Do you ever feel like something should be “scientifically proven” before you trust it?
In medicine, we worship the controlled, randomized trial. We believe in an objective reality that is not observer dependent, and we treat individuals as interchangeable cogs in the wheel of science. We are looking for cause and effect, stimulus and predictable, reproducible response.
But as we begin to awaken to a different truth about the nature of reality, our basic methodology for studying it also comes under review.
We have been allowed to wander, for several thousand years, into the territory of belief that supports the discrete and separate self – the flesh robot on a dead rock in the middle of space existence of purposelessness and meaninglessness – but we are being called back to the Continuum. We are being reminded that we are a part of the natural world, that we are, in fact the natural world itself.
Our reminders have come in the form of illness and crisis. We wake up and go to sleep with fear, unease, numbness, and pain coursing through our veins. We are hanging on for dear life, just trying to survive, waking up over and over to the monotony that disconnection affords.
Dysbiosis and How We’ve Gone Wrong
Our bodies and minds are telling us that we are living wrongly. In fact, our inner ecology is out of balance, and we call it dysbiosis, which literally means wrong living. We are suffering from chronic degenerative diseases like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, autoimmunity, and depression. Conventional medicine has little to offer because it doesn’t understand the language of inflammation that ties all of these dialects together.
Inflammation is native to the human body. It serves a very critical tonic purpose, however, when it becomes chronic and lowgrade, the body adapts to a certain point, as if to say, “I will continue to remind you that you have strayed from yourself and from the web of being.”
The Web of Change – More Than a Pill
Listening to this reminder is a highly personal process, but there are some basic tenets, time tested, that send a signal of safety to the body, mind, and spirit. These tenets work in concert and essentially look like honoring the human organism. Movement, sunlight, sleep, clean food, water, air, rest, and contact with nature. It’s a simple recipe that is mostly defined by the strict removal and elimination of so many of the Trojan Horse gifts of modernity – technology, sanitation, transportation, processed foods, indoor modular living, and myriad conveniences that have led us down a path of mental, spiritual, and physical derangement.
This is why I jumped out of my skin to read this title in my Saturday morning abstract scroll: Influence of a 10 Day Mimic of Our Ancient Lifestyle on Anthropometrics and Parameters of Metabolism and Inflammation: The “Study of Origin. Up until this point, I had only read one other study which I reached back into my intellectual Rolodex to caress every so often. By O’Dea, this study from 1984 demonstrated that aboriginal Australians, returned to the Bush could meaningfully improve and even resolve their type 2 diabetes in 7 weeks. No pills, no program, just traditional living.
Since then I have believed passionately in what is called “N of 1 medicine” or the principle that each person is their own most relevant data, and that a multiplicity of interventions will work most powerfully in context in ways that conventional trials are not equipped to assess or quantify.
Measuring Lifestyle Change
With the tools of blood analysis, however limited, we have an opportunity to capture patterns and trends that may reflect this reality. In this study, 55 adults were offered a 10 day trip through the Pyrenees where they:
- Hiked 14km/day carrying an 8kg bag
- Unplugged completely from technology
- Ate ducks, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, fish
- Drank “in bulk” from an unchlorinated waterhole
- Slept outside
They found that it took about 3 days for them to adjust to states of hunger and thirst, as well as to some chronic abrasions on their bodies from thorns in the terrain.
Assessed before and after, the laboratory parameters demonstrated that: “The trip caused decreases in body weight and BMI (median change 4.8%), hip circumference (3%), waist circumference (5.6%), and waist/hip ratio (2.5%) (Table 1; Figure 2). Among the clinical chemical indices we found decreases of glucose (12.5%), insulin (55%),HOMAIR(58.1%), HbA1c (1.8%), triglycerides (20%), total cholesterol (13.7%), LDLcholesterol (21.9%), and triglycerides/HDLcholesterol ratio (19.3%).”
Paleo Stress vs Urban Stress
The “eustress” meaning adaptive or beneficial stress of the experience may have contributed to elevations in liver enzymes and the inflammatory marker CRP. Perhaps this short term adaptation was a sign of appropriate stimulation of “hormesis” that would ultimately recalibrate the entire organism.
Participants reported feeling well, although ambivalent about the continuation of the experience by day 7. This is what I observe with the protocol I engage with my patients – the first 14 to 21 days are challenging and rife with the struggle of adapting to a simpler version of life. We become familiar with our particular brand of struggle and love our habits. In many rubrics, it takes 40 days to truly shift, but this study confirms that meaningful change is available in ten.
Another unaddressed element of this study is the power of belief. The participants were psychoneuroimmunology students who clearly possessed a native interest in the principles behind the study design itself. In the conventional thinking, this is a handicap that corrupts and confounds the outcomes. From my perspective, this is a necessary part of the alchemy of healing and change – belief in the intervention.
New Data For Ancient Science
We have moved beyond the single intervention, the belief that the observer is outside looking in, and that the subjects are but disease entities interacting with a standardized chemical having a discrete effect with a known mechanism.
In fact, some recent efforts like this UCLA study used a 36 point therapeutic intervention to resolve Alzheimer’s dementia are attempting to orchestrate the complex symphony of factors that contribute to supporting the body’s self-healing with remarkable results in 9/10 patients and notable side benefits.
We are asking, “how do we heal?” And the answer is simple. We must first believe that we can. Then, we must speak to our bodies in a language they understand so that we can recognize our minds for the distracting and potentially destructive forces that they are, and then come into contact with the souls that show us who we really are: a singular drop of the universe’s oceanic beauty.
Thank you for this. I spoke today on the phone with a dear friend who has very advanced stage ALS. While she has gone through many overwhelming challenges, including being in palliative care this winter, she is still very much with us. Her will is unlike that of anyone who I have ever met. And everything that she tries – from green juicing to Liquid Hope to meditation – she puts 100% belief in that it is truly serving her well. I am certain that the strength of her conviction is why she has so far beaten the odds.
On my end, after reading your book I have been on a program of tapering off of the Xanax that I have been on for 13 years (I know); I am nearly there. And it is interesting because there have been times in the taper when I have been scared about what I was doing…and the taper would not go well. I would stop, focus on the resources I needed to know that I would be all right…continue…and it would go well.
I am so grateful for your work and am looking forward to your next book.
With Gratitude.
The Pruimboom and Bredesen papers are super inspirational and fortifying! I had read the 1984 Australia study, but these two new ones are gems. Thanks so much for sifting through the research to find these.
I love what you have coined the “N of 1 medicine.” I’m a big believer that health is not and will not be achieved with the one-to-many solutions that drive our health care model today. There are so many immeasurable, not-isolate-able factors that can’t be proven in the one to many model. This article has so many great takeaways as well as some great writing – I chuckled when I read “intellectual Roledex.”
That was brilliant! Thank you for that!
Thank you Kelly. I have read your book and believe it. How do I send you a personal email concerning the DR2 Dopamine gene and it’s impact on us? Thanks – Pam
You can send a message to office@kellybroganmd.com. Kindly note messages will be reviewed by office staff.
American Indians who returned to their native diet also were able to resolve their type 2 diabetes. The common meaning of dysbiosis is an imbalance of bowel flora, caused by antibiotics or poor diet. It can be relieved by taking probiotics or eating fermented foods.
Dear Kelly,
Thank you for this article and for all your work and dedication. I am a 63 year old *male* ─ yes, there is hope even for “the other” gender {chuckle} ─ mystic, shaman, and metaphysician. My inner guide Elisha said to me once, “When you find professionals in the scientific and medical community who are open-minded enough to confront mysticism and the wisdom of the ancients, keep them nearby. They are the wave of the future, the hope of Gaia, and the new species of humanity evolving here.”
You are one of these, Kelly. A Light in my world. Thank you for all that you are and all that you continue to do.
Blessings,
The Zy of Elisha
elishans.org
Zy, I couldn’t have said it better…
I am an ardent believer of your form of healing and would love to work with you on my own healing journey..I have started to wean off my medications, live in Vermont and I am looking for a practioner to work with. Any suggestions?
Thank you for this article, which is exactly my philosophy, and why i believe i am so healthy at my age (58)….i have even healed my spinal injury myself!
Walking barefoot, eating clean organic food with good water, rest and exercise, and especially communing with and observing nature has kept me healthy and happy all these years!
You are so intelligent and aware, and i wish our health/medical models would follow your lead! The world would be a better place with healthier and more conscious humans!
Love you
Dear Kelly,
For the last 15-20 years we have been witnessing the scientific paradigm shift. The reason is obvious – the science of yesterday needs refurbishment, because it is unable to solve sometimes basic issues that a new emerging paradigm is able to do.
Thomas Kuhn told us about this process some 50 years ago and you are as well as many others the living proof of this change. It affects not only Medicine but host of other disciplines. And this has been accelerated by huge corruption in science.
If the hard-core scientist representing the obsolete paradigm stick to their guns like Richard Dawkins, I am a bit worried about the future of science because it may lead to another extreme that even people like you will not be able to stop the process and we may end up with 100% of something like metaphysical sciences so to speak.
As the new paradigm is attractive, we think that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But once we reach that other side and look back, the grass actually does not look greener at all and for sure it won’t if we go to the other extreme, certainly not voluntarily.
1421 days? I think there should be 14 / 21 days…
Finally my curiosity makes me ask you a question concerning your sending a regular newsletter. Don’t you send it to all of us at the same time? Why did I receive the last one 4 hours ago? Some people commented here already on July 14th. Any control on the way?
Thank you for this Kelly! I have read your book, ‘A mind of your Own” and certainly am a believer in your work. thank you for your continued efforts on this. I have been taking anti depression and anti anxiety meds for almost 20 years and so want to remove them from my life! Having read your articles of the danger of just stopping them, I am working with my holistic psychiatrist to wean off them. thank you again for bringing this all to light!
I get my own brain into the mode of believing in a treatment by using Muscle Reflex Testing to ask questions, get answers (only reliable with very extensive training of one’s brain and willingness to use mindfulness about the state of one’s mind and emotions to be sensitive to the questions that pop up into my thoughts) and use visualization to understand what my own brain is telling me is wrong inside of me. I have learned that the answers it gives are usually correct when I look up on the internet for published journal articles on the topic that give similar answers. There is a lot of knowledge stored in the brain that a person cannot recall ever having read or heard others speak about, but which can be deduced from what the brain knows about the body. It is just not used to telling the conscious mind this information. The evolution of language has actually decreased the level of integration between conscious and unconscious thought. Using mindfulness, visualization and MRT helps to restore what our pre-language ancestors and relatives can do.
Kelly, your links to “Influence of a 10 Day Mimic of Our Ancient Lifestyle on Anthropometrics” and “Parameters of Metabolism and Inflammation: The Study of Origin” are not in the PMC database any more.
Kelly I can only hope that you get the recognition for what you are doing
while you’re young enough to read it yourself…
We have certainly gone far adrift from our own understanding of our connection to the natural world and order of natural events. This is what eastern philosophies have been telling us for millenia and guys like Alan Watts and many others have tried to convey to the western mindset. It is all very basic knowledge and simply common sense. There is no special diatribe or mantra necessary to understand and realize you own “Inner Powers” via your connection to the universe and this world we all live in. We are simply part of the entire biosphere and every living thing on this planet ! That understanding opens up unimaginable powers of healing and , excellent health and overall well being to anybody.
No PHD or MBA required at all, just honesty, and a bit of courage to act ! In fact I am now completely convinced that what we have called higher education is in fact nothing of the sort and more like purposeful mind numbing disinformation that insist you go along with the status quo ! It could also be called propaganda or mind control methods. Realize that true knowledge and understanding does not come from what we call formal education ? Quite the opposite is the reality.
There is a sort of fountain of youth and excellent health and well being that anybody can attain if they simply know how to live correctly ! This has nothing at all to do with new age anything, more like very ancient knowledge being reborn. Anybody can do this rather easily !
Kelly Brogan is a breath of fresh air in a sea of ignorance and ego driven quasi professionals who are little more than dupes or frauds ! Way past time to wake up and grasp your own health and well being.
Hi lm a 51 year young man from Yorkshire. United Kingdom ….l must say keep up the good work Kelly …your reaching far out to a lot of people ….. a thousand. thanks from the UK ……spiritual regards Steve