Benefits of Health Meditation

The Nutrition Solution Centre, Harold J. Kristal, DDS and James M. Haig, NC, 2002: North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, 285 pages

The Nutrition Center solution is probably the most important book in terms of metabolic types. There are other biochemical types of books, which one is Eat Right for your (blood) type. The reason why the solution is the best Nutrition Metabolic Typing book because it combines four different metabolic types and offers both a strong theoretical basis and substantial empirical evidence of the four types. Most of the audience reading this review may never have heard of metabolic types. Therefore, some background information is presented before proceeding with the criticism of the Nutrition Center Solution.

Crystal book is strongly influenced by the other major work on metabolic typing — The Metabolic Typing Diet. The author of this book, William Wolcott, originally thought that there are two types of metabolism, the fast and slow oxidizers. He in turn was influenced in this opinion by George Watson, PhD, who have different prices of food oxidation wrote in the book Nutrition and Your Mind: The Psycho Chemical Response. It was much later discovered that Crystal on the theory of Wolcott, who suggested that there are four types of metabolic, not two. In the opinion of Wolcott, there were two metabolizing systems, the oxidative and autonomous. The oxidative system is one that all biochemistry books described as the standard system of breaking down food for energy. It is well-defined and relatively uncontroversial. Oxygen combines with molecules made of carbon and hydrogen to release energy. A similar reaction occurs in a gasoline engine to the energy released by the chemical octane. Some foods oxidize faster than normal, they are called fast oxidizers. Some foods oxidize at a slower pace and are termed slow oxidizers.

The autonomic system is responsible for the neural basis of regulation of metabolism by hormones and neurotransmitters. Although the study of the autonomic system is also a “classic” science that is taught in the bio-medical field for decades, is newer, and thus is less defined than the oxidative system. The two branches of the autonomic system, the sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic branch is usually stimulants (ex. increasing heart rate), while the parasympathetic branch is mostly inhibitory (ex. decreasing heart rate). Both the oxidative and autonomous systems with each other, give feedback to each other to maintain the overall body metabolism going. Each person has both the oxidative and autonomous systems, but they are not always in balance. Often one will dominate the other in certain cases, including digestion and assimilation of food. Sr. Francis Pottenger many independent experiments performed on animals at the turn of the 20th century, and concluded that the individual mammals (including humans) tend to have an autonomous branches dominate the other. For this theory, he is widely recognized as the father of the autonomic type.

There is a second variable in the metabolic equation: blood pH. Normally, arterial blood pH varies from 7.37 to 7.43, with an average of 7.40. The blood is acidic, the lower the pH, the more alkaline the blood, the higher the pH. A completely neutral pH is 7.00, so all the blood pH is slightly alkaline. However, if the blood pH falls below 7.40 may be called relatively acidic, although technically it is still slightly alkaline. Most foods, including cereals and meat, let acids when they are digested. Many vegetables are an exception to this — they are alkaline. However, what happens during digestion and what happens to the pH of the blood can be two very different things. For reasons not yet entirely clear, some foods increase blood pH in some people and some foods lower blood pH in the others. The same food can increase pH of the blood in a person and leave it in another.

This is important for two reasons. First, blood pH should be kept in a narrow range for different enzymes and other components of the blood to function. If blood pH is too high or too low, it can cause problems with the health of a person, including seizures, coma and even death. Second, a person’s blood pH within the clinical range of 7.37-7.43, but they can close one of these extremes, and eating the “wrong” foods may push them further from the optimum pH of 7.40. The good news is that once a person knows and understands their metabolic type, they can be a nutrition plan to help balance their blood pH to the optimum level.