Inner Cleansing: Why You Must Cleanse To Maintain Your Health!

Inner Cleansing: A Crucial Part of Your Wellness Plan

By: Dr. Ariel Policano,
Medical Director for NW Center for Cleansing & Rejuvenation

Why learning and participating in a cleansing program is as important as taking vitamins and getting enough exercise and rest.

“I've been to the doctor, and he says that there is nothing wrong.”

When was the last time you truly felt great? Do you find yourself coping with increasing fatigue and difficulty coping with stress? What about digestion? Do you find that you need to take an acid blocker, or find yourself avoiding more and more foods due to indigestion, bloating or other digestive upsets? If any or even all of these are issues that you have been experiencing, you absolutely must consider a cleansing program. A cleansing program focuses on “cleaning up” the digestion and the liver. By changing this, you affect all the other parts of the body. In naturopathic medicine, I learned that “all disease begins in the gut.” There is another saying that goes, the road to wellness is paved with good intestines.” Clean up your digestion and the liver and watch your energy, focus and feeling of well-being return in a way that you might not have believed. This cleansing process affects the hormones, the adrenals, the metabolism, the immune system and so much more.

“ I take the best supplements, I still don’t feel better.”

There are great quality supplements out there. There is wonderful, organic food that you may choose as well. If you are taking supplements and eating wonderful food without cleansing, you are probably losing a large portion of the nutrition that you paid for! Why? This potential nutrition is not having the same impact because of congestion in the liver and weakness of the digestive tract. It is like laying on a top quality coat of paint before removing all the past layers of paint and carefully cleaning and preparing the surface. When the digestive tract is clean, the food is digested properly and completely absorbed. Then everything you take into the body gets utilized by the body. You can feel the difference that it makes. Often patients tell me they have been on a regimen of good quality supplements, but they did not feel better. I explain to them, do a cleanse first, then you will really start to feel the true effect of that nutrition and natural medicine.

Why is the digestive system related to all these other aspects of health?

The digestive tract includes the stomach, small intestine and large intestine. In the stomach, which is primarily designed for protein digestion. Stomach acid plays a key role. However, most of the patients that I see are deficient in stomach acid. This undigested protein starts to ferment in the stomach. It produces inorganic acids and can sometimes be the cause of heartburn or reflux. Taking an antacid only makes this situation worse because it suppresses what is already too low. If proteins do not digest properly here, then the good food you have eaten can become a source of toxins in the body! The cleansing program helps to correct this with changes in diet and specially designed supplements.

The next part of the digestive tract is the small intestine. Here, pancreatic enzymes and bile from the liver and gall bladder are very important in proper digestion. This is where proteins are further broken down by pancreatic enzymes. Fats are digested with the assistance of bile and enzymes. As well, carbohydrates are broken down to sugars, again with the aid of enzymes. Due to stress and the heavy consumption of complex cooked foods, many people are also low on pancreatic enzymes. The cleansing process also helps to correct this. This correct breakdown of food is very important. You absolutely need complete digestion to get your nutrition. In addition, anything not digested well will ferment or “rot” in this warm, moist environment. These toxins route themselves back to the liver via the bloodstream. We can begin to “swim” in the poisons created by poor stomach acid and low enzyme production. If you feel toxic, you probably are toxic! And we unknowingly did it to ourselves!

The cleansing process helps stomach acid to get stronger and gives the pancreas a rest, so that it can work more effectively. The cleanse also detoxifies the liver and flushes out the gall bladder. This helps to release old, toxic bile that aids in fat elimination. Have you been trying to lose weight without much luck? This might be the reason! Cleaning your digestive tract and liver will help fat to be broken down more easily. Most participants in the cleansing program lose 5-12 pounds in just 14 days!

“The road to wellness is paved with good intestines.”

The last part of the digestive tract is the large intestine, or colon. It is our garbage can, our waste removal system. It is the one part that no one likes to talk about in public. It is so very important in the maintenance of health. Eliminating waste quickly, efficiently and with regularity cannot be emphasized enough! There may be as much as 5 or 6 pounds of old “fecal matter” inside each person eating a “standard American diet”.

A combination of stress, low fiber diets and minimal water consumption have lead to many people being constipated most of the time, and they do not even know it. These waste products may stay in the large intestine and “rot” inside of us. Some of these wastes are so toxic, especially the ones produced from meat consumption that they actually have names like “cadaverine”! You may be dying from the inside and not know it! A very important part of the cleansing process is releasing these harmful toxins from the colon by using special fiber blends, teas and dietary changes.

When the colon is clean, you feel it in every other part of your body. Your colon actually contains reflex points throughout its 5-6 feet in length that touch every other organ system in your body. When people tell me that there hearing or sight seemed to improve during the cleansing program, I let them know that it may be a direct result of this colon cleansing process. However, don’t worry. The cleansing program is specifically designed to be gentle, but effective. You will not find yourself running to the bathroom every few minutes. Yes, you will be able to continue all of your regular activities.

Realize your greatest health now.

A cleansing program touches every other part of your health. To stay healthy in today’s world of external toxins and toxins that may result from poor digestion, a cleansing program absolutely MUST be part of your wellness plan. Yes, good vitamins, nutrition, exercise and rest are things that you have realized are important. Now, add to your plan the new wellness practice of the 21st center. Place on your calendar now a time to do a 14-day cleansing program twice per year. You will feel the difference on the inside, and everyone else will notice our this inner health shines on the outside as well.

Stomach Acid: Too Low or Too High?

Quick, answer this. When you have heartburn, or acid reflux, it is because your stomach acid is too high, right? That is why you take your favorite acid reducer, proton pump inhibitr or other acid blocker, right? Wrong. Almost every patient I meet with has compromised levels of stomach acid. Their stomach acid is too low!

I know what you're thinking. OK, so why do I feel better when I eat those antacid chews or the acid blocker? If your stomach acid is low, the food you eat will not digest properly. When this happens, the food, especially heavier meals, will begin to ferment, or may become described by another lovely word, putrefy! At this point, this lovely fermenting food begins to produce its own organic acids. This creates the burning sensation. Of course, reducing acid will make this feel better.

So, how do you know if your stomach acid has become depleted?

Take the following test:

Does food tend to sit in your stomach for a long time after a meal?
Do you tend to belch after a meal? Or have gas?
Do you have bowel movements that feel "incomplete" even with a good amount of fiber?
Do you have constipation?
Do you have bouts of diarrhea?
Is your stool hard, dry, or difficult to pass?
Do you use laxatives frequently?
Have you been through long periods of stress in your life?
Do you have difficulty losing weight?
Do you have deep ridges in your nails that run the length of the nail?
Do you have white marks that run across the nail?
Do you have halitosis (bad breath)?


Have you answered yes to 3 or more of these? Then, you most likely have low stomach acid.

If your stomach acid is already low, what do you think will be the implication of taking an acid reducer? It only makes the situation worse! You absolutely need stomach acid to absorb iron, calcium and other important minerals! You need stomach acid to efficiently break down proteins completely. And finally, you need stomach acid to help to destroy pathogens, or what I affectionately call "creepy crawly critters" that come in through the food supply. You would be amazed at how many positive tests I get back for giardia and amebiasis, parasites that live in your gastrointestinal system, that people did not even know that they had! It is because of this deficiency in stomach acid.

Would you like to improve your stomach acid? Go now to my website www.nwrejuvenate.com and order Dr. Ariel's Total Body Rejuvenation Cleanse. The cleanse is designed to dramatically improve your digestive health in just 2 weeks. Each part of the cleansing program will help to make your digestion and stomach acid get back to normal. Order it today, and get back that important, powerful, life-saving stomach acid!

Living Foods Retreat!

I just returned from the Living Foods Retreat just outside of Portland, Oregon. It was fantastic! Presenters included Brigitte Mars, Herbalist, Nutritional Consultant and Raw Chef, Gabriel Cousens, MD, and the pretty impressive Victoria Boutenko, author of 12 Steps to Raw Foods and Green For Life. Green for Life is Victoria's latest book and includes the groundbreaking Green Smoothies!

Victoria did some very interesting research. She looked at the eating habits of chimpanzees. Chimpanzees have DNA that is startlingly similar to humans. She noted that the chimp diet was in large part composed of fruit and greens. She cited that work of Jane Goodall who saw the chimps grab some greens and roll a fig inside as a handy snack to munch on! A quest for a more complete nutritional program led her to the development of her wonderful recipes for Green Smoothies. Generally, these drinks are about 60% fruit and 40% greens. Here is one of her recipes:

Minty-Thrill
4 ripe pears
4-5 leaves of kale
1/2 bunch mint
2 cups water
Yields: 1 quart of smoothie

Once Victoria began consuming these healthful drinks, her cravings for heavy foods like nuts decreased. She had discovered that her stomach acid was very low, and that drinking all the greens actually improved lack of stomach acid. This is something I am very familiar with in naturopathic medicine. I have observed that a majority of my patients have some degree of hypochlorhydria, which means low stomach acid.

Stomach acid functions best at a pH between 1-2. This is a very strong acid! Foods are best digestes at this pH. If you have bloating after eating, or gas, discomfort, heartburn, or feel as if the food just "sits" in your stomach, you have symptoms of low stomach acid. When this happens, it will be very difficult to digest your food and it will be even more difficult to absorb all the wonderful vitamins and minerals that your body needs from food.

You might be thinking, how could heartburn come as a result of low stomach acid? When stomach acid is low, food sits in your stomach, begins to ferment (lovely, isn't it) and produces acids. These acids are what causes the burning sensation. So, what do you take as a result? Antacids! These make your symptoms better, but ultimately your situation gets worse, as you are suppressing what little acid you may have.

If you have heartburn or these other symptoms, you may want to contact me for a consultation. It is important not to miss complications like ulcers, or to find out if you have a bacteria in your stomach called Helicobacter Pylori. This bacteria is in some ways responsible for making the stomach produce less acid. In my office I run a test that checks for bacteria in the stomach, small intestine and large intestine (colon.) You would be shocked how many people have parasites like giardia or amebiasis or have the Helicobacter Pylori bacteria. Be sure to ask about this test, called a GI Health Panel, if you are concerned about those stomach upsets or tummy pain.

Back to Victoria's Green Smoothies. These drinks contain high amounts of chlorophyll, which will help to improve your stomach acid! I highly recommend her book, Green for Life. You can get the book and read more about her at www.rawfamily.com

I will be lecturing more with details about greens and nutrtion, and I will be doing a Green Smoothie demonstration class coming up in September. Just to give you a little extra incentive to join us, I will also demonstrate a recipe for an absolutely delicious almond milk that contains raw cacao and carob with some delicious natural sweeteners!

The Living Foods Retreat was a great success. It was great to connect with other people interested in living foods, to hear the latest developments, and to taste some incredible recipes.
If you enjoy the taste of food, I would like to recommend generous sponsors of the retreat, Blossoming Lotus Cafe, www.blossominglotus.com in the Pearl District. They served us a 5 course meal that was out of this world! You wouldn't have to have an affection for raw food to have loved this incredible feast.

Check on my website at www.nwrejuvenate.com for the LIVING FOODS PREPARATION classes coming up in September!!!

Could You Be Deficient In Iodine?

In the second edition of Dr. Brownstein's book, Iodine, Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without It, he states that out of 3,000 patients tested for Iodine deficiency, 95% were found to be deficient. He has been treating many different conditions from hypothyroidism, chronic headaches, fibrocystic breasts and fibromyalgia, and finding that iodine deficiency was the "missing link" to leaps and bounds toward their healing. He tested them with and iodine loading test. When he established their deficiency, he supplemented appropriately, and the cures seemed nothing short of miraculous. I am currently running the iodine loading test in my office. If you have any of these conditions, or questions about the functioning of your thyroid, please go to my website www.nwrejuvenate.com and contact me with your concerns.

The iodine loading test is a test to see if you are deficient in iodine. You take a high dose of iodine, and then the test is to see how much your body holds on to for the next 24 hours. If you hardly excrete any in your urine, you are deficient! An individual with healthy levels of iodine will release some 90% or more of the iodine ingested in that high dose. However, many people are keeping that iodine in their body like a sponge! They are only releasing about 20-40% on average, showing that their body did not have sufficient amounts.

So, are you running for the salt shaker, thinking some good iodized salt would be the answer to your troubles. Stop! Iodized salt is not the healthies form of salt. Unrefined Celtic Sea Salt is a whole food rich in minerals and would be a much better choice. Many people, though, have been avoiding the salt shaker. Therefore, they are taking in little iodine. Do you eat handfuls of sea vegetables (sea weed) every day? Do you eat a diet that includes fish daily? Most likely, your intake is deficient!

To compound that, there are things we are exposed to each day that deplete our body of iodine. One of those things is bromine, which is used to preserve various baked goods. Another is chlorine, which is in the water, the swimming pool, the shower, and on and on. If you are concerned that you may be deficient, consider reading, Iodine, Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without it, by Dr. Brownstein. Or contact me for more information about testing at www.nwrejuvenate.com

The Doc's First Post

Hi all,

Thanks for checking in here. I am creating this blog because I thought it would be interesting and informative to see some of the discoveries I am making about health. I am committted to this journey, and I am constantly reading new books, journals, updates, and attending seminars about the latest in natural health. I remain incredibly curious about what makes us heal, even though I have been studying all of this for 15 plus years. My areas of focus are nutritional breakthroughs, cleansing programs, living foods, functional imbalances that go undetected like thyroid or sugar imbalances. So, you get the latest newsbreaking information about health as I get them! Some topics I will be blogging about: Iodine deficiency may be more common than we could imagine, Portland Living Foods Retreat, pH Assessment and Cleansing Programs.

Some books I have been reading:

Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without It, 2nd Edition
David Brownstein, MD.

Salt Your Way To Health, David Brownstein, MD

The Hundred Year Lie, How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health, Randall Fitzgerald

As for a little more about me, the naturopathic doc. I became interested in much of this in 1989. My father had AIDS, my sister chronic depression and an eating disorder. I lost both of these members of my family in 1990 and 1991. During this time, I started reading the books of Norman Walker, Paavo Aairola, and Ann Wigmore. I became fascinated with natural healing and how it was different from conventional medicine. I learned in a class at Baruch College, where I was studying accounting of all things, that the AZT my father was taking was toxic to his bone marrow and could cause liver cirrhosis. Later I learned that the Pentamidine my father was taking to prevent Pneumocystis Carinii was incredibly toxic. Why would good doctors prescribe these toxic medications? What else is out there?

My sister had anorexia, bulimia, and depression. As far as I can recall, nutrtional counseling was not ever part of her treatment plan. She was shifted by medical professionals, including medical doctors and psychiatrists who could not find help for her all over the state of New York, and finally down to one of the best hospitals in the country in Maryland. Her daily diet? It included several diet sodas, non-fat yogurt and cigarettes! Looking back now, large doses of B-Vitamins would probably have made a profound difference, along with an array of homeopathics and herbal formulations. These experiences were really a spark set me in motion on a journey. I have studied nutrtion in foods, traveled to Ashrams and cleansing centers, read many different philosophies on health.

Today, my enthusiasm has not waned! The more I know, the more that I want to know and the more I realize how much there is to learn. So, if you too are interested in the very best in health and are interested in healing yourself or optimizing wellness, check in here for Doctor Ariel's postings!