Aug
20
2016

New FDA Food Guidelines

By | Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, coffee, Health, heart attack, Heart Disease, Mortality, Nutrition, Stroke, sugar

A recent news release describes 2016 new FDA food guidelines. In it the FDA recommends to double the amount of seafood (fish and shellfish) as well as to cut down saturated fat and sugar. Coffee, which was labeled a culprit in the past is now recommended to a total of 400 mg of caffeine per day as it is heart protective. Cholesterol is no longer considered an enemy, but sugar, saturated fats and trans fats are.

Here is a breakdown of what each of these recommendations means.

New FDA food guidelines regarding increasing fish and shellfish

The anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3 fatty acids have finally entered the recommended diet plan of the FDA. This reflects the nutritional research over the last few decades that noticed a longer life expectancy for people who eat more seafood and less red meat.

The only problem with seafood can be its mercury contamination. The higher predator fish are in the food chain, the more contaminated fish meat is. The FDA recommends to avoid tuna fish as a food source, as it is very high in mercury. An exception is canned tuna as it has been washed and some of the mercury got lost in the food processing. Wild salmon, sardines and oysters are low in mercury and good sources of omega-3 oils.

New FDA food guidelines regarding reduction of saturated fat

The FDA now recommend to reduce saturated fat to 10% of the total daily caloric intake. This is not undisputed as some studies show that saturated fat may not be involved in the production of hardening of the arteries. Other studies have shown that breast cancer is more common when more saturated fat is consumed.

When the news came out in the 1980’s that saturated fats would be bad for arteries, there was a switch to polyunsaturated acids: safflower oil, canola oil, sunflower seed oil, corn oil and soybean oil or grape-seed oil.

However, the irony is that these vegetable oils were highly unstable and led to oxidation causing heart disease and cancer.

In contrast olive oil is a much more stable oil. In the Mediterranean olive oil associates with longer lives.

New FDA food guidelines regarding protective effect of coffee

In the past few years many studies have shown the coffee consumption prolongs life. The FDA has now officially recognized these studies and recommends that consumption of up to 400 mg caffeine will help promote health. On the other hand the FDA also recommends that those who do not drink coffee, should not change their lifestyle just because of these recommendations.

New FDA food guidelines regarding sugar reduction

An entirely new recommendation of the FDA says to reduce sugar in anybody’s diet. The FDA explains that too many processed foods contain sugar. Food merchants  add sugar in drinks like coffee, fruit juices, food items like muffins and cakes.

In the past decades it has become clear that sugar much more so than fat is the culprit. It is sugar and starchy food that causes hardening of arteries. The liver metabolizes sugar into triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. Elevated triglycerides and LDL cholesterol levels lead to deposited into arteries and fatty tissue. In this context it makes sense that the FDA now recommends a reduction of sugar intake.

 New FDA food guidelines regarding cholesterol

In the past scientists thought that cholesterol in meat would be the cause of high cholesterol in the blood. This was an oversimplification. We now know that only a small portion of the blood cholesterol comes from food sources.  Cholesterol from food sources is no longer of importance with regard to risks for heart attacks and strokes. It is sugar and too many starchy foods (bread, pasta, pizza, muffins, cakes cookies) that the body digests into sugar. This accounts for high cholesterol, as the liver metabolizes sugar into LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

New FDA Food Guidelines

New FDA Food Guidelines

Conclusion

The new food guide by the FDA has fundamentally changed the previous recommendations based on newer nutritional studies. Now the FDA says to double fish and shellfish in comparison to previous recommendations. Coffee is no longer the enemy, but your friend. You need to avoid sugar and starch over consumption, as this can raise cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Eat more vegetables and fruit. These recommendations closely resemble a Mediterranean diet, which several studies tell us prolong life. Abandon the American Standard diet with hamburgers, processed foods and sugary drinks. Pay attention to the FDA food recommendations!

May
14
2016

Hormone Replacement Therapy In Menopause

By | Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, heart attack, Hormones, Menopause, Mortality, Osteoporosis, Stroke

Back in the 1980’s many physicians were hopeful that hormone replacement therapy in menopause (HRT) could extend the lives of postmenopausal women by approximately 10 years, if HRT would be started early enough. But the HERS study (Heart and Estrogen/progestin Replacement Study) in 1998 and the WHI study (Women’s Health Initiative) of 2002 changed things dramatically.

The HERS study did not show any benefit with regard to prevention of heart disease. Instead it showed more gallbladder disease (1.38-fold) and blood clots (2.89-fold) develop in the experimental group versus the placebo.

The WHI study was complex and had several arms. There also were some methodological errors in the study as pointed out here.

Instead of a decrease in heart attacks, there was an increase, when estrogen and progestin was combined. There were more cases of colon cancer, more blood clots and heart attacks in the placebo groups compared to the experimental groups. It seems that something went wrong with these trials.

Unknown facts about hormone replacement therapy in menopause

Premarin is not bioidentical to human estrogens

Both clinical trials used the wrong hormones to do the trials. If you use the wrong hormones in a trial, you would expect to get the wrong test results. Horse derived estrogen (equine estrogen) is hardly a match for bioidentical, human estrogen in women. But decades ago the drug manufacturer had decided that estrogen was easiest to manufacture on a large scale when urine from pregnant mares was used. The product contains conjugated horse estrogen and is known by the name Premarin. Premarin is not bioidentical to human estrogens.

Synthetic progesterone causes heart attacks

The other hormone, medroxy progesterone (MPA) is a progestin, a bad copy of the bioidentical progesterone that a woman’s corpus luteum of one of her ovaries produces. This is in the second half of her menstrual cycle. During pregnancy the placenta produces lots of progesterone to protect the pregnancy. As Dr. Masley, a cardiologist stated synthetic progestins cause heart attacks, while progesterone does not. Masley said: “Medroxy progesterone (MPA) increases the risk for heart disease and for breast cancer. I can’t understand why any physician would recommend medroxy progesterone during menopause, but it is still in use.”

Don’t use estrogen orally, but only by estrogen patch or estrogen cream

Next there is the question whether the liver changes the composition of an oral hormone tablet metabolically or not. The answer is: yes! Dr. Masley stated in the link above that oral estradiol, when compared to estrogen rubbed onto the skin, increases levels of inflammation by 192%. The C-reactive protein (CRP) can be measured with a blood test. The risk for a blood clot increases by 400%. A woman using estrogen should always use the estrogen patch or an estrogen cream with bioidentical estrogen to avoid these complications.

Measure hormones, don’t estimate

Measure hormones – don’t estimate: Hormones are constantly changing and if you don’t measure, you don’t know what you are dealing with. Dr. John Lee showed a long time ago that you should measure hormones and identify those women who are truly hormone deficient. These are the ones who need hormone replacement. However, you use only bioidentical hormones to replace and you replace only as much as is needed to normalize the levels. This is also the level where postmenopausal symptoms disappear. Lee noted: “A 10-year French study of HRT using a low-dose estradiol patch plus oral progesterone shows no increased risk of breast cancer, strokes or heart attacks.”

Measure progesterone hormone levels only in saliva

The elusive progesterone: when the physician measures progesterone as a blood test, it may come back as high while it can be low in a saliva hormone test in the same woman. Dr. Lee has pointed out that studies have shown that progesterone levels in tissue are usually higher by several factors when compared to blood levels and that blood levels are not reliable predictors of tissue levels (Ref.1). On the other hand he found that saliva levels have a good correlation with tissue levels in organs like the ovaries or the uterus. Dr. Lee preferred saliva hormone tests for this reason. When it comes to progesterone levels you can trust saliva test, but you cannot trust blood tests. Many physicians ignore that fact and strictly order blood progesterone levels coming to false conclusions.

Progesterone to estradiol ratio

We know that estrogen and progesterone must be balanced to avoid troubles of developing heart attacks or cancer. The link of Dr. Lee above stated that women without breast cancer have saliva progesterone hormone levels that are more than 200-fold higher than the saliva estradiol levels. On the other hand women with breast cancer have a ratio of less than 200 to 1 with respect to progesterone to estradiol saliva levels. There is a similar ratio in men. Here the ratio of testosterone to estradiol must be larger than 20 to 1. If this is not the case, he is at a higher risk of developing prostate cancer. Unfortunately many older men, when overweight or obese, have high estrogen levels and the ratio is less than 20 to 1.

Bioidentical hormones can prevent heart attacks and strokes

Masley has mentioned that in the first 6 years after menopause using a topical form of estrogen and micronized progesterone as tablets can minimize the risk of future heart attacks and strokes. But after 10 years it is less obvious what is the best solution. The question is what type of estrogen application is used. Is it estradiol or is it Bi-Est or Tri-Est, which are other topical estrogen applications. Tri-Est is 80% estriol, 10% estrone, and 10% estradiol while Bi-Est is 80% estriol and 20% estradiol. Tri-Est in particular would be very close to the natural composition of estrogens in a woman’s body.

What to do after 10 years of hormone replacement therapy in menopause

Given the insecurity what to do after 10 years of menopause, my suspicion is that there are other factors that play a role with respect to hormone replacement. A lot of women have extra pounds accumulated. Fatty tissue contains an enzyme called aromatase.

This makes estrogen from androgenic hormones including testosterone. The adrenal glands situated above the kidneys produce these hormones in menopause. The more overweight or obese a postmenopausal woman is, the higher the estrogen levels in her blood because of the action of the aromatase. Most physicians have not measured hormones in the past, but just replaced hormones monitoring only postmenopausal symptoms. This is changing. What I said under point 4 above is happening more.

Bioidentical hormone replacement practiced by naturopaths

Naturopaths tend to be more comfortable with bioidentical hormone replacement the way I have described it. If you did hormone tests (preferably saliva hormone tests) you would pick up higher estrogen levels and low progesterone levels with unfavorable progesterone to estrogen ratios as mentioned. These women do not need estrogen (they have it already in their systems). They need progesterone replacement only. A woman can take progesterone by mouth as micronized bioidentical progesterone capsules at night. It also  comes as bioidentical progesterone cream for application to the skin. Here is another take on the use of bioidentical hormones.

Hormone Replacement Therapy In Menopause

Hormone Replacement Therapy In Menopause

Conclusion

Bioidentical hormone replacement is complex. It requires some basic knowledge of the facts mentioned above. I find it surprising that two separate research groups could not free themselves of the Big Pharma grip. In not doing so they unwillingly produced studies showing all of the undesirable side effects of using artificial hormones. When manufacturers modify natural hormones with unnatural side-chains, the end products are synthetic hormones. These do not fit the appropriate natural hormone receptors. The anti-aging community as represented by the A4M group (American Academy Of Anti-Aging Medicine) with more than 25,000 physicians worldwide has been saying this all along. Now we know that it is really true. Use hormone replacement knowledgeably and use bioidentical hormones!

References

  1. Dr. John R. Lee: “Natural Progesterone – The remarkable roles of a remarkable hormone”, Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2nd edition, 1999, Bristol, England.
Apr
23
2016

Healing Powers Of Green Tea

By | Alzheimer’s disease, Arthritis, autoimmune disease, blood brain barrier, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, heart attack, Heart Disease, Mortality, Obesity, Stroke, sugar, Weight loss

Powerful catechins that are a special form of bioflavonoids provide the healing powers of green tea. Researchers have proven that these catechins are only in green tea, not so much in black tea. The most effective of several catechins contained in green tea is EGCG, which stands for EpiGalloCatechin-3-Gallate. It crosses the blood/brain barrier and is very important for the protection of the brain from Alzheimer’s disease. But green tea or green tea extract has a diversified pharmacological action. Researchers said that green tea protects you from cardiovascular disease, from obesity, from diabetes, from autoimmune disorders, from cancer, from Alzheimer’s and dementia.

In the following I like to comment on how green tea or its extract can protect from all of these diseases.

Alzheimer’s disease

Although there are 5 or 6 approved anti-Alzheimer’s drugs, none of them work for very long. They may at best postpone the deteriorating memory for 6 months, but then the effect of the drug wears off. The reason is that the drugs do not stop the production of the deadly beta-amyloid. It is the beta-amyloid that damages nerve cells that you want to preserve so you can think and memorize. In contrast a simple phytochemical, the catechin EGCG has been shown in animal experiments and in human trials to stop beta-amyloid production and increase solubility of beta-amyloid fragments in the brain. The end result is better memory and no further deterioration.

Two studies showing less strokes and better working memory processing with green tea

In a study of 13,988 elderly Japanese observed over 3 years the group that consumed 3 to 4 cups of green tea daily had 33% less strokes, cognitive impairment and osteoporosis.

Researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland enrolled 12 healthy volunteers aged 21 to 28 and fed them extracts of green tea or placebo fluid via feeding tubes. They did this to rule out taste as a factor. The patients underwent functional MRI scans and they also received memory-stimulating tasks. Only the green tea extract was boosting activity in the frontal brain of the subjects. This was located in a specific area, called dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This area has a connection with language comprehension, reasoning and learning. It also switches short-term memory into long-term memory, called working memory processing.

Healing powers of green tea through new nerve cell development

Researchers showed with animal experiments that green tea extract protects nerve cells from the toxic effect of beta-amyloid. At the same time green tea extract triggers the production of new brain nerve cells (neurons). This is really good news for Alzheimer’s disease patients and their families: green tea extract delays further memory deterioration and stimulates the development of new nerve cells in the brain!

Cardiovascular disease

In a 2006 Japanese study 40,530 Japanese adults aged 40 to 79 years without history of stroke, coronary heart disease, or cancer at baseline were observed for 7 years. Diaries were kept about how many cups of green tea each person was drinking per day. The prevention of heart attacks and strokes was the the biggest effect of green tea extracts.

Men had a mortality reduction of 12% for heart attacks when they drank 5 cups or more of green tea; in women the corresponding mortality reduction for heart attack was 31%, a bigger effect. Overall mortality from strokes was lower than from heart attacks. This made the effect of green tea consumption even more beneficial with respect to stroke prevention. This study did not show any cancer prevention effect for green tea.

Obesity

It appears that green tea increases heat production and burns fat in the process. There was a small effect in terms of weight loss and a beneficial effect increasing the protective HDL cholesterol in this 2012 Polish study on obese patients. The authors compared either 379 mg of green tea extract, or a placebo, daily for 3 months. They concluded: “The results of this study confirm the beneficial effects of green tea extract supplementation on body mass index, lipid profile, and total antioxidant status in patients with obesity.”

Diabetes

Although there are claims in some studies that green tea would prevent diabetes, this question was thoroughly investigated in this Chinese 2014 study.

Researchers did not see any effects on fasting blood sugars or on hemoglobin A1C values. Hemoglobin A1C is a very sensitive indicator for the presence or absence of diabetes. All these lab tests showed no change following consumption of green tea or green tea extract. Forget using green tea for diabetes prevention; cut out sugar and starchy foods instead.

Autoimmune disorders

Sjogren’s syndrome and lupus are both autoimmune diseases. Green tea extract has shown in humans that symptom severity can improve; green tea polyphenols (GTPs) possess anti-inflammatory properties that benefit patients with autoimmune diseases.

In an animal model arthritis researchers determined that T helper cells are weakened and bone resorption is inhibited by EGCG from green tea extract.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA have noted that green tea extract is useful in calming down the immune response in autoimmune diseases. They concluded: “Altogether, these studies identify and support the use of EGCG as a potential therapeutic agent in preventing and ameliorating T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.”

Cancer

Many researchers found that EGCG from green tea extract has immune modulatory effects. Furthermore, they saw a positive effect when patients received EGCG in combination with chemotherapy. A combination of cisplatin therapy with green tea extract has been found to have more effects on colorectal cancer and ovarian cancer than each one on its own. Similarly chemotherapy of breast cancer had better results in humans when EGCG from green tea extract was added as an immune modulation. More research, particularly in humans is needed to fully understand the mechanism of action of EGCG.

Toxicity of green tea extract

Animal experiments showed that higher doses of green tea extract could cause toxicity in the liver and in the nose of rats and mice. I was not able to find objective evidence for green tea toxicity in the PubMed system with respect to humans.

Healing Powers Of Green Tea

Healing Powers Of Green Tea

Conclusion

Perhaps the most important discovery regarding green tea extract is as follows. It crosses easily through the blood/brain barrier into the brain. This can postpone Alzheimer’s disease and can even lead to new neuron formation. The beneficial cardiovascular effects are also useful and combine well with exercise and good nutrition for prevention. Particularly stroke prevention is a useful property of EGCG from green tea extract. The effect on obesity is marginal whereas there was no effect of green tea on prevention of diabetes. The immune modulatory effect of green tea extract is useful in the treatment of autoimmune diseases and of cancer. Existing treatments for these conditions are becoming more effective by adding green tea extract.

Apr
16
2016

Sleeping Habits

By | Cancer, Heart Disease, Hormones, Insomnia, lifestyle, Mortality, sleep, telomeres

When you are a child or a youngster sleeping habits are rarely a problem. But as people age, they tend to have problems falling asleep and sleeping through the night. Older people may also have certain hormone deficiencies, which can contribute to a change in sleeping habits.

Some basics regarding sleeping habits

There are a couple of facts that everybody should know about sleep, so you work with nature, not against it.

Need of 7 to 8 hours of sleep

The way our bodies are hardwired, we need 7 to 8 hours of sleep and we need to fall asleep between 10PM and 11PM.

Diurnal hormone rhythm

The reason for the relative rigid sleeping schedule time wise is the diurnal hormone rhythm. This is also known as the circadian clock that is dictated by the light of the sun (24 hour cycle). Light going into our eyes in the morning inactivates melatonin. But in the evening the pineal gland releases melatonin after sunset. This is what keeps the internal clock on time. We all know how we derail when we fly east or west. There are differences. I find that I am more affected when I fly west than east. The readjustment for me often takes one or two weeks for a 9-hour time zone difference.

Melatonin production is age-sensitive

Melatonin is gradually produced less as we age. The highest melatonin production occurs around 10 years of age. From then on melatonin production declines. This likely is the reason why older people more often have insomnia problems.

Melatonin rules at night, cortisol rules during the day

There is interplay between melatonin and cortisol. These two hormones complement each other. When you sleep melatonin governs and resets the hormones to be ready in the morning. This involves an early testosterone peak for the male and cortisol, which has to be ready the moment you wake up. It is cortisol coming from the adrenal glands that rules during the day and is giving us energy. Thyroid hormones also gives you energy during the day. As I will explain below, human growth hormone is an energy-giving hormone as well that also clears your mind.

Human growth hormone

What is not as much known is that human growth hormone (GH) provides energy for us. Growth hormone is released as a spurt between midnight and 3 AM, when you’re deep asleep. The purpose of that is to get you ready with regard to energy for the next day. If you drink alcohol after 5PM the afternoon before, you will miss most of that GH spurt during the night and have a hangover (lack of energy the following day).  At the 23 rd Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine on Dec. 13, 2015 in Las Vegas the endocrinologist, Dr. Thierry Hertoghe from Belgium gave a talk about GH and said that even one drink during the evening before you go to sleep will cancel 75% of the GH spurt causing a lack of energy the following day.

Regular alcoholic drinks can interfere with growth hormone production

When you have alcoholic drinks evening after evening as many people do, you interfere with your deepest sleep, creating a fitful sleep and you can develop GH deficiency, which can be measured with blood and urine tests. GH deficiency leads to premature signs of aging, such as wrinkles, musculoskeletal problems, muscle weakness and dementia. Many people in their 80’s look “old”. In fact they may be growth hormone deficient and could be treated with human GH, if GH deficiency were confirmed by tests. Part of the aged appearance is reversible in cases of growth hormone deficiency by treating with daily GH injections.

Less melatonin as we age

As we age, we produce less melatonin and less growth hormone. All of these hormone levels can be determined. If they are low, they should be replaced with small amounts of whatever hormone is missing.

Other hormones that are important

There are other hormones that are important for energy: cortisol from the adrenal glands, thyroid hormones and DHEA from the adrenal glands. When people get older there is a problem with melatonin production and an evening dose of melatonin supplement of 3mg is advisable. People beyond the age of menopause (females) and andropause (males) need bioidentical sex hormone replacement. Once they have sufficient hormone levels, they will also have more energy. It is advisable to get all of these hormones tested using a saliva hormone test.

How to assess growth hormone deficiency

Growth hormone is a bit more difficult to assess, but IGF-1 levels give a first indication what your growth hormone levels are doing. The newest test is a 24-hour urine collection or an overnight urine sample looking for growth hormone metabolites. If levels are found to be low, daily replacement of growth hormone using a pen similar to insulin injections in diabetics can be given, using pure human growth hormone. You would need to seek the advice of a knowledgeable naturopath.

What does insomnia do to you?

From a psychological point of view performance is slower, there is a slower reaction time and there is a risk of developing anxiety or depression. The immune system gets weakened, high blood pressure can develop and there is a risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and cancer. It is common to gain weight becoming overweight or obese. Even your telomeres, the caps of chromosomes in every cell get shortened from too much stress and too little sleep. Shortened telomeres mean a shortened life span.

How to improve sleeping habits

Set your alarm clock for 8 hours later when you go to sleep. Make sure your bedroom is dark, but wake up to the alarm clock after 7 to 8 hours of sleep. Don’t sleep longer than 8 hours per night. Your internal diurnal hormone rhythm will thank you for regulating your sleep/wake rhythm by giving you the energy you want. I enjoy mine.

Sleeping habits include problems falling asleep or sleeping through

Falling asleep: As we mostly have a lack of melatonin, the first step is to take 3mg to 5mg of melatonin at bedtime. But it should be taken during the window of opportunity fitting into the diurnal hormone rhythm as mentioned above: between 10PM and 11PM. It takes 20 to 30 minutes for melatonin to take effect. If you do not fall asleep within that time frame, you are likely thinking too much. If that were the case, I would recommend taking 1 or 2 capsules of valerian (500 mg strength) from the health food store. This combined with melatonin should help in more than 80%-90% of insomnia cases.

Not sleeping through: Some of you, particularly if you are elderly, may wake up at 3 or 4 AM and have a hard time falling asleep again. At that time it would be safe to take another 3mg of melatonin and if this does not work within 20 minutes add another 500mg valerian capsule.

If you continue to have insomnia problems, see your physician. You may need sleep studies done or you may have problems with your thyroid gland (hypo- or hyperthyroidism), which needs to be checked. The doctor needs to be aware of other medical problems including depression. Melatonin and valerian are safe. Other sleeping pills have multiple side effects including memory problems.

Part of good sleeping habits is to provide a quiet, comfortable bedroom

The following points are good checklist for a comfortable sleep environment (Ref.1).

  • Ensure your bedroom is dark, soundproof, and comfortable with the room temperature being not too warm, and you develop a “sleep hygiene”. This means you get to sleep around the same time each night, have some down time 1 hour or so before going to bed and get up after your average time of sleep (for most people between 7 to 9 hours). Do not sleep in, but use an alarm clock to help you get into your sleep routine.
  • Avoid caffeine drinks, alcohol, nicotine and recreational drugs. If you must smoke, don’t smoke later than 7PM.
  • Get into a regular exercise program, either at home or at a gym.
  • Avoid a heavy meal late at night. A light snack including some warm milk would be OK.
  • Do not use your bedroom as an office, reading place or media center. This would condition you to be awake.  Reserve your bedroom use only for intimacy and sleeping.
  • If you wake up at night and you are wide awake, leave the bedroom and sit in the living room doing something until you feel tired and then return to bed.
  • A self-hypnosis recording is a useful adjunct to a sleep routine. Listen to it when you go to bed to give you something to focus on (low volume) and you will find it easier to stop thinking.
Sleeping Habits

Sleeping Habits

Conclusion

We need to be aware how important a proper hormone balance is when it comes to a healthy sleep pattern. Thyroid hormones and sex hormones are easy to measure. Bioidentical hormone replacement is necessary, if one of the hormones is low. To check GH levels, the doctor orders an IGF-1 level and/or metabolites of GH in a 24-hour urine sample as explained above. Older people need to replace melatonin deficiency the way I summarized above. With these measures sleeping habits improve, and you will get your 7 to 8 hours of restoring sleep. Forget the notion of the past that older people would not need as much sleep. Especially for an aging individual it is important to have a good night’s sleep in order to feel well and energized every day.

References

Ref.1: Jean Gray, editor: “Therapeutic choices”, 5th edition, Chapter 8 by Jonathan A.E. Fleming, MB, FRCPC: Insomnia, © 2008, Canadian Pharmacists Association.

Mar
19
2016

Book Review: “Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right”, By Ray Schilling, MD

By | alcohol, Alzheimer’s disease, andropause, Angina, Anti-aging medicine, Arthritis, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, Fitness, fractures, Health, heart attack, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Hormones, Inflammation, laser therapy, lifestyle, Menopause, mitochondria, Mortality, Nutrition, Obesity, organic food, Orthopedics, Osteoporosis, Other neurological conditions, Prevention, Processed food, Radiation Protection, Sleeep, stem cells, Stress management, Stroke, sugar, telomeres, thyroid disease, Vitamins and supplements

This book entitled “Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right” (Amazon, March 18, 2016) is dealing with the practice of medicine then and now. Medical errors, false diagnoses and wrong treatments are nothing new in the history of medicine. It happened in the past, and it is happening now. My first book was about anti-aging. The title was “A Survivor’s Guide to Successful Aging” (Amazon 2014).

Book overview

Chapter 1

Here I describe describe that famous people like President Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Churchill, Beethoven or more recently Michael Jackson have something in common: all of them suffered the consequences of blatant medical mistakes. In Beethoven’s time lead containing salves to plug the drainage holes from removing fluid from his abdomen caused lead poisoning. In this chapter I review also how doctors treated the illnesses of the above-mentioned celebrities, but then ask the question: “What better treatments have offered to prevent some of the disastrous treatment outcomes?”

Chapter 2

Modern drugs seem to come and go. We learn that twenty-first century medications that are supposed to be the latest therapeutic agents are having their potentially deadly consequences too: COX-2 inhibitors, the second generation arthritis drugs cause strokes and heart attacks! Your doctor may still prescribe some of these dangerous drugs for arthritis now.

Chapter 3

This chapter deals with the fact that medical treatments for people’s diseases may be inappropriate when the doctor treats only symptoms, but the doctor does nothing about the causes of their illnesses. This is a scary thought.

Chapter 4

What does it take to prevent these poor health outcomes, so that we will be able to prevent any disastrous outcomes pertaining to our own health care in the present and future? As we will see, the problem today is still the same as it was in the past, namely that many physicians still like to treat symptoms instead of the underlying cause of an illness. Big Pharma has the seducing concept of a pill for every ill, but it is not always in your best interest, when these medications have a slew of side effects. “Gastric reflux” means a mouthful of stomach acid. Big Pharma simply offers the patient with the symptom of gastric reflux a multitude of medications to suppress this symptom. But it is more important to dig deeper to find the reason for the illness and treat the underlying cause.

Chapter 5

We all need our brain to function. This chapter concentrates on the brain and how we can keep our brains functioning optimally until a ripe old age. This review spans from prevention of head concussions to avoiding type 3 diabetes (insulin sensitivity from overconsumption of sugar). It manifests itself in Alzheimer’s disease. It is a form of diabetes of the brain that leads to deposits of a gooey substance. Prevention of this condition is also reviewed .

Chapter 6

This chapter reviews what we now know about how to keep a healthy heart. Certain ingredients are necessary such as regular exercise, a healthy Mediterranean diet, supplements etc. The good part is that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain. You are preventing two problems (brain and heart disease) at the same time.

Chapter 7

What should we eat? And why does healthy food intake matter? Without the right ingredients of our body fuel, the body machinery will not work properly. The Mediterranean diet is an anti-inflammatory diet that is particularly useful.

Chapter 8

We need healthy limbs, bones and joints. We are meant to stay active in our eighties and nineties and beyond. No osteoporosis, no joint replacements, no balance problems that result in falls! Learn about how to deal with problems like these in this chapter.

Chapter 9

This chapter deals with detoxification. What do we do as we are confronted with pollution, with radiation in the environment and poisons in our daily food? A combination of organic foods, intravenous chelation treatments and taking supplements can help us in that regard.

Chapter 10

I am dealing here about reducing the impact of cancer in our lives. A lot of facts have come out in the past 10 years telling us that reduction of sugar and starchy food intake reduces cancer. Curcumin, resveratrol and vitamin D3 supplements also reduce cancer rates as does exercise and stress management. All of this is reviewed here.

Chapter 11

This chapter tells you all you need to know about your hormone status. Women need to avoid estrogen dominance; both sexes need to replace the hormones that are missing. By paying attention to your hormonal status and replacing the missing natural hormones with bioidentical ones, most people can add 10 to 15 years of useful, active life!

Chapter 12

Here you will learn more about anti-aging. You will learn about the importance to keep your mitochondrial DNA healthy. Apart from that there are ways how to keep your telomeres longer; certain supplements that are reviewed will help. Also your lifestyle does make a big difference in how old you can turn.

Chapter 13

This chapter investigates the limits of supplements. Many supplements are useful, but you do not want to overdo it and get into toxic levels. More is not necessarily better!

Chapter 14

Here is a review of an alternative approach to treating ADHD. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder has been over diagnosed, has been neglected and has been over treated with dangerous drugs. An alternative treatment plan is discussed, which includes a combination of therapeutic steps.

Chapter 15

This gives you a brief summary of the book.

Kirkus Review

Kirkus Reviews reviewed the book on March 17, 2016: “A retired physician details how various preventative measures can fend off disease and disability in this consumer health guide. Schilling (A Survivor’s Guide to Successful Aging, 2014) had a family medicine practice in Canada for many years before retiring. Although Schilling ventures into some controversial territory in his latest book, it’s generally an engaging, helpful synthesis of ideas that draws on reputable research from the Mayo Clinic and other sources. Overall, it serves as an intensely detailed wake-up call to the importance of preventative health. He largely brings an accessible and even-tempered tone to his narrative, warning readers, for example, that preventative health measures can only aid in “a delay of aging, not ‘eternal living.’ ” A thought-provoking, impassioned plea to be proactive about one’s health.”

Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right

Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right

Conclusion

In this book it becomes evident that it is better to prevent an illness whenever possible rather than to wait for illness to set in and cause disabilities or death. You heard this before: “Prevention is better than a cure” or “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”. I will give an explanation, based on scientific data that there is indeed evidence to support these notions on a cellular level.

Mitochondria, the energy packages within our cells

The mitochondria, the energy packages within our cells, are the driving force that keep people vibrantly healthy well into their nineties. All this can only happen when the mitochondria function properly. If toxins poison the mitochondria and as a result they malfunction, we are not looking at a person with vibrant health. Instead sixty or seventy year-olds may use a wheelchair. If you want a life without disabilities, a life without major illnesses and enjoy good health to a ripe old age, you are reading the right book.

The book is written in American English.

Available in the US: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1523700904

In Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Healing-Gone-Wrong-Done-Right/dp/1523700904/  

In other countries the book is available through the local Amazon websites.

Feb
06
2016

Effects Of Hormones On The Heart

By | Alzheimer’s disease, Anti-aging medicine, Cardiovascular disease, heart attack, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Hormones, Mortality, Nutrition, Prevention

Since February is heart month, this is a good time to discuss the effects of hormones on the heart. I believe that this is a timely topic to understand how we can protect ourselves from heart disease. During the 23rd Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine on Dec. 11-13, 2015 in Las Vegas Dr. Ron Rothenberg gave a talk entitled ”Hormones And The Heart”. He stated that he wanted to give an overview of the effects on the endocrine system and on the cardiovascular system, in particular the effect of testosterone and estrogen. Also discussed were the effects of thyroid hormones, growth hormone, vitamin D and melatonin. In the following I will summarize what he explained in detail.

Testosterone treatment in men

He stated that there has been some confusion about the protective effect of testosterone on the heart in men. But Dr. Sharma and colleagues who investigated 83,010 male veterans with documented low testosterone levels clarified this confusion with this large study.

One group received testosterone replacement therapy, another did not receive replacement therapy and one group received replacement with testosterone, but the testosterone levels did not normalize.

Mortality reduction with testosterone replacement

The observation time for the various groups was between 4.6 years and 6.2 years. The results were impressive. A comparison between the results of men on testosterone replacement and the results of men without testosterone replacement, showed that there was a 56% reduction in overall mortality. Furthermore, there was a reduction of heart attacks by 24% and a reduction of strokes by 36%. There was no difference between the control group without testosterone replacement and the partial testosterone replacement group where the testosterone levels did not come up. It is clear from this that with proper testosterone replacement where the physician monitors testosterone levels and corrects the levels, significant reductions in strokes and heart attacks can be achieved. The explanation for these findings is simple: both, brain cells and heart cells in males, have testosterone hormone receptors that need to be stimulated for full function.

Hormone replacement in women

This topic was confusing for many years because of the insistence of the medical profession to use horse estrogen extracts from pregnant mares (Premarin) and synthetic Provera (instead of bioidentical progesterone). These artificial hormone-like substances were used in the much-discussed Women’s Health Initiative (WHI).

Dr. Rothenberg said about this study that investigators used the wrong estrogen, the wrong progesterone, the wrong route of administration of estrogen (oral estrogen causes inflammation), and the wrong women at age 63 who already had cardiovascular disease and breast cancer.

Revisiting the Women’s Health Initiative

One important aspect that was learnt by re-interpreting the WHI was that when estrogen replacement was initiated right away when menopause started, the heart attack risk went down by 34%. Estrogen and Provera together reduced the risk only by 28% (Provera being the wrong hormone). Again, the explanation for this findings is simple: women have both estrogen and progesterone receptors in heart and brain cells, which want to be stimulated with the natural hormones. When estrogen is missing, women need bioidentical replacement of what is missing with estradiol transdermal creams. When a woman is progesterone-deficient, she needs replacement with bioidentical progesterone transdermal cream or with micronized progesterone orally.

Estrogen

KEEPS study

With regard to estrogen replacement the KEEPS study has shed a new light on what is going on with hormone replacement in women.

700 women in early menopause participated in this study. Treatment consisted of 0.45 mg of Premarin (still the wrong hormone) or 50 micrograms of transdermal estradiol (the right active human estrogen). Women also received 200 mg of micronized progesterone (Prometrium, the real human progesterone) for 12 days each month. After 4 years of observation there was no case of breast cancer, uterine cancer, heart attack, transient ischemic attack, stroke, or blood clots in veins between the three groups. Both Premarin and transdermal estrogen had slightly reduced coronary artery calcifications on CT scans compared to the placebo group without hormones. The Premarin group increased the triglyceride and the CRP (a measure of inflammation) levels while the transdermal human estrogen did not do that.

It is a disadvantage to the woman, if she does not receive bioidentical hormone replacement after menopause 

Another study showed that due to the WHI study with the wrong synthetic hormones many women were fearful of starting estrogen replacement. The lack of hormone replacement with nature-identical hormones is responsible for the death of many women, who did not have the beneficial effects. They died of cancer and heart disease.

Dr. Rothenberg explained that this study and others have shown the following
  1. Bioidentical hormone replacement must be started immediately at or before menopause to have the best results in terms of cardiovascular and neuroprotective (Alzheimer’s) prevention.
  2. Oral estrogen induces inflammation, which causes heart attacks, strokes and venous thromboembolism (blood clots). To prevent this, estradiol must be given as a transdermal cream. This will avoid the first pass effect through the liver, which is the cause for inflammation. Transdermal estradiol does not have the first pass effect. Inflammatory cytokines are implicated in autoimmune processes, initiation of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s disease.
  3. If estrogen replacement is not done right away with the start of menopause, the estrogen receptor may get damaged, which means that when estrogen replacement is started at a later date, it is no longer effective.

Progesterone

Progesterone is the other female hormone that physicians often overlook. It balances the effects of estrogens, but the body can also metabolize it into estrogen or testosterone. Tiny amounts of testosterone are necessary for normal libido. In premenopause the ovaries already reduced progesterone production. She should receive progesterone replacement by transdermal bioidentical progesterone cream in premenopause.

Estrogen dominance needs to be treated with transdermal progesterone (or micronized oral progesterone). Both estrogen and progesterone can be accurately determined using a saliva hormone test. Blood tests are accurate for estrogen levels, but not for progesterone levels.

Thyroid replacement

Not infrequently thyroid tests are low (hypothyroidism) and cholesterol levels rise. This can lead to heart attacks and strokes. For instance, a slightly elevated TSH of 5.5 is associated with a total cholesterol level of 209 mg/dL, and a TSH level of 7.0 is associated with a cholesterol level of 270 mg/dL (normal less than 180 mg/dL). It is very important to detect hypothyroidism early and to treat it effectively to prevent cardiovascular disease. The active thyroid hormone is T3. Thyroid replacement has a stabilizing effect on the heart rhythm. It works together with testosterone in men and estrogen in women to stabilize metabolism of all cells, but in particular the heart muscle cells and brain cells. Hypothyroid patients are often depressed, but thyroid replacement lifts the depression. Cognitive deficits in patients with hypothyroidism are also remedied with thyroid treatment.

Growth hormone replacement

Growth hormone (GH) is important in childhood for bone growth and growth of all the organs. But GH still has an important function later in life. GH improves cardiac performance; it does so by thickening the wall of the left heart chamber, the main pump of the heart muscle. GH improves the contractility of the heart muscle, reduces the stress on the heart muscle wall and decreases vascular resistance. In animal experiments GH plays an important role in remodeling the heart after a heart attack.

GH deficiency occurs with aging; it leads to high LDL (bad) cholesterol and high triglycerides in the blood and increased fibrinogen, which causes blood clots. All of this increases the risk for heart attacks and strokes.

Age-related GH production declining

When people age, they lose GH production, which puts them at a considerable risk to get heart attacks and strokes, but they are also at a higher risk of serious falls due to muscle weakness and balance problems. When the doctor detects low IGF-1 levels in the blood and confirms low GH metabolites in a 24-hour urine sample, the time has come to do daily GH injections with human GH. You achieve this using a similar pen that is in use for insulin injections. The dosage is only between 0.1 mg and 0.3 mg per day before bedtime. This is remarkably effective not only for heart attack and stroke prevention, but also to treat muscle weakness, lack of mental clarity and general well being. Patients report that their joint and muscle aches disappear and they can engage in physical activities again.

Melatonin replacement

Most people think of melatonin as the “sleeping hormone”. The pineal gland releases melatonin. It rules overnight giving you a refreshing sleep. In the morning and during the day the light that enters your eyes inactivates it.

Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant, stabilizes the heart’s rhythm (anti-arrhythmic activity), is anti-inflammatory, anti-hypertensive and protects against heart attacks and strokes. People who have heart disease often have very low blood melatonin levels. Physicians can use melatonin intravenously in patients who have heart attacks. This will reduce the amount of damage to the tissue and stabilize the heart rhythm.

Age-related decline of melatonin production

Like with GH, the production of melatonin deteriorates significantly beyond the age of 40. Blood levels of melatonin can be easily ordered, and replacement is easy to do. 3 mg of melatonin taken at bedtime will be a sufficient dose for most people. You can take another 3 mg, if you wake up in the middle of the night. It will wear off within 3 to 4 hours.

Vitamin D replacement

The history of vitamin D3 is interesting. Vitamin D3, the active form of vitamin D has many actions: it stimulates the immune system and reduces the risk of infection, it reduces blood pressure, it reduces inflammation by reducing circulating cytokines, and it increases insulin sensitivity making insulin receptors more responsive.

Vitamin D3 binds to the vitamin D receptor, which is contained on all cells.

Many middle-aged and older people are deficient for vitamin D.  A lack of it leads to higher mortality. Vitamin D helps to restore circulation in patients with ischemic heart disease. Vitamin D insufficiency causes high blood pressure, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. In addition, vitamin D deficiency also causes enlargement and thickening of the wall of your heart’s main pumping chamber, heart failure and chronic vascular inflammation.

More on the effect of vitamin D3 preventing mortality

A prospective 7.3-year study looked at the hazard ratios of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) and linked mortality files with lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. There were 33,994 persons part of the survey, of whom 1,493 died.

Below 10 ng/ml of 25-hydroxyvitamin D level the mortality was 2.5 fold for all causes and 3.08-fold for cardiovascular causes compared to those with levels of 100 ng/ml or higher.

The recommendation presently is to maintain serum levels at 60-80 ng/ml of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Effects Of Hormones On The Heart

Effects Of Hormones On The Heart

Conclusion

The following is important to remember regarding prevention of heart disease.

  1. Never smoke or if you do, quit smoking.
  2. Have your thyroid hormones checked. Thyroid hormones are important as an energy source for your heart muscle, and they lower LDL cholesterol levels.
  3. Your sex hormones matter: in men it is testosterone, in women estrogen and progesterone that support your heart.

Other effects on the heart

  1. Vitamin D is not only important when we grow bones as youngsters, but it continues to be important when we are older. It supports our heart and other body functions. It is an essential team player, as it prevents premature deaths. Blood levels of vitamin D are easy to measure.
  2. Two hormones leave us rapidly as we age: melatonin and human growth hormone. However, the physician can measure the levels of both hormones and if low he can replace what is missing.
  3. There are only two more things you need to do: eat a Mediterranean type diet and exercise on a regular basis. This will ensure your heart is still healthy in years to come.

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Dec
26
2015

Coffee Could Be A Lifesaver

By | Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, heart attack, Heart Disease, Mortality, Nutrition, Prevention, Stroke

Coffee could be a lifesaver. But coffee has long been a subject of heated discussions. It has been praises or condemnations. Researchers designed many studies in the past; some showed health benefits, some did not. A new, larger study was done by the Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA to re-examine this issue for both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee.

Here is the study showing why coffee could be a lifesaver

Mortality was determined among 74,890 women in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), 93,054 women in the NHS 2, and 40,557 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study after a medium follow-up of 22.5 years. 19,524 women and 12,432 men died during that time period. Ming Ding is a doctoral student in the Harvard School of Public Health department of nutrition and was the lead author of the study that was published in the medical journal “Circulation”. She pointed out that in the past there were confounding problems: although many studies had shown that both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee consumption lowered the risk of cardiovascular disease, the results in many studies were blurred. Studies often did not distinguish between smokers and nonsmokers; so a beneficial effect from coffee drinking was wiped out by the cardiovascular risk from smoking.

Ding’s studies took this into account and also other confounding factors like how much sugary soda pop people were drinking and whether or not they were eating well. In addition they normalized for other factors that could interfere like drinking alcohol and eating red meat.

Results of the coffee study

Without normalizing for the factors mentioned above the study results were as follows. Study participants had less than a cup of coffee and three cups a day had a 5% to 9% lower risk of dying than those who drank no coffee. Those who drank more than three cups a day did not see any benefit.

However, when the researchers removed all the confounding factors and compared the various groups again, the following emerged:

  • Less than 1 cup of coffee per day: 6% lower death rates than non-coffee drinkers.
  • 1 cup to 3 cups of coffee per day: 8% lower death rates.
  • 3 to 5 cups of coffee per day: 15% lower death rates.
  • More than 5 cups of coffee per day: 12% lower death rates.

Both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee reducing mortality rates

Ming Ding was associated with another research paper that had shown that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. She found that both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee reduced the risk of getting diabetes later.

When asked about what would be responsible for the reduced death rates with coffee consumption, Ding explained. “There are at least two known chemicals in coffee, namely lignans and chlorogenic acid. They both could reduce inflammation and help control blood sugar. Also, both could help reduce the risk of heart disease”.

Although there seems to be a linear response up to 5 cups of coffee consumption, above 5 cups this linear relationship disappeared. The researchers could not explain whether coffee consumption reached a saturation point, whether there was yet another obscure confounding factor or whether there were detrimental effects on the adrenal glands with too much coffee consumption.

Other findings like decreased suicide rates with coffee consumption

Another finding was that it did not matter whether the coffee contained caffeine or was caffein free. The results were identical.

Many other studies did not have the large numbers to show whether or not coffee without caffeine was as effective in preventing heart disease.

Finally, there was another peculiar finding; suicide rates were down by 20% to 36%, if a person drank at least one cup of coffee per day. But if a person consumed less than 1 cup of coffee per day the suicide rate was 36% higher than the control group with no coffee consumption. This is a rather peculiar finding, particularly for the consumption of less than 1 cup of coffee. But other studies have also shown a decrease in suicide rates with coffee consumption.

No effect on liver and prostate cancer

Previous studies had shown a reduction in liver and prostate cancer. But after the removal of confounding factors this study did not show any effects on cancer causation. Cancer death rates also did not show a reduction with coffee consumption.

Discussion

The Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA produced high quality nutritional studies for decades. But this study is particularly important, because it is so large giving it more statistical power; secondly, the observation time of an average of 22.5 years is longer than most coffee studies in the past. The investigators also removed the noise (called confounding factors). This helped to accomplish the objective of the study and they ended up with a very meaningful result.

Apart from saving lives by drinking coffee, diabetes and heart attack rates lower as well

The important findings were that both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee have the same effect of saving lives. Perhaps you want to drink not more than 5 cups of coffee per day. That lowers your risk of premature death by 15%. What counts is the effect of lowering the rate of diabetes and heart attack rates. This is most likely responsible for the risk reduction. At least this was the opinion of the chief investigator. The study showed that coffee consumption did not lead to a reduction in cancer rates.

I sleep better when I drink decaffeinated coffee. So for me the notion that decaffeinated coffee had the same effect as regular coffee was important.

Coffee Could Be A Lifesaver

Coffee Could Be A Lifesaver

Conclusion

Here is a study that is large enough, went long enough, and showed decisively that coffee can reduce the death rate. Both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee showed the effect of reducing the death rate. The mortality reduction was by 15% up to 5 cups of coffee per day. This finding was true for both males and females. Coffee seems to also reduce the suicide risk by a mechanism that has not yet been determined. Do you want to live 15% longer than your previous life expectancy would have been without coffee? Then you may now have your coffee and enjoy it!

Dec
19
2015

Beer Belly Bad News

By | alcohol, andropause, Cardiovascular disease, heart attack, Heart Disease, Hormones, Inflammation, lifestyle, Mortality, Nutrition, Stroke, Weight loss

You heard the expression “beer belly”, but now we learn “beer belly bad news”. It is an unflattering term for increased abdominal girth, especially in males. It is quite often that this picture is found in middle-aged men who consume more beer than what is good for them, but they may also mill around the hot dog stands at the ball game instead of being physically active. Any leftover calories are stored as belly fat, which protrudes their stomach as if they were pregnant.

There is a big difference between belly fat and body fat. Belly fat is metabolically much more active. Body fat is more sessile. So, it is the belly fat we need to do something about as this has been shown to be associated with heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.

 

Abdominal girth to hip ratio instead of BMI

Originally it was thought that excessive weight would best be measured with the body mass index (BMI). But subsequently it was shown that athletes with well-developed muscles could have BMI’s that were in the overweight (between 25.0 and 30.0) or even obese category (more than 30.0). Also, some people with heavy bones can have excessive BMI values despite them being normal based on other measurements. The new measurement is the old fashioned abdominal girth to hip ratio.

Weight gain leads to metabolic syndrome

You measure the abdominal girth, the hip girth and divide the abdominal girth by the hip girth. Normally this should be 80% (=0.8) or less for women and 90% (=0.9) or less for men. But a person with a beer belly will have ratios of 1.2 or 1.5.

If you take blood tests of that person you would also find elevated triglycerides, lowered HDL cholesterol (the protective cholesterol) and elevated LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol). In addition, we know from studies that often the insulin level is elevated in the sense of hyperinsulinism. In fact that person has often the metabolic syndrome, which is a characteristic change of the metabolism in an obese person. The blood is thicker with clotting factors floating around, there are inflammatory kinins that circulate and these factors work together on causing hardening of the arteries.

Why is a beer belly dangerous?

There are not only cardiovascular risk on the long-term causing heart attacks and strokes down the road. There is a danger of fat deposits in the liver, called fatty liver disease.

In time this can turn into liver cirrhosis and in some cases develop into liver cancer. Because belly fat causes inflammation in the system including in the lining of the blood vessels, this can in time also affect the immune system, weakening it and eventually allowing cancer to develop. Common cancers that are associated with obesity are breast cancer, ovarian cancer and uterine cancer in women, prostate cancer in men and pancreas and colon cancer in both sexes.

Estrogen from aromatase in beer bellies

In men beer bellies produce a lot of estrogen, the female hormone. This is so because fat tissue contains the enzyme aromatase that metabolizes male hormones into estrogen. Estrogen in men is only good in traces, but when the body produces it massively, it will counter testosterone production and will cause heart attacks and strokes.

What can you do about a beer belly?

We need to understand how beer bellies develop. One of the sources of fat from beer bellies is the consumption of foods that contain a lot of fructose. Food manufacturers have been diligent in mixing high fructose corn syrup into sugary drinks and into a myriad of processed foods.

Sugar itself can only be processed and stored until the glycogen stores in the liver and the muscles are filled. The liver metabolizes a surplus of sugar into triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. This is also the case for any fructose that comes from metabolized sucrose (table sugar) and from the high fructose corn syrup popular with the food processing industry. One problem is that fructose can only be processed by the liver, while glucose gets directly taken up by cells with the help of insulin.

German obesity wave after WWII in the 1960’s

The surplus of fructose metabolizes into triglycerides and LDL cholesterol before the body stores it as fat in fat cells. Unfortunately a lot of the fat will end up between your guts, in the liver as fatty liver and in the beer belly, a metabolically more active form of fat.

The sad part is that in the 1960’s I have seen the German economic wonder (“Wirtschaftswunder”) where many mid fifty to mid sixty business men died as a result of obesity and subsequent heart attacks and strokes. At that time Germans who were starving during World War II lived it up. This was in the late fifties and 1960’s. They ate whatever they could: cakes, fatty cheeses, whipped cream, fatty foods like pork roasts and beef.

Unhealthy hydrogenated fats, starchy food and sugar caused beer bellies

They also consumed loads of bread, buns, pasta and sugar. Margarine also became popular with its hydrogenated fatty acids that also contained free radicals. The end result was that they gained weight, did not exercise and developed their beer bellies.

In the 1980’s the school of thought was that saturated fatty acids  were responsible for heart attacks, strokes and obesity.  A low fat/high carb diet became popular and continued to steadily increase. Sure, the hydrogenated fatty acids did not help and should be cut out. But the bigger problem was the consumption of high fructose corn syrup and over-consumption of high glycemic-index carbohydrates.

Steps of how to get rid of the beer belly

Here is the solution of what to do get rid of the beer belly.

Eliminate sugar and high fructose from diet

Remove sugar and high fructose corn syrup from your diet.

Remove empty starches from your diet

The second effective step is to cut out as many empty starches that you can cut out like white rice, bread, sweets, cookies, cakes, ice cream and pasta. Starchy foods metabolize in the gut into sugar, which causes an insulin response. The extra insulin is responsible for developing inflammation in the arteries, which eventually leads to heart attacks and strokes.

Regular exercise

Exercise on a regular basis. This will produce HDL cholesterol, the protective cholesterol, which balances LDL cholesterol.

Rebalance your food intake

Perhaps the most important step is to rebalance your food intake. With this I mean that you replace high glycemic-index carbs with low glycemic-index carbs. This means you will eat a lot of salads, steamed vegetables, and fruit. This gives you a lot of extra fiber, which your system needs to slow down the rate of sugar absorption. It also  helps you to lower LDL cholesterol and detoxify your body in the gut where fiber binds toxins.

Moderate your alcohol intake

If you are heavily into alcoholic drinks, this is another source of refined carbohydrates. They metabolize into LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and can cause fatty liver disease and liver cirrhosis. A moderate consumption of alcohol (one drink for women per day and two drinks for men per day) lowers the risk of heart attacks and strokes, while excessive alcohol intake increases the risk.

Bioidentical hormone replacement

Bioidentical hormone replacement may be something you have not heard about. But if you are a woman above the age of 40 or a man above the age of 50 chances are that you need some hormone tests. As a male, your natural hormone production from your testicles or adrenal glands is likely not keeping up.  As a woman, your ovaries or adrenal glands are no longer keeping up with the demand of regular life. Part of the aging process is that the production of our sex hormones slows down. It does so shortly before menopause in women and shortly before andropause in men.

Lack of function of key organs in menopause and andropause

This will not only manifest itself in hot flashes and sleep disturbance in women. Men experience erectile dysfunction and grumpiness. Eventually this leads to a lack of energy production in the heart, the brain and other organ systems. When these organs have sex hormone receptors, but circulating sex hormones are missing, they cannot function optimally.

Lack of hormones causes heart attacks, strokes and cancer

A lack of hormones translates into yet another cause of heart attacks, strokes and certain cancers. This is an area where conventional medicine disagrees with anti-aging medicine. Years in general practice have taught me that heart attacks, strokes, colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer happen more often when hormones are missing in both sexes. Cancer of the breasts, uterus and ovaries and prostate cancer are more common when sex hormones are missing. These cancers occur when natural sex hormone production declined.

On the other hand, with bioidentical hormone replacement the metabolism of all cells will return to normal. With this the likelihood of not developing all these illnesses at an earlier time is diminishing as well. It is not a panacea for eternal life, but it will add significant longevity. And with this comes the knowledge that you will not get premature disabilities, which is what we all need.

Beer Belly Bad News

Beer Belly Bad News

Conclusion

We need to assess our food intake habits and cut out the items that contribute to the beer belly. Next we need to ask ourselves what other change in lifestyle we require.  Think about anything to improve our body shape and our energy metabolism. Life is too precious to just throw away years of fruitful living in our golden retirement years. Work on these factors in midlife or even in younger years and you will enjoy disease-free aging.

Sep
19
2015

Obesity Shortens Life

By | Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, heart attack, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Inflammation, Mortality, Nutrition, Obesity, Smoking, Stroke, Weight loss

This article is about the fact that obesity shortens life. Of all the factors that definitely shorten life, obesity stands out like a giant. Let’s review a couple of facts regarding obesity:

  1. Americans who were born between 1966 and 1985 became obese at a much earlier age than their parents
  2. Obesity occurs at a younger age than in the past. 20% of people born between 1966 and 1985 were obese in their 20s.
  3. The longer you are obese, the higher the chance of getting seriously sick or dying prematurely from complications of associated diseases like diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, liver disease and cancer.
  4. Severely obese people live up to 20 years less than non-overweight people.
  5. Obesity causes about 300,000 deaths in the U.S. annually

Change of metabolism

Obesity shortens life. Obesity leads to a change in metabolism, which is known as metabolic syndrome. The liver changes its metabolism slightly producing more triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and clotting factors, which increases the risk for heart attacks, strokes and pulmonary emboli. The pancreas produces more insulin, which gives rise to reactive hypoglycemia. This means that 2-3 hours after a meal you become hungry as your blood sugar declines from the extra insulin. You are craving a sugary drink, a donut or other starchy food (pizza, fries, bread etc.). Unfortunately, these types of foods reinforce the metabolic syndrome: the liver changes the sugar into LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

Excess sugar oxidizes LDL cholesterol

Excess sugar will oxidize the LDL cholesterol, which causes atheromas (hardening of the arteries). Protein is being caramelized, which is called “advanced glycation end-products” or AGEs. This reference clearly explains how to counter this: increase your consumption of fish, legumes, vegetables, fruits, low-fat milk products and whole grains; also reduce your intake of solid fats, full-fat dairy products, fatty meats, and highly processed foods. There are other hormone changes that take place in obese people.

Death statistics due to obesity

In this study 849 autopsies were performed over 10 years, of which 32.3% were of obese persons. Leading causes of deaths in obese people were: malignancy (31.4%), infection (25.9%), ischemic heart disease (12.8%), pulmonary embolism (6.2%) and liver disease (2.9%). Table 2 of this link shows the causes of death in non-obese individuals as well: malignancy (32.5%), infection (23.8%), ischemic heart disease (10.4%), pulmonary embolism (2.9%) and liver disease (0.7%). The figures do not look all that different except that liver disease and pulmonary embolism are significantly more often the cause of death in obese patients than in normal weight patients. What you do not see in these figures is that obese people get these conditions at a much younger age as a result of complications from the associated diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, kidney disease and liver disease.

Diabetes

The metabolic changes with regard to the metabolic syndrome include insulin resistance.

As obesity worsens the balance is lost where the body can compensate and type 2 diabetes develops with increased blood sugar values and symptoms of diabetes. Surprisingly with regular exercise and changes in food intake (adopting a low glycemic index diet) this can be treated successfully. Usually this change is also associated with some weight loss, which helps to stabilize the metabolism. If nothing is done to to change diabetes, there is a high risk for heart attacks, strokes and subsequent secondary conditions like diabetic nephropathy, retinopathy, diabetic neuropathy and vascular complications.

Uncontrolled high blood pressure

High blood pressure is part of the metabolic syndrome. Unfortunately in obesity it is often difficult to control and may require several different antihypertensive medications in combination to control it. One way to quickly get the blood pressure under control is to make a concentrated effort to reduce a few pounds of weight; this can be achieved by cutting out refined carbs and sugar and starting an exercise program of walking and swimming.

Smoking

Smoking continues to remain a problem. Men as a group are now smoking less while women are increasing their smoking rates. Smoking causes various cancers, but also increases death rates from heart disease and strokes. In connection with obesity it is clear that the obese smoker has the highest risk of dying prematurely. This is depicted in this link based on the original Framingham study.

Disabilities and nursing homes

Obese people get disabled earlier, ending up in nursing homes. This poses a huge problem there for the staff. Back injuries and disabilities in the caregivers of nursing homes have increased significantly in the last few decades.

Osteoarthritis

80% of hip replacements and 90% of knee replacements are due to osteoarthritis. Obesity is the strongest modifiable risk factor that leads to osteoarthritis and subsequent surgery. There is a lot of morbidity and mortality associated with total knee and total hip surgeries. Part of this is the susceptibility to clot formation from the changes in metabolism associated with the metabolic syndrome. This often leads to pulmonary emboli and higher death rates following surgery when compared to surgery in people with normal weight.

Heart attacks and strokes

As there is an increase of the amount of heart attacks and strokes in overweight and obese people it is important to reduce your BMI when you realize that it is creeping up. Regular exercise along with a Mediterranean diet helps to improve this. Avoid processed foods that often have hidden sugar and refined carbs in them. Also cut out sugar. Use stevia, a natural sweetener, if you want to sweeten your food or drinks.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

In the past nonalcoholic fatty liver disease was rare. Now with the increase of obesity it is common. It can lead to liver cirrhosis with hepatic failure, a common cause of death. But after several years of liver cirrhosis, liver cancer may develop within the cirrhotic liver. Physicians saw this condition only rarely in decades past.

Obesity shortens life: Kidney disease

With obesity there is a negative effect on the kidneys from the metabolic syndrome. Hyperinsulinism affects the capillaries of the filtration units, called glomeruli. They start to proliferate and undergo a form of degenerative change, called glomerulosclerosis. This decreases the filtration capacity of the glomeruli and the kidneys as a whole. After a few decades of this process kidney failure can set in. When an obese person develops diabetes, this will also have a negative effect on kidney function and accelerate the deterioration of kidney function. The end result is kidney failure, which requires dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Cancer and obesity

Obesity shortens life. Chronic inflammation that is worsened by the metabolic syndrome leads to higher rates of various cancers. A prospective study of more than 900,000 US adults was conducted for 16 years. In 1982 when the study was started none of the participants had cancer. After 16 years 57,145 of the study participants had died of cancer. Those in this study who had a BMI of 40.0 or more had cancer death rates that were 52% higher for males and 62% higher for females when compared to normal weight men and women.

Higher cancer rates in people with obesity

It was noticeable that the digestive tract showed higher cancer rates in the obese: esophagus, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, colon and rectum; other more frequent cancers were kidney cancer, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There were also trends of higher cancer death rates with regard to cancer of the stomach and prostate in men and breast cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian and cervical cancer in women. The authors concluded that due to the rising obesity rates in the US population cancer rates in men will soon reach the 14% level and in women the 20% level out of the total death rates.

Treating obesity

Treatment of obesity requires a multifaceted approach. I have discussed this in detail in this blog. Briefly, the diet of the obese person needs to be closely looked at. Sugar and starchy foods need to be eliminated. Low glycemic foods like vegetables, lean meat and salads should be encouraged. A regular exercise program needs to be instituted, starting with swimming and walking. Later a gradual transition into gym type activities could be contemplated.

Weight loss surgery has been successfully applied in some obese patients with a BMI that is greater than 30.0 up to a BMI of 39.9. In a 5-year follow up after LAP-band surgery no surgical complications were reported and the mean percentage weight loss was 15.9±12.4%.

Obesity Shortens Life

Obesity Shortens Life

Conclusion

Obesity shortens life. Obesity is a condition that has been gradually developing since the 1980’s. When you look at the food intake changes rationally it is not surprising that this is happening. Sugar consumption, high-fructose corn syrup consumption and the consumption of processed food have to be cut down, if not cut out completely. You can forget shopping at the middle section of any grocery store, where all that processed food is located. Go to the vegetable section and buy a lot of food from there. Low fat dairy products, eggs, and low-fat meats as well as salmon and other seafood are foods that are healthy. There is one problem though and that is the feeding of antibiotics to chickens, turkeys and beef cattle. This leads to superbugs and changes your gut flora.

Eat organic foods

I suggest you buy organic meats. I eat organic food and have cut out wheat also as wheat underwent forced hybridization in the 1970’s. All of the wheat in the world now is this type of wheat that is too rich in gliadin, which causes leaky gut syndrome and autoimmune diseases. For this reason, I avoid all wheat.

Gradually shed your pounds

I see no reason why obese people could not gradually shed their pounds and regain their stable metabolism. Those with diabetes will be able to shed that diagnosis as they shed their pounds. The kidney and liver function will also stabilize when you shed enough pounds. The goal should first be to reach a BMI of 25.0 to 30.0, which is the overweight category. The next goal would be to aim for shedding even more pounds until you reach a BMI of fewer than 25.0. If you say this is too tough to do, I am saying: giving up is not an option. Cherish your health!

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Aug
22
2015

Tools To Turn 100

By | alcohol, Alzheimer’s disease, Cardiovascular disease, Fitness, heart attack, Heart Disease, Mortality, Nutrition, Smoking, Stress management, Vitamins and supplements

A Swedish longevity study that went on for 50 years gave me the idea to blog about the factors that can help you to turn 100 and still have your mental capacity and good health. Let me introduce you to this study.

Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Göteborg, Sweden (which is the same as the University of Gothenburg) decided back in 1963 to follow a group of 855 Gothenburg men born in 1913 until they would either die or turn 100. The idea was to find out what killer diseases are in the way to reach such a ripe old age and if they would survive, what was it that made them to reach this age.

Think of it as a race to turn 100. The researchers had checkpoints along that journey: various surveys were conducted at the age of 54, 60, 65, 75, 80 and 100 to consider the factors that lead to longevity. 27% (232) of the original group reached the age of 80, and 13% (111) made it to 90. Only 1.1% of the men made it to the age of 100.

What were the causes of death for the other ones who did not make it? 42% of deaths after the age of 80 were due to heart attacks, 20% due to infectious diseases, 8% due to strokes, 8% due to cancer, 6% due to pneumonia and 16% due to other causes. 23% of the men over 80 were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

What else did the researchers find out? Factors that made people survive were refraining from smoking, maintaining a healthy cholesterol level and limiting coffee consumption to not more than 4 cups per day.

Another marker for longevity was either paying high rent for a condominium or own a house; in other words, a certain amount of wealth seems to be associated with longevity. Passing a fitness test at age 53 riding a bicycle was another peculiar finding of the study. This one points to the importance of fitness and clarity of thought as markers for longevity. There was a genetic factor also, as those who had a mother who lived to a ripe old age also survived longer than others who did not have this longevity advantage. However, researchers stressed that overall this genetic factor was of minor importance, the other factors that are under our control were much more important.

Two of the men who were 100 years old dropped out of the study: one because of dementia, the other one for personal reasons. Here are some of the facts about the other seven: none of them smoked; 2 lived at home, 5 in assisted living facilities. All of them wore hearing aids; all of them had good spatial and temporal cognition. All of them were slim, had good posture, but all used walkers to prevent falls or assist them walking. They were all able to read and watch TV, and most of them wore glasses.

Dr. Wilhelmsen who was part of the entire 50-year research effort said about the centenarians: “All of them were clinically healthy, satisfied with their circumstances and pleased to be living where they were.”

Other research about marriage, health and life expectancy

There is some peculiar research that found that men who are married are healthier than single men. This study came from the University College in London and was based on a group of 10,000 British people who were born within one week of each other on March 1958.

Being married or living common-law was beneficial for men compared to single men. One biomarker was the metabolic syndrome (a cluster of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes), which was found to be 14% higher in non-married males while in females it did not matter whether they were married or not: they had the same low rate of metabolic syndrome. The longer men were married, the healthier they were. This was not so for the single male. Women, who married in their late twenties or early thirties, were much healthier in their later midlife compared to women who never married.

Harvard has published some interesting facts on men and marriage. A survey of 127,545 American adults showed that married men live longer than the unmarried males of the controls. A review of studies in the early 2000 suggested that when men were married to a well educated woman this may be causing heart attacks in the men. Quite peculiar, isn’t it? But this was refuted in a larger 2009 study, which found that married men live longer and are healthier when the partner is well educated.

Unhappiness and stress were singled out as a cause of high blood pressure, which leads to heart attacks later. Harvard reveals several other facts that are important with respect to longevity: cancer mortality is higher in unmarried men than in married ones; married men are at a lower risk of developing depression. They were found to have higher rates of satisfaction with life in retirement than their peers who never married. Marriage protects cognitive function and leads to a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Marriage is also associated with improved blood sugar levels and better outcomes with respect to cancer treatment or when hospitalized for other reasons.

General factors leading to longevity

We heard now several interesting points that seem to be linked to longevity. But what is it exactly that is behind some of these observations?

1. Diet

The Mediterranean diet is the gold standard as it has been shown to lead to the lowest mortality rates among diets.Note that longevity increases even more when sugar and starchy foods are avoided. And yes, a Mediterranean diet cuts down the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

2. Exercise

It has been shown in many studies that regular exercise will reduce all diseases by about 50%! This is better than any medication; this is simply a must, if you are at all interested in living longer and healthier. Not only will your heart benefit from that, but your mind will thank you and not enter into dementia.          

3. Alcohol

This has been drummed to death, but the limit is 1 glass of red wine for women and 2 glasses of wine for men. Personally I do not believe that this is true. I have explained in a blog that the same heart protective effect can be achieved by 250 mg of resveratrol as supplement and avoiding alcohol altogether will prevent a number of cancers.

4. Smoking

Originally the Framingham Heart Study has shown that smoking is an important risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. Hundreds of other studies have verified this. Despite this fact women as a group are now repeating the experiment that has already been completed for men: smoking causes lung cancer and many other cancers as well as cardiovascular disease. I see young women thoughtlessly walking around town puffing their lives away.It shows you how powerful cigarette commercials are. Sometimes it is frustrating to watch this as a health care provider!

5. Stress management

This means seeking ways to reduce stress like meditation, self-hypnosis, yoga and others. This also means building social ties and mutually supportive relationships. It makes you feel that you belong, you have your place in society, you help others, and they support you.

6. Avoiding iatrogenic disease

Physician-caused illness is getting more common. Medications have become stronger and often have more potent side effects. For instance, if a physician treats a gluten-induced rash called dermatitis herpetiformis with a drug called Dapsone, the patient can get severe anemia, violent abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea. A strict gluten-free diet would probably have helped the patient to clear up the rash. All of the symptoms that the patient had to suffer as a result of Dapsone were from this “iatrogenic disease”, which simply means they happened as a result of the doctor’s malpractice that had caused a medication-induced disease.

7. Avoiding exposure to free radicals

Many different agents like substances from pollution, radiation, rancid unsaturated oils and others contain free radicals that damage tissues and cause inflammation. Antioxidants like vitamin C, E and resveratrol can stop this as is reviewed here.

8. Using vitamins and supplements

As already indicated this will help to reduce free radical exposure by the use of antioxidants; reduce inflammation by using omega-3 fatty acids, Co-Q-10, vitamin C and E, resveratrol and others.

9. Avoid accidents

As you are aware, accidents can kill. Wear seat belts, drive safely, and stick to speed limits, particularly in curves. Also don’t drink and drive, don’t use your phone and don’t text and drive. The use of street drugs is also a common cause for accidents.

10. Use bioidentical hormone replacement

When we experience the change of life, called menopause in women and andropause in men we can allow nature to knock us off the planet or use scientific knowledge. It has been proven that it is perfectly safe not to use Big Pharma’s hormone concoctions that the body cannot recognize. Synthetic hormones cause iatrogenic disease as proven in the Women’s Health Initiative. Bioidentical hormones, however simply replace what is missing in menopause and andropause.

The reason this is important is that our system has hormone receptors on the surface of all body cells. In order to have normal function, we depend on bioidentical hormones to assist cell metabolism. For instance the heart muscle in a man has testosterone receptors as has his brain. In women estrogen receptors and progesterone receptors are contained in the cells. Using the right mix of bioidentical hormones based on saliva hormone tests or blood hormone tests can help the treating physician or naturopath to rebalance the body’s natural hormone needs with bioidentical hormone creams applied to the skin.

Tools To Turn 100

Tools To Turn 100

Conclusion

Tools to turn a hundred years old and still be fairly alert and fit are listed above. It is important that we start thinking along those lines, because it is only prevention that gets us safely there. If you allow yourself to constantly live it up and run your health down, how can you expect to turn 100? In the last 50 years the life expectancy has risen at least 20 years (85 years now, 65 years then). Now we are seeing a downward trend in the obesity and overweight population and the diabetics. They are the ones vulnerable to iatrogenic disease and mortality. They also are at a higher risk to die from heart attacks and strokes and they are more likely to get Alzheimer’s disease. Also, single men would do well to see their physician more often to check out their health status and perhaps change detrimental lifestyles that married men would not get into, because their wives talk to them. If you can switch from a curative approach in healthcare that usually does not work too well anyways to a preventative approach, you have a good chance to make it to 100. I talk to you then.