Providing a healthy environment before and after birth will help give your baby the best start in life.

Many moons ago while studying jaw problems and skull development, I learned breast feeding is very different than bottle feeding. The mechanics of breast feeding, for the child, requires more lower jaw movement, like a drawer going out and in, which provides active strengthening of muscles in the face.

The mother’s nipple also flattens and gets reshaped so the baby can express milk out of the breast. It has a broader, flatter appearance than what we see with the typical bottle nipple, which is round and bulbous. The nipple fills the baby’s upper palate and the sucking action provides an upward pressure to help shape the face. This affects the formation of the bite, possibly the eye socket, and pressures in the head, face and mouth.

I recalled this information while attending a recent lecture by Dr. Richard Gorris, DDS. He also gave additional information concerning the development of a baby’s skull. He said the skull develops in 3 areas: upper third, middle third and lower third of the head. Refined sugar can alter the rate of growth of these different segments, particularly the upper and middle thirds, so they don’t grow evenly. This can affect vision, as the 6 muscles controlling eyeball movement attach on both segments. He also stated lauric acid, an amino acid essential for growth and development of the brain, is highest in human milk. The next closest milk to human is goat’s milk, followed by coconut milk.

We have all heard how drugs the mother ingests during pregnancy affects the developing fetus. These include alcohol, prescription medications, caffeine and over-the-counter drugs. Dr. Gorris said combining certain foods can also produce narcotic-like drugs in the body, which can equally damage the fetus. One example was ingesting gluten, a non-soluble protein found in grains, with casein, another non-soluble protein found in dairy. He was describing pizza, which is made with a high-gluten wheat flour and cheese!

Providing a healthy environment before and after birth will help give the baby the best start in life. Perhaps it could even maximize brain development, create an appetite for healthy foods, optimize healthy vision, prevent jaw problems, improve digestive tract function, and maintain a healthy immune system. So consider eating fresh fruits and vegetables, drinking adequate amounts of water, getting enough sleep, exercising regularly for good circulation, strength and flexibility, and engaging in happy, social activity for a lifelong habit leading to good health.

My friend, Dr. Richard Gorris, from South Dakota was gracious enough to give a nutrition lecture at my office. He used to be an oral surgeon, but developed mercury poisoning as a direct result of his work as a dentist. He left dentistry to return to his love of nutrition and became a counselor/teacher/promoter of good nutrition.

His experience as a radio talk show host, a guest on TV talk shows, and a lecturer around the country made it easy for him to extend his usual 90-minute presentation to almost three hours at my office, and the audience wanted more. A second lecture had to be scheduled for the following week.

Dr. Gorris believes all degenerative disease begins in the colon, and there are only two reasons for degenerative disease: lack of nutrients absorbed into the body, and accumulation of debris such as toxins and waste material.

Dr. Gorris believes all degenerative disease begins in the colon.

Your mouth is the gateway to health or disease. Our digestive tracts are designed to process food in two days or less. Foods that can be processed within this time frame include fruits, vegetables, fish, and poultry.

Foods that take longer to process provide opportunities for toxins to be reabsorbed into the body and should be kept to a minimum or avoided entirely. Lamb takes four days to process, beef five days, the typical fast- food American diet seven days, and pork/cold cuts nine days.

Here are his guidelines:

• Maintain and rejuvenate your GI tract with probiotics and glutamine.
• Before swallowing, all food in your mouth should be in a paste form. Drink your solids. Chew your liquids. Digestion begins in the oral cavity as you mix your food with saliva.
• Your first bowel movement should occur within approximately one hour after arising, or less. Youthful people will have an additional bowel movement within approximately 30 minutes after the main meal of the day.
• Assume the correct anatomical position prior to each bowel movement: Sit up straight, knees higher than your hips, relax and eliminate your bowel mass in less than 30 seconds.
• Bowel movement observations which are very good indicators of the proper ratio of bacteria, water, waste, fiber, and bowel activity include elimination that is quick and effortless.

Feces formed and in one length like a coiled snake, golden in color, and odorless. It should float at first, then begin to disintegrate within about 30 seconds. When you wipe, there should be very little, if any, debris on the toilet paper. Respect your colon daily, faithfully, and eternally. Do a thorough bowel housekeeping and cleaning early each spring.

Make every day a multisensory one. It’s the adventure of your lifetime. I hope this helps to give you some guidelines for better health.

And one last quote to share with you from Dr. Gorris:

“He who has health has hope. He who has hope has everything.” – Arabian proverb.

Someone in my qigong class recently gave me a handout from John Hopkins stating the latest findings on cancer.  One of the more interesting statements was that every person has cancer cells in their body, which only becomes apparent on tests after the cells have multiplied to a few billion.  A person’s immune system is vital for preventing cancer cells from multiplying and forming tumors.

When cancer is detected, it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.  Consequently,  the immune system can be strengthened by improving nutrition through dietary changes.  This can also include nutritional supplementation.

An effective way to combat cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding them the foods they like.  These include sugar, sugar substitutes, milk which produces mucus, meat which produces an acidic environment and is difficult to digest, distilled water which also produces an acidic environment, and highly caffeinated drinks.

It is much better to eat a diet made up of 80% fresh vegetables, seeds, nuts and a little fruit to put the body into an alkaline environment.  Eating some raw vegetables provides live enzymes that are easily absorbed and enhance the growth of healthy cells.

Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment so daily physical exercise and deep breathing can help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level.  Aerobic exercise is one way to improve the oxygen flow to the whole body.  There are specific qigong exercises designed to improve lung function and whole body oxygenation.

Nutritional supplementation to help build the immune system is also recommended.  Vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, antioxidants and tonics that bolster the body’s nutrition help to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells.  Some specific antioxidants are helpful in reducing damage to blood vessels as well as strengthening blood vessels to bring more oxygen flow to the entire body.

Limiting one’s exposure to toxic chemicals is also very important.  Microwaving food in plastic containers is especially poisonous.

Mental attitudes and emotions can also contribute to cancer.  Anger, resentment and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment.  So it is important to cultivate positive attitudes, which leads to stress reduction and greater enjoyment of life.

There are many routes to improving your health.  Take a step on any of these paths to begin your program for improving your health and reducing your cancer risk.