Years ago Clark and I spent a few months in China and Tibet. We spent time learning more about our medicine and the culture that developed it. We also spent a good deal of time studying meditation. Part of our time in Tibet took us on a journey to one of the most isolated places on the globe. We traveled to the sacred Mt. Kailash in western Tibet.
Mount Kailash is revered as a very sacred place by Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as the native Jain and Bon religions. It is also the headwaters for some of Asia’s longest rivers. Its location is very remote and veiled in mystery.
Our journey to reach the 22,000 foot mountain and take the 3 day trek around was inspired by our commitment to evolving spiritually. It is said that a pilrimmage is a journey inward and outward.
I remember spreading margarine across toast when I was a kid. Unlike butter, which was hard and difficult to spread, margarine covered the toast with seemingly magical ease. Mom told me that it was much better for me as well because it was made with a different sort of fat that the food scientist assured us was much healthier than the butter that humans had eaten for millennia. I marveled at the thought that the scientists were busy in their labs creating healthy new foods and food additives to make the world a more enjoyable place. Being a kid, I didn’t give the “healthy” part of margarine much thought, but I did appreciate that mom let me use as much as I wanted on my toast.
That was 30 years ago and now science has proven that trans-fats in all of their forms are pretty toxic to the human body. Though they are found in trace amounts in certain meat and dairy products, trans-fats are most commonly a processed ingredient that is added to foods as a way to extend their shelf-life, flavor and consistency. They gained popularity in the 50’s with the increase in food processing, and then really took off in the 1970‘s when it was assumed that high fat diets were causing an increase in cardiac related diseases. At this time the medical community recommended low fat, low cholesterol based diets which paved the way for trans-fats to be introduced into the food supply in large amounts. This was primarily seen in baked goods and certain vegetable based shortening or margarines. So butter and eggs were out; chemically altered vegetable based fats were the new greatest thing.
Many women get pregnant easily and many do not. Research estimates that 1 in 6 couples in the US struggle with getting pregnant. Optimizing the likelihood of getting pregnant and staying pregnant is an area where the tools of Chinese medicine have something special to offer. Rather than looking at fertility challenges as simply a problem with ovaries, or a specific hormone, Chinese medicine approaches fertility as a women’s natural state of balance. Compromised fertility results from imbalances within the network of organs, hormones, and energy systems of the body.
It is very common these days to combine Western and Eastern fertility treatments. Women and men often look toward Western medicine first believing that there must be something really wrong with them and sometimes there is. The bigger the barrier to getting pregnant the more successful Western treatment tends to be: for example with blocked fallopian tubes, prolific endometriosis, or very compromised sperm the diagnostics and surgeries offered can greatly enhance the outcome. In cases if ovulation issues or symptomatic menstrual cycles fertility drugs can make drastic impact. The assisted reproductive technologies of IUI(intrauterine insemination) and IVF(in vitro fertilization) can be the answer for couples with greatly compromised sperm, same sex couples, or simply successful when nothing else works for no known reason. The cost and side effects of these treatments are significant, rarely covered by insurance, and plain stressful.
