Ep. 006 - The Pottenger's Cats Story: Why Didn't We Learn This In High School?

Nutritional Therapy and Wellness Podcast

In this episode of the Nutritional Therapy and Wellness Podcast, your host, Jamie Belz, Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP) and Master Health Coach, walks you through the incredible story of Dr. Francis M. Pottenger Jr., a physician and research scientist of the early 1900s.

Dr. Pottenger worked in a sanitarium, a medical facility found commonly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which approached the treatment of disease with exposure to fresh air and sunlight, restorative environments, rest and relaxation – often in outdoor settings, nutrient-dense foods, light physical activity, close monitoring by medical staff, structured routines, and social interaction as a way of strengthening the patient’s immune system and improving their overall health so their bodies could fight off pathogens and heal.

While studying the correlation between tuberculosis and the adrenal glands, he noticed vast differences in the health of his feline test subjects depending upon the diets they were fed - raw milk and raw meat versus cooked/pasteurized milk and cooked meat.

Over ten years and multiple generations of more than 900 cats, Dr. Pottenger conducted a research project that would eventually become known as "The Pottenger's Cats Study." This study ultimately laid the revolutionary groundwork for what we now call "epigenetics"—the study of how environmental factors, such as diet, stress, and exposure to toxins, can switch our genes on or off without changing the underlying DNA sequence.

The profound findings of Dr. Pottenger's study were not so much that what the cats ate impacted their health as that it impacted the health of three subsequent generations of kittens through transgenerational nutritional deficiencies.

So, what does this mean to the human race? Are WE a case of Pottenger's Humans? Is there hope for regeneration?

This impactful and truly astonishing story is not told in school, but it should be. You'll want to hear it yourself and then tell everyone you know.

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