Recently an article was published in Charisma & Christian Life Magazine, in the August 2009 edition. It is called "Foods That Heal" by Dr. Don Colbert. According to Dr. Colbert, "Poor Nutrition is often the reason people get sick. Here are 10 foods you need to add to your diet." 

Living foods are plucked, harvested and squeezed—not processed, 

packaged and put on a shelf. Living foods are recognizable as food.

Patients from all over the country come to us because they are desperate to be healed, and are willing to make the financial and life commitment to achieve that result." - Don Colbert, MD

We have an epidemic of skin cancer in this country.  Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the USA with over 1 million skin cancer patients diagnosed each year.  Many people and doctors believe the myth that we get 80% of our sun exposure as a child but a recent study showed that most Americans get less than 25% of our total sun exposure by 18 years of age.  Men over 40 spend the most time outdoors, get the highest annual doses of UV rays, and have the most skin cancer.  1 in 5 Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 3 Caucasians will develop skin cancer.  Over 90% of all skin cancer are due to sun exposure.  The risk for skin cancer doubles if you have a history of 5 or more sunburns.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to sleep well, but the fact is that many people can’t. The reasons range from troubling life situations to physical problems and poor eating habits. Whatever the cause, if you are having trouble sleeping, there are some simple things you can do to help remedy the situation. And the first thing is to determine if any of the most common sleep thieves are robbing you of much needed rest.

If you eat like most people, you are living your life in the fast lane and rarely taking time to relax, wind down and enjoy a meal. Rather than making dining a pleasant experience, you may wolf your food down as you drive or as you sit in front of the TV.

I can’t say it enough—brisk walking is one of the best exercises I can recommend. One of my patients started walking briskly four times a week for thirty minutes, and after one year she had lost eighty pounds. She didn’t change her diet; she just implemented walking into her lifestyle.

Although walking worked for this particular individual, there are many different types of exercise available. The point is to keep moving. The heart is a muscle, and it must be conditioned gradually and consistently—like all your muscles—to reach its optimum performance. Remember to check with your physician before starting any type of exercise routine.

  Vitamins and minerals are a vital necessity for many biological processes that take place in our bodies, including growth, digestion, mental alertness and resistance to infection. They enable our bodies to use carbohydrates, fats and proteins and speed up chemical reactions. These nutrients are not optional for health—they are at the very foundation of it.

Getting a good night’s rest is one of the best things we can do for ourselves each day. Good sleep is one of the simplest and most vital principles of good health, and yet relatively few people take advantage of it and get adequate sleep on a regular basis. The number one complaint I hear from patients who come into my office is, “I’m tired.” As a society, Americans are chronically sleep deprived.

As a child you probably never thought about where you were getting your water from. Chances are you drank water out of the garden hose on hot days, from the drinking fountain at school, and right from the bathroom faucet at home. I wish it were true that all water was safe wherever it came from, and that our bodies would naturally filter out the “bad stuff.” But unfortunately, that is not the way it works. When we drink water containing harmful substances, they end up in our bodies and can damage our health.

Water is, without a doubt, the single most important nutrient required by our bodies. It is necessary for the efficient operation of every bodily function. We can live five to seven weeks without food, but the average adult can last no more than about five days without water.

God’s plan for us is that we would enjoy living in divine health. The very nature of our makeup, beginning with the structure of each cell, supports this fact. Healing is constantly taking place in our bodies.

I am thoroughly convinced that the body absorbs negative emotions and, if allowed to remain there, they set in motion a series of biochemical reactions that eventually result in disease.

She walked into my office weighing nearly 300 pounds. Although only in her fifties, she had problems with arthritis, and her walk reminded me of a cowboy in a scene from an old western movie. Her other physical problems included angina, heart disease, high blood pressure and other various obesity- related issues. Her cholesterol was off the charts. So I asked, “What do you eat?” This was her answer…

Did you know that your attitude can create or relieve stress in your body? Negative attitudes can trigger a long-term stress response, while positive ones can actually help relieve physical stress.

Did you know that arthritis is one of the earliest documented afflictions in history? Thankfully, this ancient disease also has a remedy older than history—The Ancient of Days. God has not only provided many natural ways for you to be relieved of arthritic pain, but He has also provided supernatural healing for your body.

People often confuse assertiveness with aggression, but they are not the same thing. Assertiveness is simply having the confidence to voice who one is—what one thinks and feels, hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes. This is done without fear of ridicule, reprimand or punishment.

Years ago, when I encountered one of my patients or friends I would ask them, “How are you doing?” Their response was nearly always, “Fine.” Now when I ask that same question, I find that people tend to respond with answers such as “Busy,” “Tired” or “Exhausted.”

You are God’s masterpiece, designed according to an eternal plan so awesome that it’s beyond your ability to comprehend.
If you’ve struggled with obesity all your life, you may not even be able to imagine yourself free from the bondage of unwanted fat. But God can. The God who created the entire universe is able to help you overcome all of your personal bondages, including being overweight.

What the world perceives as valuable—fame and fortune—is not the same as what God perceives as valuable. Most people desire to become important and be served by others. But when Jesus was asked what the most important thing was, His answer was to love God first and then to love other people like you love yourself (see Matthew 22:37-40).

Saying “I forgive” is like taking an emotional shower–it cleanses and frees an entrapped soul.

According to the Bible, it is God’s desire for His people to be healthy and prosperous. Unfortunately, many of God’s people are sick and this should not be so. God promises to bless our food and our water when we serve Him, but that does not release us from the responsibility to choose a healthy lifestyle (see Exodus 23:25). It is important to eat healthy nourishing foods as much as possible to maintain a healthy body. Here are some examples of the best types of foods to eat and habits to develop to keep you healthy.

Through the years I have discovered that anywhere from one third to one half of all my patients with chronic diseases don’t seem to want to get well. Their thinking about their ailments is distorted. Shortly after I began my medical practice, but before I knew the phrase distortional thinking, I encountered two good examples of this.

Are you furrowing your brow, clenching your jaw or pursing your lips? Are your shoulders and neck tense or tight? Then what you are experiencing is muscle tension—your body’s way of informing you that you’re under stress.

The benefits of exercise are far-reaching. They not only affect us externally in the form of appearance, flexibility and strength, but also affect us internally at the cellular level. In fact many forms of exercise, if done correctly, can be great stress reducers.

Sickness and degenerative disease are often our body’s way of telling us that it is toxic and needs to be cleansed. They are like the red “Check Engine” light on our car. If we continue to drive and don’t check the engine, we will eventually suffer a breakdown. Likewise, if we ignore the symptoms of sickness we will eventually pay for it.

Want to live longer, have better health and enjoy life more fully? Learning to laugh is a major key. Even the most difficult situations can become bearable and not seem as bad when we can find something about them to laugh at.

Osteoporosis, also known as brittle bone disease, has reached an alarming level in the United States. Women are affected the most. One out of every two women and one out of every four men over the age of fifty have osteoporosis. A major cause for this condition is the lack of calcium and other essential minerals in our diets.

The medical facts seem to increase every year, declaring that the mind and body are linked. How we feel emotionally can determine how we feel physically. Certain deadly emotions release hormones into the physical body. These impair the immune system, leading to the development of infections and allergies as well as a number of diseases.

You know the symptoms . . . always tired, often sluggish, irritable and short tempered, and an overall loss of energy and enthusiasm. These are some of the more common side effects of someone suffering from chronic fatigue. Other symptoms often include development of allergies, becoming forgetful, and a decreased sex drive.

It is estimated that sixty million Americans are suffering from insomnia and other sleep disorders—about 40 percent of these people site stress or emotional issues as the cause. In the early 1900s, Americans slept an average of nine hours a night. Today, research indicates the average is seven. When we reduce the amount of sleep we are getting, we may be adding more hours to our day, but we may also be subtracting hours from our life.

What is driving us to the medicine aisles of the pharmacy? To a great degree, it is our feelings of stress. Americans are swallowing 5 billion tranquilizers, 5 billion barbiturates, 3 billion amphetamines, and 16 tons of aspirin each year. Much of the “medicine” is being taken to help relieve stress or the resulting headaches and pains associated with it.

Are coronary heart disease, certain types of cancer, and other degenerative diseases primarily linked to poor food choices? Can eating the right things actually protect us from diseases that conventional medicine can’t help? What is a simple and practical way of improving our overall eating habits?

What kind of sweets did Jesus eat? When the main meal was over, what did He eat for desert? I believe one word sums it up - FRUIT.

Destructive emotions have toxic effects on the body, resulting in a wide range of serious illnesses, such as hypertension, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and even some types of cancer. What are these emotions? Where do they come from, and how can we deal with them?

When I was asked to write an article on holiday stress I thought, what stress? The holidays are the least stressful time of the year for me. Generally speaking, men have it fairly easy during the holidays, except for carrying the financial burden.

Most of America's health problems today are caused by dietary abuses. Elizabeth Frazao of the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that poor eating habits are linked to more than half of the deaths in the U.S. The three leading causes of death in the U.S. are coronary artery disease, cancer, and stroke.

Menopause is the time in a woman's life when menstruation ceases for at least six to twelve months. Nearly 5,000 women enter menopause every day.

Of all the meats available, fish is one of the best. More than likely, Jesus ate clean, fresh, unpolluted fish almost every day of His life. In His time, there were no factories, chemical contaminants, or pesticides contaminating the streams and lakes, and fish was the most common meat eaten.

As Americans, we’ve grown up believing that drinking plenty of milk is one of the best ways to keep our bones and teeth strong and healthy. But sadly, we’ve believed a myth about nutrition that has done little more for us than increase the size of our waistlines.

You’ve probably heard it said, “You are what you eat!” Well, that’s not quite true. The phrase should be, “You are what you absorb and digest.” That’s where enzymes come in.

There are three different kinds of tea made from the Camellia sinensis or tea plant: black tea, green tea, and oolong tea. According to legend, tea was discovered accidentally by a Chinese emperor approximately 4,000 years ago.

Are you overweight and find it difficult to slim down? Do you suffer from headaches, dry skin, depression, fatigue, diminished sweating, poor memory, constipation, or dry and brittle hair? Or do you have cold hands and feet, prolonged heavy menstrual bleeding, or high cholesterol and high triglycerides in spite of being on a low fat diet?

The most important nutrient for the human body is water. An average person can live for about forty to forty-five days without food but only three to five days without water. Approximately two-thirds of a person's body weight is water—our blood is 82 percent water and both our brain and muscles are 75 percent water.

Many of us have heard of the food guide pyramid developed by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1992. It was developed to replace the four-food group system, showing us not only the types of food we should eat but also the relative portions. I believe it was a good start, but it doesn't provide adequate clarification for each level of the pyramid.

Heart disease is deadly. One million Americans die each year of heart and blood vessel diseases. The first step in slamming the door on heart disease is to understand how it begins.

In order to best protect ourselves against disease, it is crucial for us to have a good understanding of free radicals and antioxidants. Free radicals are simply unstable molecules that can damage the cellular structures of our bodies, eventually leading to degenerative diseases such as heart disease, cancer, arthritis, Parkinson's disease, and most other degenerative diseases.

On the run? Here are some recommendations for eating out. When choosing a restaurant, it's always best to choose a full service restaurant. This usually insures a more relaxed atmosphere as well as a larger variety of healthy foods to choose from.

Approximately one out of every three Americans will get cancer in their lifetime. The National Cancer Institute links one-third of all cancer cases to the use of tobacco and another third to the foods that we eat. In other words, approximately two-thirds of cancer cases can be prevented with diet and lifestyle modification.

Every day we are recreating our bodies with the building blocks from the foods we eat. Fruits and vegetables, some of the best “building” materials available, contain enzymes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and most importantly, phytonutrients.

Sleep is one of the most important pillars of good health. While we sleep, we are recharged both mentally and physically. Our bodies become rejuvenated, allowing them to secrete an important growth hormone that signals the tissues and organs to enter a time of repair and rebuilding.

Vitamins and minerals are vital to our survival and are actually some of the main building blocks of our bodies. In Genesis 2:7 the Bible says, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (KJV).