The road toward a healthy state of mind and body can often be challenging, but the benefits can last a lifetime. Such are the lessons that Christy Panichelli, owner and operator of Meadowsweet Natural Health Center, in Medford, imparts to her clients.

“My journey has always baffled the many practitioners I have gone to,” she says. “So I’m practicing everything on myself and my family first, and then when I’m comfortable with it I roll it out to my patients and they get the same positive results, too.” This is due in part to her having grown up with various medical conditions that doctors didn’t necessarily understand the corresponding sources or even which treatments to use.

However, using nutritional cellular healing, Meadowsweet is able to focus on specific treatments to help the body’s own natural healing abilities reduce chronic cellular inflammation. They are also able to help restore the body’s natural metabolism, which can become disrupted from years of poor eating, smoking, drinking and other unhealthy habits. While inflammation can be a normal process within the body’s functioning—often aiding in healing tissue—it can also lead to cell damage or worse when the inflammation becomes chronic. 

“I educate people on what to do, what supplements they need to take,” Panichelli says, on how she guides her clients to a more natural approach. “I do work on cellular healing and detox because too many people are suffering and are toxic at the cellular level.”

The individualized treatments are tailored to each person and what is causing their health problems. Understanding this, clients of Meadowsweet will first sit down with Panichelli and review their health and family history, when their issues began and just where the problems could be coming from. This is where they’ll work together to learn how to unlock the body’s natural potential for healing and wellness.

“The body knows what to do... You don’t have to tell yourself to breathe in and out all day long, you don’t have to tell yourself I need to digest this food, your body just knows what it needs.”

Another vital component to unlocking what each person is capable of is understanding and learning the importance of the fuel that powers everyone. Nutrition Response Testing or NRT, is a non-invasive test used to analyze the body in order to diagnose the underlying medical conditions a person may have. In many cases, this can be traced to a poor diet and recommendations are made and a plan is created to guide a client to making better choices.

Helping each client understand this is important as they move forward with their treatments. “Basically when you start to learn biochemistry, and you understand how we starts to process these things… Even the journey with fasting, getting into Ketosis; these are things I teach and that I practice that have gotten my health back… If you learn why do I need to do this and you understand how to do it safely how, these make a huge difference in their lives.”

The inspiration behind this is what fulfills Panichelli’s mission in helping as many people as she can through Meadowsweet. Through this and raising her family, she is especially aware that the best way to avoid a lifetime of health issues is through education when you’re young. Many of the lessons are obvious—from not eating processed foods, consuming less during each meal, to even fasting at least seven days throughout the year. 

However, not many teenagers and young adults are taught this in school or even by their parents. Many individuals, and not just the young, are unaware of just how damaging their habits and environment can be. For example, she explains, “If you have any extra fat in your midsection, you are toxic at the cellular level, you have chronic inflammation.” And because each time you eat is considered a meal, this is due to the fact that you’re spiking your glucose and consuming anywhere from 17 to 22 times a day.
In the end, that’s Panichelli’s and Meadowsweet’s mission, to educate people of all ages and health grades to understand that they don’t have suffer through an unhealthy life. And her and her practice look forward to continuing to assist clients in gaining better control of their lives and health.

Meadowsweet Natural Health is located at 639 Stokes Rd,, Ste. 203, Medford, NJ. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 609-257-3345 or visit MeadowsweetNaturalHealth.com.

Matt Preston, who lives in South Jersey, co-hosts a weekly humorous and green-focused podcast and writes a series of positive energy stories on various peace and positivity blogs, both at TheApatheticVegan.com.