Your Wellness

Guide
by Jake Petrykowski and Dave Saunders
 Your Wellness Guide

Your Wellness Guide

Copyright © 2005-2008 by Jake Petrykowski and Dave Saunders

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This guide is NOT intended to replace information supplied by a physician, pharmacist, or other
healthcare professional. It is DEFINITELY NOT intended to replace any information you receive in
package inserts or other materials that come with your particular medications or herbal preparations.

This guide is not intended to include every drug-herb, drug-nutrient, or other interaction. If you are using
medications or preparations that are not presented here, you should seek information from your
prescribing physician.

This guide is intended to be used for informational purposes only and is not intended to be used for
medical diagnosis or treatment or to substitute for a medical diagnosis and/or treatment rendered or
prescribed by a physician or competent healthcare professional. Statements in this book are not approved
by the FDA. The author does not directly or indirectly practice medicine or provide medical services and
therefore assumes no liability whatsoever of any kind for the information and data accessed through this
book or for any diagnosis or treatment made in reliance thereon. Nothing in this book shall be construed
as medical advice.

Please use common sense and consult a physician whenever you have questions regarding your health.

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Wellness: What Is It and Who Cares?

The term wellness is something you have probably heard before, but you might not know
what it means. Where the words sickness and disease imply describe the state of having
something “wrong” (disease literally means lack of ease), the wellness describes the
functions of the body that set right these problems and in many cases prevent them from
happening at all.

Sickness and disease are focused on what’s wrong while health and wellness are focused
on the support of natural bodily processes that restore, protect and defend you at the
cellular level.

It makes you wonder why health insurance isn’t called Sickness Insurance, doesn’t it?

According the World Health Organization health is defined, not as a mere absence of
symptoms but rather “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and
social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Health and wellness are about balance. However there are some common myths about
health which should be dispelled immediately.

• Healthy people can catch colds and the flu

(though will less frequency than a less healthy person)

• Healthy people can get injured

(and studies show they heal more quickly than a less healthy person)

• Healthy people can have a genetic challenge

(again it can be shown that a healthier person will express a genetic condition less
acutely than an unhealthy one)

• Healthy people die

(as do all people)

Health is your personal responsibility. By making good choices to support your health
and wellness, as well as to share information and education with others, you can help
reduce health insurance costs, rates of preventable chronic disease and reduce your need
for dangerous drugs and medical procedures. This by no means you should ignore the
advice of a doctor or not to seek medical attention when you need it. Healthier people are
more resilient, and heal faster. That should be good news to you and your loved ones if
any are in need of the miraculous life-saving measures made possible by Western
Medicine in the emergency room.

How do you support health and wellness? Good lifestyle choices like regular chiropractic
visits, regular exercise, stress management, and excellent nutrition habits all serve to

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support the natural processes of the body that repair and maintain tissue, support a
strong immune system (that is, one that is functioning correctly) and help keep you in a
naturally balanced state that can quickly rebalance itself in the event of something
negative happening in your life.

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A Primer of Basic Nutrition

In the beginning the study of nutrition was incredibly simple: you ate food and it made
you sick or it didn't. This information was passed along from person to person so other
people could avoid the foods that made them sick without having to taste it for
themselves. Some foods were also found to make one feel better during times of illness.
This knowledge accumulated into the first Materia Medica in 3,000 BC and led to the
knowledge of herbology, which is now finding modern validation in countries like
Germany and Japan where advanced plant studies add to the new recognition of this
ancient knowledge.

The process of gathering food also began to involve longer periods of time between
harvesting and consumption and processing techniques were developed to make the food
last longer. This had an impact on the healthfulness of food and early on it was
recognized that these foods could be pleasurable to eat and could also sustain life for
short periods of time when no other food was available, but they could not be used for
long-term sustenance.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, rapid industrialization, a large global population
and emerging global conflicts led to a scarcity of so-called fixed nitrogen which is an
absolutely essential component of fertilizer. Fixed nitrogen is also a key component in
the making of explosives. German scientist Fritz Haber developed an artificial technique
for creating fixed nitrogen from petroleum. Known as the Haber-Bosch process, Fritz
Haber shared the Nobel Prize in 1920 for this important discovery with Carl Bosch.
While the initial intent behind this discovery was to serve the German war effort, Fritz
Haber also provided a crucial ingredient for chemical fertilizer.

The ability to produce artificial, fixed nitrogen completed the equation developed by
Baron Justus von Liebig who declared in 1840 that soil fertility was based on nitrogen,
potassium and phosphorus as the key minerals necessary for growing food. The evidence
of this discovery can still be found on every bag of artificial fertilizer emblazoned with the
initials N-P-K to this day.

Research from Liebig also provided the first break down of food into basic components.
It was his assertion was that animals only require protein, fats and carbohydrates for
sustenance. This research was considered to be as important as the research behind
fertilization of plants because if large numbers of military troops were to be sustained it
was in very important to know what parts of food were actually necessary to support life.

However, as it can be easily shown that plants fed only N-P-K have lower levels of
micronutrients than the same plants grown in "organic" soil, so too can it be shown that
animals fed highly refined foods, stripped of essential nutrients, will not thrive compared
to those who eat more nutritionally-supportive foods. Liebig's research was important in
that it provided the first reduction of food into its basic components and opened the

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doors for additional research to find other "parts" which were essential for nutritional
support, but it was also a bit of a curse for those who subscribed to this overly
reductionist concept of food composition.

The next components of food to be discovered are known as the micronutrients. These
are the vitamins, minerals and trace elements and were all discovered between 1908 and
1935. Research continues today in order to determine the scope of importance these
nutrients play in human physiology and health. At the newly established Center for
Nutrigenomics, at UC Davis, research is even conducted to show how individual
nutrients directly influence gene expression.

Continued research into the composition of food has added antioxidants, glyconutrients,
phytosterols and sub-classes like polyphenols and proanthocyanines to the growing list
of necessary and essential nutrients which are often missing from our highly processed
modern diets.

The varieties of these plant chemicals number in the thousands and the best way to
access them is through a widely varied diet, rich in fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately
most people in most nations now consume very narrow diets, composed largely of corn
and animals fed nothing but corn. A report from the Economic Research Service of the
USDA estimated that we would need an additional six million acres of crop production to
supply the fruits and vegetables all people in the US should be eating in their daily diets.
These numbers clearly show that the majority of people do not come even close to eating
enough fruits and vegetables for optimal nutrition. Ironically, informal surveys seem to
suggest that most people believe that they eat well even though the money spent and
food supply available shows that less than 1% do or even can.

Any step that one is removed from the direct gathering of food reduces the potential
nutritional support of that food. For example, at room temperature, spinach looses over
90% of its Vitamin C content in only 24 hours from harvesting. In the United States,
most of the agriculture resources are dedicated to massive monoculture growth, typically
corn and production of other fruits and vegetables is left either to import or to
comparatively small plantations of crops which are also grown in monoculture.

The knowledge of food composition and nutrition is necessary today because food is no
longer a simple issue. Very few people walk outside and simply eat what they are able to
pick directly from plants around them. If an optimal diet is highly varied and the
available food supply is distinctly narrow, the benefits of understanding nutrition, and
how it affects good health over long periods of time, cannot be understated.

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How Malnutrition Affects You

We often associate malnutrition with people in developing countries, where the food
supply is inadequate.

Malnutrition occurs with people of developed countries as well.

The original definition of malnutrition centered around the intake of calories. This was
due to the assumption that food was made from ingredients that also provided nutrition
in the form of amino acids, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, plant sterols, essential
sugars, essential fats, antioxidants, naturally occurring enzymes and so on.

In the US, the World Health Organization has stated we are experiencing an epidemic of
over nutrition. This means we are getting far, far too many calories in our diets.

We’re also experiencing the double-whammy of those calories being very unnutritious in
their extreme lack of vitamins, minerals, trace elements, plant sterols, essential sugars,
essential fats, antioxidants, naturally occurring enzymes and so on.

We are intended to eat from a wide variety of foods, but the typical person consumes a
very narrow selection of foods. Modern farming practices that value monocultures over
variety compound this problem.

Processed foods are often highly processed and stripped of many vital nutrients. In
addition to this, medications, stress, environmental toxins and tissue injury can further
increase the need for nourishment.

An extreme lack of a specific nutrient will result in disease.

For example, scurvy is the disease which results from severe lack of Vitamin C. Such
diseases are what most people associate with malnutrition. Less acute deficiencies can
still affect proper functioning of the body such as in the brain, eyesight, height, weight,
the functioning of various organs, as well as the development and formation of body
parts, especially in unborn babies, newborn babies, and young children.

How do we protect ourselves from the dangers of malnutrition? We can first turn to the
Food Pyramid for a bit of guidance. For fruits and vegetables, the Food Pyramid suggests
that we eat about nine servings of a variety of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables each day.
Unfortunately most people aren’t eating this minimum and a recent report from the
economic research arm of the USDA stated that we would need an additional six million
acres of farmland to grow enough of this produce to support this minimal need for the
American diet. This suggests that we are most certainly not getting sufficient nutrition
from food alone.

A second option to improve nutrition is to add freshly made juices to your diet. Juice
extractors are very affordable and work by grinding away the extra fiber and cellulose

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from a fruit or vegetable and channeling the juice into a container. The juices are
naturally sweet. Even a juice made from celery and spinach has a sweet flavor. Making
your own juice provides better nourishment than pre-packaged juices and isn’t likely to
contain added sugar, or preservatives, unless you’re adding those yourself. The downside
to juicing is that juice extractors tend to make a mess, and must be cleaned immediately
after use.

The third option is to supplement the diet with food-based, standardized nutritional
supplements. This means supplements which are made by concentrating nutrients from
food sources and are then tested to ensure that the final product provides those nutrients
in a consistent fashion. Unfortunately, most nutritional supplements do not meet these
standards so it is important that if you are going to use dietary supplements, to fill in the
holes of your diet, you must find ones that are effective instead of reaching for the
cheapest, mega-sized bottle of chemically manufactured multivitamins you can find.

Studies have shown that people who are well-nourished tend to get ill less often and
recover quickly from injury and disease when such events occur. A good diet is good
when you eat more whole foods, ensure that there are no gaps in vital nutrients from day
to day and also limit your exposure to things which can harm you. This can certainly be a
challenge, but the more we are aware of how these different factors can affect our lives,
the more we can make choices which provide us with the maximum benefit.

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Top 7 Nutrition Tips for a Healthy Life

Wondering what simple steps you can take to improve your diet and improve your
health? Here are 7 simple nutrition tips which can help you have more energy, and
experience better health starting today.

Eat Whole Foods

Eating whole foods doesn't mean they have to be "whole" when you eat them. Instead it
refers to the form they were in when you obtained them. Your body was designed to use
foods in their natural form and cooking can deplete essential nutrients. Instead of getting
your next meal from a box or a can, add some cut fruits or vegetables to your meal for an
easy first step towards eating more whole foods.

Super food list

Here’s a list of foods that provide the highest concentration of nutritional support per
bite.

Apples, Avocado, Beans, Blueberries, Broccoli, Dark chocolate, Extra virgin olive oil,
Garlic, Honey , Kiwi, Oats, Onion, Oranges , Pumpkin, Pomegranates, Wild Salmon,
Walnuts, Spinach, Tomatoes, Turkey
Limit Processed Foods
Processing refines out many nutrients and natural compounds which would have been in
the whole food ingredients. By removing natural fats and other naturally occurring
compounds, processed foods last longer on the shelf and the box you buy today will taste
exactly the same as the one you buy a year from now. This is good for business, but not
so good for nutrition. Processing also adds chemicals to preserve, control consistency,
add flavor, smells or textures to enhance the sale of the product. None of these are things
that your body needs. The abundance of processed foods is being cited as a major factor
in the obesity rates which are rapidly rising in "industrialized" nations. Processing breaks
down the food leading to faster absorption of sugars and starches and rapid blood-sugar
fluctuations.

Avoid Artificial Sweeteners

Aspartame, Sucralose and Saccharine all have known toxic properties. This is not due to
“allergies” that some people may or may not have. Some people are more resilient to
poisons than others but eventually all are affected.

There is no such thing as a “perfectly safe” artificial sweetener.

There are over 6,500 products that now contain Aspartame. Read ingredient labels!

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Rethink What You Drink

Who says pasteurized, homogenized milk does a body good? The American Dairy
Council. The facts should make you question the validity of that statement. Numerous
allergies are attributed to the consumption of milk and certain proteins may even
contribute to a net-loss of Calcium in the body. Finally, the USDA quality standards
allow for up to 1.5 million white blood cells per milliliter of milk…that’s pus!

Other drinks are also not all they appear to be.

Most “healthy waters” are sweetened with Aspartame or Sucralose.

Many fruit juices list high fructose corn syrup as the first, and most abundant ingredient.

Drink Clean Water

Clean water is free of chemicals, and infectious agents (bacteria, viruses, other
organisms) and should contain levels of beneficial minerals and trace elements as found
in natural water sources. Over-filtered and distilled water, may accelerate bone mineral
loss but can also help the body naturally detoxify itself when used appropriately.

Limit Your Animal Protein

Increased portion sizes provide far more animal protein than a person can handle in a
entire day. Animal proteins lead to build up of uric acid and other toxins in the kidneys.
While your body can manage these toxins (within reason), limiting portion sizes can
enhance health and will not deprive you of essential dietary amino acids.

So No to All Trans Fat

According to new studies, there’s no amount of trans fat which is ok for your body. This
isn’t about limiting trans fat from your diet. Eliminate it all. No amount of trans fat is
good for you.

Say Yes To Carbs…As Long As They Are The Right Ones

Your body doesn't need any refined carbs (for example, while flour, white rice, white
sugar, etc.), but your body needs fresh fruits and vegetables every day. At least 50% of
your calories should come from these whole foods. For a great shopping tip, buy as many
colors of foods as possible. The colors come from different nutrients so the greater the
color variety, the better your nutritional support.

Use Dietary Supplements

Dietary supplements should supplement, not substitute the benefits of a good diet. This
means that the job of a high-quality supplement is to “fill in the holes” that are common
in the diet of just about everyone in our modern world. Choose wisely though. Most
supplements are of a very low quality. Only use food-based dietary supplements that are
backed by a quality assurance program which uses independent laboratory testing to
ensure you’re getting the nutritional support you’re paying for.

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Exercise Primer
Each January, hoards of people join a gym or health club with their health related new
year’s resolutions in mind. While gyms or health clubs can be a great place to pursue
health and fitness goals, they are by no means the only way to get the job done.

There are many exercises that can be performed in the comfort of your own home in a
safe and efficient matter, using only your own body weight. This is a wonderful option for
the novice workout enthusiast. These exercises require little to no equipment and since
they use only your own bodyweight, they are very safe.

As always, speak with your doctor before engaging in any exercise program.

If you have mobility or health challenges, start very slowly. Try one repetition of an
exercise before you try two. This is a great example of “baby steps” being a safe and
advantageous way to go.

You may be wondering; “why should I exercise at all?” Here are just few of the many,
many reasons that regular exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health,
today and in the future.

• Reduce the risk of premature death

• Reduce the risk of developing and/or dying from heart disease

• Reduce high blood pressure or the risk of developing high blood pressure

• Reduce high cholesterol or the risk of developing high cholesterol

• Reduce the risk of developing colon cancer and breast cancer

• Reduce the risk of developing diabetes

• Reduce or maintain body weight or body fat

• Build and maintain healthy muscles, bones, and joints

• Reduce depression and anxiety

• Improve psychological well-being

• Enhanced work, recreation, and sport performance

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Wall Slide
Strengthens: thigh muscles, hamstrings, gluteus maximus

Level: beginner, intermediate

Be sure to walk around a bit and do some gentle stretching and warming up before you
begin this exercise.

While doing this knee exercise, wear sturdy shoes that provide good support for your
feet. Make sure you are standing on carpet or a non-slippery surface.

Stand with your back against a wall, and your feet straight in front of you.

Slide down, keeping your back against the wall, until you are in a slight sitting position.
Slide down only as far as you feel comfortable; when you get stronger you will be able to
slide into more of a sitting position.

For the first few times you do this knee exercise, hold the sitting position for a few
seconds, then slide back up. As your quad muscles get stronger, you can hold the sitting
position for up to 20 seconds.

Start by performing this exercise 3 times (sets). As you feel stronger, you work up to
repeating this exercise 10 times (sets).

Use the “ten scale” to determine fatigue level. Perform this exercise until you feel at least
a 6-8 “burn level”.

When you are finished, walk around a bit to give your knees and quads a gentle stretch.

This knee exercise can be repeated several times per week.

Push-ups
Level: intermediate, advanced

Strengthens: chest, shoulders, biceps, core

Be sure to walk around a bit and do some gentle stretching and warming up before you
begin this exercise. Perform some shoulder circles/rotations as well.

While doing this exercise, make sure you are on a non-slip surface.

Start out with your hands on the ground, about shoulder width apart and your feet
touching together. Push yourself up until your legs and upper body are both in a straight
line. You should look like a horizon, not an upside down V. Slowly lower your body
towards the floor, using your arms and upper body as your main source of control. Stop
just short of your nose touching the ground and push yourself back up. Don’t worry if
you can’t do many. One will become two; two will become three and so on. The key is

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slow and controlled form. Do as many as you can while using perfect form. Less is more.
Form, form, form.

*Beginners can do push ups against a wall, standing up. Let your strength be your guide.
Start with your feet closer to the wall in the beginning and slowly move your feet farther
away from the wall, as you get stronger.

Toe Raises
Level: beginner through advanced

Strengthens: Calves

Be sure to walk around a bit and do some gentle stretching and warming up before you
begin this exercise.

Find a set of stairs, preferably indoors. While gently holding onto the railing with one
hand, slide your feet backwards until only your toes and the ball of your feet are still on
the stairs.

Slowly lower your heels until you feel a comfortable stretch in your heel and calves.
Slowly raise your feet back up by pressing and flexing your toes against the stairs.

Use the “ten scale” to determine fatigue level. Perform this exercise until you feel at least
a 6-8 “burn level”.

Always stretch the muscles you trained after a workout. Give your muscles ample time to
recover before training them again. A good rule of thumb is to wait between 24-48 hours.
If a muscle you have trained is sore or painful, do not train it again until this sensation is
gone.

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What is Anti-Aging Nutrition?

As the baby boomers get older, a larger and larger segment of the population is very
interesting in anything about anti-aging. Be it special creams, surgery, nutrition, genetic
manipulation, hyperbaric chambers, there are many avenues of research. Some people
will have you believe that anti-aging is not possible. I think this is untrue, but it requires
that the concept of anti-aging be defined properly.

Obviously, you can’t get any younger. Time affects each of us in the same way. We are all
moving forward as the clock ticks off each second. Aging, however, is not necessarily an
event that occurs as a strict function of time. Consider two cars of the same make a
model, being driven off the lot at exactly the same time. One car is maintained very well.
Repairs are addressed quickly. Salt is never left on the body or the underside. Fluids are
changed on a regular basis. The other vehicle is driven hard, rarely cleaned and is never
given a single oil change. At 40,000 miles, the cars should already be operating
differently. At 100,000 miles, it is likely that the second car is no longer running. It aged
more quickly than the other car, even though they are equally old.

The same is true for the human body, with an interesting exception. The human body is
made from living cells. They regenerate constantly which means that you are not stuck
with the cells you have today. Tomorrow you will already have about 400 billion new
cells. Given a healthy diet containing appropriate levels of nutrition and a limited intake
of preservatives and other chemicals which you body not only does not need, but can
even harm you, the number of healthy cells in your body will gradually increase and the
number of less-healthy cells will decrease.

This amounts to anti-aging as the cumulative effects of the aging process lessen over
time. Imagine if removing the rust from a spot on a car resulted in the metal being able
to heal. It doesn’t because it’s not alive. Your body is alive though and it does heal when
you remove the source of damage. Because of this, improved nutrition should be
considered a critical component to any anti-aging approach.

Here’s the catch. It seems the human body may have certain “timers” which have an
impact over things like how tall you are, when you enter puberty, and so on. Some of
these timers may also slow down hormone production and there may be timers, which
ultimately end your life at some maximum life span. Some of these things may be helped
with nutrition. For example, hormone balance can be greatly affected, both positively
and negatively, by nutrition. Other so-called timers may be “normal biology” and
therefore happen no matter what you do. Some of these timers might be affected by
genetic manipulation, but no such technology exists so don’t believe any claims about
changing your DNA to extend your life for about another 50 years.

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Either you support normal biology in an effort to bolster your potential for optimal
health or you manipulate normal biology and do something that is unnatural. There is no
third option. It’s your body so choose wisely.

Colorful Foods, Potent Antioxidants

When you shop for food you should notice a wide variety of colors found in the fruits and
vegetables are grown all around the world. These colors derive from plant chemicals also
known as phytochemicals and many are potent antioxidants that helped your body
neutralize oxidative stress and fight disease. What do the different colors represent and
how can you know you're getting the best antioxidant support from the food that you're
eating.

Here's a short list of just some of the antioxidants that give food their color as well as
their nutritional punch.

Lycopene, a potent antioxidant from the carotenoid family, protects DNA from mutation
and natural sources of it are being researched for its cancer fighting potential. This
antioxidant gives foods a red color. Tomatoes are considered an excellent source of
lycopene but if you've ever cut open a tomato and found that the meat is a very pale pink
or even white in color, that's because the lycopene content is very low.

Orange foods contain carotenes which are converted into Vitamin A in the body which is
needed to protect skin and eye sight as well as to support enzyme production in the liver
and sex organs.

Lutein and quercetin give foods a yellow color and can help improve vision as well as
provide anti-inflammatory support.

Blueberries and other purple foods contain anthocyanines which improve blood
circulation in vision and are among some of the few antioxidants that cross pass the so-
called blood-brain barrier.

Deep scarlet foods contain beta-cyanine antioxidants which are anti-anemic due to their
support of improved iron utilization.

Which colors do you need when shopping for your groceries? All of them. The best way
to select fruits and vegetables for a healthful diet is to select from as many available
colors of food that you can find.

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The New Science of Antioxidant Synergy

Since the initial discovery of antioxidants, science continues to move forward with new
developments and new understanding into how these important molecules work to
protect the body from oxidative stress and even prevent the progression of certain
disease processes. New scientific developments also show that different antioxidants can
actually positively synergize with each other or in some cases cancel each other out.
Laboratory methods of measuring these synergies have become the buzz in the research
world and amongst informed authors as the only viable method of comparing apples to
apples, or at least antioxidants to antioxidants.

Effective laboratory tests are also essential in the study of antioxidants as well as
antioxidant supplements because many manufacturing practices expose antioxidants to
heat and oxygen and thus render them useless in the final product.

The first laboratory tests to measure the potential of an antioxidant was developed in
1993 and called the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity test, or ORAC. Known as a
chemical assay, this test provided an efficient means of measuring the effective amount
of water-soluble antioxidants in a sample. However it did not test fat-soluble
antioxidants and could not test the synergy of antioxidants when combined with each
other. Because this assay is also based on fluorescence, a sample could provide a
misleading reading if it contained other compounds that were fluorescent but were not
antioxidants.

A newer assay known as ORACo was designed to add the ability to test fat-soluble
antioxidants, allow for the testing of synergistic combinations of antioxidants and
minimize the possibility of false positives that limited the effectiveness of the older
technology.

These types of tests are known as in vitro studies. This means the tests are not done
inside of a life form. To maximize the effectiveness of any antioxidant, so-called in vivo
studies are performed on the body to measure the delivery of the antioxidants to the
blood serum after the antioxidant has been ingested. Such testing is of extraordinary
importance because antioxidants are ineffective unless they make it into the areas of the
body they're intended to go.

Any study-data on antioxidants that does not include both in vitro and in vivo
verification that the antioxidant supplements are effective and being delivered to the
blood serum is inherently flawed and untrustworthy.

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Any antioxidant supplement should therefore meet the following criteria.

• The antioxidants in the supplement should come from natural food sources and
not inexact, synthetic counterparts.

• The supplement should be manufactured against an in vitro chemical assay,

publishing the ORACo value per standardized serving, to show the antioxidant
effectiveness of both water and fat-soluble antioxidants in the supplement.

• The supplement should also be measured in vivo and verified by independent

laboratory analysis to demonstrate that the antioxidants are actually being
delivered to the blood serum where they can be used by the body.

Any product that meets these criteria can be trusted to effectively deliver the benefits of
antioxidants in the manner we would expect to receive them from fresh fruits and
vegetables being eaten directly off the vine from a living plant.

As most antioxidant supplements do not meet any of the above criteria, care should be
taken to select a supplement that meets these basic quality standards.

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What is Optimal Health Anyway?

This happened to me recently. I had a woman attend one of my health lectures using a
walker. She had just come from dialysis and was wearing a surgical boot. I asked her if
she had any health concerns, and she said no. That’s right, she told me that apart from
the wound in her foot that wouldn’t heal and her failing kidneys she was otherwise in
good health.

I’m very thankful to live in a world with such amazing, life-saving technology as dialysis,
but I’m also amazed that someone in this state would consider herself to be in a good
state of health.

What does it mean to be healthy anyway? It stands to reason that there should be an
accepted definition of health to use as a starting point. It so happens that the World
Health Organization has one.

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity.”

This definition has not been changed since 1948. It pretty much says it all.

The word health comes from the same root word that gives us the word holy. It’s about
being whole. Being healthy is about being in balance. Balance doesn’t mean that you
never lean to one side or the other. Balance is about how quickly you come back to
center. Physical health is greatly influenced by genetics, environment and diet. Someone
who falls and receives a scrape should expect to heal. First their genes will influence
potential. Some people may not form blood clots well. Some people may have other
disorders that slow their ability to rebuild tissue. Others heal very quickly.

The environment may influence healing processes as well. If you keep scraping your
knee, how quickly would you expect it to heal? Damaging influences need to be taken
away. What other things are affecting your body that it is also trying to deal with? If your
body is trying to deal with constant lung irritation due to bad air, the resources of your
body might not be able to cover other battles, like an infected wound.

Diet is about raw materials. You are what you eat. If you are providing your body with
good foods that are not saturated with preservatives you have the raw materials the cells
need to perform the tasks of healing. Sometimes it is difficult to eat the recommended
amounts of fresh whole foods on a daily basis, so high-quality dietary supplements can
help ensure that you have the raw materials your body needs.

Studies have shown that people with better diets seem to enjoy better health. This means
that they still get sick from time to time. They are still at the same risk for car accidents
and paper cuts. What makes them healthier than others is measured by how quickly they
come back to their balance. How is your state of balance?

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The Need for Supplementation

When I began to study nutrition, I too believed that it was possible and even easy to get
all the nutrition I needed from diet alone.

What I discovered was shocking to me. Over the past 50 years the quality of nutrition, or
the availability of nutrients in our diets, has steadily decreased. This is even true for
people who think that they eat a healthy diet today. Why does this happen? The complete
answer is complex but in short, nutrient depletion in our soil, combined with green
harvesting (which interrupts the natural biology of the plant before it has manufactured
most of the nutrients we should be getting), and new toxins found in our environment
result in produce that simply has fewer nutrients available to us than previously found in
those same foods. Organically grown products offer some greater benefit however most
are still green harvested and are therefore picked before most of the nutrients have been
manufactured. At least they have lower levels of man-made toxins than some non-
organic produce.

This problem is further compounded by our fast food diets. All too often we eat food that
provides calories but does not provide adequate nutrients. So we are feeding our bodies
but we're not nourishing our bodies. Nutrients provide the basic building blocks for all of
the functions of our cells. If we are only providing our bodies with calories we are
depriving our bodies of the other essential components to good health.

Many of us take better care of our cars than of our bodies.

So while it is important that we all learn how to make better dietary choices, it is also
essential that we take supplementation, to make up for the nutrients that are missing
from our food and that our bodies need so much. There is no single nutrient that will
make up for a deficiency of another nutrient. We need to be taking balanced supplements
which provide us with quality sources of all of the nutrients, provided in the correct
ratios to each other.

To be clear, supplementation means supplementation. It is not substitution for a healthy

diet. We should all be eating more whole foods and fewer processed foods.

Mega dosages of individual vitamins are not necessarily beneficial to us. In fact, some
studies have shown that certain fat soluble vitamins should not be taken in extremely
high quantities. This makes complete sense to me. Think of supplementation as simply
providing the nutrients that should be in your well balanced diet. Vitamins and minerals
and other nutritional components often works synergistically with each other so it is vital
that you get all of the nutrients that are necessary for support of natural biological
function.

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What Supplements Should You Take?

The following is a list of dietary supplements that should be considered to support the
loss of nutrient support in the modern diet. The supplements in the following list all
support what used to be found in a normal diet.

Vitamin/Mineral Complex

Your vitamins and minerals should always come from natural food sources and most
supplements contain vitamins made from petroleum derived chemicals and minerals
mined from the same rock quarries that sell calcium to cement factories.

Few people eat as nutritiously as they should for lasting wellness. Modern farming
techniques, storage and transport methods have reduced the nutritional value of many
forms of produce from their nutritional content of only a few decades ago.

Every person can benefit from a plant-based vitamin and mineral complex to ensure
adequate nutritional support.

Antioxidant Blend

Antioxidant-rich nutrients help protect your cells against the harmful effects of toxins,
environmental stress, poor diet and oxidative stress. Antioxidants also act as free radical
scavengers. Toxins such as pollution, radiation, cigarette smoke and herbicides on cells
can create free radicals. Stress and poor food can also contribute to the creation of free
radicals. Free radicals attack atoms by stealing electrons, making these atoms unstable.

Plant Sterols

Plant Sterols are not hormones. Instead, they provide nutrients to help support the
endocrine system’s natural production and balance of hormones.

Glyconutrients

Glyconutrients are sugars which are not used for energy but instead support effective
cell-to-cell communication. The messages cells exchange directly affect your natural
defense (immune) and endocrine (glandular) systems, as well as affecting proper gland
and organ function.

Essential Fatty Acid (Omega 3 Only)

The importance of Omega 3 fatty acids cannot be understated. Over 65% of the mass of a
healthy brain is made from these fats, omega 3 fatty acids also help the body regulate
blood thinness and control inflammation. Modern diets are very heavy in Omega 6 fatty
acid (promoted through livestock fed 100% corn diets) which is known to thicken the
blood and promote inflammation.

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Digestive Enzyme Support

Live plants actually contain digestive enzymes that your body can use to digest the foods
you’re eating. Cooking and processing denatures and otherwise destroys many of these
enzymes and increases the burden on your body to produce enzymes to make up for
what’s missing. A broad spectrum digestive enzyme supplement helps ensure that
thoroughly ingested material gets broken down and passes rapidly through the digestive
tract.

Probiotics

In your body, there are about 60 trillion of your cells and about 100 trillion cells of
beneficial bacteria in a healthy colon. These cultures of bacterial support your immune
system and even help you absorb nutrients in food that are otherwise indigestible. A
probiotic supplement provides the “right” bacteria to help regulate the delicate balance
that exists among these bacteria for a healthy intestine. This balance can cause an overall
beneficial effect to take place among the various healthful microflora that live in the
human intestine.

For more information, visit www.glycojake.com. Feel free to contact me with any
questions or concerns. My e-mail address is glycojake@yahoo.com

At your service,

Jake Petrykowski

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