Appetite and Weight Control

Traditionally, the dawn of a new year brings a renewed sense of hope for the future, and more often than not, the determination to drop those holiday pounds. But, let's face facts: Americans are getting fatter. We are seeing more and more patients - including children - experiencing the frustration and disappointment associated with weight management.

Aesthetic damage caused by the problems associated with excess weight is easily observable; however, as chiropractors, we study the ramifications at deeper physical and psychological levels. The heart can become stressed, and the extra pounds make exercise more difficult and uncomfortable. Because the extra weight can pull the spine and neck out of proper alignment, physical activity can even become painful, and the patient may attempt to mollify the discomfort by retreating to a more sedentary lifestyle. The resultant inactivity can cause additional weight gain and depression - the cycle goes on and on. Frequently, a few extra pounds become the catalyst for a downward spiral of health problems, with each problem antagonizing the others.

The extent of this problem has spawned an enormous and often unhealthy explosion of weight-control products, procedures and professions in the marketplace. I am always amazed that a procedure as radical as bypass surgery is so commonly performed on the morbidly obese! Appetite suppressants, whether chemical or natural, can carry serious side-effects, not to mention that they do not address the underlying problems.

It is clear that people need and want help in achieving and maintaining healthy weight. After 25 years of treating patients with weight-gain issues, I have discovered some keys to solving this perplexing problem.

Homeopathy provides corrective answers to weight gain. Like chiropractic, it works to activate the body's natural, innate ability to express optimal health. With its serial dilutions and successions beyond the molecular levels, homeopathy works not biochemically, but bioenergetically on the nervous system, activating proper healthy functions of the body. Like chiropractic, homeopathy actually corrects nerve interferences throughout the whole body. Most important, it corrects aberrant nerve reflex anomalies throughout the nervous system in places where the hands of the chiropractor cannot reach.

Homeopathy recognizes that symptoms - in this case, weight gain or obesity - are not something wrong, but rather, the result of the body's effort to cope with a causal problem. Symptoms are actually the body's way of communicating, in its attempts to restore balance and wellness. Homeopathy targets underlying causes, not symptoms. When symptoms are suppressed, a true cure becomes less likely; but because homeopathy is an expressive, rather than a suppressive therapy, underlying causes are corrected and symptoms are cleared, instead of being driven deeper into the body.

Homeopathy is a scientific system of health care that activates the body's powerful, innate healing resources, using minute doses of pure extracts from all realms of nature. Mixed in precise combination, these ingredients become potent health formulas that help absolve nerve interference and activate the body's restorative powers. The active principle of homeopathy is a verified law of pharmacology, the Law of Similars, which states that that a dilution of a substance can remove the cause of symptoms that the substance is capable of evoking in larger amounts.

With this basic understanding, we can better appreciate how homeopathy works to correct the deeper issues behind weight gain. Homeopathy brings balance to the appetite centers of the brain. This action prevents overeating at meal times, as well as the unnecessary cravings between meals. Slow metabolisms that can cause weight gain and inherited constitutional or metabolic tendencies to gain weight are also addressed with homeopathy.

Because of the multiplicity of underlying causes of weight gain and/or control, homeopathy is particularly valuable. Because it addresses contributory and connecting causes, the problem can be attacked at the roots, rather than on a superficial (and frequently temporary) level, affecting the common core causes of weight gain and control:

1. appetite aberrations;
2. peculiar cravings for certain foods;
3. inherited/genetic/constitutional causes of obesity;
4. a low-functioning thyroid, causing weight gain and sluggishness;
5. mental and emotional factors behind excessive appetite or weight gain;
6. aversions to work, exertion or exercise leading to sedentary lifestyle; and
7. digestive disorders or weakened GI tracts from chronic overeating.

When working with overweight patients, we can be confident that homeopathy has no side-effects or known negative drug interactions. The medicines are so safe that they can be administered confidently to the whole family, from children to the elderly, including individuals on multiple medications. Being overweight not only affects the physical health of children; it also affects their self-esteem.

Diminishing the desire to overeat can be accomplished by taking the appropriate homeopathic formula approximately 10 minutes before eating. Many patients respond by craving healthier foods or being satisfied without overeating. When cravings between meals arise, patients should immediately take a dose. Usually, the unnecessary cravings or hunger feelings are gone within one to four minutes after taking a dose. Dosages may be administered as frequently as once every 10 minutes until cravings have subsided.

The synergistic effects of homeopathy and chiropractic empower the chiropractor to better address the whole person. With the application of both of these modalities to clear nerve interferences throughout the body's entire control system, everything we do to enhance our patients' health works more effectively.

Enjoy the journey!

Frank King, DC, ND
Asheville, North Carolina
www.kingbio.com