The purpose for True Wellness for Your Gut is to educate readers about how the gastrointestinal system works and how daily choices can positively influence gut health. You must be an active participant in your own revitalization, whether you are treating gastrointestinal illnesses, diabetes, obesity, or wish to prevent them.

It is hard to imagine, but a supposedly healthy food may actually be killing you from the inside out. Unfortunately, many people with such problems are still searching for a solution. You may be one of these people and that is why you are reading this book.

• Big confusion between what we are told by our healthcare providers and what we are sold in our supermarkets.
• Disagreements among researchers about what we should eat and when/how we should eat it. It is hard to know what to do and who to trust!
• Don't assume that if digestive and metabolic disease runs in your family you are doomed. In most cases, this is simply not true!
• Your decisions about sleep, food, restorative practices, exercise, relationships, and community all impact your gut.

Learn and understand the underlying cause of your condition and ways that you can solve your own problem with the help of your healthcare team.

• We encourage the incorporation of Eastern healing modalities such as acupuncture, meditation, and qigong into your conventional care and will explain the science behind these techniques.
• Not only will the qigong exercises provided improve your gastrointestiaonal trouble, they will, by their very nature, boost your immune system!
• We feel this integration is vitally important to your success for the following reason: stress management.
• Focused on the individual, we provide a step-by-step guide that will allow each person to make positive mental health changes regardless of what primary care provider they have.

Science now knows from the study of advanced genetics that the way genes are expressed as physical conditions can be modified by the food you eat, the quality and quantity of your sleep, your exercise regimen, and even your thoughts!

• Modern practitioners are increasingly taught to evaluate not just the biological cause of a disease, but the psychological, emotional, spiritual, and socioeconomic factors involved.
• Increasingly, students of Western biomedicine are being trained to consider all aspects of an individual and their illness. This patient-centered model is called "biopsychosocial medicine."

Eastern medicine has always been a whole systems approach to health. This is how combining Eastern and Western medicine can have the greatest impact.