“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” While no one knows who started this saying, it was apparently coined at a time when saloon owners were advertising free lunches, with the catch that the patrons had to buy drinks at a high cost. The saying caught on, and now means that any “free” service or product from a business or from the government really has a cost behind it — if not to you, then someone else. There is always a cost.
We’ve been told that a lot of things are free these days. You can get all sorts of free services from all across the Internet, but then wonder why you get ads, telemarketer phone calls, stolen identity, and credit fraud — all because the cost of these freebies is the gathering and selling of your personal information. Free public education is financed by taxation, and then the educational content is controlled by government. There is always a cost — that cost may be hidden, but it is there, and somehow, you will pay.
This is just as true in health as it is in the world of finances. You reap what you sow. If you sow good diet and healthy habits, you reap better health. If you generally eat the Standard American Diet, you will pay with health challenges. Some of the costs of poor living are obvious: smoking promotes lung cancer, sweets and processed carbs lead to obesity, and low exercise means a weak body. But some costs are not obvious, and only extensive research makes the connections. Cancer has many such unexpected connections. If we realized just how many ways that poor habits lead to cancer, we might be more careful to pursue healthy habits. Since the costs are often hidden, we may not try hard to avoid the risks. But knowledge is power, and knowing the risks encourage us to make better lifestyle decisions.
The gut connection
We know that some foods promote various intestinal tract cancers — most of us know that eating poor foods costs us with increased risk. But did you know that they can also promote cancers elsewhere? And not only do they promote cancer development, but also spreading of cancer throughout the body, knows as metastasis. The damage is not limited to foods only, but anything, especially stress, that impacts your gut flora, that massive colony of microbes that live inside your digestive tract, which we call the gut microbiota or microbiome.
The reason that microbiota has such an impact is its strong connection with your immune system, the majority of which resides in your gut. Genetically, humans are 99.9% identical, but their microbiome can be 80-90% different. From the beginning of life, gut flora shapes healthy development. This has been shown in numerous studies, including one published in Nature Reviews Immunology, where researchers compared the development of “germ-free” animals, meaning they had been sterilized from microbiota, against normal animals, and found developmental defects in the lymph system, over-activation of type 2 cytokines, reduced pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) which are necessary for the immune system to recognize foreign invaders, and poor mucosal immunity. When the microbiota was restored, these immune deficiencies diminished.
Our bodies were designed to live as part of the natural realm, including the accommodation to external microorganisms that constitute our gut flora, and a symbiotic need for them. Changing the gut flora changes our immune systems. Some microorganisms are undesirable because they give off toxins as they feed, inflaming the gut in the process. And since the intestinal wall is so thin, inflammatory particles then pass into the bloodstream, where they inflame the whole body. The gut inflammation induces “leaky gut”, where the barrier to most particles entering the bloodstream is compromised. This is the direct impact of poor gut flora: the whole immune system reacts, even beyond the gut, because inflammatory particles which the immune system sees as invaders enter the bloodstream.
Gut flora is extremely responsive to food. Research is extensive on the impact of various foods on the gut flora, and they universally agree that various gut organisms either multiply rapidly or diminish rapidly depending upon the particular food they are exposed to. Published in Nature Microbiology, a research team at the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of California San Francisco, California looked at the impact of cooking food on microbiota. They determined, within hours of eating, that shifting from cooked to raw food shifted the gut microbiome to be more effective in releasing nutrients. They stated that the microbiome can change in a few hours to take advantage of a particular food environment. Most of the Standard American Diet encourages the inflammatory microorganisms to flourish. So making poor food choices can quickly tilt your gut flora into a inflammation-producing state.
What happens in the gut doesn’t say in the gut
There is more to this story. Research is finding connections between gut flora and the rest of the body which may go beyond leaky gut. in particular, cancer appears to be related somehow to gut health. Published in Cancer Immunology Research, researchers from the University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, Virginia found a link between breast cancer metastasis and gut flora. Their research showed that unhealthy gut flora somehow caused mast cells, which are a normal part of the immune system to deal with disease and allergens, in normal breast tissue to “restructure the tissue architecture in such a way that tumor cells metastasize to other organs.” The study referred to this as “reprogramming” the mast cells, but this can be misleading: cell programming is genetic, but epigenetic responses using genetic codes are a product of the cellular environment. Cells don’t reprogram, since their programming is already in place, but they shift their expression of their programming regularly as they attempt to respond to existing environmental pressures.
What is happening might better be explained by cellular signaling. Signals from the gut flora, or signals from byproducts of the gut flora, are changing the signaling in the body, thereby changing the reaction of the mast cells. Gut flora has a major impact on the immune system, signaling calm or inflammation throughout the body, since inflammation is a function of the immune system.
The stress connection
Stress, in its simplest definition, a force. That force pushes a reaction. Stress on a piece of paper causes it to bend or crumple, while the same stress on a metal rod has no effect. Stress in the body is force as well, and some force is necessary or we would not bother to get out of bed in the morning. Motivation, hunger, emotions, and physical stress are all forces requiring a reaction from the body. These can be good stresses, which are temporary and push us to do something valuable. Even negative stress, if temporary, pushes us to action but then is gone; for example, when we run from danger. Stress isn’t a four-letter word. Chronic stress is quite different, putting force on the body to do something it can’t, because if it could, then the stress would be alleviated.
Stress communicates with gut flora. Bad microbiota means it is giving off stress signals, but it can also be influenced by stress from the mind, damaging the gut flora. Chronic stress universally causes damage. It not only causes the gut flora to impact the immune system, it also communicates directly with the immune cells. Cellular communication is multi-facetted, and chronic stress impacts all lines of communication. Cancer development and cancer spread are simply some of the manifestations of this cellular communication if that communication continually consists of stress signals. This is shown in research studies which usually focus upon specific communication pathways, of which there are many. Published in Neurobiology of Stress, a review article considers the pathways of the “gut-brain axis”, listing the vagus nerve, gut hormone signaling, immune system signaling, tryptophan metabolism, and microbial metabolites. Other research shows the impact of brainwave EMFs on the gut as well as the rest of the body. The gut is extremely tied in with the brain, and the gut flora are impacted positively or negatively as a result of signals passed — but it goes the other way too, with more research now showing how gut flora signaling impacts the brain.
You may hear the terms “sympathetic” (stress mode) and “parasympathetic” (rest mode). These are states of the nervous system that reflect whether we are stressed or relaxed. The body should switch between these two modes regularly, and the parasympathetic nervous system reaction is necessary for rest and repair. Too little time in parasympathetic mode means too little repair to compensate for the tear-down caused by stress. One example of this is appears with high blood pressure. Published in Circulation Research, a review article from researchers at the College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida states that there is “extensive crosstalk” between the autonomic nervous system and the gut microbiota, which impairs blood pressure regulation when gut dysbiosis (expansion of pathogenic microbes) exists. This is just one example of how the gut flora impacts the nervous system.
What we are seeing is that this all comes down to stress. Temporary stress is fine. Exercise is clearly a stress, and it is temporary, giving way to the rest and repair process later. Even temporary stress will impact the gut: during times of stress, digestion is slowed to redirect energy to where it is immediately needed. But then comes down time when digestion resumes normally. You must have sufficient down time each day. But if you are chronically stressed, even that down time is compromised.
Stress comes with a cost — the consequences are there; it is not free. Physical stress from poor food and lifestyle choices will have consequences, and so will mental stress. Clearing stress will require “all hands on deck” for you to overcome it, because stress is ubiquitous. There is no shame here: it seems to be an inevitable part of the world we live in. But you can take steps to reduce it. You must if you want to achieve and maintain good health. Everything has a cost, but if what you are doing is positive, then the cost is really a payback.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
What affects your intestinal tract? It’s obvious your food does, but also your thoughts do. You remember a time when you became really stressed: maybe you were very fearful or heard some very distressing news about a family member or friend. Where did you feel this stress in your body? It’s been explained as a tightening of the stomach, a knot in the stomach, and this is the first part of the digestive tract. The small intestine is right underneath it so if you tighten up your stomach you’re tightening up your digestive tract and throwing off your digestion — so what does all of this mean? Your thoughts, your emotions, your perceptions, and your beliefs all directly affect your intestinal tract. And why am I mentioning this? Because the intestinal tract is home of the intestinal microbiome which sends messages throughout the whole body, which changes the environment at the cellular level EVERYWHERE in the body.
You have to really understand this as the research said: an unhealthy gut flora somehow caused mast cells, which are a normal part of the immune system to deal with disease and allergens, in normal breast tissue to “restructure the tissue architecture in such a way that tumor cells metastasize to other organs.” What it’s saying is that the messages in your intestinal tract actually shape the environment at the cellular level of your immune system and transform a normal healthy immune system into a cancer metastasizing dysfunctional immune system. That complete change of your immune system from its normal function of killing pathogens — bacteria, viruses, parasites, and cancer cells — it changes in a moment: a change of a diet and what you eat, a change of a thought on what you think, a change of emotion and what you express, a change of a perception in how you see life, a change in a belief system of how you believe life should be — all this change turns a healthy immune system into a cancer-metastasizing system, and quickly!
A normal immune system is transformed into an abnormal cancer-metastasizing immune system with either a poor diet choice or improper thoughts and emotions that one’s thinking on. So your mind, thoughts, and your emotions, along with your diet, have the ability to very quickly change your healthy immune system into a dysfunctional cancer-producing and cancer-metastasizing immune system.
It’s time that we stopped hoping and wishing that we’re just going live happily ever after, eating a standard American diet and living a standard American stressful life. With every meal we eat, and every thought we think, we’re producing an environment that will potentially grow and metastasize cancer, so should not think “I hope I don’t get cancer”, but more like “It’s just a matter of time until I get cancer, unless I become proactive before I get a disease and a diagnosis and I choose to change how I eat and how I see life in the big picture”. Meaning either that am I thankful for the life I have been given, or that I am always complaining of how this isn’t good enough or that’s not good enough or who did me wrong or who owes me what.
Remember every thought you think, every food item you eat and drink, is making an environment in your intestinal tract which is signaling to your immune system to either do what it was intended to do, which is keep you healthy, or to change into a cancer-metastasizing environment. It’s all up to you — what are you going to think on today? What are you going to eat today? How are you going to live today? Remember each choice is producing an intestinal environment which will change your immune system environment very, very quickly.
In the last 40 years of treating patients with our Revolution New Medicine Protocol®, we have had many patients heal with many types of diseases and disorders, including stage four advanced cancers. But as I’ve stated before, healing is not a trophy that you received five years ago and it’s on the mantle. No, healing is ongoing, with every thought you think and every item you put in your mouth.
With our protocol we have seen many, many healings with advanced disease. We have also seen patients go back to the wrong food choices and the wrong thoughts and stresses that they think on, and we’ve seen tumors come back in as little as six weeks when the tumors were completely gone on all scans.
What does that mean? That means guard your thoughts very preciously, as He stated: think on what’s Pure, what’s True, what’s Right; think on Love. These are what we’re supposed to be thinking on, and these alone.
And what about your food choices? Whether we eat or we drink or we think we do it all to reflect our Father in Heaven and to balance of the cells of your body, not to the pleasure of your tastebuds for self-gratification or addiction.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Total Health Institute but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Total Health Institute along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
