I’m going to provide an update to my last review of Ann’s book, “Radical Longevity” but first a better review of the intent of the book.
This book represents one of Ann’s greatest contributions yet. She puts it all together and helps us see the big picture. She combines her knowledge of functional and integrative medicine and intertwines it with ways to manage the toxic load from our environment and the food we eat, or don’t eat. We can’t heal our bodies in isolation of the big picture… and the big picture includes being in relationship with one another while maintaining the health of our planet.
Back to my update, a praise report that came from New Rule #5: Activate Cellular Rejuvenation, as I suspected and mentioned in my first review. In that review, I reported having osteo arthritis in my spine and the 3 MRI's that showed it had advanced from my L5 initially and now my L2, L3, and L4. Ann reminded me in the book that our ability to heal our body lessens as we age. At the age of 67 my physician told me my scan looked like someone in their 80's. I could not believe I was facing this situation with my health when I was healthy in so many other ways.
Seeing other improvements to my health following a wholistic lifestyle, I knew there had to be an answer to the steady decline of the health of my spine. In New Rule #5, Ann talks about the right ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids and they should be 4:1 in order to optimize healing. For a number of years, I have been avoiding the bad omega 6's and mostly consuming omega 3's. The small tweak I made was to increase omega 6's (which also meant I had to decrease omega 3’s) like hemp seed oil, pumpkin seed oil, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. She also said that healing can be done using omega 6 alone. Since hemp seed oil is terrible tasting, I applied it topically to my skin to the affected areas of my body twice daily. I also took a Resveratrol supplement. She also talks about cellular hydration in the chapter and getting good sleep. I've been on the Fat Flush Diet and continue to consume the cran water daily. All of these things combined have dramatically lessened my pain from the inflammation caused by the osteo arthritis.
The other part about my healing is now I have an awareness of the environment around me. I looked at the toxic load from contact from bad water on my skin. My husband and I were already using a reverse osmosis machine installed in our kitchen, but that didn’t address the water we were bathing in or my washing dishes in the kitchen sink. Like most Americans, we can’t yet afford a whole house water filtration system, so we recently purchased the UniKey filtered shower head. Now when I’m in the kitchen processing dirty dishes, I wear gloves to protect my skin from the contaminants coming out of the faucet. Additionally, I’m also wearing a mask when using cleaning products, and closing the toilet lid after flushing to keep the vaporous chlorine fumes from hitting my lungs. These are just a few small things I’ve implemented because of the awareness from the book, “Radical Longevity.”
Ann, thanks for sharing your knowledge, and allowing us to see the world around us which enables us to make better decisions for maintaining our health while being in relationship with one another.
