What Is Health?
24 Jun 2016by Michael Galitzer, MD
Health is commonly mistaken to mean the absence of disease. In reality, it is so much more than that. From a medical point of view, health is ultimately based upon the level of energy you experience on a daily basis. The more energy you have, the healthier you are and the more you are able to enjoy your life. Energy allows us to regenerate the cells and tissues of the body. Ill health is caused by a loss of energy at the level of our cells. When there isn’t enough energy for the body to accomplish its basic physiological processes efficiently, we don’t feel well. It’s harder for the body to absorb nutrients from food and to eliminate toxic wastes. The immune system is less effective in fighting off bacteria, viruses, parasites and other invaders. Cell turnover decreases, and it takes far longer for the body to recover from illnesses, or just to get through the day.
Most people’s health complaints today can be attributed to functional disturbances in their body’s ability to produce and utilize energy. Such disturbances occur well before specific tissue or organ damage can be identified by conventional medical tests, which is why so many patients today continue to experience symptoms of poor health even when their doctors can’t find anything wrong with them. The use of energy medicine techniques can help detect and identify these disturbances very early on. Doing so makes it easier to effectively reestablish balance to the energetic pathways that run through all of your body’s organs, glands and tissues, thereby restoring and maintaining optimal health.
When we are young, the processes of optimal energy production, regeneration, and a host of other physiological functions within the body chug along very happily, doing exactly what they’re supposed to — keeping the body healthy, clean and vibrant. But over the years we bombard our bodies with internal and external stressors. Lack of energy is created by the slow accumulation of damage due to toxicity, hormone depletion, lifestyle choices and mindset. Addressing each of these factors is the key to reclaiming the energy of your youth.
Toxins: When I was an ER doctor, the only times we talked about toxicity were when we saw an overdose of sleeping pills or other drugs, carbon monoxide poisoning or a chemical or oil spill — the acute care/disease approach. However, in Energy Medicine we see toxins as substances that produce energetic imbalances in the body, resulting in physical, emotional and mental symptoms. (Most symptoms are actually the body’s way of trying to get rid of toxins and to regain homeostasis and balance.) Toxicity can produce both specific illnesses (like migraine, arthritis, psoriasis, influenza, sinusitis, immune deficiencies and tumors), and nonspecific illnesses (clusters of symptoms that are identified as fatigue, headaches, insomnia, bad breath, muscle stiffness, depression, hypoglycemia, candidiasis, allergies and stress).
We are constantly exposed to toxins every day. Toxins can come from the outside environment or be produced as a result of imbalances in our metabolism. Environmental toxins can come from tap water, smog and petrochemicals, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, food preservatives, pesticides, heavy metals (mercury, aluminum, lead, cadmium), viruses such as Epstein-Barr, influenza, cytomegalovirus, herpes, and HIV, bacteria (streptococcus, staphylococcus, salmonella, and so on), parasites, even prescription or over-the-counter medication. Internally-generated toxins are produced as a result of compromised digestion, inefficient metabolism, pancreatic digestive enzyme deficiency, poor eating habits and improper food combinations.
Both internally-generated and environmental toxins need to be cleared out by the body’s elimination organs (liver, kidneys, lymph, colon, lungs and skin) for us to feel healthy. However, if there are too many toxins for these organs to handle, these toxins start to accumulate — first in the connective tissues of the body, and then in the organs. The body tries to compensate by having the endocrine system secrete more hormones to help stimulate detoxification, but over time these glands also become inefficient and “tired.” As the cells and tissues of your body become more toxic, you feel less well, your energy drops, and an ideal environment that allows yeast and viruses to grow is created. An inefficient elimination system with toxin accumulation, coupled with depleted hormones and reduced organ function, equals autointoxication and ill health.
While the tests offered by most Western medical doctors aren’t sensitive enough to diagnose the kinds of toxicity that contribute to so many diseases, Energy Medicine (which can track the impact of toxins and other stressors on a cellular level) is designed specifically to assess toxin damage in the body. Based on the levels of toxicity I have seen in almost every single one of my patients, I believe that proper and thorough detoxification is just as important as good nutrition in creating health.
Hormone Depletion: Researchers have long known that a decline in hormone levels in the body contributes to many different diseases and symptoms. Since hormones affect virtually every bodily process, low levels of hormones and impaired communication within the endocrine system, which oversees and balances hormone production, create havoc with all other body systems, including the immune, cardiovascular, detoxification and gastrointestinal. Chronic illness is frequently associated with the body’s decline in hormone production.
Nutritional deficiencies, lack of exercise, and exposure to toxins, can all result in diminished hormone production that ultimately leads to diminished biological functioning. Chronic stress can seriously impact hormone production. Other factors include malnutrition, sleep disorders, exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), lack of sunlight and the long-term use of over-the-counter and prescription medications.
There are seven key “players” on your hormonal “team”: testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, insulin, thyroid, human growth hormone (HGH) and adrenal hormones. For you to be healthy, each player has to perform well, while also playing well with the rest of the team.
Lifestyle Choices: In the 1960s and 1970s, we all heard the phrase that “life was all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Well, nowadays for many people the pleasure of sex has been replaced by the pleasure of food, drugs have been replaced by alcohol or prescription medication, and rock and roll has been replaced by TV, the internet, or anything that keeps us sedentary, on the couch, not exercising and passively entertained. You must chase the pattern. But food, alcohol and TV are not the only elements of our toxic modern lifestyle. Exposure to almost constant electromagnetic radiation through our smart phones, cell towers, microwave ovens, and computer screens, also contribute to our declining health. And when you throw into the mix the heightened levels of stress created by a culture where we’re expected to be accessible to work and our families 24/7, and the lack of sleep caused by our overscheduled, overstressed lives, it’s no wonder we feel so exhausted.
The good news is that making changes to lifestyle can be fairly simple and extraordinarily effective. In fact, studies done by the Harvard School of Public Health show that simple changes in diet and exercise, combined with basic preventive medical care, can add 20 more years of healthy and productive life to the average individual. Lifestyle changes are some of the easiest ways for anyone to feel more energized.
Mindset: Our general state of health is directly tied to our feelings, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and intentions — our consciousness, if you will. Our bodies are constantly renewing themselves, and our consciousness can affect the regeneration of cells and organs positively or negatively. A change in our health, either better or worse, involves a change in our consciousness. Your mind has the power and ability to cure any disease in the body. However, many people unknowingly use the mind to create illness. Because the mind plays a dominant role in health and disease, emotions such as fear, worry, tension, frustration, hate, aggression and other negative emotions can render us more susceptible to illness.
At least sixty percent of all illness involves a psychosomatic (mental/emotional) contributing factor. The most debilitating emotion I see in my patients is fear. We are afraid of poverty, criticism and ill health. We fear old age; we fear death; and most important, we fear the “big four” diseases: diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. Negative, fearful thinking creates disharmony in the body, literally acting like harmful frequencies. So eliminating fear is crucial for us to be able to move out of the survival mode and into the growth mode required for vibrant health. Replacing fear-based thoughts with positive thoughts of love, gratitude and joy is one of the most effective ways that you can proactively start to take better control over your health. Such thoughts are to your body like sunlight is to plants and produce healing frequencies that resonate with every cell in your body. As I tell my patients: Thoughts that make you happy make you well!
Mindset also includes elements like our level of happiness, sense of 
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Dr. Michael Galitzer is a nationally recognized expert in anti-aging medicine and bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). He has been featured in 8 of Suzanne Somers’ books.