The roller coaster is a great
ride: the exhilarating plunge toward the earth, the moments of
weightlessness as I fly over the top, and the feeling that it may all
fall apart at any second. That’s what I like most about the old
wooden clickity clack roller coasters. Just recalling the feeling of
those moments brings a smile to my face!
Yet when it comes to patients,
the roller coaster syndrome is the last thing we want to hear about.
You know, those folks that "feel great" one visit then much
worse the next. And then there are others who seem stuck on one part
of the track: those whose chronic health conditions keep hanging on no
matter who they see, what they do or what care is given them. This
often includes patients who have no experience with the natural side
of health care, those who keep the pharmaceutical industry workers
well employed while carrying around a magic label given to them
regarding their condition, as well as those who try every natural
approach, Internet remedy and store clerk suggestion.
As a chiropractor, I had both
been taught about and had personally seen the devastating effects of
the vertebral subluxation complex (the effects of spinal misalignment
on the body and nerve system). As a nutritionist, I chased symptoms,
reviewed blood work, read saliva tests, and said, "Let's try this
and see what happens. This is good for this condition and that is good
for that condition." After 17 years of experience and a couple
thousand hours of continued education in nutrition, I found myself
chasing symptoms down a long road, competing with television
commercials, the Internet, or the latest news blurb put forth by some
invisible money source about what was good for your body. I wanted
more answers. Like all the other great health care providers I know,
all I ever wanted to do was to help people live a better, healthier
life.
The problem was that I had
forgotten the most basic requirement. I forgot about nature and the
body's need for basic nutrition. I forgot about the effects of the
lack of nutrition and balance as the basic cause of the malfunctioning
body and disease. This led me to the founding fathers of nutrition,
the geniuses of the 20th century, Dr. Royal Lee, Dr. Weston Price, and
Dr. Francis Pottenger and their discoveries concerning the
relationship of nutritional deficiencies to overall health.
Fortunately, there were others ahead of me (such as Dr. Freddie Ulan
and Dr. Lester Bryman) who also rediscovered these teachers. From
these great doctors and leaders I learned the theory and practice of
Nutrition Response Testing.
We all know the shape of our
country's health. It is about the worst in the industrialized world.
Yet we have more doctors and more food to eat than any other country.
We also have incredible malnutrition at a threatening national level
as a result of fast and non-perishable foods. The fact is that these
so called "foods" are inadequate to support life. It became
obvious to me then that if malnutrition is at the core of the chronic
health problem, the answer is not pharmaceutical
"medication", which only suppresses symptoms while the
underlying pattern of disease develops.
One cannot find a healthy answer
when the basic building blocks are missing. With this basic
understanding and by taking a simple look (rather than going with what
I was told), it became easier to see that nutritional imbalances and
deficiencies really are the basic cause of the roller coastering
patient and the chronically ill, and that a vital part of returning
their health was to add a successful nutritional evaluation and
program to their life.
So, what is Nutrition Response
Testing? Simply put, it is a very precise and scientific method of
discovering the malfunctioning systems of the body and the nutritional
deficiency or toxins causing it. It has two parts. The first part is
an analysis done through testing neurological reflexes (similar to
muscle testing) derived from the nervous system, whose job is to
regulate the functions of each and every organ. The second part is a
designed natural health improvement program based on planned clinical
nutrition using real whole foods.
The wonderful thing about this
method of testing is that there is no guessing, no "let's try
this or that and see what happens," because the reflexes of the
body help to determine the exact nutrients the patient needs to
supplement in his or her diet in order to bring about balance and
better health. In short, it is a workable system of zeroing in on a
patient's needs.
Nutrition Response Testing was
developed to give the practitioner the answers needed about a
patient's nutritional requirements in a relatively short visit.
Following that, one then needs effective nutritional products. Put it
all together and we can all regain our health, and those chronic,
roller coastering, stubborn health problems vanish.
For more information about how
Nutrition Response Testing and Designed Clinical Nutrition can help
with health problems, Google "Nutrition Response Testing" on
the Internet.
Greg Sternquist, DC,
is a Master practitioner of Nutrition Response Testing. A
graduate of Palmer Chiropractic College and University of Alaska, he
has been in private practice for over 18 years. Contact: (907)
743-3040.
