Gary Null - Healthy Woman: a Womans Book of Healing

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND EDITOR

More than ever before, American women are living in a crisis. There is a perfect storm in their midst.

Job security is no longer guaranteed irrespective of a womans education and skills. In fact, a woman may have worked for the past thirty years, earning a respectable annual income, and suddenly find her company bringing in people who are willing to take her job for a fraction of her salary. She may find she is at a place in her life where she is being challenged to reconsider the quality of her relationships, such as with her family and friends. And she may be facing the challenges of dealing with aging parents who may be threatened with dementia, Alzheimers, or Parkinsons disease. Perhaps there is no one else to care for them and the burden falls upon her shoulders.

Many women reach a point in their lives when they are at a loss after becoming aware that they never intentionally planned to become ill. Rather it was an accumulation of multiple bad choicesjunk food, alcohol, stress, lack of exercise that have taken their toll. Now she discovers she is suffering from heart disease, arthritis, cancer, or diabetes. At one time, she was able to lose weight easily. Now it requires more effort to drop pounds and very often her attempts are unsuccessful.

At one time, a woman never thought about menopause. Finally a time dawns when she experiences hot flashes, night sweats, thinning hair, and a gradual loss of libido. Even if she desires to have sex with her partner, it is more difficult to do so. She never had trouble going to sleep but now wakes up several times a night. She looks at her skin and observes sagging, wrinkles, and a loss of elasticity. All of this concerns her.

Needless to say, there are no shortages of health and emotional concerns as we age or as the effects from living a poor lifestyle reveal themselves. As troubling as these scenarios are, there is good news: I have spent the last five years collecting research on state-of-the-art nontoxic and natural therapies for preventing these health conditions, for treating disease, and for improving womens quality of life. In the pages that follow, you will find a wealth of information, including interviews with dozens of the finest medical and alternative health minds in the country, who share their first-person wisdom, advice, and insights into how a woman can remain healthy and vibrant. An emphasis has been placed upon the more recent science of epigenetics, which essentially informs women that what they think and feel about diseases, illnesses, conditions, and healing processes in their bodies can either reduce or hurry their health conditions.

It is never too late. There is always something positive women can do.

We are in a health crisis in the United States. When you consider the numbers, they are staggering. In 2015, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimated that 96 million Americans were living with chronic conditions. The country was projected to spend $3.2 trillion on health care of all types, or about $10,000 per person. Although the rate of spending has slowed in recent years, we still have to ask, what are we getting for all this money? With the Affordable Care Act, more people than ever now have insurance coverage, and this is great news. But we are by no means out of the woods. Medical care is costly, and there is no assurance that insurance companies will actually allow for people to get the treatment they need. Unfortunately, women bear the brunt of this predicament.

Compounding the crisis is the fact that despite the talk, we still do almost nothing in our society to prevent illness or truly acknowledge that lifestyle choices can affect health and well-being. There have been some changes, but the conventional medical establishment continues to minimize the role of diet, nutrition, exercise, emotions, and the environment in maintaining good health. Instead, it pushes more pills, more dangerous quick fixes, and more profits for the ever-growing medical industry. In the womens health arena, menopause and the use of hormone replacement therapy provide a stark case in point. As described throughout this book, there are many other examples as well.

The natural healing community has a long tradition of providing safe, sensible, and cost-effective health solutions. More than two decades ago, I introduced health support groups to my radio audience. The health support group is meant to bring people together to show them that with just lifestyle modification, we can change the outcome of illnesses. I had people from every walk of life, from every state of health, from totally deteriorated health to very good health, and all ages and all races. We had a good melting pot. I started to apply principles that I had been using with individual patient for a long time. I put them on vegetarian diets. I excluded all meat, dairy, artificial sweeteners, refined carbohydrates, deep-fried and processed foods, and caffeine. I got them to go organic. They went through a really thorough detoxification, which generally took about a year. Then we used the supplements, herbs, and juices that were necessary to rebalance their body chemistries. What we found was that as long as people applied these principles and followed the protocols, there was tremendous benefit. If they only applied part of the principles and only did some of the things, they benefited somewhat, but not as completely by any means.