Lighten Up HealthStyle
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The Master Key
To enable Stone Age humans to survive periods of food scarcity, the human body was designed to store energy which could then be drawn upon in times of famine. For example, people could overeat during the hunting season, or when food was plentiful, and the surplus would be stored as fat tissue (adipose tissue). And when food was short, the body would burn the deposited fat as energy. Of course Stone Age life and body chemistry was/is much more complicated than this simple explanation suggests, but it suffices to explain why we have a built-in fat storage facility.
Though storage of fat on the body is a critical defense mechanism, excess body fat acts as a pro-inflammatory factor, leading to metabolic imbalance and chronic diseases like insulin resistance, diabetes and heart disease.
The human body needs energy to power muscles and to fuel the millions of chemical and biological reactions which take place throughout our system every day. This energy comes from the food we consume in our diet.
Every food you choose to eat impacts production of powerful fat storage hormones like insulin and cortisol. Weight gain is caused by an inflammatory condition in the fat cells, a hormone imbalance, not just excess calories. Unbalanced or elevated insulin and cortisol levels facilitate:
- Storing excess calories as fat
- Prevents “burning” of stored fat
- Constant hunger
- Weight gain
When you cannot shed fat cells you cannot lose weight. This is why our weight management program urges people to look at food hormonally rather than calorically and break through weight loss resistance!
Continuing in our February theme about heart health, we encourage you to put your heart into lasting weight management.
The heart does more than pump blood. According to research done by the Institute for Heart Math, it is actually an information processing system that communicates and sends commands to the brain and the rest of the body. It may do this in several ways:
- Neurologically through a complex nervous system that researchers call “the brain in the heart”
- Through changes in the blood pressure wave that create changes in the electrical activity in the brain
- Hormonally by releasing important hormones into the body
- Electrically through an electromagnetic field produced by the heart that permeates every cell in our body and extends beyond the skin out into the atmosphere up to 3 to 4 feet
Awareness of the subtle changes in your heart rhythms in response to stress is a powerful tool to shift away from a stress hormone release, which can contribute to metabolic imbalance, fat storage and weight gain.
Heart Power vs. Will Power
Take charge and create a healthy emotional relationship with food through our Lighten Up LifeStyle and Stopping Emotional Eating Programs. These customized programs will help you meet your goals as you learn to:
- Recognize your emotional triggers
- Reduce your stress without depending on food to feel better
- Replace comfort food with comfort emotions
The emWave Program for Stopping Emotional Eating will show how to manage emotional reactions and clear emotional undercurrents until a healthy behavior manifested by a neutral habit change is achieved.
- Learn how to manage your emotions and release your stress without depending on food to make you feel better
- Use in tandem with the Lighten Up LifeStyle weight management program for the greatest results
- Transform the physiological response to stress and quickly re-balance mind, body and emotions
- Improve health, stamina and well-being; maintain personal balance and avoid stress-induced metabolic imbalance and associated weight gain.
As a self-directed approach, the program includes the Stopping Emotional Eating book, award winning emWave Personal Stress Reliever and weekly email support.
To get started, please click the HeartMath link on the left side of the page.
There are historically high numbers of Americans using cholesterol-lowering (aka: statin) medications. In some instances these medications are warranted, in some they are over-prescribed, and in all instances they have a strong potential to cause side effects. The depletion of endogenous production of CoQ10 is well known and important, but is not the only issue. Is there a viable alternate way?
Research demonstrates that some natural substances can favorably modulate the blood lipid profile and optimize cardiac and vascular health. For example, Omega-3 fatty acids, in the form of dietary fish, fish oils and some plant oils can improve cardiovascular health by:
- Reducing triglyceride levels
- Reducing the risk for blood clots by acting as a blood thinner
- Decreasing plaque build-up in the arteries
- Lowering blood pressure
- Improving arterial health
Other natural substances that can be used as first-line therapy for lipid disorders are Niacin, Red Yeast Rice and Tocotrienols.
How do you know if your cholesterol-lowering treatment is right for you?
Testing to determine not only your individual cardiovascular biomarkers, but also your genetic traits is now available to establish the most effective therapy for you. At Natural HealthStyle, we understand that every patient is unique and customized therapy is often necessary. To address this need, we offer sophisticated cardiovascular risk insights from Berkeley HeartLab combined with a personalized approach to disease prevention and management. We provide personalized recommendations to modify your lifestyle practices and internal environment which can trigger a genetic predisposition.
Patients who schedule their complementary blood draw (normally $35) for their Berkely HeartLab panel (billed to insurance) will receive a link to a discussion on Natural Approaches to Lipid Management, and Avoidance of Statin Medications with host David M. Brady, ND, DC, CCN, DACBN, Andy Casagranda, CN and special guest Gary Walker, red yeast rice expert.
The link will address the safe and viable natural alternatives for the management of lipids.
Dr. Brady is a licensed Naturopathic Physician, a Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist, and a Doctor of Chiropractic. He is presently an Associate Professor of Clinical Sciences, University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, CT and is the Director of the Human Nutrition Institute at the university.
Dr. Brady is a featured lecturer internationally and has appeared on the panel of numerous major scientific conferences in the field of nutritional and integrative medicine.
It may be surprising to hear that heart disease is the leading cause of death in women. The good news is that 80% of cardiac events in women could be prevented if women made the right choices for their hearts, such as eating a healthy diet, being physically active, and stopping smoking. Unlike our age, gender and family history, risk factors that can be changed with heart healthy habits are:
- High blood pressure
- High blood cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Smoking
- Being overweight (click here to learn about our weight loss options)
- Being physically inactive
The first step is to get the proper testing to determine your cardiovascular risk. We use the most advanced diagnostic and genetic cardiovascular testing available from Berkeley HeartLab. Results from your panel enable us to identify factors contributing to the underlying cause of your unique risks for cardiovascular disease. Your results will provide the baseline information to build an effective, proactive and personalized treatment approach.
For the month of February, we are offering you a complementary blood draw ($35 value) with your Berkeley HeartLab cardiovascular testing (billed to insurance).
Call the office at 650.324.0669 to schedule a complementary blood draw for the complete Berkeley HeartLab panel. Take advantage of this special offer and we’ll send you a link to a discussion on natural approaches to lipid management and the avoidance of statin medications with natural adjuncts, hosted by David M. Brady, ND, DC, CCN, DACBN, Andy Casagranda, CN and special guest Gary Walker, red yeast rice expert.
In celebration of February’s Heart Health Month, we’d like to update you on some important things to consider regarding women’s cardiovascular health.
Heart Disease is the Leading Cause of Death in Women: Most people are unaware that over 500,000 women die each year of heart disease; that number is higher than the next four causes of death combined, including all types of cancer. Unfortunately, about 1 out of 5 women still do not believe that heart disease is their biggest threat.
Heart Disease Affects Women Differently Then it Does Men:
- Blood Lipids: After menopause, women have higher cholesterol levels, which increase the risk of heart disease, especially if they also have high triglycerides.
- Symptoms: During a heart attack, women often don’t suffer the crushing chest pain that men do. Instead, they may have shortness of breath, heartburn-like symptoms, unusual fatigue, nausea, and neck and/or shoulder pain.
- Delay of Care: Due to the lack of severe pain most men feel, the more subtle symptoms mean some women arrive at the ER 20 minutes later than men … a delay that can cause more damage to the heart, or death.
- Diagnosis and Treatment: Women’s arteries are smaller. This makes certain procedures and surgeries, such as coronary stents and balloon angioplasty, as well as CABG more difficult.
We’d like to encourage you to care for your heart health by looking deeper into genetic, diet and lifestyle factors that may contribute to dyslipidemia and heart disease. If you have a family history of heart disease, your total cholesterol is over 200 and you are carrying mid-body fat, we recommend you get tested.
Don’t be mislead by high HDL values. Find out if your HDL is the protective HDL2 vs. the less beneficial HDL3. This and other highly personalized information is available with our comprehensive test panel from Berkeley HeartLab.
To honor our patients’ cardio-protective goals, Natural HealthStyle offers a complementary blood draw ($35) for the Berkeley HeartLab panel (billed to insurance) during the month of February. Please call the office at 650.324.0669 to schedule your fasting blood draw.
Most people know their weight, and some know their body mass index (BMI), but very few people know their body fat percentage. We believe the measurement of body fat is more accurate than body weight for assessing health. A person can have a lot of muscle, but be considered “over-weight” by many height/weight charts. The opposite can also be true – a person can have a lot of fat and little muscle and be “over-fat” but not overweight.
The World Health Organization has set standard healthy body fat ranges. For women age 20 to 40, the healthy range of body fat percentage is 21 to 33 percent. The healthy range for women 41 to 60 years old is 23 to 35 percent. For women age 61 and above, the range of healthy body fat rises to 24 to 36 percent. Healthy body fat for males age 20 to 40 runs between 8 and 19 percent. For men between 41 and 60, the healthy range is 11 to 22 percent. At age 61 or above, the healthy range rises to 13 to 25 percent. Do you know your body fat percentage? These ranges may seem high or low depending on your body type. We prefer to recommend a customized range most appropriate for your body type based on DEXA results, medical history and family history.
Natural HealthStyle uses DEXA (Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry) technology to assess your body composition. DEXA technology is considered to be the gold standard, second only to underwater body fat analysis. The instrument uses a Dual Energy X-Ray technique to look at the density of the body and can then estimate the amount of fat stored in specific areas throughout the body. The exam is precise, non-invasive, accurate, reliable and reproducible.
We recommend all patients have a baseline DEXA body composition without regards to their current weight or BMI. The results allow us to personalize the assessment of cardiovascular risk, insulin resistance and pro-inflammatory potential.
3 Recommendations to Fight Fat in the New Year:
1. Eat in the Zone – balanced portions of proteins, fats and carbohydrates at every meal and snack will keep hormones balanced and shed body fat.
2. Try Burst Interval Exercise – high intensity interval training is the best way to develop lean muscle, burn fat and boost your metabolism even after you’ve finished your workout.
3. Get tested – Learn your true body fat percentage by having your DEXA body composition tested. Give us a call at 650.324.0669 to schedule an appointment.
A new report released by the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) last week reveals some alarming conclusions that have caused confusion about how much Vitamin D is safe to take. Please read the following statement from Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council and feel free to give us a call to schedule Vitamin D testing or order optimal doses of Vitamin D products.
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After 13 year of silence, the quasi governmental agency, the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Food and Nutrition Board (FNB), today recommended that a three-pound premature infant take virtually the same amount of vitamin D as a 300 pound pregnant woman. While that 400 IU/day dose is close to adequate for infants, 600 IU/day in pregnant women will do nothing to help the three childhood epidemics most closely associated with gestational and early childhood vitamin D deficiencies: asthma, auto-immune disorders, and, as recently reported in the largest pediatric journal in the world, autism. Professor Bruce Hollis of the Medical University of South Carolina has shown pregnant and lactating women need at least 5,000 IU/day, not 600.
The FNB also reported that vitamin D toxicity might occur at an intake of 10,000 IU/day (250 micrograms/day), although they could produce no reproducible evidence that 10,000 IU/day has ever caused toxicity in humans and only one poorly conducted study indicating 20,000 IU/day may cause mild elevations in serum calcium, but not clinical toxicity.
Viewed with different measure, this FNB report recommends that an infant should take 10 micrograms/day (400 IU) and a pregnant woman 15 micrograms/day (600 IU). As a single, 30 minute dose of summer sunshine gives adults more than 10,000 IU (250 micrograms), the FNB is apparently also warning that natural vitamin D input — as occurred from the sun before the widespread use of sunscreen — is dangerous. That is, the FNB is implying that God does not know what she is doing.
Disturbingly, this FNB committee focused on bone health, just like they did 14 years ago. They ignored the thousands of studies from the last ten years that showed higher doses of vitamin D helps: heart health, brain health, breast health, prostate health, pancreatic health, muscle health, nerve health, eye health, immune health, colon health, liver health, mood health, skin health, and especially fetal health.
Tens of millions of pregnant women and their breast-feeding infants are severely vitamin D deficient, resulting in a great increase in the medieval disease, rickets. The FNB report seems to reason that if so many pregnant women have low vitamin D blood levels then it must be OK because such low levels are so common. However, such circular logic simply represents the cave man existence (never exposed to the light of the sun) of most modern-day pregnant women.
Hence, if you want to optimize your vitamin D levels — not just optimize the bone effect — supplementing is crucial. But it is almost impossible to significantly raise your vitamin D levels when supplementing at only 600 IU/day (15 micrograms).
Pregnant women taking 400 IU/day have the same blood levels as pregnant women not taking vitamin D; that is, 400 IU is a meaninglessly small dose for pregnant women. Even taking 2,000 IU/day of vitamin D will only increase the vitamin D levels of most pregnant women by about 10 points, depending mainly on their weight. Professor Bruce Hollis has shown that 2,000 IU/day does not raise vitamin D to healthy or natural levels in either pregnant or lactating women. Therefore supplementing with higher amounts — like 5000 IU/day — is crucial for those women who want their fetus to enjoy optimal vitamin D levels, and the future health benefits that go along with it.
For example, taking only two of the hundreds of recently published studies:
Professor Urashima and colleagues in Japan, gave 1,200 IU/day of vitamin D3 for six months to Japanese 10-year-olds in a randomized controlled trial. They found vitamin D dramatically reduced the incidence of influenza A as well as the episodes of asthma attacks in the treated kids while the placebo group was not so fortunate. If Dr. Urashima had followed the newest FNB recommendations, it is unlikely that 400 IU/day treatment arm would have done much of anything and some of the treated young teenagers may have come to serious harm without the vitamin D.
Likewise, a randomized controlled prevention trial of adults by Professor Joan Lappe and colleagues at Creighton University, which showed dramatic improvements in the health of internal organs, used more than twice the FNB‘s new adult recommendations.
Finally, the FNB committee consulted with 14 vitamin D experts and — after reading these 14 different reports — the FNB decided to suppress their reports. Many of these 14 consultants are either famous vitamin D researchers, like Professor Robert Heaney at Creighton or, as in the case of Professor Walter Willett at Harvard, the single best-known nutritionist in the world. So, the FNB will not tell us what Professors Heaney and Willett thought of their new report? Why not?
Today, the Vitamin D Council directed our attorney to file a federal Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the IOM‘s FNB for the release of these 14 reports.
Most of my friends, hundreds of patients, and thousands of readers of the Vitamin D Council newsletter (not to mention myself), have been taking 5,000 IU/day for up to eight years. Not only have they reported no significant side-effects, indeed, they have reported greatly improved health in multiple organ systems.
My advice, especially for pregnant women: continue taking 5,000 IU/day until your 25(OH)D is between 50–80 ng/mL (the vitamin D blood levels obtained by humans who live and work in the sun and the mid-point of the current reference ranges at all American laboratories).
Gestational vitamin D deficiency is not only associated with rickets, but a significantly increased risk of neonatal pneumonia, a doubled risk for preeclampsia, a tripled risk for gestational diabetes, and a quadrupled risk for primary cesarean section.
Today, the FNB has failed millions of pregnant women whose as yet unborn babies will pay the price. Let us hope the FNB will comply with the spirit of “transparency” by quickly responding to our Freedom of Information requests.
John Jacob Cannell, MD
Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Increased Vitamin D intake may help prevent breast cancer by up to 20 percent.
A Harvard Nurses Health Study found a 23 percent lower risk for breast cancer with higher Vitamin D levels. The Women’s Health Study found a 33 percent lower risk.
When combining the results of data from the two studies, one researcher found that women with Vitamin D levels over 50 were 50 percent less likely to have breast cancer as compared to women with levels below 13.
Among its many benefits, Vitamin D has been shown to reduce the risk of obesity, autoimmune diseases, depression and metabolic syndrome, all conditions known to affect women.
As reported by Dr. Diana Post in Harvard Health Publications, a study released by the American Society of Clinical Oncology finds that Vitamin D levels may affect breast cancer survival. Researchers measured Vitamin D in the blood of 512 women with early-stage breast cancer. Only 1 in 4 women had Vitamin D at recommended levels. In the next 10 years, the cancer was nearly twice as likely to come back or spread in women who did not have enough Vitamin D. They were 73 percent more likely to die of cancer.
What Changes Can I Make?
- Go outside in the sun. Some doctors recommend 15 minutes of sun exposure without sunscreen a few times a week. This can increase Vitamin D levels. Unfortunately, too much sun exposure can also increase the risk of skin cancer.
- Eat foods rich in Vitamin D. These include oily fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel.
- Check with your doctor to make sure you are getting enough Vitamin D for your age. You may need supplements if you are older, dark-skinned, rarely go in the sun, or live in an area with limited Vitamin D exposure.
- Ask to have your Vitamin D level checked. If it’s low, consider taking a Vitamin D supplement.
- When choosing a supplement, look for one that contains “cholecalciferol” (Vitamin D3) combined with Vitamin K. This form is better absorbed than other forms of Vitamin D.
While research suggests that Vitamin D optimization is a great way to reduce breast cancer risk, we do know other ways to reduce your risk of breast cancer. Try to:
- Maintain a healthy body weight
- Limit the amount of alcohol you drink
- Exercise. Most studies have shown that women who do at least one hour a day of physical activity have about a 20 percent decreased chance of developing breast cancer.
- Get your mammogram. A mammogram is the best test at the present time for early detection of breast cancer. A mammogram should be performed every one to two years, in conjunction with a breast exam.