Have you, or someone you know, succumbed to Merck's advertisements, and become "One Less"? Has your daughter's pediatrician bullied you into agreeing to have her vaccinated with Gardasil, with the promise that it will prevent her from getting cervical cancer? If so, were you told of the myriad of side effects (including death and permanent disability) or given the "big picture" statistics about the vaccine? Have you heard that the CDC has recently recommended that this vaccination program be expanded to include boys, even though they have no cervix and it may only save a few homosexual males from anal cancer sometime in the future? Modern medicine, BigPharma, government policymakers, and the media are ignoring the facts about this dangerous vaccine, so the statistics need to be brought to light.
Research today tells us that it is likely that cervical cancer, as well as some oral and anal cancers, are induced by infections with Human Papilloma Virus, or HPV. Does that mean we are 100% positive this is true? No, it is simply our best theory to date. We may find out in the future that this theory was just that, and had no basis in true fact; we simply lacked the scientific knowledge to make a better assumption. Until we can prove definitively that HPV is the only cause of cervical cancer, we must admit we are working on theories and assumptions, and act accordingly, not blindly making treatment or prevention recommendations without careful study and long term follow up. Unfortunately, modern medicine thinks otherwise.
HPV is not just one virus. It is a family that includes over 100 viruses, of which only two, HPV-16 and HPV-18, are included in the Gardasil vaccine. There are other HPV strains that probably induce cervical cancer. We know 30% of cervical cancer victims have neither HPV-16 nor HPV-18, but we don't know what it was that caused the cancer. It may be other strains of HPV, or something besides HPV altogether. This group of viruses, which also causes genital warts, is contracted strictly through skin to skin contact; most commonly vaginal, oral, or anal sex. While rates of infection are lower with condom use, any time skin to skin contact is the method of transmission, by definition, we enter the realm of "no such thing as safe sex" (see Lenthen Your Life #2). Research has shown us that over 90% of HPV infections are dispatched by the immune system within two years, leaving only a small number that could possibly go on to induce cancers. Of those that remain, it seems to take 10-15, and maybe as many as 20, years for that induction to occur, and cervical cancer to appear.
While you wouldn't know it by the scare tactics used by Merck, the government, and most doctors, cervical cancer in the US is fairly uncommon. According to the National Cancer Institute, it is estimated that in 2011, less than 13,000 women will be diagnosed with the condition, and just over 4000 will die. I realize 4000 deaths is still a big deal, but when looking at the overall picture, it isn't really. When we compare cancer diagnoses with deaths, a 3.25:1 ratio is pretty good. Compared to cancers like pancreatic, lung, or liver, whose ratios are closer to 1.5:1 or even 1.1:1, we do a pretty good job of treating this cancer. More often than not, those that are lost are not getting regular PAP smears, which is the screening test used for this cancer. Women getting regular PAPs have a much higher rate of survival than those that don't. Of those that do develop cervical cancer, less than 15% will be under 34 years of age, and less than 20% will be over the age of 65. That leaves the vast majority (65%+) of cervical cancer diagnoses going to women between the ages of 35 and 65. The median age at diagnoses is currently 48. This lends credence to the concept that it takes a long time for HPV to be around before it induces cancer, but starts putting holes in the theory of Gardasil protection.
If we look at the median age of 48, and take the longest latent stage of 20 years, we have an infection of the average woman with cervical cancer happening when she's 28. Most likely, the infection was closer to when she was 35, based on the more conservative (and more widely accepted) latent period. It makes sense, then, to vaccinate girls when they are 11-13, then, since they will have immunity from this infection later on, right? Not so fast. What Merck isn't making widely known is that Gardasil, even after 3 doses at a cost of more than $360, will more than likely only last for five years. While they are looking into a "booster" shot, if released, it may be nothing more than another dose of the original vaccine, at another $120+. If it doesn't last beyond the teenage years, why are we being bullied into vaccinating millions of adolescent girls? Call me cynical, but I don't think you're going to get the average 25 year old woman to take a vaccine voluntarily for something she may develop twenty years on down the road. I believe medicine and the government know that they can convince parents to do just about anything if they scare them with a properly executed marketing plan.
Looking closer at the statistics, just how many, then, will Gardasil potentially save? Taking the consensus numbers, infections that occur before the age of 20 will possibly be prevented, putting those saved in the under 35 age group. That means we could potentially prevent about 1800 cases of cervical cancer per year, and reduce deaths by 205 per year. That's assuming only HPV-16 and HPV-18 cause the cancer (which we know only account for 70%) and they wouldn't have fought any of them off by themselves (of which over 90% are). The math gives us a 0.68% chance that a girl born today will develop cervical cancer in her lifetime. With vaccination, the risk is reduced to 0.48%, meaning we have to vaccinate 210 girls to save one from getting cancer (not dying, just developing). That gives us a vaccination cost of about $75,000 per one cancer prevented, assuming lifelong protection (which is doesn't), and not including the doctors' fees associated with the services (that brings it to about $210,000). Since we do a pretty good job in the US at early detection and treatment of this cancer, our current treatment cost ranges from $4,000 to $45,000 per case.
The statistics on Gardasil make little sense for a widespread vaccination program, but what makes even less is when we look at what it is doing to our precious teenage girls. While some media outlets have talked a little about the risks associated with the vaccine, few, if any, have given specific numbers. Reported side effects of the vaccine include Bell's Palsy (facial paralysis), Guillan Barre Syndrome (autoimmune condition attacking your nerves), seizures, blood clotting disorders, cardiac dysfunction (including cardiac arrest), miscarriages and fetal abnormalities, cervical dysplasia and cancers (yes, it increases the other 30%) and even death. In its 4 1/2 years since its release in June of 2006, there were almost 13,000 adverse reactions directly attributed to Gardasil, including 8,600 emergency room visits, 2,000 hospitalizations, and 90 deaths (2006-2010, 2011 statistics not yet available). If Gardasil holds true to the norm of only 10% of adverse reactions from medications and vaccinations being reported, this is a terrible cost our daughters are paying, all so Merck can make billions of dollars a year selling a vaccine that is marginally effective, at best. And now, the CDC wants us to expose our boys to the same risks, for even less potential benefit.
Gardasil is another example of government and medicine putting BigPharma's bottom line above the best interest of the people. I can't understand how, in the face of the real statistics, doctors can continue to recommend this vaccine. Cervical cancer prevention is simple: annual PAP smears, correct HPV education, and improving our immune system's defense. While the annual PAP smears are still being recommended, it is unfortunate that mainstream America isn't being given correct information to have a frank discussion with their kids about sex (again, see Lenthen Your Life #2). Arming yourself with medical statistics that doctors cannot refute is the only way to avoid the dogmatic bullying happening in pediatricians' offices today. Don't trust anyone, even me, with your health; seek the truth and take responsibility for yourself and your family.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Talk About Gall!
I always find it frustrating when modern medical practices "fix" a patient, only to set them up for serious problems on down the road that they then again, must "fix", since they didn't explain and won't admit the consequences of their original "fix". This is especially true for patients who have had their gallbladder removed.
While it doesn't always hold true, the classic patient who has gall bladder problems, and eventually ends up with it being removed, fits into the four F's: fat, female, fertile, forty. They are usually forty plus year old women who are still menstruating that are overweight. In my experience, it seems these demographics are changing. I am seeing the age group become younger, where it is often women in their twenties or even teens who are developing problems with their gallbladder.
What needs to be understood, is that with few exceptions, gallbladder problems are a combination of issues with fat digestion and liver congestion. It is the job of the liver to produce bile, which is a conglomeration of fat soluble toxin and hormone byproducts, cholesterol, and bile acids. It is put into the gallbladder for storage and concentration until a significant amount of fat is eaten, at which time the gallbladder contracts and squeezes the bile into the digestive tract. When the liver is not functioning correctly or is congested with toxic buildup (we'll talk more about this in a later blog), the bile will not be made properly, and will have components that are more likely to form stones or are irritating to the gallbladder. These patients will also often have sex hormone alterations such as heavy menstrual cycles, PMS, or dysmenorrhea. They may also be prone to mood fluctuations, depression, or stress intolerance due to the wide reaching effects of sex hormones on the body. When fat is eaten, it stimulates the gallbladder to empty its contents into the digestive tract. The intensity of the signal to dump bile is determined by the amount of fat eaten. A diet that fluctuates between high and low fat, or is always low fat, creates abnormal feedback to the gallbladder, leading to impaired fat digestion.
Regardless of how the patient developed gallbladder dysfunction, medicine's dominant answer is "let's just take it out, you can live without it". And so, the downward health spiral begins; the patient loses their gallbladder, and is sent home without being given the knowledge that they now are set up for serious problems on down the road, while the original problem is never investigated, found, and addressed. Is the gallbladder a "vital" organ? No, you can live without it. You can't, however, be truly healthy without it if you aren't providing your body with bile replacement therapy.
Medicine looks at gallbladder removal as common and with minimal consequence to the patient, especially in today's world of laparoscopic surgery. They seem to feel that as long as they reconnect the common bile duct to the small intestine, the bile will continue to be made, put into the small intestine, and the patient will be fine. While this may make some sense on the surface, when you really look at how things are supposed to work, we again see that medicine is content to leave patients sick and on the road to other illness, as long as they can fix or hide today's symptom.
Bile is an integral part of our overall health. Without the proper amount of bile at the right time, we cannot digest and absorb fats or the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, or K. Medicine purports that as long as we have bile in the intestine, that's good enough. This is similar to the dishwasher saying that as long as they put soap in the sink sometime, they'll be able to clean that greasy skillet. Does it matter that the dish soap has been dripping into the sink for the past few hours, and most of it has gone down the drain, just as the bile does when there is no reservoir, i.e. gallbladder? Can you clean that greasy skillet if you only have a few drops of soap? Probably not very well. And, if there is no grease to be "cut" by the soap, what is the soap doing as it goes down the drain? Does it have any potential to do damage to the drain? Soap doesn't, but bile can.
Bile is our fat emulsifier, just like soap. It allows us to take fats and put them into a form that can combine with water so it can be absorbed. With only small amounts of bile when fat is present in the small intestine, fat often passes on through, leaving the patient with foul smelling stools that are tan or grey colored, and the patient feels bloated or gassy with any amount of fat eaten. Along with the fat itself not being made ready for proper absorption is the issue of vitamins A, D, E, and K. Vitamin A is necessary for eye and liver function, as well as being an antioxidant. Vitamin D has so many different functions in the body that it would take a book to explain it all, but just a few things include bone health, immune function, brain function, and cancer prevention. Vitamin E is our premier antioxidant for fat soluble toxins, and Vitamin K is necessary for not only normal blood clotting, but is part of how calcium gets into our bones. When the gallbladder is removed and the bile isn't where it needs to be when it needs to be there, we become deficient in all of these vitamins, and our health begins to slowly degrade.
In addition to the vitamins that are left to be passed along, the normal fats aren't processed correctly either. While some would welcome less fat entering their body (and medicine has drugs which do exactly that), this causes problems as well. Our brain is 60-65% fat. Our stress and sex hormones are all fat based. Your immune system relies on fat based molecules to communicate. Without the right fats, our body doesn't work well either. Eventually, we end up with higher rates of osteoporosis, cancers, brain dysfunction like depression and anxiety, dry cracked skin, increased risk of infections, and a whole host of other abnormal function, just because we removed a simple little bladder, and didn't replace its function.
So what happens to the bile that is being dumped down the drain? Any hunter will tell you that bile is extremely damaging to any tissue it touches. They are very careful when working around this little sac due to its caustic contents. Without fat to mix with and emulsify, it continues down the digestive tract, looking for things to emulsify on its way. What it may find is that the lining of the intestine can be a ripe target. It can irritate the lining as it passes along, which can create other digestive problems. The good bacteria in our intestines are also at risk of being attacked, which can leave the gut wide open to opportunistic bacteria and yeast that create a whole host of other issues.
To say the least, removing the gallbladder is a serious long term health risk. If left uneducated, the patient is walking down a path of slowly degrading health that could have been prevented with a simple bile replacement. Easy and relatively inexpensive, we can save these patients from years of suffering and putting huge a drain on health care dollars, by adding bile in supplemental form when they eat any amount of fat once their gallbladder is gone. Will medicine recommend this? They haven't yet, and I have a hard time believing it will happen any time soon. That means it is up to those of us who are working to help patients achieve real health to educate the population so they can take action on their own.
Without a gallbladder, fat and fat soluble vitamins become problematic for the patient, plain and simple. Modern medicine needs to wake up and realize what they are dooming these patients to in the future; a life of slowly degrading health that could be easily remedied. Talk about gall!
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
While it doesn't always hold true, the classic patient who has gall bladder problems, and eventually ends up with it being removed, fits into the four F's: fat, female, fertile, forty. They are usually forty plus year old women who are still menstruating that are overweight. In my experience, it seems these demographics are changing. I am seeing the age group become younger, where it is often women in their twenties or even teens who are developing problems with their gallbladder.
What needs to be understood, is that with few exceptions, gallbladder problems are a combination of issues with fat digestion and liver congestion. It is the job of the liver to produce bile, which is a conglomeration of fat soluble toxin and hormone byproducts, cholesterol, and bile acids. It is put into the gallbladder for storage and concentration until a significant amount of fat is eaten, at which time the gallbladder contracts and squeezes the bile into the digestive tract. When the liver is not functioning correctly or is congested with toxic buildup (we'll talk more about this in a later blog), the bile will not be made properly, and will have components that are more likely to form stones or are irritating to the gallbladder. These patients will also often have sex hormone alterations such as heavy menstrual cycles, PMS, or dysmenorrhea. They may also be prone to mood fluctuations, depression, or stress intolerance due to the wide reaching effects of sex hormones on the body. When fat is eaten, it stimulates the gallbladder to empty its contents into the digestive tract. The intensity of the signal to dump bile is determined by the amount of fat eaten. A diet that fluctuates between high and low fat, or is always low fat, creates abnormal feedback to the gallbladder, leading to impaired fat digestion.
Regardless of how the patient developed gallbladder dysfunction, medicine's dominant answer is "let's just take it out, you can live without it". And so, the downward health spiral begins; the patient loses their gallbladder, and is sent home without being given the knowledge that they now are set up for serious problems on down the road, while the original problem is never investigated, found, and addressed. Is the gallbladder a "vital" organ? No, you can live without it. You can't, however, be truly healthy without it if you aren't providing your body with bile replacement therapy.
Medicine looks at gallbladder removal as common and with minimal consequence to the patient, especially in today's world of laparoscopic surgery. They seem to feel that as long as they reconnect the common bile duct to the small intestine, the bile will continue to be made, put into the small intestine, and the patient will be fine. While this may make some sense on the surface, when you really look at how things are supposed to work, we again see that medicine is content to leave patients sick and on the road to other illness, as long as they can fix or hide today's symptom.
Bile is an integral part of our overall health. Without the proper amount of bile at the right time, we cannot digest and absorb fats or the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, or K. Medicine purports that as long as we have bile in the intestine, that's good enough. This is similar to the dishwasher saying that as long as they put soap in the sink sometime, they'll be able to clean that greasy skillet. Does it matter that the dish soap has been dripping into the sink for the past few hours, and most of it has gone down the drain, just as the bile does when there is no reservoir, i.e. gallbladder? Can you clean that greasy skillet if you only have a few drops of soap? Probably not very well. And, if there is no grease to be "cut" by the soap, what is the soap doing as it goes down the drain? Does it have any potential to do damage to the drain? Soap doesn't, but bile can.
Bile is our fat emulsifier, just like soap. It allows us to take fats and put them into a form that can combine with water so it can be absorbed. With only small amounts of bile when fat is present in the small intestine, fat often passes on through, leaving the patient with foul smelling stools that are tan or grey colored, and the patient feels bloated or gassy with any amount of fat eaten. Along with the fat itself not being made ready for proper absorption is the issue of vitamins A, D, E, and K. Vitamin A is necessary for eye and liver function, as well as being an antioxidant. Vitamin D has so many different functions in the body that it would take a book to explain it all, but just a few things include bone health, immune function, brain function, and cancer prevention. Vitamin E is our premier antioxidant for fat soluble toxins, and Vitamin K is necessary for not only normal blood clotting, but is part of how calcium gets into our bones. When the gallbladder is removed and the bile isn't where it needs to be when it needs to be there, we become deficient in all of these vitamins, and our health begins to slowly degrade.
In addition to the vitamins that are left to be passed along, the normal fats aren't processed correctly either. While some would welcome less fat entering their body (and medicine has drugs which do exactly that), this causes problems as well. Our brain is 60-65% fat. Our stress and sex hormones are all fat based. Your immune system relies on fat based molecules to communicate. Without the right fats, our body doesn't work well either. Eventually, we end up with higher rates of osteoporosis, cancers, brain dysfunction like depression and anxiety, dry cracked skin, increased risk of infections, and a whole host of other abnormal function, just because we removed a simple little bladder, and didn't replace its function.
So what happens to the bile that is being dumped down the drain? Any hunter will tell you that bile is extremely damaging to any tissue it touches. They are very careful when working around this little sac due to its caustic contents. Without fat to mix with and emulsify, it continues down the digestive tract, looking for things to emulsify on its way. What it may find is that the lining of the intestine can be a ripe target. It can irritate the lining as it passes along, which can create other digestive problems. The good bacteria in our intestines are also at risk of being attacked, which can leave the gut wide open to opportunistic bacteria and yeast that create a whole host of other issues.
To say the least, removing the gallbladder is a serious long term health risk. If left uneducated, the patient is walking down a path of slowly degrading health that could have been prevented with a simple bile replacement. Easy and relatively inexpensive, we can save these patients from years of suffering and putting huge a drain on health care dollars, by adding bile in supplemental form when they eat any amount of fat once their gallbladder is gone. Will medicine recommend this? They haven't yet, and I have a hard time believing it will happen any time soon. That means it is up to those of us who are working to help patients achieve real health to educate the population so they can take action on their own.
Without a gallbladder, fat and fat soluble vitamins become problematic for the patient, plain and simple. Modern medicine needs to wake up and realize what they are dooming these patients to in the future; a life of slowly degrading health that could be easily remedied. Talk about gall!
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
It's Time to Take the Blinders Off
For decades, modern medicine has promoted the link between higher cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease. We've been hounded by doctors, government, and media to get our cholesterol down or die of a heart attack. With all the hype, it must be true, right? The research must be telling us that low cholesterol levels increase our lifespan, and reduce our risk of dying. At least that's what we're led to believe. In fact, for years, the research has been telling us the opposite, but medicine has put the blinders on, and you don't hear about the research that flies in the face of what is today's "standard practice".
An article was published in September of this year that once again told us modern medicine's recommendations about cholesterol are not only unfounded, but in the case of women, totally backwards. The article followed 52,087 Norwegians from 1997-2007. It looked at not only cardiovascular disease, but overall mortality. When you really think about the purpose of following doctor's orders, isn't really about prolonging your life? If your doctor is telling you to do something that will reduce the risk of one condition, but increase your risk of getting another, which is just as bad, is that good medicine? In western medicine, we've focused intently on heart disease, since it is the #1 killer, and has been for most of the past century. But if the advice of modern medicine in reducing heart disease actually makes you more prone to cancer or stroke, is that good advice? I'd argue that trading a heart attack for a stroke or cancer isn't good medicine. We should be taking the blinders off so we can look at the whole body, and not break it into individual parts.
The study compared the cholesterol levels and other cardiovascular risk factors of the participants with the death rates. Of course they saw that cigarette smoking and high blood pressure were direct links to cardiovascular disease and a shorter life span. In contrast, the results for cholesterol should have blown the top off conventional medicine's view of "standard of care", but for some reason it hasn't been reported yet. If you are a woman, your risk of dying actually goes down as your cholesterol goes up, at least to 270. That's right, as a woman, the higher the cholesterol, the longer they live. This is similar to what I had written about in Medicine is Sexist, where I discussed the POSCH study showing that cholesterol lowering medications were worthless for women. Here is further proof that we are not only over medicating women in America, but we are actually reducing their life expectancy through false medical dogma.
With men and cholesterol, the issue is a little more complicated. It seems there is a "U"-shaped curve in regards to death rates versus cholesterol. While modern medicine would expect this curve to be in the low 100's, it is actually in the low 200's. As you can see in the graph below, the highest average death risk for both men and women was actually in those that had the lowest cholesterol. Medicine's concept is not only flawed, but it is raising the risks of everyone dying if their cholesterol is artificially lowered beyond 200.
Why would modern medicine do this? Why would they bully patients into going on medications to lower their cholesterol, when research has repeatedly told us it is unhealthy? Unfortunately, I'd say we have to follow the money. In 2010, between just Lipitor and Crestor, Americas spent $10 billion. This doesn't take into account the other brand name and generic medications that lower cholesterol, nor the visits to general practitioners or cardiologists to keep these prescriptions up to date. When you then add in the print, radio, TV, and internet advertisements that drug companies are paying to media outlets to promote their products, is it any wonder that research that places the status quo in doubt is ignored? To say that keeping the public focused on lowering their cholesterol is an industry that makes tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars a year is not outlandish. If we were to take this cost out of health care, what would happen? Would we see the rise in insurance rates begin to slow, or even drop some? That may be too much to expect, but we would see people living longer.
Does that mean that we should all forget about cholesterol and let it get as high as it can? The research doesn't tell us that. For men at least, it doesn't appear that way. It looks like we should try to keep it between 195 and 230, and for women, up into the high 200's looks fine. Unfortunately, the research didn't look at cholesterol type or particle size, and that's what the latest research is telling us is really the big deal.
For many years, medicine has been looking not only at total cholesterol, but also at HDL, LDL, and VLDL. They've considered these the "good" (HDL), "bad" (LDL), and "ugly" (VLDL) of cholesterol. Categorizing them as good, bad, and ugly is rudimentary when we look at health impacts, since in each of these categories, we can also look at particle size, and that seems to be the most important. Generally, having high HDL is good, but there are types of HDL that are also bad for us. LDL is considered bad, but there are some that are worse than others. Right now, getting your cholesterol checked, and getting only total, HDL, and LDL is like 15 years ago only getting the total. It really doesn't tell us a whole lot yet, because we're not looking closely enough.
Is cholesterol something we should be concerned about? Yes, we probably should, but not in the way modern medicine has bullied us into believing. Women have little to worry about, unless it it too low. Men seem to have a range that is best, but I believe that when we do the research and look at particle size, that will break down further. Having a total cholesterol of 250 with an HDL of 100 is more than likely just fine. Having a total of 220 with an HDL of 30 is far from safe. When we routinely start looking at sub-fractions, we'll see things that tell us a whole lot more.
It's unfortunate that quality research like this is ignored by the media and modern medicine right now. As the evidence continues to pile against current recommendations, eventually, the tide will turn and patients will be told the truth: BigPharma, modern medicine, the government, and the media have played a hoax on the public to the tune of hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, and accelerated the death of millions. In the mean time, the best you can do is be educated and armed with research, so you can take control of your own healthcare. For more information on the study, click on the link below.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
"Is the use of cholesterol in mortality risk algorithms in clinical guidelines valid? Ten years prospective data from the Norwegian HUNT 2 study" Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; Sept 25, 2011.
An article was published in September of this year that once again told us modern medicine's recommendations about cholesterol are not only unfounded, but in the case of women, totally backwards. The article followed 52,087 Norwegians from 1997-2007. It looked at not only cardiovascular disease, but overall mortality. When you really think about the purpose of following doctor's orders, isn't really about prolonging your life? If your doctor is telling you to do something that will reduce the risk of one condition, but increase your risk of getting another, which is just as bad, is that good medicine? In western medicine, we've focused intently on heart disease, since it is the #1 killer, and has been for most of the past century. But if the advice of modern medicine in reducing heart disease actually makes you more prone to cancer or stroke, is that good advice? I'd argue that trading a heart attack for a stroke or cancer isn't good medicine. We should be taking the blinders off so we can look at the whole body, and not break it into individual parts.
The study compared the cholesterol levels and other cardiovascular risk factors of the participants with the death rates. Of course they saw that cigarette smoking and high blood pressure were direct links to cardiovascular disease and a shorter life span. In contrast, the results for cholesterol should have blown the top off conventional medicine's view of "standard of care", but for some reason it hasn't been reported yet. If you are a woman, your risk of dying actually goes down as your cholesterol goes up, at least to 270. That's right, as a woman, the higher the cholesterol, the longer they live. This is similar to what I had written about in Medicine is Sexist, where I discussed the POSCH study showing that cholesterol lowering medications were worthless for women. Here is further proof that we are not only over medicating women in America, but we are actually reducing their life expectancy through false medical dogma.
With men and cholesterol, the issue is a little more complicated. It seems there is a "U"-shaped curve in regards to death rates versus cholesterol. While modern medicine would expect this curve to be in the low 100's, it is actually in the low 200's. As you can see in the graph below, the highest average death risk for both men and women was actually in those that had the lowest cholesterol. Medicine's concept is not only flawed, but it is raising the risks of everyone dying if their cholesterol is artificially lowered beyond 200.
Why would modern medicine do this? Why would they bully patients into going on medications to lower their cholesterol, when research has repeatedly told us it is unhealthy? Unfortunately, I'd say we have to follow the money. In 2010, between just Lipitor and Crestor, Americas spent $10 billion. This doesn't take into account the other brand name and generic medications that lower cholesterol, nor the visits to general practitioners or cardiologists to keep these prescriptions up to date. When you then add in the print, radio, TV, and internet advertisements that drug companies are paying to media outlets to promote their products, is it any wonder that research that places the status quo in doubt is ignored? To say that keeping the public focused on lowering their cholesterol is an industry that makes tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars a year is not outlandish. If we were to take this cost out of health care, what would happen? Would we see the rise in insurance rates begin to slow, or even drop some? That may be too much to expect, but we would see people living longer.
Does that mean that we should all forget about cholesterol and let it get as high as it can? The research doesn't tell us that. For men at least, it doesn't appear that way. It looks like we should try to keep it between 195 and 230, and for women, up into the high 200's looks fine. Unfortunately, the research didn't look at cholesterol type or particle size, and that's what the latest research is telling us is really the big deal.
For many years, medicine has been looking not only at total cholesterol, but also at HDL, LDL, and VLDL. They've considered these the "good" (HDL), "bad" (LDL), and "ugly" (VLDL) of cholesterol. Categorizing them as good, bad, and ugly is rudimentary when we look at health impacts, since in each of these categories, we can also look at particle size, and that seems to be the most important. Generally, having high HDL is good, but there are types of HDL that are also bad for us. LDL is considered bad, but there are some that are worse than others. Right now, getting your cholesterol checked, and getting only total, HDL, and LDL is like 15 years ago only getting the total. It really doesn't tell us a whole lot yet, because we're not looking closely enough.
Is cholesterol something we should be concerned about? Yes, we probably should, but not in the way modern medicine has bullied us into believing. Women have little to worry about, unless it it too low. Men seem to have a range that is best, but I believe that when we do the research and look at particle size, that will break down further. Having a total cholesterol of 250 with an HDL of 100 is more than likely just fine. Having a total of 220 with an HDL of 30 is far from safe. When we routinely start looking at sub-fractions, we'll see things that tell us a whole lot more.
It's unfortunate that quality research like this is ignored by the media and modern medicine right now. As the evidence continues to pile against current recommendations, eventually, the tide will turn and patients will be told the truth: BigPharma, modern medicine, the government, and the media have played a hoax on the public to the tune of hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, and accelerated the death of millions. In the mean time, the best you can do is be educated and armed with research, so you can take control of your own healthcare. For more information on the study, click on the link below.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
"Is the use of cholesterol in mortality risk algorithms in clinical guidelines valid? Ten years prospective data from the Norwegian HUNT 2 study" Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; Sept 25, 2011.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
GERD - Really???
Gastro-esophageal reflux disease, or GERD, has been known by many names over the course of time, but the one that is most known is heartburn. When stomach acid gets into the esophagus, it can create havoc, leading to an intense burning pain between the chest and throat. Additionally, it can create a chronic cough or need to clear the throat. Acid in the esophagus is a problem that needs a solution. Unfortunately, the solution modern medicine is giving us today does nothing to address the real problem, and sets the patient up for significant health problems down the road.
There are four basic reasons why the juices from the stomach, which are highly acidic, can get into the esophagus, and none of them have to do with an excess of acid.
1. You can have less tone in the cardiac sphincter, which is the muscle that is supposed to clamp down tightly and keep things in the stomach from moving back up.
2. There is a possibility that a hiatal hernia exists, which is where part of the stomach ends up above the diaphragm, thus pushing juices back into the esophagus.
3. The stomach can be slow to empty, keeping foodstuffs around and pushing things upwards.
4. You can have things get stuck in the esophagus from the cardiac sphincter not allowing normal movement of food into the stomach.
While there are other obscure reasons for GERD symptoms to appear, these four are the most common, and have absolutely nothing to do with medicine's treatment, which is to eradicate stomach acid, and have everything to do with acid simply being in the wrong place.
In conventional medicine today, the treatment for GERD is a variety of medications, all of which either slow the production of stomach acid, or prevent its formation entirely. While this seems like a common sense solution to some, their "cure" is leading to a whole host of problems for these patients.
Stomach acid is vital for our normal function. Without it, we accelerate our pace to the grave. Here are some of the vital roles this solution plays in our system:
1. It's our first line of defense against any bugs which try to enter our intestinal system.
2. It begins the protein digestion pathway.
3. It binds minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, and copper for later absorption.
4. It is necessary to stimulate the production of bicarbonate and enzymes in the small intestine for food breakdown.
5. It creates a neural reflex which makes the cardiac sphincter have more pucker power.
6. It limits the growth of H. pylori, which is a bug in our stomach that can lead to ulcers.
7. It's production takes a tremendous amount of energy.
As we can see, the acid in our stomach has some pretty important roles to play. There's a reason it is there, and by suppressing it, medicine creates very significant disease. Right on the package of any GERD medication is a warning for those that have any osteoporosis risk. Taking H2 blockers or proton pump inhibitors will wipe out your ability to absorb calcium, thus increasing the risk of osteoporosis. We also need protein for the formation of bone as well as almost all tissue repair, and we have a hard time getting that protein without normal amounts of acid. Lower stomach acid actually increases our risk of ulcer formation, due to the increased population of H. pylori. To say the least, without a healthy amount of stomach acid, we will quickly begin to deteriorate.
Have you ever looked at the diets of elderly women? They begin be eliminating beef (which is the most dense protein and hardest to digest) because it upsets their stomach. It is upsetting to their stomach because they don't have enough acid to start the protein digestion pathway, and the food sits in the stomach for too long, putrefying instead of digesting. Putrefaction leads to gas formation which can lead to acid in the esophagus, i.e. heartburn or GERD. Pretty soon pork follows suit, as eventually does poultry. Before long, fish creates problems as well, and their diet starts to be limited to soups and broths, which have very little protein. In the mean time, their body cannot repair, and rapidly begins to break down, all because they are deficient in stomach acid.
I am always baffled when I look at this condition and medicine's treatment of it, since their own books tell us what the problem most likely is. According to Guyton's Textbook of Physiology (the medical "bible" of physiology), from the age of 20 to 40, our stomach acid production decreases by 50%, and from 40 to 60 it goes down 50% more. That means that the average 60 year old has about 25% of the stomach acid production that they did when they were 20. Is it any wonder we see accelerated aging after 40? Not when you consider this. If we then go back and look at the mechanism, we see that more than likely, patients with GERD actually have a stomach acid deficiency, and because of this, it ends up in the wrong place - the esophagus. Why then, if the texts tell us this is the problem, are we suppressing the acid production, leading to accelerated deterioration of the patient? My cynical side tells me to follow the money. When a new drug has been discovered, we must find a condition for it to treat. Unfortunately for the patients who undergo this drug therapy, getting off of it is extremely difficult. If stopped quickly, it produces a rebound effect, and the patient often ends up with worse symptoms than they had initially.
In my practice, instead of stopping the production of this vital acid, I work instead to increase its production. I will have my patients do a stomach acid challenge test, and rarely to I find someone over 40 who has adequate acid production. Then it is simply a matter of replacement in a manner that teaches the stomach how to do things properly, and eventually, it begins to make the acid again on its own. In the mean time, the patients don't get GERD (because we addressed the problem), they begin to heal and make new bone, and they feel so much better.
Modern medicine is lacking in common sense in many of its treatments, but nowhere is it more obvious than when looking at GERD. If they were to read their own books and apply it to their practice, they would see the fallacy of what they are doing. Instead, they continue to accelerate the degeneration of their patients, only leading them to be more reliant on medications, since their function will continue to decrease as long as they take these worthless medications.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
There are four basic reasons why the juices from the stomach, which are highly acidic, can get into the esophagus, and none of them have to do with an excess of acid.
1. You can have less tone in the cardiac sphincter, which is the muscle that is supposed to clamp down tightly and keep things in the stomach from moving back up.
2. There is a possibility that a hiatal hernia exists, which is where part of the stomach ends up above the diaphragm, thus pushing juices back into the esophagus.
3. The stomach can be slow to empty, keeping foodstuffs around and pushing things upwards.
4. You can have things get stuck in the esophagus from the cardiac sphincter not allowing normal movement of food into the stomach.
While there are other obscure reasons for GERD symptoms to appear, these four are the most common, and have absolutely nothing to do with medicine's treatment, which is to eradicate stomach acid, and have everything to do with acid simply being in the wrong place.
In conventional medicine today, the treatment for GERD is a variety of medications, all of which either slow the production of stomach acid, or prevent its formation entirely. While this seems like a common sense solution to some, their "cure" is leading to a whole host of problems for these patients.
Stomach acid is vital for our normal function. Without it, we accelerate our pace to the grave. Here are some of the vital roles this solution plays in our system:
1. It's our first line of defense against any bugs which try to enter our intestinal system.
2. It begins the protein digestion pathway.
3. It binds minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, and copper for later absorption.
4. It is necessary to stimulate the production of bicarbonate and enzymes in the small intestine for food breakdown.
5. It creates a neural reflex which makes the cardiac sphincter have more pucker power.
6. It limits the growth of H. pylori, which is a bug in our stomach that can lead to ulcers.
7. It's production takes a tremendous amount of energy.
As we can see, the acid in our stomach has some pretty important roles to play. There's a reason it is there, and by suppressing it, medicine creates very significant disease. Right on the package of any GERD medication is a warning for those that have any osteoporosis risk. Taking H2 blockers or proton pump inhibitors will wipe out your ability to absorb calcium, thus increasing the risk of osteoporosis. We also need protein for the formation of bone as well as almost all tissue repair, and we have a hard time getting that protein without normal amounts of acid. Lower stomach acid actually increases our risk of ulcer formation, due to the increased population of H. pylori. To say the least, without a healthy amount of stomach acid, we will quickly begin to deteriorate.
Have you ever looked at the diets of elderly women? They begin be eliminating beef (which is the most dense protein and hardest to digest) because it upsets their stomach. It is upsetting to their stomach because they don't have enough acid to start the protein digestion pathway, and the food sits in the stomach for too long, putrefying instead of digesting. Putrefaction leads to gas formation which can lead to acid in the esophagus, i.e. heartburn or GERD. Pretty soon pork follows suit, as eventually does poultry. Before long, fish creates problems as well, and their diet starts to be limited to soups and broths, which have very little protein. In the mean time, their body cannot repair, and rapidly begins to break down, all because they are deficient in stomach acid.
I am always baffled when I look at this condition and medicine's treatment of it, since their own books tell us what the problem most likely is. According to Guyton's Textbook of Physiology (the medical "bible" of physiology), from the age of 20 to 40, our stomach acid production decreases by 50%, and from 40 to 60 it goes down 50% more. That means that the average 60 year old has about 25% of the stomach acid production that they did when they were 20. Is it any wonder we see accelerated aging after 40? Not when you consider this. If we then go back and look at the mechanism, we see that more than likely, patients with GERD actually have a stomach acid deficiency, and because of this, it ends up in the wrong place - the esophagus. Why then, if the texts tell us this is the problem, are we suppressing the acid production, leading to accelerated deterioration of the patient? My cynical side tells me to follow the money. When a new drug has been discovered, we must find a condition for it to treat. Unfortunately for the patients who undergo this drug therapy, getting off of it is extremely difficult. If stopped quickly, it produces a rebound effect, and the patient often ends up with worse symptoms than they had initially.
In my practice, instead of stopping the production of this vital acid, I work instead to increase its production. I will have my patients do a stomach acid challenge test, and rarely to I find someone over 40 who has adequate acid production. Then it is simply a matter of replacement in a manner that teaches the stomach how to do things properly, and eventually, it begins to make the acid again on its own. In the mean time, the patients don't get GERD (because we addressed the problem), they begin to heal and make new bone, and they feel so much better.
Modern medicine is lacking in common sense in many of its treatments, but nowhere is it more obvious than when looking at GERD. If they were to read their own books and apply it to their practice, they would see the fallacy of what they are doing. Instead, they continue to accelerate the degeneration of their patients, only leading them to be more reliant on medications, since their function will continue to decrease as long as they take these worthless medications.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Exercise Your Responsibilities to Keep Your Privileges
On this short work week, when many of us are concentrated on where we'll be driving, shopping, or eating, it is important that we remember to be thankful for those privileges we have today.
If you've been reading much of my blog, you'll know that I often don't agree with mainstream medicine. Whether it's the over prescription of whole classes of useless medications, promoting faulty research while suppressing good research, or simply ignoring common sense as it applies to human physiology, we have a problem with traditional mainstream health care in the US. Yet, what I find most important in our world today, is the fact that we still have the privilege to choose how we treat our bodies; we are able to voice our views; and as individuals, we can decide exactly how health care is administered to us.
You'll notice I said "privilege" and not "right". Rights and privileges are not the same, even though they are often grouped together. A privilege is given to you by someone in authority, so it can also be taken away by that same authority. Take your driver's license. Driving a car on a public road is not a right, but a privilege granted by your state government, once you have shown that you can safely operate that vehicle. Along with this, they have discretion as to when they revoke that license. Your choice of health care is no different. It is not a right, but simply a privilege granted by the governments that you are subject to.
Currently, at least in my state of MN, I have the privilege to choose if I vaccinate my children or not. This is not what the media or state and national governmental agencies want us to know, but I do. If I do not agree with either the vaccination itself, or the schedule on which it is administered, I have the privilege to sign a waiver and not subject my children to what I disagree with. That is not the case in many states, and some would have it be not the case at all. The government can take away that privilege with the stroke of a pen, and mandate anything they choose as long as I decide to send my children to schools that are subject to their authority.
If you look at history, you'll see that less than 100 years ago, chiropractors were being thrown in jail, accused of practicing medicine without a license. Even 25 years ago, a medical doctor could lose their hospital privileges if they simply recommended seeing a chiropractor to their patient. We've come a long way with breaking the monopoly of traditional medicine, because patients demand what works, and have refused to give up services they know are beneficial.
In the US, we should be thankful that we have the privilege to not only decide how our health care is administered, but that we can go outside mainstream and find alternative treatments that are more in line with our philosophy, at least for now. That is still our privilege, but each and every year, different branches of government are trying to clip the edges of that privilege, if not instigating a full frontal assault. Whether it is a judge in Wisconsin who makes a ruling that we don't have the right to decide how our food is grown or what we can put into our mouths (see here) or the FBI raiding local organic food cooperatives (see here) there are many policy makers who would like to take away our privilege to decide how our health care is administered.
When your privileges are threatened with being taken away, it is your responsibility to take action. Unfortunately, in today's Washingtonian gridlock, many are frustrated with the inability to see any positive changes being made. You have more power than you realize, though. While we can be goaded and chided into going along with much of modern medicine's fallacy, you still have the ability to change things with your pocketbook, but it won't happen unless more of us are spending time learning what the truth really is, and teaching others where things have been going wrong.
By reading articles like I've posted on my blog, you are taking time to really learn how things work, and what you can do on your own to improve your life. That's a good start. To exercise your responsibilities, you must do more. You must take that information and apply it to your life. Start making changes to your life by improving your diet, making better decisions about how you handle stress, and seek help with getting your body to function properly. By taking responsibility for your health, you are taking the power away from those that would impose their version of health on you. Whether they truly believe they are doing what is right for you, or simply using you for profit, modern medicine's version of disease care is broken, and more of us die each and every day because we aren't exercising our privileges.
I am thankful I live in a country where I still have the privilege of choice. I am also thankful for others like you who are working towards real health, and not just the artificial version promoted by BigPharma, the AMA, and the CDC. However, keeping that privilege will not be easy. It will take hard work, perseverance, and a concerted effort to spread the word to others. Just as important, is choosing to support those companies that work toward our health goals, and avoiding those that are more interested in promoting products that create sickness, simply for profit.
Be grateful for the privilege you have, but remember the responsibility that comes with it. More and more Americans are becoming disenfranchised with the schemes currently promoted. Eventually, we will reach critical mass, and the face of health care will change. I only hope we don't lose our focus on our responsibility, and end up losing our privilege before that happens.
I am truly thankful for all my readers, and I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving. May it be a safe holiday, filled with times to remember what you have to be thankful for.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
If you've been reading much of my blog, you'll know that I often don't agree with mainstream medicine. Whether it's the over prescription of whole classes of useless medications, promoting faulty research while suppressing good research, or simply ignoring common sense as it applies to human physiology, we have a problem with traditional mainstream health care in the US. Yet, what I find most important in our world today, is the fact that we still have the privilege to choose how we treat our bodies; we are able to voice our views; and as individuals, we can decide exactly how health care is administered to us.
You'll notice I said "privilege" and not "right". Rights and privileges are not the same, even though they are often grouped together. A privilege is given to you by someone in authority, so it can also be taken away by that same authority. Take your driver's license. Driving a car on a public road is not a right, but a privilege granted by your state government, once you have shown that you can safely operate that vehicle. Along with this, they have discretion as to when they revoke that license. Your choice of health care is no different. It is not a right, but simply a privilege granted by the governments that you are subject to.
Currently, at least in my state of MN, I have the privilege to choose if I vaccinate my children or not. This is not what the media or state and national governmental agencies want us to know, but I do. If I do not agree with either the vaccination itself, or the schedule on which it is administered, I have the privilege to sign a waiver and not subject my children to what I disagree with. That is not the case in many states, and some would have it be not the case at all. The government can take away that privilege with the stroke of a pen, and mandate anything they choose as long as I decide to send my children to schools that are subject to their authority.
If you look at history, you'll see that less than 100 years ago, chiropractors were being thrown in jail, accused of practicing medicine without a license. Even 25 years ago, a medical doctor could lose their hospital privileges if they simply recommended seeing a chiropractor to their patient. We've come a long way with breaking the monopoly of traditional medicine, because patients demand what works, and have refused to give up services they know are beneficial.
In the US, we should be thankful that we have the privilege to not only decide how our health care is administered, but that we can go outside mainstream and find alternative treatments that are more in line with our philosophy, at least for now. That is still our privilege, but each and every year, different branches of government are trying to clip the edges of that privilege, if not instigating a full frontal assault. Whether it is a judge in Wisconsin who makes a ruling that we don't have the right to decide how our food is grown or what we can put into our mouths (see here) or the FBI raiding local organic food cooperatives (see here) there are many policy makers who would like to take away our privilege to decide how our health care is administered.
When your privileges are threatened with being taken away, it is your responsibility to take action. Unfortunately, in today's Washingtonian gridlock, many are frustrated with the inability to see any positive changes being made. You have more power than you realize, though. While we can be goaded and chided into going along with much of modern medicine's fallacy, you still have the ability to change things with your pocketbook, but it won't happen unless more of us are spending time learning what the truth really is, and teaching others where things have been going wrong.
By reading articles like I've posted on my blog, you are taking time to really learn how things work, and what you can do on your own to improve your life. That's a good start. To exercise your responsibilities, you must do more. You must take that information and apply it to your life. Start making changes to your life by improving your diet, making better decisions about how you handle stress, and seek help with getting your body to function properly. By taking responsibility for your health, you are taking the power away from those that would impose their version of health on you. Whether they truly believe they are doing what is right for you, or simply using you for profit, modern medicine's version of disease care is broken, and more of us die each and every day because we aren't exercising our privileges.
I am thankful I live in a country where I still have the privilege of choice. I am also thankful for others like you who are working towards real health, and not just the artificial version promoted by BigPharma, the AMA, and the CDC. However, keeping that privilege will not be easy. It will take hard work, perseverance, and a concerted effort to spread the word to others. Just as important, is choosing to support those companies that work toward our health goals, and avoiding those that are more interested in promoting products that create sickness, simply for profit.
Be grateful for the privilege you have, but remember the responsibility that comes with it. More and more Americans are becoming disenfranchised with the schemes currently promoted. Eventually, we will reach critical mass, and the face of health care will change. I only hope we don't lose our focus on our responsibility, and end up losing our privilege before that happens.
I am truly thankful for all my readers, and I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving. May it be a safe holiday, filled with times to remember what you have to be thankful for.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
It's Heresy, I Say. Heresy!
If you are to believe modern medicine, their government lackeys at the CDC, and their media mouthpieces, we are coming upon that time of year when we are at great risk of developing a truly horrendous condition that could kills tens of thousands every year, so we must bow to their superior knowledge and take our injection or inhalation of the flu vaccine willingly. If we don't, who knows how many of us could end up clogging the halls at the local hospital suffering from one of the most deadly diseases known to man, or at least that's what the hype makes it seem like. And you just never know, this could be the year that half the world dies in the next great flu pandemic.
Anyone who has ever had the flu knows that it's not the most pleasant of conditions to deal with, but also knows that rarely does it lead to serious consequences. If you get your rest, drink your fluids, and eat good food, chances are you'll be over it in a week or two at the most, and it won't be a huge deal. The biggest consequence of the flu is if your body is extremely weak, you don't move enough while you're sick, and you end up with pneumonia. Is pneumonia serious? Definitely. Any time we have fluid accumulation in the lungs, it can be a breeding ground for bacteria, viruses, and fungi, which can all wreak havoc on your body. How often does the flu lead to pneumonia? Not that often. Most of the time, as I said, it's in those that are weakened to begin with, and can't fight off the secondary problem in the lungs while they're still fighting off the flu.
I often get asked my opinion of whether someone should get the flu vaccine. When looking at any medical procedure, I look to the statistics and add in some common sense. There are several hundred viruses that cause flu-like symptoms that are around each and every year. The average flu vaccine is made of less than a dozen (usually around 6) strains that seemed to cause the most problems last year. If you happened to have been exposed to any of these six in the previous year (whether or not you actually got sick), then this vaccine is worthless to you. If you weren't exposed to any of them, and none of those strains seem to be circulating this year, then again, it is worthless. If, by chance, they are correct in choosing the strains that circulate two years in a row, and they are just as virulent this year as last, and the majority of the population was not exposed in previous years, then maybe, just maybe it might be worth it.
On the other hand, when we look at overall statistics, with millions of Americans receiving the flu vaccine, have infection rates gone down? Do we see less people dying from the flu or secondary conditions like pneumonia? The answer to both of these questions is no, not really. In 1989, 15% of those over age 65 received the flu vaccine. In 2009, the rate was up to 65% of the same population. With such a dramatic rise in vaccination rates, it would be obvious then, that we would have less people developing the flu, and many less dying from either it or its secondary consequences. Instead, we have seen both flu infection rates and death rates remain relatively flat, when you account for seasonal variances. Most of the research done on the flu vaccine has serious flaws, and that which doesn't, ends up telling us that getting the vaccine is really irrelevant to our overall health.
Instead of spending billions of dollars on a vaccination program that the statistics show to be worthless, it's time we looked at what could really prevent tens of thousands of Americans from contacting the flu: maintaining adequate vitamin D levels and getting regularly adjusted.
That's right, I said get regular chiropractic adjustments. That last flu pandemic was in 1918, where 50 million people lost their lives fighting off the flu or secondary infections related to the flu. In the US, we keep meticulous records, and they reveal some very interesting statistics. When you look at those who were treated for the flu by conventional medicine in Iowa, New York City, and Oklahoma, you see that the death rates were between 1 in 6 and 1 in 18. At the time, chiropractic was in its infancy, but had regular hospitals where patients could stay and get natural care, including the adjustment. When we look at the statistics for the chiropractic patients, we see that death rates ranged from 1 in 100 to 1 in 789. In fact, there were 233 patients in Oklahoma that medicine had given up as hopeless, so they were given to the chiropractors to treat. All but 25 were saved. Believe it or not, but it was the pandemic of 1918 that launched the chiropractic profession. Once patients had literally had their lives saved by getting adjusted, they fought the medical profession, helped legitimize chiropractic with licensing boards, and became lifelong patients. Chiropractic has saved many from the flu, and the flu saved chiropractic from being a minor blip in health care history.
Vitamin D plays a huge role in the flu prevention as well. According to Dr. Cannell, founder of the Vitamin D Council, our seasonal flu is much more due to the lack of vitamin D we produce in the winter, than it is to whether or not we are exposed to a specific virus. Could it be that simple? If we improved our vitamin D status, would we see a decrease in seasonal flu? Unfortunately, no big pharmaceutical company nor American governmental agency is interested in providing the public with an adequate dose of vitamin D to make a difference. Canada, on the other hand, has begun research into this concept. Their government, in an attempt to put common sense and cost before profit, is studying the effects of adequate blood levels of vitamin D versus incidence of flu. It will take at least five years for the study to be completed, and another year or so for publication, but maybe within the next ten years, we'll finally be able to stop the fear mongering officials in medicine and government from subjecting the public to unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, concoctions being injected into their veins or noses. I can only hope that since it is a government funded study, it won't be buried in some obscure medical journal, as most studies that have had anything negative to say against the flu vaccine have been.
For the best flu prevention, get adjusted by a chiropractor regularly. Then get your vitamin D tested, and make sure that you are in the more than medically adequate range. I want my patients in the 65-80ng/dl range, since that seems to be where it helps the most with cancer prevention, which is just another positive effect of having adequate levels. You can have a healthy flu season, in spite of modern medicine.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
.
Anyone who has ever had the flu knows that it's not the most pleasant of conditions to deal with, but also knows that rarely does it lead to serious consequences. If you get your rest, drink your fluids, and eat good food, chances are you'll be over it in a week or two at the most, and it won't be a huge deal. The biggest consequence of the flu is if your body is extremely weak, you don't move enough while you're sick, and you end up with pneumonia. Is pneumonia serious? Definitely. Any time we have fluid accumulation in the lungs, it can be a breeding ground for bacteria, viruses, and fungi, which can all wreak havoc on your body. How often does the flu lead to pneumonia? Not that often. Most of the time, as I said, it's in those that are weakened to begin with, and can't fight off the secondary problem in the lungs while they're still fighting off the flu.
I often get asked my opinion of whether someone should get the flu vaccine. When looking at any medical procedure, I look to the statistics and add in some common sense. There are several hundred viruses that cause flu-like symptoms that are around each and every year. The average flu vaccine is made of less than a dozen (usually around 6) strains that seemed to cause the most problems last year. If you happened to have been exposed to any of these six in the previous year (whether or not you actually got sick), then this vaccine is worthless to you. If you weren't exposed to any of them, and none of those strains seem to be circulating this year, then again, it is worthless. If, by chance, they are correct in choosing the strains that circulate two years in a row, and they are just as virulent this year as last, and the majority of the population was not exposed in previous years, then maybe, just maybe it might be worth it.
On the other hand, when we look at overall statistics, with millions of Americans receiving the flu vaccine, have infection rates gone down? Do we see less people dying from the flu or secondary conditions like pneumonia? The answer to both of these questions is no, not really. In 1989, 15% of those over age 65 received the flu vaccine. In 2009, the rate was up to 65% of the same population. With such a dramatic rise in vaccination rates, it would be obvious then, that we would have less people developing the flu, and many less dying from either it or its secondary consequences. Instead, we have seen both flu infection rates and death rates remain relatively flat, when you account for seasonal variances. Most of the research done on the flu vaccine has serious flaws, and that which doesn't, ends up telling us that getting the vaccine is really irrelevant to our overall health.
Instead of spending billions of dollars on a vaccination program that the statistics show to be worthless, it's time we looked at what could really prevent tens of thousands of Americans from contacting the flu: maintaining adequate vitamin D levels and getting regularly adjusted.
That's right, I said get regular chiropractic adjustments. That last flu pandemic was in 1918, where 50 million people lost their lives fighting off the flu or secondary infections related to the flu. In the US, we keep meticulous records, and they reveal some very interesting statistics. When you look at those who were treated for the flu by conventional medicine in Iowa, New York City, and Oklahoma, you see that the death rates were between 1 in 6 and 1 in 18. At the time, chiropractic was in its infancy, but had regular hospitals where patients could stay and get natural care, including the adjustment. When we look at the statistics for the chiropractic patients, we see that death rates ranged from 1 in 100 to 1 in 789. In fact, there were 233 patients in Oklahoma that medicine had given up as hopeless, so they were given to the chiropractors to treat. All but 25 were saved. Believe it or not, but it was the pandemic of 1918 that launched the chiropractic profession. Once patients had literally had their lives saved by getting adjusted, they fought the medical profession, helped legitimize chiropractic with licensing boards, and became lifelong patients. Chiropractic has saved many from the flu, and the flu saved chiropractic from being a minor blip in health care history.
Vitamin D plays a huge role in the flu prevention as well. According to Dr. Cannell, founder of the Vitamin D Council, our seasonal flu is much more due to the lack of vitamin D we produce in the winter, than it is to whether or not we are exposed to a specific virus. Could it be that simple? If we improved our vitamin D status, would we see a decrease in seasonal flu? Unfortunately, no big pharmaceutical company nor American governmental agency is interested in providing the public with an adequate dose of vitamin D to make a difference. Canada, on the other hand, has begun research into this concept. Their government, in an attempt to put common sense and cost before profit, is studying the effects of adequate blood levels of vitamin D versus incidence of flu. It will take at least five years for the study to be completed, and another year or so for publication, but maybe within the next ten years, we'll finally be able to stop the fear mongering officials in medicine and government from subjecting the public to unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, concoctions being injected into their veins or noses. I can only hope that since it is a government funded study, it won't be buried in some obscure medical journal, as most studies that have had anything negative to say against the flu vaccine have been.
For the best flu prevention, get adjusted by a chiropractor regularly. Then get your vitamin D tested, and make sure that you are in the more than medically adequate range. I want my patients in the 65-80ng/dl range, since that seems to be where it helps the most with cancer prevention, which is just another positive effect of having adequate levels. You can have a healthy flu season, in spite of modern medicine.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Is It Bedtime Yet?
One of the most important things we can do to improve our health is invest our time getting adequate good quality sleep. The research has been clear for a long time, and is being reinforced today, that if we deprive ourselves of good sleep, we will become sick. It may not catch up with us today, but in the end, sleep deprivation will shorten our lives. So, how can we improve our sleep? Here are a few recommedations.
Keep the bedroom sacred. The bedroom should only be for two purposes: sleep and procreation. Any other use (other than dressing and undressing) will make it more difficult to get a good night's sleep. When you spend time reading, watching TV, or doing other non-sleep related activities in the bedroom, your body becomes accustomed to doing that. So, instead of falling asleep when you want, your body starts saying "shouldn't we be reading for a while" or "what's on TV", instead of starting the slide down into the depths of sleep. I often hear "but I can't fall asleep if I don't _____ for a while before bed". That's fine. Just don't do ______ in the bedroom. Teach your body that when you go to the bedroom, it's time to sleep.
Make your bedroom into a cave. We are meant to sleep in darkness. Light disturbs our production of melatonin, which is vital for our regeneration and maintaining proper sleep rhythms. It is important to have room darkening shades and block out as much light as possible. Nightlights are not allowed, especially for kids. If your kids are used to sleeping in the dark, they don't become afraid of the dark. It may take a while for them to acclimate, but they will thank you for it in the long run. If you need to take a toilet break from your sleep, keep the lights off. There is usually enough ambient light in most houses to not require added light to navigate. Alarm clocks can be an issue here as well. The only light that seems to not affect us too much is red, so make sure your clock is red, and as dim as possible.
Caves are meant to be quiet. Turn off the noise-makers before you go to sleep. While you may think the radio and TV help you fall asleep, they actually disturb it. We are meant to sleep in a quiet environment, so shut off the radio and TV before you crawl into bed. If you have outside influences that make it noisy, then something that generates white noise like a fan on low is next best. You can also purchase machines that generate white noise if you'd like. If white noise isn't an option, the next step down is natural sounds, like the ocean, babbling brook, or rain. While not ideal, these sounds at least are things our bodies have heard for thousands of years, and so disturb us less. Avoid noises that are intermittent or go up and down (like music, radio and TV), and your sleep quality will go improve.
Don't do stimulating things right before bed. Exercising, watching the news or horror movies, or reading an action thriller right before bed stimulates your brain, which impedes your sleep journey. Instead, spend a few minutes meditating, doing deep breathing exercises, or in prayer. Try to calm your mind before bed, not ramp it up.
Avoid alcohol and get to bed on time. As much as having a drink may calm one down, it actually makes it more difficult to get quality sleep. Alcohol keeps the brain from reaching stage IV sleep, which is where we get growth hormone released as adults. Kids get this hormone all day long, which is why they sprout like weeds before our eyes. As adults, we have a limited supply of this wondrous hormone, and stage IV sleep is one of the few times we can get it released. Timing here can be problematic as well. It seems that our bodies have a circadian rhythm that only allows growth hormone's release between 11pm and 3am, and only when we're in stage IV sleep during those times. This makes shift workers' lives extremely difficult, since they'll have added time needed to heal from injury or illness. We really are meant to be sleeping when it's dark, so get to bed in time to access your growth hormone.
Get enough, but not too much. Research keeps telling us that most adults need 7 to 8 1/2 hours of quality, uninterrupted sleep each night. If we miss one here and there, we'll be a little tired, but it won't affect us greatly. If, however, we continually limit our sleep to less than 7 hours, we do, in the long run, have a higher risk of sickness. On the other hand, sleeping too much also isn't good for us. More than 9 hours seems to have a negative effect as well. These recommendations are for adults. Kids (even teenagers) need more than 9 hours, and often 10-12 is best. Keep a regimented schedule with your kids, and they'll do much better, and don't let those teenagers get by with staying up until midnight on a regular basis.
Don't be offended if your spouse doesn't want to sleep with you. If you snore or toss and turn all night, you are reducing the sleep quality of your partner. For both of your health, work on your sleep hygiene, but if they decide sleeping in the same bed as you is not the best for them, honor their choice, knowing they will have more energy and be healthier because of it.
Pharmaceutical sleep aids are detrimental. Regardless of the claims made by BigPharma, all sleep aids are addictive and become habit forming or have significant side effects that are detrimental to your health. Over the counter sleep aids generally have an antihistamine added, which will make you drowsy. Unfortunately, they also dry out the mucous membranes of your nose and sinuses, leaving your more prone to colds and flues. Prescription medications like Ambien and Lunesta work on deeper levels of your brain to get and keep you asleep, but don't allow for stage IV sleep, which is vital for regeneration. These medications also often have rebound effects upon withdrawal, where it is more difficult to sleep for a time without them, since your body has become dependent on the drug to induce sleep. In addition, there are nasty side effects, like sleep walking, eating, and driving. It is not uncommon for an Ambien user to find their fridge raided (by themselves while sleeping) or wake up to find a police officer asking why they are out in their jammies as they write the ticket for a DUI.
Natural sleep aids have their downsides as well. While pharmaceutical aids are to be avoided if at all possible, I also don't recommend most herbal remedies. Herbs like passion flower, valerian, skullcap, and jujube can be used to induce sleep, but often make the user groggy the next morning, and are difficult to dose for the individual. Unless gotten from a health care practitioner, you also can't rely on quality or purity, which has it's own problems. Melatonin can be taken in dropper form, and I have used this for jet lag in patients who travel. On a regular basis, however, you can suppress the natural hormone production, disturbing your sleep cycle unless you dose yourself every night.
In most patients with insomnia, I use a single herb that has nothing to do with inducing sleep, yet has everything to do with getting and keeping you there. Rhodiola rosea is an adrenal adaptogen (it helps you deal better with stress) that is great for helping insomniacs. Instead of forcing the body into sleep, it enhances your production of GABA, which is a chemical in your brain that helps you focus. If taken about 30 minutes before bed, Rhodiola helps the brain shut down, so it doesn't act like the Energizer Bunny, and keep going, and going, and going....I also use this herb with patients who need help focusing during the day, i.e. for tests or studying. It doesn't make one tired, it just helps focus.
Sleep is a vital component of a healthy lifestyle. Getting an adequate amount of high quality sleep should be a priority, and by utilizing these recommendations, your sleep quality can easily improve.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Keep the bedroom sacred. The bedroom should only be for two purposes: sleep and procreation. Any other use (other than dressing and undressing) will make it more difficult to get a good night's sleep. When you spend time reading, watching TV, or doing other non-sleep related activities in the bedroom, your body becomes accustomed to doing that. So, instead of falling asleep when you want, your body starts saying "shouldn't we be reading for a while" or "what's on TV", instead of starting the slide down into the depths of sleep. I often hear "but I can't fall asleep if I don't _____ for a while before bed". That's fine. Just don't do ______ in the bedroom. Teach your body that when you go to the bedroom, it's time to sleep.
Make your bedroom into a cave. We are meant to sleep in darkness. Light disturbs our production of melatonin, which is vital for our regeneration and maintaining proper sleep rhythms. It is important to have room darkening shades and block out as much light as possible. Nightlights are not allowed, especially for kids. If your kids are used to sleeping in the dark, they don't become afraid of the dark. It may take a while for them to acclimate, but they will thank you for it in the long run. If you need to take a toilet break from your sleep, keep the lights off. There is usually enough ambient light in most houses to not require added light to navigate. Alarm clocks can be an issue here as well. The only light that seems to not affect us too much is red, so make sure your clock is red, and as dim as possible.
Caves are meant to be quiet. Turn off the noise-makers before you go to sleep. While you may think the radio and TV help you fall asleep, they actually disturb it. We are meant to sleep in a quiet environment, so shut off the radio and TV before you crawl into bed. If you have outside influences that make it noisy, then something that generates white noise like a fan on low is next best. You can also purchase machines that generate white noise if you'd like. If white noise isn't an option, the next step down is natural sounds, like the ocean, babbling brook, or rain. While not ideal, these sounds at least are things our bodies have heard for thousands of years, and so disturb us less. Avoid noises that are intermittent or go up and down (like music, radio and TV), and your sleep quality will go improve.
Don't do stimulating things right before bed. Exercising, watching the news or horror movies, or reading an action thriller right before bed stimulates your brain, which impedes your sleep journey. Instead, spend a few minutes meditating, doing deep breathing exercises, or in prayer. Try to calm your mind before bed, not ramp it up.
Avoid alcohol and get to bed on time. As much as having a drink may calm one down, it actually makes it more difficult to get quality sleep. Alcohol keeps the brain from reaching stage IV sleep, which is where we get growth hormone released as adults. Kids get this hormone all day long, which is why they sprout like weeds before our eyes. As adults, we have a limited supply of this wondrous hormone, and stage IV sleep is one of the few times we can get it released. Timing here can be problematic as well. It seems that our bodies have a circadian rhythm that only allows growth hormone's release between 11pm and 3am, and only when we're in stage IV sleep during those times. This makes shift workers' lives extremely difficult, since they'll have added time needed to heal from injury or illness. We really are meant to be sleeping when it's dark, so get to bed in time to access your growth hormone.
Get enough, but not too much. Research keeps telling us that most adults need 7 to 8 1/2 hours of quality, uninterrupted sleep each night. If we miss one here and there, we'll be a little tired, but it won't affect us greatly. If, however, we continually limit our sleep to less than 7 hours, we do, in the long run, have a higher risk of sickness. On the other hand, sleeping too much also isn't good for us. More than 9 hours seems to have a negative effect as well. These recommendations are for adults. Kids (even teenagers) need more than 9 hours, and often 10-12 is best. Keep a regimented schedule with your kids, and they'll do much better, and don't let those teenagers get by with staying up until midnight on a regular basis.
Don't be offended if your spouse doesn't want to sleep with you. If you snore or toss and turn all night, you are reducing the sleep quality of your partner. For both of your health, work on your sleep hygiene, but if they decide sleeping in the same bed as you is not the best for them, honor their choice, knowing they will have more energy and be healthier because of it.
Pharmaceutical sleep aids are detrimental. Regardless of the claims made by BigPharma, all sleep aids are addictive and become habit forming or have significant side effects that are detrimental to your health. Over the counter sleep aids generally have an antihistamine added, which will make you drowsy. Unfortunately, they also dry out the mucous membranes of your nose and sinuses, leaving your more prone to colds and flues. Prescription medications like Ambien and Lunesta work on deeper levels of your brain to get and keep you asleep, but don't allow for stage IV sleep, which is vital for regeneration. These medications also often have rebound effects upon withdrawal, where it is more difficult to sleep for a time without them, since your body has become dependent on the drug to induce sleep. In addition, there are nasty side effects, like sleep walking, eating, and driving. It is not uncommon for an Ambien user to find their fridge raided (by themselves while sleeping) or wake up to find a police officer asking why they are out in their jammies as they write the ticket for a DUI.
Natural sleep aids have their downsides as well. While pharmaceutical aids are to be avoided if at all possible, I also don't recommend most herbal remedies. Herbs like passion flower, valerian, skullcap, and jujube can be used to induce sleep, but often make the user groggy the next morning, and are difficult to dose for the individual. Unless gotten from a health care practitioner, you also can't rely on quality or purity, which has it's own problems. Melatonin can be taken in dropper form, and I have used this for jet lag in patients who travel. On a regular basis, however, you can suppress the natural hormone production, disturbing your sleep cycle unless you dose yourself every night.
In most patients with insomnia, I use a single herb that has nothing to do with inducing sleep, yet has everything to do with getting and keeping you there. Rhodiola rosea is an adrenal adaptogen (it helps you deal better with stress) that is great for helping insomniacs. Instead of forcing the body into sleep, it enhances your production of GABA, which is a chemical in your brain that helps you focus. If taken about 30 minutes before bed, Rhodiola helps the brain shut down, so it doesn't act like the Energizer Bunny, and keep going, and going, and going....I also use this herb with patients who need help focusing during the day, i.e. for tests or studying. It doesn't make one tired, it just helps focus.
Sleep is a vital component of a healthy lifestyle. Getting an adequate amount of high quality sleep should be a priority, and by utilizing these recommendations, your sleep quality can easily improve.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
It's Time for Timer!
For many in my generation, Schoolhouse Rock was a regular public service announcement splattered amongst our Saturday morning cartoons. These commercials taught us things about a wide variety of topics. I remember "I'm Just a Bill", which taught about how Congress works, "Conjunction Junction" teaching about grammar, and "The Shot Heard Round the World" helping kids understand about the Revolutionary War. A lesser known cousin to Schoolhouse Rock was "Time for Timer", a round yellow blob with a top hat and bow tie, Timer was in charge of helping us learn what our bodies were telling us, like it's time to sleep or eat. He had several different ditties he used, but the one I always remember was "You Are What You Eat". At the time to a kid, it was just an interruption, but as an adult, it takes on meanings that were way beyond what was originally taught.
One thing I try to help my patients understand, is that Timer's basic concepts need to be given some deeper thought. When I say "we are what we eat", I usually get "ya, I know", but do most of us really "know"? I argue that if most of us had a good understanding of Timer's message, we would drastically change not only what we eat, but how we allow that food to be treated.
Timer taught us that our food has three basic components to it: fats, protein, and carbohydrates. Each has it's unique function and we need all three components to be healthy. Carbohydrate has one basic function, and that is an energy source. Lumped by some into a general "sugar", carbohydrate is our body's preferred fuel, especially for our nervous and muscular systems. Some carbohydrates are better for us than others, as most have to be processed in the body and converted to glucose, which is useable energy. Some can be converted fairly easily with little problems for the body. Fructose, however, is one that can create significant issues for many. To convert fructose to glucose, the liver has a complex pathway, and we normally create more triglyceride (fat) out of fructose than we do glucose. Too much fructose clogs the liver's pathways, and can lead to increased levels of fats stored there as well. Carbohydrate is necessary, but we tend to overdo the amounts in western societies, especially of the "white" group; white flour, sugar, rice, potatoes, pasta, and bread. Whole grain alternatives to these are much better for us, providing necessary energy without the blood sugar spike.
Besides energy, there is really only one other reason to be consuming food: building and repairing our bodies. This is where we need to understand Timer a little more. By eating proteins and fats, we are providing the body with the raw materials to either build or repair, depending on our age and health. The majority of our organs are built from protein and our nervous system is mainly fat. Without proper quality and amounts, we cannot build or repair normally. Consider building a house. Your architect requires exterior walls built from 2x6's of a certain length, trusses that have a specific configuration, and just the right thickness and amount of external wall board. If your builder uses these materials correctly, your house will be have the qualities the architect intended. If instead, you give your builder 2x2's, random trusses, and cheap buffalo board, he will still be able to make a house. It won't, however, have the quality intended by the architect. It may look like a house, but it won't stand up to the first strong gust of wind without having structural problems.
When I say "we are what we eat", I apply the concepts that your architect applies to your house. If you eat correctly, exercise regularly, and reduce your stress level, your body can work magnificently. As a biochemical architect, that is what I teach my patients. If you decide to cut corners, though, and eat a standard American diet (SAD), be a couch potato, and let stressors overwhelm you, I can tell you what results you'll get, and I'm guessing it won't be to your liking. High quality building materials in a house make a quality house. High quality building materials (protein and fats) in your diet make a quality human. Cheap, low quality ingredients in your diet make a standard American; overweight, lethargic, stressed, and sick.
Providing ourselves with quality building materials, unfortunately, requires us to be informed consumers and pursue foods grown outside of the conventional farming techniques. Currently, many foods have been genetically modified in a laboratory, which changes the kind of protein and fat that we get. Instead of ratios that we've been eating for hundreds of years, we now are eating foods that are literally foreign to our bodies, even though they may look similar. Genetically modified foods are not high quality. They are no different than the 2x2's compared to the 2x6's. Are they both wood? Yes. Do they have the same strength? Not even close.
Listen to what Timer had to tell us: "You are what you eat". That which you put into your mouth will soon be what you are made of. To have a high quality body, you must provide yourself with high quality foods. Listen to what the architect tells you and build with the recommended building materials for a long healthy life.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
One thing I try to help my patients understand, is that Timer's basic concepts need to be given some deeper thought. When I say "we are what we eat", I usually get "ya, I know", but do most of us really "know"? I argue that if most of us had a good understanding of Timer's message, we would drastically change not only what we eat, but how we allow that food to be treated.
Timer taught us that our food has three basic components to it: fats, protein, and carbohydrates. Each has it's unique function and we need all three components to be healthy. Carbohydrate has one basic function, and that is an energy source. Lumped by some into a general "sugar", carbohydrate is our body's preferred fuel, especially for our nervous and muscular systems. Some carbohydrates are better for us than others, as most have to be processed in the body and converted to glucose, which is useable energy. Some can be converted fairly easily with little problems for the body. Fructose, however, is one that can create significant issues for many. To convert fructose to glucose, the liver has a complex pathway, and we normally create more triglyceride (fat) out of fructose than we do glucose. Too much fructose clogs the liver's pathways, and can lead to increased levels of fats stored there as well. Carbohydrate is necessary, but we tend to overdo the amounts in western societies, especially of the "white" group; white flour, sugar, rice, potatoes, pasta, and bread. Whole grain alternatives to these are much better for us, providing necessary energy without the blood sugar spike.
Besides energy, there is really only one other reason to be consuming food: building and repairing our bodies. This is where we need to understand Timer a little more. By eating proteins and fats, we are providing the body with the raw materials to either build or repair, depending on our age and health. The majority of our organs are built from protein and our nervous system is mainly fat. Without proper quality and amounts, we cannot build or repair normally. Consider building a house. Your architect requires exterior walls built from 2x6's of a certain length, trusses that have a specific configuration, and just the right thickness and amount of external wall board. If your builder uses these materials correctly, your house will be have the qualities the architect intended. If instead, you give your builder 2x2's, random trusses, and cheap buffalo board, he will still be able to make a house. It won't, however, have the quality intended by the architect. It may look like a house, but it won't stand up to the first strong gust of wind without having structural problems.
When I say "we are what we eat", I apply the concepts that your architect applies to your house. If you eat correctly, exercise regularly, and reduce your stress level, your body can work magnificently. As a biochemical architect, that is what I teach my patients. If you decide to cut corners, though, and eat a standard American diet (SAD), be a couch potato, and let stressors overwhelm you, I can tell you what results you'll get, and I'm guessing it won't be to your liking. High quality building materials in a house make a quality house. High quality building materials (protein and fats) in your diet make a quality human. Cheap, low quality ingredients in your diet make a standard American; overweight, lethargic, stressed, and sick.
Providing ourselves with quality building materials, unfortunately, requires us to be informed consumers and pursue foods grown outside of the conventional farming techniques. Currently, many foods have been genetically modified in a laboratory, which changes the kind of protein and fat that we get. Instead of ratios that we've been eating for hundreds of years, we now are eating foods that are literally foreign to our bodies, even though they may look similar. Genetically modified foods are not high quality. They are no different than the 2x2's compared to the 2x6's. Are they both wood? Yes. Do they have the same strength? Not even close.
Listen to what Timer had to tell us: "You are what you eat". That which you put into your mouth will soon be what you are made of. To have a high quality body, you must provide yourself with high quality foods. Listen to what the architect tells you and build with the recommended building materials for a long healthy life.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Milk: Does it Really Do a Body Good?
Growing up on a dairy farm, I drank milk almost every day. We would take a gallon jug out to the barn and fill it up straight from the bulk tank a few times per week, make sure we shook it before we poured, and had an almost endless supply of fresh milk. Coming from that background, it may seem strange to some to hear that I haven't had a glass of milk in decades, and I discourage my kids from drinking milk. It's not about allergies or lactose intolerance, it's about the difference between what I had access to then compared to now. The milk you find in the stores is not the same milk that I drank when I was a kid, and the differences are what make it good for us or bad for us.
On our farm, the cows came into the barn to get milked. Otherwise, they spent their days ranging the pasture looking for grass to eat, and the farm was on the river, so they had a constant supply of fresh water. Only in the dead of winter did they spend any significant amount of their day indoors, but any time the kids were outside playing at school, the cows were outside the barn in the fresh air. When there wasn't grass to be found, they had hay, and that was about it. The amount of grain they ever were given was very minimal. We never sprayed anything on the pasture, and the hay was grown in the same way. Our cows were only treated for disease as needed, and never got medications or hormones to increase production. And any time our cows were on medication, that milk was thrown away. That is how cows are meant to live, and the milk they produce in that environment is high quality, hormone free, and generally good for us.
Today's farms are a different story entirely. Often, these cows are in the barn most of their lives, and spend very little time foraging for grass. They are fed a constant diet of grains to increase production, and given prophylactic antibiotics and growth hormones to ensure they produce large quantities without getting sick (of course it does shorten their life expectancy by almost half). The grains they are fed, which are now genetically modified, are usually grown on fields that are not fertilized with anything but anhydrous ammonia and then sprayed with pesticides and herbicides (usually Round-up). The milk that comes from these cows is not even close to the same quality that I had as a kid. It is far from good for us, and I would argue that it is detrimental to our health.
On top of how we produce our milk on conventional farms today, we are then forced by our government to process it before it can be sold. Most today understand that when we take wheat from the field, grind it, strip out the germ and bran, and then add vitamins and minerals back in, we have created white flour; a processed food. How then, do we consider milk to be a whole food, when we take the raw milk, strip away the fat, pasteurize it, add fat back in with vitamins A&D, force it through a fine sprayer to homogenize it so the fat doesn't rise to the top, and bottle it in plastic containers that allow light in, thus breaking down the vitamin D. How is this not just as processed as white flour? To me, it's no different.
The government has become so germaphobic that in most states, even if you want to get milk as a whole food directly from a farmer, you have to become a criminal to do it. It is illegal in Minnesota, as in most states, to sell raw milk. Where is the evidence that raw milk is dangerous? With the national media kowtowing to the medico-government complex, if anyone was actually getting sick from consuming raw milk, it would be an instant media storm, with all kinds of experts warning of the dangers of raw milk and how it has to be pasteurized to be safe. Instead, all we have are "experts" who spout dogma and not science in order to keep a potentially great whole food off the market.
I admit, there can be issues with raw milk consumption, but these issues are mostly relegated to modern conventional dairies, and has to do with the fact that the cows are confined, fed genetically modified pesticide and herbicide laden grains, and given a steady diet of drugs. If cows have a natural environment (free range pasture and clean water) and are not subjected to daily drug injections or bombarded with pesticides and herbicides in their foods, they produce a milk that is extremely high quality, and has a bacterial environment that actually is good for us. Yes, the barns must be kept clean and the milk must be refrigerated promptly, but with today's farming techniques, this is so much easier than when we cleaned the barn by hand and walked the milk over the manure-filled gutters to get to the bulk tank.
Milk does do a body good, but it must be from the right sources, and left in its natural state. Modern conventional dairies produce a flawed product that has to be processed in unhealthy ways to be safe for consumption. Only fresh, raw, whole milk produced from free range and drug free cows should be allowed to make this claim.
For more information on "real" milk, visit the Weston A Price Foundation or www.realmilk.com. As long as we allow the medico-government germaphobes to have their way, we'll continue to be a sick society. Only by educating ourselves and taking our health into our own hands will we truly find wellness.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
On our farm, the cows came into the barn to get milked. Otherwise, they spent their days ranging the pasture looking for grass to eat, and the farm was on the river, so they had a constant supply of fresh water. Only in the dead of winter did they spend any significant amount of their day indoors, but any time the kids were outside playing at school, the cows were outside the barn in the fresh air. When there wasn't grass to be found, they had hay, and that was about it. The amount of grain they ever were given was very minimal. We never sprayed anything on the pasture, and the hay was grown in the same way. Our cows were only treated for disease as needed, and never got medications or hormones to increase production. And any time our cows were on medication, that milk was thrown away. That is how cows are meant to live, and the milk they produce in that environment is high quality, hormone free, and generally good for us.
Today's farms are a different story entirely. Often, these cows are in the barn most of their lives, and spend very little time foraging for grass. They are fed a constant diet of grains to increase production, and given prophylactic antibiotics and growth hormones to ensure they produce large quantities without getting sick (of course it does shorten their life expectancy by almost half). The grains they are fed, which are now genetically modified, are usually grown on fields that are not fertilized with anything but anhydrous ammonia and then sprayed with pesticides and herbicides (usually Round-up). The milk that comes from these cows is not even close to the same quality that I had as a kid. It is far from good for us, and I would argue that it is detrimental to our health.
On top of how we produce our milk on conventional farms today, we are then forced by our government to process it before it can be sold. Most today understand that when we take wheat from the field, grind it, strip out the germ and bran, and then add vitamins and minerals back in, we have created white flour; a processed food. How then, do we consider milk to be a whole food, when we take the raw milk, strip away the fat, pasteurize it, add fat back in with vitamins A&D, force it through a fine sprayer to homogenize it so the fat doesn't rise to the top, and bottle it in plastic containers that allow light in, thus breaking down the vitamin D. How is this not just as processed as white flour? To me, it's no different.
The government has become so germaphobic that in most states, even if you want to get milk as a whole food directly from a farmer, you have to become a criminal to do it. It is illegal in Minnesota, as in most states, to sell raw milk. Where is the evidence that raw milk is dangerous? With the national media kowtowing to the medico-government complex, if anyone was actually getting sick from consuming raw milk, it would be an instant media storm, with all kinds of experts warning of the dangers of raw milk and how it has to be pasteurized to be safe. Instead, all we have are "experts" who spout dogma and not science in order to keep a potentially great whole food off the market.
I admit, there can be issues with raw milk consumption, but these issues are mostly relegated to modern conventional dairies, and has to do with the fact that the cows are confined, fed genetically modified pesticide and herbicide laden grains, and given a steady diet of drugs. If cows have a natural environment (free range pasture and clean water) and are not subjected to daily drug injections or bombarded with pesticides and herbicides in their foods, they produce a milk that is extremely high quality, and has a bacterial environment that actually is good for us. Yes, the barns must be kept clean and the milk must be refrigerated promptly, but with today's farming techniques, this is so much easier than when we cleaned the barn by hand and walked the milk over the manure-filled gutters to get to the bulk tank.
Milk does do a body good, but it must be from the right sources, and left in its natural state. Modern conventional dairies produce a flawed product that has to be processed in unhealthy ways to be safe for consumption. Only fresh, raw, whole milk produced from free range and drug free cows should be allowed to make this claim.
For more information on "real" milk, visit the Weston A Price Foundation or www.realmilk.com. As long as we allow the medico-government germaphobes to have their way, we'll continue to be a sick society. Only by educating ourselves and taking our health into our own hands will we truly find wellness.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Osteoporosis is NOT a Calcium Deficiency Disease
This Thursday, October 20, is World Osteoporosis Day. While some of the international "authorities" are beginning to recommend some common sense approaches to osteoporosis, you'll find that if you go to your average medical doctor, you'll get a few basic thoughts, as they follow our sorely lacking governmental recommendations: rink milk, take your calcium with some vitamin D, exercise (at least walk every once in a while), and take our latest version of drugs that we believe will stop this process from continuing in your body.
To understand osteoporosis, we first need to realize that bone is a dynamically remodeling tissue. It is not this hard piece of mineral that is made once and forgotten unless broken. It is continually being broken down and rebuilt according to the stress you apply to it (called Wolff's Law). This is done by cells called osteoclasts (break down) and osteoblasts (build up). The osteoclasts are actually a part of the immune system while osteoblasts are stem cells that turn into mature osteocytes after they have laid down the bone matrix. It is a balancing act between these two cell lines that determine whether your bones are increasing or decreasing in density. If we are doing things in our lives that make the osteoclasts pull calcium out of the bone, then we'll be losing bone density. If, on the other hand, we live our lives in a way that allows for normal building and don't pull too much out, we'll end up with healthy strong bones. Unfortunately, modern western society is full of lifestyle choices that pull calcium from the bone.
In order for bone to be built correctly, the osteoblasts lay down a matrix of protein for the minerals to be placed in. It's like a sponge, where the holes are lined with calcium. If the holes get too big (because there is no matrix), then there is no place to put the calcium and it really doesn't matter what else we do. That makes this matrix the base of building bones, and it's mostly made of a protein called collagen. In order to build collagen, you have to have a good supply of protein and adequate vitamin C. While the average American eats an adequate amount of protein, that doesn't mean it is always digested and absorbed correctly. In order to digest protein, you must first have a very acidic environment in the stomach. Without that acid, the protein will not be digested properly, and will end up rotting instead. With the numbers of acid blockers and proton pump inhibitors that are being consumed today, this acid production is being eradicated. Even those not on these medications often are insufficient in stomach acid. This is a very energy intensive process, and requires a constant supply of vitamin B1 as well. It is not difficult to determine whether a patient has adequate stomach acid, and I rarely find patients over 40 that are sufficient. In addition to proper digestion of protein, we also need a highly acidic environment in the stomach to bind calcium and magnesium.
Providing we have enough stomach acid to digest protein adequately and bind our minerals, we then need adequate vitamin D in our system to bring calcium into the body. The research is telling us that we need at least a blood level of 40ng/ml to have any effect at all on the absorption of calcium. In all of the patients I have tested over the years, I have yet to find anyone, even those taking over the counter vitamin D supplements, that are even "medically" sufficient at 32ng/ml. Every single patient, even in the middle of summer, has been frankly vitamin D deficient, and some don't even have enough to register. Vitamin D is vital for so many functions of our body, and as a society, we are grossly deficient.
Once calcium has been absorbed with the help of vitamin D, we then need to get it into the bones. This is where our lifestyle choices make a huge difference. Many things will keep the calcium in the blood and ultimately push it into the urine.
I've written before about the dangers of caffeine, and here's another. Each cup of coffee (or other equivalent beverage) will take 80mg of calcium with it into the urine. That includes caffeinated sodas, energy drinks, and even caffeinated black teas. For bone health, avoid all caffeine and carbonated beverages.
Bones need protein, but if we have too much, then we will end up using calcium to buffer its acidic effects on our blood. Too high of a protein intake will pull calcium from the bones. Refined carbohydrates (my "white" group of foods), alcohol, and smoking also pull calcium into the blood and urine due to their acidification of our bodies.
Stress has a huge impact on our systems, including breaking down the collagen that makes up the bone matrix, creating a more acidic environment, and inhibiting the osteoblasts that build new bone. We need to get better at handling stress.
Lack of physical activity is probably one of the most important things to consider in osteoporosis. Regardless of age, weight bearing resistance exercise is the number one addition to any prevention or bone rebuilding regimen. Bones remodel according to stress, and resistance exercise is that stress that bones need to become stronger. That means walking is not enough; we need to pull out the soup cans if nothing else, and start getting our muscles stronger.
If you eliminate those lifestyle choices that increase bone breakdown, you will have a canvas to build bone on again. Once there, you must have the rest of the nutrients to make good bone. These include magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamin K2 to get the calcium from the bloodstream into the bone tissue, vitamin C and silica to make good collagen, and zinc, copper, boron, and manganese for the enzymes in the osteoblasts to work properly.
On top of all of this, you will need to make sure that your hormones are at least somewhat balanced. In our estrogen dominant world, medicine has added more estrogens as drugs to prevent osteoporosis. In some worlds, this makes sense, since estrogen prevents osteoclasts from breaking bone down as quickly. What is conveniently forgotten is that progesterone actually increases osteoblast activity, and is much more important to bone building than is estrogen. We need a balance of these hormones in our bodies, and randomly giving one or the other only makes patients sicker.
Finally, if you have osteoporosis, or look like you're heading in that direction, you'll likely be paying Sally Fields' salary and put on something like Fosamax, which is an osteoclast inhibitor. This class of drugs will eventually be shown to increase the risk of fracture, since patients end up with old brittle bone, instead of tearing the old stuff out when the body wants. Currently, they're keeping the studies to less than three years, but we're seeing a whole host of nasty side effects that are concerning patients, not the least of which is osteonecrosis (bone death) of the jaw bone. Once they increase the length of study to five or more years, we'll start seeing all the fractures that these drugs are not preventing.
Building bones isn't all that easy, but neither is it difficult. My osteoporosis regimen, if done correctly, has repeatedly shown to increase bone density, regardless of the patient's age. I don't care if you're 50 or 90, you can still build bone. You may have to make some lifestyle changes, but with proper testing and targeted supplementation, osteoporosis can be beaten naturally, without the serious side effects of the drugs, and your overall health will improve along the way.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
To understand osteoporosis, we first need to realize that bone is a dynamically remodeling tissue. It is not this hard piece of mineral that is made once and forgotten unless broken. It is continually being broken down and rebuilt according to the stress you apply to it (called Wolff's Law). This is done by cells called osteoclasts (break down) and osteoblasts (build up). The osteoclasts are actually a part of the immune system while osteoblasts are stem cells that turn into mature osteocytes after they have laid down the bone matrix. It is a balancing act between these two cell lines that determine whether your bones are increasing or decreasing in density. If we are doing things in our lives that make the osteoclasts pull calcium out of the bone, then we'll be losing bone density. If, on the other hand, we live our lives in a way that allows for normal building and don't pull too much out, we'll end up with healthy strong bones. Unfortunately, modern western society is full of lifestyle choices that pull calcium from the bone.
In order for bone to be built correctly, the osteoblasts lay down a matrix of protein for the minerals to be placed in. It's like a sponge, where the holes are lined with calcium. If the holes get too big (because there is no matrix), then there is no place to put the calcium and it really doesn't matter what else we do. That makes this matrix the base of building bones, and it's mostly made of a protein called collagen. In order to build collagen, you have to have a good supply of protein and adequate vitamin C. While the average American eats an adequate amount of protein, that doesn't mean it is always digested and absorbed correctly. In order to digest protein, you must first have a very acidic environment in the stomach. Without that acid, the protein will not be digested properly, and will end up rotting instead. With the numbers of acid blockers and proton pump inhibitors that are being consumed today, this acid production is being eradicated. Even those not on these medications often are insufficient in stomach acid. This is a very energy intensive process, and requires a constant supply of vitamin B1 as well. It is not difficult to determine whether a patient has adequate stomach acid, and I rarely find patients over 40 that are sufficient. In addition to proper digestion of protein, we also need a highly acidic environment in the stomach to bind calcium and magnesium.
Providing we have enough stomach acid to digest protein adequately and bind our minerals, we then need adequate vitamin D in our system to bring calcium into the body. The research is telling us that we need at least a blood level of 40ng/ml to have any effect at all on the absorption of calcium. In all of the patients I have tested over the years, I have yet to find anyone, even those taking over the counter vitamin D supplements, that are even "medically" sufficient at 32ng/ml. Every single patient, even in the middle of summer, has been frankly vitamin D deficient, and some don't even have enough to register. Vitamin D is vital for so many functions of our body, and as a society, we are grossly deficient.
Once calcium has been absorbed with the help of vitamin D, we then need to get it into the bones. This is where our lifestyle choices make a huge difference. Many things will keep the calcium in the blood and ultimately push it into the urine.
I've written before about the dangers of caffeine, and here's another. Each cup of coffee (or other equivalent beverage) will take 80mg of calcium with it into the urine. That includes caffeinated sodas, energy drinks, and even caffeinated black teas. For bone health, avoid all caffeine and carbonated beverages.
Bones need protein, but if we have too much, then we will end up using calcium to buffer its acidic effects on our blood. Too high of a protein intake will pull calcium from the bones. Refined carbohydrates (my "white" group of foods), alcohol, and smoking also pull calcium into the blood and urine due to their acidification of our bodies.
Stress has a huge impact on our systems, including breaking down the collagen that makes up the bone matrix, creating a more acidic environment, and inhibiting the osteoblasts that build new bone. We need to get better at handling stress.
Lack of physical activity is probably one of the most important things to consider in osteoporosis. Regardless of age, weight bearing resistance exercise is the number one addition to any prevention or bone rebuilding regimen. Bones remodel according to stress, and resistance exercise is that stress that bones need to become stronger. That means walking is not enough; we need to pull out the soup cans if nothing else, and start getting our muscles stronger.
If you eliminate those lifestyle choices that increase bone breakdown, you will have a canvas to build bone on again. Once there, you must have the rest of the nutrients to make good bone. These include magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamin K2 to get the calcium from the bloodstream into the bone tissue, vitamin C and silica to make good collagen, and zinc, copper, boron, and manganese for the enzymes in the osteoblasts to work properly.
On top of all of this, you will need to make sure that your hormones are at least somewhat balanced. In our estrogen dominant world, medicine has added more estrogens as drugs to prevent osteoporosis. In some worlds, this makes sense, since estrogen prevents osteoclasts from breaking bone down as quickly. What is conveniently forgotten is that progesterone actually increases osteoblast activity, and is much more important to bone building than is estrogen. We need a balance of these hormones in our bodies, and randomly giving one or the other only makes patients sicker.
Finally, if you have osteoporosis, or look like you're heading in that direction, you'll likely be paying Sally Fields' salary and put on something like Fosamax, which is an osteoclast inhibitor. This class of drugs will eventually be shown to increase the risk of fracture, since patients end up with old brittle bone, instead of tearing the old stuff out when the body wants. Currently, they're keeping the studies to less than three years, but we're seeing a whole host of nasty side effects that are concerning patients, not the least of which is osteonecrosis (bone death) of the jaw bone. Once they increase the length of study to five or more years, we'll start seeing all the fractures that these drugs are not preventing.
Building bones isn't all that easy, but neither is it difficult. My osteoporosis regimen, if done correctly, has repeatedly shown to increase bone density, regardless of the patient's age. I don't care if you're 50 or 90, you can still build bone. You may have to make some lifestyle changes, but with proper testing and targeted supplementation, osteoporosis can be beaten naturally, without the serious side effects of the drugs, and your overall health will improve along the way.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Medicine is Sexist
No one likes it when someone takes advantage of them. We spend countless hours researching buying decisions to make sure that we not only get the best deal, but we get what we want. Unfortunately, this is usually not true when it comes to our health care. Yes, some are doing their own research, but most rely on their doctors to help guide them in their health care decision making. We rightfully believe that our doctors have more education in this area, and so are in a better position to make judgements on what we should and should not be doing. But what happens when our doctors are not keeping up on the current research? Or when the research is just being blatantly ignored? In today's world of exploding information, we need to be willing to seek out the truth to protect our health.
I am not one to cry sexist or racist at the drop of a hat. I usually give the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to organized medicine, we treat women differently; it's blatant sexism, and it's not only ignored, but fostered at the highest levels. Take the case of women's use of cholesterol lowering (specifically statin) drugs. In 2010, both the number one class of prescription medications as well as the number one prescription drug overall were statin drugs. In total, Americans spent $18.7 billion on statin drugs last year, with over 35% of women over 65 and 16% of women between the ages of 45 and 65 taking these medications. This represents about 45-50 million American women. The use in men is even higher, but we'll look at men in a future blog. Medicine has been pounding it into our heads for decades now that we must ALL keep our cholesterol lower, or we'll end up with coronary artery disease, and a heart attack. But, is this really true? Must we all strive to lower our cholesterol to stave off heart disease? Based on the POSCH study published back in 1996, we are told a resounding NO!
The research looked at the overall mortality (death) rates of women in a variety of cholesterol lowering medication trials. In total, they looked at over 7000 women, both on and off medications. In medical research, where we often see a few hundred studied before a medication is released to the public, that's a pretty good number of subjects. After following these women, they found that not only did lowering women's cholesterol not reduce overall mortality rate, in some studies, there were more women on medication who died than those who weren't. The authors' conclusions were fairly vanilla when faced with the astounding data, but they stated "the available clinical trial data fail to demonstrate any overall mortality or other convincing clinical benefits from effective lipid intervention in women." In other words, statin drugs do women absolutely no good. Women waste a tremendous amount of money each and every year following doctor's orders, thinking they are reducing their risk of heart disease, only to be plagued by unwanted side effects like muscle tissue breakdown and liver destruction. In addition, we're increasing the cost of every one's health insurance, because we all know that the majority of the medication cost is picked up by our insurances, and not by those who are actually taking the medication.
We live in a world today that touts to practice "evidence based medicine", where we are supposed to look at all the research and decide what is best for the patient. For thousands of doctors nationwide to ignore the decades old research, continue to subject women to unnecessary medication, and raise the cost of health insurance is unconscionable. If the statistics for statins were the same for men as they were for women, they would be pulled from the market. Instead, they continue to be prescribed for both sexes, even though they are absolutely worthless for women. I further find it interesting that this study has never been cited by another peer reviewed article listed in pubmed (the government's database on health care research), and has not been looked at again since. Perhaps someone is hoping that if it is ignored long enough, it will be forgotten. I surely hope not.
Maybe someday organized medicine will treat women patients as well as men, but it isn't here yet. In the mean time, women have to be even more educated on their health care, because unfortunately, they often can't rely on the doctor's advice. Men and women are different, and in health care, they need to be treated differently. But differently doesn't mean women should be treated worse.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
I am not one to cry sexist or racist at the drop of a hat. I usually give the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to organized medicine, we treat women differently; it's blatant sexism, and it's not only ignored, but fostered at the highest levels. Take the case of women's use of cholesterol lowering (specifically statin) drugs. In 2010, both the number one class of prescription medications as well as the number one prescription drug overall were statin drugs. In total, Americans spent $18.7 billion on statin drugs last year, with over 35% of women over 65 and 16% of women between the ages of 45 and 65 taking these medications. This represents about 45-50 million American women. The use in men is even higher, but we'll look at men in a future blog. Medicine has been pounding it into our heads for decades now that we must ALL keep our cholesterol lower, or we'll end up with coronary artery disease, and a heart attack. But, is this really true? Must we all strive to lower our cholesterol to stave off heart disease? Based on the POSCH study published back in 1996, we are told a resounding NO!
The research looked at the overall mortality (death) rates of women in a variety of cholesterol lowering medication trials. In total, they looked at over 7000 women, both on and off medications. In medical research, where we often see a few hundred studied before a medication is released to the public, that's a pretty good number of subjects. After following these women, they found that not only did lowering women's cholesterol not reduce overall mortality rate, in some studies, there were more women on medication who died than those who weren't. The authors' conclusions were fairly vanilla when faced with the astounding data, but they stated "the available clinical trial data fail to demonstrate any overall mortality or other convincing clinical benefits from effective lipid intervention in women." In other words, statin drugs do women absolutely no good. Women waste a tremendous amount of money each and every year following doctor's orders, thinking they are reducing their risk of heart disease, only to be plagued by unwanted side effects like muscle tissue breakdown and liver destruction. In addition, we're increasing the cost of every one's health insurance, because we all know that the majority of the medication cost is picked up by our insurances, and not by those who are actually taking the medication.
We live in a world today that touts to practice "evidence based medicine", where we are supposed to look at all the research and decide what is best for the patient. For thousands of doctors nationwide to ignore the decades old research, continue to subject women to unnecessary medication, and raise the cost of health insurance is unconscionable. If the statistics for statins were the same for men as they were for women, they would be pulled from the market. Instead, they continue to be prescribed for both sexes, even though they are absolutely worthless for women. I further find it interesting that this study has never been cited by another peer reviewed article listed in pubmed (the government's database on health care research), and has not been looked at again since. Perhaps someone is hoping that if it is ignored long enough, it will be forgotten. I surely hope not.
Maybe someday organized medicine will treat women patients as well as men, but it isn't here yet. In the mean time, women have to be even more educated on their health care, because unfortunately, they often can't rely on the doctor's advice. Men and women are different, and in health care, they need to be treated differently. But differently doesn't mean women should be treated worse.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Statistics Can Lie
If you are taking any type of medications, do you know the benefits? How about the side effects? Do you have any clue what percentage of the patients it works on, or how likely it is that you will benefit from it? Based on statistics, we can definitely say that most prescription drugs don't work most of the time for most people. This is a pretty bold statement, and one that is being hidden by not only our medical profession, but by those at the highest level of government policy making. Yet, we see medication use continued to increase while health continues to decrease. The problem stems from looking at the numbers in a false way.
When drug manufacturers go before the FDA to license a new medication or market this new drug to doctors, they tout the relative risk reduction (or RRR) numbers. They make claims like osteoporosis drugs cut your risk of fracture by 50%, or blood pressure drugs cut your risk of stroke by 45%, or statin (cholesterol lowering) drugs cut your risk of heart attacks by 50%. These numbers are astounding, but completely misleading. These numbers are all based on relative risk.
Think of it like this. Take 1000 adults, of which two would die from a heart attack. If we place all 1000 on the medication, and one of the two that would have died is saved, this is a 50% reduction in the death rate, so we can say that taking this medication reduces your risk of dying from a heart attack by 50%. That's relative risk. What they are failing to mention is the other 998 who would not have had a heart attack anyway, that either received no benefit, or were actually harmed by the medication. And, we're assuming that all 1000 will be on the drug for the rest of their lives to save that one person and achieve that astounding 50% rating.
Instead of using relative risk, we need to be focusing our attention on the number need to treat or NNT. How many patients have to take the medication for the rest of their lives to save one person? When we look at that same scenario above, we see that in order to save that one person, we need to treat 999 others. When we look at it from this perspective, we are talking about the absolute risk benefit (or ARB). Again, in this case, it is not 50%, but .01%. Unfortunately, these numbers have been well hidden by not only the drug manufacturers, but also industrialized medicine and government policy makers for way too long. Luckily, this concept is finally being released to the general public. While not a complete database by any means yet, you can check the NNT of a variety of medications at www.thennt.com. This website has taken the time to compile the real statistics so consumers can finally have accurate information.
In some cases, the NNT is extremely good. Take defribillation for cardiac arrest. It has an NNT of 2.5. That's great. We need to treat 2.5 people to save one. I'll take those odds; keep the paddles ready. Another is steroids given during an asthma attack. It has an NNT of 8. Again, that's a pretty good number. There's a whole host of great treatments out there that this data reinforces. However, there are many more lies that are finally being debunked.
Take Sally Fields and her bisphosphonates for osteoporosis. There is no NNT, because there is no one saved from having the fracture. This multi-billion dollar a year market is all based on smoke and mirrors. The same can be said for aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke. The NNT is 1667. That means we have to treat 1667 people who will get absolutely not benefit, and could well end up with a bleeding ulcer, in order to prevent one person from getting a heart attack OR a stroke. And yet, how many out there are taking their baby aspirin, making millions of dollars for Bayer a year? Another without an NNT because there is absolutely no benefit is antibiotics for ear infections. I haven't seen any reduction in kids getting antibiotics, yet the research is clear that there is no one benefiting except the drug manufacturers. The benefit is 1 out of 16 for reduced pain, but the harm was 1 out of 9 for diarrhea. The benefit to harm ratio doesn't even work.
Before you just blindly take the recommendation to start, or even continue, a medication, take a look at the NNT. While you may be the one saved (if there have been any yet to date), we are told we base our medical treatment on cold hard statistics. Faced with the NNT as that cold hard statistic, I find it hard to imagine a continued rise in medication use. Instead, I see a populace that can finally confront treatments that should have been thrown out long ago, instead of being touted as lifesaving. With informed, empowered patients, the cost of health care could finally start going down, and the quality of health may start to go up.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
When drug manufacturers go before the FDA to license a new medication or market this new drug to doctors, they tout the relative risk reduction (or RRR) numbers. They make claims like osteoporosis drugs cut your risk of fracture by 50%, or blood pressure drugs cut your risk of stroke by 45%, or statin (cholesterol lowering) drugs cut your risk of heart attacks by 50%. These numbers are astounding, but completely misleading. These numbers are all based on relative risk.
Think of it like this. Take 1000 adults, of which two would die from a heart attack. If we place all 1000 on the medication, and one of the two that would have died is saved, this is a 50% reduction in the death rate, so we can say that taking this medication reduces your risk of dying from a heart attack by 50%. That's relative risk. What they are failing to mention is the other 998 who would not have had a heart attack anyway, that either received no benefit, or were actually harmed by the medication. And, we're assuming that all 1000 will be on the drug for the rest of their lives to save that one person and achieve that astounding 50% rating.
Instead of using relative risk, we need to be focusing our attention on the number need to treat or NNT. How many patients have to take the medication for the rest of their lives to save one person? When we look at that same scenario above, we see that in order to save that one person, we need to treat 999 others. When we look at it from this perspective, we are talking about the absolute risk benefit (or ARB). Again, in this case, it is not 50%, but .01%. Unfortunately, these numbers have been well hidden by not only the drug manufacturers, but also industrialized medicine and government policy makers for way too long. Luckily, this concept is finally being released to the general public. While not a complete database by any means yet, you can check the NNT of a variety of medications at www.thennt.com. This website has taken the time to compile the real statistics so consumers can finally have accurate information.
In some cases, the NNT is extremely good. Take defribillation for cardiac arrest. It has an NNT of 2.5. That's great. We need to treat 2.5 people to save one. I'll take those odds; keep the paddles ready. Another is steroids given during an asthma attack. It has an NNT of 8. Again, that's a pretty good number. There's a whole host of great treatments out there that this data reinforces. However, there are many more lies that are finally being debunked.
Take Sally Fields and her bisphosphonates for osteoporosis. There is no NNT, because there is no one saved from having the fracture. This multi-billion dollar a year market is all based on smoke and mirrors. The same can be said for aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke. The NNT is 1667. That means we have to treat 1667 people who will get absolutely not benefit, and could well end up with a bleeding ulcer, in order to prevent one person from getting a heart attack OR a stroke. And yet, how many out there are taking their baby aspirin, making millions of dollars for Bayer a year? Another without an NNT because there is absolutely no benefit is antibiotics for ear infections. I haven't seen any reduction in kids getting antibiotics, yet the research is clear that there is no one benefiting except the drug manufacturers. The benefit is 1 out of 16 for reduced pain, but the harm was 1 out of 9 for diarrhea. The benefit to harm ratio doesn't even work.
Before you just blindly take the recommendation to start, or even continue, a medication, take a look at the NNT. While you may be the one saved (if there have been any yet to date), we are told we base our medical treatment on cold hard statistics. Faced with the NNT as that cold hard statistic, I find it hard to imagine a continued rise in medication use. Instead, I see a populace that can finally confront treatments that should have been thrown out long ago, instead of being touted as lifesaving. With informed, empowered patients, the cost of health care could finally start going down, and the quality of health may start to go up.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Get Sick or Die
What would you do if I told you that if by this time next week I was going to check in on your health, and if you weren't sick, I was going to kill you? Call me a health terrorist. Either you find a way to guarantee you'll be sick, or you'll be dead. What would you do? How could you not just increase your risk, but actually guarantee that you will be ill?
This is a question I always ask my students when we talk about common colds, flues, and other contagious illnesses. Instead of having them think about staying well, I turn their thought process around and make them come up with ways to get sick. Most classes give me the same responses to start. Things like don't wash your hands; hang around others who are sick; spend time in a school or day care; or touch others who are sick, and then touch your nose or eyes. When I get those responses, I then come back with a question: will that guarantee you will get sick? Remember your life is on the line. At this point I get usually get blank stares, since we've been taught by society to focus so much on minimizing germ transmission that they rarely have any concept of what it takes for our bodies to really get sick.
If you want to guarantee illness, you must first look at what it takes to keep yourself healthy. Will washing your hands guarantee health? How about being around only healthy people? If you never go to a school or day care, will you never get sick? Look at all those who are always around sick people, and rarely get sick themselves. How does that work? Being and staying healthy has very little to do with germ exposure. Your risk of getting sick is much more determined by how you take care of yourself, than how often or what type of critters to which you expose yourself.
As we move into the cold and flu season, this is an especially important concept to discuss. How can you reduce your risk of getting sick? It all comes down to looking at the host, and not spending so much time on the bugs.
1. Make sure you are getting adequate high quality rest. Not only is it important to sleep for an adequate amount, but it is also important to make sure that it is good quality. That means without the TV or radio and the room as dark as you can get it. This is true for not only adults, but also kids. Nightlights disturb our sleep.
2. Eat a diet that consists of adequate protein, has lots of veggies, and is as unrefined as possible. Sugar is an immune suppressant, and directly competes with vitamin C to get into your cells. The more processed your food, the more your body has to process it to get rid of its waste. If you can't tell what type of plant or animal it came from, think twice (or thrice) about putting it in your system.
3. Drink plenty of water. Dehydration is a common occurrence in our population. We tend to "hydrate" with soda, fruit juice, milk, energy drinks, and coffee, all of which dehydrate instead of hydrate. If you don't have enough water in your system, it's like having the toilet full of waste without water to flush it down. Things get plugged up and start to smell.
4. Keep your vitamin D levels up. I discussed this in a previous blog, but one of the issues with cold and flu season is dropping vitamin D levels. Have your level checked, and make sure you're in the 65-80 ng/ml range.
5. Learn to handle stress better. Your immune system is suppressed by stress, and that stress can be mechanical from your spine as much as emotional or chemical. If you are not handling stress well, you will not be able to fight off those bugs, and getting a regular chiropractic adjustment has been shown to stimulate the immune system.
6. Protect yourself from temperature swings. We've been enjoying some great weather for the past few weeks, but we all know winter is on its way, and it will soon be freezing cold outside. Does being cold cause us to get sick? Yes and no. When our body temp drops, we become more susceptible to infection, and when we put ourselves in a position to not stay warm when we're outside, that's exactly what happens. Bundle up, keeping the head and ears warm and protecting the neck from wind. It seems these are the areas that are most important to keeping ourselves in the best shape.
So, if you were the health terrorist, and I was the victim, what would I do? I'd stay inside all day long; eat crappy food and drink lots of processed fluids; stress myself out; don't sleep; and go outside in the cold and wind in shorts and a t-shirt for as long as I could stand it. Would this guarantee my illness? Maybe not guarantee, but it's as close as I can get. Focus on yourself instead of the bugs, and chances are, you won't have to worry about the bugs.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
This is a question I always ask my students when we talk about common colds, flues, and other contagious illnesses. Instead of having them think about staying well, I turn their thought process around and make them come up with ways to get sick. Most classes give me the same responses to start. Things like don't wash your hands; hang around others who are sick; spend time in a school or day care; or touch others who are sick, and then touch your nose or eyes. When I get those responses, I then come back with a question: will that guarantee you will get sick? Remember your life is on the line. At this point I get usually get blank stares, since we've been taught by society to focus so much on minimizing germ transmission that they rarely have any concept of what it takes for our bodies to really get sick.
If you want to guarantee illness, you must first look at what it takes to keep yourself healthy. Will washing your hands guarantee health? How about being around only healthy people? If you never go to a school or day care, will you never get sick? Look at all those who are always around sick people, and rarely get sick themselves. How does that work? Being and staying healthy has very little to do with germ exposure. Your risk of getting sick is much more determined by how you take care of yourself, than how often or what type of critters to which you expose yourself.
As we move into the cold and flu season, this is an especially important concept to discuss. How can you reduce your risk of getting sick? It all comes down to looking at the host, and not spending so much time on the bugs.
1. Make sure you are getting adequate high quality rest. Not only is it important to sleep for an adequate amount, but it is also important to make sure that it is good quality. That means without the TV or radio and the room as dark as you can get it. This is true for not only adults, but also kids. Nightlights disturb our sleep.
2. Eat a diet that consists of adequate protein, has lots of veggies, and is as unrefined as possible. Sugar is an immune suppressant, and directly competes with vitamin C to get into your cells. The more processed your food, the more your body has to process it to get rid of its waste. If you can't tell what type of plant or animal it came from, think twice (or thrice) about putting it in your system.
3. Drink plenty of water. Dehydration is a common occurrence in our population. We tend to "hydrate" with soda, fruit juice, milk, energy drinks, and coffee, all of which dehydrate instead of hydrate. If you don't have enough water in your system, it's like having the toilet full of waste without water to flush it down. Things get plugged up and start to smell.
4. Keep your vitamin D levels up. I discussed this in a previous blog, but one of the issues with cold and flu season is dropping vitamin D levels. Have your level checked, and make sure you're in the 65-80 ng/ml range.
5. Learn to handle stress better. Your immune system is suppressed by stress, and that stress can be mechanical from your spine as much as emotional or chemical. If you are not handling stress well, you will not be able to fight off those bugs, and getting a regular chiropractic adjustment has been shown to stimulate the immune system.
6. Protect yourself from temperature swings. We've been enjoying some great weather for the past few weeks, but we all know winter is on its way, and it will soon be freezing cold outside. Does being cold cause us to get sick? Yes and no. When our body temp drops, we become more susceptible to infection, and when we put ourselves in a position to not stay warm when we're outside, that's exactly what happens. Bundle up, keeping the head and ears warm and protecting the neck from wind. It seems these are the areas that are most important to keeping ourselves in the best shape.
So, if you were the health terrorist, and I was the victim, what would I do? I'd stay inside all day long; eat crappy food and drink lots of processed fluids; stress myself out; don't sleep; and go outside in the cold and wind in shorts and a t-shirt for as long as I could stand it. Would this guarantee my illness? Maybe not guarantee, but it's as close as I can get. Focus on yourself instead of the bugs, and chances are, you won't have to worry about the bugs.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Mom's Stress Isn't Trivial
It's the time of year to pull out the pile of research that I've collected about how stress affects the human body. Next month I have to be prepared to articulate eight hours of lecture to chiropractors about not only how it changes us, but also what we can do to help our patients reduce the effects. There are many results of stress that are startling to those that haven't studied the subject, but some of the most shocking deal with the consequences of stress during pregnancy.
Men and women are different, plain and simple. From a physiological viewpoint, there are certain reactions that are predominantly male and others that are female. There are certain conditions that are more prevalent in one sex than the other. In regards to stress, this holds true as well. Men and women react differently to stress. They have the same basic response, but how the body ends up expressing itself is different. There is both a masculine and a feminine reaction to stress.
Women generally have a slower, but exaggerated response to stress, taking longer to start, but secreting higher levels of hormones that stick around longer. They tend to retain their memory function better during stressful events, but stress disrupts their sex hormones more than men. While men feel a "fight or flight" reaction, women are more prone to "tend and befriend". Women also exhibit more ruminative thinking, where they rewind the event over and over. There are significant differences in stress response between the sexes, and it relates to how their hormones are supposed to work in the body.
In the lecture, after I've described the different reactions, I discuss how the stress reaction changes over time, starting with prenatal exposure. Here are two statements that I think need to be shouted from the loudest media outlet available:
"Prenatal stress exposure may pre-program the brain to increased susceptibility to neuropsychiatric disorders" and "Prenatal stress exposure to males causes physiological and stress reaction feminization". (links to the full text articles are at the end of this blog)
In plain English, that means that if mom is stressed, especially during the early part of her pregnancy, the baby can suffer life long consequences, including an increased risk for conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. In addition, if the baby is male, they likely will develop a physiology that is more female than male, and their reactions to stress will follow in that female mold instead of following a traditional male pattern.
Do we really want our little boys to end up physiologically like little girls? Does anyone want their kids to end up with a lifetime of emotional suffering? I would hope the answers to both questions are a resounding NO! Then why are we not telling women at their first prenatal visit that they need to do whatever they can to reduce their stress level for the health of their baby? Why aren't expectant fathers, brothers, grandparents, and even coworkers being told that the best thing they can do for the new baby is reduce the stress level of the expectant mother? Are we afraid that moms and dads can't handle the truth? Granted, this research has only been out for a few years and was done on mice, but there is research that hits the media outlets almost before it is published in the journals and no researcher in their right mind would ever consider doing this on humans. Extrapolation from animals to humans is all we have on pregnancy models. I would think that at the very least magazines like Parenting, or Pregnancy and Newborns would have this as their cover story at least once a year.
Some research relies on word of mouth for its publicity, and it seems that prenatal stress exposure and its long term consequences is in that category. For the health of not only our families, but of our society as a whole, I believe it is imperative that we help our pregnant mothers understand that they hold the long-term health of their baby in their minds. Increasing their stress levels can have profound negative effects on their babies. Anyone who cares about that baby should make it their priority to minimize the stress exposure of mom. Mom's stress isn't trivial, it's paramount to the health of our future generation.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
The Neuroendocrinology of Stress: A Never Ending Story
Examining the Intersection of Sex and Stress in Modeling Neuropsychiatric Disorders
Men and women are different, plain and simple. From a physiological viewpoint, there are certain reactions that are predominantly male and others that are female. There are certain conditions that are more prevalent in one sex than the other. In regards to stress, this holds true as well. Men and women react differently to stress. They have the same basic response, but how the body ends up expressing itself is different. There is both a masculine and a feminine reaction to stress.
Women generally have a slower, but exaggerated response to stress, taking longer to start, but secreting higher levels of hormones that stick around longer. They tend to retain their memory function better during stressful events, but stress disrupts their sex hormones more than men. While men feel a "fight or flight" reaction, women are more prone to "tend and befriend". Women also exhibit more ruminative thinking, where they rewind the event over and over. There are significant differences in stress response between the sexes, and it relates to how their hormones are supposed to work in the body.
In the lecture, after I've described the different reactions, I discuss how the stress reaction changes over time, starting with prenatal exposure. Here are two statements that I think need to be shouted from the loudest media outlet available:
"Prenatal stress exposure may pre-program the brain to increased susceptibility to neuropsychiatric disorders" and "Prenatal stress exposure to males causes physiological and stress reaction feminization". (links to the full text articles are at the end of this blog)
In plain English, that means that if mom is stressed, especially during the early part of her pregnancy, the baby can suffer life long consequences, including an increased risk for conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. In addition, if the baby is male, they likely will develop a physiology that is more female than male, and their reactions to stress will follow in that female mold instead of following a traditional male pattern.
Do we really want our little boys to end up physiologically like little girls? Does anyone want their kids to end up with a lifetime of emotional suffering? I would hope the answers to both questions are a resounding NO! Then why are we not telling women at their first prenatal visit that they need to do whatever they can to reduce their stress level for the health of their baby? Why aren't expectant fathers, brothers, grandparents, and even coworkers being told that the best thing they can do for the new baby is reduce the stress level of the expectant mother? Are we afraid that moms and dads can't handle the truth? Granted, this research has only been out for a few years and was done on mice, but there is research that hits the media outlets almost before it is published in the journals and no researcher in their right mind would ever consider doing this on humans. Extrapolation from animals to humans is all we have on pregnancy models. I would think that at the very least magazines like Parenting, or Pregnancy and Newborns would have this as their cover story at least once a year.
Some research relies on word of mouth for its publicity, and it seems that prenatal stress exposure and its long term consequences is in that category. For the health of not only our families, but of our society as a whole, I believe it is imperative that we help our pregnant mothers understand that they hold the long-term health of their baby in their minds. Increasing their stress levels can have profound negative effects on their babies. Anyone who cares about that baby should make it their priority to minimize the stress exposure of mom. Mom's stress isn't trivial, it's paramount to the health of our future generation.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
The Neuroendocrinology of Stress: A Never Ending Story
Examining the Intersection of Sex and Stress in Modeling Neuropsychiatric Disorders
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Introduce Your Kids to Food
Obesity is on the rise, as are immune system disorders like allergies, asthma, and autoimmune diseases. Much of this, I believe, comes from the choices we make in our diets. As adults, we have control over what we put in our mouths, but our kids rely on us to make good choices for them. Infants especially are at the mercy of adults to make the best choices for what goes into their mouths. Yet, when I see what parents are feeding infants, I am often flabbergasted. Either most parents don't understand the impact of what they are doing, or they haven't ever been taught what's best. Let's talk about how we introduce our kids to food.
Recommendations are pretty consistent when it comes to infants and diet: breast milk is best, and formula is a distant second. Dietetic and pediatric organizations alike recommend nothing except breast milk or formula for the first six months of life. That means no juice, cow's milk, cereal, or anything else. The reason for this is simple. Infants are designed to absorb milk from mom undigested, with whole proteins made and absorbed. When we introduce foods before the pores in the intestines have begun to close, we set our kids up for a significantly increased risk for allergy related conditions; everything from true allergies to asthma to autoimmune conditions like type I diabetes. Increasing the immune response can also lead to general inflammation; one factor we see that leads to obesity. Early introduction of "real" food is detrimental to the long term health of your child.
"But my kid isn't sleeping through the night" or "they seem hungry yet" is a common thing I hear when I make this recommendation. Shouldn't I add cereal to the formula? Absolutely, positively not. Breast milk is about 54% saturated fat. While formulas range in their nutrient content, none have as high of fat content as breast milk, and most of them have polyunsaturated fat. By adding less fat, formula generally increases its carbohydrate content instead, and by having polyunsaturated fat, overall, the formula is less nutrient dense; it takes more to keep the baby full. Research has shown that fats and protein keep us full, while carbohydrate generally increases our appetite. By adding cereal, which is difficult for the infant to digest, the parents are also introducing protein that often causes immune reactions, and starts the road to an overstimulated immune system. Instead, I recommend parents add what keeps the infant full: fat. Yes, I said add fat to the formula to keep them fuller longer. Start with a small amount of organic unrefined extra virgin coconut oil, and increase it until they seem satisfied. This is a fat that is easily absorbed, utilized, and as similar as we can get to the fat in breast milk.
At six months of age, parents can start adding in "real" food. The question comes in though, as to which foods to start with. Often, parents are told to start with rice cereal. While rice is minimal in its allergenicity, I take a different approach. Of all the foods out there, which category do we see the least allergies with, and which foods do we want our kids to eat the most of? Is it rice cereal? Will eating rice cereal improve our health throughout our lives? Probably not. The foods we want to eat the most and are the least allergenic are vegetables. Why not start there? Pick out those vegetables that we want them to eat the most of, and introduce one per week; broccoli, spinach, carrots, peas, squash, and whatever else you can find green, yellow, or orange. By adding in one per week, you can watch for any potential reactions the immune system may start and identify which food is the likely culprit.
After introducing all of the vegetables, you can move on to fruits, with a few caveats. There are certain foods which should not be introduced to children under the age of two. These include all berries, shellfish, nuts, and peanuts. Those are the classic food allergies, and safest to be kept away for a longer time. So, with the exception of berries, start adding in fruits, again, one per week. Avoid those infant "desserts", since they often add extra sugars and may contain berries. Use the fruits as the child's dessert, but always start with the vegetables in the meal. After all, how does broccoli taste after a nice sweet apple or pear? Don't let them decide, be the parent.
By the time all of the fruits and veggies have been introduced, the child with be almost a year, and you can move on to proteins and/or cereals. Personally, I see no reason to add cereal to their diet. It's bland and they can get plenty of carbohydrate from the fruits and veggies they'll be loving by this time. Stick with the proteins (meats) instead. After a year, you can start the introduction of milk and eggs if you choose. While dairy has been promoted as a base for your child's health, we'll talk in later blogs about how we've been duped into buying a refined product that has much less benefit than we are led to believe.
Kids' palates develop early, and starting them on foods in the wrong order can make it much more difficult to introduce foods that can help them live long healthy lives. My approach to introducing foods is focused on not only getting the most important food group in early (veggies), but also on minimizing the risk of allergic reactions later in life. If every parent used this approach, would we see a reduction in allergies? I can't prove it, but common sense says we would. Even if it wouldn't, getting the veggies in early gives them nutrients they won't get anywhere else, and hopefully sets their taste so they will eat more of them throughout their life.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Recommendations are pretty consistent when it comes to infants and diet: breast milk is best, and formula is a distant second. Dietetic and pediatric organizations alike recommend nothing except breast milk or formula for the first six months of life. That means no juice, cow's milk, cereal, or anything else. The reason for this is simple. Infants are designed to absorb milk from mom undigested, with whole proteins made and absorbed. When we introduce foods before the pores in the intestines have begun to close, we set our kids up for a significantly increased risk for allergy related conditions; everything from true allergies to asthma to autoimmune conditions like type I diabetes. Increasing the immune response can also lead to general inflammation; one factor we see that leads to obesity. Early introduction of "real" food is detrimental to the long term health of your child.
"But my kid isn't sleeping through the night" or "they seem hungry yet" is a common thing I hear when I make this recommendation. Shouldn't I add cereal to the formula? Absolutely, positively not. Breast milk is about 54% saturated fat. While formulas range in their nutrient content, none have as high of fat content as breast milk, and most of them have polyunsaturated fat. By adding less fat, formula generally increases its carbohydrate content instead, and by having polyunsaturated fat, overall, the formula is less nutrient dense; it takes more to keep the baby full. Research has shown that fats and protein keep us full, while carbohydrate generally increases our appetite. By adding cereal, which is difficult for the infant to digest, the parents are also introducing protein that often causes immune reactions, and starts the road to an overstimulated immune system. Instead, I recommend parents add what keeps the infant full: fat. Yes, I said add fat to the formula to keep them fuller longer. Start with a small amount of organic unrefined extra virgin coconut oil, and increase it until they seem satisfied. This is a fat that is easily absorbed, utilized, and as similar as we can get to the fat in breast milk.
At six months of age, parents can start adding in "real" food. The question comes in though, as to which foods to start with. Often, parents are told to start with rice cereal. While rice is minimal in its allergenicity, I take a different approach. Of all the foods out there, which category do we see the least allergies with, and which foods do we want our kids to eat the most of? Is it rice cereal? Will eating rice cereal improve our health throughout our lives? Probably not. The foods we want to eat the most and are the least allergenic are vegetables. Why not start there? Pick out those vegetables that we want them to eat the most of, and introduce one per week; broccoli, spinach, carrots, peas, squash, and whatever else you can find green, yellow, or orange. By adding in one per week, you can watch for any potential reactions the immune system may start and identify which food is the likely culprit.
After introducing all of the vegetables, you can move on to fruits, with a few caveats. There are certain foods which should not be introduced to children under the age of two. These include all berries, shellfish, nuts, and peanuts. Those are the classic food allergies, and safest to be kept away for a longer time. So, with the exception of berries, start adding in fruits, again, one per week. Avoid those infant "desserts", since they often add extra sugars and may contain berries. Use the fruits as the child's dessert, but always start with the vegetables in the meal. After all, how does broccoli taste after a nice sweet apple or pear? Don't let them decide, be the parent.
By the time all of the fruits and veggies have been introduced, the child with be almost a year, and you can move on to proteins and/or cereals. Personally, I see no reason to add cereal to their diet. It's bland and they can get plenty of carbohydrate from the fruits and veggies they'll be loving by this time. Stick with the proteins (meats) instead. After a year, you can start the introduction of milk and eggs if you choose. While dairy has been promoted as a base for your child's health, we'll talk in later blogs about how we've been duped into buying a refined product that has much less benefit than we are led to believe.
Kids' palates develop early, and starting them on foods in the wrong order can make it much more difficult to introduce foods that can help them live long healthy lives. My approach to introducing foods is focused on not only getting the most important food group in early (veggies), but also on minimizing the risk of allergic reactions later in life. If every parent used this approach, would we see a reduction in allergies? I can't prove it, but common sense says we would. Even if it wouldn't, getting the veggies in early gives them nutrients they won't get anywhere else, and hopefully sets their taste so they will eat more of them throughout their life.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
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