Life Is Your Best Medicine

"The division between conventional and traditional medicine is as artificial as the division between science and nature. They can be woven together in a fashion that meets our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This is the foundation upon which integrative medicine is built." -- Tieraona Low Dog, M.D. In Life Is Your Best Medicine, Dr. Low Dog weaves together the wisdom of traditional medicine and the knowledge of modern-day medicine into an elegant message of health and self-affirmation for women of every age. This is a book that can be read cover to cover but also dipped into for inspiration or insight about a particular physical or mental health issue or remedy. We learn that, despite the widespread availability of pharmaceutical medications, advanced surgical care, and state-of-the-art medical technology, chronic illness now affects more than 50% of the American population. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that much of the chronic disease we are confronting in the United States has its roots in the way we live our lives. Research shows that if Americans embraced a healthier lifestyle, which includes a balance between rest and exercise; wholesome nutrition; healthy weight; positive social interactions; stress management; not smoking; limited alcohol use; and no or limited exposure to toxic chemicals; then 93% of diabetes, 81% of heart attacks, 50% of strokes, and 36% of all cancers could be prevented! This means that each one of us has the power to shift the odds of being healthy in our favor. And if you do get sick, being fit gives you a much better chance for getting well. Your health has a great deal more to do with your lifestyle and a lot less to do with taking prescription drugs than most people realize. Part I. The Medicine of My Life is a personal and passionate introduction to the book Part II. Honoring the Body includes Food, Supplements, Illness, Wholeness Part III. Awakening the Senses includes Nature, Garden, Music Part IV. Listening to Spirit includes Humor, Relationships, Play, Meditation, Animals Epilogue. Contentment

Drugs may not be the only cure for disease . . . What do Gloria Swanson and Greta Garbo have in common? They owe their good health to Dr. Henry Bieler's sane, simple, and utterly profound philosophy that food is your best medicine! You are what you eat, and Dr. Bieler contends, based on over fifty years of practice, that proper diet plays a key role in warding off and curing disease. Food Is Your Best Medicine features a fascinating interpretation of how the body functions to maintain good health and addresses all kinds of ailments with specific nutritional approaches. Zucchini and other vegetables, simple broths, nourishing whole grains—all so much better for you than drugs, and they really work!

Includes recipes from Chef Del Sroufe, author of the bestselling Forks Over Knives—The Cookbook and Better Than Vegan Nearly half of Americans take at least one prescription medicine, with almost a quarter taking three or more, as diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and dementia grow more prevalent than ever. The problem with medicating common ailments, such as high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol, is that drugs treat symptoms—and may even improve test results—without addressing the cause: diet. Overmedicated, overfed, and malnourished, most Americans fail to realize the answer to lower disease rates doesn't lie in more pills but in the foods we eat.With so much misleading nutritional information regarded as common knowledge, from “everything in moderation" to “avoid carbs," the average American is ill-equipped to recognize the deadly force of abundant, cheap, unhealthy food options that not only offer no nutritional benefits but actually bring on disease. In Food Over Medicine, Pamela A. Popper, PhD, ND, and Glen Merzer invite the reader into a conversation about the dire state of American health—the result of poor nutrition choices stemming from food politics and medical misinformation. But, more important, they share the key to getting and staying healthy for life. Backed by numerous scientific studies, Food Over Medicine details how dietary choices either build health or destroy it. Food Over Medicine reveals the power and practice of optimal nutrition in an accessible way.

Offers a practical prescriptive guide to achieving health with the right natural foods and supplements, outlining a detailed, forty-day nutritional plan that features health-bolstering recipes.

This book traces the cause of many chronic health problems to our modern diet and shows how a return to traditional foods can improve one's well-being. Modern medicine now recognizes that the present-day Western diet is responsible for many of today's chronic illnesses. Nutritionists and anthropologists have noted the decline in health that accompanies indigenous peoples' transition from traditional to modern diets. In Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine, Ron Schmid explains how a return to a traditional diet can help you reduce your risk of heart attack by 50 percent; fight allergies, chronic fatigue, arthritis, skin problems, and headaches; recover from colds and flu in a day or two; and increase your life-expectancy. Chapters focusing on the major food groups, common diets, and health goals enable you to tailor a diet to your special needs. New edition, previously titled Native Nutrition.

The problems of medical care confront us daily: a bureaucracy that makes a trip to the doctor worse than a trip to the dentist, doctors who can't practice medicine the way they choose, more than 40 million people without health insurance. "Medical care is in crisis," we are repeatedly told, and so it is. Barely one in five Americans thinks the medical system works well. Enter David M. Cutler, a Harvard economist who served on President Clinton's health care task force and later advised presidential candidate Bill Bradley. One of the nation's leading experts on the subject, Cutler argues in Your Money or Your Life that health care has in fact improved exponentially over the last fifty years, and that the successes of our system suggest ways in which we might improve care, make the system easier to deal with, and extend coverage to all Americans. Cutler applies an economic analysis to show that our spending on medicine is well worth it--and that we could do even better by spending more. Further, millions of people with easily manageable diseases, from hypertension to depression to diabetes, receive either too much or too little care because of inefficiencies in the way we reimburse care, resulting in poor health and in some cases premature death. The key to improving the system, Cutler argues, is to change the way we organize health care. Everyone must be insured for the medical system to perform well, and payments should be based on the quality of services provided not just on the amount of cutting and poking performed. Lively and compelling, Your Money or Your Life offers a realistic yet rigorous economic approach to reforming health care--one that promises to break through the stalemate of failed reform.

Antibiotics, bandages, cough syrup, ointment, pills…modern medicine has so much to offer when we become ill. But is it actually modern? When Siha Tooskin—Paul Wahasaypa—finds himself not feeling at all well he learns that there are answers for him from the healing practices of his own people and from Western medicine. Pay a hospital visit to Paul as he learns more about where “modern medicine” really comes from and how we can all benefit from Indigenous and Western healers as Paul seeks the best medicine for his own wellness. The Siha Tooskin Knows series uses vivid narratives and dazzling illustrations in contemporary settings to share stories about an 11-year-old Nakota boy.