JANUARY 24, 2010. This is another in a series of articles on the nutritional detective work of Laura Thompson.
My wife, Laura, owns The Southern California Institute of Clinical Nutrition. She works with many patients by telephone.
Implicit in everything Laura does for patients is ENERGY—increasing it, awakening it, expanding it, making it more available on many levels. After all, this is what people want—more positive and sustained energy they can rely on as they work toward the objectives that excite them. They want to feel they have a large and buoyant reservoir of forward-looking energy that will sustain them through thick and thin.
In order to achieve that, several areas need to be addressed.
Here is a Q&A with Laura on the subject:
Q: When do nutritional programs fail in providing more energy?
A: There are two basic reasons for that. The energy might be delivered in a form that produces an upsurge and then a let-down. That would be useless.
Q: Give me an example of that.
A: A person takes an herb because he’s heard or read that it gives energy. And it does. But only for a short time. The other reason is more interesting.
Q: What’s that?
A: Underlying situations in the body won’t permit the energy to “take hold.” It drains away. It fades. As quickly as you replenish energy, it dissipates.
Q: And these underlying situations are?
A: This is where the detective work comes in. Suppose the person has immune-system weakness. That would, in a sense, capture energy and try to use it to fight battles it isn’t suited for. The person would experience this “capture” as fatigue or exhaustion.
Q: So you would need to shore up the immune system.
A: Yes. Correct nutrients delivered together can help greatly. Then there are hormone imbalances.
Q: We discussed that in a previous interview.
A: Right. You see, if the hormones are not in balance and the levels are insufficient, you are going to run out of energy. Because hormones are intimately involved with energy production. The adrenal glands are an obvious example. You can feed all the fuel you want to, to an engine, but if the engine is firing on two cylinders rather than eight, it’s not going to work.
Q: What about brain function?
A: We do neurotransmitter tests on patients. The tests tell us about the levels of these chemicals in the body, and we can then achieve a good neurotransmitter balance with proper nutrients. Cognitive processes are a key to energy. If your thoughts are slowed down and become fuzzy, you can’t utilize energy. With good neurotransmitter levels, your thought processes become sharper.
Q: And, of course, there is digestive function.
A: This is greatly overlooked. Everything that happens in the digestive tract has to do with the eventual production of energy. When necessary, I devote a lot of attention to bringing digestive function into a good range. It’s absolutely vital. The body processes food so it can deliver energy. That has to happen smoothly and effectively.
Q: From all of this, I can see why the society runs on stimulants.
A: Of course. You can try to substitute one kind of stimulant after another for the energy you should naturally have, but it won’t work. You need to deal with and correct the situations that are weakening the foundations. Good nutrition can do that. But good nutrition isn’t just walking into a health-food store and grabbing a product off the shelf. It’s much more sophisticated. You need to go much deeper. That’s what I’ve learned in the last 14 years. You have to explore situations with each patient, and each patient is different and unique in important ways. I recognize that.
(If you’re interested in becoming a client, contact Laura’s clinic at 800-608-5602.)
JON RAPPOPORT
www.nomorefakenews.com
