Category Archives: Nutrition

Post #58 – One Stop Shop to Find Information About Optimal Nutrition

14 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Supplements, Uncategorized, wellness

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It has been a few months since I last wrote a blog post. It seemed like I ran out of material to write about.

As you know, the purpose of these posts is to share only information 1) that is based on research and is not a merely hearsay, 2) that I have personal experience with, and 3) that I feel contribute towards a goal of living the longest with optimal health.

For a while I had plenty of such information that fit the scope of this blog. And, then I hit the wall.

About a year and a half ago, I found a source that has troves of nutritional information for optimal health. This information is available in videos and text form – all for FREE.

Using this information, I have been further optimizing my own lifestyle. And, it has already showing further improvements in my bio-markers.

The source is:  www.NutritionFacts.org  

This site is a labor of love for Michael Greger M.D. FACLM.  He seems to be on a personal crusade to share this knowledge and information. He and his staff of volunteers comb through over 20,000 research papers on nutritional studies published every year. They summarize this information in few minutes long byte-sized chunks and even as annual summaries, which last about an hour.

You can even subscribe to their site and you will receive a tip every day in your email.  I actually look forward to these emails. That way I can learn over time and don’t take in more than I can digest.

I got introduced to Dr. Greger’s work by reading his book: How Not to Die.

Gregor book

Some startling things I learned from this site:

  1. How you can reverse your diabetes by changing what you eat.
  2. How you can shrink you prostrates by adding certain fruits to your diet.
  3. How you can reduce blood pressure with certain plant based foods.

And, for every claim, he gives his rationale based on specific research studies and papers that you can further read up yourself, if you wish.

MY LIFE STYLE CHANGES

Here are some things I have already incorporated in my lifestyle, as a result of the research information I learned from Dr. Greger:

  1. I am now working on replacing, whenever possible, to get as many micro-nutrients as possible using whole foods rather than supplements.
  2. I started adding one tablespoon of freshly ground Flax Seeds and a quarter teaspoon of Turmeric in my shakes every morning. As you will see from the research, flax seeds and turmeric are effective for a whole bunch of issues, e.g., blood pressure, diabetes, inflammation.
  3. I started adding one table spoon of Apple Cider Vinegar in my salads at lunch to lower my blood sugar resulting from food at lunch, which tends to be my heaviest meal.
  4. I have been eating 2 to 4 pieces of Brazil Nuts as snack every night to further lower my LDL Cholesterol.
  5. I am now more conscious of making sure that I add Cruciferous Vegetables in my salads to boost my anti-oxidants.
  6. I have started sprinkling pomegranates seeds on my oat meal for my prostrate health.

RESULTS SO FAR

I have been quite pleased with the results of these changes so far. Here are a few:

  1. My most recent blood-work on 7/7/2017 shows, an Hemoglobin A1C of 5.4%! It was 5.5% three months ago.  My A1C was stuck at or above 5.8% for the last three years, ever since I have been measuring it.  Ever since then, I have been working on getting it out of the pre-diabetes range, considered to be over 5.6%.
  2. All my inflammation markers, CRP, Homocysteine, WBC are all trending down.
  3. LDL and Triglycerides are 86 and 57 in the latest blood-work – without any meds. These are on the low end of where they ever been.
  4. My blood pressure measured on my last doctor’s visit was 108/70! As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have working on reducing my BP.

Bottom Line:

I highly recommend that you checkout www.NutrtionFacts.org.  An evidence-based nutrition advice that is labor of love of Dr. Michael Greger. You can search for a specific topic, browse the site in general for useful information and/or subscribe to the daily email.

This site has become a go-to site for me for all things nutritional for Optimal Health. I have found the information is research-based, concise, well-presented and at-times with profound implications.

Most of the time, information is very actionable.

 

What are your thoughts on this subject?

Would love to hear from you and learn from you.

Please click on Comment to leave your comments or question so others can benefit from your input.

 

 

Post # 56 – What is Optimal Blood Pressure and How to Achieve it?

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in Aging, Causes of Death, Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Uncategorized

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First, a quick story and my own experience over the last six months.

For a number of years, I have had my blood pressure in tens (between 110 and 119) for Systolic and in the seventy’s for the Diastolic.  So, my typical BP measurement might be 112/74.

For the last couple of years, however, every time I visited a doctor or clinic, I noticed that it was in the high twenty’s or low thirty’s for Systolic (125 to 135 range) and low eighty’s for the Diastolic pressure. For example, I might see my as BP 128/82. Doctors always called it out as “normal” and I ignored it assuming that those were spurious readings.

About six months ago, I decided to get a BP monitor and started measuring my blood pressure frequently – like every day and even multiple times during a day.  I noticed that the higher readings I had seen during the last couple of years were actually true. I wanted to know if it was inevitable that my BP would be creeping up as I get older.  Or, could I do something about it?

And, so I decided to take a deeper dive into this topic of BP.

First, I asked my wellness doc if he had any ideas. He told me that it was nothing to worry about. When I insisted on understanding why my BP not stay in the tens for Systolic and seventy’s for diastolic, he told me that I was already eating a pretty clean vegetarian diet.  He suggested I could experiment with vegan diet and also suggested a couple of books to read.

Well after about six months of eating vegan (only plant based whole food, no eggs, no dairy, no meat) and daily monitoring my BP, it looks like my BP is nicely settling in the tens range for systolic and in the seventy’s range for diastolic and times even lower.

And, here is a quick synopsis of what I learned along the way about what is optimal BP and how to achieve it. You might find surprising some of  what I learned and am sharing here.

What is Optimal BP?

We have all heard that BP is the “silent killer”. That uncontrolled high BP can injure or kill you. According to American Heart Association website, possible health consequence can happen over time, if left untreated include:

  • Coronoary Heart Disease or CHD, i.e., damage to the heart and coronary arteries, including heart attack, heart disease, congestive heart failure, aortic dissection and atherosclerosis (fatty buildups in the arteries that cause them to harden)
  • Stroke
  • Kidney damage
  • Vision loss
  • Erectile dysfunction
  • Memory loss
  • Fluid in the lungs
  • Angina
  • Peripheral artery disease

I am sure you have also heard that BP less than 120/80 is considered “normal”.  120 – 139 for systolic or 80 to 89 for diastolic is considered pre-hypertension.  And, anything above those numbers is considered hypertension and your doc will say that you must do something to bring it in the lower ranges. NIH National, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute website publishes this guidance:

Stages of High Blood Pressure in Adults

Stages Systolic
(top number)		 Diastolic
(bottom number)
Prehypertension 120–139 OR 80–89
High blood pressure Stage 1 140–159 OR 90–99
High blood pressure Stage 2 160 or higher OR 100 or higher

Well, where do these numbers come from?

As you may already know, if you have been reading these blog posts, that I am always suspect of the word “normal”.  I prefer talking about “optimal”.

 Updated Research on BP

In BMJ 2009, M R Law et al, published a very extensive meta-analysis study of 143 previously completed clinical trials on the use of BP lowering drugs. A meta-analysis study is a study of already published studies to assemble an overall conclusion. A key conclusion of this meta-analysis study was:

“The relative risk estimates of CHD events and stroke in the blood pressure difference trials were similar across all levels of blood pressure before treatment down to 110 mm Hg systolic and 70 mm Hg diastolic, below which there were too few data.”

Basically, from all previous studies they analyzed that the risk of all coronary heart disease and stoke continued to decrease as the BP were lowered to 110/70.  They could not tell if the trend would continue below 110/70, since there was not enough data available for cases below 110/70.

So, 110/70 is definitely better than 120/80 in reducing the risk of CHD and strokes.  Is 105/65 or other lower numbers better than 110/70, they could not prove it due to insufficient data.

Here is another conclusion:

“This, the largest meta-analysis of randomised trials of blood pressure reduction to date, shows that lowering systolic blood pressure by 10 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure by 5 mm Hg using any of the main classes of blood pressure lowering drugs, reduces CHD events (fatal and non-fatal) by about a quarter and stroke by about a third, regardless of the presence or absence of vascular disease and of blood pressure before treatment, with no increase in non-vascular mortality. Heart failure is also reduced by about a quarter. Proportional disease reduction for a given blood pressure reduction independent of pretreatment blood pressure.”

Translated it means the risk of CHD and strokes decreases at the same rate no matter what the starting point is. So, when you lower your systolic BP from 140 to 130, or 130 to 120 or from 120 to 110, you decrease you risk by the same amount, of CHD by 25% and strokes by 33%.

The following example from the research paper illustrate this calculations.

“At age 60-69, the relative risk of stroke is 0.43 (57% decrease) for a 20 mm Hg decrease in systolic blood pressure. For a blood pressure decrease twice as great (40 mm Hg), the relative risk of 0.43 effectively applies twice (0.43×0.43, or 0.432), which is 0.18 (an 82% decrease).”

That is quite amazing, isn’t it?

Do you have to take meds to lower your blood pressure?

Short answer is: of course, not.

Michael Gregor, M.D. in his book, “How not to Die”, Chapter 7: How Not to Die from High Blood Pressure, very succinctly lays out who the villains and heroes are in the epic story of BP.

Gregor book

Villains are Sodium and all the foods that sneak sodium in the form of salt into our diet. Mechanism seems simple enough. Sodium causes water retention and body raises blood pressure to try to expel the excess retained water from the body.

There is a plethora of research that shows that if you lower your sodium intake to less than 500 mg a day, you can achieve a 110/70 BP.

Heroes are anti-oxidant, potassium and nitrate rich foods that provide antidote to sodium and the damage it does to the cardiovascular system. Adding the following foods to your diet will further lower or make it easier to bring it in the right range:

  • Rhubarb
  • Leafy green vegetables;, arugula, cilantro, butter leaf lettuce, Mesclun greens, beet greens, basil, oak leaf lettuce Swiss chard
  • Beets
  • Ground flaxseed
  • Whole Grains
  • Hibiscus Tea

Does the BP have to go up as we age?

Short answer is: NO.

Yes, the phenomenon of BP going up with age is what has been observed in “normal” situations. However, citing lots of existing research, Dr. Gregor demonstrates that the idea that BP has to go up as we age is a myth. With proper food intakes we can have a healthy BP for life.

Bottom line

There is extensive research available to establish that high Blood Pressure is indeed the silent killer it is made out to be. Consequences of high BP if left unchecked for extended period of time can cause many health issues beyond coronary heart disease and strokes.

120/80 may be considered “normal”, but is not actually optimal. Clear evidence exists that by lowering BP to 110/70, you can further reduce risks of CHD and stroke.  Further, benefits of lowering BP to less than 120/80 are significant.  There is not enough evidence at this time that numbers lower numbers than 110/70  further reduce the risks.

Meds are not the only means to lower BP. You can use lifestyle changes to lower BP to 110/70 or lower.

 Reducing sodium intake dramatically, lower than 500 mg per day, can lower the BP to 110/70.

Anti-oxidant, potassium and nitrate rich foods provide antidote to sodium and the damage it does to the cardiovascular system. Adding the following foods to your diet will further lower or make it easier to bring it in the right range:

  1. Rhubarb
  2. Leafy green vegetables;, arugula, cilantro, butter leaf lettuce, Mesclun greens, beet greens, basil, oak leaf lettuce Swiss chard
  3. Beets
  4. Ground flaxseed
  5. Whole Grains
  6. Hibiscus Tea

AHA’s website offers a neat little tool for you to see how much BP you can expect to lower with different recommended lifestyle changes.

 

So there you have it, results of my experience and deep dive into this topic so far!

What are your thoughts on this subject?

Would love to hear from you and learn from you.

Please click on Comment to leave your comments or question so others can benefit from your input.

 

Post #52 – How to Optimize Your Immune System? –  Part II  – With Nutrition

24 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by in Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Supplements, Uncategorized, wellness

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In Post #51, I discussed some basic terminology of the immune systems, how immune system works, and what kinds of issues happen when it does not work. In this post the focus is what we can do to keep our immune system healthy and working as designed.

So, what can we do to optimize our immune system?

Things that are in our control to enhance our immunity and make sure that the immune system does not go haywire are the ones that you have heard about gazillions of time by now and are probably tired of hearing about: Nutrition, Exercise and Lifestyle.

Each one is a topic in itself.  In this post, let’s tackle nutrition.

Immune systems and nutrition

As Prof. Chris D’Adamo, Director of Research at Center of Integrative Medicine at University of Maryland School of Medicine, recently gave a talk summarizing research on different foods are known to have immunity enhancing properties. Lot of the content that follows is from his talk.

Mushrooms –  Over 5,000 different types of mushrooms exist in nature many of which are used in traditional medical systems.

In Shitake mushrooms Polysaccharides alpha-Glucans enhance immune system by enhancing the macrophage activity. Shitake mushrooms have been shown in research to have antibacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral effects. They have also been shown to offer defense against influenza virus and useful in cancer therapy.

Maitake mushrooms enhance immune activity.  While White Button mushrooms have been shown to regulate immune activity, both up and down as needed and useful against breast and prostate cancers. So, eating a variety of mushrooms can enhance and regulate the immune system. 

Cooking mushrooms is better since many contain hyrozines, a carcinogen that is deactivated by heat.

As a practical tip, just wipe mushrooms clean and not  wash in water  since mushrooms are porous and soaking may make them soggy.

If you are not the mushroom eating type, mushroom extracts are as also available that blend different varieties of mushrooms. Here are some:

Mushroom extract

Allium Vegetables –  Garlic, Onions, scallions, shallots, chives, leeks,etc.

The Allium genus includes approximately 500 species that include garlic, onion, leeks, chives, scallions which are used all over the world in different delicacies. Some allium vegetables have been employed for millenia in the traditional medical practice to treat cardiovascular diseases.  These vegetables have been shown to have applications as antimicrobial, antithrombotic, antitumor, hypolipidaemic, antiarthritic and hypoglycemic agents.

In recent years, extensive research has focused on the anticarcinogenic potential of allium vegetables and their constituents, viz., allylsulfides and flavonoids (particularly quercetin which is present abundantly in onion). Epidemiological studies have shown that higher intake of allium products is associated with reduced risk of several types of cancers. These epidemiological findings are well correlated with laboratory investigations. Organosulfur compounds present in Allium vegetables, are considered to be responsible for the beneficial effects of these herbs.

To maximize health benefits of garlic crushing or chopping garlic bulb is important since it converts sulfur compound alliin to more bioactive allicin. It is also important to leave crushed/chopped garlic for serveral minutes before cooking for enhanced activity of allinase enzymes.

And, to maximize health benefits of onions, don’t overpeel.  Flavonoid content is highest in the outermost layers.

Probiotics or Fermented Foods

Bacteria in the gut, aka Gut Biota, continues to be one of the most exciting topic in health and wellness research. Gut biota and therefore probiotics play a huge role in immunity. Some believe as much as 50% of the immunity is in the gut.  Probiotics are defined as any live microorganisms that confer health benefits.

Foods fermented with “probiotic” bacteria or yeast are therefore very important to any diet to enhance immunity.  In traditional diets, common fermented foods are:

  • Miso and natto – fermented beans/grains usually soy
  • Kimchi – fermetend cabbage, radhishes, etc.
  • Kambuch – fermented tea
  • Yogurt, lassi, kefir – fermented dairy
  • Sauerkraut – fermented cabbage
  • Ogi – fermented grains

If not chosen carefully, any of these foods can be used in a way that turns them into junk food.  For example, in the US, we have taken healthful yogurt and turned it into a junk food by adding sugar and other additives.  To figure out what yogurt to buy, check out website  http://cornucopia.org/yogurt-scorecard/.   Out of 130 yogurts, the site lists Activa, Yoplait and Dannon as numbers 124, 126, and 129.

 Sugar in yoplait

If you choose to add a probiotic as a supplement, you may also need to do some research.  You will need to look into what genus, species and strains of bacteria a product contains. It is important that the supplement is shipped on ice, since probiotics diet if exposed to high temperatures. Following brands do ship their products on ice:

Probiotics

Other Supplements for Enhancing Immunity

Zinc is essential to immune function.  There is over 30 years of research that shows that Zinc reduces duration, severity and incidence of common cold.  You do need to take zinc within 24 hours of symptom onset for best effect.

Vitamin C is also essential for immune function.  Research has shown that vitamin c prevents common cold and reduces duration of cold symptoms among people who exercise regularly.

Elderberry is a dark-colored berry high in anthcyannis. It is shown to relieve flu symptoms and inhibit bronchitis virus replication.

Oregano oil has very strong antimicrobial properties.  It has very strong taste and can burn in contact with skin. So, it is taken in capsules or a few drops in water. Also, being antimicrobial it is not useful to take it at the same time you are taking probiotic or eating fermented foods.

An acute prevention/treatment plan for a cold or flu

With all this knowledge, Prof D’Adamo shared how he attacks with nutrition cold or flu if he sees it coming. As soon as possible after exposure or symptoms begin…

  • 1 gram of vitamin C every 1-2 hours
  • 1 full dropper oregano oil in water in morning (with food)
  • 2 Sambucol/Sambucus tablets morning & night (with food)
  • 50 mg zinc tablet morning & night (with food)
  • 2 mushroom extract capsules (New Chapter/Stamets morning & night
  • 100 billion CFU probiotics (Natren) with yogurt before bed
  • Drink water throughout day!!!

He is a pretty big guy.  So smaller people might need less, bigger people may need more or bigger doses.

Bottom Line

To optimize immune systems, the following should be part of diet or as supplements:

  • Variety of mushrooms
  • Allium vegetables – used properly
  • Fermented foods or probiotics

It is useful to have a personal plan and kit ready for attacking common colds and flu by boosting your immune system, as soon as you see it coming.  Research shows that you can prevent and reduce severity and/or duration. Zinc, Vitamin C, elderberry extract, probiotics, mushroom extract, oregano oil and plenty of water are past folklore and are now part of evidence-based medicine.

 

What are your thoughts on this subject?

Would love to hear from you and learn from you.

Please click on Comment to leave your comments or question so others can benefit from your input.

 

Post #51 – How to optimize your immune system? – Part I

10 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by in Nutrition, Optimal Exercise, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Uncategorized, Vitality, wellness

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The term immune system is talked about a lot these days in various contexts. On one end of the spectrum people talk about “building” one’s immune system to ward off or overcome diseases. On the other hand, you may have heard conversation about where the disease itself is the result of some “immune disorder”.

Many years ago, when I used to visit my primary physician to deal with my seasonal allergies (which I was able to successfully cure, as I described in another blog post), I would often ask him, what was underlying cause of my allergies and he would say, “It is something to do with immune system.  We don’t understand much about immune system yet.”

Later after doing my own research, I figured out that actually we do know a lot about the immune system and there is a lot we can do about it too. And, that knowledge gave me the impetus to take actions to cure my seasonal allergies. See my post So, did I tell you the story about my allergies?

In this post, I would like to delve into what exactly is immune system and what we can do so it is really a friend and not our foe.

What is Immune System?

Here is a quick summary of some key terms from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at NIH website.

The immune system is a network of cells, tissues, and organs that work together to protect the body from infection. The overall function of the immune system is to prevent or limit infection.

Immune system is comprised of multiple organs, cells and response types that include:

Immune System

Skin: The skin is usually the first line of defense against microbes. Skin cells produce and secrete important antimicrobial proteins, and immune cells can be found in specific layers of skin.

Bone marrow: The bone marrow contains stems cells that can develop into a variety of cell types. The stem cells in the bone marrow create two types of immune cells: innate immune cells and adaptive immune cells.

Innate immune cells —neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, mast cells, monocytes, dendritic cells, and macrophages— are important first-line responders to infection.

Adaptive immune cells—B cells and T cells—that are responsible for mounting responses to specific microbes based on previous encounters since they retain immunological memory.

Natural killer (NK) cells share features of both innate and adaptive immune cells, as they provide immediate defenses like innate cells but also may be retained as memory cells like adaptive cells.

Lymphocytes – B, T, and NK cells also are called lymphocytes.

Bloodstream: Immune cells constantly circulate throughout the bloodstream, patrolling for problems. When blood tests are used to monitor white blood cells, another term for immune cells, a snapshot of the immune system is taken. If a cell type is either scarce or overabundant in the bloodstream, this may reflect a problem.

Thymus: T cells mature in the thymus, a small organ located in the upper chest.

Lymphatic system: The lymphatic system is a network of vessels and tissues composed of lymph, an extracellular fluid, and lymphoid organs, such as lymph nodes. The lymphatic system is a conduit for travel and communication between tissues and the bloodstream. Immune cells are carried through the lymphatic system and converge in lymph nodes, which are found throughout the body.

Lymph nodes are a communication hub where immune cells sample information brought in from the body. For instance, if adaptive immune cells in the lymph node recognize pieces of a microbe brought in from a distant area, they will activate, replicate, and leave the lymph node to circulate and address the pathogen. Thus, doctors may check patients for swollen lymph nodes, which may indicate an active immune response.

Spleen: The spleen is an organ located behind the stomach. Spleen is important for processing information from the bloodstream. Immune cells are enriched in specific areas of the spleen, and upon recognizing blood-borne pathogens, they will activate and respond accordingly.

Mucosal tissue: Mucosal surfaces are prime entry points for pathogens, and specialized immune hubs are strategically located in mucosal tissues like the respiratory tract and gut.

How does immune systems defenses work?

An immune response is generally divided into innate and adaptive immunity.

Immune Types of Response

Innate immunity occurs immediately, when circulating innate cells recognize a problem by expressing genetically coded receptors. Collectively, these receptors can broadly recognize viruses, bacteria, fungi, and even non-infectious problems. However, they cannot distinguish between specific strains of bacteria or viruses. Their key feature is quick and broad.

Adaptive immunity occurs later, as it relies on the coordination and expansion of specific adaptive immune cells. If a B or T cell has a receptor that recognizes an antigen from a pathogen and also receives cues from innate cells that something is wrong, the B or T cell will activate, divide, and disperse to address the problem. B cells make antibodies, which neutralize pathogens, rendering them harmless. T cells carry out multiple functions, including killing infected cells and activating or recruiting other immune cells.

Vaccination, or immunization, is a way to train your immune system against a specific pathogen. Vaccination achieves immune memory without an actual infection, so the body is prepared when the virus or bacterium enters. Saving time is important to prevent a pathogen from establishing itself and infecting more cells in the body.

When immune system is not working as intended?

When the immune system is working well through all the parts and pieces we discussed above, it is a thing of beauty. As a pathogen enters the body, body’s defenses are activated through the appropriate part of the immune system.  The pathogen is recognized and immediately zapped.

When immune system is not working properly there could be different types of issues.

Immune Deficiencies

Temporary Immune Deficiencies: Temporary immune deficiency can be caused by a variety of sources that weaken the immune system. Common infections, including influenza and mononucleosis, can suppress the immune system.

When immune cells are the target of infection, severe immune suppression can occur. For example, HIV specifically infects T cells, and their elimination allows for secondary infections by other pathogens.

Patients receiving chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, or immunosuppressive drugs experience weakened immune systems until immune cell levels are restored. Pregnancy also suppresses the maternal immune system, increasing susceptibility to infections by common microbes.

Allergy

Allergies are a form of hypersensitivity reaction, typically in response to harmless environmental allergens like pollen or food. Hypersensitivity reactions can be caused by antibodies, IgE or IgG, which are produced by B cells in response to an allergen. Overproduction of these antibodies activates immune cells like basophils and mast cells, which respond by releasing inflammatory chemicals like histamine. And that is why people take antihistamine to stop allergic reactions such as sneezing.

Allergic reactions can also be caused by T cells, which may either directly cause damage themselves or activate macrophages and eosinophils that damage host cells.

Autoimmune Diseases

Autoimmune diseases occur when adaptive immune cells that recognize host cells persist unchecked. Autoimmunity is either organ-specific or systemic, meaning it affects the whole body. Autoimmune diseases have a strong genetic component, and with advances in gene sequencing tools, researchers have a better understanding of what may contribute to specific diseases.

Cancer

Some forms of cancer are directly caused by the uncontrolled growth of immune cells. Leukemia is cancer caused by white blood cells. Lymphoma is cancer caused by lymphocytes, i.e., adaptive B or T cells. Myeloma is cancer caused by plasma cells, i.e.,  mature B cells. Unrestricted growth of any of these cell types causes cancer.

In addition, an emerging concept is that cancer progression may partially result from the ability of cancer cells to avoid immune detection.

So, what can we do optimize our immune system?

Things that are in our controls to enhance our immunity and make sure that the immune system does not go haywire are the ones that you have heard about gazillions of time by now and are probably tired of hearing about: Nutrition, Exercise and Lifestyle.

In the next post, we will talk of specifics of nutrition, exercise and lifestyle that can enhance immune system and also prevent it from attacking itself or the body.

In the meantime, what are your thoughts on this subject?

Would love to hear from you and learn from you.

Please click on Comment to leave your comments or question so others can benefit from your input.

 

 

Post #50 – How to optimize your health by maximizing your telomeres?

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in Aging, Life-Span, Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Uncategorized

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What in the world is Telomeres? – you say

Well, if you have not heard of the word Telomeres, I will explain it here, since it is likely that you will be hearing about it more and more.  Especially, if you are interested in optimal health, living long and living health.

So, first here are some useful terms.

What is Telomere?

Telomeres are disposable buffers at the ends of chromosomes which are truncated during cell division. Their presence protects the genes before them on the chromosome from being truncated. During the process of each cell division, the telomere ends become shorter.

Hayflick Limit

An American scientist Leonard Hayflick established limits to cell replication what is now called Haflick Limit. The Hayflick limit is the number of times a normal human cell population will divide until cell division stops. Empirical evidence shows that the telomeres associated with each cell’s DNA will get slightly shorter with each new cell division until they shorten to a critical length.

Most cells will divide between 50 to 70 times before they cannot divide any more.

Role of Telomeres in Cellular Aging

As Hayflick first demonstrated, human cells have an inborn “counting mechanism” that tells them when to senesce, or stop dividing: Each time a cell replicates, the ends of each chromosome, i.e., telomeres, get shorter, and once the telomeres get too short, they trigger a “senescence program” that arrests the cell’s growth.

In short, telomeres represent body’s clock that determines our life-span and our health span.

Telomerase to the Rescue!

Telomerase is an enzyme that adds length back to the end of telomeres.  In a simple leap of logic, you can quickly figure that telomerase enzyme is an antidote to shortening of the telomeres.

As you can also guess things are probably not that simple.  They never are when it comes to human biology. But for this brief blog post, I will keep it simple.

So, with this premise of telomeres determining when cells say “uncle”.  And, Telomerase offering an antidote, race is on for researchers and entrepreneurs on many fronts.  Numerous questions are being asked and some have even been answered:

  • How do you measure telomeres inexpensively?
  • Do telomeres really correlate with one’s biological age?
  • Does telomere length account for life styles that have been known to determine one’s health span and lifespan?
  • What factors stimulate telomerase activity? Can we measure that?
  • What about the role of telomerase in cancer, where cell replication goes on without any limit?
  • And, so on and so on..

Some hard answers have emerged, well-rooted in hard science.  On the other hand, other answers are preliminary and people are making wild leaps of logic to get to the market first with commercial products and services.

Measuring Telomeres

Several companies now offer services to measure telomeres. For example, Titanovo, Inc., SpectraCell Laboratories, Telome Health, Inc.,  Telome Home.  Basically, you send them blood or swab and they will  send you your telomere measurements.

My experience

I recently got my telomeres measured by Titanovo, Inc.

I signed up online. They sent me a kit.  I swabbed inside of my cheeks and mailed it back.  I also filled in a lifestyle survey on their website they use to correlate the results with lifestyle.

Few weeks later, they posted my results on their website.  The following pictures represent result I received.  (You can click on these to enlarge and make them readable)

Titanovo profile 3-2016_Page_1

Titanovo profile 3-2016_Page_2

What do my results mean?

Here is my take away.  My relative telomere length is 0.62, which if you interpolate on one of the charts that means my telomere corresponds to a 48 year old male. 13 year younger biologically sound pretty good to me!

I reported my diet as vegetarian.  If I were to change my diet to vegan, according to the last chart, my telomere length could be 0.67. That represents an additional opportunity for 8% advantage in terms of biological age.  8% increase in lifestyle is pretty significant to me.

Since I just started experimenting with a vegan diet about 3 week ago, I will be interested in retesting the telomere length in a year to see if the results correspond to what Titanovo is forecasting.

Titanovo sells bundles of multiple kits, so people can play with their lifestyles choices and then see the impact, in say 3 months at a time.

Bottom Line

  • This area of telomere and measuring impact of lifestyle choices through measuring telomere is quite exciting.
  • A lot of research is going on in both gaining fundamental understanding as well designing interventions that could potentially defeat body’s lifespan clock.
  • Sound like pretty cool stuff to me, if this works as advertised.
  • I bet we will be hearing a lot about this topic, so stay tuned.

What is your perspective of this topic?

I would love to hear and learn from you.

Please click on the “Comments” link to share you thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

Post #48 – Is cancer preventable through optimal healthy living?

10 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Causes of Death, Ideal Body Weight, Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Exercise, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Supplements, Uncategorized, Vitality, wellness

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My wife Kimberly was telling me the other day that 2015 has been quite a remarkable year in that we had several cancer episodes among our friends and families.  Even a couple of them died.

So, that got me thinking… is cancer preventable through optimal healthy living?

What is cancer anyways?

According National Institute of Health (NIH), National Cancer Institute (NCI) website www.cancer.gov, cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases. In all types of cancer, some of the body’s cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues.

Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells. Normally, human cells grow and divide to form new cells as the body needs them. When cells grow old or become damaged, they die, and new cells take their place.

When cancer develops, however, this orderly process breaks down. As cells become more and more abnormal, old or damaged cells survive when they should die, and new cells form when they are not needed. These extra cells can divide without stopping and may form growths called tumors.

Many cancers form solid tumors, which are masses of tissue. Cancers of the blood, such as leukemias, generally do not form solid tumors.

Cancerous tumors are malignant, which means they can spread into, or invade, nearby tissues. In addition, as these tumors grow, some cancer cells can break off and travel to distant places in the body through the blood or the lymph system and form new tumors far from the original tumor.

A cancer that has spread from the place where it first started to another place in the body is called metastatic cancer. Under a microscope, metastatic cancer cells generally look the same as cells of the original cancer.

How does cancer arise?

Cancer is a genetic disease—that is, it is caused by changes to genes that control the way our cells function, especially how they grow and divide. Three main types of genes may be involved—proto-oncogenes or genes involved in normal cell growth, tumor suppressor genes, and DNA repair genes. These changes are sometimes called “drivers” of cancer.

Genetic changes that cause cancer can be inherited from our parents. They can also arise during a person’s lifetime as a result of errors that occur as cells divide or because of damage to DNA caused by certain environmental exposures. Cancer-causing environmental exposures include substances, such as the chemicals in tobacco smoke, and radiation, such as ultraviolet rays from the sun. (Our Cancer Causes and Risk Factors page has more information.)

Inherited genetic mutations play a major role in about 5 to 10 percent of all cancers. Researchers have associated mutations in specific genes with more than 50 hereditary cancer syndromes, which are disorders that may predispose individuals to developing certain cancers.

How to prevent cancer?

So, now finally getting to the topic we started with – how to prevent cancer. Here are the four major ways to help prevent cancer:

  1. Avoid or control things known to cause cancer.
  2. Changes in diet and lifestyle.
  3. Finding precancerous conditions early. Precancerous conditions are conditions that may become cancer.
  4. Chemoprevention (medicines to treat a precancerous condition or to keep cancer from starting).

Let us take these items one at a time.

  1. Avoid or control things known to cause cancer.

Factors that are known to increase the risk of cancer:

  • Cigarette Smoking and Tobacco Use
  • Infections: HPV, Hepatitis B and C, Espstein-Barr virus, Helcobater pylori
  • Radiation: Ultraviolet sunlight, medical radiation, radon gas in homes
  • Immunosuppressive Medicines
  1. Changes in diet and lifestyle

Factors that may affect the risk of cancer:

  • Diet
  • Alcohol
  • Physical Activity
  • Obesity
  • Environmental Risk Factors: second hand smoke, asbestos, air pollution, pesticides, arsenic in drinking ware

Diet is anything we put in our mouths on a regular basis.

Diet is always a controversial subject. Media loves to talk about any new tidbit that comes out through research regarding diet.

Some studies show that fruits and non-starchy vegetables may protect against cancers of the mouth, esophagus, and stomach. Fruits may also protect against lung cancer.

Some studies have shown that a diet high in fat, proteins, calories, and red meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer, but other studies have not shown this.

It is not known if a diet low in fat and high in fiber, fruits, and vegetables lowers the risk of colorectal cancer.

According to American Cancer Society website www.cancer.org, here are the dietary guidelines to prevent cancer:

  • Be as lean as possible throughout life without being underweight.
  • Avoid excess weight gain at all ages. For those who are overweight or obese, losing even a small amount of weight has health benefits and is a good place to start.
  • Choose foods and drinks in amounts that help you get to and maintain a healthy weight.
  • Limit how much processed meat and red meat you eat.
  • Eat at least 2½ cups of vegetables and fruits each day.
  • Choose whole grains instead of refined grain products.
  • Avoid alcohol or drink no more than 1 drink per day for women or 2 per day for men.

T. Colin Campbell, PhD distills his 30 years of research on cancer and diet in “The China Study”. He concludes that a vegan diet minimizes the risk of all types of cancers as well as many other types of health risks.

For Physical Activity, American Cancer Society recommendation is for cancer prevention:

  • Exercise:
    • Adults: Get at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity each week (or a combination of these), preferably spread throughout the week.
    • Children and teens: Get at least 1 hour of moderate or vigorous intensity activity each day, with vigorous activity on at least 3 days each week.
  • Limit sedentary behavior such as sitting, lying down, watching TV, and other forms of screen-based entertainment.

Doing some physical activity above usual activities, no matter what one’s level of activity, can have many health benefits.

  1. Finding cancer or precancerous conditions early. Precancerous conditions are conditions that may become cancer.

Then there is the matter of “early detection and early cure.”

Cancer is a group of diseases that can cause almost any sign or symptom. The signs and symptoms will depend on where the cancer is, how big it is, and how much it affects the organs or tissues. If a cancer has spread (metastasized), signs or symptoms may appear in different parts of the body.

 Treatments work best when cancer is found early – while it’s still small and is less likely to have spread to other parts of the body. This often means a better chance for a cure, especially if the cancer can be removed with surgery.

A good example of the importance of finding cancer early is melanoma skin cancer. It can be easy to remove if it has not grown deep into the skin. The 5-year survival rate (percentage of people who live at least 5 years after diagnosis) at this early stage is around 98%. Once melanoma has spread to other parts of the body, the 5-year survival rate drops to about 16%.

Some symptoms, such as tiredness or coughing, are more likely caused by something other than cancer. Symptoms can seem unimportant, especially if there’s a clear cause or the problem only lasts a short time. In the same way, a person may reason that a symptom like a breast lump is probably a cyst that will go away by itself. But no symptom should be ignored or overlooked, especially if it has lasted a long time or is getting worse.

Most likely, symptoms are not caused by cancer, but it’s important to have them checked out, just in case. If cancer is not the cause, a doctor can help figure out what the cause is and treat it, if needed.

These days it is not that difficult to get one’s genome mapped and find out any cancer syndromes that might be present and actively take the necessary preventative actions.

The American Cancer Society recommends these cancer screening guidelines for early detection of cancer  for most adults. Screening tests are used to find cancer before a person has any symptoms.

  1. Chemoprevention (medicines to treat a precancerous condition or to keep cancer from starting).

Chemoprevention is the use of substances to lower the risk of cancer, or keep it from recurring. The substances may be natural or made in the laboratory. Some chemopreventive agents are tested in people who are at high risk for a certain type of cancer. The risk may be because of a precancerous condition, family history, or lifestyle factors.

Some chemoprevention studies have shown good results. For example, selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMS) such as tamoxifen or raloxifene have been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer in women at high risk. Finasteride and dutasteride have been shown to reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

Bottomline

Cancer is a genetic disease that may be the result of either mutated inherited genes or the ones occur later due to health, lifestyle and environment issues.  Only about 5 to 10% of the risk of cancer is due to mutated inherited genes.

Yes, healthy lifestyle choices we have been discussing in other blog posts do lead to decreasing the chances of cancer.  To minimize the risk of cancer:

  1. Be of Lean weight
  2. Eat clean with lots of fruits and vegetables and only sparing amount of white meats
  3. Avoid the use of alcohol or tobacco
  4. Avoid second-hand smoke, pesticides and other environmental carcinogens
  5. Stay active and exercise
  6. Get regular checkups and screening tests
  7. In case of any signs or symptoms, get a quick check up to rule out any cancerous or precancerous condition.

 

Your thoughts on this subject?

Would love to hear, learn and share information.

If possible, please do leave comment in the blog itself, so others can share and learn.

Post #42 – Which sweeteners are best to use for optimal health?

17 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition

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Every day, we are all faced with choices of how much sweeteners to use and which ones?

Every time, we drink a cup of coffee or tea, we have many choices of which sweetener to use.

Sweeteners

And, of course every time, we select any product and read the list of ingredients there are even more variations of sweeteners. Whether it is cookies, sodas, jams, jellies, fruit yogurts, juices, chewing gum, toothpaste, pickles, Kool Aid, frozen dinners, breath mints, iced tea, or any of the other thousands of products on the super market shelves, many have one or more sweeteners.

In addition to what is pictured above, the sweeteners may include:

  • High fructose corn syrup
  • Glucose
  • Dextrrose
  • Malt dextrin
  • Acesulfame K
  • Sugar alcohols: Maltitol, erythritol,xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, isomalt etc.
  • Maple Syrup
  • Sorghum Syrup
  • Fructose
  • Molassses
  • Caramel
  • Lactose

So, which ones are desirable, okay, bad or ugly?

I recently attended a seminar on sweeteners at University of Maryland Medical Center Institute of Integrative Medicine given by a faculty member, Chris D’Adamo, Ph. D. and a Nutrition Coach at their clinic Rachel Druckenmiller.

They offered lots of great information. In fact, if you are interested, I will be happy to send you a copy of their presentation.

Here is some key information I learned.

First a quick math that may be useful in reading the food labels and keeping track of your carbohydrate consumption: 4 grams of sugar = 1 Teaspoon = 1 sugar cube.

It is very important to understand how much sugar you may be ingesting in a serving. Since, most of us understand teaspoons, this conversion can help visualizing. For example, 10 teaspoons in can of coke, 17 teaspoons in a bottle of lemonade and 7 teaspoon in one serving of Yoplait yogurt as pictured below. A 14oz can of condensed milk has 55 teaspoons of sugar. How can they even do that!

Sugar in Coke

Sugar in Lemonade Sugar in OJ Sugar in Yoplait Sugar in Condensed Milk

www.SugarsStacks.com  has many more such examples.

Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load are two related terms used to measure of how quickly a specified amount of food will cause a rise in blood sugar level.

Glucose has a glycemic index (GI) of 100 and fructose is 25. Sucrose (Ordinary sugar) which is made up of a combination of these two has a GI of 65.

This website http://www.sugar-and-sweetener-guide.com/glycemic-index-for-sweeteners.html gives Glycemic index of all different sweeteners.

Glycemic Load (GL) also accounts for the total amount of carbohydrate content, not just how fast it converts to glucose.

So, it would seem that we should pick the sweetener with the lowest Glycemic Load.

But alas, the life is not that simple!

Artificial Sweeteners have GI of zero and often very small GL, but they have other harmful effects on the body.  These are well documented in research, although FDA has these on it Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) list. 

Here is a quick summary:

Saccharin is known to cause increased risk of bladder cancer in humans, damages DNA in high doses and impairs recognition of calorie-containing sweets

Aspartame is known to induce DNA damage, causes oxidative stress in brain, has neurotoxic & carcinogenic metabolites, i.e., causes brain damage and cancer. Also, is known to cause depression, insomnia, seizures, memory loss, triggers headaches. It can also cause heart arrhythmias and hypertension.  It is also associated with weight gain and damages gut bacteria.  Just last week Pepsi announced that they will be discontinuing the use of Aspartame.

Sucralose – currently there are not enough human studies and no long term human studies. It has been observed to elevate blood glucose and insulin in some research studies, known to damage gut bacteria, has been involved in inflammatory bowel disease, may trigger migraine headaches. Coke has been introducing beverages with Sucralose.

Acesulfame K – negatively impacts thyroid, has produced thyroid tumor in rats, rabbits and dogs, and may have negative effect on neurometabolic function.

I think you get the idea! All artificial sweeteners have their down side. Saccharin and Aspartame are the worst.

High Fructose Corn Syrup or HFCS is everywhere in products. It is often the cheapest source of sweetening a product. But it has many adverse health effects.  HFCS digested, absorbed and metabolized differently than glucose.  HFCS is metabolized in liver and favor creation of fat.  It also increases triglycerides and VLDL. HFCS increase risk factors for cardio vascular diseases.

It is definitely advised to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup. 

Bottom-line:

Best strategy for sweeteners that Chris D’Adamo recommends for optimal heaths is:

Avoid regular intake of artificial sweeteners. Infrequent intake is unlikely to do harm. However, there is enough evidence to suggest caution for regular use.

Make moderate use of natural sweeteners – Stevia, honey, molasses, maple syrup, coconut sugar, yacon, dates are the choices – within your personal dietary carbohydrate goals.

Do a gradual “sweetener taper”. Taste buds will adapt.

Eat moderate amount of whole fruits (preferably ones with low fructose) and berries for sweet taste and health benefits.

What do you think?

What is your take on the sweetener?

Post #41 – So, how to measure how close to optimal is your health? Or, how quickly are you aging?

19 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Aging, Dying, Life-Span, Living to 120, Mental Health, Nutrition, Optimal Exercise, Puposely Living, Vitality, wellness

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“How old are you?” someone asks. Number of years since birth is the generally the answer – that is your Chronological Age or CA.

But how hold do you feel? How old do you act? How old do you look? That is your Biological Age or BA.

Wouldn’t it be nice to actually be able to measure your biological age?

CA and BA is the difference between being 40 year old and going on 60. Or, may be being 60 year old and going on 40.

Wouldn’t it be more useful to have a single number like BA, than understanding individual factors like your total cholesterol, HDL, A1c, VO2 Max, etc?

Recently, in the media there has been a buzz about a recent research published by scientists led by Duke University School of Medicine about measuring biological age. For example, see the article in WSJ: How Quickly Are You Growing Old?

Now there are a quite a few websites, where you answer a bunch of question and they will tell you, your biological age as compared to your chronological age.

For example, here are three such sites, I tried (my CA is 60.9 years):

http://www.biological-age.com/ calculated my biological age as 36

https://www.sharecare.com told me my BA was 53.6.

http://www.growyouthful.com/gettestinfo.php said my BA was 46.

Each of the sites followed up with advice and helpful hints on what I could start or stop doing to further increase my expected health and lifespan.

Unfortunately, none of these websites show exactly what they do with the information you provide and how they arrive at the number they call Biological Age.

But this recent study, “Quantification of biological aging in young adults”, by Daniel W. Belsky et al, is very rigorous treatment of this subject and gives you all the details behind the curtain. And, for me, these details are not only fascinating but actually quite useful to understand what matters for biological age to start diverging from chronological age. In other words, what slows down or speed up aging.

The study calculated the aging rate of 954 men and women—taking various measurements of their bodies’ health—when they were each 26, 32 and 38 in chronological years. By analyzing how these measures changed over time, the researchers were able to see who aged faster and who slower than normal.

To measure the pace of biological aging, which the study defined as the declining integrity of multiple organ systems, the researchers relied on 18 separate biomarkers, summarized in figure below.

These ranged from common measures such as HDL-cholesterol levels and mean arterial blood pressure to more obscure ones like the length of telomeres—the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that shorten with age.

Go on in Years

Chronological age of all participants was 38 years. However, researchers found that the biological ages varied from 26 years to 60 years.

For measuring how fast people aged, they calculated aging over 12 years. About 30 percent aged biologically one year for every calendar year. There were those who aged as much as 3 years for every calendar year. And, there were four members of the group who aged not at all or actually got biologically younger during the 12 year period.

BOTTOMLINE:

Finding one’s Biological Age is a fascinating concept and can be very useful in optimizing health and life span. However, this is not an exact science just yet, although good strides are being made in research.

However, if you want to focus on living optimally, you can focus on changing your lifestyle to optimize the basic 18 or so biomarkers used in this study. Most of these can be impacted by lifestyle choices. Only 20% depend upon genetics.

Proper food, hydration, exercise, supplements and medical care are the key methods to managing these primary biomarkers.

Websites that compute biological ages also suggest additional actionable items that seem to strongly correlate to optimal health span and life span. These include:

  1. Optimal sleep (7 to 9 hours)
  2. Reduced stress (meditation, perspective management)
  3. Reduced exposure to toxins (organic food, reduced use of chemicals, clean water)
  4. Increased social contact (having friends, family, living with a life partner)
  5. Purposeful living (satisfying work, hobbies, social endeavors)

What is your take on this subject?

Please feel free to leave comment to share your perspective.

Post #32 – What is the optimal time to take your supplements?

11 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Aging, Nutrition, Supplements

≈ 2 Comments

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In response to the last blog post about supplements, a friend asked me this question, “What is the optimal time to take supplements?”

And, I realized that I had developed a personal routine for taking my supplements based on what my functional medicine specialist doctor had suggested and directions from the various supplement manufacturers. However, I had not really done my own digging to find the definitive answer to this question of when is the best time for different supplements.

And, since I am taking my supplements every single day, it was high time I did so.

So, here is what I found. There are several considerations in deciding the optimal time to take your supplement:

  1. With food or on empty stomach: In general, most of the multivitamins manufacturers recommend taking those with food. There are three main reasons cited for this. Taking multivitamins with food slows the absorption rate and makes the micronutrients available over longer period of time. Micronutrients are supposed to work in conjunction with macronutrients (carbs, fat ad proteins). And, finally, taking them with food makes vitamins that are fat soluble (A, D, E and K) be better absorbed, assuming the meal will have some fat content.

Exceptions to this rule are certain multivitamins or supplements that are enteric coated, so they do not dissolve in the stomach. It is recommended that these enteric coated multivitamins or supplements are taken on empty stomach. The multivitamins ones I take manufactured by Xtend-life happen to be indeed enteric coated.

  1. If the daily dosage is lots of pills – spread them out over multiple doses. For example, the Xtend-life multivitamin that I take comprises 7 pill is a good candidate of splitting into two doses. I take 4 in the afternoon and three at night.
  2. Supplements that relax the body are best taken at bed times – For example, Magnesium relaxes the muscle and help with sleep, so it is best taken at bed time. Same goes for Serotonin, which promotes sleep.
  3. Omega 3 with meals: Omega-3 supplements can be part of the fat in-take with meals and also snacks, of course, depending upon how many pills of Omega-3 you are taking. With 4 pills of Omega 3/QH and 2 pills of Flaxseed oil, I usually have at least one pill to take with every meal or snack.
  4. Probiotics are best taken in the morning – In general probiotics can be taken at any time, but the best times seem to be when the pH of the stomach is least acidic. Less acidity allows more of the bacteria to survive on their way to the intestines where they are needed. In general, in the mornings, stomach tends to be least acidic.
  5. Take them at the same time every day – Taking these at the same time every day, just like daily meals, the nutrients become available throughout the daily 24 hour daily cycle.
  6. If taking any medications, check with your doctor for any possible drug supplement interactions – This can be very important, for example, if you are taking a blood thinner, such as Coumadin, taking vitamin K might be counterproductive or may have to be accounted for to figure out proper dosage.
  7. If you miss an optimal supplement time, it is better to take the supplement at a different time the same day than to skip it – You will get at least some benefit, and there is a much better chance that the next day you will be back on schedule. Skipping always makes the skipping the following day more likely.

Based on these considerations, the following looks like an optimal schedule for my supplement regime:

Approximate Time of Day Type of Meal or Empty Stomach Supplements
8:30am Breakfast or Breakfast Shake Omega 3/QH, D3, Glucosamin/Chondoitin, Calcium Citrate, Red Rice Yeast, Super MiraForte, Probiotics,   B-Complex, L-Methylfolate
12:00pm Lunch Omega 3/QH
2pm No Meal 4 pills multivitamins, 2 pills Male Rejuvinator
3pm Snack (Almonds) Flaxseed Oil
5:30pm Shake Omega 3/QH
8pm Dinner Omega 3/QH, D3, Glucosamin/Chondoitin, Calcium Citrate, Red Rice Yeast, Super MiraForte,Vitamin B-12, Chelated Molybdenum, Alpha Lipoic Acid, CoQ10, NAC, Milk Thistle
10:30pm Bed Time

(No meal)

 4 pills multivitamins, 2 pill Male Rejuvinator, Magnesium, Flaxseed Oil

What do you think? Do you have any information different from this?

When do you take your supplements?

I would love to hear.

 

Post #31 – What supplements to take for Optimal Health?

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Functional Medicine, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Supplements

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On June 8, 2014, I wrote a blog post #15, “Is taking multivitamin and supplements helpful, harmless or harmful?” There I described my thinking on this subject and what I was taking at that time as supplements. Back then I was taking supplement in 29 pills. These days, it is up to 42 pills! So, to anyone watching, it must feel a little more than crazy.

Over the holidays, when family and friends saw me take all those supplement pills, I kept getting these questions:

“What are all these pills you are taking?”

Do you need all these supplements?

Is it even safe to take all these on a daily basis?

Finally, I pulled out my bag of supplements and gave them the full tour. I particularly wanted to hear my niece’s opinion, who is a cardiologist, to understand if I was doing anything wrong.

So, I thought this was a good topic to revisit.

Here is what I am taking these days and why, and a little background how I got there. The following chart summarizes the supplements, their brand names and generally what there are for.

No. Vendor Name Description # Pills per Day
1.

 

 Xtendlife Total Balance Men’s Premium Daily multivitamins, minerals. It also have many other items generally considered beneficial 7
2. Xtendlife Omega 3/ QH Ultra Fish Oil, Omega 6, Omega 9, Ubiqunol 4
3. Nature’s Bounty Flaxseed Oil 1200 mg each Flaxseed Oil 2
4. Nature’s Bounty D3-2000 2000 mg each Vitamin D3 2
5. LifeExtension Glucosamine / Chondroitin Glucosamine Sulfate and Chondroitin Sulfate – for joint health 2
6. NOW Calcium Citrate

250 mg calcium each

 Along with Vitamin D, Manganese, Zinc, Copper and Magnesium required for absorption – for bone health 2
7. Nature’s Plus Red Rice Yeast

600 mg each

 To manage cholesterol 2
8. Xtendlife Male Rejuvinator For prostate health 6
9. Life Extension Super Miaforte For Low T 4
10. RAW Probiotics Ultimate Care-100 Billion Garden of Life 34 different strains of bacteria 1
11. VitaminShoppe B-Complex 50 All B Vitamins – recommended by Genova Diagnostics 1
12. Life Extension Optimized Folate

L-Methylfolate 1000 mg

 Metabolically active form of folic acid -– recommended by Genova Diagnostics 1
13. MethylCobamin Vitamin B-12 1mg Recommended by Genova Diagnostics 1
14. SOLGRID Chelated Molybdenum Recommended by Genova Diagnostics 1
15. VitaminShoppe Alpha Lipoic Acid 100 mg Recommended by Genova Diagnostics 1
16. KAL Magnesium 400mg each Recommended by Genova Diagnostics 1
17. VitaminShoppe CoQ-10

200 mg

 Additional amount for allergies and liver support 1
18. VitaminShoppe NAC N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine 600mg For hay fever/ rag weed allergies and liver support 2
19. VitaminShoppe Milk Thistle extract 300mg For hay fever/ rag weed allergies and liver support 1

Here is the story of how I got to my current 42 pills a day regime.

I started with the daily multivitamin.

That is the most basic. I know that many people, including some of the physicians I have had, believe that it is best to get the basic vitamins and minerals “in a natural way”. I guess that means from what we eat or drink. But doing the research on this topic I have decided that there isn’t much “natural” about our lifestyle.

Eating foods that include pizzas, fried ice creams, drinking caramel macchiatos, going through eating and dieting binges, living in temperature controlled houses and offices, using gadgets and gizmos for everything, rushing to doctors for prescription for every symptom, I am not sure what it really means to get nutrients that body needs in a “natural way”. And, with all the technology that we use to grow our food these days, even fruits and vegetable can hardly be called “natural”.

Any doctor will tell you, yes if you are deficit in any of the basic vitamins and minerals, you can develop health issues. The way I look at it, why would I want to chance having deficit of any of these essential items? So, as far as I am concerned, daily dose of all essential vitamins and minerals is a must.

My search for the best multivitamin in the marketplace led me to Xtendlife. And, as you can see in this table below, their super-duper multivitamin product is Total Balance Men’s Premium – which includes lots of other well-known herbs and molecules in additional to the essential vitamins and minerals. So, that is what I have been taking. In the table, each underscored item is a hyperlink to the detail about that item on Xtendlife’s website. In many cases, hyperlink shows the literature they have used to determine the daily optimal dose, which in some cases you will notice is much more than 100% for USDA recommended daily allowance (RDA).

Supplement Facts (Total Balance Men’s Premium multivitamin) Serving size: 7 Tablets Servings per container: 15
Amount Per Serving % Daily Value*
Calories 25
     Calories from fat 5
Vitamin A 5000 IU 100%
(from Natural mixed carotenoids)
Vitamin C 285 mg 480%
(from 180 mg of Calcium ascorbate, 200 mg of Potassium ascorbate and 40 mg of  Ascorbyl palmitate)
Vitamin D3 500 IU 130%
(as Cholecalciferol)
Vitamin E 100 IU 330%
(as D-Alpha tocopheryl succinate from vegetable and soy bean oils 1 mg = 1.21 IU)
Vitamin K2 180 mcg 230%
(as Menaquinone)
Thiamin 10 mg 670%
(from 14 mg of Thiamin hydrochloride)
Riboflavin 10 mg 590%
(from 21 mg of Riboflavin-5-phosphate)
Niacin 27 mg 140%
(from 15 mg of Nicotinic acid, 15 mg of Niacinamide and 0.97 mg Chromium nicotinate)
Vitamin B6  8mg 400%
(from 12 mg of Pyridoxal-5-phosphate)
Folic Acid 300 mcg 80%
Vitamin B12  25 mcg 420%
(as Cobamamide)
Biotin 400 mcg 130%
Pantothenic acid 41 mg 410%
(from 48 mg Calcium pantothenate)
Calcium 50 mg 6%
(from 90 mg of Dicalcium phosphate, 180 mg of Calcium ascorbate, 60 mg of Calcium magnesium inositol hexaphosphate and 48 mg of Calcium pantothenate)
Phosphorus 28 mg 4%
(from 90 mg of Dicalcium phosphate, 60 mg of Calcium magnesium inositol hexaphosphate, 21 mg of  Riboflavin- 5-phosphate and 12 mg of Pyridoxal- 5-phosphate)
Iodine 150 mcg 100%
(from 197 mcg Potassium iodide)
Magnesium 67 mg 20%
(from 200 mg of Magnesium citrate, 102 mg of Magnesium stearate and 60 mg of Calcium magnesium inositol hexaphosphate)
Zinc 19 mg 130%
(from 33 mg of Zinc acetate dihydrate and 31 mg of Zinc citrate)
Selenium 100 mcg 140%
(from 250 mcg of L-selenomethionine)
Copper 0.2 mg 10%
(from 1.43 mg of Copper gluconate)
Manganese 2 mg 100%
(from 8 mg of Manganese citrate)
Chromium 106 mcg 90%
(from 970 mcg of Chromium nicotinate)
Molybdenum 64 mcg 90%
(from 163 mcg of Sodium molybdate)
Potassium 74 mg 2%
(from 200 mg of Potassium ascorbate, 100 mg of Tripotassium citrate and 0.197 mg of Potassium iodide)
RNA 150 mg **
(Ribonucleic acid, from yeast)
Green tea extract 100 mg **
(from Camellia sinensis, leaf)
(providing 80 mg of catechins)
Milk thistle extract  100 mg **
(from Silybum marianum, seed)
(providing 80 mg of silymarins)
Soy lecithin 100 mg **
(a source of Phosphatidyl choline)
Betain HCL 99 mg **
MSM 99 mg **
(Methylsulfonyl methane)
Choline bitartrate 93 mg **
DMG HCL 90 mg **
N-acetyl glucosamine  79 mg **
(from Crustacean shells)
Hesperidin 78 mg **
(from Citrus aurantium (Bitter orange) fruit)
N-acetyl L-cysteine 74 mg **
Horsetail extract 60 mg **
(from Equisetum arvense, stem & leaf)
Inositol 59 mg **
(from 50 mg of Inositol and 60 mg of Calcium magnesium inositol hexaphosphate)
SAMe 51 mg **
(from 98 mg S-adenosylmethionine tosylate)
Alpha lipoic acid 50 mg **
Bacopa extract 50 mg **
(from Bacopa monnieri, leaf)
(providing 15 mg of bacosides)
Black cumin extract  50 mg **
(from Nigella sativa, seed)
(equivalent to 190 mg of Black cumin seeds)
Ginger extract 50 mg **
(from Zingiber officinale, root)
(providing 2.5mg of gingerols)
Ginkgo extract 50 mg **
(from Ginkgo Biloba,leaf)
(providing 12.5 mg of ginkgo flavonoglycosides and 3 mg of terpene lactones)
Guggul gum extract 50 mg **
(from Commiphora mukul, gum exudate)
(providing 1.25 mg of guggulsterones)
PABA 50 mg **
(p-Aminobenzoic acid)
Pine bark extract  50 mg **
(from Pinus massoniana, bark)
Turmeric extract 50 mg **
(from Curcuma longa, root)
(providing 47.5 mg of curcuminoids)
5-Hydroxytryptophan  49 mg **
(from Griffonia simplicifolia, seed)
Myricetin 49 mg **
(from 70 mg of Myrica cerifera (Bayberry), leaf)
Grape seed extract  30 mg **
(from Vitis vinifera, species)
(providing at least 450 mg/g phenolics)
Mineral sea salts 30 mg **
(providing trace elements including strontium, tungsten and rubidium)
Piperine 28 mg **
(from 30 mg of Piper nigrum extract (Black pepper), fruit extract)
Trans-resveratrol 25 mg **
(from 50 mg of Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum), root)
Isoflavones 20 mg **
(from 50 mg of Soybean extract)
Coenzyme Q-10  19 mg **
Luteolin 18 mg **
(from Arachis hypogaea (Peanut), shell)
Alfalfa extract  10 mg **
(from Medicago sativa, aerial parts)
(equivalent to 110 mg of fresh alfalfa)
Phosphatidyl L-serine  9 mg **
(from 50 mg of Soybean lecithin)
Policosanol 8 mg **
(from 17 mg of Sugar cane extract)
Red clover extract  7 mg **
(from Trifolium pratense, aerial parts)
(providing 2.5 mg of isoflavones)
ATP 5 mg **
(Adenosine triphosphate, from Yeast)
Tocotrienol/tocopherol complex 2 mg **
(from 10 mg of Tocomin® (from Palm tree oil))
Vinpocetine 2 mg **
(from Criocerus longiflorus, whole plant)
Boron 720 mcg **
(from 12 mg of Boron citrate)
Amino Acid Blend
L-lysine HCL 164.00 mg **
L-carnosine 148.50 mg **
L-tyrosine 100.00 mg **
L-arginine HCL 90.00 mg **
L-methionine 89.55 mg **
L-ornithine HCL 50.00 mg **
L-proline 50.00 mg **
L-cysteine 49.75 mg **
L-glutamine 49.75 mg **
L-pyroglutamic acid 49.75 mg **
Taurine 49.25 mg **
(Reduced) L-glutathione 49.00 mg **
Male Health Support Blend
Phytosterols 190 mg **
(from 200 mg Soybean extract)
Saw palmetto extract  160 mg **
(from Serenoa repens fruit)
(providing 40 mg of fatty acids)
Nettle extract 100 mg **
(from Urticae dioica root)
Chrysin 99 mg **
(from Oroxylum indicum bark)
Zinc acetate dihydrate 33 mg **
Lycopene 99 mcg **
(from 15 mg of Tomato extract)
Enzyme Blend
Bromelain 50 mg **
(from Pineapple stem)
Nattozimes® 50 mg **
(Protease from fermentation of Aspergillus oryzae & Aspergillus melleus)
Amylase 30 mg **
(from fermentation of Aspergillus oryzae)
Lipase 20 mg **
(from fermentation of Aspergillus niger)
Immunity Stimulating Blend
Aloe vera  50 mg **
(from Aloe barbadensis leaf juice powder)
(equivalent to 10,000 mg of Aloe leaf juice)
Olive leaf extract  50 mg **
(from Olea europaea, leaf)
(providing 7.5 mg of oleuropein)
Beta glucan 35 mg **
(from yeast)
Tea polysaccharides 12 mg **
(from 50 mg of Camellia sinensis leaf)
Eye Health Blend
Bilberry extract 40 mg **
(from Vaccinum myrtillus fruit)
(providing 10 mg of proanthocyanins and anthocyanins)
Rutin  9 mg **
(from Saphorae japonica bud)
Lutein  2.4 mg **
(from 50 mg of Aztec marigold flower)
Astaxanthin 800 mcg **
(from 40 mg of Haematococcus pluvialis)
Zeaxanthin 475 mcg **
(from 10 mg of Aztec marigold flower)

I had started taking Vitamin D-3, several years ago, when my routine blood work showed deficiency. Statistics show that over 70% of people living in Northern hemisphere are deficient in Vitamin D-3. There are over 500 different genes that Vitamin D can switch on and off. And, every single cell in our body has a receptor for Vitamin D. Looks like a must supplement to me! Two pills a day of Nature’s bounty 2000mg per day is the dose I have chosen.

Next must for me after the multivitamins and Vitamin D is Omega 3. I have been taking both based on Fish Oil and Flax Seed Oil. Again, I found Xtendlife Omega 3 as the best product in the market. I have chosen to take to their super-duper product, Ultra QH, which in additional to Omega 3, contains Omega 6, Omega 9 and Ubiqunol. For flax seed oil, I selected Nature’s Bounty product. There are different recommendations on minimum vs. optimal. I have settled on four pills of Ultra QH and 2 pills of flax seed oil.

To these I added Glucosamine Sulfate and Chondroitin Sulfate for joint health. Most primary physicians are recommending these for over-50 patients for joint health. Add to that Calcium Citrate for bone health (again physicians recommend these routinely for over-50 patients, especially women).

When I told my physician that I wanted to get off Lipitor and demonstrated to him that with exercise and nutrition I had gotten to within striking range of the target of 100 for LDL, he recommended Red Rice Yeast as “natural statin”. In the last two tests, my LDL has been 90 and 88. So, I am keeping on with Red Rice yeast.

My primary physician had recommended Saw Palmetto for prostate health. I found a good formulation, at VitaminShoppe of Saw Palmetto & Pygeum Complex. That worked well for me. Then I found even a better formulation, Male Rejuvinator at Xtendlife.

Early last year, I did a full hormone panel of tests and found that my Testosterone was quite low. In my search for supplements to rebuild Testosterone, I came across a formulation called Super Miaforte from Life Extension. I have been taking Super Miaforte for about nine months now. Follow up test results for Testosterone have been very encouraging so far.

So, in the middle of last year, I made an appointment with University of Maryland Medical Center, School of Integrative Medicine clinic. There I met with Dr. Lauren Richter, a functional medicine specialist. I told her my objective of purposely living to 120, discussed my lifestyle, showed her all the supplements I was taking and posed to her this question: So, what supplement should I take for an optimal health?

Instead of looking at me cross-eyed, she said that she (and functional medicine specialists) has a very specific approach to figuring out the optimal nutrition in-take. She recommended that I go through blood/urine test called NutrEval FMV by Genova Diagnostics. The tests involve looking at a large number of metabolic biomarkers, and then as a result, deducing very specific recommendations about supplements for optimal health.

Test results pointed out high need for me for the entire B-complex (Thimain -B1, Riboflavin -B2, Niacin-B3, Pyridxine-B6, Biotin-B7, Folic Acid -B9, and Cobalamin-B12), Magnesium and need for me to add Vitamin C, alpha-Lipoic Acid, Molybdenum and Zinc and Probiotics to what I was already taking. Results contained very specific quantities for these. Dr. Richter reviewed what I was already taking and told to me to continue taking those.

Finally, when I discussed with Dr. Richter, my past history of hay fever/allergies, which had re-emerged for a couple of weeks at the beginning of this past fall, she recommended I take Milk Thistle, up the quantity of CoQ10 and add N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC) 600mg –all in support of the liver.

So, at that point, I added these recommended supplements to my regime.

I have been doing this full regime faithfully now for about five months. I definitely have had more energy than before. I have not really experienced any side effects so far.

So, there you have it – full story of my supplement regime.

What do you think?

What is your practice/experience/research on supplements?

I would love to hear.