The Plant Paradox
In healthcare, Steven Gundry, MD, is famous. He has published more than 300 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. As a cardiothoracic surgeon, he has the distinction of being the top infant and pediatric heart transplant surgeon in the world. More recently, he has established the Center for Restorative Medicine in Palm Springs and Santa Barbara, California.
The central theme of this book is detailing the health consequences that occur when humans cause an imbalance of the Universal Intelligence of our world and the Innate Intelligence of our bodies. These imbalances are centered around dietary choices, environmental toxins, GMO exposures, antibiotics, and evolution.
This book could have been called “The Anti-Lectin Diet.” Lectins are proteins that plants produce to protect them from pests, including humans. Lectins have the ability to pry apart the tight junctions of the gut, allowing bad things (lectins themselves, microbial excrement, peptides, toxins, etc.) entry into our blood stream. In short, these bad things should never be in our blood stream because once there, they initiate a systemic inflammatory response, which includes activation of our immune systems, altering our systemic inflammatory profile. Our systemic inflammatory profile is linked to the chronic diseases that burden most individuals and as such economically burden our entire society.
Lay person’s terminology for Dr. Gundry’s principles is “leaky gut.” Gundry states:
“Your individual health depends on the health of your gut lining, your microbiome, and its instructions to your immune system.” “Lectins are leading the charge in the war within your body.”
“Even when organically raised, certain lectin-heavy foods are the cause of so-called autoimmune diseases, while lectin avoidance in my patients and as reported in scientific literature has been found to cure autoimmune diseases.”
Incredibly, these “lectin-heavy” foods include many plant-based choices that most of us consider to be “healthy” including certain vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains.
As always I review books with an eye towards Universal/Innate Intelligence, finding:
“Lectins are “common ‘disruptors’ that interfere with the body’s natural ability to heal itself.”
“’Restorative medicine’ refers to medical practices that enable the body to heal itself rather than just treat the symptoms of disease.” [With this definition, chiropractic would be included in “restorative medicine.”]
“Thousands of years ago, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, had described the body’s ability to heal itself, which he called veriditas (green life force). He believed that the physician’s job was to identify which forces were keeping the patient from healing himself and then remove them. Veriditas would take it from there.”
“Your body has the ability to restore itself to perfect health, once you eliminate the foods and other forces that prevent it from healing.”
My overall impression is that this book is a game changer of a health book. It is scientifically sound, impeccably referenced, logical expressed, and has the concepts of Universal and Innate Intelligence throughout. It will change one’s health paradigm.
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