We have been blessed to be able to flip a switch and cause motors to whir into action and lights to pierce the darkness.  We have modes of transportation that have made this vast globe, a small place.  Communication via cell phones and satellite have given us capabilities of transferring information in a way that we never could have dreamed possible. 

     These blessings have been purchased at a price.  The little place, we call home, is contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, and chemicals of every sort.  We have traded the luxury of nutrition deprived convenience foods for their toxic coloring agents, preservatives, and flavor enhancers.  The human machine is delicate and the parameters within which it must  operate are very finite.  There are numerous mechanisms in its system that were created to allow it to maintain homeostasis (to remain in physiologic balance).  These mechanisms are not limitless.  The various components of the mechanism are used up in the process of maintaining this balance.  Those components must be replenished at least at the same rate that they are being used, or they will be depleted.  Vitamin C, for instance, is used up in the process of managing exposures to free radicals.  In a toxic world, free radicals have become more and more of an issue.  Because many of our foods are grown in ways that do not allow the full complement of Vitamin C to be made available, this is a Vitamin that can easily become depleted. It is truly 'over worked and under paid' !  Hence, the homeostatic mechanisms are challenged and the body falls out of balance and disease may occur.

    God has given us all that we need  in order to survive in the year 2003.  When He created us, He did not look around to find a planet that came close to being what we required: He made us for this planet and this planet for us.  It has all the foods that will provide what is required to keep the various mechanisms intact.  In spite of being deluged by toxins from our foundries, refineries, food preservatives, flavor enhancers, paints, cleansers, and the like; He has provided the nutritional elements to allow us to actually flourish in this environment.  "He came to give us life and to give it in great abundance" (John 10:10)  So if we live according to His principles, eating foods that He designed, and working as He has asked of us, we can avoid the metabolic diseases that abound in our land. 

The standard approach in medicine today is to treat the body as if it were derelict - as if, as a result of genetic inadequacies, it has developed the metabolic disorders of diabetes, hypertension, plaque in arteries, cancer, etc.  Doctors treating patients from this view point, use medication to make up for the system's alleged incompetency.  The sign or symptom may be treated but the underlying cause is not addressed.  The patient ends up having to take medication for the rest of his life.  Because the real culprit is still present, it is causing problems that will eventually surface in another form.  What started as hypertension, may eventuate in diabetes.  (Read more on this interesting relationship in the section on Insulin Resistance.)

     In the framework of a Naturopath, a disease or disorder is viewed as the body's natural and 'designed' response to an underlying condition.  It is its attempt to maintain homeostasis in a situation that is challenging its ability to function.  The real culprit is classically a deficiency of a vitamin or mineral or it is a toxic element.  At Shepherd of Hope Clinic, we feel that our main goal should be to Cleanse, Replace, and Rebuild.  When we cleanse the system of toxins, replace the missing nutritional elements, the body can then be rebuilt to its former state of vitality.