Health and Nutrition Secrets
Reviewed by Heidi Boudro
"Nutrition is essentially biochemistry," writes Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, MD, "and medical care devoid of nutritional considerations is like a car without wheels. It goes nowhere."
As a neurosurgery resident, Dr. Blaylock saw unconscious, brain-injured patients given IV's of sugar water: water, salt, and glucose. The patients starved and wasted--as patients continue to do, since IV glucose is still typical treatment. Dr. Blaylock knew that seriously injured people actually have higher metabolic rates, not lower rates, than uninjured people, and need more nutrition, not less. This, he says, sparked his "study of nutrition and disease." When he supplied nutrients, including vitamins and minerals, in IV's or feeding tubes, "the results were dramatic in the salvageable patients." The results included improved neurological recovery.
Dr. Blaylock is a board-certified neurosurgeon and author of the indispensable Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, about MSG and neurological damage. His Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life is about the origins and treatment of degenerative disease. Despite the sensationalistic title, which, however, does accurately convey the useful nature of the information, this book is an extremely clearly written explanation of nutrition and toxins, and the treatment and prevention of degenerative conditions of the heart, brain, and immune system. (He has written a separate book on cancer, Natural Strategies For Cancer Patients
Health and Nutrition Secrets first describes "oxidative injury" or "free radical damage." This is the unavoidable cellular damage that occurs during normal metabolic processes, but it is so accelerated in aging, disease, and toxicity that it destroys human tissue.
The oxidative injury is contained, even reversed, by "antioxidants." Antioxidants are nutrients: vitamins, minerals, thiols, and flavonoids, all exclusively from food and food supplements. Processed food, however, is, at best, denuded of antioxidants. Sick people, or people wishing not to get sick, need to eat fresh food and take food supplements for substances either not in the available diet or needed in larger quantity. Dr. Blaylock explains the rationale clearly and in detail.
Dr. Blaylock then reviews substances--toxins--that cause free radical injury. These are disturbingly widespread and difficult to avoid: mercury; fluoride in water and food; toxic metals in air, water, and food; live viruses and additives in vaccines; food additives; and pesticides. He discusses the biochemical evidence about the diseases these toxins cause. He also specifies the nutritional countermeasures.
Chapters follow on the value of nutrition in treating and preventing atherosclerosis, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, osteoporosis, digestive problems, neurological conditions, and immune problems.
Health and Nutrition Secrets is one of the outstanding books of its kind. It is clear, direct, logical, and intelligent; has hundreds of references from peer-reviewed medical journals; and doesn't pull any punches.
I grew up with conventional wisdom about the irreversibility of brain damage. But Dr. Blaylock's books have convinced me that brain damage can be treated, even reversed. There are no drugs or surgeries that can do this, but nutrition can.
Copyright © 2008 by Heidi Boudro