‘Only health can cure diseases, not drugs’ says Dr A Sreekumar, president, Indian Nutritional Medical Association. In his opinion earlier it was the stomach that starved but now it is the cell that is starving. Preservation and promotion of cellular health is of utmost importance, for, he says that no medicine can enter the cells.
Sreekumar, a former ENT head and neck surgeon is now a nutritional welfare therapist who goes about it in a scientific way. He is out to address the problem through his holistic and preventive health care.
His idea of treatment is to boost cellular health. “In 1980, the average age group of cancer patients in Kerala was 60 to 65 years. Now the average age of cancer patients at Regional Cancer Centre in Thiruvanathapuram is 35. The situation is alarming. It is estimated that the world is facing a huge economical loss owing to non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart diseases."
He suggests wellness solutions for these lifestyle diseases. Nutritional therapy aims at addressing the cause of the illness at the cellular level, concentrating on cellular biochemistry instead of simply physiology, after using the globally advanced metabolic and genetic profiling studies,” Dr Sreekumar, who is also the chairman and managing director of Wellness Solutions at Maradu in Kochi, said.
For his efforts, he was awarded the honorary fellowship at the Australian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine, the only Indian to be selected for the honour.
Unlike other nutritional therapies, Wellness Solutions focuses on assessing scientifically, the needs of the body, using metabolic profiles, and recent techniques like Public Health Genomics and study of Genetic Expression (epigenetic analysis) in order to find the likely occurrence of disease in the future.
“The nutritional density of the food available in Kerala is very low. Countries like New Zealand, Australia and Canada, where the best food is available in the world, have already started addressing the issue of low nutrition in food. The general concept in those countries is that six apples have to be consumed instead of the one that was the habit six years ago, because of the low nutritional content,” he says.
Under the Wellness Solutions treatment, the overall metabolic and lifestyle profiling of a person is done using a questionnaire, routine medical assessment and nutritional assessment, followed by biochemistry of body secretions and hormonal assay.
Once the overall health and metabolic balance is assessed, these can be improved using the right dietary courses, exercise, relaxation techniques and combination of allopathic, herbal and homeo interventions.
“Health is beyond mere absence of disease. Cellular health is most important for positive healthcare. As no drug can get into the workings of a cell, most focus on health is at the organ level. Only the right nutrition can help influence the workings of the body at a cellular level,” Sreekumar underlines.
Sreekumar started Wellness Solutions in 2002. Now such centres are functional in Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore and Chennai.
He conducts a workshop on his techniques for other doctors every month, where he imparts his methods of treatment.
Dr Sreekumar is all set to launch Wellness Aesthetics which intends to deal with obesity, skin diseases and cosmetic issues using natural methods and avoiding synthetic substances.
He is also a regular faculty and invited speaker in various medical conferences in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Dubai.