Frédéric Saldmann - You Are Your Own Best Medicine: A Doctors Advice on the Bodys Natural Healing Powers

For Marine

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank the following people for their expertise, their wise counsel, and above all for their friendship that accompanied me during the long preparation of this book:

Dr. Michel Aubier
Dr. Frdric Baud
Mrs. Caroline Bee
Dr. Patrick Berche
Mrs. Lise Boll, my editor
Dr. Fabrice Bonnet
Dr. Franois Bricaire
Mr. Richard Ducousset
Dr. Grald Fain
Dr. Grard Friedlander
Dr. Serge Hercberg
Dr. Michel Lejoyeux
Dr. Jean Franois Narbone
Dr. Franois Olivenne
Mr. Antonin Saldmann
Mrs. Marie Saldmann
Dr. Olivier Spatzierer
Mr. Bernard Werber

PREFACE

An apple a day keeps the doctor away... as long as you have good aim!

WINSTON CHURCHILL

In everyones eyes my role as a doctor is clearly defined: I listen, I examine, I arrive at a diagnosis, and I prescribe. This is the very essence of my job. However, I have the impression that I dont always meet my patients deepest needs. In fact, Im surprised by the number of patients who come back to see me regularly, either to renew a prescription or for some new pathology that is similar to the previous one. With time Ive gotten used to always seeing the same faces in my waiting room. Over the years my patients and I have gotten to know each other quite well, establishing a kind of three-way relationship: the doctor, the patient, and the illness. We catch up on each others news, we worry, we calm down, and we decide to see each other again. Each of us settles into our routine. All is well. But not reallybecause we can do better with a simple method. The human brain and body in fact have very strong powers available that are almost never used. These powers only need to be activated in order to effectively treat a considerable number of symptoms and illnesses. The effect is double; by correcting the cause and not the effect, you reduce recurrences and you build real fortifications against illness. In our depths we have our own medicines that can be used to heal us, but we dont use them. We are our own medicine, but we dont know it.

By writing this book my intention is to deliver to you the prescription that I would never have dared write for you in an office visit and provide you with a method for being in better health and healing yourself. Lets take a very simple example. Treatments for high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure are used by millions of patients. Every day these individuals take tablets that are supposed to protect them from cardiovascular disease. However, statistics clearly show that these pills are not some magic potion. Yes, they lower the risks a little, sometimes with troublesome side effects, but they do not treat the cause. By modifying a few parameters, you can often do without the treatment and correct the problem. In fact, 30 percent fewer calories means 20 percent more life expectancy! Reducing your weight, improving your eating, and engaging in regular physical activity can change everything. One number is enough to understand how basic all this is: thirty minutes of exercise every day reduces the risk of cancer, Alzheimers, and cardiovascular disease by 40 percent.

And thats not all. On your own and using natural methods, you can protect yourself from and heal numerous illnesses. The human organism is a precision machine that needs perfect balance in order to function without breaking down. Nutrition is a key element. Just imagine putting diesel fuel in a car made for gasoline, and you will have a picture of the damage caused by a fuel that is unbalanced or too rich. There is another topic that I will address in this book even if it means that Ill be out of work one day. Im talking about all those illnesses that get better quite well on their own without a doctors help and for which medicines are useless or even dangerous, as is the case with viral sore throats and the flu. When a treatment is prescribed for such an illness, you have the impression that it is contributing to the healing, when in fact it does nothing of the kind. Without medication the result would have been the same.

Throughout your whole life the body is constantly renewing itself. Every second twenty million cells split into two cells to replace those that are no longer serviceable. The purpose is to make new, identical cells to replace dead cells. Copy errors during this process of cell division are what leads to cancer. Therefore, it is essential that the organism function in an environment that is likely to reduce copy errors as much as possible. These errors have a tendency to increase with age because the immune system doesnt do as good a job at cleaning up. We could mention the example of smoking, which increases the risk of cell mutation in the lungs, throat, and bladder. Stress and lack of sleep or exercise also are obstacles to effective cellular repair.

It is clearly essential to embark on a program of first-line preventive measures in relation to numerous problems so that we correct the causes and not the effects. Clearly, when it comes to your health, you need to be not just a coworker but an active entrepreneur. In this book I will be giving you keys that will allow you to take back control of your own health and pull together the areas that make it up: what you eat, weight, allergies, sleep, moving about, sexuality, stress, growing old. If I were to compare my book to a tool, I would choose the Swiss army knife; its multipurpose and lets you address all situations in an immediate and practical way. It is not a matter of substituting these suggestions for your personal physician. I ask you to get your doctors consent before following the advice offered in this book. But I hope that my suggestions will show you how to make faster progress through illnesses and better protect yourself with the means at your disposal. My ambition is to help you live a long life in good health.

TAKING OFF EXCESS WEIGHT

One thing thats even more difficult than sticking to a diet is not imposing it on others.

MARCEL PROUST

The figures are alarming. In the United States more than one-third of all adults are overweight. According to the WHO being overweight or obese affects 1.4 billion people in the world. Thats one person in five. Besides the problem that it causes for public health, excess weight is also a major health risk. It opens the door to both the little daily inconveniences of life such as backache and knee trouble and also serious illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes. Unlike a toothache, which you feel right away, excess weight steadily destroys the body in silence. Its the classic image of someone leading the good life, depriving himself of nothing, and whose life ends abruptly one day, all too quickly and all too terribly. The enormous success of dietsfrom the most serious to the most weirdshows that many of us wish to lose weight. However, we mustnt cover up the fact that most people who have followed a diet put back all the weight they had lost, or even more, within two years. As a nutritionist I can assure you that the best thing to do to lose weight is to control what you eat while still enjoying eating.

Body Mass Index

To determine if you are overweight, you just need to calculate your BMI (Body Mass Index). Take your weight in pounds divided by your height squared (height times height) in inches and multiply by 703. Or take your weight in kilograms divided by your height squared in meters. If the resulting figure is between 18 and 25, your weight is normal. Above 25 is considered to be overweight, and from 30 up were into obesity. This index is recognized internationally as a reliable criterion and gets around the assertions of people who say theyre not really overweight but just have a heavy bone structure.