“Life Style and A Proper Way of Taking Food That Help Enhance a Natural Healing Power"

  A director of Obitsu Sankei Hospital
Dr. Ryoichi Obitsu

In recent years, we frequently hear the word "healing." Attention is paid to holistic (or 'whole-person') treatment in which health management is carried out using the natural healing power that a man possesses, originally brought about only through elements such as food, medicines and the correct frame of mind. Holistic medicine, which has as one of its objectives to prevent illnesses from occurring by placing the individual in harmony between nature and other surrounding environments including the cosmos, is becoming popular and recognized in medical circles. We carried out an interview with Dr. Ryoichi Obitsu, Director of Obitsu Sankei Hospital.
――We frequently hear that it is essential to express natural healing power in order to overcome illness. Could you tell us specifically what natural healing power is?

Obitsu: Regarding natural healing power, it is still undergoing scientific elucidation. But I understand it in the following way: it is a potential that exists in a certain space. To be more specific, here is a space in which there is myself, who has certain volume. The energy in such a space is referred to as natural healing power. Someone who has a high level of the energy would also possess a high natural healing power. In contrast, someone having a low level of energy has the power at a dwindling level. The energy exists in a space, so the interview room also has the natural healing power because there is a space which belongs to the room. The earth and the cosmos also have this power. To make the story short, where there is a space, there is energy, and this constitutes the natural healing power.

――Please tell us what kind of foods help most to enhance natural healing power.

Obitsu: Foods do empower our natural healing power. The best of them are those that are in a state of resonance and sympathy with the space in which we are in. In other words, foods that are best suited for the purpose are those harvested in season and in the area where we are. The field of the earth is connected with that of our constitutions. The space I am referring to is not closed, or partitioned, by our skins, but is shared with each other. So it would be possible to say that the foodstuff most appropriate to increase natural healing power is that which is in season, including vegetables.

Speaking of animals, those living in a particular region take the energy of the earth into their bodies, which is given from them to us indirectly. Because of this process, the purity of the energy is lost. Furthermore, in the case of animals, they may come from a distant place such as Australia, for instance. Taking this element into consideration, vegetables would be better than animal foods when different foods are ranked.

Talking of another element, the use of food additives and excessively refined foods is not beneficial since that results in a reduction of the energy of the earth. This is not an absolute measurement, but a matter of how you make the comparison. Placing them in order, those foods grown in nature in the raw, being in season and harvested in the region, come at the top of the ranking.

Just imagine that you are served with boiled fava beans and a glass of cold beer in early summer. You would be very happy, and the feeling of joy is important, being the key. In this scene, you would quickly realize the sense of season and feel glad. This state enhances the energy of the space in your body. When you feel the deliciousness of food, and are appreciative of it and things related to it, it is a very good situation, working well to excite the natural healing power.

――Please tell us what is the role of health food that supplements natural healing power.

Obitsu: To take food with delight is the fundamental principle for empowering natural healing power. I would suggest that you take a health food supplement while you observe these rules. Firstly, try to have a good dietary life. On this basis, health food helps further enhance natural healing power. I think that this is the role of health food. As for its use, I would not suggest you use a variety of such foods. Instead, just choose about two kinds of such food meeting your objective, and take them properly and regularly. Speaking of my patients, arabinoxylan is the most popular among them. Those that produce lactic acid bacteria or belong to superoxide dismutase foods (or SOD foods) are also popular.

――Please tell us what we have to bear in mind other than the above in order to stimulate natural healing power.

Obitsu: What is important is the frame of mind. When preventing cancer, the state of mind and spirit contribute 70%, while food contributes the remaining 30%. It is very important that you have a significant purpose in life, that would not end just before you pass away but would rather leave something even after the end. I recommend my patients to do Qigong in order to support them. I have been advising them to try to be a person with a mind that leads to Qigong. In the energy of the space, you, other people and things around you including the cosmos as a whole are connected with each other. So do not think about yourself alone, but consider that you are one of those existing on a big field. It is very important to have such an idea, and I have been encouraging them to think in this way.

When you take a health supplement, its effect would be brought out, working positively, if your state of mind and spirit were proper and sound. When getting over a disease, what is the most important is for you to think, "I am determined to live well." But, if it merely turns into an obsession to live, it would not work. You have to have a determination to live, but also on the other hand prepare mentally for the final moment. It is necessary to have such a balanced and positive view of life and death regarding your own life. If the balance between the two elements is appropriate, it is possible to overcome illness. And, the natural healing power flows out when you are in the right frame of mind.

As I have told you, it is essential to have the right view towards life and death. Figuratively speaking, the life-death view is like a warp thread, while a weft thread is a good dietary habit and good health supplement food. So both are needed.

――Could you tell us about the distinctive roles of pharmaceuticals and foods.

Obitsu: I believe that there is a difference between "treatment" and "healing." "Treatment" means repairing something, while "healing" implies enhancement of the energy in space. Diet and Qigong are techniques of "healing." Powerful drugs of Occidental medicine are techniques of "repair". It would be appropriate to use the latter as an emergency evacuation procedure. However, pulling up people whose healing powers dropped down when their energy of the field dwindled away, in the first place, is a technique of "healing." There are some expressions used for giving health advice, such as: pay attention to what you eat; practice Qigong; relax your mind; and take health food supplement. All of these represent techniques of "healing."

I think that in the future medicine would be about techniques of "healing," and that would be the premise of future treatment. If we had to decide which is the central player of the two, I would say it is "healing". Practise "healing" usually with health food supplements, then use modern Occidental medicine if necessary. I believe that this is the right order. Camps within Occidental medicine tend to deride what has not been examined by the scientific method. But I think this is unreasonable. We do not live just on what has been certified scientifically. There are still many things that cannot be solved only by scientific factors, when we become ill.

As for spitiual energy, it is so deep that there are still many aspects that remain to be clarified. However, I think that it would be enough as far as it works positively when we tried it, given what you are practising is one that has some elements to be made clear further. Aromatherapy is an example of that. You feel well and refreshed when you have someone do it. Has the effect of the therapy been proved in a scientific way? The answer is that there is still a way to go until its effects are completely verified.

The spiritual energy in foods that we take daily is reduced by food additives and agrichemicals. Foods that are just picked and perish when they are left as is for a while are the best for empowering our natural healing power originally. The power can be enhanced by a sound dietary life and habit in which we eat foods that were grown in the region and in season. So what I suggest is that we try to increase our healing power at first with foods and health supplement foods by taking them in our daily lives so as to perform "healing." In the case of emergency in which there is no help for it, use a drug for "treatment." I believe that this notion helps and works well.



A director of Obitsu Sankei Hospital

           Dr. Ryoichi Obitsu
Copyright(C)2004 JAFRA. All rights reserved.