The following book list is recommended for any and all patients interested in the topic of spirituality and health.

The human body is 75% water, the human brain 85%. Maintaining good hydration is absolutely critical to maintaining good health, and it becomes even more important to pay attention to as we age. As we get older the body "dries out", and our tendons and ligaments become less resilient. Poor hydration can lead to constipation, dry and itchy skin, acne, nose bleeds, repeated urinary tract infections, dry coughs, sneezing, sinus pressure, and headaches and fatigue, which can be the result of toxins building up in our bodies.

1 Natural fats fulfill your appetite; 2 Natural fats provide healthy flavor; 3 There is no food in nature that contains a significant bio-available protein that contains no fat; 4 Saturated fat - Butter and coconut oil; 5 Monounsaturated fat - Olive oil;

On our June WHO Steve Deace radio broadcast we featured internationally known Psychotherapist, author, speaker and founder of Psych-K, Rob Williams. We were extremely honored to have Rob. Beth Holstein, our resident Psychotherapist at PHS is personal friends with Rob and made it possible.

Grass-fed beef is better for human health than grain-fed beef in ten different ways, according to the most comprehensive analysis to date. The 2009 study was a joint effort between the USDA and researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina.

The roots of chiropractic care can be traced back to the beginning of recorded time. Writings from China and Greece written in 2700 B.C. and 1500 B.C. mention spinal manipulation and the maneuvering of the lower extremities to ease low back pain. Hippocrates, the Greek physician, who lived from 460-357 B.C., also published texts detailing the importance of chiropractic care. In one of his writings he declares, “Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases.”

Preventative Health Sciences is so happy to announce the addition of Beth Holstein to our community. Beth achieved her BS in Elementary Education from Iowa State University and her MS. Ed in Clinical Counseling from Western Illinois University. Beth has been a Psychotherapist in private practice for 30 years and a Psych-K International Instructor for 13 years.

The following is a tool, a practice you can do to begin paying attention to your body and its ability to lead you to your health and freedom. We are including this in our forthcoming manual.

Many groups over the course of human history have used mantras to shift awareness and to make connection. The lullabies I sang over and over to my children when they were babies, to soothe them, to ground them, to let them know that it was time to let go into sleep, were a kind of mantra. Many people know of the ancient Tibetan Buddhist mantra that begins, “Om Mani Padme Hum”; the sound “om” is thought to represent the pulsating energy that makes up all life and when sung, connects us to all life. Eating is a kind of mantra. Food is everywhere and everyone eats. In the midst of our harried and fragmented lives, in which we have to change our tempo and our focus many times in a single day, food can be our “om.” Other than in times of migration or mating, every species seems to try to have the same (positive) experiences every day, to hold to a repetitive rhythm.

Metabolism is simply how the cells in your body process different substances to obtain the energy it needs to support your life. In your muscles, ATP is the molecule they use to supply this energy. You use two different systems in your cells to generate ATP, aerobic and anaerobic. ATP is the first source but your body does not store a lot of it. It takes what you have and produces more. Your aerobic metabolism combines oxygen with carbohydrates, fats and proteins to make ATP.

“Our sense of our self arises from the activity of a neural network self-representation in our brain, and this self-representation arises from neural networks that represent our experience. When we’re operating from a particular self-representation, it’s determining the information that our brain is using to create our reality, and it’s generating our behavior and influencing our future experiences. And it is these experiences that are going to be creating our ‘self’ in the next moment. This is the brain’s normal ‘self creation’ process. Nature designed it so that our self could change with each new experience. But if nothing very new happens, the tendency is for one self-representation to keep re-creating itself, with very minor modifications. Serious self-transformation requires the ability to change the information input to the self-creation process. That is what spiritual practices do – they change our experiences, thereby changing our perception of reality, and altering our thoughts, and our feelings and our behaviors. These changes result in our having new experiences, and our brain creating a new neural foundation for our ‘spiritually transformed’ self-representation. Transformation by Peggy La Cerra, Ph.D

Studies have shown heart patients benefit from exercise, and some have even shown it works better than surgical procedures. At a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology on Sunday, several experts said doctors should focus more on persuading their patients to exercise rather than simply doing angioplasties.

It has been some time since I have felt the confidence of being a beautiful woman. I remember a time, before marriage, before children, when I felt truly attractive. I remember the pride of walking into a room, my head held high as I watched heads turn in my direction. The vain owner of a nearly flawless body of a 20-something. A body I didn’t have to work for, a body I ultimately did not take care of.

There have been amazing advancement in the world of neuroscience and neuropsychology in the past twenty years. These advancements have been accompanied by a growing commitment to a holistic view of mankind. Health is dynamic balance of being sound in body, mind and spirit. At Preventative Health Sciences we believe that health has as much to do with the realization of a person’s deeply held beliefs, meaning and purpose at the subconscious level as it does with a careful medical diagnosis. We are an integrative medical clinic. Integrative medicine is a philosophical approach that seeks to understand and incorporate complementary and humanistic healing practices into modern medicine. This perspective supports and allows the whole person to join in the healing process.

The main difference between holistic health and standard medical care is that holistic care seeks to turn on the body's natural healing ability. Holistic care does not add something to the system; instead it removes anything that might interfere with normal function. Holistic care trusts that the body would know what to do if nothing were interfering with it. Standard medical care, on the other hand, seeks to treat a symptom by adding something from the outside – a medication, a surgery or procedure.

Vitamins are substances that act as coenzymes (enablers) and regulators of metabolic processes. There are 13 known vitamins (vitamins A, B1, B2, niacin, pantothenic acid, B6, folic acid, B12, biotin, C, D, E, and K). Most have to be added to the body via food or vitamin supplements. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble while the others are water-soluble. Deficiencies in one or more of the vitamins lead to so-called "vitamin deficiency syndromes." This article briefly reviews the symptoms and diseases found in such vitamin deficiencies.

Michon is a graduate of Des Moines University of Osteopathic Medicine & Health Sciences 1997. She has spent 11 years devoted to family medicine. Michon is a clinical preceptor and instructor for Des Moines University students.

A few years ago, an independent group that issues guidelines on cancer screening decided to review its recommendations for breast cancer. It had last issued guidelines in 2002, but things had changed — there was new science and researchers had become more sophisticated in analyzing existing data. So the group, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, started what it thought would be a straightforward job: gathering the newest science and asking about the benefits and risks of breast cancer screening, the best time to start and how often women should be screened.

The current healthcare system is imploding, driven for centuries by forces that have brought it to its current condition. Whatever happened to the noble enterprise of healing and its champions, the healers?