the package insert for it that you can get from your pharmacist and look up anything you don’t understand on Google. Take responsibility for your own health. The doctor doesn’t have time to talk to you about what you eat, but Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, said, “Let your food be your medicine…”

Dr Richard Ruhling was board-certified in Internal Medicine and taught Health Science at Loma Linda University. He offers more information at http://RichardRuhling.com and http://LeadingCauseOfDeathPrescriptionDrugs.com