By Edward Joseph James, MD, MBA 

The current model for health care in the United States is focused to a large degree upon the management and treatment of chronic diseases, principally using various prescription drugs and procedural interventions. Chronic diseases are our Nation’s leading cause of death and disabilities. So-called preventative measures (e.g. mammography, colonoscopy, and blood pressure screening) may be useful for earlier disease diagnoses, but typically fail to prevent disease, which requires addressing the root cause at the cellular level. There is a growing body of research which strongly indicates that eating more plant based whole foods and avoiding both processed foods and animal based foods, as well as avoiding and removing body toxins, is effective in preventing and treating many chronic diseases.  Unfortunately, many Americans, including health care professionals, are generally not well informed about nutrition or the health impact of common toxins.

Optimum health and natural healing rarely occur in our society, because our United States food system is fundamentally flawed. Many large agribusinesses exert considerable influence on the United States government and its agencies, resulting in dietary recommendations and agricultural subsidies that are not in the best interest of our Nation’s health. Too often, profit is prioritized over food quality. Governmental oversight of our food and water supply is insufficient, resulting in many toxic substances in our daily diet.

Choosing to eat certified organic and support local farms is important for our health and to protect our environment, but it is not enough. For example, the herbicide Roundup is now in much of our rainwater. Additionally, organic farms are being infiltrated with GMO seeds from nearby farms. For these and other reasons, it is virtually impossible today to maintain a farm which is truly 100 % organic.

A rapidly growing body of research involves the 3-4 pounds of bacteria in each of our bodies, which play a most important role in determining overall physical and mental health. Of the cell population in our body, 90% are bacteria. Of the genes in our body, 99% are related to bacteria. The bacteria which constitute our bowel flora are responsible in many instances for determining if genes are expressed. I believe we should generally be less concerned about our genes, and instead focus upon optimizing the population of our bowel flora, encouraging its diversity, so that genes expressed are those which promote health and do not cause disease.

We must begin to remove toxic substances which threaten our microbiome, including pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, gluten, and many pharmaceutical drugs (e.g. antibiotics and ibuprofen). Because there are so many toxins today which threaten to destroy our healthful bowel flora, we must seek protective measures, such as the natural carbon based redox molecules which support healthful bowel flora colonization and diversity, as produced by Biomic Sciences, under the leadership of Dr. Zach Bush.

As we properly nourish and continually protect our bowel flora, gut membrane tight junctions begin to function much better, protecting our immune systems, our brains and our entire bodies from toxic chemicals, which have greatly contributed to the epidemic of chronic disease throughout our Nation.  We must also continually let our government leaders at every level know that a toxic food and water supply is not acceptable.  I also believe it is important that medical research and clinical care become focused upon selected natural, unadulterated organic, plant remedies.

Dr. James is certified in plant based nutrition and is a retired, board certified general radiologist and neuroradiologist. He is passionate about health and wellness, with a particular interest in the effectiveness of organic, plant-based, whole foods for preventing, reversing and curing disease.