CAMDEN — By BRADLY GILL
Staff writer
Dr. Steven Keller opened up his talk to the Camden Noon Lions Club this week with a quote from Thomas Edison:
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
Keller then gave a brief overview of the history of chiropractic care and it’s origins. The practice was started by D.D. Palmer in 1895, which started out as a health-care practice. Keller noted that it started around the same time as osteopathy.
“It used to be that osteopaths were health-care practitioners that dealt with aligning the spine and dealing with the whole body and whole body health,” Keller said. Over time osteopathy merged with the medical field and chiropractic took over alignment and whole body health.
Keller explained that chiropractors are primarily concerned with nerve flow and spinal adjustment as the central nervous system provides power to the body.
“With the nerves of the body, there has to be good communication with the brain through the spine and out through the tissue sale,” he said.
Another component of his practice involves informing people of healthy lifestyle choices, such as how to avoid high blood pressure. Keller said that while many doctors prescribe high blood pressure medication for high blood pressure, this is analogous to putting an ice pack on an overheating car. The temperature gauge may go down, but it will not be an accurate reading of the situation.
Keller then introduced Barbara Russell, who shared her intensely personal story about how diet played a pivotal role in her healing from cancer.
Russell had a family history of breast cancer and lost her father to the disease. While having a routine colonoscopy her doctor came back with a frightening result from her blood work . Her white blood cell count was 189,000.
“He said , ‘I don’t know how you’re functioning. You should be in a coma it’s so bad,” she said.
Russell said that traditionally cancer is treated in 3 steps, chemo, radiation and medication.
“There was never any thing about nutrition brought into it. There was never anything about what we put into our body that causes us to have these results,” she said.
When she was sent to UAMS to see a breast oncologist she was given two options. She could either have a double mastectomy or give up sugar. Her doctors reasoning was that sugar feeds cancer. So Russell cut out breads, pasta and most of all Diet Coke, which she confessed was her biggest addiction.
Meanwhile Russell’s daughter, a pharmacist, was doing research into the impact of diet on cancer as well. She recommended intermittent fasting and a diet rich in vegetables.
Russell said “When you quit eating, your body says, ‘I don’t have to digest all this food what do I need to do’ and it starts repairing things that are broken in you.”
Russell said after a ten day fast she went back to have blood work done and was given perfect results.
She also said that while she was aware of the spiritual aspects of fasting she didn’t connect the health benefits,
“All this time I was reading about fasting I always thought it was just for spiritual. I’ve come to realize it wasn’t just spiritual. It was God’s way of healing the body.”