Using the complete pharmacy that exists within your own body is an efficient and cost-effective way to maintain your health. With the raw materials from a nutrient-rich diet along with a properly functioning body, your body can produce all the good chemicals you could want for a lifetime of health and well-being. Getting your own body to produce good chemicals that maintain your health also avoids the serious and costly side-effects and trade-offs that accompany pharmaceutical medications.
Yes, there is certainly a time and place for medications, especially during emergency situations or to replace a vital chemical that the body has lost its ability to produce, when it is no longer able to maintain normal function itself. However, it is wise to question the long term effects of just replacing a chemical the body can no longer produce enough of, known as “replacement therapy“, by taking that chemical as a medication. Replacement therapy is extremely overused and unfortunately is usually used as a first option for so many chronic problems.
Think of the number of people you know who are taking various hormones, like thyroid, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. So many others are taking chemicals normally produced by the adrenal glands, to control their inflammation or asthma, or taking adrenal stimulants for their ADHD. I am not saying this is always a bad thing; I am raising several questions about replacement therapy, which may help you to look at it differently.
First, was every attempt made to get the body to produce more of the deficient chemical on its own? For chronic problems that are not emergency situations, the best approach is to use Your Inner Pharmacy first! Then, if the body is unable to produce enough of a critical chemical, replacement therapy may be indicated. Unfortunately, so many people resort to the external pharmacy first, using the medications and never giving the body a chance to return to normal function.
Second, is the replacement therapy being done in a way that further decreases the body’s production of that chemical or perhaps in a much wiser way that allows the body to rest and rebuild? There is usually a fine line here, and most medical approaches don’t concern themselves with nurturing and healing a fatigued or exhausted organ that may have been overworked by a person’s lifestyle and diet, and could actually be brought back to health with proper holistic treatment.
Third, why are there are so many widespread chemical imbalances? Currently about one in five high school boys is being diagnosed with ADHD, and most of these are being given adrenal stimulants to help their symptoms. Regardless of whether ADHD is being over-diagnosed, the real question to ask is why are teenager’s adrenal glands so depleted or exhausted that they need medications to stimulate them to function normally? Along with this question is the obvious one of, do the stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall have a rebuilding effect that result in healthier adrenals after taking them for a period of time, or do they further deplete the adrenals, creating an ongoing need and often addictive pattern for the stimulation?
The fact is that restoring the health and normal function of someone’s adrenal glands is a much better approach than just using a stimulant for years that further depletes them. Yes, restoring the normal function of any depleted glands may require a healthy diet, lifestyle, and working with a health care practitioner who is trained in doing this. It is the subject of my book, “Your Inner Pharmacy“, and is well worth considering for a lifetime of health and optimum function.