May '08 Monthly Bulletin
(meeting held 5/21)

Allergies and Digestion
Dr. David Pollack

Approximately 2 million people are hospitalized and 140,000 die each year from side effects or reactions to prescription drugs.  This reality has been a driving force behind what is called the wellness model. This model suggests that health is a continuum, and that we either move towards wellness or towards sickness; it is never stationary. In this model we are not only helping to avoid disease or rectify it, but we actually attempt to increase our body’s potential for health, ability, performance etc.

Symptoms are your body’s signs that you are experiencing stress. Stress that is left unchecked and uncorrected accumulates and may cause health problems.
There are 3 kinds of stress:
-Physical
(-) Sitting at a computer, child birth, car accidents, slips and falls, bad posture
(+) Sports exercise, stretching, good posture.
-Biochemical
(-) Bad nutrition, toxins, mercury in vaccines & dental fillings, cleaners, food additives, fertilizer, prescription drugs, smoking, allergens
(+) Good nutrition, clean water
-Emotional
(-) Stress of work, relationships, children; past emotional traumas, procrastination
(+) Positive accomplishments of work, relationships, children, avoiding anger, living a positive, happy lifestyle

All three of these types of stress can be affected or even caused within the digestive system. Besides the direct chemical stresses, our nutrition may effect our neurotransmitter production and change our mood; or toxins may cause aches and pains that may cause a depressed temperament indirectly.

Some simple everyday things we can do to help these issues are:
-Chew your food – activates the lower digestive organs and releases salivary enzymes to begin digesting the food while in your mouth, lowering the amount of work for the remaining digestive organs.
-Eat green vegetables – they contain many compounds known and unknown that increase energy, reduce the risk of cancers and many other positive effects.
-Actively choose your healthcare practitioner – trusting and having a doctor that understands your philosophies and concerns and can address your challenges in a way that is comfortable to you will dramatically improve your health.
-Replenish the body with enzymes – enzymes (which digest our food for us as well as thousands of other actions) have been eliminated from our food via processing and anti-spoilage measures. This puts more work on the digestive organs to process the food.

These steps will improve immune function and increase energy.

Nutrition has many parts: the Diet, Digestion, Absorption, Transportation, Utilization, and Elimination processes.  Each of these is as important as the next in keeping the body in its best working order. Often the result in the breakdown of any of these processes is INFLAMMATION!

Inflammation is the result of irritation to the body and results in the activation of an immune response. The problem is that if it is our digestive/nutritional processes that is causing this inflammation it will become continuous and chronic. Most of us eat 3 meals a day every day; this will cause enormous amounts of inflammation.

But why do we care?

The results of chronic inflammation are the diseases that happen to kill or seriously hamper the quality of life for most Americans:
Heart Disease, Diabetes, auto-immune disease (including allergies), cancer, pain, fibromyalgia, and the list goes on and on.

For most, the solution that comes to mind for things like heartburn, constipation, sinuses, allergies, headaches and other common maladies is an OTC pill like Prilosec or Tylenol. However more often than not this just covers up the symptoms and does not address the underlying issue, often inflammation. Unfortunately, “anti-inflammatories” often make the problem worse by disrupting inflammatory pathways but not addressing their cause. The side effects include ulcers, heart disease, numbness and other symptoms. This is because those medications disrupt the way your body processes fats; and your body needs fats to work. This disruption may not be in your best interest.

In our office we have technology that can actually analyze your nervous system to find stress. If inflammation is present in the body the nervous system knows about it; and that way we can get some pretty detailed information without performing any invasive tests or procedures. Using the results of this and other simple testing, we can determine if there might be any deficiencies or organs/glands that may not be performing optimally. As we address these challenges health can only improve. What we want to do is identify the stressed are and use appropriate enzymes to allow that area to do its job better with less effort so that its energies may be used in the healing process. Enzyme therapy is all natural, derived from plant extractives.



As a gift to the Protect Kids Members, I would like to offer a no-cost consultation to see if this type of care maybe of interest or help to you.

In Health,
Dr David Pollack

Creating Wellness Center of Commack
66 Commack Rd, Suite 101
Commack, NY 11725
631-462-0801






Disclaimer:
Protect Allergic Kids is not a professional or medical organization.  It is a group of parents sharing information and supporting each other.  The discussions, meeting minutes, handouts, guest speakers, agendas, and other products of our support group do not constitute medical/legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.  Always discuss individual health questions and medical issues with a qualified personal physician.

In regard to Guest Speakers, the purpose of the presentations is to provide a variety of opinions on the spectrum on allergy issues. By no means is PAK adopting the views of its speakers, or endorsing them as medically accepted in the community. It is up to the guests to weigh the persuasiveness and acceptability of the presentations, based on their own knowledge and research.

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