When I arrived for the meeting with my doctor, I never imagined having an incurable and progressive disease. A disease that could eventually confine me to bed because of the weight of my body being too much for my bones to support. Bones crumbling like cookies.

In January 2019, a bone-density test revealed severe osteoporosis. A diagnosis that meant my bones were losing mineral content — they would become increasingly porous, fragile, and prone to fractures. Men don’t get osteoporosis naturally until we are well into our 70’s, if at all.  I was only fifty-seven.

Is this genetic? Is this a symptom of an underlying condition? Is this a lifestyle disease? My doctor didn’t answer these questions but recommended drugs with undesirable side effects. I needed to know the root cause of my bone-density loss. This meant I had to deep-dive into the study of bone-health, osteoporosis, and my own health history. I was committed to wading through as much information as possible prior to taking any drugs, conceding that I may never get to a root cause.

Some argued that taking the drugs in synchrony with the deep-dive would be a better approach. Yes, I considered this. But bisphosphonates (the most common class of drugs prescribed) interfere with the natural metabolisms that break down and regenerate bone cells. And the body needs to regenerate all cells periodically. Obstructing this process is known to cause deformities and (ironically) bone fractures. There are destructive side effects to the upper and lower digestive tracts too.  These are the reasons I didn’t want to take the pill, except as a last resort. 

A year later, I had my second bone-density test. The results had reversed direction by about 6%. This is above the margin of error. Increases in bone-density by those taking the drugs are 2% to 3% at best.  At this reversal, my doctor stopped advising me to take the drugs and said, “Keep doing what you’re doing.” 

Along with improvements in bone-density, my 2020 annual tests revealed: lower blood cholesterol and lower blood sugar and lower blood pressure, among other reversals.  What I did, what I’m doing now, and what I’ll do next will be detailed in a future post. But it’s something that everyone can do and should consider, with or without osteoporosis.

​The Whole in Wholistic, as in Wholistic health or Wholistic nutrition refers to the "whole body".  But many, myself included define it as "whole being,” as in whole body but including the mind and spirit... as a unified system.

Conventional medicine tends to look at the body in terms of its parts; and so we have head doctors, foot doctors, stomach doctors, heart doctors, etc.  But we are complex systems; yes many complex subsystems comprising a super system. But these subsystems are integrated with each other and cannot adequately be viewed in isolation.  A clear example of holistic thought applied to wellness is the Traditional Chinese Medicine system or TCM.  In this system a symptom in one part of the body is usually indicative of an imbalance in one or many subsystems.  Herbs, diet, acupuncture, meditation and other energy-based modalities are the primary treatments.

Similarly wholistic nutrition does not dwell on individual symptoms, but treats imbalances in the entire being.  For example a digestive complaint (bloating, constipation, etc.) will often be caused by an imbalance in our mind due to stress, an excess of protein in our diet, a lack of vigorous exercise, or a combination of these.