True Wellness for Your Gut: Combine the Best of Western and Eastern Medicine for Optimal Digestive and Metabolic Health

by Catherine Jeane Kurosu MD, LAC, Aihan Kuhn CMB, OBT

Overview

Combines the best that Eastern and Western medicine can offer in the understanding, treatment, and prevention of digestive conditions, diabetes, and obesity. All the while, boosting your immune system!

True Wellness for Your Gut combines the best that Eastern and Western medicine have to offer in the understanding, treatment, and prevention of gastrointestinal disease, diabetes, and obesity. By blending modern research with ancient practices, this book will help readers stay positive and keep motivated along their journey toward better health and overall well-being.

The authors have helped thousands of people through the use of surgery, pharmaceuticals, acupuncture, herbs, qigong, tai chi, meditation, and life-style counseling. They explain how Western medicine has substantiated a long-held understanding of the gut held by Eastern medicine – that digestive health significantly impacts and is impacted by sleep, emotions, movement, food, and social support.

The authors discuss how sleep, exercise, nutritious food, stress management, acupuncture, and qigong favorably impact the gastrointestinal system. These modalities restore balance in the nerves, hormones, and neurotransmitters that improve digestion and metabolism. A special section is devoted to discussing the human gut microbiome, the bacteria we harbor in our intestines, and how the microbiome is essential to our health.

• Drs. Kuhn and Kurosu strongly recommend a collaborative approach, encouraging readers to engage with their Western healthcare providers so that serious conditions can be addressed safely.
• The authors share ideas about how the reader can create a multidisciplinary care team, involving practitioners of both Eastern and Western healing systems.
• The science behind meditation, acupuncture, and qigong are explained.
• Understand how the microbiome is essential to good health.
• Readers are offered recommendations of proven Eastern and Western therapeutic interventions that will calm the mind, decrease stress, improve sleep and nutrition, strengthen digestion, and normalize metabolism.
• True Wellness for Your Gut includes a step-by-step guide and qigong exercises designed to promote overall gastrointestinal health.

The authors recognize that digestive disease is complex and requires a multifaceted approach for successful treatment. By blending the ancient wisdom of Eastern Medicine with cutting-edge Western discoveries, True Wellness for Your Gut will help readers stay positive and achieve optimal health, whether through prevention or treatment of digestives conditions, diabetes, and obesity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594397455
Publisher:	YMAA Publication Center
Publication date:	10/01/2020
Series:	True Wellness
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Catherine Kurosu, MD, LAc, graduated from the University of Toronto School of Medicine in 1990 and a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology in 1995.

In 2006, she became a diplomate of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine. 2009, she was certified as a medical acupuncturist through the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Helms Medical Institute. Dr. Kurosu is a diplomate of the American Board of Medical Acupuncture. She has a master of science in Oriental medicine, from the Institute of Clinical Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Honolulu. 2015, she became a licensed acupuncturist. 2018 she became a diplomate in Oriental medicine through the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

Dr. Kurosu lives on O‘ahu with her husband, and daughter, where she practices integrative medicine, blending Western and Eastern approaches to patient care.

Aihan Kuhn, CMD, OBT, graduated from Hunan Medical Universityin China in 1982.

Since 1992 has focused on holistic healing. In her practice, she has accumulated much success with holistic medicine patient care and education work. Her patients benefit from self-improvement with physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, as well as special exercises to enable them to participate in their own healing. She incorporates tai chi and qigong into healing methodologies, changing the lives of those who have struggled for many years with little relief from conventional medicine. Dr. Kuhn offers wellness programs, natural healing workshops, and professional training programs. These highly rated programs have produced many quality teachers and therapists. She is president of the Tai Chi and Qi Gong Healing Institute a nonprofit that promotes natural healing and prevention.

Dr. Aihan Kuhn lives with her husband in Sarasota, Florida.

Table of Contents

Foreword Michael M. Zanoni, Ph.D., L.Ac. vii

Preface ix

Chapter 1 The Gut-An East-West Perspective 1

Chapter 2 The Gastrointestinal System and Glucose Metabolism in Health and Disease 41

Chapter 3 The True Wellness Approach to Gastrointestinal Problems 89

Chapter 4 The True Wellness Approach to Diabetes 115

Chapter 5 The True Wellness Approach to Obesity 125

Chapter 6 Qigong to Heal the Gut 151

Chapter 7 General Principles of Self-Healing 189

Conclusion 195

Acknowledgements 199

Appendix - Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load 201

Recommended Reading and Resources 205

Glossary 207

Index 215

About the Authors 219

Editorial Reviews

An informative guide to digestive health that draws on concepts from modern and traditional medicine from around the world.

Following up on their previous book, True Wellness: How To Combine the Best of Western and Eastern Medicine for Optimal Health (2019), medical doctors Kurosu and Kuhn aim to bridge the gap between ancient and modern health principles in this self-help guide, which offers helpful approaches to readers struggling with digestive issues or with maintaining a healthy weight. It starts with a general overview of the philosophies behind Western and Eastern medicine (Kuhn received medical training in China and Korusu, in North America) and then walks readers through an in-depth analysis of the human digestive system, including common digestive and metabolic illnesses such as peptic ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, and celiac disease. After that, the chapters shift to healing methods and strategies that readers may implement on their own, such as dietary restrictions or the use of Chinese herbal supplements. The authors make it clear that they wrote the book to give sufferers clarity about the origins of their problems, but they also encourage them to reflect upon their lifestyles—and, specifically, whether they’re pushing themselves too hard at work and at home, as stress can be a worsening factor. There are helpful, uncredited illustrations throughout; a chapter on qi gong practices for gut healing offers several detailed images to help readers understand its physical movements. The authors’ writing style is warm and inviting, and they effectively get their points across without relying on complex jargon or a preachy tone. What’s most striking about the book, however, is how it demonstrates the benefits of holistic medicine when combined with lifestyle changes and how it explains how a single aspect of digestive well-being can affect other areas of one’s health.

A valuable and wide-ranging wellness resource.

—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher