When considering emotions and behavior most people don’t consider their day-to-day diet as something that has drastic effects. But the old adage “You are what you eat” is very true. Your stomach lining regenerates about every week or so, your muscles every few years. Over the course of approximately seven years, you will have a completely new body, even if you’re an adult. Traditional medicine recognizes this as fact. All that cellular regeneration needs material, and that material comes from your diet.
A New Look at a Healthy Diet
From a therapeutic standpoint we’re going to take a broad view of the term “diet.” Usually, when people talk about diet they just mean food. But, we are made of everything that gets put into or added to our bodies. In addition to food, this includes vaccinations, medicines, tobacco products, and sometimes even common materials like detergents or lotions.
Some people have allergies to certain foods or chemicals that can seriously affect the way they function physically and emotionally. For example, many people are allergic to dairy foods. Often this presents itself as lactose intolerance causing stomach pain. But other people allergic to dairy might produce an excess of a chemical called casein which can cause serious emotional and behavior issues. For this reason, allergy tests and food diet recommendations are very important to us at 17th Avenue.
Heavy Metals & Toxins
Our real purpose right now is to educate, not get on a soapbox. But, we must point out there are dangerous levels of toxins in much of the regular food we eat. Much research has been done on this subject, and the more we discover the more disturbing it is. These include things like mercury, pesticides, and chemical additives. Even foods often considered “healthy” or “organic” can contain these toxins. We should avoid these toxins as much as possible. Though, interfacing with these toxins may be hard for us to avoid altogether. We use Chelation Therapy to help specifically remove heavy metal toxins from the body such as lead, arsenic or mercury.
Tailored Supplementation
A large part of our Nutritional therapy involves the strategic use of nutritional supplements. Most people have been encouraged to increase their intake of Omega 3 fatty acids also known as Essential Fatty Acids. (EFAs). You might even see breakfast cereals that promote their presence. The human body does not produce EFAs on its own, we must ingest them.
Other supplements include zinc, vitamin B12, vitamin C or St. John’s Wart. In fact in Germany, St. John’s Wart is prescribed more often than Prozac as a mood stabilizer. 17th Avenue carries a wide range of safe and effective nutritional supplements. Unlike the ones you might find at a local health food store, the supplements we carry metabolize effectively and are given to you with physician-determined dosages.
Some of our supplements are known as adaptogens. An adaptogen is a substance that helps normalize the body and is non-toxic to the recipient. Rhodela is an example of an adaptogen.
We use supplements to address a range of issues such as depression, anxiety, OCD, ADD/ADHD, and even autism or migraines.