Green Health Spot

What do Sex Hormones, Pesticides & Flame Retardants Have in Common?

Well, nothing except that they can all be found in your tap water.  Water is the simplest, and purest thing you can put into your body.  Our bodies can survive over a month without food but only 3 days or so without water. It is the basic necessity to keep all your organs functioning well.  It helps your kidneys do their filtering work more efficiently and it is, for those of us living in a modern society, a given.  We rarely think about our water, it’s plentiful and found easily but more and more we need to wonder how safe our tap water truly is.  Random testing by the Environmental Protection Agency has shown much of our tap water to be contaminated with heavy metals like lead and chromium, chemicals like pesticides and fungicides and pharmaceutical drugs like sex hormones, antibiotics, pain medications etc.  Are you shocked? I certainly am. Where do all these things come from?

To answer this question we really need to find our where our tap water comes from.  In the San Francisco Bay Area where I live my water comes from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir about 200 miles away from my home in Silicon Valley.  The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is a beautiful place near Yosemite and the reservoir is one of 9 which supply water to the San Francisco Area.  The water comes to us unfiltered but treated for bacteria using chloramine and fluoride is added before it arrives at my home.  So, how do all the pharmaceuticals and chemicals get into the water?

Runoff from local farming and contamination of groundwater eventually contaminates our precious drinking water source.  Whatever we dump into our toilets are treated at sewage treatment centers and released almost unchanged into our oceans and waterways.  So the birth control pills, the antibiotics, the cholesterol lowering drugs all part of human excreta are flushed down the toilet and eventually return to us in our water and in our food.  Because our water travels long distances and come to our home pipes with little or no filtration, it is easy to see how we might be at risk for contamination and side effects from medications even if we don’t take the medication for therapeutic reasons.  Caffeine, pain killers, toxic chemotherapy agents, sex hormones all have small and subtle effects on our bodies.  Many scientists feel the very low concentration of these medications will do little to harm our bodies in the long run.  However, my opinion differs from these scientists because I know how susceptible our bodies are to the subtlest of influences over a long time of exposure. 

Evidence of the drugs and chemicals in our drinking water affecting our smallest creatures are observed in our ecosystem.  It has been shown that low levels of exposure to our drinking water has lead to sex changes in tiny minnows, specifically, the male fat headed minnow which in the presence of female sex hormones found in our water turn female.  Sewage sludge has been added to some of our cow feed and their manure are used to fertilize our fruits and vegetables, leading to hormonal activity in our meats and vegetables.  One of the most frightening things to consider (as if sex-changing minnows aren’t enough) is the low level antibiotics in drinking water leading to possible antibiotic resistance in bacteria found increasing throughout the world.  In India last year there were at least 3 incidences of complete antibiotic resistant bacteria found.  This means that there were NO antibiotics that were able to treat the bacterial infection that these people had.  Breeding of this bacteria and the increasing possibility of new strains that were antibiotic resistant are of considerable concern for everyone. 

Recently the City of Chicago and the EPA had discovered that current testing methods of water were inadequate to get the full picture of lead and chromium contamination in tap water.  It was found that over half of the homes tested had unacceptably high levels of lead.  There is absolutely no safe level of lead in our water.  The EPA establishes a low level acceptable for tap water but many homes are much higher because of old piping and lead solder for copper piping.  Even low to moderate levels of lead exposure will affect IQs in children and put adults at risk for heart attacks and strokes.  Lead is very important test that I do on patients with high blood pressure because contamination is quite common. 

So, what to do about your water?  If at all possible testing your water with a reputable water test company is a first step.  Know what is in your water and then choose to improve it. What's in your tap water? Also read What to do about the drugs in your water.  The EPA has some interesting resources about how to properly dispose of your prescription or over the counter medications. Hint: it does not involve a toilet.

Inflammation...Your Worst Enemy (and What to do About it)

On your road to optimal health, you will encounter a major hurdle whose name is Inflammation.  Inflammation has been known to play a role in heart attacks, cancers, arthritis, allergies etc.  But you might not know that it also plays a role in diabetes, ADD/ADHD, OCD, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, autism, tendonitis, obesity, auto-immune disorders, migraines etc.  In general, inflammation is a reaction where your immune system participates in trying to maintain balance in your body in the presence of injury, poor diet, toxic exposure, viral or bacterial infections, parasites and other things we all do to our bodies on a daily or yearly basis.  If you are having trouble losing weight and are considering having your stomach stapled so you are relegated to a Dixie cup sized portion of food.  Or if you are battling repeated injuries that don't seem to heal, or have memory loss take heed now.  Managing the inflammation in your body will go a long way to helping you lose excess weight, help your brain perform optimally and your body be painfree.  Inflammation is the major reason why statin drugs used for lower cholesterol don't actually increase life span or significantly affect risk of heart attacks or stroke.  Inflammation is kind of a nebulous term that can be used to characterize almost anything related to health. The most important thing that you need to know regarding inflammation is that your for sure have it and how to reduce it's negative effects.  Local inflammation in response to an injury or activity is temporary and normal.  However, chronic inflammation is a huge challenge given the toxic and fast-food world in which we live. 

It is chronic inflammation that I am going to help you start to manage.  Let's answer the two major questions that you might be asking.  First, do I have it? The answer is almost always yes.  Chronic inflammation is silent and in the long run deadly.  If you have any chronic disease such as asthma, allergies, eczema, migraines, arthritis, thyroid dysfunction, hormonal imbalances, ADD/ADHD, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, trouble losing weight, acne, chronic infections, yeast infections, parasites, Irritable bowel syndrome etc. You can for sure check that box for chronic inflammation.

The second question is what to do about chronic inflammation.  I'll give you my top five recommendations that I give to my patients. 

1. Diet: Know your food sensitivities and allergies and AVOID all of them.  I've spoken about food sensitivities before and there is much that you can do to keep your diet from adding too much to the chronic inflammation problem. If you have one of the above listed problems or have been diagnosed with a chronic illness find out what your food sensitivities are and avoid them or get treated for them so they do not continue to produce inflammation in your system.
2. Toxicity: Air pollution, water and food contamination all contribute to chemicals that your body needs to eliminate or seqester.  Know what your heavy metal load is, a heavy metal urine test is imperative for this, a blood test in insufficient to identify stored heavy metals. Eat organic, especially the fruits and vegetables that are most toxic.  Use a reverse osmosis filter on your water or buy bottled water that has been reverse osmosis'ed.  Be careful what you put on your skin and use the Environmental Working Group's Cosmetic Safety database to check toxicity for common household products.
3. Supplements: My 3 musts do supplements are a high quality probiotic remembering that not all probiotics are created equal, a CLEAN fish oil high in EPA and DHA, my favorite is Super EFA from Genestra and finally Mito Life from Mitogenx. 
4. Biopuncture: For those with moderate to severe chronic inflammation going on, Biopuncture to the local area and systemic approaches to inflammation are extremely helpful.  Biopuncture is the use of ultra low dose injections of herbs and minerals to assist the body in modulation of inflammation.  I can't overstate the efficacy of this therapy to improve the overall status of inflammation in the body. 
5. NAET Acupressure treatments: To modulate inflammation, allergies, balance organs and enhance absorption of nutrients. This technique seems quite unbelievable in it's simplicity but suffice it to say, that I've used this technique for years to successfully assist in detoxification and support the body's health.

If you need more tips on how to modulate inflammation and to bring your chronic inflammation levels down, give our office a call and schedule an appointment for further testing and treatments. In the meantime, stay healthy during the winter months.

How Anyone can Feel Great: Managing Toxicity and Inflammation

The greatest underlying issue I have to deal in my patients everyday is the problem with toxicity and inflammation.  Accumulated toxicity and how to improve the body's functioning by reducing toxic load and allowing the body to return to optimum health is essential to healing.  Toxins is an over-used term but by far the most appropriate for what the body is dealing with on a day to day basis, especially in those who are sick.  So what kind of chronic illnesses are we talking about? And what kind of toxins are we dealing with? Chronic illness is by definition an illness that you have been battling with for over 3 months or one that has no foreseeable cure.  Good examples are chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autism, autoimmune disorders, high blood pressure, diabetes, allergies or chemical sensitivities.  Toxins are defined as a food, chemical, bacteria, yeast or virus that disturbs the body's normal functioning and health.  Toxins can be such things as allergens, foods that they body is sensitive to, a chemical like a solvent, a pesticide or a hormone disruptor.  These toxins cause oxidative stress or damage directly to the cell's DNA or mitochondria and thereby inhibit the normal function of the cell.

Many people who suffer from chronic illness are often overwhelmed with toxins so much so that the body's ability to recover from the chonic pain or fatigue is compromised.  My job is to help my patients identify and "detoxify" these toxins from the body, reducing the overall load of toxins that a body needs to deal with on a day to day basis so that inflammation can reduce and the healing can truly begin.  The term "detoxify" is again an overused and vague term that I define as reducing the overall load of toxins in the patient so that the body's own natural ability to heal can work.  Not all "toxins" are toxic to every body, many foods can be considered toxins to some or many but not everyone.  An example is gluten, a protein found in many grains including wheat, oats and rye.  Some people have bodies that are intolerant to gluten leading to the body considering gluten containing foods as toxic.

Major avenues of detoxification in the body are the liver, colon, kidney and lymph.  Minor ones are lungs and skin.  I treat many, many patients with chronic illness from unknown origins and we take profound steps toward stimulating the major pathways of detoxification to start working better.  I do this by removing the things that cause the most toxicity in the body including food sensitivities, heavy metals, yeast, viruses, allergens etc. and use high antioxidants to help support cellular function and antidote the high oxidative stress in the body.  I use homeopathic remedies to keep main avenues of elimination open and biopuncture to support liver and kidney pathways, especially.  By maintaining an open elimination pathways, the person starts to feel relief from their symptoms as their overall toxic load starts to reduce so inflammation can subside and healing can begin.  Surprisingly, this doesn't really take that long.  Most people start to feel relief and see changes in their laboratory information in a few weeks.  I cannot exphasize enough the importance of detoxification in chronic illness.  Knowing what to detoxify is the tricky part.  Is the toxin fat soluable? Is it water soluable? Is it a heavy metal that needs to be chelated? Will detoxification be helped by pH changes or changes in electrostatic charges in the body tissue? If you are working with a doctor in helping your chronic illness heal, keep a few ideas in mind. 

Some people have very high toxic loads and have overwhelmed elimination pathways.  Initial detoxification is imperative and must be done slowly to prevent overwhelming the body with toxins and worsening the situation.  Unclogging the "drain" is not an easy task for some people and the "drain" in this case is your capacity to detoxify.  Once your drain in unclogged, then the detoxification part is much easier and has few side effects.  Many people subscribe to the belief that detox symptoms need to be tolerated and waited out.  Like Herkheimer reactions or die off reactions, many doctors think this is normal but it is evidence that your detoxification pathways are overwhelmed.  Pushing through the detox reactions is like ramming a large thing through a small hole.  The best (and most comfortable) way of doing this is to first make the hole bigger then pushing through what needs to be pushed through.  Brain fog, nausea, joint pain, headaches, muscle aches, diarrhea are all signs of reduced detoxification capacity and the need for ensuring focusing on helping the detox pathways before one starts to detoxify. 

The body has an impressive ability to heal, just given the correct healing environment.  When choosing your doctor, make sure you understand that addressing the underlying cause of your illness may take a bit of time.  I usually can overcome most detox problems in about 2 months and then helping the body heal becomes much easier.  Finding a doctor who can fully understand your chronic illness and who can help you address the detoxification probles associated with the healing of your illness is essential.

Not Celiac Disease But Still Gluten Sensitive

So you all know I treat a lot of patients with autism, allergies and irritable bowel syndrome (among other things). Many of you may also have had our famous food sensitivity test done to assess sensitivity toward various foods, including gluten and gluten containing foods. Today on the Wall Street Journal, we are reading what mainstream medicine is now starting to observe to be true and that is that one can have a sensitivity to gluten and gluten containing grains but not have Celiac disease? Of course this may be old news to all of you savvy readers and patients who have been hearing me talk and lecture about food sensitivities for years.

Diet is an incredibly important aspect of health and healing and the correct diet is imperative for reversing any chronic illness.  Many people come to see me and tell me how healthy their diet is but they still feel awful and have a seemingly difficult to treat diagnosis. The number one thing I do in my practice is to assess for food sensitivities. Let's be clear, these are not food ALLERGIES which are an immediate hypersensitivity reaction but food sensitivities are delayed reactions. Delayed hypersensitivities can take 2 to 72 hours to come on and are never acute or immediately severe like allergies can be. We usually all know if we have been exposed to a food or environmental allergen that causes an allergy because almost immediately (or within 20 minutes) we are experiencing typical allergic symptoms like a stuffy nose, runny or puffy eyes, throat constriction, asthma or breathing difficulties etc.  But food sensitivities are more stealth than the average allergy and you could be consuming a food you are sensitive to and it could be causing you to be miserable.  Many find after testing for food sensitivities that their "healthy" diet was not necessarily "healthy" for them.

This is especially true for people with arthritis, diabetes (especially type 2 but type 1 as well), high blood pressure, asthma, eczema, headaches or migraines, obesity, chronic fatigue and ANY irritable or inflammatory bowel disease including IBS, IBD, ulcerative colitis, chrons disease, diarrhea, constipation or celiac disease.  Also in this list would be thyroid issues, especially hypothyroid, and any and all autoimmune disorders like Grave's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, mixed connective tissue disorders, and Srojgren's disorder.  Gluten is a protein in many grains like wheat, oats, rye and barley.  More and more people are finding themselves unable to tolerate gluten containing foods but when their doctor does a test for celiac's disease, they come up negative.

Finally, the conventional medicine population is finding out that gluten sensitivity is possible without the markers for Celiac disease to be present. I'll go further and say that in my years of practicing I've found that it is possible for a person to be sensitive to wheat or oats and not be sensitive to gluten or have Celiac disease. In fact, it is possible to have a sensitivity to just about anything you consume if your body has a problem with it, your body will start to react to it. Just like when you have an allergy to a food or environmental contaminant such as dust mites, mosquitoes, bees, pollen, carrots, strawberries, peanuts etc, anything is possible.

So if you are finding that your health has been suffering in the past few years and you are dealing with a chronic illness, give a call to your naturopathic doctor so that they can find out for you what your food sensitivities are. Incidentally, you'll find that most of the listed illnesses or diseases listed above are all wholly or partially reversible by being on the correct diet for YOU.  Also, check out NAET and how a simple allergy elimination technique which includes an acupressure (no needles) process to re-balance your body to a food sensitivity or allergen so that you no longer react to the food once consuming it.  I've found that NAET is a reliable, easy and painless way of desensitizing people from foods or allergens that make them sick. 

Oh, one last thing about food sensitivity testing, it is not easy to do and I've only ever used one lab called Immunolabs in Florida. Not all food sensitivity tests are created equal, I've historically relied on other lab's tests only to find out that there are a lot of false negatives or unreliable results on retesting. So save yourself some grief and make sure you find a lab that knows how to do a good reliable test or call ImmunoLabs and find a doctor near you who can do the testing for you. (No, I don't work for them and they don't pay me to say this stuff, it's just been my experience). Good luck and let me know how you feel after a couple weeks off the foods you are sensitive to. To YOUR future health!

For further reading, check out my article about the autism diet and why avoiding gluten and casein just isn't enough.

Cancer Cells Seem to Love Your Sodas

 We've spoken about how high fructose corn syrup has been found to be loaded with mercury, a toxic heavy metal, in a previous post. In that article, we talked about how mercury can damage the brain. Now, new research is even more damning of products with high fructose corn syrup, a highly refined by-product of corn.  It seems that a recent study published by the Journal of Cancer Research have found that pancreatic cancer, the most deadly form of cancer, cells not only like to use fructose as food but also use it to divide and grow.  This study is particularly impactful because before this it was thought that all sugars were preceived as equal by the body. This, however, does not seem to be true since pancreatic cancer cells seem to prefer fructose to glucose in helping it to divide and proliferate.  

American's greatest intake of fructose is from high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Concerns with HFCS were poo poo'd by the corn refining industry who held the stance that a sugar is a sugar.  But as intake of HFCS has increased over 1000 percent between 1970 and 1990 we are seeing the effects on our health in the increasing of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and now cancer.  As it turns out, fructose is absorbed by cancer cells totally differently than glucose is and now we see that fructose is used by cancer cells in ways that glucose is not being used, particularly that it is assisting the cancerous cell to continue to divide and grow. Cancer has supplanted heart disease as the number one killer of Americans. Pancreatic cancer cells, on which the research has been done, is a particularly nasty cancer that kills 95% of people who have contracted it within 5 years. 

Do yourselves and your kids a favor and read ingredients. Particularly, look for high fructose corn syrup and choose products that contain none. Even if you loved your Coca-Cola, just by switching from HFCS to the cane sugar version, you are taking a step in the right direction. Not that I'm recommending you drink Coca-Cola but if you did and couldn't give it up easily, cutting out the HFCS of your diet is a good start. Best to drink water or unsweetened tea. Weaning yourself off sugar of any kind is that first step toward health. And for goodness sake, if you know anyone with cancer, recommend them get off as many sugar or refined foods as possible but especially cut the HFCS out of the diet. 

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Is Your Thyroid Being Weighed Down By Your Carpet?

 Odd question to ask, right? Well, not so odd if you knew about the connection between the chemicals in your carpet and it's impact on your thyroid function. There are, unfortunately a number of things that impact thyroid function. Some examples include raw cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, soy products, your teflon pans and chemicals from a number of sources, particularly your carpet and furniture.  Below is an article by Jennifer Thomas of HealthDay News. Very informational to help you keep your thyroid healthy. In the article she talks about perfluorinated chemicals which are in the halide family. Halides displace iodine usage in the thyroid because they get integrated into the making of the thyroid hormone because they are chemically similar to iodine. Iodine is the primary element integrated in the thyroid hormone. Additionally these same chemicals affect iodine/iodide receptors in your body like the breast, prostate and uterus. Fibrocystic breast disease can be affected by these same chemicals as do other hormonally active disease that are affected by iodine usage.

Chemicals found in carpeting, non-stick cookware and fabrics are linked to an increase in thyroid disease, new research suggests.

British researchers analyzed blood serum levels of two types of perfluorinated chemicals in nearly 4,000 U.S. adult men and women, using data from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Women whose blood levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was in the highest quartile were more than twice as likely to report having thyroid disease as those in the lowest two quartiles. The findings were similar in men, but the results were not statistically significant.

Among men, researchers found an increase in the likelihood of thyroid disease among those who had high levels of perfluoroctane sulphonate (PFOS) in their blood, but the same association was not found in women.

The researchers cautioned that while the data show an association between the chemicals and thyroid disease, they do not prove cause and effect, meaning there could be other explanations for why people with high levels of the compounds in their blood had more thyroid disease.

"We have provided the first evidence of a statistical association between PFOA blood levels and thyroid disease in the 'ordinary' U.S. adult population," said senior study author Tamara Galloway, a professor of ecotoxicology at University of Exeter. "In this type of human population research, it is not possible to be sure whether this is cause or effect. That needs more research."

The study will be published Jan. 21 in the online issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Thyroid disease is more common in women than men, and recent reports have found the incidence is rising. Among study participants, about 16 percent of women and 3 percent of men had a thyroid disorder at some point.

Perfluorinated chemicals are pervasive in industrial and consumer products, including food packaging, flame-resistant and waterproof clothing, chemical-resistant tubing and stain-resistant coatings for carpets. The chemicals are chosen for their ability to repel heat, water, grease and stains.

Previous research in animals has shown that the compounds may affect the thyroid, which helps maintain heart rate, regulate body temperature, metabolism, reproduction, digestion and mental health, according to background information in the study.

PFOA and PFOS have also been linked to cancer in animal studies, though research in humans have been inconclusive or have not found a link among the general population.

Because of concerns about toxicity, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency got commitments from eight manufacturers of PFOA to reduce emissions and usage of PFOA and related chemicals by 95 percent this year, and to move toward eliminating usage of the chemicals completely by 2015.

But that doesn't mean the chemicals will soon be gone from the environment or people's bodies. PFOA and PFOS are also found in water, air and soil, even in remote areas of the globe. PFOA and PFOS have also been detected in the blood of birds, fish and polar bears.

"The formulations used in consumer goods tend to contain more complex forms of PFOA that are quite soluble and/or volatile and can be transported around the globe via ocean currents and in the atmosphere," Galloway said. "That's why PFOA and related compounds are found in every country so far studied."

In addition, the half-life of PFOA and PFOS in the human body is 3.8 years and 5.4 years, respectively, meaning that's how long it takes for half of the chemical to disappear.

The main source of human exposure to PFOA and PFOS is unknown, but it's believed to be through diet, such as from greaseproof food wrappings, researchers said. People may also inhale household dust that contained PFOA or PFOS from fireproof or waterproof coatings on fabrics or carpeting.

"The good news is that mean exposure concentrations seem to be falling over the last few years, coinciding with voluntary reductions in usage by the main manufacturers," Galloway said.

A large study of people living in Parkersburg, W.V., near a DuPont plant that produced perfluorinated chemicals, is ongoing. The residents have higher concentrations of PFOA in their blood than the general population.

Dr. Stephen Rosen, chief of endocrinology and metabolism at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, said the study adds to a growing body of research that that suggests common household chemicals may have detrimental effects on human health.

Those chemicals include bisphenol A (BPA), which has been shown to be an endocrine disruptor with potential consequences for reproduction, and phthalates, which animals studies have also found to be endocrine disruptors.

As for PFOS and PFOA, "this is a nice preliminary study, but I wouldn't want to draw major conclusions from it," Rosen said. "However, it definitely should be studied further. These chemicals are ubiquitous in people's homes, and we need to determine if it could be a trigger for thyroid disease in people genetically predisposed."

More information

The Hormone Foundation has more on thyroid disease.

SOURCES: Tamara Galloway, Ph.D., professor, ecotoxicology, University of Exeter, England; Stephen Rosen, M.D., chief, endocrinology and metabolism, Pennsylvania Hospital, and clinical associate professor, medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Philadelphia; Jan. 21, 2010, Environmental Health Perspectives

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It's About Time!--FDA Issues Warning About BPA Exposure

 

via www.cbsnews.com

After significant pressure from environmental and health organization, the FDA has finally reversed it's position on the health impact of BPA or BisPhenol-A.  Nothing moves as slowly as the FDA does, well maybe molasses in January, but nothing else.  BPA is used as a plastic hardener and is found lining food/soda cans and in #3 and #7 plastic containers.  Studies have shown that BPA is related to cancers, obesity, heart disease and diabetes and has been know to be highly estrogenic since the 1930's. The FDA's reversal of position is, according to them, because  "They have new evidence that makes them worried, but they don't have enough proof to justify pulling the stuff, so what do you do?" said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "You want to warn people, but you don't want to create panic."

Of course, WE all know this is OLD news. Maybe the FDA has just gotten wind of the toxicity of BPA but there have been countless articles and studies on the toxicity of BPA for years, especially in the past 2 years. So, maybe new evidence to the FDA means new to them because their antiquated computers aren't hooked up to the internet, but this is in no way NEW. The FDA's previous stance on the safety of BPA relied heavily on 2 studies (funded by the chemical companies that make BPA). Canada banned BPA in baby bottles in 2008 and major retailers like Toys R Us eliminated from their stock all baby bottles that contained BPA that same year. Currently, BPA is approved as a food additive and manufacturers are not required to tell the FDA which foods contain BPA. Here is a link published by the Health and Human Services on how to minimize BPA exposure in your children. The Environmental Working Group's test results of foods tested found:

• Of all foods tested, chicken soup, infant formula, and ravioli had BPA levels of highest concern. Just one to three servings of foods with these concentrations could expose a woman or child to BPA at levels that caused serious adverse effects in animal tests.
• For 1 in 10 cans of all food tested, and 1 in 3 cans of infant formula, a single serving contained enough BPA to expose a woman or infant to BPA levels more than 200 times the government's traditional safe level of exposure for industrial chemicals. The government typically mandates a 1,000- to 3,000-fold margin of safety between human exposures and levels found to harm lab animals, but these servings contained levels of BPA less than 5 times lower than doses that harmed lab animals.

CBS News did a very interesting quick and dirty test to illustrate the ease of getting BPA in our diet, as well as how easy it is to reduce your over-all body load. A reporter ate a tuna sandwich which has been known to contain high amounts of BPA and had her blood drawn. After 2 days of avoiding plastics and other known sources of BPA her blood was tested again. The results were astounding. After her BPA-tuna sandwich her BPA levels were 5 times that of the average woman and 2 days later her levels were much lower than average. It has been found that 90% of American women have some level of BPA in their system. BPA has been known to lead to early puberty in boys and girls, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancers. BPA is found in the plastic lining of many canned foods, particularly acidic foods such as tomatoes. Tuna, as demonstrated, has high BPA contents, not to mention mercury. Find out how much tuna you can safely take in on a weekly basis by reading about our tuna calculator. 

If you are trying to watch your weight, prevent heart disease, diabetes and cancer I suggest removal of all BPA containing products from your diet. Try to store most things in glass containers and minimize the usage of canned foods.

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Kick Start Your Metabolism

 After eating way too much for Thanksgiving I thought I would write down a few tips to kick start your metabolism so that you can stay slim this Winter and weather the assault of sweets, snacks and parties.  Many of us use the excuse of cold and wet weather to keep us from exercising and leading the active lifestyle that is best for our health.  As most of know to minimize high calorie foods and to exercise during Winter I'm listing some things below to help your metabolism that you might not have known about.

The first is your thyroid gland.  Your thyroid is pivotal in getting your metabolism working for you even when you aren't working out.  We all have friends who eat tons of food and never gain an ounce. One major advantage they might have over you is that their thyroid is optimized.  Optimizing your thyroid function isn't difficult but there are some key pointers for you to know.  First are the signs of a weak thyroid: including weight gain, difficulty with weight loss, constipation, dry skin, dry hair and nails, lethargy, depression and tendency toward feeling cold and high cholesterol.  Common nutrient deficiencies associated with thyroid deficiency include iodine, selenium, vitamin E, Riboflavin, niacin and the amino acid taurine.  Many people are hypothyroid and do not know that they are.  The conventional medical philosophy to rely on TSH as the key monitor of thyroid function disregards issues with conversion from T4 to T3 and the utilization of T3 in the cell.  I've discussed more about why your thyroid meds might not lead to you feeling great here in this video.  

Second major aspect of health to look at is your adrenal function.  Elevated cortisol levels will lead to increased abdominal fat accumulation and fatigue.  It also worsens thyroid problems. If you are battling belly bulge, you would do well to get your adrenals tested.  If your doctor cannot do this for you, feel free to contact our office for assistance.  Ensure that you are eating regularly and sleeping well.  One key sign of excess cortisol production is waking in the middle of the night and inability to fall back to sleep quickly. 

Third cause of weight problems is blood sugar problems. This is tied to adrenal problems and having a carbohydrate rich diet.  Cut the sugar, soda and sweetened coffee drinks to get a head start.  Also cut out dairy products from your diet to help drop those unwanted pounds.  Eat high protein snacks (avoid soy products), eat frequently and get lots of sleep.  

Finally, the unknown kicker on weight gain is the accumulation of water due to allergies, food sensitivities and chemicals in the body.  Identify the foods you are sensitive to and use NAET to desensitize your from the foods that give your body trouble.  NAET can also desensitize you to chemicals, pollen, dust mites and vitamins.  Surprisingly many people have trouble dealing with nutrients common to many foods, thus leading to water weight gain as well as a slowing down of your metabolism.

Get healthy for the new year and together we can put some accuracy into the term "preventative" health. 

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Introduction to Naturopathic Medicine

Just made an introductory video to how naturopathic medicine can help people with chronic illness. Let me know what you think.

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The Allergy Miracle

It never ceases to astound me about the healing power of the body and the yet untapped understanding on how the physical body interacts with the energetic aspects of the body and cells.  Case in point.  In our office for the past 8 years or so we have been using a technique called NAET.  NAET is a permanent allergy elimination technique that in one treatment can desensitize you to almost any food or environmental allergen.  Compare that to hundreds of uncomfortable allergy shots that may or may not work.  It's actually miraculous in some cases what NAET treatments can accomplish.  It can get rid of food allergies that lead to asthma and eczema. You can digest and absorb vitamins and minerals better. You can survive a Spring without hayfever or antihistamines. Alcoholics, smokers and drug addicts can easily withdraw from the addictive substances and avoid falling off the wagon. What could be better?

The funny thing is that so few people know about NAET and how it can affect the body.  NAET was designed by a Dr. Devi Nambudripad, a doctor in Southern California over 25 years ago.  She combined acupuncture meridian understanding and a background in chiropractic to come up with a way to desensitize herself to foods that she was intolerant to.  Thus NAET was born. I'm one of over 4000 doctors that she has personally trained to do NAET and given the incredible success I've seen with patients, I'm astounded that more people don't get NAET done for their allergies, addictions and food sensitivities.  The only thing I can assume is that people don't know about it's efficacy and range of utility.

So I'm taking this opportunity to tell you that despite the look of this odd and strange treatment, it's effectiveness is truly miraculous.  The autistic kids I treat speak more quickly and have amazing presence, even in the most severe cases.  In fact, autistic kids can be treated exclusively with NAET and recover without any other intervention.  I personally use a few other tricks up my sleeve but for some kids it can be a god-send.  Don't be put off by the muscle testing and the odd breathing technique that is involved with NAET.  The only thing I can say is that you must experience it to see the amazing results.  I usually warn my patients that although the treatment seems odd, the results are just phenomenal.  Of course some doctors are better at doing the energy balancing than others but if you get a great doctor who practices NAET, you will see amazing turnarounds in your health.

Some examples of conditions to be treated with NAET:

• Asthma
• Eczema
• Chronic Fatigue
• Fibromyalgia
• Alcoholism
• Caffeine, drug or cigarette addictions
• Chemical sensitivities
• Sensitivities to atmospheric changes like heat, cold, altitude or humidity
• Food sensitivities
• Environmental allergies like pollen, dustmites, molds
• Food allergies to foods like peanuts or strawberries
• Diabetes
• Yeast/candida
• Depression
• Repeated viral or bacterial infections
• Any and all skin conditions
• Brain fog and memory concerns
• Blood pressure problems
• Water retention
• Anxiety
• Digestive disturbances like IBS, colitis and Celiac's disease
• Constipation or Diarrhea
• ADD/ADHD
• Autism
• Eating disorders
• Weight problems
• Diabetes

So the list is long on how NAET affects the body.  One single treatment is usually sufficient for a single allergy.  Most people have multiple allergies to the various things that affect a chronic condition.  For the very sensitive you may need to be treated for 30 or more treatments. The great thing is how effective the treatments are if you follow the directions of your doctor.  No one should have any of the above health problem because there is always a way to get your body back into health if you change your diet, have the right nutrients and to balance your body's energy meridians using NAET. 

Finding a doctor who is willing to look deeper to find the underlying cause is often the trick in our current medical system focused on drugs and symptom based treatment.  Thinking outside of the box will go a long way toward prevention of illness and reducing our national health care costs.

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Why Is Obesity the Leading Cause of Cancer?

A recently published article has reported that obesity is the leading cause of cancer in our country.  It also said that scientist don't really know what the relationship between the two was but suspected it to be related to the estrogen being produced by the fat cells.  I thought I would chime in with another theory.  Environmental exposure and toxicity can lead to both cancer and obesity along with a plethora of other chronic diseases like cholesterol, blood pressure problems, diabetes and heart disease.  Most chemicals that cause cancer or are harmful to the body metabolically in some way are stored in the fat cells. In fact recent research has shown that people can be reexposed to chemicals they had not been exposed to for years by their fat cells releasing their contents when working out vigorously or losing weight through dieting. 

Imagine testing positive for cannibis in a drug test now while you are dieting when you actually haven't smoked a joint for 20 years.  They call this reintoxication and it's a good example of your fat cells dumping into your bood stream it's contents during dieting or stress.  Fat cells are for storage and many toxins are fat soluable which leads to years of accumulation of chemical exposures in your fat cells.  My suspicion is that many people become obese not only because of poor diet and lack of exercise but also because of environmental exposure to many common chemicals that accompany the packaging and preparation of poor diet and being a couch potato.    

Chemicals such as pesticides, plastics, solvents, formaldehydes, heavy metals etc are commonly found in pre-packaged foods, fast foods, microwavable or "easily" prepared foods.  Also common problems with being overweight is that they can become so fatigued that they are unable to exercise appropriately and are less active than their thinner counterparts.  So they are indoors more often leading to lower vitamin D accumulation which in and of itself leads to cancer of all kinds.  

People who are obese have a tendency to have problems with eliminating toxins after daily expsoure due to poor diet or genetic factors.  This toxic accumulation in the body is stored in the fat cells and lead to diminished antioxidant capacity in the body.  The anti-oxidants and other nutrients help the body detoxify the chemical exposure but after a certain time the body's anti-oxidant load decreases due to the high need by the stored toxic load.  All of this lead to a slower metabolism affecting the hormone balance and cellular metabolism.  As activities in the body slow down so too do obese people feel tired and lethargic continuing the vicious cycle of a slower metabolism.  When this is all coupled with poor diet and lack of movement and exercise and lack of sun exposure and low vitamin D levels then this becomes a recipe for disaster.  Heart disease, diabetes, hypertension or high blood pressure, cancer all result from obesity, poor diet and toxicity.  

A good friend of mine in her mid-80's recently went to a high school reunion.  She observed that all the people left in her high school graduating class were very thin. Not a single overweight person left from her class.  I don't think it is a coincidence that my 103 year old grandfather live to that ripe old age partially by being very thin as well.  Obesity kills in many ways. The good news is that there are many ways to manage weight and to help your body detoxify.  I've found that most people lose weight much faster if they focused on detoxifying their body system and enhancing their liver, kidney and colon function.

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Fructose, Aldehydes and Blood Pressure

What do these 3 things have to do with each other? To answer this we turn to the fascinating world of biochemistry.  Fructose is a common sugar found in fruit and chemically enhanced into something called high fructose corn syrup.  Fructose (and to a certain extent glucose) is processed by the liver into an intermediary chemical called an aldehyde.  I won't go into the nitty gritty on this one, in the interest of keeping everyone sane but aldehydes in excess make blood pressure go up. 

Other disturbing ways to get aldehydes into the body is through the inhalation or consumption of formaldehyde containing products, as a by-product of alcohol consumption, as a by-product of yeast overgrowth or ingesting the artificial sweetener aspartame aka Nutrasweet.  Formaldehydes are found in car exhaust fumes, smog, cigarette smoke and forest fires.  It is also used industrially as a chemical fixative and preservative as a by-product of new clothing manufacturing and furniture manufacturing.  Here is a list of common formaldehyde sources.

So if you are concerned about high blood pressure, you would do your health a great favor to isolate and remove sources of aldehydes from your diet and environment and reduce fructose (especially high fructose corn syrup) in your diet.  More concerning than fruit juices (of which fructose is the main sugar), high fructose corn syrup in many packaged foods are a major concern for hypertension, diabetes and obesity in Americans.  In addition, we have spoken in the past of high fructose corn syrup containing uncomfortable amounts of mercury.  A long time ago it was thought that fructose was beneficial to diabetics since it was absorbed more slowly and had less of a blood sugar spike than glucose.  Later they found that every cell in the body could metabolize glucose but only the liver could metabolize fructose leading to the production of an aldehyde molecule during the metabolism process.  Many people who have livers that don't have enough resources to break down aldehydes can have resulting inflammation, brain fog, muscle aches and blood pressure problems.  Fructose also seems to interfere with the heart's usage of magnesium, copper and chromium which can make worse the blood pressure problem, risk of heart disease and blood sugar control.

A simple nutrient that can help the body break down aldehyde accumulation is N-acetyl Cysteine which helps the body produce glutathione, a high powered anti-oxidant.  Other things that I often use to help the body produce glutathione is Amino ICG, a purified whey protein and Liquid Life which helps the cells deal with the depleted glutathione levels.

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Cholesterol Fact or Fiction?

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Have we all been suckered by the cholesterol propoganda of the last few decades?  Do you know why cholesterol is "bad" for you? Do you know why in the US we need to keep our total cholesterol down under 200?  Is there a cholesterol level that is too low?  And what about all those cholesterol lowering drugs? Do they help?

High cholesterol leads to high blood pressure and heart disease and premature death, right?  Cholesterol has had a poor public relations run until recently.  Is it possible that those early studies that most doctors still believe were only part of the story?  If Lipitor and other statin drugs are so effective, why is heart disease still the number 2 killer of all Americans?  

Here are some facts you might not know about cholesterol and it's function in the body.

• Cholesterol is made by the body, the liver to be precise.  
• Cholesterol is incorporated into every cell wall of every cell your body has.  
• Cholesterol is the mother of the sex hormones in your body including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol etc.  
• Cholesterol is incorporated into your bile acids to help you digest and absorb fat in your diet.  
• Cholesterol acts as an antioxidant and protests us against free radical damage.  
• Cholesterol is needed for proper function of serotonin receptors in the brain.  Low cholesterol levels can lead to depression and suicidal tendencies. 
• Breast milk is rich in cholesterol and helps baby brains and nervous system to develop properly.  
• Cholesterol plays an important role in keeping the digestive tract healthy.  Low cholesterol vegetarian diets can lead to leaky gut syndrome due to the poor health of the digestive system. 
• Cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D which is essential to prevention of cancer, immune support, keeps your bones healthy, keeps your nervous system health and tons of important functions that scientists are just started to fully understand.  

For these reasons and because I don't believe in tampering with Mother Nature, I rarely use cholesterol lowering herbs or advocate cholesterol lowering drugs.  For more details on how cholesterol is actually important for your body's functions, read this great article by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD.

And what about all those cholesterol lowering drugs like Lipitor that people are on nowadays?  Do they help improve your lifespan? Dr. Jerome Hoffman, MD from UCLA who is a professor of clinical medicine asks us this question about using statin drugs to lower cholesterol. 

"What if you put 250 people in a room and told them they would each pay $1,000 a year for a drug they would have to take every day, that many would get diarrhea and muscle pain, and that 249 would have no benefit? And that they could do just as well by exercising? How many would take that?"  

Of course he's referring to the efficacy of statin drugs.  The old adage is that there are Lies, More lies and there are Statistics.  Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor, the number one selling drug may have pulled a fast one on all of us.  In it's ads that proclaim that there is a 36% reduction of heart attacks actually breaks down in the fine print.  That 36% reduction in heart attacks actually means that in the large study they did 3% of people on placebo or sugar pill had a heart attack during the study compared to the whopping 2% on Lipitor.  So for every 100 people on Lipitor it can save 1 person from a heart attack.  But what about the other 99 people taking the drug?

My argument is that cholesterol is a natural function of the body and it makes me very uncomfortable for so many people taking cholesterol lowering drugs and eating low fat diets when we clearly don't have good pharmaceutical answers to preventing heart disease and that you may be lowering your cholesterol level too low leading to a whole host of problems for your body and brain.  No sex drive?  Maybe it's low cholesterol.  Depressed? Check your cholesterol.  Not menstruating? Maybe your cholesterol is too low.  Generally I've found in my practice that total cholesterol under 150 is way too low.  If your HDL is a good percentage of that total cholesterol number you may be also be experiencing fertility concerns as well.  

So think long and hard befor you start on cholesterol lowering drugs, there is definitely more to the story.

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Men with Low Testosterone Have the Greatest Heart Disease Risk

Here's a shocker for all of you.  Remember how for years our doctors have told us to know our cholesterol levels, to be careful of high blood pressure and to stop smoking?  Well, if you are worried about heart disease risk and risk of heart attack, the things you should be most concerned about are your free testosterone levels, HDL and your age.  In one study published in the Journal Metabolism in March of 2004, researchers found that low testosterone levels posed the greatest risk for men and was the greatest predictor of heart attacks and clogging of the arteries.  NOT high cholesterol, not diabetes, not smoking, not high blood pressure, not even being fat.

It's not that we shouldn't be careful of obesity because it does lead to diabetes which is the number 3 killer of Americans.  It doesn't mean that we shouldn't still stop smoking because we still care about lung cancer, emphysema and terrible breath.  And it doesn't mean we shouldn't be very concerned about high blood pressure because of risk of strokes.  But for heart disease risk, make sure that your doctor has checked you for free testosterone.  A Total testosterone measurement might not pick up the risk.  But it seems that low free testosterone is very related to heart disease risk.  Interestingly, low testosterone is found more often in people with diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.  Maybe that is why for years we've thought it was the high blood pressure, diabetes or being too fat that caused heart disease.

In men, signs of low testosterone include loss of body hair, low libido, muscle weakness, depression, mood disorders, erectile dysfunction, small testicles.  Men can actually have low testosterone without experiencing all these symptoms.  But if you have had an early heart attack and have family history of heart disease, ask your doctor to check your hormone levels thoroughly.  

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Lung Age Can Motivate You to Stop Smoking

It's easy for non-smokers to tell our smoking friends or co-workers that they should quit smoking.  After all for us, it seems like a no brainer.  There are few things as studied as the relationship between smoking and the development of lung cancer.  But wait, there's more...how about bladder cancer, heavy metal toxicity, emphysema, COPD, hypertension, heart disease like clogged arteries, stroke, impotence, throat cancer, mouth cancer, kidney cancer, stomach cancer, uterine/cervical cancer, pancreatic cancer?  There are many websites that give us scare tactics about anti-smoking and why someone who is a smoker should quit now. 

But researchers have found that twice the number of people who were given their lung 'age' could resolve themselves to quit smoking for good.  This is because doctors have found that many smokers have undiagnosed emphysema.  Without this important information many smokers can continue to be oblivious to their health condition.  Smoking kills 4 million people a year according to the World Health Organization. Everyone who smokes knows that it isn't a healthy thing to do and some don't care and will stop later or some think they are too young to have health issues from the smoking if they are young. Yes, it usually is harder for many to stop smoking than it was to start.  There is much support out there for smokers who want to quit.  Just knowing that you likely already have diminished lung capacity and hardening of the arteries is information to help those who want to make the choice to stop.

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How Junk Food leads to High Blood Pressure and Diabetes

Yesterday we talked about how fast foods lead to inflammation in the body equivalent to the inflammation found in your body tissues during illness.  There is also research that indicates that processed foods like pre-made frozen dinners, chips, sodas, cookies, crackers and fast foods also leads to high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.  We all know that junk foods contain a lot of sugar, unhealthy fats and high fructose corn syrup and can eventually make us fat.  Even before you get fat, eating a lot of processed foods leads to the start of high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetic symptoms.

One reason for the relationship between junk food, high blood pressure (hypertension) and diabetes (not to mention cancers and obesity) is because the processing of the foods removes a lot of the natural nutrients originally in the food.  A very important nutrient that we have addressed before and Americans are increasingly becoming deficient in is magnesium.  Magnesium deficiency has been related to the inflammation that is starts the high blood pressure problems and compounds the insulin resistance in diabetics.  Initially, you might find that you tend to have lower than normal blood pressure if you eat a highly refined diet and during this time the blood pressure is kept under control due to the initial inflammation response initiated by the immune system.  Eventually, the inflammation will lead to oxidative stress which then leads to changes in the arteries like less flexibility and build up of plaque.  A couple of weeks ago we also spoke about how magnesium deficiency leads to heart attacks and osteoporosis.  Calcium supplementation without the balance of high quality magnesium will lead to an increase risk of both heart disease and osteoporosis.  Now we are starting to see the cost to our health if we continue to consume highly refined foods.

High-fructose corn syrup and other processed high-fructose products also leads to type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.  It too starts with low blood sugar events as a normal insulin reaction to extremely high infusions of sugar into the blood.  Eventually, the cells become less sensitive to the high sugar diet and become insulin resistant.  Also the pancreas' ability to produce insulin also starts to diminish.  Metabolic syndrome is a group of symptoms including blood sugar problems (high and low), hypertension, cholesterol and triglyceride problems.  This syndrome is partially due to the inflammation that we had previously mentioned.  It is also due to nutrient deficiencies (vitamin, mineral and amino acids) and due to the production of reactive oxygen species (aka oxidative stress) resulting from the immune response.  Triglycerides go up and vitamin E (an anti-oxidant) goes down and overall control of fat in the blood stream decreases. 

Despite how complex this all sounds it is relatively easy to remedy.  Magnesium deficiency can be remedied by increasing magnesium rich foods in your diet.  Keeping your kidneys healthy will also ensure that you don't lose a lot of valuable minerals through your kidneys like magnesium and potassium. Here in an easy 3 step plan to get you on the road to preventing diabetes and high blood pressure in the future:

1. Eliminate high fructose corn syrup from your diet.
2. Increase the intake of various (different vegetables will give you different nutrients) dark leafy greens (kale, collards, swiss chard, dandelion greens, beet greens, turnip greens, broccoli, arugula etc.)  Increase whole grains in your diet such as whole wheat, oats, millet, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, spelt, brown rice etc.
3. Reduce the intake of highly processed foods.  This includes fast foods and foods with many ingredients that you cannot pronounce or need a dictionary to define.  Preservatives, nitrites, artificial colors and flavors also help you identify "highly" processed foods.

Just a reminder that fruits or natural fruit juice which contains fructose is tremendously different from high-fructose products derived from corn.  Don't get confused on this point.  I'm not telling you to stop fruit or fruit juice, just high-fructose products.  A really good fruit to eat are blueberries due to their high anti-oxidant value.  Any fruit that has vibrant colors will give you plenty of nutrient and support for your health.  After all, the old adage "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" still hold true, just make it an organic apple and eat it with peel.  Most of the nutrients are in the apple peel. Here's to your continuing good health!

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