Recently I picked up a book. The title intrigued me. CLEAN it said, all in capital letters, and written by an MD, a cardiologist to be precise, who later became the director of a holistic health center in one of the wealthier, more educated communities in the US. With this particular biography, the author definitely had my attention. As I read on, certain parallels similar to either my own or to some doctor friends’ or acquaintances’ lives sprang to the eye. Yes, the whole modern medicine approach can make you actually can make all of us sick, even if you are a doctor. Today, doctors are plagued by the same lifestyle diseases as their patients, and as in these cases they cannot help their patients much with the tools of medicines and surgeries at their disposal, likewise they cannot help themselves. Until they wise up, they are bound to just get sicker. If the medicine cannot cure the doctor, how is the doctor then supposed to cure his or her patients?When Alejandro Junger (the author’s name) writes about his background, his family, the family meals and the visits of the family doctor in a small town in Uruguay, I can easily relate. Although from a different country from almost the opposite corner of the world, when I was a child I also enjoyed family lunches and dinners of the same kind. I enjoyed food that as a rule was only prepared fresh every day before every meal, from fresh ingredients. And when the family doctor came for a visit, he had a lot of time. Advice was freely given, pills more rarely. And that’s how I liked the idea of becoming a doctor later in life myself – an idea co-created and very much encouraged by my father.
After studying in Uruguay, Alejandro moved to New York, I only from our small town to a bigger (but not very big) city in the same state. The canteen at our medical college, still served mostly freshly prepared foods, not quite home quality, but good enough. For Alejandro, it was a different story: he had to switch from home cooking to fast food – and to microwave dinners. Summing up his experiences of his first six years in New York, he writes,
“In those second three years of training my allergies got so bad that I had to take antihistamines and use steroid inhalers several times. My digestion was turning into a nightmare. I was often bloated, and I had abdominal discomfort and alternating bouts of constipation and diarrhea… Not much could be done I was told, except try to control symptoms with antispasmodics, anti-flatulence pills, painkillers, and anti-diarrhea medication alternating with laxatives. Nobody asked me what I was eating – which was not surprising, since I never had a nutrition class [in medical college] myself.”
But for Alejandro, it had to get worse before it got better. After many sleepless nights and the incessant thinking of thoughts, which automatically lead to more thoughts, he decided to seek help from a top psychiatrist – and was prescribed the anti-depressant Prozac “to balance his serotonin levels”. As he did not like the idea of taking Prozac, he went for a second opinion – and after the second visit with the second psychiatrist was handed a prescription for Zoloft, a close cousin of Prozac. At that point, Alejandro understood that he needed to first understand his own health problems before he could do something about them. He needed to wise up. Which later lead him to detoxification and thus to writing this wonderful book: CLEAN.
Myself, I did not have such a rough time after graduation. When I concluded my internship at the gynecology ward of a good hospital, I had seen enough to decide on my own that allopathy was not for me, as I was likewise not made for it. We parted ways before any great damage was done. Through private initiative and correspondence courses, I specialized in detoxification and rejuvenation medicine and opened my own small clinic at age 25. As so far I have not been very business minded, five years later the clinic still is small – but according to my patients, very successful in terms of the services and therapies it offers.
One good childhood friend was not so lucky. After graduation, he went for a post-graduate degree in surgery, and immediately thereafter for a second post-graduate degree in heart surgery. When he is finished with his second specialization, he will be in the position to become one of the leading open-heart surgeons in the country – in the eyes of many, one of the cream of the cream among physicians. But will he still be alive to practice his skills and enjoy the fruit of his labors?
This is not a rhetoric question. The question is for real. You see, because of over 9 years of stress in medical college, internship and residence (including all the bad food that he had to gulp down in a hurry and the many toxins his system had to take in), my friend’s immune system became so compromised that he developed systemic TB. He is suffering from a bad case of Tuberculosis. Was he given sick leave, immediately? Yes, for 10 days. After 10 days he was expected back in the operation theater. True? Unfortunately, yes.
When he asked for my advice and practical help, considering our long acquaintance I gladly gave it, even if it involved traveling to a distant city. But my help can only be successful when the budding open-heart surgeon finally decides to put his life first, and the speed in which he can climb the career ladder second. My help will really only help once the advice is accepted in full, not just partially. In this regard, there can be no compromises. When coming CLEAN, there can be no half-measures. There first needs to develop a thorough understanding of the process of detoxification – and then its equally thorough application.
Which is why Alejandro Junger’s book makes for such good and instructive reading. It describes the genuine learning process of the author, as well as a genuine path out of the present mess in medicine. It is written in a language that all can understand.
Doctors and patients alike, we all will feel so much healthier and happier once we come CLEAN. And yes, today, doctors need to come clean as much as their patients. They lead the same insane modern lives, which are at the root of all the modern lifestyle diseases. Actually, in many cases the doctors are forced to live more insane lives than the patients whom they are supposed to help. Strange upside down world, isn’t it?