By James D. Henry, D.C.
One of the greatest challenges facing alternative health-care providers today is using nutrition successfully in their practices. Because of the growing interest in nutrition and the dramatic results that can be obtained through appropriate use, we must become experts and dispel the myth that the nutritional supplement that’s good for one person is good for everyone.Recommending to each patient the same multiple vitamin formula and having him return with improved health would be great. But contrary to popular opinion, nutrition guidance works only if supplements fulfill that particular person’s unique needs.
The “one-pill-fits-all” theory simply doesn’t work. Visiting the local health food store armed with a list of symptoms will only result in a waste of money and may actually pose a health threat.
Biologic Individuality
Each person’s biologic individuality demands that we discover his unique nutritional needs and deficiencies and then recommend specific product(s) that will correct those deficiencies. If we use a method to determine those needs accurately and objectively, we will provide the help that patient expects of us. To do that, we must recognize the limitation of the methods we’ve all used in the past.
Sampling blood, hair, saliva and/or urine, for example, provides incomplete, and often misleading, profiles of the patient’s actual needs and does not recognize his uniqueness. Nor can these tests indicate specific nutritional products that will correct his deficiencies. Various forms of muscle testing have proven to be influenced by too many variables, including operator prejudice. Symptom surveys, health histories and diet diaries also do not provide the necessary data.
The flaw in textbook nutrition is that it completely ignores our biologic individuality. Although I’ve used the methods mentioned above with some success, I recognized their limitations about 10 years ago when I began my search for the ultimate test to determine nutritional needs/deficiencies that would also indicate specific products to correct those needs. Of course, the test would also have to be grounded in “good science” and would not rely on subjective data.
Genetics and heredity are two factors that influence our nutritional needs. We can inherit deficiencies just as we can inherit tendencies to develop certain diseases. We have known for quite some time that the introduction of drastic dietary changes into a culture can cause serious health problems. For instance, Asians who make radical changes to a typical Western diet often face severe health consequences, as it seems to take generations before proper utilization of new foods is possible.
Another factor that influences nutritional needs is exposure to environmental toxins. This exposure places extreme burdens on the body’s nutritional reserves. Other causes of nutritional deficiencies are traced to psychological and physical stressors, activity levels, age, weight, gender, lifestyle, habits and sensitivities. I have found that drugs probably cause more multiple nutritional deficiencies than all other factors combined. Synthetic, fractioned and mega-dose vitamins are included in this group because they have pharmacological effects.
If this is not enough, add the fact that our diets are poor, our food is grown in soil that is depleted of minerals and other nutrients, and that our water, soil and air have been polluted and are toxic. We cannot assume that any two people with same or similar conditions will have the same nutritional needs or will benefit from the same supplements.
Traditional Medicine Is Clueless
With worldwide increases in the diseases whose cures we’ve been promised during the past 50 years and with new diseases appearing at an alarming rate, it’s no surprise that people are turning to alternative health care. Traditional medicine has completely missed the boat. Could it be because it doesn’t recognize each person’s unique biologic individuality?
Could it be because medical practitioners assume that everyone with the same symptoms or conditions will benefit from the same treatment? Could it be, for instance, that they think that everyone with low magnesium (or iron, B12, calcium, manganese, phosphorus, iodine, etc.) will show acceptable levels after supplementing with magnesium, without discovering the best source for that nutrient or the appropriate synergists?
In order to use nutrition successfully in your practice, you must be able to determine accurately and objectively who needs what based on that person’s own unique physiological responses to nutritional stimuli. (Remember the basic scientific principle: “A stimulus produces a response.”) Not only must we discover what the patient needs and the best possible source of that nutrient for proper utilization, but we must also find out what he does not need or should not have because of possible sensitivities.
We also have
to know what synergists are necessary. I have seen several examples of very
low magnesium levels in patients whose medical practitioners have prescribed
large doses of magnesium over extended periods of time with little improvement
in those levels. These levels improved dramatically after finding the synergists
that each person required to assist in absorption and utilization. The synergists
differed in each case because of each patient’s biologic individuality,
and in each case, no magnesium was included in the supplement program, only
the synergists.Stimulus-Response Testing
Because so many factors influence our nutritional deficiencies, we must accept the fact that everyone’s needs are different, and we can correct the deficiencies only through accurate identification and supplementation with specific products. It’s futile to discover that a patient has a low calcium level and then to supplement with a calcium product from a source that the patient cannot utilize.
We have developed a Nutritional Deficiency Identification System (NDIS) which will allow practitioners to help their patients, not cure diseases. Each response to a nutrient is compared only to that person’s other responses, not to any preconceived norms or artificial ranges, thus recognizing his biologic individuality.
To understand how NDIS, or stimulus-response nutritional testing, works, it is necessary to understand the importance of the hypothalamus gland. The fact that the hypothalamus controls heart rate, blood pressure and respiration is of little practical value. If you have ever observed a patient in the hospital connected to monitors, you would see how quickly they change.
The hypothalamus gland also regulates body temperature, which is fairly constant under normal circumstances. It regulates temperature primarily by vasoconstriction or vasodilation, sweating or the cessation of sweating. The hypothalamus gland is also important in regulating homeostasis and is not protected by the blood-brain barrier, therefore leaving it exposed to the extracellular fluid or internal environment.
The hypothalamus, an integral part of the limbic (survival) system, works very closely with the thyroid gland, which controls metabolism, the pituitary gland and, to some extent, the pineal gland that regulates biorhythms. Furthermore, the hypothalamus is linked by nerve circuits to almost all parts of the brain by utilizing input from other areas of the brain and information received from blood passing through it. The hypothalamus controls hunger and thirst, and it contains feeding and safety centers while helping to regulate blood glucose levels and fat and water metabolism.
To understand the process of using stimulus-response testing to identify specific nutritional needs, we must also remember that digestion begins in the mouth. Ptyalin is secreted by the parotid glands, lipase by the sublingual glands and protease by the submandibular glands. Thus, introducing a nutritional supplement (stimulus) orally will produce a metabolic change (response) which can be measured by monitoring and recording temperature changes using the latest technologies in biofeedback instrumentation and computer hardware with specially designed software.
These temperature changes are simply a reflection of the response of the hypothalamus gland to a particular nutrient. (It is important, of course, to have the test preparation instructions followed closely to maintain blood sugar and hydration levels using our recommended modified basal conditions.)
Identifying Patient Needs
The actual in-office testing procedure is direct and easily administered by a technician who can be trained in a short period of time. A sensor, which is attached to a biofeedback instrument that monitors even slight temperature changes, is held comfortably in place under the patient’s arm by a belt. The biofeedback instrument is connected to a computer with the NDIS software installed, and the response generated is recorded. Each nutrient to be tested is held on the patient’s tongue for 90 seconds.
The NDIS software indicates when the nutrient is to be discarded and when the next nutrient can be tested, based on parameters included in the program to avoid carryover responses from previous supplements. The data are sent via modem to our office for interpretation. We provide a written report indicating specific recommendations for the patient’s supplement program.
You provide the supplements and have the opportunity to review the data on your computer with the patient if you wish. (Test examples of responses to two different nutrients are shown.) These procedures have generated a great deal of patient enthusiasm and compliance because you can show them the actual responses that pinpoint their biologic individuality and prove the body’s innate ability to select foods for health and survival.
This comprehensive but simple test represents a model for using nutrition successfully in your practice. We can obtain information from a patient which is indeed often a blueprint of his biologic strengths and weaknesses. Our success comes from using specific nutrients to correct specific nutritional needs, and one can only discover those needs using objective, scientific methods.
About the author: James D. Henry, D.C., a 1965 graduate of National College of Chiropractic, has used nutrition in his practice for more than 30 years. He served on the board of directors of Belleville (Mich.) Hospital, and he is involved in clinical nutrition research as president of Wellspring Technology Inc., in Mobile, Ala. For more information, call (251) 344-8804; fax (251) 344-8515; or e-mail DrWellspring@aol.com.