The ETMS Toolbox

At the Mederi Centre for Natural Healing, the foundation of our healing approach is rooted in traditional medical philosophies and practices, infused by the latest modern scientific research. Over the past twenty-five years, I’ve combined these complimentary modalities into a unique healing protocol that I call the Eclectic Triphasic Medical System (ETMS).

The main tools of the ETMS toolbox are botanical, nutritional, dietary, lifestyle, and pharmaceutical. The six general objectives of the ETMS tools are to:

• Enhance Vitality (The Vital Force)
• Increase Efficiency and Restore Harmony and Rhythm
• Increase Movement
• Correct Nutritional Deficiencies and Excesses
• Remove Toxins
• Target the Cancer (or other disease)

 

1) Enhance Vitality

Enhancing vitality—what I think of as the Vital Force—is central to all healing. The Vital Force is the principle force that is innate to all living things. It is the governing intelligence essential to 1) Energy, 2) Adaptation, and 3) Protection.

Like everything in the Universe, the Vital Force is composed of two complimentary opposites within the whole. Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to these opposites as yin and yang. These two energetic currents oppose and at the same time balance each other, with one inward-anabolic (yin-like) and the other outward-catabolic (yang-like). They have very different qualities, and yet both are necessary for health and healing. Inward-anabolic expresses as nurturing, rebuilding, and restorative activities, while outward-catabolic expresses as active, using-up activities.

Vitality is dependent on the appropriate balance between ‘input’ and ‘output’ of energy in every area of life, including physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

For each individual, one of these elements will manifest more strongly than the other as a result of innate constitution and lifestyle choices and habits. To restore balance and facilitate healing, both inward and outward supporting remedies must be used. Botanicals can support anabolic or catabolic energy, and some botanicals support both.

Under conditions of prolonged stress, the Vital Force adapts to the situation by directing an output of energy, putting the organism into a state of allostatic load, whereby less input energy is available. This costs the organism to the degree that it weakens the Vital Force and creates inward-anabolic deficiency. Botanical and nutritional medicine together with dietary modifications, rest and proper sleep is essential to restoring the Vital Force as a whole, and particularly the inward-anabolic energetic current.

2) Increase Efficiency, Harmony and Rhythm

To be efficient means to be effective while producing the least amount of waste. Efficiency primarily relates to absorption, utilization, transportation, reception, and disposal at the cellular, tissue, and organ level.

The actions and effects of the ETMS tools on the human organism (Vital Force) can be broken down into four categories, which I refer to as the 4 R’s:

• Recognize: When we encounter a pathogen, in order to mount an effective response to quickly eradicate the invader our immune system first needs to recognize it. If our Vital Force is depleted, the ability to recognize may be compromised, thus allowing a full-blown infection to manifest. This also holds true for illnesses such as cancer, where the immune system must recognize the aberrant cells and destroy them before cancer can take hold.

• Respond: Once the stressor has been recognized, the next step is to respond, and adaptogens excel in supporting this function. Adaptogens do not directly stimulate the immune system, but rather enable the cohesive networking of the neuroendocrine, nervous, and immune systems to more efficiently respond. It is our Vital Force that actives the response, and adaptogens insure that an efficient and effective response occurs, even in the case of stress, weakness, and in the elderly or immune compromised.

• Recover: After adaptogens have enabled us to mount an appropriate and effective response, they then help us to recover by restoring anabolic metabolism, improving waste removal, and normalizing the response pathways (mostly pro-inflammatory) that were up regulated during the response phase.

• Restore: Restoration is the final way in which adaptogens aid our health. When all is quiet from the stress perspective, adaptogens now go to work building up reserves, storing energy, strengthening the Vital Force, and reducing or delaying the effects of aging and the onset of chronic disease and conditions, thus optimizing health.

3) Increase Movement

Stagnation is a common characteristic of cancer and other degenerative diseases, and most often manifests as blood, lymph, oxygen, and energy stagnation. A common feature of cancer is hypercoagulation (blood stasis), hypoxia (oxygen stagnation), immune-lymphatic system stagnation (down-regulation of cancer fighting cells) and organ system stagnation, including the liver and kidneys. Increasing “flow” is essential, and is achieved through the actions of stimulating, relaxing, and warming.

4) Correct Nutritional Deficiencies and Excesses

Cancer patients (and others with degenerative diseases) often have nutritional deficiencies that hinder their ability to be well, heal, respond and attack the disease.  Cancer as an energetic force has the ability to alter nutrition for survival, growth, and invasion. Excesses must be considered as well as deficiencies; for example, an excess of iron and copper can assist cancer growth and enable the cancer to protect itself.

5) Remove Toxins

Removal of toxins by up-regulation of the immune-lymphatic system, organs, tissues, and cells is an essential objective of the ETMS toolbox.

6) Target the Cancer

Altering the terrain to make it the least conducive for disease and the most conducive for health is the goal of the ETMS toolbox. In the case of cancer, the pleiotropic (multitasking) activities of many of the botanical and nutritional agents also directly target the cancer by influencing multiple signaling pathways, including survival pathways such as those regulated by NF-kappa B, Akt, and growth factors; cytoprotective pathways; and metastatic and angiogenic pathways, including MMPs. These compounds are often cell-behavior and redox-regulating and act on healthy cells as free radical scavenger and hydrogen donors, exhibiting both pro- and anti-oxidant activity. They can selectively act as pro-oxidants on cancer cells that need to undergo apoptosis, and can bind and chelate metals, particularly iron and copper. In addition, these compounds can protect against drug toxicity, yet potentiate the antitumor effect of chemotherapy and targeted drug therapies. Finally, some of the compounds can act as mild chemotherapeutics—many of these plant extracts are the source of chemotherapeutic drugs.

The ETMS is a comprehensive approach to healing that successfully integrates traditional, wholistic medicine with modern, allopathic medicine–thus creating a custom-tailored approach for each individual based on scientific research and logic as well as a healthy dose of common sense and the essential aspect of intuitive wisdom.