Nutrition Healing

This is where things get crazy and starts challenging your preestablished beliefs about how our body works and its healing capability. We have all talked about the potential benefits of nutrition, body alkalinity and superfoods in preventing diseases. But what about disease reversal? If these nutritious foods are taken in potent quantities in the body, doesn’t it make sense that the body might heal as well. One man who has shed light on this matter is Dr. Colin T. Campbell through his research called The China Study. According to China Study:

Dr. Campbell is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University and Project Director of the China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project. The study was the culmination of a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine.

Therefore, he brings a lot of credibility to the field of natural medicine. Dr. Campbell has been at the forefront of nutrition healing research for the past 20 years. Much of his research focuses on the benefits of nutrition in reversing major diseases and specifically cancer. His work has received so much attention that he was featured on the extra section of Warner Brothers. Check it out. The China Study would open up your eyes to all the other alternatives and possibilities that are out there for disease reversal.

So the question is why don’t we all know about the potential healing power of natural medicine? Practically, if this knowledge was widespread and well known then it would put the modern medical community and the media to shame. If alternative healing therapies exist, it makes sense that the pharmaceuticals and the media would try their best to suppress the success of these alternatives. Prescription drugs has been the leading cause of side effects and deaths in the United States according to Food Matters and many treatments such as chemotherapy, insulin injections, and gastric bypass surgery for chronic diseases like cancer, obesity, diabetes and heart diseases has been far from successful. Insulin injections are only a measure to manage diabetes but doctors blame age for such conditions and patients are made to accept their fate. Obesity and heart diseases are clearly caused by bad nutrition and deficiencies in our diet, regardless the doctors hand out pills to the patients and are told to go back home without proper nutrition advice. Chemotherapy has a success rate of 4% and this makes us wonder why the medical community is still offering it as the main treatment for cancer. About time patients start looking elsewhere and wonder if a better way is out there.

Superfoods

The following trailer is from Food Matters. It explains what is wrong with our food supply and how changing our nutrition base can make a radical change in our lives. It is all about making basic choices in our everyday lives concerning what we eat. The point is that food can make a big difference in our health as the old saying goes “You are what you eat”. Keep in mind our choices include just normal everyday food. But have you ever wondered what superfoods can do for your health?

We are not talking about burgers, chilli cheese fries and soda pops that are filled with super extra calories to make you go the distance. Nor are we talking about genetically engineered foods that was produced in a lab and conceived to have miraculous nutritious benefits. Superfoods, boring as it might seem are the most natural forms of fruits, vegetables, beans, chocolates, meat etch that have the highest concentrations of nutritious value. Its offerings are vast and varied and can be found among a range of products. Already, the scientific community is bragging about its healing properties. WebMd is one of the highest ranked health websites and its views are mostly supported by the medical community without much input from naturopath doctors or alternative medicine. Regardless it claims that superfood can not only keep us healthy, but can prevent major diseases like cancer, high cholesterol and heart diseases. Check out the article and the various types of superfoods that are available out there.

The superfoods mentioned in the article above are regular choices we can make while choosing food at the groceries and preparing meals. But there are other superfoods out there whose names we haven’t heard of or we would not take them on a regular basis. Wheatgrass has been a popular choice among health conscious individuals. People are beginning to understand its benefits and healing properties. Being completely green it is composed of chlorophyll. The structure of chlorophyll is similar to the structure of Iron that makes our blood. Therefore, it builds up the blood quickly and is perfect for those who are anemic. As far as its nutritious benefits, it is nature’s most complete food. It has a complete amino acid profile and includes 20 essential vitamins and minerals. Try consuming wheatgrass daily atleast once a day. Popular juice shops like Jamba Juice has noticed its rise in consumer demand and started offering it as shots. Moreover there are many green superfoods out there with properties similar to wheatgrass. Try spirulina and blue-green algae, two natural algae with tremendous health benefits.

Criticisms of Multilevel Marketing

Despite the enormous potential of MLM, there has been a lot of controversy and criticism surrounding the legitimacy of this unique method of marketing. Like all industries, there has been a few dishonest company owners who structured their compensation structure to that of a pyramid. This has been ruled illegal by the Federal Trade Commission since it is an unfair compensation structure where the guy at the top earns the highest income. Due to such incidences many potential entrepreneurs think of all MLM companies as a ‘pyramid scheme’ and shy away from the opportunity. It is true that the compensation structure looks like a pyramid but with one notable difference that sets it apart. The distributor (business owner) who has the greatest number of recruits and depth makes more money than the guy who recruits him or her. He ends up earning higher since he has more individual recruits compared to his upline. Since the guy at the bottom makes more than the guy at the top, this clearly proves that MLM structures are not a ‘pyramid scheme’. The compensation structure varies across companies nevertheless. Usually, the variations are like how many distributors have to be recruited and sales has to be reached before a certain amount of income is attained. Competition in the MLM industry is intense, so many MLM try to attract prospects by offering a lucrative compensation plan.

Despite all the hype about the Wellness Revolution, the number of business owners who has made it to the top has been limited. The current industry success rate is below 10% and 99% of the owners fail to break even in the business due to mounting expenses of recruiting members and stocking up on products, a practice that is prohibited. So why is this the case? The problem does not lie in MLM itself. But it is a basic problem of how MLM is marketed. Business owners take MLM as a home based business and forget to apply the marketing principles of a regular business. The current marketing methods include group meetings, bringing prospective members to presentation, hyped up events and promotion of books and CDs that are supposed to teach new business owners how to succeed. What happens is that the new members end up spending on these so called ‘self education’ material getting no return on their investment. Making a profit becomes an uphill battle.

But there are a number of tech savvy entrepreneurs who have seen the potential in MLM and set themselves apart from the crowd by using the right and advanced marketing strategies harnessing the networking capability of the internet. The sad truth is that few business owners know how to use the internet to promote their business to multiple customers, a term known as ‘remote selling’. They are still stuck in the traditional method of pitching the benefits of their products to one person at a time hoping they get lucky and make a sale. Much can be achieved in this profitable industry if the proper marketing strategies are know. One person who has taken the initiative to teach struggling business owner how to really get off the ground is Ann Sieg. As a struggling distributor herself, she has learned things the hard way and made it to the top. Find out the proper way to market MLM using the networking capabilities of the internet, the greatest networking tool of all time.

Nutraceuticals: The Medicines of the Future?

Michael is a typical 9 to 5 employee who works for a construction firm. This means his work consists of heavy weightlifting and manual labor. Lately his right knee has been aching and all the lifting is not making the condition any better either. If the conditions persist, he might have to look for a job that is more sedentary and less strenuous. Regardless, he goes in for a visit to his physician. Diagnosis reveals that he has arthritis. The physician suggests that the only possible solution is going for surgery. Not having medical coverage on such a procedure, Michael cannot afford such an expensive procedure given his modest income. His friend suggests using glucosamine, a daily supplement that promotes healthy joints. A couple of months later the pain completely dissipates and he is lifting weights at full strength. His physician is confused as to what improved Michael’s condition. But the physician is worried too: if all his patients start taking glucosamine and experience the same success like Michael, he will soon be out of business since no one will require ankle surgery! Michael’s story is typical of the increasing number of people who are discovering the tremendous benefits of powerful health supplements everyday that are classed in a category called nutraceuticals.

So what are nutraceuticals anyway? There are many loose definitions of nutraceuticals since it is a new emerging field but an article in articlebase.com gives the best definition:

The nutraceutical industry is concerned with nutraceuticals, that is food or part of a food that offers medical and/or health benefits including prevention or treatment of disease.

The health benefits of food are packaged in higher concentrations and offered in capsules and other supplements so that they are effective in fighting diseases and maintaining an optimum state of health. I guess popping pills are not a bad idea afterall but sadly we have been taking the ‘wrong’ type of pills. Dr. Mercola runs the number one health site in the world. The majority of his product sales come from nutraceuticals. Click here to check out the various types of nutraceuticals that are available in the market today. Currently, the nutraceutical industry is growing at a rate of 6% with annual sales projected to reach 15.5 billions dollars by 2010 according to a report by The Freedonia Group. Although growth and sales might be due to aggressive marketing campaigns, it is still an indicator that nutraceuticals are gaining rapid acceptance as people are starting to realize its health benefits.

The Industry of the Revolution

Multilevel marketing also known as ‘word of mouth’ or ‘viral marketing’ has created a buzz in the wellness industry. The products these companies offer are varied and range from health supplements such as multivitamins, beauty cosmetics, and household products. A lot of these innovative companies are focusing on non toxic lifestyles as mentioned earlier and staking their share in the rapidly growing preventive medicine industry. The most successful companies that will emerge out of the H&W Revolution would be the ones that offer ideal solutions to our overly burdened toxic lifestyle. The potential of this industry has been accessed by the world renowned economist Paul Zane Pilzer in his groundbreaking book ‘The Next Millionaires’ which predicts that there will 10 million more millionaires created in the American economy by 2016.

The majority of these fortunes will be made by entrepreneurs involved in direct selling, technology, home-based business, product distribution, or an emerging trillion-dollar industry like wellness.

He believes that the traditional way of distribution that involves the middle man will make way for the direct selling method that takes out the middle man cost. This is exactly what is practiced by multi level marketing linking consumers directly to retailers. An overview of the marketing plan will make this more comprehensible.

It has a unique marketing structure and compensation plan that attracts a lot of venturous entrepreneurs to start their own home based business. Although different companies have different compensation structures it basically works like this. A business owner has two streams of income. One is from retailing his products. This is ideal for generating some quick cash. They can also recruit members who generate income from retail as well. This time the owner gets a share of the profit from the new people that have joined the business. Then the new owners recruit more members and so on. As you can picture, the original business owner starts developing a steady stream of income not from only his own retail income, but from the retail sales of his affiliates.

Combined with the phenomena of viral marketing/word of mouth marketing as your affiliates keep on retailing and recruiting more, this type of compensation structure can become very profitable. What is more interesting is that as your downline members become more active and successful, the business takes on a momentum of its own requiring limited activity and interference on your behalf. As a result, you start developing ‘passive income’ where the checques keep on coming regardless of your effort in the business since it has been established due to your efforts in the past and now it is up and running.

These companies have already made their mark in society and the media. Some examples are Herbalife, a wellness based company that sells vitamin supplements and nutritional shakes. They sponsor the LA Galaxy soccer team and their jerseys bear the company’s name. The name Amway might sound familiar to a few people. Afterall, it is the oldest running MLM company with a complete range of health supplements, beauty and household products. Thousands of viewers tuned in to watch the LA Lakers take on Orlando Magic which was hosted by the Amway Arena in the last two game of the playoffs. Coincidentally, the owner of the company also owns the Orlando Magic basketball team. So it is no surprise the Magic home stadium bears the name of an MLM company. Other notable MLMs are: Usana, Shaklee, Forever Living, Monavie, Avon just to name a few.

Green Environment and Non Toxic Lifestyle

We have heard a lot about the green movement. It can be broadly defined as the conscious effort to make proactive choices in preserving the environment. What is so interesting is that going green is not merely a choice by consumers to purchase products with green labels. It is about changing our lifestyle and breaking old habits that we are so used to. It can affect everything from what we eat, what we wear, the type of cosmetics we use, and what we drive. But is making green choices all about saving the environment? Not at all. Going green leads to less toxic environment. Here is a common example: Organic farming has been around ever since the beginning of time. But we introduced chemical fertilizers and pesticides to increase crop yields. But what we haven’t realized is that using chemical fertilizers make our food more chemical based and therefore more toxic. Whenever we make non organic choices we are ingesting chemicals in our body that make our internal environment more acidic. The same case can be applied to air pollution since breathing in polluted air leads to a higher level of acidity in the body.

Why should be we worried about acidity at all? According to many health experts acidity is the leading cause of all diseases . Acidity and toxicity are synonymous concepts. Anything that is acidic is poisonous and therefore toxic. Our body flushes out toxins through everyday activity like breathing, sweating and through the excretory system. Even though our body is well capable of doing this, the long term effects of over acidity in the body leads to chronic diseases like arthritis, diabetes, obesity, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. One man who has greatly validated this claim is Dr. Robert Young. After many years of research examining live blood samples, Dr. Young has been able to describe the response of our body to acidity. His work has led him to the conclusion that an alkaline environment is ideal for the proper functioning of the human body.

So what are some of the choices we can make to lead a non-toxic lifestyle? Here are some of the options that would be a good place to start:

Food: choosing organic over non organic since it contains no fertilizer and pesticides among the vegetables and no hormones and antibiotics in the meat.

Water: drinking purified water with minerals. Never drink tap water that contains chlorine since it is acidic. The shower water is chlorinated as well. It readily seeps into our bloodstream when we take a bath. This problem can be easily solved by purchasing a shower filter that can be attached to the shower nozzle. It removes the chlorine from the water right away and you have a non-toxic shower!

Cosmetics, perfumes and hairproducts: All these products are toxic to some extent. That is why many people develop sensitivity like allergies. Although it is not possible to refrain from using them, it is a good choice to switch to more natural based cosmetics that are available at the shelves of organic markets like WholeFoods and Trader Joe’s.

Consumers are increasingly realizing the potential harmful effects of the products we use everyday. More people are switching to alternatives such as the ones mentioned above. Therefore, there is a great potential for monetizability by offering solutions that reduce our overly toxic lifestyle and allow people to live a long health life.