Part 3: Your Path to Healing – Chapter 7: Treating with Orthomolecular Medicine
(portions of this blog came from Dr. Rodger Murphree’s book)
Our body’s homeostatic mechanism, the HPA-axis, and in fact every cellular process, depends on the proper amount of essential nutrients. The raw biochemical material that makes up our physical and mental being first originates from foods. The entire process is amazing: macromolecules of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are ingeniously used to provide the vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, enzymes, and amino acids to the body as it manufactures bone, muscle, organs, cells, hormones, enzymes, antibodies, white blood cells, neurotransmitters, and other life-sustaining elements. We truly are what we eat.
The levels and interactions of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and the essential fatty acids determine our state of health. You would be dead in days without these essential nutrients. They help determine every bodily function: sleep, levels of pain, energy, moods, immune function, digestion, elimination thyroid production, metabolism, and more. Every cell in the body is dependent on having the right amounts and right interaction of these essential nutrients to work correctly.
What is Orthomolecular Medicine?
When we establish nutritional deficiencies, our health suffers. Man-made chemicals (synthetic prescription drugs) can’t correct these deficiencies, but a nutritional-replacement therapeutic program can. This is the very premise of orthomolecular medicine, which means, “right molecules in the right concentration.”
Synthetic drugs may be helpful at times, but they always have an inherent ability to cause harm. Not only are nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and essential fatty acids un-harmful, the body depends on them for survival.
Vitamin and Mineral Supplements
Problems such as hormonal, vitamin, and mineral deficiencies can contribute to muscle pain and soreness.
Below is a sample list of essential nutrients and their contributions to the treatment of FMS and CFS:
- Vitamin E helps to relieve pain in CFS patients. It can also improve nighttime leg cramps, which interfere with sleep.
- Vitamin C boosts the immune system by increasing natural-killer cells, B cells, and T cells.
- Magnesium and malic acid have been effective in relieving the symptoms of FMS. Magnesium is essential to healthy muscle function, and working with malic acid, it increases cellular energy, reduces pain, and enhances immune function by increasing natural killer cells.
- Inositol enhances the immune system by increasing natural-killer cells.
- Selenium supports the immune system by enhancing antibody production.
- Vitamin D regulates many immune functions.
- Amino Acids, such as glycine, serine, taurine, and tyrosine, are essential for the production of energy in the body and for brain function.
- Zinc supports the immune system by enhancing white-blood-cell activity and supporting healthy antigen-antibody binding.
Sadly, many of these nutrients are deficient in our society. The facts are that most of our foods are processed, and therefore, the nutrients have been leeched out of them. As a result 70% of the population is deficient in magnesium, 65% is deficient in zinc, 48% is deficient in calcium, and 56% is deficient in vitamin C.
It’s clear that everyone can benefit from taking a good multivitamin and mineral formula. This daily habit reduces the incidence of heart disease, hear attack, stroke, glaucoma, macular degeneration, type-2 diabetes, senile dementia and various cancers.
But I already take a vitamin
You might be thinking, I’ve taken a vitamin for years, and I haven’t noticed a difference. You probably haven’t been taking enough to even make a dent in your deficiencies.
Just a note:
Problems can occur with megavitamin or herbal therapy. But if symptoms arise, reducing or stopping the therapy will almost always put an end to any side effects. Working with a physician who specializes in vitamin, mineral or herbal therapies will usually help you avoid any negative effects in the first place.
Chapter 8: Your Stress-Coping Savings Account
We’re all born with a stress-coping “savings account” filled with chemicals – such as hormones, amino acids, and nutrients – that can be deposited and then withdrawn when needed. Depending on our genes, some of us have large accounts and some of us have smaller ones. The more stress we’re under, the more withdrawals we make. If we make more withdrawals than deposits, we get overdrawn, and poor health quickly follows. Individuals with fibromyalgia and/or CFS have bankrupted their stress-coping savings account.
Although some patients bankrupt their accounts with one overwhelming event, most experience a series of stressful events over the years. These events typically involve stressful jobs, marriages, family dynamics, surgeries, illnesses, loss of a loved one, divorce, financial failure, etc.
FMS and CFS are the result of internal biochemical imbalances that manifest themselves as physical symptoms. So in order to right the homeostatic system, you must correct the underlying biochemical problems. Just like an onion, you peel away one layer at a time until you get to the core.
Layers if the onion (the book goes into detail for each item):
- Dysautonomia and the HPA Axis
- Hypothalamus Gland Dysfunction
- Dehydration
- Low levels of Human Growth Hormone
- Low levels of DHEA
- Low levels of Cortisol
- Low Ovarian and Testicular Function
- Hypothyroidism
The other layers of the onion (the book goes into detail for each item):
- Intestinal Permeability (Leaky Gut Syndrome)
- Malabsorption Syndrome
- The Liver and Detoxification
- Nutritional Deficiencies
- Parasites
- Food Allergies and Hypersensitivities
- Candida Yeast Syndrome/Intestinal Dysbiosis
- Trauma, Especially Neck Injuries
- Depression
- Infections
- Poor Sleep
The next chapter is: Chapter 9: Stress as a Catalyst for Illness
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