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Nutrition in Health Versus Healing

by Vivienne Bradshaw-Black(more info)

listed in nutrition, originally published in issue 136 - June 2007

Most people think of ‘health’ and’ healing’ as the same thing or interchangeable. A simple dictionary definition of health and healing will be enlightening:
Health: State of wellbeing in Body or Mind: soundness, esp. financial or moral. (from Old English: related to whole.) In other words, health is the state of being sound, whole or healthy.
Heal: become sound or healthy again, cause to heal, put right, alleviate. (from Old English healer: related to whole.) In other words, healing is to become again sound, whole or healthy, meaning that it was there, it was lost and it is being restored.

Nutritional requirements for health and healing differ in that one is maintenance and the other a re-building project. Nutritional materials required for maintaining health and promoting healing might be the same in some areas, but the amounts and co-factors required could differ dramatically.

Nutrition has to be taken into the body, delivered to the target cells and accepted across the cell membrane to become usable. Vitamin B12, for example, plays an important role in all cell health, especially in myelinization* of nerve cells and production of red blood cells. It is used in making DNA, and is indispensable in synergistically working with other vitamins and minerals, promotion of the active form of folic acid being one example.

In health, B12 has a long storage life.  This is because most of it is stored in the liver where it is excreted in the bile and then re-absorbed. The main source of fresh intake of B12 for absorption (as against re-absorption) comes from animal products including fish, dairy and eggs, and its processing involves hydrochloric acid and an intrinsic factor from the stomach to facilitate absorption in the small intestine. Although some B12 is synthesized in the large intestine, it is too low down in the gut for absorption.

It is well known that vegans and strict vegetarians are at a disadvantage when it comes to the intake of B12 because they lack those main sources in the form of food. However, even if intake through foods is adequate, B12 cannot be released for absorption if hydrochloric acid and/or the intrinsic factor are inadequate, and there would still be a deficiency similar to that if foods rich in B12 were not eaten.  Because of the re-absorption aspect of B12, the deficiency might not show for a very long time, but the damage gets done before symptoms, such as mental and physical fatigue, anaemia, digestive problems, sore tongue, immune dysfunction and multiple ‘nervous’ symptoms, occur.  Deficiency can have an even more damaging impact on developing children.

The synergy of nutrients is vitally important, but relatively little understood, because blood tests used are inappropriate benchmarks.  For instance, a person can have adequate blood levels of folic acid but be deficient on a cellular level; this applies to minerals such as calcium and copper as well. Negative synergy is just as important as synergy but rarely the topic of research owing to economic/political vested interests.  How do things like fluoride, vaccines and mercury affect the production of hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor?  Why are the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning so very similar to B12 deficiency symptoms?

No one is healthy, as such, in that no one is vaccine and drug free, drinks pure water, eats organic nutritionally replete foods, has no fluoride or second-hand steroid/drug contamination via water supplies, breathes pure fresh air, is free from exposure to electro-magnetic radiation or microwaves, handles stress in a manner that has no negative effects or has no inherited or childhood baggage which would manifest emotionally, behaviourally or physically. Therefore, a regular intake of B12 is not relevant because perfect health, in reality, does not exist.

However, even if nutritionally speaking, we all come into the healing category, the range of corrective measures is as broad as individuals. Keeping with the example of B12, it would be prudent to replace all amalgam fillings and start with a mercury detoxification protocol and re-hydration. It is highly unlikely that anyone with amalgam toxicity has adequate essential fatty acids or B12; therefore, a complete nutritional profile would be worth considering.  Therapy for cancer treatment has long employed intramuscular injections of B12 or sublingual methylcobalamin which override, to some degree, the inadequacy of stomach secretions. 

Healing, or cause to put right again, is a 21st Century nutritional reality. It is not possible to properly correct a deficiency without considering the cause of it in each individual.** Simple lack of intake is corrected by adequate intake, but this is extremely rare. Factors which prevent whole-body nutritional synergy, and/or absorption, are by far the most important aspects to deal with first. The universally applicable sequence of re-hydration (including unrefined sea salt), detoxification and nutritional corrections is applicable to all before individually determined areas can be assessed. Each of the three major areas is considerable in its own right, especially that of detoxification, but they all work together, none being sufficient alone. Emotions and ‘baggage’ affect digestion and nutritional uptake. Those who have started to correct the above three major areas might find great benefits in addressing these areas next.

Footnotes

*    The myelin sheath is the fatty insulation surrounding the axon of nerve cells.
**    Kinesiology is one assessment tool which is useful in this area.

Comments:

  1. Chef Jem said..

    Thank you Vivienne!

    The hydrating, detoxifying and nutritional correction sequence is undeniably supportive for the healing process. It amazes me that this is not real common knowledge among every living individual! One would be lucky to hear this from their general practitioner. And yet the truth of the most essential requirements for the body is well documented.

    I'm especially glad that you presented B12 as your example in this article. How about a book on this? I'll pre-order 10 copies!

    In Gratitude!

    ~Chef Jem


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About Vivienne Bradshaw-Black

Vivienne Bradshaw-Black Cert Ed produced a health information course. She believes that the understanding of what causes health and what causes sickness can cut through the maze of confusion which dominates the sickness industry. Her desire is to teach this to those who choose health and offer contacts and support to individuals and groups taking responsibility for their own health choices. She can be contacted initially by email at viv@ichc.co.uk

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