Treating Any Health Condition

The Best Approach to Treating Any Health Condition
By Dr Ben Kim
Our instant-gratificati on society teaches us to reach for quick
solutions to specific health problems. Google any health condition and
you're bound to come across products and procedures that fit into this
mold. Have joint pain? Take glucosamine chondroiton. Have chronic
acne? Take high doses of vitamin A. Want to lose weight and have
rock-hard abs? Obey the golden rule to a flat stomach (for 39.95).
It's fine to use natural products to optimally support specific areas
of your body. But please be mindful of the following principle of
healing:

The best way to improve the health of one area of your body is to use
all of your daily choices to improve your overall health.

To help keep this principle at the forefront of your mind as you
strive to get and stay well, let's take a big picture look at how
interconnected all of your body parts are.

To start, let's review the basic pathway of blood through your body.

A good place to begin is your small intestine. As your blood courses
through the vessels that line your small intestine, it picks up
nutrients from your most recent meal.

From your small intestine, your blood flows to your liver, where
nutrients are packaged into bundles that can be transported to all of
the cells of your body.

From your liver, your blood travels upward to the right chambers of your heart.

From the right chambers of your heart, your blood travels to your
lungs, where it picks up oxygen from the air that you breathe. Also at
your lungs, your blood releases carbon dioxide (a waste product that
it picks up from all of your cells), to be exhaled.

From your lungs, your blood travels to the left chambers of your heart.

And from the left chambers of your heart, your blood is pumped out to
the rest of your body to deliver oxygen and nutrients to all of your
cells.

Since every organ in your body requires oxygen and nutrients, your
blood travels through every organ. And when it passes through your
kidneys, your blood is cleansed of waste products by special filters.

As your blood unloads oxygen and nutrients to all of your cells, it
picks up carbon dioxide and other waste products from your cells.

Your blood eventually comes full circle by returning to your small
intestine and liver, and then back to your heart.

To ensure that you have a big picture view of the flow of blood
through your body, here's a simple outline of its path:

Small intestine > Liver > Right side of heart > Lungs > Left side of
heart > Out to all of the organs and tissues of your body, including
your kidneys > Back to small intestine, liver, and right side of heart

To give you an idea of how much ground we're talking about, consider that:

1.. If strung together, all of the blood vessels that make up the
pathway described above could circle the earth two and a half times.

2.. Over the course of one day, your blood travels about 19,000
kilometres (12,000 miles).

Now let's re-visit your heart and lungs. Remember that before your
heart pumps blood to the far ends of your body, it first sends the
blood to your lungs to pick up oxygen.

If your lungs develop chronic disease through exposure to cigarette
smoke, asbestos, other environmental pollutants, autoimmune illness,
or any other factor, it experiences repeated bouts of inflammation.

Inflammation is a process that your body generates to try to heal an
injured area.

If your lungs experience enough inflammation, it can develop scar
tissue, which is tissue that is created to try to heal damaged areas.

If your lungs develop significant scar tissue, it becomes harder for
your lung tissues to allow fresh oxygen to enter your blood, and for
carbon dioxide to leave your blood.

The result is that your heart has to work harder because your body's
need for oxygenated blood and clearance of carbon dioxide remains the
same, regardless of how healthy your lungs are. In order to keep up
with your body's demand for oxygen and nutrients, the right side of
your heart has to pump harder, and possibly faster, to compensate for
reduced efficiency in your lungs.

If your lungs don't return to high level functioning, the right side
of your heart will eventually become fatigued and won't be able to
sustain the effort needed to keep blood flowing through your system
fast enough to ensure optimal delivery of oxygen.

If the right side of your heart is significantly weakened from years
of compensating for diseased lungs, your liver may experience signs of
congestion, since your liver is constantly sending blood directly to
the right chambers of your heart.

So one potential cause of liver disease is lung or heart disease.

Another potential consequence of fatigue and weakness in the right
side of your heart is congestion in the blood vessels in your lower
extremities, since these vessels are continuously sending blood back
to your heart. This is how lung or heart disease can cause problems
related to circulation like varicose veins and hemorrhoids.

And what about the left side of your heart? Can problems in the left
chambers of your heart cause problems in other organs as well?

The answer is an emphatic yes. To give an example, if you develop
thickening in the walls of large arteries in your system
(atherosclerosis) by eating too many potato chips and donuts, the left
side of your heart will have to work harder to meet your body's needs
for oxygen and nutrients. Over time, this extra work can cause the
left side of your heart to become fatigued, which can lead to
congestion in your lungs (since your lungs are constantly sending
oxygenated blood to the left side of your heart). If your lungs suffer
enough in this fashion, you can develop all of the problems associated
with right-sided heart fatigue.

And what about your kidneys? If your kidneys decline in function, none
of your other organs can function properly for a number of reasons,
the primary ones being that your body will accumulate toxic waste
products and lose its ability to regulate fluid balance.

Here's what all of this boils down to: it's impossible to have just
one organ in your body suffer from disease.

If one of your organs isn't doing well, it's only a matter of time
before other organs will experience declining function.

Of course, the reverse is true as well; if your lungs are extremely
healthy, the right side of your heart, your liver, the blood vessels
in your lower extremities, and all other areas of your body are
positively influenced.

Just as the performance of one member of a sports team can affect the
performances of her teammates, the health of each organ in your body
has ongoing influence on every other part of your body.

Please remember: The best way to improve the health of one part of
your body is to work at promoting good overall health by eating
healthfully, getting adequate rest, being around fresh air and
sunlight (without getting burned), being physically active, and
striving to be emotionally balanced.

Natural remedies for specific health challenges may be helpful, but
please never forget that lasting, positive results require healthy
food and lifestyle choices that support your overall health on a daily
basis.