Health and Healing Insights into Natural, Nutritional States of Balance and Harmony

In this remarkable book, Customized Healing, author Mark Mincolla, Ph.D., says, "Only by blending the best of Western mechanistic and chemical knowledge with the best of the ancient Eastern vitalistic approach can we become whole beings and claim our maximum healing potential." Trained in both classical Chinese medicine (CCM) and Western nutrition, Mincolla has been integrating these seemingly opposed methods to cure disease and promote health over the last thirty years. The author relies on his understanding of the interactions between the body, mind, and spirit to address the needs of those he treats. That's why the foods you eat, the supplements you take, the exercises you do, the aspirations you have, and how you act, think, and believe are all part of this integrated, holistic approach.

Enhancing the flow of life-force energy--chi as it's called in CCM--and avoiding any blockage of that chi are essential in Mincolla's practice. He views symptoms as messages about what the body/mind/spirit needs. Grief in your heart or arteries that are clogged, for example, can lead to blocked energy. To help him diagnose a person's bio-individuality, he uses CCM's five constitutional types based on the five energies--wood, fire, earth, metal, and water--to discover the appropriate nutritional therapy, natural medicine (specific foods and vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements), and mind-body medicine (such as yoga, meditation, and tai chi) needed to help a person achieve vibrant health.

Customized Healing includes a detailed questionnaire so readers can identify their primary type and recommends specific supplements and recipes to address their specific bio-individuality. And because Mincolla believes that Eastern medicine's most important contribution to Western thinking is its focus on prevention, he also offers basic dietary principles and the top twenty-five phytonutrients for boosting life-force energy and putting one on the path to lifelong maximum health.