Category Archives: Nutrition

Post #67 – What is the Minimum Stack of Supplements to Take?

05 Sunday Jun 2022

Posted by in Nutrition, Supplements, wellness

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Probably one of the most common questions I get from my friends and family is:  So, what is the minimum stack of supplements should I take?

In January 2015, I wrote the blog Post #31 – What supplements to take for Optimal Health? There I shared my own regimen at that time, which worked out to a whopping 42 pills every day.

Over the last seven year, I have tweaked this some. Based on my research and experience. Here are the changes, I have made to my regimen over the years, which make it down to 39 pills/capsules daily!

  1. I have upped my daily dose for D3 to 10,000 IU. For most people this may be considered too much D3. But I settled at this dosage based on experimenting with different dosage levels and monitoring my lab blood work.  Over time I found that 10,000 IU gives me optimal value of around 50 for Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy. Upon recommendation from my wellness doc, Dr. Gonzales, every year, during summer, I take a six-week vacation from D3 supplementation.
  2. I discontinued both Super Miaforte (by Life Extension) and Male Rejuvinator (by Xtendlife) that I was taking for Low T, when I started using 1% testosterone gel for Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT). The supplements were quite effective and increased my free T by 50%, but I started TRT since the T levels were still not enough. I also do a six-week vacation from TRT every year to make sure that my body continues to produce testosterone. (Minus 10 capsules)
  3. I have added a new probiotic brand, Purely Optimal Probiotics 60 billion CFU. Now I alternate this probiotic with the RAW probiotic I mentioned in Post #31. This is to maintain further diversity in my gut biome.
  4. Based on the latest research, I changed my B-12 supplement to Cyanocobalamin from Methylcobalamin.  
  5. I have added a new supplement: Beta-nucleotide mononucleotide (NMN) that supports production of NAD+, which is crucial to one of the longevity pathways. The formulation I am taking is by Life Force which also includes Berberine and Spermidine and Lithium. All of these are recommended by David Sinclair through his research on longevity. (3 capsules daily)
  6. Another supplement I have added to my stack is Resveratrol as a defense against cellular aging, also based on longevity research by David Sinclair. The formulation I am taking is by Life Extension also contains Quercetin. (1 capsule daily mixed, contents mixed with fats such as guacamole)
  7. Garlic Extract. To further reduce and maintain my blood pressure in the optimal range, I added garlic extract pills to my regiments. I use Formula 109 Aged Garlick Extract by Kyolic. (2 pills daily)
  8. Phytoceramide. For maintaining youthful looking skin, I added a phytoceramide formulation by Life Extension. (1 pill daily)

So, what is the minimum stack one can start with for general health?

So, there you go.

  1. Supplements to correct any deficiencies: In consultation with your physician, if you find any deficiency in vitamins or minerals, it is important to take that supplement in appropriate quantities to correct that deficiency.
  2. A high-quality multi-vitamin. A high-quality multi-vitamin can make up for any vitamin/minerals short comings in your routine diet. Both Life Extension and Xtend-Life make high quality multi-vitamins that come as basic multi-vitamins as well as versions that include other popular supplements. There are other good brands, you may have to do your own research.
  3. Vitamin D-3. Vitamin D-3 is very essential to a large number of cellular activities. Most of us do not get enough sun exposure. It is very easy to measure Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy, as part of your routine lab blood work. Adjust dosage of D-3 to achieve optimal value of 40 to 50 or what is recommended by your physician.
  4. Omega-3. Omega-3 deficiency is very common. Both DHA and EPA are sources of Omega-3.  About 1 grams of EPA/DHA per day is the minimum recommended dose for optimal health. To avoid any mercury or heavy metal contamination, I have stopped taking omega-3 supplements from fish. I use algae derived omega-3 supplements.  I have been taking Ultimate Omega by Nordic Naturals.
  5. Vitamin B12. B12 deficiency is quite common, especially among vegans and vegetarians, but also among omnivores.  So, it is important to take B12 for vegans and vegetarians. B12 can also be monitored through routine blood work.  I use 1000 mcg Cyanocobalamin by frunutta daily sublingually, i.e., under the tongue. This dosage is for someone over 65 years of age. For younger folks, the dosage can be as little as 250 mcg (under 50 years) or 500 mcg (between 50 and 65 years). You may check out research summaries on B12 at NutritionFacts.org.

From my research and experience, that will be the minimum stack I think most people should take for general health. Of course, this is not a medical advice, and you should check with a medical doctor about your specific situation and especially if you have any medical issues.

Bottom Line:

From my research and experience, the minimum stack I think most people can start with for general health is:  

  1. Supplements to correct any deficiencies
  2. A high-quality multi-vitamin
  3. Vitamin D-3
  4. Omega-3
  5. Vitamin B12

Of course, this is not a medical advice, and you should check with a medical doctor about your specific situation and especially if you any have medical issues.

 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 #64 – Fasting, the old new technology and panacea for Optimal Health – Part II

04 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by in Autophagy, Fasting, Lean Mass, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Percent Body Fat, Uncategorized, wellness

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In the last Post #63, I described that:

  1. Lysosomes in our cells collect garbage and covert that for reuse.
  2. Do more of autophagy and body heals itself. Less of autophagy leads to diseases.
  3. Fasting is currently the only way to get the body into autophagy.

Concept of fasting, of course, has been around for thousands of years.

Our hunter gatherer ancestors had to live with unpredictable access to nutrition and routinely experienced periods of fasting and eating. Most religions of the world have some concept of fasting – Lent in Christianity, Ramadan in Islam, ta’anit, taanis or taʿanith in Judaism, a variety of fasting in Hinduism and Buddhism.

However, science of fasting is relatively new, though it is  a popular subject for research these days. I just did a quick search on the word “fasting” on the National Library of Medicine PubMed site and it produced 3,392 citations.

Michael Greger, M.D., who publishes his research summaries on the website NutritionFact.org, recently read and has summarized 1,250 of these papers. I attended the first half of his summaries in a 3-hour webinar last week.

Since weight loss is a major topic of interest around the world, a lot of research has focused on fasting for weight loss and its impact on popular bio-markers such as cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure. There is some research also available on the impact of fasting on longevity., although not as much as for weight loss.

All fasting methods consist of some variations of these variables:

  • What you eat or not eat,
  • How much you eat or not eat,
  • When you eat or not eat, and
  • How frequently you repeat the process.

And, with these variables you can make all kinds of combinations. For example, you may have seen or heard of the following popular combinations:

  1. Water only Fast for, say, 1, 3, or 5 consecutive days; alternate day fasting; 5:2 fasting: fasting for 2 days and eating the other 5 days of the week.
  2. Calories Restricted Diet: 20% fewer calories per day, e.g., 1,600 calories per day when 2,000 is your regular intake
  3. Time-Restricted Feeding: 8:16 fasting: eating for 8 hours and fasting for 16 hours; 4:20 fasting, where you eat for 4 hours and fast for 20, etc.
  4. Fasting-Mimicking Diet: During fasting, you still eat but with certain restrictions on carbs and protein, so your body feels as if you are fasting.

So, what option is optimal for you or I? Well, in biology nothing seems that simple. Answer always seems be: It depends.

The answer as to what is best for you or I, depends on a variety of variables including: state of your health, state of your fitness, your goals, your ability to follow the process in the short term or long term, any medicines you are taking, age, BMI.

Here are some principles, I have been able to tease apart from various research summaries, pod-casts of experts and books I have read so far. In human biology, there is always more details. So, these are, of course, simplified versions.

Principle I: Multiple Energy Sources: Our bodies have three main energy sources: a) immediate energy from the food we eat, b) Glycogen stored in liver, and c) fat stored in the body.

On typical days, we are constantly eating multiple meals a day that equal to or exceed the energy requirement of our body. Body simply takes macro and micro nutrient content from the digested food, and stores excess in liver as Glycogen or as fat in fat cells.

If we eat less than what our body needs, body takes excess first from the glycogen store in the liver and converts into glucose for use by the cells.

When glycogen stores are depleted, body starts to convert store fat into energy, through a process called Ketosis and uses Ketones as source of energy.

Which of these stores are being used when, depends on all those variable I mentioned above. For example, when body will start dipping into glycogen store may depend upon how big the last meal you had and what you ate. Or, your body may go into ketosis relatively quickly if you are athletically trained to burn fat as fuel like distance runners.

Principle II: Autophagy: At some point after body is in ketosis, autophagy turns on more and more vigorously. In fact, different tissues in the body up-regulate autophagy at different times. In autophagy, the lysosomes start to convert garbage insides the cells, e.g., broken DNA strands, ill formed organelles, into sources of energy.

Body is always in autophagy at some level. Fasting just kicks it into higher gears. How long before autophagy goes into higher gears? You guessed it: it depends. Since autophagy happens insides the cells, it is not easy to measure.

In general, autophagy has been observed after 14 hours in time-restricted regimens. And, it is generally established that after three days of fasting autophagy definitely accelerates.

Principle III: Chronobiology: Body’s circadian clock dictates metabolism. So, metabolism is generally faster during the morning and slower in the evening. Studies have shown that in a 16:8 fasting, with same intake folks who ate between 6am to 2pm lost more weight than those who ate from 2pm to 8pm. Moreover, the bio-markers, e.g., LDL cholesterol, of the second group were worse than the first group.

So, the wisdom of eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper holds.

Not to leave you hanging, but it does looks like that it will take at least one more post to share the benefits, downsides and my experiences of fasting so far.

Summary

  1. Several variables make up a fasting protocol: what, how, when and how frequently you eat or not eat.
  2. There are many types of fasting: water only fasts, calories restricted diet, time-restricted feeding, and fasting-mimicking diet. What is optimal for you depends on a number of factors related to your health, fitness, and goals.
  3. Three general principles that you can use as guide to choose a protocol that may best suit you are: multiple sources of energy, autophagy and chronology.

What do you think?

Have you an experience with fasting? Have you learned about autophagy?

I and the readers of this blog 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 #60 – 10 Books on Health and Wellness I Read Over the Last Year

06 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in Aging, Life-Span, Living to 120, meditation, Mental Health, Nutrition, Optimal Exercise, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Puposely Living, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Stress, TM, Uncategorized, wellness, Yoga

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I thought I would share titles, quick summary and my takeaways of the books I recently read on the subject of health and wellness. May be one or more might intrigue you or inspire you for you to explore further. Or, even adopt some practices recommended in these books to improve you health and wellness.

How Not to Die Cook Book As I mentioned in my previous post #58, I consider Michael Greger’s website http://www.NutiritionFacts.com as the go-to site for all information related to nutrition. This cookbook is a good companion book to the website and his earlier best-selling book How Not To Die. Recipes are practical way of adapting to the latest in nutrition science. I have tried few recipes. They are very good.

The End of Heart Disease In my blog post #9 – When it comes to health, vitality and aging what is really possible?, I had discussed the book, Prevent and Reverse Hearth Disease by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. M.D. In this book, Dr. Fuhrman’s has updated research on preventing and reversing heart disease. Case studies are mind blowing. He not only gives research but actually prescription on what you should actually eat and even very specific meal plans.  Dr. Furhman promises his patients to let him decide what they eat for six weeks and then based on the result they can then decide what to eat. Most of them become converts to his prescription of nutrition after seeing the results.

Super ImmunityI did a series for posts #51-#54 on How to Optimize Your Immune System. In this book, Dr. Fuhrman offers a lot more research and very practical ways to build immunity so your body can fight whatever comes its way – not only flues and colds, but also other infections and even cancer. Cancer after-all is just DNA mutation that body fights all day long. Only when our immune system is NOT capable of handling the mutated DNA, it starts to take over the organs unchecked. Again, the book includes nutrition meal plans, recipes to put into practice his philosophy – not just eat food that is packed with desired micro-nutrients, but eat a lot of it.

The Telomere Effect In blog post #50, I discussed how to optimize your health by maximizing your telomeres. Elizabeth Blackburh received Nobel Prize for her research in telomeres. Telomeres are the end-caps at the ends of our DNA strands like little plastic wraps at the end of shoe laces. If the little plastic wraps are damaged shoe laces become useless, so is the case with the DNA. The length of telomeres correlate with the remaining lifespan. Dr. Blackburn shares the latest research in lay-person language and shares the different methods by which we can increase the length of our telomeres. Reading this book, it should not come as surprise to you that the  lifestyle choices I discussed in my Post #59, all help increase the lengths of your telomeres.

The Science of ExerciseTime did a fantastic job in summarizing the latest in science of exercise in this special Time Magazine publication. If you needed any further evidence how exercise impacts health and lifespan, I believe this publication will deliver, without having to read some big tome. The issue spans many diverse topics: cardio vs. weights, high intensity interval training, running, swimming, yoga and other exercise modalities.

The Science of Being and Art of LivingIn my blog post #17 – Is meditation an effective antidote to stress, I talk about Transcendental Meditation or TM as a very effective and well-researched means for combating stress. Science of Being and Art of Living is book compiled based on lectures by Maharishi Mahesh, who introduced TM to the West. He also founded the TM movement that has established TM Centers pretty much in all major cities throughout the world. While first part of the book serves as evidence and motivation for TM, the later parts are more for the practitioners and advanced students of TM and Yoga.

Heart Health KitA few months ago, I got a chance to meet and attend a work shop by Dr. Levy, who has spent all his life building bridges between Western medicine and Eastern philosophies of yoga and meditation. Dr. Levy talks about how to prevent and reverse heart diseases by tackling the most insidious of the issues that impact heart health, i.e., Stress. This manual is accompanied by CDs on which you will find and can actually use his hypnosis techniques for relieving stress and anxiety.

The Happiness SutraIn this more recent publication, The Happiness Sutra, Dr. Levy further delves into the four different types of stresses humans face and how best to deal with all four types of stresses. This book also has a CD that you can listen to to get the benefit of Dr. Levy’s hypnosis methods for relieving stress.

Mind over Medicine Lissa Rankin, M.D.’s  book Mind Over Medicine is a great case study of extreme stress brought on modern living and by our current medical system. Dr. Rankin, a practicing OB GYN, quit her practice of medicine  because of the numerous health and personal issues brought on by stress from her profession. She eventually found ways to heal herself and then learned to apply her new found knowledge to become a true healer,  without becoming slave to the medical system.

 

Have you read books on health and wellness that you would like to share?

I 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 #59 – What are our lifestyle choices for maximizing health and lifespan?

11 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Life-Span, Living to 120, meditation, Mental Health, Nutrition, Optimal Exercise, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Puposely Living, Quality of Life, Stress, Supplements, TM, Uncategorized, Vitality, wellness, Yoga

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Lifestyle Choices for Maximizing Health and Lifespan

Unless you have been living under a rock on an isolated island, I am sure you have heard that lifestyle choices have big impact on both your health and how long you live.

Living longer means not dying sooner.  And, to not die sooner, you must take actions that eliminate the various ways one dies.

Living healthy, means taking actions to prevent all the ways one loses their abilities to enjoy day-to-day activities of life. Or, at least postpone the time as far into the future as possible before developing disabilities.

In both case, i.e., living longer and living healthy, lifestyle choices play crucial roles. But what are these life choices, besides the ones you hear all the time:  Eat Better and Exercise.

When I started to systematically pursue this topic of living optimal lifespan possible (my goal being 120 years), with optimal health span (my goal being no disabilities), I started enumerating all areas of life in which one can take some action to make this impact.

Of course, not everything is in our control. We did not come to this earth with guarantees. Unforeseen, random event, or events that are not in our control can ruin all our goals and plans. But the objective is to not let the possibility of events not in our control prevent us from taking actions that are indeed in our control.

So, here are all 13 dimensions of lifestyle that I have discovered so far that impact health span and life span. Each subject is a very extensive topic by itself.  I just very briefly summarize my personal take on these and may be an example of how I am attempting to address them in my lifestyle and where you can read about further in these blog posts.

1. Benchmarking Health: Knowing where you are is where I believe it has to all start. You go to doctor’s office and they take your physical measurements (height, weight), you vitals (pulse, blood pressure), order some measurements from the lab and then compare those with what should be “normal” for you. In Post #7 – Can biomarkers help in the quest for vitality and longevity?, I discuss the various measurements you can use as biomarkers for health. These days I measure:

Daily: Weight, waist, fat near navel and thigh, BP, SPO2, pulse, my over-all subjective state of my physical, emotional and mental health

Weekly: pH, Nitric Oxide, fasting glucose

Quarterly: Bloodwork through my primary physician – CBC (complete blood count), typical chemistry panel, Lipids (Cholesterol total, HDL, LDL, VLDL, Triglysrides), TSH, T3, T4 (Thyroid hormones), Male Hormones (Total and Free Testosterone, Estrogen, LH, FSH), Hydroxy-D, fasting glucose, A1c, PSA (for prostrate tumor screening), CRP, (for inflammation), Homocysteine (for heart condition)

Annually or Biennially: Telomere Measurements (DNA strands that dictate how long cells live), X-Rays of joints if I suspect arthritis etc., Ultrasound Study of Carotid and Aorta arteries, MRI’s to detect any tumors, eye-exam, hearing test, EKG.

Every 5 years: Colonoscopy, Stress-test.    

2.  Nutrition – That is everything that crosses our lips, what we eat or drink. I discussed the topic of nutrition in a series of eight blog posts on this subject of Optimal Nutrition, Posts #22 through #29.  additionally, Post #15, #31 and #32 discuss the topic of how and when to complement the nutrition with supplements.

 3. Exercise – Exercise is indispensable for building and maintaining muscle strength, flexibility, balance, endurance. There is also abundant proof that it helps with the metabolism, overall health and health of specific organs. I discussed this topic of exercise in blog post #30 – How much and what type of exercise do you need for optimal health?

 4. Maintaining Musco-skelatal Integrity: Pains in the back, knees, hips, shoulder, wrists and other various joints creep up. We may think that these pains just come out of nowhere. After all, we often notice that “yesterday it did not hurt and today it hurts”. So, it got be a random event. Right?

Reality is that unless there was a trauma caused by an accident, most of these are the result of repetitive movement in un-aligned joints. The underlying cause could be neglect of the muscles, ligaments and tendons surrounding joints or prolonged asymmetrical movements, e.g., always carrying a bag on the same shoulder, or playing games such tennis or golf that inherently require asymmetrical movement.

Yoga, myofascial massages, Rolfing, rolling with foam rollers, visiting a chiropractor for body alignment, weight bearing exercises for join strengths, e-cise routines designed by Pete Egoscue are methods I have learned for maintaining musco-skeletal integrity.  I discuss some of these in Post #30 – How much and what type of exercise do you need for optimal health? And Post #49 – What is the role of massage therapy in Optimal Health? Also, I discuss how you can use foam rolling for body alignment in Post #39 – Ever heard of foam rolling.

5. Maintaining Optimal Dental Health: Good dental health not only impacts quality of your life, it can also impact how long you live.

The American Heart Association published a Statement in April 2012 supporting an association between gum disease and heart disease. The article noted that current scientific data do not indicate if regular brushing and flossing or treatment of gum disease will decrease the incidence, rate or severity of the narrowing of the arteries (called atherosclerosis) that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. However, many studies show an as-yet-unexplained association between gum disease and several serious health conditions, including heart disease, even after adjusting for common risk factors.

You may also have seen health and lifestyle surveys used for estimating life-expectancy that want to know if you floss daily. If you do the models give you credit for an extra 2 to 4 years of life.

In Post #47 – What does optimal dental health look like and how to achieve it?, I discuss this topic in greater detail.

 6. Maintaining Mind-body Connection: Our mind and body are inherently connected. Maintaining the connection between the two is essential for optimal health. Yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong, are some ways to develop and maintain mind-body connection.  I have very limited experience with Tai Chi and Qigong. I do, however, perform Yoga as part of my lifestyle.  In Post #11 – My first year of experience with Bikram Yoga, Post #12 – My second year of experience with Bikram Yoga, I describe how I incorporated Bikram Yoga into my lifestyle.

 7. Enhancing and Maintaining Brain: If we lose vitality of the brain, the quality of life suffers dramatically. Alzheimer and other forms of Dementia can often be very painful way of living. Evidence is mounting that for optimal brain health, we must keep the brain stimulated with right activities. All my life, I have been very focused on left brain type of activities. As I was turning 60, I decided to do something about it and started taking piano lessons to stimulate my right brain and prevent any premature aging of the brain. I discuss the activities for maintaining optimal health in Post #57 – Optimal Mental Health – what is it and how to achieve it?

 8. Stress Management: Stress is a root cause of many diseases. We have all experienced how stress can bring about disturbances in the digestive systems, back pain, high blood pressures, even heart attacks and strokes. Yoga and Meditation are two of the ways to manage stress. Perspective management is another powerful method. I got initiated in Transcendental Meditation over 30 years ago and I have been doing TM ever since with good benefits. I tackle the subject in Post #16 – What is stress really and why is it bad for longevity and health and Post #17 – Is meditation an effective antidote to stress.

9. Adequate Sleep: There is more and more evidence every day that inadequate sleep can cause all sorts of ailments. 7 to 9 hours of restful sleep is considered optimal. All my life, I thought the object of the game was to get away with as little a sleep as possible. Sleeping more than 6 hours every night is still a challenge for me. Although I am working on it to extend sleeping hours during the week and may be do some catch up sleeping during the weekends. Maybe I will tackle this topic in a future post. In Post #61 – How much sleep do we need? – I discuss the latest in sleep research.

10. Social Engagement: World-wide Study of Blue Zones, i.e., geographical areas where longest living people are clustered, showed a very surprising factor that contributed to long healthy life of people living there. Researchers found that people in Blue Zones are socially very engaged. Centenarians in these areas are engaged with tight knit groups of friends and family. So, the conclusion is that social engagement is an important factor in living longer and healthier.

 11. Purposeful Living: It is well known that death rates spike after the holidays and after major life events. Researchers deduce from studies of such phenomena that people live only as long as they find life meaningful.

Of course, it needs an ongoing effort to figure out what one can derive meaning from. One may find meaning in raising kids or grand kids, contributions to society, being the best spouse one can be or from “slaying some dragon”. Some people find meaning in their faith and service to God. Others find meaning in being of service to mankind or their fellow human beings. Yet others can find meaning in their job or career.

Viktor Frankel in his book: Man’s Search for Meaning, explores this topic beautifully. 

12. Make Full-use of All Modalities of Medical Care: Modern medicine has developed amazing and miraculous treatments. By making use of the modern medicine one can live much healthier and much longer.  In general, the earlier you are able to catch a disease and the sooner you start treatment, better your chances are of a cure or at least minimizing the damage. Mantra for modern medicine is “early detection, early cure”

 Alternative schools of medicine, such as Ayurvedic, Homeopathy, Aquapuncture, Naturopathy, offer valid means for preventative care and whole-person healing.  Leveraging these modalities of medical care as appropriate can offer means for optimal healing and living. Here the rule is the age old wisdom: An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

I was even able to eliminate my severe seasonal allergies by working with doctors of Naturopathy and thus was able to totally change the vector of my health as I discuss in Post #8 – So, did I you tell you the story of my allergies. Also strengthening your immune system can have major consequences on how your body deals with diseases as I discuss in a series of Posts #51 – 54 – How to Optimize Your Immune System – Part I through Part IV

13. Making use of Genetics Science: There is of course the truth of genetics. Genes do play a role in how long we will live and what diseases we may have the tendencies to develop. Over the last few years, however, scientists are finding that inherited genes often do not determine your destiny, it is the lifestyle that can either turn those genes on or off. This is the exciting field of epigenetics.

 Studies from the filed of epigenetics do  give us opportunities to leverage genes.  Through genome mapping, we can find out what might be our tendencies and to what aspects of our life, therefore, we should pay particular attention. Over the last few years, I have gotten my telomeres measured – these are tips at the ends of genes that are considered to act like our lifespan clocks.  I discussed this in Post #50 – How to optimize your health by maximizing your telomeres. More recently, I have sent for genetic testing to be able to receive personalized genetics bases lifestyle coaching. I will share results of that experiences in a future post.

The percent of role of genes that we cannot do anything about is constantly shrinking all the time. Now it is believed that only between 5% to 15% of lifespan and health span is determined by genes that we have no control over.

Bottomline:

In summary, researchers have shown again and again that health span and life span depend upon one’s lifestyle choices. A holistic look at lifestyle choices means many different and distinct areas of life.

I shared my take on these dimension of lifestyle and some of my experience. Also, gave references to where you can find more information, whenever, I have already discussed that topic in more detail in my blog posts.

  1. Benchmarking Health
  2. Nutrition
  3. Exercise
  4. Maintaining Musco-skelatal Integrity
  5. Maintaining Optimal Dental Health
  6. Maintaining Mind-body Connection
  7. Enhancing and Maintaining Brain
  8. Stress Management
  9. Adequate Sleep
  10. Social Engagement
  11. Purposeful Living
  12. Making full-use of all modalities of medical care
  13. Making use of Genetics Science

What do you think?

Do you think there some other dimension of lifestyle that I did not address here that is also important?

I 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 #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.

 

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