 Book Review: CLEANThis book is a must read for anyone who eats food! One of my favorite health care themes is when an MD sees "the other side". It is written by Alejandro Junger, a Cardiologist. His own paradigm shift in thinking came after a high paced, high stress medical training and 3 day straight hospital rounds inevitably affected his own health. When symptoms of allergies, abdominal bloating, alternating constipation and diarrhea, chest pain, depression and insomnia started affecting him, his colleagues were quick to diagnose "irritable bowel syndrome" and "depression" after a slew of expensive medical tests were performed. (How many of us does this describe?) He was told that there wasn't much that could be done and left with prescriptions for anti-spasmodics, anti-flatulents, pain killers, anti-diarrhea meds and Prozac! Not a single doctor asked him what he was eating. Despite his medical training, Dr. Junger took issue with having to take medication his entire life. When told by his psychiatrist that he had "a chemical imbalance" he asked the question, "How did my cells forget to do their chemistry?" Instinctively rejecting the very principles that his own education was founded on, Alejandro Junger took up a second residency in the vast bookstores of NYC. He read everything he could about psychiatry, psychology, New Age, Self-Help, Eastern Philosophy and meditation. He sought professional help and became a student of meditation and yoga. His new fascination with getting to the root cause of illness, and not simply putting out the fires, led him to drop everything and join an integrative medical group in India. There he worked with Ayurvedic doctors, Chinese medical doctors, Chiropractors, nurses, massage therapists, hands-on healers and meditation instructors from all over the world. His patient care experiences under this model taught him that drugs and surgery were rarely needed. When given the right support, the body could use it's own natural healing ability to restore balance.
Upon his return from India, Dr. Junger began work on creating a practical system whereby his patients could reactivate their own potential for healing without having to check into an expensive retreat center. This is how he developed the Clean program. Clean refers to a way of eating and living that unlocks our on-board, built-in system for detoxification. Across time, many cultures and healers recognized the essential nature of fasting and resting or contemplative times. Periods of feast were always followed by periods of famine. Our natural ability to detox is interrupted by overeating, a diet void of vital nutrients, environmental toxins and stress. We are all victims of this to varying degrees. Common complaints such as headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, allergies, weight gain, depression, anxiety, pain and fatigue are the result of failing detoxification processes. The common link to all of these everyday maladies is chronic inflammation. Inflammation has been linked to just about every long-term, chronic degenerative disease, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and autoimmune disorders.
Dr. Junger points out that there are many detox programs out there that have made the subject all together controversial because of their lack of research and potential for adverse health affects. Clean is NOT a fast, it is a carefully balanced way to reduce the overall toxic load, rest the digestive system by eating low stress foods, and replenish vital nutrients and enzymes that are commonly missing in the Standard American Diet. Dr. Junger encourages us to challenge traditional medical thinking by describing what he calls a few Inconvenient Truths:
- While science and technology is making great advances, as a society we are getting sicker and sicker. Obesity, heart disease, cancer, infertility (to name a few) are on the rise.
- A medical diagnosis is no longer based on careful observation, listening and deduction. Instead, insurance has caused a cookie-cutter approach, whereby a list of symptoms is entered into a computer database which then spits out a list of insurance approved prescriptions.
- Negative blood work or diagnostic imaging does not ensure optimal health. There is a large percentage of the population who are unhappy, uncomfortable and sick. This should not be accepted as "normal aging".
- The Earth has cancer, and we are it. Changes in agriculture, industry, manufacturing, and transportation leach billions of pounds of chemicals into our environment on a daily basis and we aren't finished. Thousands of chemicals are still being invented every year.
- We Are What We Eat, but we also Eat What We Are. We often forget that there is a purpose for eating - not comfort or socializing. Nutrients from food become the building blocks of life - our cells. When we choose live, fresh produce and nutrient rich proteins and whole grains our cells thrive. When we choose convenience foods that are packaged, preserved, refined, freeze-dried, artificially colored, etc., our cells get sick and accumulate toxins and can't repair. The longer we eat these foods, the more we crave them and the more difficult it becomes to eliminate them from our diets.
Overall, I highly recommend this book. It is packed with the major themes our health is faced with today and that we are commonly discussing in the office. There are great resources, phenomenal take home one-liners and recipes! You can learn how to transform the way you and your family eat - which is the best plan for disease prevention!
If reading this book raises questions, as I hope it does, do mention it at your next appointment. Our integrative team at One Life can help you develop a plan for diet, supplementation, and exercise that works best for you!
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Greetings!
Andréa Evans, BA, CHC - Certified Nutriton Consultant
Michael Evans, CPT - Certified Personal Trainer
Nancy Pigno, LMT - Liscenced Massage Therapist