Holistic doctor says everyone can live to 100
If you develop a healthy lifestyle and a positive attitude, you can live to be 100, said Dr. C. Norman Shealy, who spoke at Utah State University Friday.
“The vast majority of illnesses are the result of an unhealthy lifestyle,” said Shealy, a neurosurgeon and president and co-founder of Holos University Graduate Seminary. “Eighty-five percent of all illnesses are preventable if people had healthy habits.”
Shealy said the lifestyle necessary to live to 100 requires a positive attitude, good habits, such as no smoking and consuming no more than two alcoholic beverages per day, proper nutrition, at least 30 minutes of exercise daily and proper stress management.
He said exercise is the best form of stress reduction we know, but fewer than 10 percent of Americans get adequate exercise.
“I believe there is a place for conventional medicine,” Shealy said. “But only 15 percent of people need conventional medicine. The other 85 percent have diseases that are created because of an unhealthy lifestyle.”
Shealy stressed the importance of proper nutrition. “There is more evidence for nutrition as a critical factor in health than all drugs combined,” Shealy said.
Shealy said this is where conventional medicine fails and alternative, complimentary and holistic medicine shine.
“Stress reduction is our forte, and we are very good at depression therapy,” Shealy said.
“The best anti-depressant drug is 42 percent effective with a 25 percent complication rate,” Shealy said. “I can get 85 percent of people out of depression within two weeks, totally safely, without drugs, but physicians are not interested because they’ve been so brainwashed by the pharmacal mafia that they won’t think up a safe alternative.”
Shealy said obesity has replaced smoking as the leading cause of premature death in the United States, with 60 percent of Americans being overweight and 30 percent of those being truly obese.
“McDonald’s and its clones are the major cause of obesity in this country,” Shealy said.
Along with healthy nutritional habits, Shealy emphasized the importance of relaxation and being able to forgive others as a factor in developing a positive attitude and in helping reduce stress.
“Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting it to kill the other person,” Shealy said.
Shealy spoke about spinal mechanics and said it is “remarkably misunderstood by most physicians.”
He said 15 percent of the failures of back surgery are people who have something called a sacral shear, which is when the sacrum is rotated in two directions. He said it is correctable in 30 seconds.
Shealy asked members of the audience who suffer from lower back pain to come forward. He performed a type of spinal manipulation which is designed to correct a sacral shear on one of the audience members. After the procedure, she said, “It feels different, it feels better.”
Shealy said you can find all the information you need to live to 100 and beyond in his new book, “Life Beyond 100: Secrets of the Fountain of Youth.”
“I think people can live to be 140,” Shealy said.
-jason.givens@usu.edu