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Post #57 – Optimal Mental Health – what is it and how to achieve it?

26 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Mental Health, Optimal Health, Stress, Vitality, wellness

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Throughout life, mental health influences how we make decisions, manage stress and interact with others. Similar to physical health, mental health is important for optimal development at every stage of life.

However, before we get deeper into the subject of Optimal Mental Health, it is probably useful to first figure out what is Mental Health. Sometimes, such common terms can be slippery to nail down.  And, that exactly seems to be the case with this term Mental Health.

Mental Health

According to U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), Mental Health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.

Mental Illness

A related term Mental Illness, on the other hand, is defined as collectively all diagnosable mental disorders or health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning.

Depression is the most common type of mental illness, affecting more than 26% of the U.S. adult population. It has been estimated that by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability throughout the world, trailing only ischemic heart disease, i.e., heart attack. The seriousness of mental health issues was clearly raised in a very comprehensive report, almost 500-page report: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, 1999.

Mental Health Indicators

In the health care and public health arena, more emphasis and resources have been devoted to screening, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness than mental health. Little has been done to protect the mental health of those free of mental illness. Researchers suggest that there are indicators of mental health, representing three domains:

  • Emotional well-being – such as perceived life satisfaction, happiness, cheerfulness, peacefulness.
  • Psychological well-being – such as self-acceptance, personal growth including openness to new experiences, optimism, hopefulness, purpose in life, control of one’s environment, spirituality, self-direction, and positive relationships, and
  • Social well-being – social acceptance, beliefs in the potential of people and society as a whole, personal self-worth and usefulness to society, sense of community.

One way to look at mental health and mental illness is that these are points along a continuum and neither state exists in pure isolation from the other.

Mind and Body are Inseparable

In another but related context, everyday language tends to encourage a misperception that “mental health” or “mental illness” is unrelated to “physical health” or “physical illness.” In fact, mental health and physical health are inseparable.

Although “mind” is a broad term that has had many different meanings over the centuries, these days it refers to the totality of mental functions related to thinking, mood, and purposive behavior. The mind is generally seen as deriving from activities within the brain but displaying emergent properties, such as consciousness.

One reason the people continue to this day to emphasize the difference between mental and physical health is embedded in language. Common parlance continues to use the term “physical” to distinguish some forms of health and illness from “mental” health and illness. People continue to see mental and physical as separate functions when, in fact, mental functions (e.g., memory) are physical as well.

Mental functions are carried out by the brain. Likewise, mental disorders are reflected in physical changes in the brain. Physical changes in the brain often trigger physical changes in other parts of the body too. The racing heart, dry mouth, and sweaty palms that accompany a terrifying nightmare are orchestrated by the brain. A nightmare is a mental state associated with alterations of brain chemistry that, in turn, provoke unmistakable changes elsewhere in the body.

A more appropriate and neutral distinction is between “mental” and “somatic” health. Somatic is a medical term that derives from the Greek word soma for the body. Mental health refers to the successful performance of mental functions in terms of thought, mood, and behavior. Mental disorders are those health conditions in which alterations in mental functions are paramount.

Somatic conditions are those in which alterations in non-mental functions predominate. While the brain carries out all mental functions, it also carries out some somatic functions, such as movement, touch, and balance. That is why not all brain diseases are mental disorders. For example, a stroke causes a lesion in the brain that may produce disturbances of movement, such as paralysis of limbs. When such symptoms predominate in a patient, the stroke is considered a somatic condition. But when a stroke mainly produces alterations of thought, mood, or behavior, it is considered a mental condition (e.g., dementia).

The point is that a brain disease can be seen as a mental disorder or a somatic disorder depending on the functions it perturbs.

Fixing the body can fix the mind and fixing mind can fix the body

There is plenty of evidence showing that mental disorders, especially depressive disorders could be caused by many chronic “physical” diseases including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and obesity.  At the same time, many risk behaviors that give rise to chronic diseases are physical inactivity, smoking, excessive drinking, and insufficient sleep whose underlying cause is mental health.

Then Why the Stigma to Mental Health Issues

Stigmatization of people with mental disorders has persisted throughout history. It is manifested by bias, distrust, stereotyping, fear, embarrassment, anger, and/or avoidance. Stigma leads others to avoid living, socializing or working with, renting to, or employing people with mental disorders. It deprives people of their dignity and interferes with their full participation in society.

Explanations for stigma stem, in part, from the misguided split between mind and body first proposed by Descartes. Another source of stigma lies in the 19th century separation of the mental health treatment system in the United States from the mainstream of health. These historical influences exert an often immediate influence on perceptions and behaviors in the modem world.

So, what is Optimal Mental Health?

Just as in the case of Optimal Physical Health, absence of disease, or in the case mental health, absent of mental illness does not seem to be quite adequate to define Optimal Mental Health.  Given that mental illness and mental health is a continuum, it begs some sort of scale to measure one’s mental health.

Here is one scale to calibrate your mental health during a specific time frame:emotional-scale-2

With this scale, if I  yesterday  I was feeling bored that would be a score of -1 for yesterday. Today I am feeling confident, that would be a  score of +2. Etc. For a while, using this scale, I used to keep a journal of my daily emotional state. 

This scale can be a good way to measure impact of any lifestyle changes on your mental or emotional health. For example, if you just added daily walk or daily meditation to your lifestyle, or started taking certain supplements, you could track impact this way.

 

Well-Being as Measure of Mental Health

Another way to measure and monitor is in terms of a more holistic term called Well-Being. Researchers from different disciplines have examined different aspects of well-being:

  • Physical well-being.
  • Economic well-being.
  • Social well-being.
  • Development and activity.
  • Emotional well-being.
  • Psychological well-being.
  • Life satisfaction.
  • Domain specific satisfaction.
  • Engaging activities and work.

A website, you can use to quantify your personal Well-Being and benchmark it against others is: http://www.nationalaccountsofwellbeing.org/engage/. After answering, 50 questions (it only takes 10-15 mintues) you can receive a plot like the following and an overall Well-Being score. You can then compare you score with others. or how it progresses. More importantly, you can explore area of opportunities where you would like to grow and focus your attention for improving your well-being.

about-your-profile-results-_-your-results-_-explore-_-national-accounts-of-well-being

Jack Kornfield on Optimal Health

Jack Kornfield, a bestselling American author, yoga-mediation teacher and Buddhist monk has an interesting definition of Optimal Mental Health.  On his website he has the following description:

We have within us an extraordinary capacity for love, for joy, and unshakable freedom.  Buddhist psychology describes this as optimal mental health. I have seen this optimal wellbeing in many of my teachers. Ajahn Jumnian describes his mind as completely steady, silent and free throughout both his waking and sleeping hours.  He says, “I haven’t experienced a single moment of frustration or anger for over twenty years.” I’ve also observed that he sleeps only one or two hours a night. Ajahn Jumnian describes his inner life quite simply, “When I am alone, my mind rests in pure awareness. I am simply at peace.  Then whenever I encounter people and experiences, the awareness automatically fills with loving-kindness or compassion. This is the natural expression of pure awareness.”  Those around Ajahn Jumnian feel his free spirit and unshakable joy.

Now that is taking Optimal Health to whole different level!

Bottom Line:

We laid the foundation of some fundamentals on how to define and measure optimal mental health. In the next blog post, we will get down to methods for achieving Optimal Mental Health.

A quick summary of what we covered here:

Throughout life, mental health influences how we make decisions, manage stress and interact with others.

Mental health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. Mental health includes:

  • Emotional well-being
  • Psychological well-being, and
  • Social well-being

Mind and body are NOT separate.  Each influences and controls the health of the other.  It is a historical quirk in the evolution of medicine that we treat the two separately.  This separation has also led to much stigma to the mental health issues and separation of medicine applied to mind vs. the body.

We could calibrate mental health by using some scale like the one presented in this post to measure mental health as emotional health and track impact of introducing changes in lifestyle.

Ideally, to understand Optimal Health, we need to track total Well-being. You may want to use the nef website to calibrate your total Well-being and explore opportunities for improvement.

Long term meditators and Buddhist Monks define and are able to demonstrate Optimal Mental Health as a state of pure awareness that is full of compassion and love, and is above the daily swings of emotions.

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 #55 – Gravity-Based Life Style for Optimal Health

30 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by in Lean Mass, Living to 120, Optimal Exercise, Optimal Health, Uncategorized, Vigor, Vitality, Yoga

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On Father’s Day this year, my wife gave me an Apple Watch as a gift. And, as you can probably guess, I went straight to the fitness apps.

Apple watch allows you to continuously measure heart rate, daily steps walked, and the distance walked.  You can also set it to remind you to stand up, as I often as you tell it to and it keeps track of how many times you actually did stand up. And, it gives you at-a-boys for hitting and moving toward your goals. So, I starting using all these features right away.

But soon after I was wondering: What does the research say about the benefits of daily activities such as standing, walking etc.? Is their science behind this or is it just a gimmick?

Sitting Kills, Moving Heals

My first step was to carefully read the book we had already in the house: Sitting Kills, Moving Heals by Joan Vernikos, Ph.D., former Director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division.  She spent her whole life working at NASA studying the ill effects on astronauts of space travel and living in space in zero gravity. More importantly, she studied how to minimize these ill effects and how to rehabilitate astronauts when they return to earth’s gravity.

Sitting Kills

And, even more importantly, Vernikos and other scientists also made the key connection that sitting on earth is the same as living in zero gravity. Having made that connection, they found that much of the research for space living becomes relevant to those of us who are earth bound.

According to Vernikos, when astronauts spend time in space, here are the kinds of health issues they develop:

  • Blood volume reduced
  • Body weight and mass decreases
  • Increased calcium excretion
  • Increased risk of kidney stones
  • Heart shrinks – cardiac output decreased
  • Heart muscle wall becomes thinner
  • Red blood cells reduced.
  • Stamina/aerobic capacity reduced
  • Lowered growth hormone response to exercise
  • Muscle atrophy; loss of muscle mass
  • Muscle strength reduced; size of fiber decreased
  • Fat moves in to replace muscle mass
  • Muscle sensitivity to insulin reduced
  • Muscle less able to take up sugar
  • Sense of taste and hearing dulled
  • Biological rhythm disturbed
  • Calcium lost from bone
  • Bone mass and density decreased
  • Increased risk of bladder infection
  • Delayed wound healing
  • Testosterone reduced

The list sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it?  After reading this list, you wonder why would anyone want to go live in space.

But these are the same effects that you see as people age on earth.

And, here is the kicker: Space research shows that these conditions induced through Gravity Deprivation Syndrome (GDS) are reversible once you get astronauts re-introduced to gravity.  It often takes almost one day of re-conditioning with gravity for each day spent in space to fully recover.

What about earth-bound people like you and I? We experience GDS is through sedentary life style. Through sitting and bed rest, we experience zero gravity like condition.

GDS starts as early as age 20.   Using bone density loss as a measure of GDS, earth-bound people experience a bone loss at the rate of about 10% per decade. No wonder, by 70’s and 80’s most people have serious osteoporosis conditions with frail bones.

These sedantary lifestyle induced GDS is the reason we are now hearing catch phrases like: Sitting Kills; Sitting is the new Smoking, etc.

How to Overcome Gravity Deprivation Syndrome (GDS)

Through studies and experimentation, researchers have found that to counter the effects of GDS, standing up often is what matters, not how long you remain standing.

Every time you stand up, the body initiates a shift in fluids, volume, hormones and causes muscle contraction to occur, and almost every nerve in the body is stimulated. If you stand up 16 times a day for two minutes, the body would read that as 16 stimuli, whereas if you stood once and remained standing for 32 minutes, it would see that as one stimulus.

Gym Workouts are No Substitute

Another surprising result: Gym workouts of 30 to 60 minute even daily may not be total replacement for activities required to counter GDS. To counter GDS, one needs to exercise stabilizer muscles that include tendons, ligaments, and other connective tissues. Most folks focus on mobilizer muscles that include thighs, biceps, hamstrings, triceps, chest muscles, abs etc.

James Levine an exercise physiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, coined the term Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). NEAT is defined as the small, brief, yet frequent muscular movements one makes throughout the day, of which changing position is the most effective. Here are some examples of NEAT movements, other than standing up:

  • Bending over to pick up something
  • Squatting
  • Stretching upward to take something off a shelf
  • Getting dressed and undressed
  • Playing a musical instrument
  • Stirring a pot
  • Crossing and uncrossing your legs
  • Waving one’s hands while talking
  • Fidgeting

So, more such activities we do, the more effects of GDS we overcome, even though we do not break a sweat.

Bottom Line

 Extrapolating extensive research conducted for space travels, shows that Gravity Deprivation Syndrome (GDS) has serious consequences to our health.  These symptoms of detrimental health due to GDS are often associated with aging, but actually are due to decreased activity as people grow old. Achieving and maintaining optimal health requires strategies to maximize activities to counter the effects of GDS.

The following is a list of some very effective actions to counter GDS:

  • Stand up sit Down
  • Stand tall
  • Stretch at your desk
  • Walk tall
  • Take the stairs instead of elevator
  • Practice balancing when you put on and take off your pants, shoes and socks
  • Use a broom
  • Play on swings; use rocking chairs
  • Dance
  • Play catch; throw Frisbee
  • Do yoga

Remember that exercise is not for gym any more.  So, as often as possible, inconvenience yourself by:

  • Parking far away from the destination,
  • Taking stairs instead of elevators,
  • Stepping up on escalators,
  • Walking instead of taking people movers,
  • Getting up frequently to reach for things, and
  • Carrying your brief case instead of rolling.

All these action help in keeping your stabilizer muscles in top shape for optimal health.

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 #54 – How to Optimize Your Immune System? – Part IV – by Destressing

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in Biomarkers for Stress, Living to 120, Optimal Health, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Stress, TM, Uncategorized

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Post #54 – How to Optimize Your Immune System? –  Part IV – by Destressing

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.

Things that are in our control to enhance our immunity and also so 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 Posts #52 and #53, we discussed how to boost your immune system with nutrition and exercise.   In this final post of this series, let’s focus on the last item Lifestyle. Specifically, we will explore what role stress plays in diminishing our immune system and what we can do about it.

Pathways between Stress and the Immune System

We have all heard or intuitively know that when you are stressed you are more susceptible to illness because your immune system is not fully functioning.  But how does that really happen?

A meta-analysis report by Suzanne Segerstrom and Gregory Miller pulls together results from 300 different studies and does a beautiful job of explaining our understanding of this biological connection between mental stress and components of our immune system. The following explanation is based on their paper.

There are three different ways stress in the mind “get inside the body” to affect the immune response:

First, sympathetic fibers descend from the brain into both primary (bone marrow and thymus) and secondary (spleen and lymph nodes) lymphoid tissues. These fibers can release a wide variety of substances that influence immune responses by binding to receptors on white blood cells.

Second, the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal, sympathetic, medullary, ovarian glands respond to stress and secrete the adrenal hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol; the pituitary hormones prolactin and growth hormone; and the brain peptides melatonin, β-endorphin, and enkephalin. These substances bind to specific receptors on white blood cells and have diverse regulatory effects on their distribution and function.

Third, people’s efforts to manage the demands of stressful experience sometimes lead them to engage in behaviors—such as alcohol use or changes in sleeping patterns—that also could modify immune system processes. Thus, behavior represents a potentially important pathway linking stress with the immune system.

Is Stress always bad?

The results of various studies have demonstrated that stressors with the fight-or-flight situations faced by humans’ evolutionary ancestors elicited potentially beneficial changes in the immune system. The more a stressor deviated from those parameters by becoming more chronic, however, the more components of the immune system were affected in a potentially detrimental way.

So, in other words, the way our ancestors’ bodies reacted to an encounter with a saber-tooth tiger was good for our immune system.  Stress-related disease emerges, predominantly, out of the fact that we so often activate a physiological system that has evolved for responding to acute physical emergencies.  So, the effect on our immune systems is very negative when we turn it on for months on end, worrying about mortgages, relationships, and promotions.

Deep Rest for reversing impact of stress on our immune systems

Deepak Chopra, MD and David Simon, MD in their book Grow YoungDeepak Chopra Grow Youngerer, Live Longer: Ten Steps to Reverse Aging, beautifully describe the two antidotes to stress: Restful Awareness and Restful Sleep.

Restful Awareness is a natural mind/body response, as natural as the stress response. The most direct way to experience restful awareness is through meditation. During meditation, breathing slows, blood pressure decreases and stress hormones level off.

In this state while all the metabolic processes slow down, brain stays fully alert and awake. In his book Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation, Transcendence BookNorman Rosenthal, MD describes in great details this fourth state of consciousness many others call Restful Awareness.  He also lays out in great deal the research that backs up beneficial effects of Transcendental Meditation.

There are of course other types of meditations and techniques through which you can manage stress. A lot of work has been done and ongoing in the Mindful-based Stress Reduction techniques.  These studies describe how performing mindful meditation and living in mindful way reduce conditioned fight-flight response and allows one to make more conscious choices. Such conscious or mindful living thus overrides the biological processes that damage our immune system.

Restful Sleep is equally important in managing stress for optimal immune function. Restful Sleep of minimum six to eight hours is necessary. More recent studies have called out 7.5 hours of daily restful sleep as the optimal.

Restful sleep means that your drift off easily once you turn off the light and sleep soundly through the night. If you have to get up to go to the bathroom during the night, you are able to easily get back to sleep. You will know you have restful sleep if upon awakening you feel energetic, alert and vibrant.  If you feel tired and unenthusiastic when you wake up in the morning, you have not had a night of restful sleep.

To get the best sleep usually requires that you develop a regular routine transitioning from activity to sleep. Chopra and Simon describe very good routines that allow you to transition from the daily activity to deep sleep.

Bottom Line

To optimize immune systems, stress management can play a critical role. In the 30 years since work in the field of psychoneuroimmunology began, studies have convincingly established that stressful experiences alter features of the immune response as well as make one vulnerable to adverse medical outcomes.

Practicing Restful Awareness through Transcendental Meditation, Mindful Meditation, Mindful living or other technique are critical to minimizing stress. The benefits of these techniques are now well established.

Daily Restful Sleep is also required to manage stress.  Practicing daily routines to help transition from daily activity to restful sleep is the best method to achieving daily restful sleep.

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 #53 – How to Optimize Your Immune System? –  Part III  – with Exercise

30 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Aging, Living to 120, Optimal Exercise, Optimal Health, Puposely Living, Vigor, Vitality, wellness, Yoga

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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.

Things that are in our control to enhance our immunity and also so 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 Post #52, we discussed how to boost your immune system with nutrition.   In this post, let’s focus on how and what type of Exercise can boost the immune system.

Impact of exercise on Immune systems

Quite a bit of research is available on how exercise impacts the immune system, although most of it is about impact of exercise on colds and flu. Based on the available research, here are some theories why exercise helps improve the immunity:

  • Physical activity may help flush bacteria out of the lungs and airways. This may reduce your chance of getting a cold, flu, or other airborne illness.
  • Exercise causes changes in antibodies and white blood cells (the body’s immune system cells that fight disease). These antibodies or white blood cells circulate more rapidly, so they could detect illnesses earlier than they might have before.
  • The brief rise in body temperature during and right after exercise may prevent bacteria from growing. This temperature rise may help the body fight infection more effectively. (This is similar to what happens when you have a fever.)
  • Exercise slows down the release of stress-related hormones. Some stress increases the chance of illness. Lower stress hormones may protect against illness.

Getting a little deeper into the subject, here are some findings from some specific studies:

  1. Exercise can provoke moderate acute elevations in IL-6 exerting anti-inflammatory effects
  2. Exercise increases numbers of Neutrophils, T and B lymphocytes, and NK cells – all key components of the immune system
  3. Exercise improves antigen specific T cell function for better protection from infectious agents and greater immunosurveillance
  4. Exercise enhances a variety of macrophage biology and capacities
  5. Exercise improves gut microbiota,  i.e., the bacteria collection in the gut

But how much exercise should you do?

We have all heard that exercise is good for you.  And, as this blog post is emphasizing, among other things, exercise also enhances the immune system. But how much exercise?

In this study, the researchers examined three groups of people: elite athletes, recreational athletes, and sedentary controls. Their results were kind of interesting:

  • The elite athletes had the most upper respiratory issues (66% got sick).
  • The couch potatoes were next (45% got sick).
  • The recreational athletes were the healthiest (22% got sick).

All kinds of other research has found the same thing, so exercise scientists tend to use a J-shaped curve to model the immune effects of exercise. It looks like this:

immunity vs exercise

So one thing is clear, moderate exercise is significantly better for you than no exercise at all. If you are sedentary, it does not seem to take much to get the benefits of improved immune system. For example, daily walking for one hour at a 60 to 65% maximum heart rate (computed as 220-your age) gets you near the optimal range in the above chart.

From the chart, it is clear that there is a point where the benefit of training stops and the negative effect of over-training on the immune system sets in. This literature review article, goes into much more specifics on the kind of exercise that produces the immune-suppressant, i.e., harmful, response:

  • Relatively long workouts (1.5 hours or more), especially without refueling during the workout.
  • A reasonably high intensity, but not excessively difficult (since you have to be able to keep it up for a while).
  • An inadequate recovery period between workouts.

Basically, the kind of grueling training elite athletes often go through preparing for a competition, such as running a marathon.

This article puts it slightly differently:

“No activity is worse than some, while too much may be worse than none at all. The ideal lies somewhere in between – though not necessarily in the middle, but rather smack dab in the “just enough” section. Can “just enough” be quantified? Perhaps it could be quantified using a battery of round-the-clock tests and measurements of anabolic and catabolic hormones, various serum concentrations, lactate build-up, cortisol, testosterone ratios, etc., but that would be expensive, unwieldy, and completely individualized. … If you want to avoid over-training, there are some grand, overarching principles to follow, but you’ll also want to pay attention to certain personal, entirely subjective cues.

That’s what my trainer and yoga teachers call “listening to your body”. There are days, when I am feeling physically ragged since I may not have slept well, or I may be catching a virus, or am feeling physically exhausted or whatever.   In such situations, I need to carefully “listen to my body” and either take it easier than usual or just totally skip the session.

Bottom Line

To optimize immune systems, exercise plays a critical role. It only takes a moderate amount of exercise to get the optimal benefit of exercise for improving immune system. For example any of these activities or some combination of these done daily would optimize the immune systems:

  1. walking for 1 hour at a pace of 60-65% of maximum heart rate of approximately 220 minus your age,
  2. An hour long yoga routine,
  3. A strength training session with body weight or light weights could do the trick

On the other hand, extended periods of over-training can compromise and may lead to sub-optimal immune system. It is more difficult to define over-training with objective measures and may depend upon many individual factors.  It is best to listen to your body and develop a subjective feel for what level of exercise may be “just right” for you for optimal immune system.

 

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 #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.

 

 

 

 

 

#47 – What does optimal dental health look like and how to achieve it?

06 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Living to 120, Optimal Health, Uncategorized, Vitality, wellness

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A couple of years ago, during one of my regular visits to my dentist, I told him that my goal is to live to 120 and wanted to make sure that my teeth will last and stay healthy until then.

He immediately turned to me hygienist and said, “Dr. Thareja here has just given us permission to challenge him to do everything he needs to do for optimal dental health.”

Now I was 35 years old when I visited a dentist for the first time. You see, I grew up in India. My parents taught me that all I needed to do was brush my teeth every day and my teeth will be just fine. But something bothered me all the time.  Both my parents had lost most of their teeth when they were in their forties. They had gotten the last few pulled out so that they could get fitted with dentures.

Turning 35, even though nothing was hurting, I realized that I did not cherish the thought of having dentures in my forties.  Hence the first visit to the dentist.

The dentist was surprised to learn that I had never seen a dentist until that day.  He did a thorough cleaning. Although there was bleeding and pain during the cleaning, there were really no issues – no cavities, no gum disease etc. He told me to regularly brush and floss.

I bought floss and tried it for a few times. I did not really know how to do the flossing or what good it was doing. I did a little bit of reading, but gingivitis, tartar, gum disease, plaque these words did not seem to make any sense to me. So, I stopped flossing and went back to just brushing my teeth. And, continued with my once a year visit with the dentist.

Few years later, a dentist moved into our office building it. I decided to try him out.  My very first visit with Dr. Doug Drewyer’s office was quite different. He asked me that they would like to measure my gum separation before doing the cleaning. After the hygienist had done the measurements, Dr. Doug explained the significance of the measurements. He showed me that for certain teeth gums had separated much more. And, that was not good.

My next question was obvious: What could I do to prevent this gums separating from the teeth?  He told me the key was flossing. Since with flossing, you scrape off any plaque that might cause gums to inflame, lose vitality in the tissue and start separating from the teeth and eventually result in teeth falling out – even when the teeth themselves are healthy.

So then it finally made sense to me: So that’s how my parents lost their healthy teeth even when they were brushing every day!! 

Initially, Dr. Doug told me to floss just twice a week and then three times a week and then every day.  I later learned that he was taking this incremental approach to not overwhelm me.  His experience is that if he tells patients to floss every day on the first visit, very few are able to do that.

You may have heard the dentist joke.  Someone asks his dentist, “Which teeth should I floss?”  Dentist’s snap answer, “Only the ones you want to keep!”

Researching for this blog, I found a website called Mouth Healthy, sponsored by American Dental Association. It has a lot of very user-friendly information that explains all those things that I was trying to learn 15 to 20 years ago. And, if you are not familiar with these basis terms, here is a quick overview:

Your teeth are covered with a sticky film called plaque that can contribute to tooth decay and gum disease. Plaque contains bacteria, which following a meal or snack containing sugar can release acids that attack tooth enamel. Repeated attacks can cause the enamel to break down, eventually resulting in cavities. Check out these fascinating (or disgusting?) pictures of plaque attack close up.

Cavities, or tooth decay, is the destruction of your tooth enamel, the hard, outer layer of your teeth. It can be a problem for children, teens and adults. Plaque, a sticky film of bacteria, constantly forms on your teeth. When you eat or drink foods containing sugars, the bacteria in plaque produce acids that attack tooth enamel. The stickiness of the plaque keeps these acids in contact with your teeth and over time the enamel can break down. This is when cavities can form. A cavity is a little hole in your tooth.

Cavities are more common among children, but changes that occur with aging make cavities an adult problem, too. Recession of the gums away from the teeth, combined with an increased incidence of gum disease, can expose tooth roots to plaque. Tooth roots are covered with cementum, a softer tissue than enamel. They are susceptible to decay and are more sensitive to touch and to hot and cold. It’s common for people over age 50 to have tooth-root decay.

Decay around the edges, or a margin, of fillings is also common for older adults. Because many older adults lacked benefits of fluoride and modern preventive dental care when they were growing up, they often have a number of dental fillings. Over the years, these fillings may weaken and tend to fracture and leak around the edges. Bacteria accumulate in these tiny crevices causing acid to build up which leads to decay.

Decay can also be the result of dry mouth, which can be caused by certain medication or other health issues.

Plaque that is not removed with thorough daily brushing and cleaning between teeth can eventually harden into calculus or tartar. This makes it more difficult to keep your teeth clean. When tartar collects above the gum line, the gum tissue can become swollen and may bleed easily. This is called gingivitis.

Gingivitis is the early stage of gum disease. Gum disease, also known as periodontal disease, is an infection of the tissues that surround your teeth, and is caused by a buildup of plaque. In its early stages, symptoms may include:

  • gums that bleed easily
  • red, swollen, tender gums
  • bad breath

Some factors that can put you at higher risk of developing gingivitis include:

  • poor dental care
  • smoking or chewing tobacco
  • genetics
  • crooked teeth that are hard to keep clean
  • pregnancy
  • diabetes
  • medications, including steroids, certain types of anti-epilepsy drugs, cancer therapy drugs, some calcium channel blockers and oral contraceptives

Take care of your gums…help your heart?

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 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.

You may have seen commercial or ads for chewing gum claiming better dental health from chewing gum.  What is that about? Saliva, or spit, plays a significant role in maintaining oral health. It is derived from blood and acts as the bloodstream of the mouth. What this means is, like blood, saliva helps build and maintain the health of soft and hard tissues. When saliva flow is reduced oral health problems such as tooth decay and other oral infections can occur. Chewing is the most efficient way to stimulate salivary flow. It causes muscles to compress the salivary glands and release saliva. Saliva

  • Washes away food and debris from teeth and gums
  • Helps moisten and break down food to ease swallowing and enhances ability to taste
  • Provides disease-fighting substances throughout your mouth to help prevent cavities and other infections
  • Helps keep the surface of your teeth strong by providing high levels of calcium, fluoride and phosphate ions at the tooth surface.

Bottom Line

So, when I asked Dr. Doug to tell me everything I need to do to have my teeth until 120, he incrementally added a suggestion of using tiny gum brush to catch plaque that floss might not catch. But other than that he reinforced the same things that he has told me before – which is very consistent with everything I have learned through my research.

You can help prevent tooth decay, cavities, gum disease etc. and keep healthy teeth for life by following these tips:

  1. Brush twice a day with fluoride toothpaste.
  2. Clean between your teeth daily with floss or interdental cleaner.
  3. Eat nutritious and balanced meals and limit snacking.
  4. Check with your dentist about the use of supplemental fluoride, which strengthens your teeth, and about use of dental sealants (a plastic protective coating) applied to the chewing surfaces of the back teeth (where decay often starts) to protect them from decay.
  5. Visit your dentist regularly for professional cleanings and oral examination.

And, if you are not sure how exactly to floss, here are instructions from National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research: PLAQUE: What it is and how to get rid of it.  You will notice that NIH also recommends brushing (or scraping) tongue in addition to the teeth.

I can tell you from my experience that the above list of five steps works. These days my twice annual dentist cleaning visits are basically cleaning stains and some scarping and very little, if any, pain, bleeding or discomfort. And, it has been getting better over time.

What are your thoughts and experience on maintaining optimal dental health?

I would love to learn from you.

Post #30 – How much and what type of exercise do you need for optimal health?

15 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in Bikram Yoga, Living to 120, Optimal Exercise, Vigor, Vitality, wellness, Yoga

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We have all heard exercise is important for good health.

But how much exercise and what kind of exercise, do we need for optimal health? As soon as you ask that question, the answer is not that clear anymore.

Here are some of the answers you might get if you ask around that question:

“Any exercise is better than none”

“At least three days a week, thirty minutes each day”

“More is not necessarily better”

“Start slow and then keep increasing the intensity and time”

“Three days of aerobics and three days strength training”

Most of these answers seem either arbitrary or quite useless, if you are in pursuit of  optimal health. Most of the people you ask either don’t know the answer or assume that you may not be able to handle the real answer or might get discouraged if you knew the real answer.

Just like the way I posed on question on nutrition, let me restate the question, “If there were no excuses, what should be the optimal amount and type of exercises for optimal health?”

No excuses: I am too fat, I am too slow, I don’t have enough time, I am not in shape, my — hurts, I don’t feel well enough, I am too young, I am too old… None of such excuses allowed.

There are so many options available for exercising:

  1. Aerobic Exercises – Walking, Jogging, Running, Cycling, Swimming, Hiking, Rowing, Stair Stepping, jumping rope, and so on.
  2. Cardio Exercises – Generally same as aerobic, done a little more intensely.
  3. Resistance or Strength Training – Working with free weights, body-weight exercises, working with nautilus machines, working with Kettlebells
  4. Cross-fit – Aerobic, cardio, strength training are all combined in the same sessions
  5. Balancing Exercises – Using BOSU balance trainer, medicine ball or simply using body alone
  6. Yoga/Pilates – there are many different types of yoga ranging from simple and easy postures to intense yoga practices like Vinyasa, Iyengar or Bikram yoga
  7. Stretching Exercises – to build and retain flexibility
  8. Musco-skeletal alignment Exercises – For example Egoscue eCises
  9. Breathing Exercise or Pranayama – help cleanse the body and build aerobic capacity.
  10. Endurance Training – Running longer distances for building endurance
  11. Interval Training – alternating between high and low intensity to increase capacity
  12. Rebounding – jumping on trampoline
  13. Exercise to improve reaction times – those involve catching
  14. Myofascial exercises – Rolling using foam rollers for myofascial alignment

Lots of choices. So, how do we sort through all this stuff?

It is a good question, Is n’ it?

In the process of writing this blog, I thought, as usual, I would find some additional information and also sort out information I have in my head to-date and share that knowledge.

Well, I got stuck right here while writing this blog.

So I took a break and finished reading the book, I recently bought: “Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights? Fitness Myths, Training Truths and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise”, by Alex Hutchison, Ph.D.

Picture 2

The book offers answers to numerous frequently asked questions regarding exercise citing the latest in scientific research in the field of Sports Medicine. And, of course, that includes, the very poignant question on the book cover.

If you want to get to the punchline from the book, here is an excerpt from the last chapter where Hutchison offers the following as a summary:

“..Knowing is half the battle. The other half is the real challenge – putting the knowledge into practice. To that end, I hope you’ll take the following three messages from this book:

  1. Do Something rather than nothing: …if there’s one overriding theme in the research presented here, it’s that any exercise, in almost any amount, brings significant and immediate health benefits. Start doing it, and worry about getting it right later.
  2. Figure out your goals and monitor your progress: …Think carefully about what you hope to achieve in six months, a year, five years – bearing in mind the aphorism that most people overestimate what they can achieve in the short term and underestimate what they can achieve over the long term. Choose a program that will move you toward those goals and monitor your progress.. If you don’t start to see progress after 6 to 12 months, consider whether your program is appropriate for you goals.
  3. Try something new. Whenever researchers line up two or more exercise techniques against each other, the conclusion is almost never “A is better than B” or “A and B are the same”. Instead, it’s, “A has these strengths and weaknesses, while B has these strengths and weaknesses” Moreover, all programs suffer from diminishing returns after a few years… Trying something new every now and then will force your body to adapt in new ways, keep you mentally fresh.”

Well, this is not quite the answer I was searching for. But it seems to be the reality out there.

It is also a good working strategy. And, is pretty close to the one I have personally been following.

What do you think?

What are your thoughts on this topic?

I would love to hear from you.

 

Post #29 – Eating for Optimal Health Part VIII – Add or subtract specific foods based on your personal needs

29 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by in Aging, Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Health, wellness

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In blog post of 9/29/2014: So, what should you eat for optimal health?, I listed the seven basic principles I have extracted from the many diet books and resources I have studied. These principles are:

  1. What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter
  2. Eat clean
  3. Eat lots of vegetables and fruits
  4. Use only healthy fats and fat sources
  5. Incorporate sufficient proteins in your diet
  6. Best beverage to drink is pure water
  7. Add or subtract specific foods based on your personal needs

In the last posts, we discussed the first six of these principles. Today, in the last blog post of this series, let’s focus on the seventh principle: Add or subtract specific foods based on your personal needs. And, as usual without any fluff stuff, let’s get to it.

Even though we humans all are of the same species, our bodies are quite unique due to genetic and environmental differences that we grew up in. Because of this uniqueness, it is not unreasonable to have unique needs for what we eat to adapt to our bodies.

Western medicine and nutrition framework can recognize these differences only in terms of different caloric needs based on size, food allergies, intolerance and sensitivities.

However, eastern medicine and nutrition frameworks, offer other ways of matching specific foods to specific unique needs of our bodies.

Let’s explore both of these frameworks that we can use to customize what we eat.

Food Allergies, Intolerance and Sensitivities

As Mayo Clinic page on Food Allergy describes: A true food allergy causes an immune system reaction that affects numerous organs in the body. It can cause a range of symptoms. In some cases, an allergic reaction to a food can be severe or life-threatening (anaphylaxis) — even if past reactions have been mild.

If you have any food allergies, it is important to learn how to recognize a severe allergic reaction and know what to do if one occurs. You may need to carry an emergency epinephrine shot (EpiPen, Auvi-Q, others) for emergency self-treatment.

In contrast, food intolerance symptoms are generally less serious and often limited to digestive problems. But these can also be the cause of chronic issues including excess weight, obesity, leaky gut and many other related issues.

Causes of food intolerance include:

  • Absence of an enzyme needed to fully digest a food. Lactose intolerance is a common example.
  • Irritable bowel syndrome. This chronic condition can cause cramping, constipation and diarrhea.
  • Food poisoning. Toxins such as bacteria in spoiled food can cause severe digestive symptoms.
  • Sensitivity to food additives. For example, sulfites used to preserve dried fruit, canned goods and wine can trigger asthma attacks in sensitive people. Mono sodium glutamate (MSG) often used in Chinese cooking can cause digestive issues.
  • Recurring stress or psychological factors. Sometimes the mere thought of a food may make you sick. The reason is not fully understood.
  • Celiac disease. Celiac disease has some features of a true food allergy because it involves the immune system. However, symptoms are mostly gastrointestinal, and people with celiac disease are not at risk of anaphylaxis. This chronic digestive condition is triggered by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains.

With the recent research in micro biome or gut bacteria, there is mounting evidence that many of the food sensitivities and even food allergies can be cured by improving the gut bacteria.

So, it is important to understand personal food allergies, intolerances and sensitivities. And, then find workarounds or solutions to those.

Here is one quick anecdote on this topic.

Several years ago, often around menstruation time, my wife Kimberly used to have abdominal pains, sometimes quite severe and debilitating. So, we started chasing the issue. Doctors did various tests to diagnose it, but no luck. She even subjected herself to a painful colonoscopy. Radiologist pointed out inflammation at the place where her colon turns. But he could not argue why that would cause issues she had been experiencing. They even started using the “C” word for some stomach cancer, which kind of freaked her out emotionally.

During this time, I started keeping a sort of diary of her lifestyle. I noticed that every time her sister or mother visited us, for the period that followed she would have severe pains. I thought that was rather curious.

You see, ever since, I became vegetarian, she did not eat much meat. We did not cook much meat at home. And, even when we ate out, she generally preferred to share what I would eat, which would be vegetarian fair. But every time her sister or mother would visit, they will have several meals out at the restaurants and she would indulge in lots of meats, especially red meats.

Once I figured this out, I asked her to experiment with keeping meat to minimum and absolutely no red meat for a few months – which she did faithfully. And, lo and behold, her pains went away. She experimented with adding the red meat back, with the result of pains also being back. Having learned that lesson, she has now stuck to the lifestyle of mostly no red meat and pains have been gone.

Eastern medicine and nutrition frameworks

Eastern medicine and nutrition frameworks provide different methods (and some would argue, much more precise methods) of matching foods to a person’s specific needs.

I am most familiar with the Indian Ayuervedic system so I will briefly share that here.

According to Ayurveda, there are three primary body types: Vata, Pitta and Kapha.  These body types are also called Doshas.

We are born with either one of these three, or some combination of these, i.e., Vata-Pitta, Vata-Kapha, Pitta-Kapha or Vata-Pitta-Kapha types.

The primary body types are made up of a combination of five basic elements of nature: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Space.

Earth + Water = Kapha

Fire + Water = Pitta

Wind + Space = Vata

By looking at the nature of the constituent elements, you can probably quickly guess the properties associated with each Dosha or body type.

Kapha person would thus be very “earthy”, heavier musculature, gains weight quickly, has moist or oily skin, likes to stays settled in a place, is slow and steady, is often cold and smooth.

Pitta person would be hot, intense, light, flexible, slightly oily, fluid, sour smelling.

Vata person will have dry skin, be on the move all the time, is often cold, rough adept to change, subtle quick and light.

The theory is that we all have an inherent body type that corresponds to our inborn nature. Eating foods and living lifestyle that take us away from our inherent Doshas cause stresses on our bodies and in turn cause issues. Progressed to advanced stages, these perturbations in the body become clinical symptoms that are discovered as ailments in the context of western medicine.

Foods on the other hand, in Ayurveda, are categorized as sweet, sour, salty, stringent, bitter and pungent. Based on the nature of food, it could either aggravate or pacify a particular body type or Dosha.

Kapha is

  • Balanced by pungent, bitter, astringent, light, dry and hot foods
  • Aggravated by sweet, sour and salty foods, heavy, oily and cold

Pitta is

  • Balanced by bitter, sweet, astringent, cold, heavy and dry foods
  • Aggravated by pungent, sour, salty, hot, light and oily foods

Vata is

  • Balanced by salt, sour, sweet, heavy, oily and hot foods
  • Aggravated by pungent, bitter, astringent, cold, dry, light foods

An Ayuervedic practitioner’s goal is to uncover any differences between inherent body type and the present body type and to recommend foods and lifestyle that will bring the body to the back the inherent body type.

As the body realigns with its inherent Doshas, different types of issues and ailments just recede and disappear.

This,  of course, is a pretty deep topic by itself.

“Perfect Health – A complete mind body guide”, a book by Deepak Chopra, M.D., is a very accessible book that explains these Ayuervedic principles and practices. Based on the Ayuervedic theory, the book offers very practical means for matching foods to one’s specific needs and/or make adjustments if you feel any “stresses” in your body.

What do you think of this approach?

Do you feel that this provides guidance on how to adjust your diet to match your personal needs?

Do you see a hole in this approach? What would you do differently?

Post #9 – When it comes to health, vitality, and aging what is really possible?

27 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Aging, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Vigor, Vitality

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We have all heard the story. Until Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile barrier, most folks believed that it was not possible to run at that speed. Few years after Bannister demonstrated that it was possible to run a 4 minute mile, even high schoolers were attempting that record. It became not just possible but an achievable goal.

I believe the same is also true in health, vitality and aging. It was not really that long when the first successful open heart surgery was demonstrated. Now, over half a million bypass surgeries are performed every year in the U.S. alone.

So, it is with this expectation of possible becoming achievable and eventually pervasive, I find it very inspiring to learn what is really possible when it comes to health, vitality and aging., without the intervention of “modern medicine”. Is possible to bypass the bypass surgery?

Through my personal and others experiences and documented studies, I have been collecting examples of what is possible in prevention of diseases or restoration of health and even more importantly how.

Here are some exciting possibilities I have discovered, so far:

  1. Allergies can be reversed

Evidence – My personal experience (see my blog post from last week)

How – By changing what we eat, detoxifying colon, liver, and kidneys and taking supplements to rebuild liver, e.g., CoQ10, Milk Thistle.

  1. Cartilage in Joints such as knees (often diagnosed as Arthritis) can be rebuilt

Evidence – My personal experience

How – By realigning joints if necessary, Bikram Yoga, nutritional supplements Glucosamine/Chondroitin, strength training and realigning joint to eliminate the root cause of wear and tear (see item 10 below). 

  1. Early symptoms of prostate enlargement can be reversed

Evidence – My personal experience

How – By taking supplement such as Saw Palmetto Complex

  1. Losing Inches of height as one ages is reversible

Evidence – My personal experience

How – By doing Bikram Yoga              

  1. Coronary Heart Disease can be prevented and reversed

Evidence – “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.

How – By changing what we eat and drink

  1. Many types of cancers can be prevented and (in mice) turned on and off by changing diet

Evidence – “China Study”, by T. Collin Campbell, PhD

How – By changing what we eat

  1. Live to 93 years old and still be performing heart surgeries

Live to be over 100 and be disease free, fully functioning, independent, supporting family and community

Evidence – “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived The Longest”, By Dan Buettner

How – By living certain lifestyle that includes what we eat, how much we eat, who we associate with, having a purpose, staying active, taking time off and managing our perspective.

  1. Reverse diabetes

Evidence – “Blood Sugar Solution”, by Dr. Mark Hyman

How – Changing what we eat and drink, taking appropriate supplements and engaging in physical activity

  1. Make a phenomenal transformation in matter of months, even at 60

Evidence – “The Life Plan: How Any Man Can Achieve Lasting Health, Great Sex, and a Stronger, Leaner Body”, by Jeffry S. Life M.D. Ph.D.              

“Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength”, by Bill Phillips and Michael D’Orso

“The Joe Dillon Difference”, by Joe Dillon

How – Creating a health plan and sticking to it rigorously

  1. Make dramatic difference in back, neck, joint pains through body realignment

Evidence –   Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain Paperback by Pete Egoscue; Egoscue Treatment Clinics; Personal Experience

How – Learning and practicing the appropriate eCises

Are such possibilities not exciting?

Have you run into some exciting possibilities in the area of health, vitality and aging?

Do you have some personal experience of making something considered impossible possible in the area of health, vitality and aging?

I would love to hear your stories and add those to this list to further explore and make them achievable.