Dr. Warmbrand, author of many books on health, recipient of many awards as well, first became interested in naturopathy to help himself. As a young boy in Austria he suffered from tuberculosis of the bones and found no help in medicines. At the age of 16 he emigrated to the U.S. where he became his first patient, ultimately conquering his debilitating disease with his natural regime and going on to help hundreds of other patients. At the time of this talk, delivered before the 18th Annual Congress of the International Society for Research in Nutrition and The Diseases of Civilization in Berlin, Germany, on September 20,1972, Dr. Warmbrand was a vibrant 75 – a wonderful example of what natural healing can accomplish.
A Healthy Body Can Cope With Stress
Walter C. Cannon, well-known American medical scientist and a profound student of health, a great many years ago explained that the reason the body can put up with the many difficulties of problems that confront us, is because it possesses the power to make the needed adjustments or adaptations. He called this “the homeostasis or self-restorative powers of the body.”
Keeping the Body’s Internal Environment Healthy
He was not the first one to recognize the need of keeping the internal environment of the body in a state of balance or equilibrium. In the middle of the 19th century, Claude Bernard, the famous French physiologist, also dealt with this subject making it clear at that time that irrespective of the changes in the external environment, the constancy of the internal environment, “the milieu interieure,” must always be maintained.
Don’t Destroy Your Adaptive Powers
It is this ability on the part of the body to make the needed adaptations or adjustments that has so far saved the human race from extinction. At the same time, however, it is well to remember that when the demands upon our adaptive powers become unreasonable or extend beyond normal physiological limits, the body ultimately loses its ability to maintain the needed equilibrium or balance, and then disease or malfunctioning begins to set in.
Harmonious Living Keeps Us Well
When man lived a simple life, when he lived in harmony with nature and when he turned to nature for his food and sustenance, he lived a relatively long and healthy life and barring unforeseen accidents, kept free from the breakdowns or ills that are facing us today.
Environmental Pollution Did Not Help
But then came industry-which tore us away from our natural habitat, and this brought along with it a great many changes that undermined our environment and led to the adoption of habits that are destructive to life. We no longer live in the great outdoors, breathing the pure fresh air, we live now in crowded sections, breathing air charged with all kinds of pollutants. We are no longer getting clean, pure water but water to which chemicals are added. We are no longer living on food grown on healthy soil, but on soil that is ruthlessly being exploited and therefore fails to supply food of high biological value.
Ecological Problems Keep Multiplying
The Washington Post, a leading American newspaper, in its April 20, 1972 issue, describing some of the ecological problems that face the U.S. today, mentions that fifty per cent of the U.S. drinking water has been discharged only a few hours before use of some industrial or municipal sewer, that water pollution in 1970 killed 23 million fish in America and that in a Washington inner city neighborhood 25 per cent of the children under six who were tested showed dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.
Reports that similar or even worse conditions exist in other industrialized countries appear from time to time.
Other Harmful Influences
Dwelling somewhat more on the foods commonly used nowadays in the average home, such as the refined and processed foods, the various white sugar and white flour products, the commercially processed and refined cereals, it would be evident that these foods have been robbed of many essential nutrients and therefore only contribute to the onset of ill health. And then we must never overlook what alcohol, tobacco, coffee, other caffeine containing beverages, as well as various other health-debilitating indulgences and excesses do to those who are addicted to them.
Drugs Not an Answer to Our Disease Problems
And when these vitiating influences finally end up in what we call disease, we most often do not try to find out how it has come about, but turn to drugs or other artificial remedies in the hope that this would get us well. And thus we only add to the problems since these remedies usually lead to only more disease by interfering with the body’s natural defenses.
Industry a Two-Edged Sword
Man at first did not realize what these changes in the environment and in our habits of living would be doing to us. He gloried in its benefits, he reveled in its accomplishments, but he did not realize what havoc they would ultimately play with the health of the body.
The After-Effects Were Not Pleasant
But then the various chronic and degenerative diseases, the so-called diseases of civilization, began to show up. Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, the deforming rheumatic and arthritic diseases, the metabolic ills such as diabetes and hepatitis, neurological diseases, the diseases of the respiratory system such as asthma and bronchial emphysema, and various other degenerative and life-shortening ills began to take their toll. And it is because these pernicious influences keep multiplying that these ills become more menacing with each year.
Prevention – the Real Need
We seldom try to find out how these ills originate but almost automatically turn to remedies in the hope that this will help to clear them up.
But since remedies fail to uproot the underlying causes of disease, since all they are able to do is to mask their symptoms by suppressing them, nothing is being accomplished so far as rebuilding the health of the body is concerned and the diseases keep growing only progressively worse.
People Are Starting to Wake Up
It is this increase in chronic and degenerative diseases that has now aroused us sufficiently to get us to try to find our way back to better health. And since the life and health destroying environmental pollutants contribute to their onset, people everywhere are now beginning to shout: Let us do something to stop polluting the air we breathe, let’s stop poisoning the water we drink, let’s stop devitalizing the food that we have to live on, let’s start doing something to change back to an environment that will not keep on destroying us.
Inner Changes Essential
And for all this we should only be thankful. At least we are awakening to the realization that these diseases do not just happen, that they are due to influences that are within our control. What many of us fail to realize, however, is that while environmental improvements are essential and will undoubtedly be of help in improving our standard of health, our major effort, if we really wish to gain the upper hand over the chronic and degenerative ills, the diseases of civilization, is to bring about a change in the body’s internal environment, since this is the only way we can make sure of attaining the state of equilibrium and balance that can keep us well. And this can be accomplished only when we adopt a way of living that keeps the ecology of the cellular environment, the inner part of our body, in a clean and healthy condition.
Changes That Lead to Better Health
To establish this healthy inner environment and to keep the internal cellular environment in a clean and healthy condition, are not difficult. We must start by turning to foods of high biological values and discard the use of all denatured and processed foods. All white flour and white sugar products, as well as all the other foods and beverages that fail to provide the nutrients we need to keep us well, must be avoided. In addition to this we must also make sure that we discontinue the use of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, medicines and all other body and health-debilitating influences.
A High Quality Biological Food Plan
The following is an outline of a dietary plan that would be most helpful in rebuilding health of the body and in keeping it in a healthy condition:
For the breakfast meal we should stress fresh fruits and those who desire a heartier breakfast could include one of the whole grain cereals, such as natural brown rice, millet, couscous, buckwheat goats, or the old-fashioned whole oats.
For the midday meal we should emphasize the raw vegetable salad, baked or boiled jacket potatoes, yams, natural carbohydrate foods, also one or two steamed vegetables, if still needed.
For the evening meal, we should again advocate the raw vegetable salad, plus moderate amounts of the easily digestible protein foods and possibly steamed vegetables.
Easily digestible protein is obtainable from lean fish or chicken or some other lean meat, the soft bland cheeses, nuts and seeds and a variety of other vegetable sources. The green vegetables provide excellent protein but only in small amounts. While we must make sure that we get an adequate amount of protein, we must see to it that we do not use it to excess since this can play havoc with our health.
Vigilance Essential
While we must never relax in our determination to bring about the needed improvements in our environment, we must, if we are to really protect ourselves against the present day major ills, start by changing to a way of living that helps to keep the internal environment of our body, our “milieu interieure,” in a clean and healthy condition. We must never forget that even in the healthiest environment our body ultimately breaks down when its inner parts become polluted with tobacco, liquor, drugs, medicines and vast quantities of food that have been robbed of most of their essential nutrients.
People everywhere are now becoming really frightened, but fear alone will not accomplish anything. If the increase of chronic and degenerative diseases is to be checked, we must get to understand how they originate and then bring about the needed changes in environment and in our habits of living that will develop. This we can do.most effectively only when we adopt a pattern of living that keeps the inner parts of our body in a real healthy condition. In doing this, the body’s inner defenses are kept in a state of balance and equilibrium and this will assure us of living a long and healthy life.
Reprinted fromThe Provoker
