Where East Meets West

In my passion for what I want to share with my new patient, I start drawing diagrams to illustrate my points.

My patients love them, so much that they take them home, but they’re kind of sloppy so I had my artistic daughter draw some for you. Here’s the first one: Where East Meets West.

There are two philosophies of health care in the world.

If you’ve ever had acupuncture, homeopathy, or bodywork, then you’ve experienced energy-based medicine. If you’ve ever had surgery, taken an antibiotic, or had a cavity filled, then you’ve experienced matter-based medicine.

Of course energy and matter exist together. Eastern medicine is energy-based. Western medicine is matter-based. In the West, we assume that if we can’t touch it, see it, smell it, it doesn’t exist. Yet Einstein proved to us that matter and energy coexist. Matter cannot exist without energy.

If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you may have been introduced to chakras. Chakra is a Sanskrit word meaning little wheels of energy. In Eastern medicine, chakras are power points. ere are seven chakras. ere are seven endocrine glands in your body. Endocrine glands produce hormones. Endocrine glands line up with chakras.

Hormones are the interface between the energy of the environment and the matter of your body. The glands that produce the hormones are the power points.

East meets West in the endocrine system!

Hormones affect everything – our nervous system, our immune system, even digestion, and detoxification. These tiny messengers communicate to the DNA within our cells what’s happening in the rest of our body as well as what’s happening outside in our environment.

Seven chakras. Seven endocrine glands.

• 1st root chakra corresponds with your gonads: ovaries or testes
• 2nd navel chakra corresponds with your pancreas
• 3rd solar plexus chakra corresponds with your adrenal glands
• 4th heart chakra corresponds with your thymus
• 5th throat chakra corresponds with your thyroid
• 6th third eye chakra corresponds with your pituitary gland
• 7th crown chakra corresponds with your pineal gland

From the gonads in the root chakra to the pineal gland in the crown chakra, each gland produces unique hormones that carry energy messages.

Endocrine glands produce hormones. Hormones are messengers. Therefore, hormones communicate the energy outside and within your body to the matter of your body. For example, to your cells.

Everything is about communication. If you’re running a business and you cannot communicate with your staff, things are going to go wrong.

Same thing in your body. Miscommunication is the basis of dis-ease.

Dis-ease, not disease. Out of balance, out of harmony. Not a permanent state. Dis-ease.

To clarify, when I say hormones, I’m not just talking about sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone. I’m not just talking about thyroid hormones or adrenal hormones. I’m not just talking about insulin or growth hormone or melatonin.

But, I’m also talking about the hormonal messengers that run your nervous system called neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine are just smaller hormones.
And I’m talking about the hormonal messengers that run your immune system called cytokines. You may have heard of interferon or interleukin, these are cytokines, the tiniest of the hormones.

NEURO-IMMUNE-ENDOCRINOLOGY: THE SYMPHONY OF HORMONES

This entire system of hormones is called the neuro-immune-endocrine system. Medicine separates these into three specialties – neurology, immunology, and endocrinology – yet these three systems are dependent upon one another. To truly assess and treat a patient, I take them all into consideration.

While I’m going to focus on your symphony of hormones, your neuro-immune-endocrine system – your biochemistry – is part of the bigger picture that I call:

The DMAR® PYRAMID OF HEALTH

Excerpt from "Hormones in Harmony"®. more on the DMAR tomorrow.