o Polisano
The Italian Reset Diet
“The Italian Reset Diet”
First Edition
Authored by Dario Polisano
Translated by Giuseppe di Martino
English edition published by Tektime
Graphics, DTP and cover:
V. Riccardo Puglisi
Images
(Book and cover):
© 2020 Dario Polisano
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(Page 73):
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PREFACE
I am not a medical doctor, nor do I want to be. I am proud to be a nutritional biologist. My profession does not allow me to prescribe drugs or diagnose pathologies; those are tasks for doctors. I am a firm believer in our own bodies’ vital force and self-healing power. My job, or mission, is to enable that power through proper nutrition, an important factor which is, unfortunately, often underestimated.
Today’s technology helps us with innovative solutions in all fields. It also helps in the biological-nutritional field with, for example, the use of supplements, or non-synthetic molecular concentrates found in nature. A nutritional biologist can advise supplements, when essential, in order to help a patient recover more quickly. Unfortunately, often enough, what happens is that people get the mistaken idea that supplements are good for everything, without any negative effects—and that notion is absolutely false. Supplements act like actual medication. It is true that when a woman takes folic acid during her pregnancy, she avoids possible conditions such as spina bifida for her baby, but it is also true that the misuse of supplements can lead to damage instead, by causing the activation of gene mutation from its dormant to its hyperactive phase, with often disastrous consequences for our bodies. Guidance regarding the subject of dietary supplements is always best left to a conscientious and competent expert.
In this book you will also find testimonials from some of my patients, who were healed thanks to the lifestyle changes I suggested, as nutrition plays a crucial role in obtaining an optimal state of health.
Please do not misunderstand me—I am not some sort of strange quack. I just believe, as a nutritional biologist and researcher, that alongside the expertise and methodologies of a doctor who prescribes medical treatments, one must also practice proper nutrition from the very beginning of a medical condition. I assert that improper nutrition is often the root of all ills, and that healing takes more than just medical prescriptions, which more often than not hurt the development of the physical processes in our bodies. Medications are often allopathic, meaning they turn off symptoms but do not take all the side effects into account.
I would say that my method is interpretative, a sort of decoding of the signals the body sends in order to try to find balance and promote self-healing. This way, the value-ranges will tend to improve, and once a physician sees that the patient is getting better, he or she may reduce the medications. And why not? He or she may even do away with them altogether.
This is often not appreciated by those doctors who do not see a link between healing and proper nutrition. Often patients are even laughed at by their own physicians for this, thus causing them to have a real psychological crisis to the point of doubting the food choices recommended by the nutritionist. Those doubts are quickly done away with by patients when, by going back to their old way of eating, they see that their old symptoms, which were maybe either totally gone or at least kept at bay with a proper food regimen, show up again.
I have often been accused of being a charlatan, but results are what matter. You will surely have noticed that I am slightly argumentative, but I believe that, when it comes to evidence and concrete results for your health, by being argumentative in a constructive way, it helps to put in question the claims certain experts make.
These are situations that truly occur every day. Many of my patients are told by their doctors to interrupt the food regimens I suggested for them, even though they see positive results. I consider this sort of professional rivalry useless and damaging, and I always ask myself why we cannot walk hand-in-hand to reach common goals.
I am always willing to cooperate with doctors for the exclusive benefit of the patient, but I rarely receive the same courtesy. I could go on and on about the medical professionals who never took into consideration what their patients told them, even when they described the benefits of a personalized diet, and who asked themselves why they had to settle for the temporary effects of drug treatments, without receiving any answer.
I want to clarify that drugs were no doubt a very important discovery, but they are often used when there is no need. It is normal practice for a doctor to prescribe something immediately, as soon as they see a value out of range, without caring to know what the patient eats. They do not even consider that those values can go back to a normal range through a proper diet. This happens because a drug prescription is sometimes the fastest way of seeing results, but trust me, they will not be long-lasting. Sooner or later, the body will manifest other symptoms and the onset of another illness. This is when patients will find themselves taking up to 6-8 different types of medication a day.
My polite yet resolute position does not salvage the “Mediterranean Diet,” the one discussed daily on TV or read about in magazines or on the Web, which is totally different from the original Mediterranean Diet. For some experts, it is enough to eat bread and pasta for them to say that you are following the Mediterranean Diet. For example, I have seen diets where a gentleman was advised to eat white bread and creamy cheeses for lunch by his doctor, who objected to and criticized some of my dietary recommendations (which included legumes and fish).
On the other hand, I can say that, out of intellectual honesty, often on my career path I have encountered doctors and colleagues who appreciated my work very much and trusted my intuition and foolproof scientific evidence, so much so that they entrusted those who were dearest to them (wives and/or kids) under my care.
I will also tell you, briefly, what happens inside a nutritional biologist’s office, where we look for the most suitable solution to improve a patient’s state of health, even in the presence of discouraging news.
I have seen obese people with sky-high glycemia continue to eat ready-made food or food made with white flour every day, pushed by their own doctors to go back to their old diets which they deemed reliable, because mine did not follow the standards of the hypothetical “Mediterranean Diet.”
I am a simple, social and honest person who has never had an agenda, ulterior motives or monetary interests, especially when it comes to health. I will try to explain to you not only my truths as a nutritional biologist, but also the everyday objective truths regarding health problems.
My food system is not called the Italian Reset Diet for no reason; the word “reset” has a specific purpose—to reset your body gradually and bring it back to proper nutrition in a controlled manner. Justifiably, you may now be thinking that all of this is based on dietary deprivation and constraints, but you will change your mind once you have read the last part of the book, which is about how you have at your disposal an infinite variety of food