Natural Healing with Steve Schechter, N.D., H.H.P. by Sydney L. Murray
Steve Schechter is a caring and compassionate man with a passion for learning, growing, and being of service to others. His prowess in the classroom is not to be underestimated as he teaches hundreds of classes each year. Schecter states on their web site:
“The word doctor comes from the Latin word meaning to teach. A true doctor is also a teacher—teaching clients how to heal themselves, prevent disease and generate optimal health. Healing includes yet goes beyond curing people’s bodies. It is about empowering people to heal their lives. Illness and injury can prompt us to look carefully at ourselves and our lives. They can also help us to better appreciate the preciousness of life and health. How have we been using our bodies? What have we been doing with our lives? What is our true mission in this world?
A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind, ignites a heart, and inspires a spirit. We commit to helping each other live, grow, teach, and heal with joy, with appreciation, and with reverence for life’s magnificent and magical forces. We enjoy helping you find and do your life’s work—the work of your heart.”
“To Know Is To Care; To Care Is To Act” This quote explains why, in 1988, Schechter began donating 50 percent of his author’s royalties from his book, “Fighting Radiation and Chemical Pollutants with Foods, Herbs and Vitamins–Documented Natural Remedies that Boost Your Immunity and Detoxify,” to national non-profit groups working for a healthier environment. Both he and this book are listed in Who Is Who In Service To The Earth.
Vision Magazine: Reflecting on the tragedy in Japan, what are some of the natural remedies for radiation exposure?
Steve Schechter: To answer that specifically, we need more information on the specific radioisotopes that are being released. Obviously so far most of the information has been on radioactive iodine-131. I believe potassium iodine is not the solution for radioactive iodine-131—and that’s not a hoax—only because it is an inadequate solution. The best solution for iodine-131 is natural iodine, especially from sea vegetables and steamed land vegetables. In my best-selling book, “Fighting Radiation and Chemical Pollutants,” I put forth the theory of what’s called selective uptake. That means that if you provide the body with optimal amounts of a natural nutrient, in this case iodine, you eliminate or dramatically decrease the potential for absorbing radioactive iodine. Because what happens is when we are deficient in natural iodine, the body will absorb radioactive iodine in a vain attempt to fulfill our needs for iodine. This principle of selective uptake has been endorsed and accepted by the Atomic Energy Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a way to get iodine into the body. So steamed vegetables are a great source of natural iodine, found in dark leafy greens. The problem is that iodine in our soil varies dramatically from region to region and even from county to county. So your best sources are sea vegetables from the kelp family, and purple dulse.
There is a vegetable in the kelp family called bladderwrack that is available in liquid form, solid form, powder, and granules, which is the most effective substance of delivering natural iodine. The beauty of natural iodine is [that] not only does it prevent your thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine, it also helps pull radioactive iodine out of your thyroid.
I want to emphasize that in all nuclear power plants, part of routine emissions and in accidental leaks, [there] is more than radioactive iodine. The experts are ignoring radioactive cesium-137 and strontium-90 in the Japanese nuclear facility. Experts have already said that it is part of the leakage and was certainly part of the leakage in Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. I was flown to Norway and then Russia after Chernobyl as a consultant. Radioactive iodine primarily impacts the thyroid, but also has a harmful impact on our gonads. It is true that radioactive iodine is a comparatively heavier radioactive isotope, so it tends to fall on the ground, unfortunately contaminating produce and eventually working its way into the milk supply and other products. People can wash it off their body. The bigger problem is, I believe, is with radioactive cesium-137 and strontium-90, which the experts are not addressing at all. Plutonium 238 and 239 is also probably being released. Bottom line: to counteract the above five radioisotopes, and to prevent future absortions, I recommend people consider regularly eating sea vegetables, green vegetables, algae from high quality areas, potasium, and iron rich foods.
There is no safe amount of radiation because all forms of radiation are cumulative. The real harm from radioactive isotopes is usually three to 15 years down the line, with the increased risk of cancers, such as leukemia.
VM: What are some of the other industrial contaminants that we are exposed to here in California that are affecting our health?
SS: There is a huge range of air-born contaminants coming from our water, soil, and food. According to the Center for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency, which are considered the two premier health-monitoring organizations in the world, all Americans will be exposed to 60,000-100,000 different chemical pollutants this year, only 10,000 of which are considered safe by their standards. 60,000 are considered sub-toxic or toxic. Toxins, by definition, stress your immune system, your digestion by affecting absorption, your liver, and other critical areas.
According to two Ralph Nader studies, the average municipal water source has 300-600 different chemical pollutants, which we are exposed to in drinking, cooking, showering, and bathing, especially if you shower with hot water. It creates vapor and you breathe it in far more efficiently than you absorb it through your skin.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, after examining 77,000 school children, across all social economic lines, over 70 percent had unacceptable amounts of lead in their blood and tissue. Fortunately, we can pull those heavy metals out of our bodies.
VM: Our theme this month is living green. What does that phrase mean to you?
SS: When I think of green I think of nature. One of my lessons in trying to honor and appreciate nature for the last 40 some years is that green is telling us to live in harmony, balance, homeostasis, and equilibrium with nature. We are at a time where we’re reexamining our medical model by emphasizing preventative and natural therapies and redefining our medical model, and redefining what, today, is the great American dream. For people like my parents, the great American dream was to have at least two cars in the garage and two or more TVs.
What the media has been telling us for 40 years is to buy more and get more. By living green we are trying to live more sustainably, more in balance, whether we are reducing our gas, oil, or electric needs. We are all guilty of excess waste, because we have learned to be excessively comfortable. I think in every way, living green is promoting a lifestyle of balance. The color green is the color of the heart chakra and it represents balance, chlorophyll, and nature.
Being green is healing ourselves and doing things to heal the world simultaneously. Holistic healing doesn’t mean being self-absorbed. I believe that some of this conscious new age is just self-absorbed. What we really need is people healing themselves and going out and doing something to make society better. We know we are all headed on an unsustainable path. There are so many things people can do on many different levels. When you are spending some time working on healing the world, you get outside of your own self-concerns. To me, living green is a challenge to all of us to be part of the solution.
VM: What do you think are some of the most exciting developments in holistic health today?
SS: For me the most exciting aspect is that if we look at the word “holistic,” humans have made errors since the beginning of time of not living in harmony. Holistic health has brought us a lot of solutions. What holistic health is teaching us, more than a new awareness of herbs, is the necessity of living sustainably, living in balance and harmony, and trying to move in that direction. Again, where I fault holistic health is that the western approach to spirituality and the western emphasis is to take care of yourself—greed is good, get more. Where I think holistic health needs to better articulate change is in a community consciousness. I think what is exciting is that holistic health should be taking us into a holistic solution, both personal and societal solutions. It incorporates alternative re-useable energies and much more than that, such as a change in consciousness, in our hearts and in our actions in society. That to me is the real definition of holistic. On that note, I deeply appreciate what you, Vision Magazine, other individuals, and other organizations are doing to foster simultaneously personal, community, and planetary healing, and optimal holistic healing.For more information on Steve Schechter, N.D., H.H.P. or the Natural Healing Institute, please contact enroll@naturalhealinginst.com or 760.943.8485, or visit www.naturalhealinginst.com. The Natural Healing Institute is a state-licensec, state-approved college offering programs for license/certification in 14 different areas plus individualized health consultations. They do not sell products from this article.