At a recent seminar I attended in Ohio, the main speaker was Lynn August, a medical doctor who has been a pioneer in nutritional healing for over 30 years. She confirmed much of what I've been ranting about for the last five years.

First, Americans live, eat and breathe in one of the most toxic environments on the planet. Second, chemical toxicity, even at relatively small levels, reduces a person’s resistance to disease and saps the energy the body needs to recover from injury and illness. Third, mainstream health care in the U.S. largely ignores these basic truths and this is the reason Americans lead the world in incidents of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other autoimmune disorders.

Dr. August is no lightweight as a healer. She showed us case histories of her patients. One 65 year old woman with congestive heart failure had been on the heart transplant list for over a year. Using a healthy diet with whole food supplements, Dr. August was able to have this woman lifting hay bales and doing barn chores in about 18 months without surgery. She was able to drastically reduce her medications.

Another patient with severe thyroid disease showed remarkable improvement in her blood tests after following Dr. Augusts' nutritional protocol.

Is it really at all surprising that people are healthier eating natural foods that have been supporting life for thousands of years, as opposed to the typical processed American fare developed over the last 50 years to increase corporate profits? Where do you think public health ranks on the priority list of the processed food industry?

Public awareness of this situation is not helped by the fact that most doctors receive little if any training in nutrition, and most "registered" dieticians graduate from schools heavily funded by the processed food industry.

How can Americans reverse the trend towards more diabetes, cancer, heart disease and arthritis? How about learning from the rest of the world where these chronic diseases are much less common.

First, eat less processed food. Second, grow some healthy food. Food grown with natural fertilizers and fewer chemicals has more nutritional value and is less toxic. This is a scientific fact. Anyone who says otherwise is deceiving the public. Third, don't choose potentially toxic prescription drugs as your first line of defense against chronic degenerative illness.

Allergies and arthritis worsen and may even be caused by eating bad food, or absorbing other toxins from our surroundings. Your odds of getting diabetes, cancer, and heart disease go up dramatically for the same reasons.

Prescription drugs can be toxic. It doesn't always make sense to add more toxicity to cure a toxic problem. I'm not saying there is no place for prescription drugs. They just should not be your first choice. Detoxify first, then use the nuclear option if necessary. It makes sense to detox first, to rid yourself of the poisons that could be making you sick.

The warning signs are all around. It's no coincidence that the honey bees are disappearing at a faster rate in the U. S. than the rest of the world. We spray more herbicides and pesticides on our crops and lawns by a long shot than the rest of the world combined.

MRSA staph infections are becoming a big problem nationally and locally. The scientific community largely agrees that the main cause is overuse of antibiotics. We have had great success at our office using Chinese herbs on these cases that don't respond to antibiotics. (Don't worry, the Chinese herbs don't contain lead paint. They're not even usually grown there. That's just where they were first grown and used.)

A recent case came into our office complaining of digestion problems that had lasted for 18 months. His doctor had been treating him with antibiotics. Antibiotics kill everything, even the beneficial bacteria necessary for proper digestion. This leaves the door open for opportunistic infections such as yeast and parasites. Not surprisingly, this patient tested positive for yeast.

If your doctor routinely prescribes antibiotics without knowing what's wrong - or for the common cold on which antibiotics have no effect, I would shop around for a health care professional that is more knowledgeable.

See you next month, and try to cut back on the poisons, even if they taste good or seem to make life more convenient in the short term.