Customer Reviews

Detoxification and Healing: The Key to Optimal Health

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I thought this book was going to be more about detoxification through nutrition. Instead, it's about supplements you can take to alleviate nutritional deficencies. Baker does do a super job of showing the food/body/ health connection. He also clearly illustrates how all the body's systems and functions are connected and dependent on one another. This book is much more open minded and thoughtful in the art of healing than modern medicine, which refuses to admit that diet affects your health. It's a pretty good book but I wish he spent more time on actual foods than supplements.

I wish every mainstream doctor would read this book. I've read a half dozen books on detoxification, and this is the best! His presentation is clear, concise, and backed by science. The case history examples he is able to present to testify to his claims, come from his 30 plus years in medical practice. I'd much rather read the instruction from a person so well versed in biochemestry than some of the other books that offer only the testimonials of lay-persons as proof that their ideas are sound.

This is a book written by an Orthomolecular doctor at his best. What you get here is much more than "how toos". Detoxification is about working from the fundamentals of a system and out from there. Dr. Baker, in speaking about this subject, gives a great example of how balance and imbalance, in healing, has always made perfect sense. This is a very enlightening and informative set of ideas that can help open new ways of thinking. Not, "way out - new age" concepts, but common sense connections about how our choices effect us and how we can be empowered to make changes to heal. I recommend this highly and also for anyone that wants to get a very good glimpse at how a good Orthomolecular doctor thinks about things.

Dr. Sidney Baker has written a remarkable book. This thin volume packs in so much useful information, it's hard to believe it is only 200 pages. Perhaps this has something to do with his integrative approach to chronic health problems. According to most mainstream doctors, each specific health condition has its own specific cause, and its own specific treatment, which would make for a tome of a book covering so many individual symptoms, causes, and treatments. However, as Baker shows, this approach is flawed, and those with chronic health problems like adrenal fatigue, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, severe allergies, or IBS know it. The systems of our body work together, and a successful treatment means treating the body as a system. This means different symptoms can have the same cause, and a single problem can cause very different symptoms. Baker repeats two important ideas throughout the book: the body's systems work together, and each individual is unique in their make-up.

Detoxification and Healing describes body chemistry and detoxification in simple, engaging language, using case studies from his vast experience in treating patients with cancer, diabetes, autism, among countless other epidemic disorders plaguing large numbers of people today. He identifies several well known and some little known toxins and deficiencies that contribute to these diseases: from hidden gluten sensitivities and mercury and aluminum poisoning to dairy allergies and fatty acid deficiencies. In fact, many people are allergic to gluten (found in grains like wheat, barley, and hidden in a host of processed foods) and do not even know it. The possible symptoms range from headaches, fatigue and depression to IBS, epilepsy, osteoporosis, diabetes, schizophrenia and autism.

When you start looking at disease in terms of the individual, you see that recovery often does happen as a result change in diet, determining which substances are lacking (nutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc.) and which are present but harmful (toxins). Many substances, like mercury, are more toxic to some than others, and scientific tests aren't always developed to the point where this can be determined. Often the only thing that works is to first test (by eliminating certain foods from your diet, for example) and then see if a change for the better has occurred. Dr. Baker has found that many of his autistic patients experience recoveries after eliminating wheat and other gluten-containing foods from their diet for a period of weeks, as well as controlling yeast overgrowth like Candida in the gut by implementing a the use of an antifungal like Nystatin as well as taking a good probiotic.

Following Baker's approach, it makes sense for each person to make sure their body is efficiently detoxifying unwanted substances, and Dr. Baker provides several detox protocols to get started. Mercury build up is perhaps one of the worst problems we face today, as it is a highly toxic substance which is found not only in large fish like tuna and salmon, but in Mercury amalgam fillings in our teeth. Replacing our fillings and following the Mercury detox protocol developed by Baker can go a long way in ridding our bodies of this harmful material. A healthy diet, proper supplementation, and a good detoxification schedule all go far in optimizing health and effectively treating and managing disease.

Dr. Baker also recommends learning diaphragmatic breathing to help with good health. By stimulating the vagus nerve, breathing techniques like those taught in the Eiriu Eolas breathing and meditation program are scientifically proven to provide immediate and effective relief of stress, a large contributor to autoimmune diseases. Over all Detoxification and Healing is highly recommended.

This book is truly one of the best health books I've ever read, highly recommended. I absolutely loved his way of explaining things. It takes a lot of knowledge and experience to explain several subjects so effortlessly and easy as he does, but also, he comes across as a very wise "mother." In standard textbooks, many of the basics of biochemistry and immunology are explained in a very dried and complicated fashion, which leaves a bitter taste to the subjects. But in this book, that is definitely not the case. His explanations are very clear and enjoyable, sharing his experiences with patients, which gives a lot of food for thought. Also, basic understanding of immunology and biochemistry is a key for understanding the body's detoxification system in order to make wiser choices for our health and well being. This book should really be a must read for everybody.

This is one of the better books to start your way toward learning about health, the environment and how both interact. This is a must read book along with Sherry Rogers' 'Detoxify or Die' to understand why we need to supplement our daily diet that needs to change. I'm in the process of following Dr. Baker's recommendation for an oil change (cod liver oil and flax seed oil), having my mercury fillings removed and then mercury detoxifiction, and changing my diet to avoid all the foods that are bad. I've ordered I number of books to follow up on what he says to include his book on Folic Acid, which I knew nothing about before reading the book. I found out that I have an allergy to gluten, dairy and soy through a functional medicine provider, so if you are having problems with health I suggest seeking a doctor or provider that treats people in alternative methods to mainstream medicine. Overall this is great book to start to learn the truth about health and healing.

I really like this book. It is not too big but and not too hard to understand. I met this wonderful doctor and he knows his subject very well.

I love that this book clearly explains the physical processes of detoxification in an easy to understand way. It allows me to understand so my of the recommendations I've gotten from other
people to improve my health.