The Way of Miracles

• Dietary changes accompanied striking improvements in several of the people featured — Kate sought Mincolla’s help after repeated fertility treatment failures, diminished ovarian reserve and a thyroid problem. She had already eliminated gluten after developing hives and reported that both her hives and abnormal thyroid function resolved.

After three months on Mincolla’s dietary and supplement protocol, she said a subsequent fertility cycle produced 17 eggs and 10 viable embryos, compared with seven eggs and two embryos before the protocol. She later became pregnant. Hers is a single personal account, and fertility treatment outcomes can vary from one cycle to the next for many reasons. Another participant, Adilio, had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and struggled with walking, falling and even tying his shoes.

He had been taking a prescription Parkinson’s medication, which he said helped “a little bit, but not much.” After changing his diet and taking supplements, his wife reported dramatic improvements in his movement, along with a 30-pound weight loss over 21 days. Adilio later said he was walking two to three miles three times a week. His experience is a personal account, not clinical evidence that diet or supplements alter the course of Parkinson’s disease, and Parkinson’s symptoms can vary over time.

• One hearing-loss story shows how quickly participants reported changes — Michael developed sudden autoimmune sensorineural hearing loss, meaning damage involving the inner ear or nerve pathways that carry sound information to your brain. Steroid treatment initially improved his hearing, but the problem returned.

He eventually required hearing aids and his doctors raised the possibility of a cochlear implant. Mincolla recommended dietary changes, supplements and homeopathic products after attributing Michael’s condition to several underlying imbalances and mold or fungal exposure. Michael reported that his hearing started improving within weeks.

After three months, he said he no longer needed hearing aids, and he estimated that 90% to 100% of his hearing had returned. The timeline is striking, although the documentary doesn’t establish which intervention, if any, produced the improvement. Sudden hearing loss sometimes improves on its own, which is another reason a single account can’t show what caused a recovery.

• The film argues that symptoms are clues rather than isolated problems — Mincolla describes symptoms as “the language of the body” and argues that they provide clues about underlying problems. His approach asks what's driving a symptom rather than treating the symptom as the whole problem. In the documentary, he repeatedly points to diet, inflammation, infections, stress and emotional strain as factors worth investigating.

That perspective gives you a practical way to think about persistent health problems: Pay attention to patterns. Changes in symptoms after certain foods, stressful periods, environmental exposures or lifestyle changes provide information you can discuss with your health care provider.

• Stress and emotions are presented as biological influences on health — The documentary connects mental and emotional stress with the nervous, hormonal and immune systems. One contributor discusses psychoneuroimmunology, the field that studies communication among psychological processes, your nervous system and your immune system. This provides a biological framework for understanding why chronic stress doesn’t remain confined to your thoughts.

Mincolla takes this concept further, arguing that unresolved grief, anxiety and other emotional strain keep your body in “a stress chemistry state.” The practical point is that emotional health belongs in the same conversation as nutrition, movement and other physical factors. Managing stress doesn’t guarantee recovery from disease, but the film presents it as one part of creating an internal environment that supports health.

• The documentary portrays healing as an active process you help support — Later in the film, contributors point to the body’s ordinary regenerative abilities: Your skin repairs a cut, and your blood, intestinal lining and skin are continually being replaced. Red blood cells, for example, are replaced roughly every four months, and the cells lining your intestines turn over every few days.

The documentary uses these familiar examples to illustrate a larger principle — your body isn’t a static object but a living system continually maintaining and repairing itself.

That idea changes the role you play. Instead of viewing health solely as something delivered through a treatment, the film encourages you to examine the daily conditions surrounding your body’s normal repair processes. As one participant put it after a hospitalization convinced her to follow Mincolla’s recommendations closely, “I have a pretty high level of responsibility when it comes to my health.”

1. Remove excess linoleic acid (LA) to protect your cellular energy — I consider excess LA, a polyunsaturated fat found in seed oils and many processed foods, one of the biggest dietary obstacles to healthy mitochondrial function. Your mitochondria produce most of the energy your cells need for repair and normal function. When they struggle, the effects ripple throughout your body.

Keep your LA intake below 5 grams a day, and ideally closer to 2 grams. Eliminate seed oils, including soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed and canola oils. Restaurant food is another major source, especially fried and sautéed foods and dressings. Preparing most of your meals at home is the most reliable way to avoid them.

When you do eat out, The Templeton List (templetonlist.com) can help you find healthier restaurants. Choose whole foods and use fats such as grass fed butter, ghee or tallow instead.

2. Give your gut the right carbohydrates for its current condition — Your gut influences inflammation throughout your body, so rebuilding a damaged microbiome is an important part of restoring health. If your gut is severely compromised, large amounts of fiber can feed harmful bacteria and increase endotoxins, bacterial components that trigger inflammation when they cross your intestinal barrier.

If you have significant digestive problems, start slowly with carbohydrates that are easier to digest, such as fruit and well-cooked white rice. These provide carbohydrate energy without placing the same fermentative burden on a compromised digestive system. I believe 250 grams of carbohydrates per day is a reasonable target for most adults, with higher amounts appropriate if you're very active.

As your symptoms improve, move from fruit and white rice to root vegetables and non-starchy vegetables, followed by starchy vegetables such as squash. Add beans and legumes later, and minimally processed whole grains last, only if your gut handles them well.

3. Support your mitochondria with light and daily movement — Your cells need more than food to produce energy efficiently. Regular movement and appropriate sunlight exposure support the cellular processes that help your body function and repair itself. Walk for about an hour each day and include strength training twice a week. Break up long periods of sitting with brief bouts of movement.

Get regular sunlight as well, but if you've been consuming large amounts of seed oils, avoid harsh midday sun until you've eliminated them for about four to six months. When UV light hits skin loaded with LA, the LA oxidizes and generates inflammatory byproducts that may make you more prone to burning. Because LA lingers in your tissues long after you stop eating it, clearing enough to tolerate stronger sun takes time.

In the meantime, favor early morning and late afternoon sun, and build up your exposure gradually. Once you’ve been off seed oils for that period, solar noon becomes the most beneficial time for sun exposure. Test your vitamin D levels every six months to determine if you’re in the optimal range. Aim for a vitamin D level between 60 and 80 ng/mL (150 to 200 nmol/L). Talk to your healthcare provider about whether this testing is appropriate for you.

4. Reduce the stress signals your body faces every day — Emotional stress has physical effects. If you're constantly anxious, overwhelmed or on alert, your nervous system repeatedly receives signals that your environment isn't safe. That can keep stress hormones such as cortisol elevated and hold your body in survival mode, rather than the rest-and-repair state where much of your body's maintenance takes place.

Build periods of calm into your day rather than waiting until stress becomes overwhelming. Slow breathing, quiet reflection, time outdoors and removing unnecessary sources of stress can all help. Pay attention to how your body responds. Better sleep, steadier energy and a calmer mood give you useful feedback that you're moving in the right direction.

5. Treat your symptoms as information and look for patterns — A recurring symptom tells you something has changed, even when it doesn't immediately reveal why. Instead of viewing each symptom in isolation, look at what was happening around the time it appeared or worsened. Track your food, sleep, stress, digestion, movement and environmental exposures alongside your symptoms.

Keep a simple daily log. Rate your main symptoms from 0 to 10, and note what you ate, hours slept, your stress level and your digestion. Review it weekly, since patterns often take two to four weeks to emerge. Change one major variable at a time when practical so you can see how your body responds.

This turns your daily routine into useful feedback and gives you a clearer picture of the factors associated with feeling better or worse. Your goal is to take responsibility for the changeable factors that shape the environment in which your body works to maintain and repair itself.