Crossroads Health Center welcomes Dr. John Maher

The human body is an extraordinary machine, capable of amazing achievements and endurance beyond the scope of imagination.
To keep this machine in proper working order, Dr. John Maher at Crossroads Health Center has a novel approach: listen to what your body is telling you.
The process is called Nutrition Response Testing (NRT) and Dr. Maher says it’s almost as simple as it sounds.
“The goal of this testing is to get the body’s own feedback to tell me, the doctor, whether or not there’s something wrong,” he says. “I’m not against laboratory testing or anything like that; there are definitely situations that require the use of x-rays and other tests like that. But as a doctor, if I can get a sick person well for the cost of just the battery of tests that patient will undergo in a hospital, then that’s something I want to do.”
To get information from the body about what’s going on inside, a doctor can use NRT to help zero in on a potential trouble area.
“We’re working with the body’s autonomic nervous system,” he explains. “That is, all the stuff that works on its own, like your heartbeat and breathing. Within the autonomic nervous system are the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems, which work like the gas and brake pedals in your car. When you’re healthy, they work together. But when something is off, then the systems don’t work the way they’re supposed to. And when they’re not working properly, the body is going to let us know that there’s something wrong.”
In order to find out what the body has to say about a particular area, Dr. Maher uses a gentle, non-invasive procedure. The patient lays on his or her back, facing up, with one arm pointing up at the ceiling. The doctor gently pushes against the upraised arm to get a baseline test of the patient’s muscular resistance. Then, the doctor puts his hand on the various areas of the body while testing the muscular resistance. When he finds a potential problem area, the muscular response tells him that something is off.
“By touching the skin, I’m calling the body’s attention to that particular area,” he says. “Since the skin uses the same nerve supply as the organs underneath, we’re putting the attention of the body on those same nerves that go to the heart, or to the stomach, or whichever part we’re testing. If the balance is correct, then there will be no change in the muscle response. But if there’s an imbalance, we’ll see that muscle response change.”
The results of the NRT help Dr. Maher better address the potential problems that the body of the patient indicates.
“The body knows what it needs,” he says. “So we ask the body, and we see the response. Not everybody responds to this type of testing, but we’ll screen you to see if you are a Nutrition Response Testing patient. If you are, then in my experience, nothing else will help as much. I have more than thirty years of education, experience and study, and I’m not saying that for gravitas. I’m just convinced that when you see something work over and over again, you have to start trusting the results.”
But the NRT is just the first step in what Dr. Maher hopes to accomplish with his patients. The overall goal, he says, is to design and implement a healthy lifestyle that is unique for each person.
“We have a free lifestyle risk analysis questionnaire that anyone is welcome to use,” he says. “You can take it at home, print it out and bring it in, and I’ll review it with you for free. Part of it is a plan of action, and my goal is to help you implement a healthy lifestyle.”
Dr. Maher is hosting a series of free health seminars at the Valley Center Library that will continue through March. He has already spoken about women’s health and hormones the first week and followed that with a seminar on stress and fatigue. Next, in the third of the six sessions, he will discuss digestive health, including natural approaches to heartburn, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease. That seminar takes place on Feb. 17 at 6:15 p.m.
“I wanted to give the community an opportunity to take advantage of my experience and study to learn more about these areas,” he says. “And it’s a great way for people to ask questions, to meet me and to get to know me a little bit better.”
In his work at Crossroads, Dr. Maher also offers extended hours to better meet the community’s scheduling needs. He is available for appointments until 7 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and hopes to offer Saturday morning appointments soon. He is also offering a special price for new patients; a $140 exam for only $40 for new patients who mention the special in this article.
For more information about Dr. Maher, visit the Crossroads Health Center Web site at www.newnaturalmedicine.com or stop by the clinic at 28630 Valley Center Rd., Suite 9.