Omega 3's

Today I intend to end the four part discussion on how to reduce inflammation to promote better health and prevent disease.  In terms of diet, this process can be summed up by the simple matter of choosing greens over grains.  As was discussed a couple weeks ago, grains and animals that are fed on grains contain the omega 6 fatty acids that promote inflammation in the body while greens (vegetables and many fruits) contain the omega 3 fatty acids that decrease inflammation in the body to promote health.

Animals raised entirely on greens or grasses, known as free range or wild game, will provide these omega 3 fatty acids through the diet.  This is precisely why fish oil is considered to be so beneficial to so many different components of health and has been proven valuable in reducing the risk of everything from cholesterol and heart disease to Alzheimer’s and depression.  The medical research on the benefits of fish oil are abundant and still growing.  Many believe that every Canadian should be taking a supplement of fish oil daily.  But I want you to know that if you are eating the proper amount of greens and are choosing meat that is organic/free range, you do not have to worry about supplementing omega 3’s as much.

I hope you have found this segment on inflammation helpful as I believe it to be one of the biggest determinants of health over disease.  

De-Flame

Over the last two weeks we have discussed the dangers of inflammation in the body and the research that all disease begins with some level of inflammation.  We have discussed how oils (corn/vegetable) and all grains (even the healthier ones) contribute to this inflammatory process.  Today I’d like to talk about what you can and should be doing to reverse this process and “deflame.”

Turns out, Mom was right again – you need to eat your fruits and vegetables.  These are nature’s anti-inflammatories and eating them regularly will decrease your risk of nearly every disease.  To get the real value of these foods you should eat most fruits and vegetables raw or lightly steamed.  Cooking at high temperatures breaks down the enzymes and fiber that you are trying to get.  How much should you eat?  This recommendation has changed and they are now saying that you should have 5-13 servings every day!  If you are eating organically, you can likely get away with just five servings, but if you are eating traditional non-organic sources, you should eat more because the organic sources are much richer with the desired vitamins and minerals that promote health.

Before you panic at this amount, an apple is considered to be two servings.  This means that if you commit to having a raw, organic source of fruit or vegetable with every meal of every day you will be covered and on the pathway to better health.

Inflammation (Oils)

Last week we began the discussion of how to reduce inflammation in the body in order to help prevent all forms of disease.  In our diets, with every bite we eat or sip we take, we are either deflaming or inflaming.  Since the diseases that result from chronic inflammation develop very slowly until it’s too late, learning to make the right choices can be the biggest factor for better health.

Last week we discussed that all grains, even whole wheat, will increase inflammation in the body.  This week, it should not come as a surprise that all oils dramatically increase this same inflammation.  In the 70’s and 80’s, we were sold the lie that margarines, corn oils and vegetable oils were good for us.  The truth is that when we use these trans fats, it is like drinking arthritis and disease.  In fact, all oils, all fried foods, and all foods made from oils such as salad dressing and most pre-packaged foods will increase inflammation in the body.  Corn oil specifically will cause a 70:1 ratio of inflammation.  This means it would take nearly 70 servings of broccoli to balance the inflammatory effect of one tablespoon of corn oil!

The lesson here is the same as with grains – moderation and good choices.  When using oils we should gravitate toward products such as extra virgin olive oil (11:1 ratio) or better yet, coconut oil.  When using olive oil, be careful not to cook at high heat as olive oil will degrade into a trans fat (hydrogenated oil) at extreme temperature – try not to let it smoke. 

Inflammation

If there were one thing that every person could do to promote health and prevent all forms of disease it would be to “deflame”.  Nearly all experts agree that the common denominator of every disease is inflammation in the body.  Chronic inflammation will cause everything from pain and arthritis to cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.  In the next few weeks, I will be discussing how to decrease inflammation in the body.

Most of the process of reducing and avoiding inflammation in the body will start with diet.  Stated simply, we need to increase the foods that decrease inflammation and decrease the foods that promote inflammation.  One food that promotes inflammation may surprise you is grains.  But whole grains are supposed to be good for us, right?  The nutrients and fiber in whole grains certainly are beneficial and whole grains are much better than white bread and products made from white flour.  However, all grains are inflammatory.

Most grains contain two ingredients that are the source of the problem.  You’ve likely heard of gluten.  This protein will often cause a type of allergic reaction in the body that begins in the bowel.  Grains also contain a substance called phytic acid that will reduce the absorption of calcium, magnesium and zinc.  Likewise, all grains will cause the pH of our body to become more acidic which is known to cause inflammation.

Limiting the intake of grains is a great solution for reducing inflammation.  In the next few weeks I’ll discuss other strategies.

Caffeine

 What do Coffee, Tea, Alcohol and Soda have in common?  Anything you drink with caffeine or alcohol can dehydrate you by turning off antidiuretic hormone in your kidneys.  This hormone causes your kidneys to return water back to the body.  If it is shut off, you lose water.  When you take water out of your body, you dry up causing: fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, headaches, toxicity, etc.  Staying hydrated is one of the most important things you can do to promote health!

I’m amazed with how many people “don’t like water.”  This is equivalent to saying, “I don’t like air.”  Our bodies are about 65% water by weight.  Water is one of the least forgiving of all the nutrients – you can only survive a couple days without it. It is responsible for the transport of nutrients, oxygen, and waste products, as well as regulating your body temperature and serving as the medium in which almost all of your body’s chemical reactions take place.  Drinking an adequate amount of clean water is one of the most overlooked but simple ways of keeping healthy.

Most agree that you should have around 8-10 (8 oz) glasses of water each and every day.  Others say you should take your weight in pounds and divide that number by ‘2’ and this number is the amount of water in ounces you should drink daily.  Regardless, it is my experience that most people could benefit from more water.

If you truly cannot learn to like the taste of water, I recommend mineral water, unsweetened green or black teas, water with lemon added or mixed with fruit juice.  You can substitute a couple glasses of unsweetened fruit juice each day.  However, you cannot count caffeinated tea, coffee, or soda as the water that is in these is lost through the kidneys as a result of caffeine.

Antibiotics and the Immune System

With flu and the immune system being such a hot subject, I was recently asked about any concern of taking antibiotics.  I often explain to the members of our practice that taking an antibiotic will work like a nuclear bomb – it will often kill the bad bacteria, but it can eliminate all the good bacteria as well.

We have become a society obsessed with germs, but the reality is that there are over 70 trillion cells in the body and for every one of these cells, there should be about 10 “good” bacteria to support our system.  In a healthy individual there should be approximately eight pounds of these good germs just in the colon alone!  They exist in the body to digest waste products and toxins and to assist the digestive system by breaking down waste in the bowel.  Most importantly, these good germs seem to act as a first line of defense for the immune system by attacking any bad germs that enter our body when we eat, drink, or swallow.  When these good germs are killed off by excessive antibiotics, the immune system will be compromised leaving us even more susceptible to the bad germs.

My standard recommendation to people is to use antibiotics sparingly and only when the body is unable to fight off infection on its own with the help of a healthy lifestyle.  If antibiotics are used, try following them up with a protocol of probiotics.  These are the good bacteria that should be in our systems.  You can find these in a liquid or capsule form and what you will be looking for is something that contains lactobacillus acidophilus.  Yes, you can get some of this by eating natural yogurt, but many of the commercial yogurts are so laden with sugars that undermine the function of the immune system and promote yeast.

New Study

I really had every intention to leave sugar alone for a while, but a recent article from the Journal of Experimental Medicine has changed my mind.

If you thought the extra sugar you and your kids ate at Easter had little or only a short term effect, think again.  This latest research has shown that human genes remember a sugar hit for up to two weeks and change the way your body functions.  These authors concluded that all poor eating habits have what they referred to as “dramatic and long-lasting effects” on our cells.  Regular poor eating seems to amplify this effect.

This research can be added to the long list of material that suggests that ‘nurture’ is a bigger factor in determining health than ‘nature.’  We used to be taught that we were victims of our genes and that health and sickness comes down to a matter of good or bad luck.  They now know that our genes are turned on or off based on our lifestyle choices and our environment – this is the determining factor of health over disease.

The life lesson here is that all the lifestyle choices we make last a lot longer than we might think.  Furthermore, because lifestyle choices change the expression of our genes, we pass these tendencies to future generations.

The Flu

In the past couple articles, I’ve discussed how sugar decreases a person’s potential for wellness by compromising the immune system and limiting a person’s defense.  In this article, I’d like to point out one of the many ways to strengthen the immune system and improve defense.

One of the studies that inspired me to pursue chiropractic in the first place was performed in 1989 by Ronald Pero, Ph.D.  Dr. Pero was the chief cancer prevention researcher at New York University.  Since cancer is recognized as an immune system problem, Dr. Pero decided to check the immune systems of people under chiropractic care as compared to people in the general population and to people with cancer or other serious disease.  In a 3 year study of 107 individuals who had been under regular chiropractic care for at least 5 years, he found that this chiropractic group had a 200% greater immune function than the general public.  More than this, he found that the chiropractic group had a 400% greater immunity than people with cancer and other disease.

In his conclusion, Dr. Pero reported, “I have never seen a group other than this chiropractic group to experience a 200% increase over the normal patients.”

In addition to regular exercise, proper diet and reduced stress, maintaining the proper function of your spine and nervous system through regular chiropractic adjustments is proven to be a vital component of optimal health and wellness.

Sugar and Immunity

If you missed last week’s column, I picked on sugar.  If you missed it, that’s o.k. because this week I’m going to do it again!

Last week I reported how cutting sugar in schools improves student performance and behavior.  We all know that sugar contributes to obesity and of course is the main cause of type II diabetes.  This week I’d like to talk about how sugar adversely impacts your body’s defense or your immune system.

I’ve heard it reported that the amount of sugar in a single soda (which is about 12 teaspoons!) will virtually shut down your immune system for about two hours.  This makes you much more susceptible to all types of infection.

Did you know that about 75 years ago the Nobel Prize was given to Dr. Warburg of Germany when he discovered that sugar caused cancer?  Dr. Warburg reported that almost anything can cause cancer, but that there is only one prime cause and that is the fermentation of sugar in normal body cells.

A similar 2004 study concluded that women who ate more sugar-laden foods were nearly three times more likely to develop colon cancer.

We all know that sugar is bad for us, but hopefully this information can serve as motivation to avoid the sweets more often for better health.

Sugar and Our Children

Despite the reported side effects of psychosis, mania, and hallucinations, over 4 million children in the U.S. are using prescriptions of ADD and ADHD medications.

An Atlanta, Georgia school principal has taken on an alternative approach.  What did he do in his school . . . banned all sugar.  After overcoming his own health problems with diet and exercise, Principal Butler requires physical exercise in his school and they have enforced a policy of no sugar.  Instead, the lunch room serves healthy lunches and snacks.

According to Butler, after adopting this simple policy in his school, just in the first year standardized test scores improved 15% and discipline problems decreased by 23%.  As an added benefit, student health has improved dramatically and obesity is virtually non-existent in his school.

Principle Butler also notes, “In nine years we have saved $425,000.  We’ve done that not by cutting back, but by having more fruits and vegetables.”

Hopefully, in time, all schools will follow the practical lead being taken by this Atlanta school.  But until that happens, we can all develop similar policies in our own homes.  If you want to see changes in your kids, start with yourself – be the example that you want to see in them!

Cholesterol

Want the latest on cholesterol?

While some drug companies are pushing to have the cholesterol numbers lowered again, recently, the Mayo clinic did a study to see how lifestyle changes would compete with taking a prescription (statin) to lower cholesterol.  The results . . . there was no competition.

In the study, the first group took 40 mg of a commonly prescribed statin and their “bad cholesterol” number did go down.  The second group was given vitamins and fish oil and placed on a 12 week program of healthy diet and exercise.  They were taught the Mediterranean style diet.  They also learned about saturated fat and were instructed to limit overall fat consumption to under 25% and to reduce sugar and processed carbohydrates.  They worked with an exercise physiologist to gradually increase their exercise to 5-6 times per week for 30-45 minutes per day.

In the end, the medication group did lower their bad cholesterol number.  But the lifestyle group also lowered this number without any medication and reported feeling better, having more energy and losing weight.  Another bonus is that the good (healthy) cholesterol goes up with proper lifestyle and diet and this second group also benefited from lower triglycerides (not seen with the statin group).

Whether watching your cholesterol or not, we all can benefit from a Mediterranean diet, exercise, and omega 3 fatty acids (such as fish oil).  This combination reduces the inflammation in the body that is linked to high cholesterol, heart disease, and virtually every other disease as well.

Thanks for checking out our blog!!  We are constantly looking for ways to better serve you and to help you live a healthier, more active life.  The following weekly articles are just an extra way to keep you informed of today's health issues, so that you can make the right decisions about your health and live the live you want to live.  Once again, thanks for reading.  Enjoy!

Exercise and Brain Function

What would you pay for a pill if you knew it was guaranteed to slow or even stop your brain from aging?  Well, there is no such pill, but the great news is that based on recent information, you don’t need a pill and it doesn’t cost anything to maintain healthy mental function.  Researchers have determined that the primary thing you need to do for your brain is to exercise your body!

Physical exercise is essential for wellness.  Most people are aware that exercise is critical for maintaining weight, lowering blood pressure, improving sleep, decreasing stress, decreasing pain and even preventing many cancers.  But if these benefits are still not enough to get you going, one 2008 study showed that just walking briskly for 45 minutes three days per week improved “mental fitness” in just six months time. 

A similar study released last September showed that 20 minutes of any exercise per day resulted in improved cognitive function and memory.  The best part of this study was that these benefits persisted even 12 months after exercise had been discontinued!

Regardless of your reasons, the message here is that exercise works, and the results are long-lasting.  If you’re not exercising now, it’s time to start.  This study and most others suggest that you need to commit to at least 120 minutes of exercise per week in order to get the best results.

Good luck and always remember that your body was designed to be self-healing.  Practice a healthy lifestyle and let health happen.

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