The Rub

FROM DR. MICHAEL J. BREUS

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/circadian-rhythm-_b_1314247.html?ref=healthy-living

It’s not every day that a news story about circadian rhythms shoots to the top of the “most read” list in a major newspaper. But that’s exactly what happened with this story about how the aging of our eyes may affect our circadian clocks and, in turn, our overall health. This New York Times piece outlines research that is working to connect the aging of the eye with disruption to the functioning of the body’s circadian clocks and the development of many of the chronic and serious health conditions that are associated with age.

Circadian rhythms — our own internal biological “clock” — govern our sleep-wake cycle and several other daily rhythms of the body. It’s a complicated and finely-tuned system of hormonal and bio-chemical reactions that helps us live in rhythm with the 24-hour day, waking in the morning and remaining alert throughout the daylight hours, then sleeping and rejuvenating at night. A key component of our circadian system is the timed release of the “sleep hormone” melatonin. When our circadian clocks are functioning properly, melatonin levels rise during the nighttime hours, promoting sleep. Melatonin levels are suppressed during daytime hours as other hormones such as cortisol rise, helping to provide the alertness and energy we need to navigate our waking day.

Our bodies’ circadian clocks, and the rise and fall of melatonin, are driven by exposure to light. And our eyes play a critical role in capturing that light and transmitting information to the part of the brain that governs our circadian clocks.

Scientists in recent years have discovered a group of cells in the retina of the eye that are triggered by light to communicate with the area of the brain that controls the circadian clock. Researchers have determined that these light-sensitive retinal cells communicate directly with the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus. This small cell cluster, located in the hypothalamus, is responsible for controlling the body’s circadian rhythms.

Our circadian clocks are incredibly precise and can be very sensitive to disruption:

Exposure to light at night. This happens most often these days through our ever-present electronic devices, which seem to be everywhere, including the bedroom. Falling asleep with the television on, leaving a cell phone, laptop or tablet on your bedside table — the light emitted from these devices can throw your circadian rhythms out of whack and disrupt your sleep.

Age. Evidence has shown that the body’s circadian clock functions less effectively as we age.

Shift work. People who work nights, or an irregular combination of day and night shifts, are frequently living at odds with their biological clocks. Firefighters, police, medical professionals, pilots and other shift workers — as well as people who travel frequently across time zones — suffer sleeplessness and other health problems as a result of disruptions to their circadian clocks.

Here’s where the aging of the eye comes into play. As our eyes age, they become less effective at absorbing light. Pupils become narrower. The lens of the eye takes on a yellow cast. Overall, our eyes become less adept at absorbing light — particularly blue light, the part of the light spectrum that has an especially powerful effect on the retinal cells that work with the brain to control circadian rhythm. This study showed how dramatically blue-light absorption decreases with age:

• The eyes of a 10 year old have 10 times the ability to absorb blue light as the eyes of a 95 year old.

• By age 45, a person’s eyes are able to absorb only 50 percent of the blue light needed to keep circadian rhythms functioning properly.

Research into the effects of blue light exposure on the body’s circadian rhythms reveals the negative consequences of the decrease in blue-light absorption that comes with age:

•In this study, women were exposed to blue light for a continuous 30-minute period. The younger women in the study responded to the blue light exposure with a drop in melatonin levels. Older women, exposed to the same amount of blue light, did not experience a suppression of melatonin levels.

•This research revealed that older men were significantly less affected by exposure to blue light than younger men when researchers measured for alertness and mood. Younger men experienced a boost in alertness and mood after exposure to blue light that older men simply did not experience.

What does all this fascinating science mean in practical terms? Exposure to light, especially sunlight, matters. And it matters increasingly as we age. As our ability to use light effectively decreases, we need to increase the amount of our exposure in order to help strengthen and boost our circadian rhythms. Keeping our eyes healthy and promptly treating eye problems such as cataracts is critical. The health of our eyes, it seems, may have a profound effect on the quality of our sleep and our overall health.

Sweet Dreams,
Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™

GLENN D. BRAUNSTEIN, M.D.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-d-braunstein-md/juice-diets-and-fasts_b_1314407.html?ref=healthy-living&ir=Healthy%20Living

It’s yet another of the fancy, shiny and pricey purchases or gifts parked on the kitchen counter. It may have gotten a good run just after the holidays when it got into the house and members of the whole family — just as the infomercials, some celebrities and even a popular documentary advise — pledged to try to boost their health with fresh-pressed juice. To hear their advocates, liquefied fruits, veggies and herbs — especially greens like spinach, kale, cucumbers and wheatgrass — offer an amazing elixir to lose weight, boost the body’s immunity, prevent cancer, and cleanse the liver and colon — and more.

Be careful of the rutabaga truck you fall from if you buy all these claims.

“Organic green juice is like red lipstick: don’t leave home without it,” preaches self-described “wellness warrior” and cancer survivor Kris Carr in her recent New York Times best-seller Crazy, Sexy Diet.

Well, OK, research shows that a diet high in fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk for many leading causes of death, including cancer and heart disease, as well as help with weight management. Most adults should eat at least nine servings (4½ cups) of vegetables and fruits daily (sorry, potatoes don’t count). But few of us do. According to a 2009 survey by the Center for Disease Control, just 32.5% of adults consumed fruit two or more times per day and 26.3% eat vegetables three or more times per day. A healthy diet also should include a variety of types and colors of produce.

If juicing helps you achieve this, then puree away. There is no evidence, however, that juice is healthier than eating whole fruits and vegetables and those gullible enough to swallow the extreme assertions about juicing’s benefits ought to be sent to bed with just a plate of Brussels sprouts.

Today’s home juicers range from simple $30 models to $300 power machines that can pulverize an entire apple, core and all, in mere seconds. If you do juice, be sure first to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly with water and preferably, a vegetable brush. This is key with fruits like cantaloupes and other melons that require peeling or cutting. Cut away those damaged or bruised areas; bacteria can thrive there. And only make as much juice as you can drink at one time, as bacteria can grow in the sugar-rich environment after squeezing.

Fiber is Filling, not Fattening

Because most fruits and some vegetables (most notably carrots and beets) are high in sugar, juicing is not recommended on a regular basis for diabetics. Juice is metabolized in the body more quickly than whole fruit and leads to quick spikes in blood sugar. If weight loss is the goal, juicing may not be the best bet either. Even raw juice is high in sugar and calories; some fruit juices actually contain more calories than soda. Another concern is that juice does not contain fiber, which is what gives us the feeling of fullness.

“Fiber, due to its bulky nature, stretches our stomachs. Our stomach receptors then signal the brain telling us that we’re full,” explains my colleague Jennifer Arussi, a registered dietitian. “Without that feeling of fullness we have a greater potential to over eat.”

Fiber supplementation in the obese has been shown to enhance weight loss significantly. Plus, most adults get less than half the recommended amount of fiber in their daily diets.

Proponents of juicing claim that nutrients are better absorbed by the body in juice than whole fruit, but there is no convincing scientific evidence to support this. Advocates also assert that drinking juice gives the digestive system a break from working on fiber. But fiber actually aids digestion.

Limited Scientific Research on Healing Properties

Different proponents promote specific juices for their ability to prevent or remedy diseases and other medical conditions. Wheatgrass, a juicer’s staple, for example, long has been touted for everything from the common cold to colitis to shrinking tumors. Wheatgrass provides a concentrated amount of nutrients, including iron, calcium, magnesium, amino acids chlorophyll, and vitamins A, C and E. Individual accounts have reported benefits of a wheatgrass diet, but there isn’t sufficient scientific literature to support the extravagant promises made for this common plant. Pomegranate juice more recently has been the subject of boasts about its claimed anti-cancer properties. The ellagic acid in pomegranates has shown some positive results in the lab but proponents lack the clinical proof that it helps with disease in humans.

In some instances, the health benefits of fruits and vegetables can be tracked back to their skins, which don’t always make it into juice. In a recent study published by my colleagues and I, premenopausal women who drank eight ounces of red wine slightly lowered their estrogen levels while increasing their blood testosterone concentrations, most likely due to a natural inhibitor of an enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen. This inhibitor is found in the skins and seeds of red grapes, but is not found in the grapes that are used to make white wine.

Despite its fashionable status, juicing isn’t exactly new. The movement couldn’t have a more persuasive pitchman than health and fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne, whose famous feats include celebrating his 70th birthday by towing 70 boats with 70 people for 1 ½ miles in the Long Beach Harbor, while shackled and handcuffed. (I’ll have whatever he’s having). Before his death last year at age 96, LaLanne and his wife spent years promoting the Jack LaLanne PowerJuicer in televised commercials and infomercials. LaLanne also had a juice bar in the first gym he opened in Oakland in 1936.

The current craze has been fueled by reports on the eating habits of celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Selma Hayek, hip juice bars like Beverly Hills Juice and New York’s Liquiteria and hundreds of books and websites offering recipes for the likes of “Kale Lemonade” and “The Only Way I Can Tolerate Beets Juice.” Starbucks is jumping on the juice band wagon, too. In November, the coffee giant purchased Evolution Juice, a manufacturer of raw juices sold in stores and is planning to open its own juice bars. The first is supposed to open on the West Coast later this year.

Flushing Out the Facts On Juice Fasts

Feeding the liquid frenzy, too, is a recent documentary, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. Credited with doubling the sale of the Breville brand juicer last year, the film chronicles Australian entrepreneur Jim Cross’s 60-day juice fast and transformation from tubby and sick (he suffers from a skin condition called urticaria) to trim and healthy.

Swapping burgers and buckets of chicken for two months of just juice may melt the pounds away. But for most people, this isn’t a medically advisable course. Extreme juicing, marketed as “juice cleanses” or “juice fasts,” differ; these generally involve fasting or food restriction for varying spans and may include some combination of nutritional supplements. Some regimens recommend colonics or enemas, too.

“Fasting for a day probably won’t hurt you,” says my colleague Arussi. “But when you don’t eat actual food,” she adds, “your body produces hormones that say ‘feed me’ and you feel an intense urge to eat.”

Much of what you’ll drop via a juice fast will be water weight. Short-term side effects can include dizziness, nausea, constipation, fatigue and irritability. Longer fasts may cause electrolyte imbalances and if you don’t consume enough calories to keep your metabolism functioning, your body will convert to energy crucial muscle tissue rather than fat (see my prior blog on this topic).

As for cleansing the toxins from your body, there is no scientific evidence that juice fasts do this; the liver and kidneys efficiently process and eliminate toxins on their own. For those taking medication for their heart or to regulate blood sugar, such programs can cause serious complications. And it goes without saying that children should not be put on juice fasts at home. If you must do these “cleanses,” please talk to your physician first.

I think most MDs will echo my prescription: juicing can provide a possible alternative to a Popeye lifestyle of consuming gobs and gobs of spinach or other healthy foods to meet the daily requirements of fruits and vegetables. Your health, though, isn’t something that can be reduced to cartoon-like thinking and consumers should sip with care any crazy Kool-Aid claims about juicing’s boons: the diet to maintain good health should include minimally processed foods, lean protein and plenty of whole fruits and vegetables.

FROM DAVID KATZ, M.D.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/sugar-health_b_1316368.html?ref=healthy-living

I don’t think Mary Poppins had this in mind at all.

Kids these days — and adults, for that matter — are consuming far too many spoons full of sugar. This sugar excess contributes importantly to the epidemic of obesity, and all of its consequences — diabetes in particular. Diabetes and other complications of obesity require pharmacotherapy much of the time. And there we have it: spoons full of sugar, helping medicine go down.

We have known this for some time. There has been considerable attention to the contributions soda — termed by some of my public health colleagues “liquid candy” — makes to the prevailing diet. While the beverage industry has argued against the inevitable conclusion, data have accumulated to make it all but irrefutable. Soda contributes lots of calories and sugar to the “typical” American diet, and since excesses of calories and sugar are implicated in obesity and ill health, soda is certainly part of the problem.

It is not, however, the whole problem — nor even half of it. A study just released by the CDC indicates that more than half of the excess sugar in the diets of children comes from food rather than drink, and most of that food is eaten at home. The study also suggests that sugar intake, as a percent of total calories, rises as kids get old enough to make more of their own food choices. Kids making questionable choices? As a parent (and former kid…), I’m stunned. Say it ain’t so!

The abundance of sugar in food does not, of course, exonerate soda. It simply reveals that the problem of sugar excess is pervasive throughout the food supply, both in what we drink and in what we chew.

How concerned we should be about sugar, per se, is subject to some debate. Most of us in public health deem sugar excess an important liability of the modern diet, and an important threat to public health. Some go much further, and declare it an outright poison. I think that takes things too far. Rather, it’s the dose that makes the poison — of sugar, as of almost anything. That we consume too much sugar, and that it does us harm, is what we need to know.

We need to know because we are unlikely to fix problems to which we are oblivious. We need to know because, ostensibly, knowledge is power. In that spirit, we in public health have cause to welcome some important new allies to the mission of advancing health through better nutrition: museums.

There is a wonderful exhibition at Yale University’s iconic Peabody Museum, entitled “Big Food: Health, Culture and the Evolution of Eating.” “Big Food” puts on visual display our evolving food environments, increasing obesity rates and decreasing physical activity levels. The Peabody now gives you dinosaurs to the right, and perhaps some of the things that will speed Homo sapiens toward a similar fate to the left! All too often, the things that extend the shelf life of food tend to shorten the shelf life of those eating the food.

“Big Food” can teach you things you never knew, and maybe some you never knew you never knew. It examines behavioral choice in nutrition and exercise and the influence of social, environmental and cultural settings. It explores our origins as hunter?gatherers, societal pressures such as the growth of portion sizes and media influences on food preferences. And it calls on us all to become advocates for a healthier lifestyle.

Most importantly, in the manner of museums catering to families with children, “Big Food” is fun. It’s edutainment: education and entertainment combined. “Big Food” may shock you with those spoons full of sugar — the incredible numbers of them, and the surprising places they hide in your food. By doing so, maybe it will be the reason you — or someone in your family — won’t need medicine to go down after all.

“Big Food” opened Feb. 11 at the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven and runs through Dec. 2, 2012. I’ve seen it, and think it’s great; I encourage you to take your family if you happen to be one of my Connecticut neighbors. I add a shout-out of thanks to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation for footing much of the bill. Of course, this is enlightened self-interest on their part; a bit less sugar, and a bit less medicine may mean the costs of coverage go down!

The Peabody is not the first museum in Connecticut to put food and health on the exhibition menu. The Stepping Stones Museum in Norwalk, Conn. has a permanent exhibit called “Healthyville,” which focuses on lifestyle choices and health in children. Like the Peabody exhibition, Healthyville is interactive, engaging and empowering. Stepping Stones takes things up a notch with satellite-enabled classrooms that allow children to interact with peers around the world, and with an “edible garden” that allows Healthyville messages to be extracted from the organic grounds, during the growing season. I encourage families with young children who can get there to give Healthyville a visit.

Not everyone has easy access to museums in Connecticut. Good news for the rest of you: I did a Google search for children’s museums offering exhibitions about health and food, and found that they are available all around the country. Go to www.childrensmuseums.org to find one near you.

Museums applying their unique talents for making learning fun to food is a very welcome development. Will “Big Food,” “Healthyville” and other such efforts change outcomes for the better? Will they cause fewer spoons full of sugar, and a bit less medicine, to go down?

We don’t know for sure yet. But the food for thought is refreshingly wholesome, and looks to me to be right in the sweet spot. So my advice to you and your family is: dig in!

FROM MARK HYMAN, MD

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/food-allergy_b_1301271.html

Think “food allergy” and you might conjure the worst-case scenario, like a child going into anaphylactic shock after exposure to peanuts. No doubt, a severe food allergy is scary. But it’s also relatively rare. A much more common scenario is an adult with a low-grade food allergy to say, gluten, who never pinpoints the cause of his misery. His symptoms are vague (bloating, constipation, weight gain) and his exposure is frequent (breakfast, lunch and dinner), so the connection is murky. And, over years, the hidden allergy takes a toll on the immune system. The result of an overworked immune system is everything from weight gain to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) to arthritis.

That’s what happened to a patient of mine. John weighed 350 pounds and was facing diabetes. But his blood sugar problem was only the tip of the iceberg. He also had joint pain, asthma, crippling fatigue and a sleep disorder. To combat his lethargy, he craved diet soda and fast food for its high number of starchy carbs, a false source of fast energy. What he didn’t know was that he had celiac disease, a serious autoimmune disease fed by his daily indulgence in bagels and donuts. Celiac disease causes the immune system to turn on itself, attacking the healthy lining of the digestive tract. And the major trigger is gluten, a sticky protein found in many grains, including John’s daily dose of bagels and donuts. Unchecked autoimmune diseases mean the gut is in a constant state of inflammation, a breeding ground for chronic illness.

Food Sensitivities and Inflammation

John’s story is not unique. Inflammation is one of the biggest drivers of weight gain and disease in America. While celiac afflicts roughly 1 percent of Americans, as many as 30 percent may have non-celiac gluten intolerance.[1] The key difference is that in people with celiac disease, the body attacks the small intestine. But in people with non-celiac gluten intolerance, the immune system attacks the gluten. A recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 “diseases” that can be traced back to eating gluten.[2] Either way, the gut festers out of sight. And when the lining of the gut is inflamed, the body is even more prone to food reactions, so the problem spirals out of control.

When the lining of the gut is inflamed, small fissures open between the tightly-woven cells making up the gut walls. Called leaky gut syndrome, these chinks in the gut’s armor allow bacteria and partially-digested food molecules to slip out into the bloodstream, where they are considered foreign invaders. Once it spies a potential enemy, the body doesn’t hold back. The immune system attacks full throttle. White blood cells rush to surround the offending particle and systemic inflammation ensues. I’m not talking about a sore throat or infected finger. I’m talking about a hidden, smoldering fire created by the immune system as it tries to fend off a daily onslaught of food allergies.

The problem is that most people, like John, eat foods they are allergic to several times a day. Meaning every time that food enters the body, the immune system whips itself into a frenzy. But because symptoms are delayed up to 72 hours after eating, a low-grade food allergy can be hard to spot. Without diagnosis or awareness, the damage is repeated over and over, meal after meal. Eventually, inflammation seeps throughout the body, establishing an environment ripe for weight gain and chronic disease.

Identifying and treating food allergies and food sensitivities is an important part of my practice. Six weeks after John went gluten-free on The Blood Sugar Solution, not only did he lose three notches on his belt, but his knees didn’t hurt, his asthma was gone, he wasn’t hungry and his energy was back. John’s response was not unusual. I have seen dramatic effects in weight loss, inflammatory conditions like autoimmune disease and even mood and behavioral disorders.

The problem is that most physicians, especially allergists, don’t see the value in uncovering hidden food allergies. That is unfortunate because there is a growing body of medical literature illuminating the intimate relationship between the gut, food and illness. Luckily, you don’t have to wait for your doctor to catch up with the times. Here are three ways to determine if food allergies are undermining your health.

Three Ways to Identify Food Allergies

Get a blood test. Blood testing for IgG food allergens (Immuno Labs and other labs) can help you to identify hidden food allergies. While these tests do have limitations and need to be interpreted in the context of the rest of your health, they can be useful guides to what’s bothering YOU in particular. When considering blood tests for allergens, it’s always a good idea to work with a doctor or nutritionist trained in dealing with food allergies.
Go dairy- and gluten-free for six weeks. Dairy and gluten are the most common triggers of food allergies. For patients who have trouble losing weight, I often recommend a short elimination as part of the The Blood Sugar Solution. Both dairy (milk, cheese, butter and yogurt) and gluten (most often found in wheat, barley, rye, oats, spelt, triticale and kamut) are linked to insulin resistance and, therefore, weight gain. Temporarily cutting them out of the diet allows the inflamed gut to heal. This one move may be the single most important thing most you can do to lose weight.
Avoid the top food allergens. If you don’t feel a sense of relief from nixing dairy and gluten, you may need to take the elimination diet one step further by cutting out the top food allergens: gluten, dairy, corn, eggs, soy, nuts, nightshades (tomatoes, bell peppers, potatoes and eggplant), citrus and yeast (baker’s, brewer’s yeast and fermented products like vinegar). Try this for a full six weeks. That is enough time to feel better and notice a change. When you reintroduce a top food allergen, eat it at least two to three times a day for three days to see if you notice a reaction. If you do, note the food and eliminate it for 90 days.
If you are overweight or if you suffer from inflammatory diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, the potential health benefits of discovering and uprooting hidden food allergies cannot be overstated. Remember, food is your greatest ally in helping to prevent and treat illness. For more information see The Blood Sugar Solution to get a free sneak peak.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/broccoli-cancer-sulforaphane_n_1310634.html?ref=healthy-living

Follow your mom’s advice, and eat your broccoli!

Researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University have discovered more insight into just how the green veggie helps to fight off cancer.

The root of it is in epigenetics, which is the term for how factors like diet and toxins can affect our genetic codes and the way our genes are “expressed.”

Researchers have previously known that a compound in cruciferous vegetables called sulforaphane helps the body to fight off cancer. That’s because the compound works to inhibit enzymes, called HDACs, which are known to work against the ability of certain genes to suppress the development of tumors.

But now, the new study in the journal Clinical Epigenetics shows that suforaphane also works in another way to fight cancer, through a mechanism called DNA methylation.

“It appears that DNA methylation and HDAC inhibition, both of which can be influenced by sulforaphane, work in concert with each other to maintain proper cell function,” Emily Ho, an associate professor in the Linus Pauling Institute and the OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences, said in a statement. “They sort of work as partners and talk to each other.”

Ho explained in the statement how DNA methylation works:

DNA methylation, Ho said, is a normal process of turning off genes, and it helps control what DNA material gets read as part of genetic communication within cells. In cancer that process gets mixed up.

The researchers from Linus Pauling Institute previously conducted research showing just how powerful the sulforaphane in cruciferous veggies are. They found that as powerful broccoli is, broccoli sprouts — which are usually sold next to alfalfa sprouts in grocery stores — are more than 50 times more packed with sulforaphane than broccoli that’s matured.

And in 2010, researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center published a study in the journal Clinical Cancer Research showing that sulforaphane was able to kill breast cancer stem cells in mice and in lab cultures, and also prevented new tumor cells from growing.

Recently, a study in the British Journal of Nutrition showed that pairing broccoli with a spicy food containing the enzyme myrosinase seemed to enhance broccoli’s cancer-fighting benefits.

“To get this effect, spice up your broccoli with broccoli sprouts, mustard, horseradish, or wasabi,” study researcher Elizabeth Jeffery, a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois, said in a statement. “The spicier, the better; that means it’s being effective.”

FROM DR. ANDREW WEIL

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/walking-health-benefits_b_1304846.html?ref=healthy-living

Gasoline is expensive, money is tight, and obesity in America is at record levels — three good reasons to make the spring of 2012 the time to get serious about walking.

The most common objection that I hear to walking as exercise is that it’s too easy, that only sweaty, strenuous activity offers real benefits. But there is abundant evidence that regular, brisk walking is associated with better health, including lower blood pressure, better moods and improved cholesterol ratios.

Also, a major reason Americans have higher obesity rates than others in the developed world appears to be that we walk much less. A study published in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine showed that western Australians average 9,695 steps (about five miles) daily, and have an obesity rate of 16 percent. The Swiss average 9,650 steps; their obesity rate is 8 percent. Americans average 5,117 steps, and have an obesity rate of 34 percent.

Clearly, America’s dysfunctional food culture must bear some of the blame for our excess pounds, but it’s likely our walking-averse lifestyles contribute as well. The net calorie burn of walking (that is, the extra amount of calories burned per mile of walking at a comfortable pace of 3.1 mph vs. resting) is about 45 per mile. A pound of body fat equates to about 3,500 calories. So in a year, assuming equivalent caloric intake, Americans would gain an extra 10 pounds simply because they walk 835 fewer miles than the Swiss or Australians.

Keep in mind that walking as exercise works even better if one walks faster than is typical for most people. (Not a new idea: Thomas Jefferson advised, “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.”) Much of the research I’ve seen defines an optimal conditioning pace as 3.5 to four miles per hour. This suggests that a good walking workout schedule would be going three miles in about 45 to 52 minutes at least four times a week.

Before you begin a regular walking program, be sure to invest in a good pair of shoes or sandals that are breathable, offer good arch support, are relatively lightweight and have flexible soles to allow the front of your foot to flex comfortably.

One variation you may wish to try is using fitness poles. I came across them in 2001 through a friend of mine, national fitness authority Tom Rutlin. As a cross-country ski instructor, Tom saw the potential benefit of using ski poles with walking and has since pioneered their development and use. His fitness poles have been shown to increase the calories burned while walking by 30 to 40 percent, as well as reducing the impact on knees, hips and legs. Other research has shown that walking with poles increases oxygen consumption by 20 to 25 percent when compared to walking without them. The result is a better cardiovascular and muscular workout with less stress on weight-bearing joints. Fitness poles for walking and instructional videos are now widely available on the internet.

Fitting a walk into a busy life can be challenging, so I suggest walking rather driving to work or to run errands as often as you can — in other words, think of walking as alternative transportation. I’ve seen no evidence that our counterparts in the developed world walk more because they are fitness fanatics, doing “laps” around the neighborhood. Instead, a variety of cultural and economic factors — such as higher prices for gasoline and compact, pedestrian-friendly city layouts — leads people to walk more simply because it is a practical means of transportation.

Sprawling American suburbs can make utilitarian walking more challenging here, but most of us make at least some trips within a two-mile radius. Resolve to make as many of these as possible on foot. If you want to learn more about stores, restaurants, post offices, banks and other walkable-distance amenities near you, enter your address at walkscore.com and see what’s within a walkable distance from your home or work. If you are planning a move, add your prospective home’s walk score (an index of how accessible goods and services are to walkers) into the mix of criteria you use to make your buying or renting decision.

FROM ANNIE MCKEE

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annie-mckee/life-balance_b_1284613.html?ref=healthy-living

I love my work. I mean I really LOVE my work. Do you? Are you creative and compelled to excel? Do you find happiness in relationships with your work-friends and colleagues? Do you like being part of something bigger than yourself? Me too. Work is fun and meaningful and I am completely dedicated to writing, leading my team and advising leaders whom I respect.

And then there’s life — so much more important than work. It’s true, right? Work doesn’t even run a close second to the beautiful little children in your life, or even the teenagers who get on your last nerve. Work pales in comparison to your love for your partner or relationships with family and friends. I even include my dogs and cats in the more-important-than-work list. I love Tula, Keiki, Pika, Tiko and Tiger (also known as Mikey). And then there’s spirituality, learning, dedication to making our world a better place — all these make life worth living.

Some of us are lucky — we love our work and we have full, rewarding lives. It’s a wonderful thing. But we are busy. No breaks, no boundaries — texts from kids, tweets pouring in, emails all night… It never stops. Most of us have no idea how to manage it all.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. But we keep trying to live up to that impossible standard until finally we lose it. Or I should say, we lose ourselves.

We lose ourselves to the “sacrifice syndrome” — a condition that is more than burnout. It’s a way of life. Maybe it’s familiar: You’ve been behaving in ways that don’t fit with who you are. You snap at loved ones, make bad decisions, rarely smile, miss out on life. Or you move at the speed of light like super-man-woman-mom-dad. Maybe you take pride in your super-humanness, but deep down you know you’re in trouble. You self-medicate: two 16-ounce cups of coffee? Really? How many martinis or glasses of wine? Stress-eating? You are completely worn out, you feel trapped and you see no way out.

The sacrifice syndrome doesn’t strike out of the blue. It starts with an insidious form of chronic, intense stress that comes along with lots of responsibilities. We call it “power stress.” Leaders are especially susceptible because of the 24-7 nature of our jobs, too many toxic work environments, unhealthy competition and out-of-control achievement drives. This kind of stress is brutal.

Stress arouses the sympathetic nervous system and triggers the release of powerful substances like epinephrine, norepinephrine and corticosteroids.[1] Blood pressure goes up and large muscles prepare for movement or battle.[2] The immune system is compromised and the brain shuts down non-essential neural circuits, so we don’t take in as much information.[3][4] We become less creative and old habits of thinking prevail. All of this has direct impact on our performance. We feel anxious, nervous or even depressed. This has direct impact on, well, everything.

Stress isn’t all bad — a certain dose contributes to focus, excitement and readiness for hard work and play. But we’re not wired to deal with “power stress” and when we are bombarded day in and day out for years, stress is dangerous.

It’s an epidemic. A Google search on stress resulted in 73,000 new or updated websites containing news articles, blogs magazines, programs or advice on stress in life. The Grant Thornton International Business Report survey of business leaders found that the net increase in work-related stress increased 28 percent globally in 2011 (less than 2010′s 45 percent increase, but still). A research study picked up in several South African news outlets reported a loss of R3bn — or more than $300 million, U.S. — due to the effects of stress on workers. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reported that for the first time in the organization’s history, stress was the most common cause of employee absence.

This epidemic won’t go away until we learn how to interrupt the sacrifice syndrome. Our companies can’t do it for us, neither can doctors, counselors or loved ones. We need to heal, and healing starts with learning how to balance sacrifice with renewal.

Managing the “cycle of sacrifice and renewal” begins with prioritizing well-being. You can start by cultivating practices that allow you to re-engage with yourself, focus optimistically on the future and connect compassionately with other people. You can start with mindfulness — tuning in to yourself, your environment and others.

Mindfulness is the first step toward renewal. And no, you don’t have to meditate for two hours a day, or attend a yoga class before work (nice, but impossible). You can start small. Find a few minutes every day — and I do mean every day — to be quiet, to breathe, to take in nature. Breathe and focus on gratitude, love and hope.

Like mindfulness, hope is a powerful antidote to stress. A vision of a better future, optimism and the belief we can make it happen helps to calm our nervous system. Think about your dreams. Help someone else achieve theirs. Pick up trash on the way to work. Talk to a child about what he or she wants to be. Actions like these, done mindfully and often will make a difference.

These actions tap into hope and your desire to help others. You can renew yourself by slowing down long enough to get in touch with your most primal and powerful nature — your concern for others and your desire to connect with them and lend a hand. That’s compassion. It’s as simple as asking someone how they are in the morning and waiting long enough to hear the answer. Find someone to mentor, and give them your time. Stop managing performance and start coaching.

Learning to live mindfully and to focus on hope and compassion will help you to ward off stress and balance yourself. It might not be easy, at first, because it is truly a new way to live. You’ll need to change old habits and resist the urge to pursue an impossible goal — work-life balance.

Remember — there really is no way to balance all that we do, until and unless we balance ourselves. You’ll find yourself having more energy, your relationships will be stronger and you will be happier.

References:

[1] Dickerson, S. S. and M. E. Kemeny (2004). “Acute Stressors and Cortisol Responses: A Theoretical Integration and Synthesis of Laboratory Research.” Psychological Bulletin 130(3): 355-391.

[2] Roozendaal, B., B. S. McEwen, et al. (2009). “Stress, memory and the amygdala.” Nat Rev Neurosci 10(6): 423-433.

[3] Segerstrom, S. C. and G. E. Miller (2004). “Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-Analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry.” Psychological Bulletin 130(4): 601-630.

[4] Roozendaal, B., B. S. McEwen, et al. (2009). “Stress, memory and the amygdala.” Nat Rev Neurosci 10(6): 423-433.

FROM RUSSELL BISHOP

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-bishop/soul-talk_b_1288932.html?ref=healthy-living

Surely you have had someone give you a half-hearted apology that left you feeling cold inside. In fact, haven’t you been the one giving that “I’m-kind-of-sort-of-sorry” apology yourself? Apologizing just might be a very unique poison you take yourself and then wind up drinking with the other person.

Last week, we looked at the difference between forgiving the other person and forgiving yourself for having judged them in the first place. If you have ever “forgiven” the other person but still held on to whatever you found upsetting, then nothing really changed. You’re still upset, if perhaps less so, and still blaming the other person as though they were the reason you’re upset in the first place. Judgment is the poison that creates the upset more than the event itself.

How Toxic Apologies Can Make Things Worse

How could apologizing make things worse? If you have ever received one of those half-hearted apologies, how’d that make you feel? Just all kinds of relieved, I’m sure. How does it make you feel when you give one yourself?

Half-hearted apologies actually come from your Self-Talk. If you’re new to this series on moving from Self-Talk to Soul-Talk, Self-Talk derives from those limiting beliefs and learned behaviors about life that often hold a self-critical or self-judgmental element to them. These inner criticisms and judgments often manifest in negative Self-Talk directed toward your own self (how stupid of me) or toward others (how stupid of them).

Haven’t you ever found yourself apologizing for something you did or said that originated with one of those “how-stupid-of-me-or-them” judgments in the first place? You did or said something “stupid” yourself for which you now feel contrite and feel compelled to offer an apology of some sort, so you wind up making a kind of apology-lite. How do half-hearted apologies fit in with negative Self-Talk and where did you learn to give those “I’m-kind-of-sort-of-sorry” apologies to begin with?

Years ago (many years ago), when I was in a grad school child development class, we went to a local playground with a group of parents and their pre-school age children to observe both parent and child behaviors. Two children were playing in the sandbox I was observing. The little boy filled up his bucket with sand, toddled over to the little girl who was happily scooping up sand herself, and then proceeded to dump his bucket of sand all over the little girl.

As you can imagine, the little girl started to cry while the little boy scampered back to his other toys. The mother of the little boy stormed over to him, grabbed him by the arm, and scolded him, ending with “now you go over there and apologize.” In a fit of malicious compliance, the little boy himself stormed over to the little girl and spat out a far less than meaningful, “I’m sorry,” and returned to his toys. His mother, clearly not pleased with what she had just observed, grabbed him by the arm again, this time wagging an angry finger in his face, demanding that he “go back and apologize again, this time as though you mean it.”

Talk about an education for life! Make certain your apologies are award-winning in nature, kind of the original fake it ’til you make it life lesson. And what did the Self-Talk learn? If you don’t mean it and show you don’t mean it, then fake it so you don’t get in even more trouble. These kinds of fake apologies leave both parties feeling empty and become another form of poison that can be damaging to both of you. Dumped into your most meaningful relationships, toxic apologies foster distrust and divisiveness, leading to all manner of other even more toxic poisons you drink yourself hoping the other person will die, most notably resentment and criticism.

The Apology That Needs No Apology

An ordinary apology may not cut it for you or for the other person, even if you feel apologetic. The problem with an “apology” can be found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, where the first definition means “a formal justification” as in defense or excuse. Merriam-Webster also tells us that synonyms for apology include alibi, excuse, defense, justification, plea, and reason. Don’t you just feel warm all over when someone dumps their defenses, justifications and excuses all over you?

Ordinary Self-Talk apologies, which rely on defenses, explanations and excuses, can become increasingly toxic because they wind up creating a form of unexpressed inner permission to offend again — “Hey, I said I’m sorry, didn’t I?” That kind of thinking and Self-Talk simply builds a wall of “he-doesn’t-mean-what-he-says” into your communication channels, which can then bleed over to just about any relationship with anyone.

So, what do you do if you truly feel repentant for something you did or said? Rather than Self-Talk inspired apologies, what you really need is more of a Soul-Talk apology, one that derives from a Greek inspired term, metanoia. Metanoia comes from the Greek word meta, meaning “beyond or after,” while noia comes from a word meaning “perception, understanding or mind.” Merriam-Webster defines metanoia as “a transformative change of heart.” If you are experiencing your own metanoia, if you truly think and know differently, you are sourcing your new-found knowledge from your heart, which is the seat of your Soul-Talk

Soul-Talk can become your own personal source of metanoia, something that stems from your heart, and something that is beyond perception or mind. If you truly do think and know differently, you are likely to spend a lot more time with your apology than simply offering another lame “I’m sorry.” Instead, you might find yourself revealing what you have learned about yourself rather than simply focusing on the behavior for which you apologize and seek forgiveness.

I recently found myself upset about a series of unattractive financial outcomes that had their origins a few years back with some “stupid” decisions I had made. (Notice the critical Self-Talk.) In a classic case of “kick-the-dog” thinking, I wound up blasting a good friend over some trivial financial matter that required a bit of give and take for each of us. Instead of recognizing what was going on in the moment (remember, Soul-Talk comes in quiet tones), I took him to task over his intransigence. Only later did I recognize the quieter voice of my Soul-Talk showing me that I was taking my mistake out on him. So, rather than merely apologizing for my blame-oriented outburst, I shared with him how I had been upset about something completely unrelated and then wound up dumping my negative judgments about my self and my own thinking process onto him. Once I owned the fact that my upset had absolutely nothing to do with him, we were then able to have a much more important, blame-free conversation about our own differences.

Next week, we will delve ever deeper into the source of heart-felt wisdom and the corresponding courage it takes to operate from these deeper places of who you truly are.

From Coach Pacquiao

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/149085/keeping-healthy-for-life

WHEN it comes to recapturing your youth, time is a one-way ride. Even though you cannot go home again, you can keep yourself from suffering from the more common age-related ailments. All it takes is a little common sense and self-care. And it is worth it. After all, life as a guy can be scary. Consider this:
•Prior to age 65, men suffer heart attacks almost four times the rate of women.
•By age 65, one in three men will suffer from high blood pressure.
•One out of every eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
We face two challenges when it comes to caring our own health. First, there’s the macho ethic that tell us to suffer in silence, tune out pain and consider our bodies as nothing more than vehicles to get us from one place to another. That’s one reason women visit doctors about 150 percent as often as men. Then, there is the second challenge that men’s health somehow is not as important an issue as women’s. For example, how many times have you seen and read in women’s health magazine urging women to do breast self-exams and recommending regular or yearly mammograms? Ever seen or heard of a magazine or even
doctors telling young men about the importance of testicular self-exams? This despite the fact that testicular cancer is 95 percent curable if caught early.
We can start taking charge of our own lives by watching what we eat, cutting down on stress and getting more exercise. To help, I have compiled a brief man’s guide to healthy living providing you with the basics for staying young, active and productive for the long haul.
Eat better, live longer
When we were kids we selected our food based on two criteria: what we could trade it for at school and what cool prizes were shown on the back of the box. Today, eating has become a lot more complicated. It seems as though everyday a new danger is discovered. To cut through the confusion we have come up with simple, hard and fast rules for eating right. This basic overview should clue you in to whether your diet is the kind that will keep your engine of the body revitalized or lead you to the great
mechanic in the sky.
Cut the fat. High fat diets have been linked to a wide variety of male diseases: heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, to name a few. But many men are confused about dietary fat
because it comes in three different forms. Here’s a quick breakdown on each type and their relative merits.
•Saturated fat: This fat is bad for you.
•Polyunsaturated fat: This fat is bad too.
•Monounsaturated fat: Ditto
Most dietitians recommend a diet that is no more than 30 percent fat. (Most people eat about 40 percent of their total calories in fat.) Here are some tips on cutting your fat intake.
•Watch the add-on fat. Pastas, breads and vegetables are naturally low in fat but not when they are drenched in butter or sour cream. Look for butter toppings such as salsa, lemon juice or fat-free sour cream.
•Cut down on meats especially red meats. Skinless chicken and fish are lower fat alternatives.
•Try switching from whole milk dairy products to low-fat or fat-free versions. If you drink whole milk now, switch your way down to skim or non-fat.
•Adopt healthier cooking methods. Steaming, baking, grilling and microwaving are all better than frying, during which foods absorb oil.
Take your vitamins. A basic daily supplement shall give you 100 percent of the recommended allowances for the following nutrients: Beta-carotene or (vitamin A); the B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, biotin, pantothenic acid, folic acid, B6 and B12); and vitamins C, D, E and K. In addition, it should contain 100 percent of what you need in the way of potassium, magnesium, selenium and zinc and at least 100 micrograms of chromium (but no more than the recommended limit of 200 micrograms), all of which are needed for a man’s good health. And even better supplement is one that is labelled “antioxidant rich”—in other words loaded with C and E and beta carotene. That’s because these three nutrients have been found to attack free radicals—loose oxygen molecules that hang around in the body and cause all kinds of damage from wrinkling your skin to weakening your immune system.
Fill up with fiber. In our grandparents’ time, fiber was called roughage. Since it is hard to sell say breakfast cereal with big banners that say “High in Roughage,” today we use the more
marketable, less graphic term “fiber.”
A high fiber diet fill you up without filling you out. Keeps your plumbing working order, helps lower your cholesterol level and may help reduce the risk of colon cancer. Nutritionist recommend you get at least 20 grams per day. How? Try starting out with a breakfast of oatmeal, whole wheat toast and two pieces of fruits. Other good sources include most vegetables, beans and whole grain, breads and pastas.
Don’t diet. Here’s what happens when you go on a diet. Your body senses danger. Instead, eat your meals frequently to keep your metabolism revving. Eat more complex carbohydrate rich vegetables, fruits, grains and legumes that will deliver you with rich vitamins and fibers. Don’t forget the principles of food combining. Eat your protein like chicken, fish, meat, pork with vegetables. Eat your carbohydrates with vegetables like our native sari-sari (okra, string beans, white gabi).
Slash stress from your life
Have you been a little tense lately? Join a health club or a fitness gym. Of all the health problems facing today, experts say that stress is priority one. Many feel depress and get sick. What can we do to eliminate stress? Nothing. It’s part of life. But while we can’t just make it disappear, we can take some major steps toward reducing the amount of stress in our daily lives. Here are some of the most successful anti-stress strategies around.
•Get sweaty. Scientific research shows that 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity like brisk walking, jogging, running, swimming, biking circuit weight training immediately reduces body tension and the more intense it is, the more effective it will be. Weight training exercisers found that weight training counters anxiety and depression and boost self-esteem.
•Stay in balance. Most of us know the importance of having a hobby or favorite activity to distract us from the demands of work. Don’t indulge in a hobby that is an extension from your work. Look for something completely removed from your business activities. Try something creative: painting, tinkering with an old car, making pottery, gardening, fishing or hiking.
•Ease your time crunch with a 20 percent solution. Expect everything you do to take 20 percent longer than you think it will. Time constraints have a hold of us, so don’t beat yourself over them. Take a hard look at what you have scheduled for the day and realize that unless you add another two hours to your workday you’re not going to be able to get it all done. Then reschedule accordingly.
• Find the meaning of life. Or at least the meaning of your life. One review of more than 60 studies of stress-busting tactics found that having a sense of purpose in life was the single most powerful way to gain peace of mind. It may come from religious
involvement in a church, feeding program for indigents. As for me I can find of my mind by means of waking up early in the morning (4:30 or 5:00) and having my quiet time with God. In this early morning when the surroundings is so quiet, you can
invite the Creator to come and sit with you and you can pour out your problems. The bottom line is to step back a bit from your day to day life, look at the big picture and realize that controlling your problems won’t necessarily solve them. Share your problem to our Maker and then you can find peace of mind and the real meaning of life.

FROM MARK HYMAN, MD

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/wheat-gluten_b_1274872.html?ref=healthy-living

Gluten-free is hot these days. There are books and websites, restaurants with gluten free menus, and grocery stores with hundreds of new gluten-free food products on the shelf. Is this a fad, or a reflection of response to a real problem?

Yes, gluten is a real problem. But the problem is not just gluten. In fact, there are three major hidden reasons that wheat products, not just gluten (along with sugar in all its forms) is a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression and so many other modern ills.

This is why there are now 30 percent more obese than undernourished in the world, and why chronic lifestyle and dietary driven disease kills more than twice as many people as infectious disease globally. These non-communicable, chronic diseases will cost our global economy $47 trillion over the next 20 years.

Sadly, this tsunami of chronic illness is increasingly caused by eating our beloved diet staple, bread, the staff of life, and all the wheat products hidden in everything from soups to vodka to lipstick to envelope adhesive.

The biggest problem is wheat, the major source of gluten in our diet. But wheat weaves its misery through many mechanisms, not just the gluten! The history of wheat parallels the history of chronic disease and obesity across the world. Supermarkets today contain walls of wheat and corn disguised in literally hundreds of thousands of different food-like products, or FrankenFoods. Each American now consumes about 55 pounds of wheat flour every year.

It is not just the amount but also the hidden components of wheat that drive weight gain and disease. This is not the wheat your great-grandmother used to bake her bread. It is FrankenWheat — a scientifically engineered food product developed in the last 50 years.

How Wheat — and Gluten — Trigger Weight Gain, Prediabetes, Diabetes and More

This new modern wheat may look like wheat, but it is different in three important ways that all drive obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia and more.

It contains a Super Starch — amylopectin A that is super fattening.
It contains a form of Super Gluten that is super-inflammatory.
It contains forms of a Super Drug that is super-addictive and makes you crave and eat more.
The Super Starch

The Bible says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Eating bread is nearly a religious commandment. But the Einkorn, heirloom, Biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat.

Instead, we eat dwarf wheat, the product of genetic manipulation and hybridization that created short, stubby, hardy, high-yielding wheat plants with much higher amounts of starch and gluten and many more chromosomes coding for all sorts of new odd proteins. The man who engineered this modern wheat won the Nobel Prize — it promised to feed millions of starving around the world. Well, it has, and it has made them fat and sick.

The first major difference of this dwarf wheat is that it contains very high levels of a super starch called amylopectin A. This is how we get big fluffy Wonder Bread and Cinnabons.

Here’s the downside. Two slices of whole wheat bread now raise your blood sugar more than two tablespoons of table sugar.

There is no difference between whole wheat and white flour here. The biggest scam perpetrated on the unsuspecting public is the inclusion of “whole grains” in many processed foods full of sugar and wheat, giving the food a virtuous glow. The best way to avoid foods that are bad for you is to stay away from foods with health claims on the labels. They are usually hiding something bad.

In people with diabetes, both white and whole grain bread raises blood sugar levels 70 to 120 mg/dl over starting levels. We know that foods with a high glycemic index make people store belly fat, trigger hidden fires of inflammation in the body and give you a fatty liver, leading the whole cascade of obesity, pre-diabetes and diabetes. This problem now affects every other American and is the major driver of nearly all chronic disease and most our health care costs. Diabetes now sucks up one in three Medicare dollars.

The Super Gluten

Not only does this dwarf, FrankenWheat, contain the super starch, but it also contains super gluten which is much more likely to create inflammation in the body. And in addition to a host of inflammatory and chronic diseases caused by gluten, it causes obesity and diabetes.

Gluten is that sticky protein in wheat that holds bread together and makes it rise. The old fourteen-chromosome-containing Einkorn wheat codes for the small number of gluten proteins, and those that it does produce are the least likely to trigger celiac disease and inflammation. The new dwarf wheat contains twenty-eight or twice as many chromosomes and produces a large variety of gluten proteins, including the ones most likely to cause celiac disease.

Five Ways Gluten Makes You Sick and Fat

Gluten can trigger inflammation, obesity and chronic disease in five major ways.

Full-blown celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that triggers body-wide inflammation triggering insulin resistance, which causes weight gain and diabetes, as well as over 55 conditions including autoimmune diseases, irritable bowel, reflux, cancer, depression, osteoporosis and more.
Low-level inflammation reactions to gluten trigger the same problems even if you don’t have full-blown celiac disease but just have elevated antibodies (7 percent of the population, or 21 million Americans).
There is also striking new research showing that adverse immune reactions to gluten may result from problems in very different parts of the immune system than those implicated in celiac disease. Most doctors dismiss gluten sensitivity if you don’t have a diagnosis of celiac disease, but this new research proves them wrong. Celiac disease results when the body creates antibodies against the wheat (adaptive immunity), but another kind of gluten sensitivity results from a generalized activated immune system (innate immunity). This means that people can be gluten-sensitive without having celiac disease or gluten antibodies and still have inflammation and many other symptoms.
A NON-gluten glycoprotein or lectin (combination of sugar and protein) in wheat called wheat germ agglutinin (WGA)[1] found in highest concentrations in whole wheat increases whole body inflammation as well. This is not an autoimmune reaction, but can be just as dangerous and cause heart attacks.[2]
Eating too much gluten-free food (what I call gluten-free junk food) like gluten-free cookies, cakes and processed food. Processed food has a high glycemic load. Just because it is gluten-free, doesn’t mean it is healthy. Gluten-free cakes and cookies are still cakes and cookies! Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds and lean animal protein are all gluten free — stick with those.
Let’s look at this a little more closely. Gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, spelt and oats, can cause celiac disease, which triggers severe inflammation throughout the body and has been linked to autoimmune diseases, mood disorders, autism, schizophrenia, dementia, digestive disorders, nutritional deficiencies, diabetes, cancer and more.

Celiac Disease: The First Problem

Celiac disease and gluten-related problems have been increasing, and now affect at least 21 million Americans and perhaps many millions more. And 99 percent of people who have problems with gluten or wheat are NOT currently diagnosed.

Ninety-eight percent of people with celiac have a genetic predisposition known as HLA DQ2 or DQ8, which occurs in 30 percent of the population. But even though our genes haven’t changed, we have seen a dramatic increase in celiac disease in the last 50 years because of some environmental trigger.

In a recent study that compared blood samples taken 50 years ago from 10,000 young Air Force recruits to samples taken recently from 10,000 people, researchers found something quite remarkable. There has been a real 400 percent increase in celiac disease over the last 50 years.[3] And that’s just the full-blown disease affecting about one in 100 people, or about three million Americans. We used to think that this only was diagnosed in children with bloated bellies, weight loss and nutritional deficiencies. But now we know it can be triggered (based on a genetic susceptibility) at any age and without ANY digestive symptoms. The inflammation triggered by celiac disease can drive insulin resistance, weight gain and diabetes, just like any inflammatory trigger — and I have seen this over and over in my patients.

Gluten and Gut Inflammation: The Second Problem

But there are two ways other than celiac disease in which wheat appears to be a problem.

The second way that gluten causes inflammation is through a low-grade autoimmune reaction to gluten. Your immune system creates low-level antibodies to gluten, but doesn’t create full-blown celiac disease. In fact, 7 percent of the population, 21 million, have these anti-gliadin antibodies. These antibodies were also found in 18 percent of people with autism and 20 percent of those with schizophrenia.

A major study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that hidden gluten sensitivity (elevated antibodies without full-blown celiac disease) was shown to increase risk of death by 35 to 75 percent, mostly by causing heart disease and cancer.[4] Just by this mechanism alone, over 20 million Americans are at risk for heart attack, obesity, cancer and death.

How does eating gluten cause inflammation, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer?

Most of the increased risk occurs when gluten triggers inflammation that spreads like a fire throughout your whole body. It damages the gut lining. Then all the bugs and partially-digested food particles inside your intestine get across the gut barrier and are exposed your immune system, 60 percent of which lies right under the surface of the one cell thick layer of cells lining your gut or small intestine. If you spread out the lining of your gut, it would equal the surface area of a tennis court. Your immune system starts attacking these foreign proteins, leading to systemic inflammation that then causes heart disease, dementia, cancer, diabetes and more.

Dr. Alessio Fasano, a celiac expert from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, discovered a protein made in the intestine called “zonulin” that is increased by exposure to gluten.[5] Zonulin breaks up the tight junctions or cement between the intestinal cells that normally protect your immune system from bugs and foreign proteins in food leaking across the intestinal barrier. If you have a “leaky gut,” you will get inflammation throughout your whole body and a whole list of symptoms and diseases.

Why is there an increase in disease from gluten in the last 50 years?

It is because, as I described earlier, the dwarf wheat grown in this country has changed the quality and type of gluten proteins in wheat, creating much higher gluten content and many more of the gluten proteins that cause celiac disease and autoimmune antibodies.

Combine that with the damage our guts have suffered from our diet, environment, lifestyle and medication use, and you have the perfect storm for gluten intolerance. This super gluten crosses our leaky guts and gets exposed to our immune system. Our immune system reacts as if gluten was something foreign, and sets off the fires of inflammation in an attempt to eliminate it. However, this inflammation is not selective, so it begins to attack our cells — leading to diabesity and other inflammatory diseases.

Damage to the gastrointestinal tract from overuse of antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil or Aleve and acid-blocking drugs like Prilosec or Nexium, combined with our low-fiber, high-sugar diet, leads to the development of celiac disease and gluten intolerance or sensitivity and the resultant inflammation. That is why elimination of gluten and food allergens or sensitivities can be a powerful way to prevent and reverse diabesity and many other chronic diseases.

The Super Drug

Not only does wheat contain super starch and super gluten — making it super fattening and super inflammatory — but it also contains a super drug that makes you crazy, hungry and addicted.

When processed by your digestion, the proteins in wheat are converted into shorter proteins, “polypeptides,” called “exorphins.” They are like the endorphins you get from a runner’s high and bind to the opioid receptors in the brain, making you high, and addicted just like a heroin addict. These wheat polypeptides are absorbed into the bloodstream and get right across the blood brain barrier. They are called “gluteomorphins,” after “gluten” and “morphine.”

These super drugs can cause multiple problems, including schizophrenia and autism. But they also cause addictive eating behavior, including cravings and bingeing. No one binges on broccoli, but they binge on cookies or cake. Even more alarming is the fact that you can block these food cravings and addictive eating behaviors and reduce calorie intake by giving the same drug we use in the emergency room to block heroin or morphine in an overdose, called naloxone. Binge eaters ate nearly 30 percent less food when given this drug.

Bottom line: wheat is an addictive appetite stimulant.

How to Beat the Wheat, and Lose the Weight

First, you should get tested to see if you have a more serious wheat or gluten problem.

If you meet any of these criteria, then you should do a six-week 100 percent gluten-free diet trial to see how you feel. If you have three out of five criteria, you should be gluten-free for life.

You have symptoms of celiac (any digestive, allergic, autoimmune or inflammatory disease, including diabesity).
You get better on a gluten-free diet.
You have elevated antibodies to gluten (anti-gliadin, AGA, or tissue transglutaminase antibodies, TTG).
You have a positive small intestinal biopsy.
You have the genes that predispose you to gluten (HLA DQ2/8).
Second, for the rest of you who don’t have gluten antibodies or some variety of celiac — the super starch and the super drug, both of which make you fat and sick, can still affect you. So go cold turkey for six weeks. And keep a journal of how you feel.

The problems with wheat are real, scientifically validated and ever-present. Getting off wheat may not only make you feel better and lose weight, it could save your life.

My personal hope is that together we can create a national conversation about a real, practical solution for the prevention, treatment, and reversal of our obesity, diabetes and chronic disease epidemic. Getting off wheat may just be an important step.

To learn more and to get a free sneak preview of The Blood Sugar Solution where I explain exactly how to avoid wheat and what to eat instead go to www.drhyman.com.

Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, MD

References:

[1] Saja K, Chatterjee U, Chatterjee BP, Sudhakaran PR. “Activation dependent expression of MMPs in peripheral blood mononuclear cells involves protein kinase.” A. Mol Cell Biochem. 2007 Feb;296(1-2):185-92

[2] Dalla Pellegrina C, Perbellini O, Scupoli MT, Tomelleri C, Zanetti C, Zoccatelli G, Fusi M, Peruffo A, Rizzi C, Chignola R. “Effects of wheat germ agglutinin on human gastrointestinal epithelium: insights from an experimental model of immune/epithelial cell interaction.” Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2009 Jun 1;237(2):146-53.

[3] Rubio-Tapia A, Kyle RA, Kaplan EL, Johnson DR, Page W, Erdtmann F, Brantner TL, Kim WR, Phelps TK, Lahr BD, Zinsmeister AR, Melton LJ 3rd, Murray JA. “Increased prevalence and mortality in undiagnosed celiac disease.” Gastroenterology. 2009 Jul;137(1):88-93

[4] Ludvigsson JF, Montgomery SM, Ekbom A, Brandt L, Granath F. “Small-intestinal histopathology and mortality risk in celiac disease.” JAMA. 2009 Sep 16;302(11):1171-8.

[5] Fasano A. “Physiological, pathological, and therapeutic implications of zonulin-mediated intestinal barrier modulation: living life on the edge of the wall.” Am J Pathol. 2008 Nov;173(5):1243-52.

Mark Hyman, M.D. is a practicing physician, founder of The UltraWellness Center, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and an international leader in the field of Functional Medicine. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on YouTube, become a fan on Facebook, and subscribe to his newsletter.