Balance of Nature
Our story begins in the early 90's with a young physician named Dr. Douglas Howard, who was concerned about keeping his family and patients active and healthy. All of Dr. Howard's research and experience pointed to one major issue, which if solved could decrease many of the terrible health conditions on the rise. He found a major problem with our nation’s diminishing health is that people are nutritionally starving themselves while overeating empty foods.
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About Dr. Douglas Howard
At a young age Dr. Douglas Howard was highly interested in health and has always wanted to be a doctor. He started working in the St. George, Utah, ER at age 14 and became an EMT at age 16. By the time he was 18, he was certified in all modules—the equivalent of being a paramedic!
Dr. Howard learned homeopathy when he lived in Germany for a few years. And, when he returned to America, he witnessed a young lady overcome migraines by switching from pain medication to chiropractic. In the meantime, Dr. Howard’s brother became a chiropractor, and he started to open his mind to the idea of chiropractic. At that point, Dr. Howard’s goal was to take medicine and chiropractic and combine the two.
Five years later, he went to Russia and became the Dean of Foreign Student Affairs at Pavlov University for 4 years. While in Russia, he saw evidence where patients with certain diseases were prescribed wrongly, which accelerated their problems. He also saw how other treatments were more effective, such as fasting therapy, and cured the patients. This changed Dr. Howard’s life, and he knew he needed to stand for what he believed in.
He didn’t set out to make a company like Balance of Nature. At first, he started truly expanding the way he thought and what he thought. He studied in clinics and hospitals in Finland, Mexico, and the Caribbean countries. He wanted to know more than what we just had here. That thirst for knowledge was so important because he wanted to know why things happened.
When Dr. Howard came back to America, he thought he would start doing holistic pediatrics. However, he found that the patients who missed and needed him the most were the older patients. Nobody was trying to do anything natural for them; they were only being put on more drugs. Most of them were on “Meals on Wheels.” He noticed the need for more nutrition.
Dr. Howard decided to do geriatrics. His patients were aged 50 and over, because nobody at that time was concentrating on holistic health care for seniors, or geriatric care. Holistic care was available for pediatrics, for sports medicine, for everything else, but not for geriatric care because Medicare wouldn't allow it. So that’s where he started concentrating his efforts.
Dr. Howard also had a lot of interest in vitamins. The more he studied, the more he saw contradictory information. He then started to learn more about phytochemicals, or plant chemicals.
Dr. Howard would follow the Recommended Dietary Allowance RDA for daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, but the recommendations continued to change. He had a hard time believing it was the right thing to do because of the constant change. It was at this time he realized where he could find the “magic chemical” and the “perfect balance”: in the food we eat—the fruits and vegetables!
He learned not to fall into fads, that extracted chemicals are not healthy, and that every isolated chemical has a side effect. One can call it a vitamin, call it a drug, call it whatever they want, but every time someone takes an isolated chemical and puts it in the system, they have a side effect. They may not notice for a long time, but there is a side effect.
With time in practice as a medical doctor, Dr. Howard started discovering and understanding the Triad of Health. Many times people relate the Triad of Health to DaVinci's “mind, body, spirit,” but Dr. Howard found that “mind, body, spirit” didn't cover it.
He learned while working in the hospital that the key to most cures is education. People fear death, and they fear the unknown. Medicine was left in the Latin language for so long to leave people in fear and in the unknown, because then they will do what they’re told. Education removes the fear, which sits on the Spiritual side of the Triad. Health and fear can’t coexist. People in constant fear are physically and mentally sick.
After 20 years of practice, Dr. Howard realized and understood that drugs, adjustments, and physical therapy didn’t fix people. They might temporarily, but to be truly healthy people must work on building their Triad of Health. Complete health can only be achieved through personal accountability. Dr. Howard developed a simple philosophy to clarify personal health responsibilities: the Triad of Health. It covers the 3 areas of health: Physical, Spiritual, and Chemical.
Dr. Howard told his wife Susan one day, “People are really asking for Balance of Nature, and we have to choose.” He had a great practice and everything was solid in their life, but he knew he could help more people with Balance of Nature. The Howards knew that if they didn’t do it they would always wish they had tried.
As a result, Dr. Howard sold both his homes, both offices, and everything they had. Susan told him if Balance of Nature didn’t succeed, they could do it all again, but if they didn’t do it, they would always be sorry. Dr. Howard knew that in practice he could help thousands of people but with Balance of Nature, he could potentially help millions.
This wasn’t a scheme to make money. Dr. Howard made the decision to move on from his beloved practice and to help people increase their nutrition and reap all the health benefits that come with that.
