Xandria says
I have always been a scientist, both by instinct and by training. My favourite subjects at school and university, as they became available, were arithmetic, then maths, followed by general science, then chemistry and finally biochemistry. I am also willing to think “outside the box”, on the basis of erecting and then testing any new hypothesis. This is the only way truly new ideas can bear fruit.
While I was studying to qualify as a Naturopath, Nutritionist and Herbalist, in Australia, where even in the 1970s it was a three-year full-time course, it was always from a basis of my interest in the chemistry and biochemistry of the human body, the chemistry and biochemistry of foods, plants and herbs, and a clear focus on the metabolic biochemistry that is involved when they are consumed.
Even in my university student days it did not make sense to me, as a chemist, to treat health problems with chemical drugs that were aimed at forcibly manipulating the body, without a considered understanding of what had gone wrong in the first place, and how to put that right. It seemed to me to be more important to correct the causative errors and to do so with substances familiar to the body, and with which that the body could work in harmony, particularly since all of these chemical drugs had toxic side-effects to a greater or lesser degree. It seemed much more logical to me to start from the premise that the body was inherently healthy and self-correcting, that ill health occurred because the body had either not been given all the nutrients it needed, or that it was poisoned or over-stressed in some way.
From this it follows that, on the one hand, removing any substances (toxins or pathogens) that interfere with the body’s normal function, and, on the other hand, providing it with what it needs to work correctly to restore healthy function, are the two most obvious and logical first steps to take to ensure good health and to treat or avoid disease. Not only did I feel that this approach to restoring normal health had the best chance of success, it also obeyed the dictum of medicine, one that is rarely obeyed in practice, ‘first do no harm’. If more serious problems have developed we can apply additional natural substances to help restore good health.
You are more than your body and it is important to attend also to mental and emotional issues. Even small ones can have a detrimental effect on health. Working on both aspects can greatly speed up the rate of recovery or restoration of good health and from the start I have found that working in this way greatly improves the results that can be obtained.