Originally published June 7 2009
Dr. Doug Graham Part III: The Medical Model, the Hygienic Model and Supplements
by Kevin Gianni
(NaturalNews) This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's Rawkathon, which can be found at http://www.Rawkathon.com. In this excerpt, Dr. Doug Graham shares on the medical model, the hygienic model and some insights into supplements.
Rawkathon with Dr. Doug Graham. Dr. Doug Graham has a background in sports science and nutrition and is a chiropractor as well. Dr. Graham is a raw food eater and the mind behind the 80/10/10 principle.
Kevin: Now you mentioned that you have people that you go to for your daughter, to just check up and make sure that this is going as well as you had planned it to. Do you think that a regimen of testing maybe once a year, twice a year is appropriate?
Dr. Graham:: My experience with people who eat well is they get much more in touch with themselves than they ever thought humanly possible. They get much more in touch with their emotions. Even guys, they get much more in touch with their feelings. They get much more in touch with what is going on in their body; they get much more in touch with their senses, and in every way. I don't recommend using medical testing as a way of finding out what is going on. But I do recommend realizing that health isn't all about 80/10/10 diet, but it is about an 80/10/10 healthy lifestyle.
So, if you were running your six minute mile as part of your daily routine, but you know a week ago it took me six-fifteen, and then two days later it took me six-thirty, and the next day it took me seven minutes, and it felt like I was running at a six minute pace, and today I did it and it took me eight minutes and it felt like a six minute pace, something is up. I wouldn't ignore that indicator.
If food stops tasting good or you start being very tired, or you start being really irritable, or you start having pains. The difference I think, the medical model is approaching health from a prophylactic stand point at this point. In order to promote healthcare, as it is referred to, even though we understand fully that it is sickness care, they've gone to a prophylactic approach, in other words, let's test you. If you show anything that might maybe think you could be possibly going off in the wrong direction, let's treat it now. And so before you have B12 deficiency, let's take those B12 supplements, prophylactically. Before you have a problem with too little salt in your diet, you better supplement with salt. Before you have high blood pressure symptoms, let's treat you for high blood pressure now. Before you have whatever it is, before you have cognitive loss, let's start taking ginkgo. Everything and anything, and this gets, this is how the medical model functions. The medical model functions on what I call a 3M approach or sometimes even a 4M approach, where they're going to monitor, maintain and manage you with medicine.
There is another approach to health that's called the hygiene approach, where we're not trying to treat or suppress symptoms, but rather, cause health and not participate in the cause of symptoms. Health being the natural state. If you take good care of a plant it is going to thrive, and it won't show symptoms. If it is showing symptoms it didn't, something in the substances, forces, influences or conditions weren't right. It's the same for us, health is our natural state. If we're not experiencing perfect, ideal, phenomenal, pinnacle health, something in the substances, forces, influences or conditions is not as it should be, and this is where modifying lifestyle...
So where the medical model says, "Substances, forces, influences and conditions required for health when you're healthy are different than those required when you're sick. When you're sick, take this drug. Even though the drug will make you sick if you're well. They'll make you well if you're sick." And you're supposed to buy right into that concept. The milk is really good for you when you're well but if you're sick it'll make you congested.
How does the milk know if you're sick or well?
We carried that in the raw food movement. We carried that medical model mindset right over and now we sell all of the supplements and all of the treatment plans and all of the flushes and cleanses and purifying agents and we think we're doing something different. We're patting our backs for having done something different while we're still actually just monitoring and maintaining and managing our sickness through substances, trying to treat and suppress our symptoms.
The hygiene model says, "Substances, forces, influences, and conditions are the same required in health as for regaining our health, but at all times they must be modified to meet the needs of the individuals." So, some days you need more sleep than you do other days but you always need sleep. Some days you need more fitness activity but you still need it. Some days you need more sunshine than others but we all need fitness, and sunshine and proper food, enough rest and joy and human touch, and enough interaction with other creatures on the planet.
Kevin: So you mentioned B12. If someone encounters a B12 deficiency, so they are there, then what's the approach to get out of it?
Dr. Graham: There are various approaches, the medical model would be to supplement with B12. This is akin to saying, "I've got a bucket. It's supposed to be full of water, but there's no water in here." The medical model would say, "Let's add water." The hygienic model or the health model would say, "Let's fill the hole. Once you fill the hole your body will refill the bucket automatically." What I've experienced is people with B12 deficiency are put on a fast. They consume no food of any kind other than pure water, who three to four weeks later test perfectly normal for B12 levels. What this showed is that it was an absorption problem not an exposure problem. B12 is everywhere. It's in the air. It's in the mucus membranes of your nose. Every time you inhale, you're breathing in B12; every time you swallow your own saliva, you're swallowing B12. It's not an exposure issue. There's no animal that produces B12. It's all bacterially produced, and yet we keep hearing myths. It has been shown in every diet; there is a certain percentage of people who go B12 deficient. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, raw fooder, or Standard American Diet, that percentage is the same. B12 deficiency was first discovered in carnivorous or what you would call "people who would eat anything" - kind of a diet. That's where B12 was first discovered and treated.
Kevin: OK. So it wasn't in a vegan...
Dr. Graham:: No, it was not in a vegan in any way. We're not showing that vegans have higher B12 deficiencies. But we do have to look at the reality that most grain products, especially those that are called "enriched grain products," cereal, breads, and pasta, and whatnots, are typically enriched with B12. So, although you might be eating Twinkees, it's enriched with B12, which means you're taking a B12 supplement every day. What we call the normal level of B12 is based on testing people who are supplementing with B12 at every meal. This is an abnormally high level of B12 compared to the normal population or compared to a population which isn't supplementing. We also have to understand that there's always a rebound phenomenon for anything in our body. It's like an over-steering mechanism that says, "If you're very high on something, then you come off of it, you're going to come down before you level out." So if you're high on speed you're going to crash...
Kevin: Right.
Dr. Graham:: ...before you level out. This is true for all drugs and substances in every way. So we see that if you were eating enriched B12 products or products enriched with B12 with every meal and when you totally stop, you may drop down before you level out. B12 testing is not a bad idea, particularly, but I wouldn't test for B12 until someone was showing me B12 deficiency symptoms.
When we understand that we live in a world where the scientist and the doctors and the nutritionist agree that 99 point something of all nutritional disorders in America are those of excess not insufficiency, the concept of supplementing on top of those excesses is sheer lunacy. Not only are they diseases of excess or conditions of excess, but they are conditions of excess in relation to other nutrients. So, isolating nutrients stops making sense. The only place you're going to get those nutrients in balance is in whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic fruits and vegetables. Those have nutrients in proportion to match our nutrient needs. That's where you're going to get calcium in relation to phosphorus and selenium in relation to zinc and all of the other things that are as they are supposed to be in the body. That's where you are going to get your Omega-3 and Omega-6s in balance with each other, rather than saying I just need more of this, and then more of this, and then more of this, and then more of that.
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Graham:: That can never work. Every nutritional supplement results in more imbalance than it started with or it tried to overcome. Obviously, if a person is dying from an iron deficiency, or obviously, if a person is dying from a B12 deficiency, supplement and save a life. But the solution is in changing or modifying or at least experimenting with a lifestyle alteration that will stop causing the symptoms rather than treating the symptoms. It's silly to keep treat(ing) the symptoms and still keep causing them.
Kevin: Yeah. What would you like to leave someone with here who's (reading) this interview? We have about three minutes left.
Dr. Graham:: Health is a natural state. If you have sickness, remove the causes. Health is the easiest thing on the planet. Eating fruits and vegetables, the most rewarding food there could ever be - the sense of satiation by itself, let alone the confidence that comes from eating the only two foods that have ever truly been known as health foods and recognized as health foods, fruits and vegetables. Living a healthful lifestyle is a comprehensive picture. It is not just about fitness or just about food. But it is about all of the factors in health.. If you want to actually have comprehensive health because you are only as good as your weakest link, if you want to have comprehensive health, you have to take care of the weakest links. The rest are ready to go. I think that eating well is so easy and such a gift that people need to actually experiment and find out, "Hey, the water's fine here like I say it is."
We need to do a lot in order to create a healthier environment, save the soil and rebuild this planet back into the Garden of Eden that it once was for our own human experience. I think this is done through taking responsibility. That's where the sticky point really is because most people are taught that they're not responsible for their own health.
Kevin: Dr.. Graham:, I want to thank you for being part of this program.
For more from this excerpt of the Rawkathon, plus 14 other amazing raw food interviews, please visit http://www.Rawkathon.com.
About the author
Kevin Gianni is a health advocate, author and speaker. He has helped thousands of people in over 85 countries learn how to take control of their health--and keep it. To view his popular internet TV Show "The Renegade Health Show" (and get a free gift!) with commentary on natural health issues, vegan and raw food diets, holistic nutrition and more click here.
His book, "The Busy Person's Fitness Solution," is a step-by-step guide to optimum health for the time and energy-strapped. To find out more about abundance, optimum health and self motivation click here... or you're interested in the vegan and raw food diet and cutting edge holistic nutrition click here. For access to free interviews, downloads and a complete bodyweight exercise archive visit www.LiveAwesome.com.
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