When it comes to taking control of our health and wellness, it’s always best to think outside the box and take a holistic approach toward medicine. It’s true that conventional Western Medicine has many benefits, and it shines most in the areas of emergency medicine, trauma surgery and diagnosis.

However, modern medicine also has its limitations. I believe it fails miserably in the treatment of chronic diseases. Billions of dollars are spent each year trying to ¬find cures for chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Conventional treatments usually involve the widespread use of toxic drugs and synthetic chemicals that poison bacteria and destroy harmful cells, but are often accompanied by devastating side effects to the healthy cells and organs in our bodies.

Despite all our advances in modern medicine, there has been a trend of exponential increase in chronic diseases around the world for several decades now. Over 70 diseases still have no known cause and no known cure – medically. If this is the case, why throw drugs at them? Why adopt the surgical mantra that goes, “If we can’t cure it or fix it, then we’ll just have to cut it off and throw it away”? Why can’t we try nutrition, natural medicine, lifestyle changes, stress management, exercise, and most especially prayer?

pills in a bottleI believe it’s because conventional Western Medicine works at a biochemistry level. This involves using synthetic drugs to alter the chemistry of our bodies in order to fight harmful organisms which are traditionally believed to be the cause of disease. But often times, this approach only addresses the symptoms of the disease – much like placing a band aid to treat an open wound temporarily! It does not address the root cause.

I am in no way pointing fingers at individual people such as doctors and pharmacists who prescribe pharmaceutical drugs – far from it! I believe there are many honest and dedicated health professionals around the world who care about their patients and who practice responsible medicine.

It would be good to make ourselves knowledgeable about the other side of the medical world, though; the world of natural spices and Biblical foods spoken of positively in both the Old and New Testaments. Take for example garlic, mentioned in Numbers 11:5 when the Israelites were longing for something more savory than the manna God provided:

“We remember the ¬ fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic;”

The Hebrews believed that garlic increased virility and relied on it to “be fruitful and multiply,” as directed in Genesis. The Talmud directs that many kinds of food should be seasoned with garlic and lists the six properties of garlic. Garlic keeps the body warm, brightens the face, increases male fertility, kills parasites, fosters love, and removes jealousy.

garlicHippocrates, the fourth-century B.C. Greek physician who famously said, “Let thy food be thy medicine,” prescribed garlic as a treatment for uterine tumors and cancers. A potent natural antibiotic, garlic is used for infections of all kinds, whether they be from parasites or fungi. It helps circulatory and intestinal problems and boosts the immune system. Its anti-inflammatory qualities counteract joint pain. Grated garlic and honey are highly recommended for coughs.

There is an increasing number of drug-resistant strains of bacteria and pathogens coming out today. This is because bacteria which survive treatments with synthetic antibiotics easily pass down their immunity to their offspring, creating mutated strains of “super bugs.” One of these bad boys is called MRSA, short for Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. This flesh-eating strain of bacteria is even more dreaded and devastating compared to AIDS, and is resistant to all but the latest, most powerful synthetic antibiotics in the market today.

What are we to do then if we want an alternative to seemingly useless synthetic antibiotics? One of the researches in alternative medicine I am very interested and involved in right now is the use of colloidal silver – microscopic particles of silver as small as one-millionth of a millimeter suspended in water. Silver has been known for its antibacterial properties for a very long time. It is said that Roman soldiers would drop silver coins in their drinking water to sterilize it, as well as pound silver coins flat and place them on their wounds to speed up their healing. But the smaller the particles of silver, the more powerful its ability is to kill harmful microorganisms. Colloidal silver has been proven clinically to kill almost 99.9% of microorganisms including HIV, and there is much documentation of its ability to destroy MRSA.

The best part about the responsible use of Colloidal Silver is that it has no side effects and there is very little chance that a resistant strain of bacteria would develop. It has also been shown that Colloidal Silver does not destroy the good bacteria in our colon, unlike what synthetic antibiotics (anti- means “against” and bio- means “life” hence it’s “against life”) indiscriminately do. To top it all off, Colloidal Silver is relatively cheap to produce and can be made very affordable for the masses.

Again, there are many good doctors, and if I were hit by a bus along EDSA, I would wish for the best of modern emergency medicine available. However, for my healing process, I would personally choose Biblical and natural treatments rather than conventional medicine. Would you?

Andrew Alarcon is a Christian health researcher specializing in natural and non-invasive medicine. He is a certified instructor of The King Institute Method (TKM), an extraordinary hands-on approach to health disorders using light touch.

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Image: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Janina Marie Rivera is the author of the book, A Night Bird Sings of Blindness and Fear and has co-authored the devotional, Dawns, published by OMF Literature. She is a contributing poet in the books Joyful Light and Whitmanthology: on Loss and Grief by Various Authors. She is the Editor-in-Chief of One Voice Magazine.