Spring Break
Holistic, alternative medicines get a good wrap
Gordon Jackson/Special to the NNPA
Issue date: 10/7/07 Section: Health
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4. Elderberry, extracted from elder flowers, can help make foods like pancake batter when grounded up. The flower can be used to make tea or a mild wine. Rich in nutrients, they strengthen the stomach.
"The nice thing about them is they're natural," said Walker, whose change for the better has inspired her to talk to other people about alternative health.
Through the City Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church, she is conducting alternative health sessions during spiritual seminars held at the Janie Turner Recreation Center in Pleasant Grove. She teaches her students about the eight building blocks to positive preventive health: nutrition, exercise, water intake, sunlight, temperance, air, restoration and Trust in Divine Power.
"Eighty-five percent of all diseases are due to lifestyles," she said. "I've met so many people suffering who think they're stuck with it. No, you don't have to be stuck."
Not everybody is a fan of holistic health methods, however. For years there has been a strained relationship between this field and the standard medical industry, with both sides throwing barbs at each other.
Holistic practitioners say traditional doctors charge exuberant fees to only treat the symptoms and that the medicine industry is highly commercialized through high-priced pharmaceutical products.
Traditionalists from the medical community say that most herbs and vitamins have not been tested and proven effective by the Food and Drug Administration and some products do not produce the nutritional benefits they claim. True enough, under the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act, nutritional supplements do not have to be tested for safety or effectiveness before going on the market.
Richard Gerber, author of Vibrational Medicine, says in SpaceandMotion.com, ''I think there is an unspoken bias that exists not only in the medical community, but also in the research community. I know people who have approached various research societies and foundations asking for grant money to study the use of a very effective energy medicine modality. The goal of medicine should be to heal illness, not to promote one system over another, especially if the one system is reaching its limitation."
"The nice thing about them is they're natural," said Walker, whose change for the better has inspired her to talk to other people about alternative health.
Through the City Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church, she is conducting alternative health sessions during spiritual seminars held at the Janie Turner Recreation Center in Pleasant Grove. She teaches her students about the eight building blocks to positive preventive health: nutrition, exercise, water intake, sunlight, temperance, air, restoration and Trust in Divine Power.
"Eighty-five percent of all diseases are due to lifestyles," she said. "I've met so many people suffering who think they're stuck with it. No, you don't have to be stuck."
Not everybody is a fan of holistic health methods, however. For years there has been a strained relationship between this field and the standard medical industry, with both sides throwing barbs at each other.
Holistic practitioners say traditional doctors charge exuberant fees to only treat the symptoms and that the medicine industry is highly commercialized through high-priced pharmaceutical products.
Traditionalists from the medical community say that most herbs and vitamins have not been tested and proven effective by the Food and Drug Administration and some products do not produce the nutritional benefits they claim. True enough, under the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act, nutritional supplements do not have to be tested for safety or effectiveness before going on the market.
Richard Gerber, author of Vibrational Medicine, says in SpaceandMotion.com, ''I think there is an unspoken bias that exists not only in the medical community, but also in the research community. I know people who have approached various research societies and foundations asking for grant money to study the use of a very effective energy medicine modality. The goal of medicine should be to heal illness, not to promote one system over another, especially if the one system is reaching its limitation."
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