What's On Your Plate?

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http://www.lifepositive.com/body/holistic-recipes/recipes/nutrition-

therapy.asp

 

By Ajay Pratap Singh

 

The wonders of nutrition therapy and its preventive, curative and

health-boosting aspects

 

Dandruff on your collar, fur on your tongue, stiff joints, bad

cholesterol in your blood report? A simple examination of your diet

could show up the cause of trivial or more testing physical or mental

ills. There is no getting away from this truth: you are what you eat.

Pune-based nutrition therapist, Dr Vijaya Sathe, an MD in Natural

Medicine and founder of the Commonwealth Institute of Acupressure and

Natural Medicine in London, has time and again demonstrated the

efficacy of good nutrition.

 

" Give the body what it needs and the body heals itself, " she

comments. Your food, as Hippocrates declared long ago, is your

medicine. " It is the hurry and worry of modern life, compounded by

improper eating habits, stress and pollution, which is telling on

human health, " Sathe says, " Nutrition therapy, which is safe, simple,

cost-effective and yet scientific, can alleviate human suffering. "

 

This therapy is based on the principle that every illness has a

nutritional cause. When the body records a particularly low level of

one or more nutrients, it shows up in the form of some disease or

group of symptoms. " When these deficiencies are taken care of by

appropriate changes in the diet and a suitable vitamin mineral

supplement, the symptoms disappear, " explains Sathe.

 

In its preventive and health-boosting aspects, nutrition therapy

strengthens the immunity system, enhances energy levels and uplifts

individual performance in any walk of life, athletic or creative.

Nutrition therapy, observes Sathe, can be particularly useful for

treating symptoms which are hard to diagnose, the so-called incurable

diseases, and those which can be controlled only by a continuous use

of drugs, such as allergies and arthritis.

 

It also makes the side-effects of chemotherapy arid radiation therapy

in cancer patients bearable. Eye problems such as fast-growing

myopia, constant watering or gritty-feeling eyes, and night blindness

respond well to nutrition therapy, as do the degenerative diseases of

civilization such as high blood pressure, diabetes and gall bladder

stones.

 

In treating coronary artery diseases, nutrition therapy addresses its

root causes, such as why cholesterol deposits occur on the linings of

the coronary arteries or why a thrombus forms and occludes the

arteries. " Perhaps the greatest strength of nutrition therapy is that

it considers and treats the human organism as a whole. It takes into

consideration the interrelationships of the various organs of the

body. Thus, when eye problems are treated, it is necessary to correct

the liver functions, since the liver influences the eye, " explains

Sathe.

 

 

 

For many, Sathe's clinic is a last desperate stop, for the cure of

debilitating diseases. For every patient, she prescribes a diet-

chart, a combination of various vitamins and minerals adjusted to

individual needs, and some supplementary powders. These often yield

medical miracles. New York-based Neha Abhyankar, 11, who suffered

from dry eczema since infancy, would scratch her skin raw at night.

Her bedsheet would be covered with dry flaking scales, fatigue and

loss of appetite marking her days. A few months of Sathe's nutrition

therapy left her skin glowing.

 

Hemlata Mistry, confined to a wheelchair for three years, though

investigations revealed no structural abnormality, finally knocked at

Sathe's door. After 45 days of therapy, she walked unaided down the

cobbled passage that leads to Sathe's Dombivli clinic. Bhagalpur's

Sourabh Kumar, 10, had undergone every possible medical treatment for

a bleeding disorder with nephritis. Turned away by Mumbai and Pune

specialists, his bloated body marked with bleeding spots, his urine

blood streaked, he started on Sathe's treatment which included

beetroot and wheatgrass juice. Now, in his early teens, Kumar has

regained near normal health.

 

Possibly the most remarkable case cured by Sathe is that of mango

trader Swaroop Desai, 23. In April 1996, his tempo turned turtle.

Trapped for over an hour before he was rescued, Desai suffered the

agony of hot oil dripping from the tempo on to his crushed legs.

After 14 months of unsuccessful treatment, one leg shortened and bent

due to muscle disuse, he met Sathe.

 

Even Sathe was surprised by the pace of Desai's recovery. Within 34

days of treatment he was walking with a stick, the wounds completely

healed. " Awareness about nutrition in the West is very high but in

Asia it has yet to catch up, " laments Sathe. " While traditional

Indian food has high nutritional value, changing lifestyles seem to

favor foods which undervalue health and well-being. "

 

Clearly, for a positive state of health, you need to take a hard look

at what's on your plate.