Tuesday, May 4, 2021

One Degree of Change #43 Sugar does Whaaaat?

 Sugar, it tastes so good

You’ve decided to quit your sugar habit once and for all. Kudos, you’re on your way to a happier, healthier and svelter you. Given that sugar is in pretty much everything we eatnowadays, the challenge you’ve set yourself is no small feat.

No doubt you’ve done your research and know exactly how to kick your sugar addiction and manage sugar cravings when they arise. But while arming yourself with practical knowledge is smart, it’s not always enough.

If you find your resolve faltering, you’re going to need a little extra motivation to keep you on your sugar-free path. These documentaries will do just that. There’s nothing like learning the truth about an industry to keep you from drinking their kool-aid. These are the same documentaries I refer to my patients and 

THE TRUTH ABOUT SUGAR

We all know sugar is bad for you, but we’re not sure how to give it up and we’re also a little fuzzy when it comes to the downsides of a sugary diet. In The Truth About Sugar, journalist Fiona Phillips sets out to change all that.

Ever wondered why you have a sweet tooth or why there is so much sugar in obviously savory foods? Fiona answers these and many other sugar-related question in her quest to find out more about this addictive substance.

To make it even more interesting, the documentary charts the lives of four Brits whose sugar-heavy diets are putting their health at risk. With Fiona’s help it quickly becomes clear that their transformations will be significant.

There’s nothing like a before and after success story to keep you motivated, so keep this one on hand for when you find yourself short on willpower.


THAT SUGAR FILM

We know a bag of M&Ms or a NutRageous chocolate bar isn’t good for us. But surely things like yogurt, juice, muesli bars and cereal have earned the ‘healthy’ label? Nope, just because something looks healthy, doesn’t mean it is.

That Sugar Film is one man’s journey to discover the bitter truth about sugar. Using himself as a human guinea pig, Damon Gameau consumed only foods that are commonly perceived as ‘healthy’ to highlight the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body. He also discusses the many issues plaguing the sugar industry and reveals where sugar lurks on supermarket shelves.

Featuring interviews from notable experts and cameo appearances from a few well-known celebrities, the documentary will change the way you think about ‘healthy’ food for good. Be sure to check out their website for recipes, e-books and more.

FED UP

Brought to you by the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, Fed Up aims to pull back the curtain on the sugar industry once and for all. The documentary claims that everything we’ve been told about food and exercise for the past 30 years is dead wrong.

Revealing one alarming fact after another, Fed Up leaves you with no choice but to view the food you eat differently. Chew on this for a moment. There are 600,000 food items in America and 80 percent of them have added sugar. How on earth are you supposed to avoid the stuff?

Once you know the truth about your food you’ll not only be Fed Up, any desire you may have had for a sugary treat will be long gone.


SUGAR CRASH

Ireland is the fourth highest consumer of sugar in the world. Ironically, very few are actually aware of just how much sugar they’re eating. It turns out our Irish friends are consuming a whopping 24 teaspoons a day. That’s four times as much as the The World Health Organization’s recommended sugar quota of less-than-six teaspoons per day.

Sugar Crash aims to change that, with Dr Eva Orsmond investigating the shocking cost of the country’s sugar habit. From hospital admissions and long-term illness to premature death. As children today face a shorter life expectancy than their parents, the eye-opening Irish documentary tells the story that everyone needs to understand.

After watching Sugar Crash you’ll think twice about adding that teaspoon of sugar to your morning coffee. In fact, you’ll probably find yourself emptying the bowl into the compost heap.

 

SUGAR COATED

Is sugar the new tobacco? How did the food industry get us to stop asking the question: is sugar toxic? Winner of the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards for best social/political documentary, Sugar Coated answers these and many other questions about the sugar industry.

It also brings to light incriminating evidence proving that the sugar industry used tobacco-style tactics to dismiss troubling health claims against their products. No wonder they’re saying sugar is the new tobacco.

Pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Robert Lustig blames sugar for his waiting room full of obese kids with fatty livers. In Japan, children are burdened with lifestyle diseases their parents never faced. Radical steps have now been taken to reduce the nation’s waistlines.

The movie doesn’t sugarcoat the truth, making it hard to swallow at times. But maybe that’s what we need to wake us up to the problem.


Wednesday, January 27, 2021

One Degree of Change #42 Entropy

 

 

Entropy-Why and how some age faster than others

 

In life, any biological system gravitates toward disorder. Think about ice melting or metal rusting, or human beings aging. Things become more random and break down over time. I remember learning this in physics and the term for this was "Entropy". The natural order toward disorder. As human beings, over time, we age and become more disordered in our bodies and minds. We get weaker, our joints and bones break down, our brain becomes more chaotic and we forget things.

I like physics because it has “laws” like the law of gravity. You can't break a law, you can only break yourself against the law. In other words, you wouldn’t jump off a building and say “watch me break the law of gravity”. The only thing you would break is yourself. Laws don't care what you think. 

I learned in physics that what opposes Entropy (the process of randomness and disorder) is WORK. Think of a pile of bricks on the back of a dump truck. If the dump truck unloaded them, there isn’t a great chance that they would fall off the truck and form a house or even the wall of a house. The bricks have to be arranged by a bricklayer into a house or a wall. This requires work and so work put into a system can slow down entropy, however, it can never stop entropy because entropy always moves in one direction, towards randomness, disorder, and death. Pretty morbid, I know. But what is encouraging is that we can slow down and delay the random aging process by putting work back into our bodies and minds.

Think about it, why is it that you look at one person who is 70 and they look 60 and you look at another who is 60 and they look 70? One has been affected by entropy (aging) more than the other. It has nothing to do with time (chronological age) and everything to do with opposing the natural forces of break down (biological aging). Growing older and aging is NOT optional but how fast you age is totally within your control. Human beings that age more rapidly become a burden to themselves and society because they require more work to care for.

Think about it, the person who is elderly, disabled, and in a wheelchair or the person who has dementia requires a lot more energy and work to care for. However, it’s someone else’s energy, not their own. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care for them, I’m just saying it requires more work and energy (time and money) on the part of someone else. I don’t know about you but I want to delay this as long as possible. I don’t want to burden my family or anyone else because I can’t care for myself anymore at 70.

According to Jay Olshansky, an epidemiologist at the University of Chicago, "You don't want to live to be over 100 years old if the last 20 years of your life are spent in pain and sickness," Olshansky said. "Ideally, you want to compress the years of decay and disease -- what I call the 'red zone' -- into as few as possible at the very end of life.

However, as a society, we are aging more rapidly biologically than chronologically. For most people, the period of disability isn’t a year or a couple of years anymore, it’s over a decade. The average life span (years we are alive) in the U. S. is 79 years but the average health span (the number of years a person can expect to live in relatively good health, free of chronic disease and disabilities of aging) in the U.S. is 66 years. That’s 13 years of poor health and disability. Have you ever wondered why there are so many “long-term” care facilities going up all over the place? It’s because A LOT of people can’t care for themselves as they age and they have to move somewhere so that someone else can care for them. But these facilities cost big bucks so you better save your money because years of disability will cost you (or someone else) tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Most people are “present biased” when it comes to their health. They only think about the present and not the future. I think about the future, how do I want to function in my 70’s, 80’s and 90’s? I have to be honest, I don’t expect to be breaking push-up records or running marathons, but I do expect to be able to care for myself in my OWN home, which I can take care of too!

If work opposes entropy and slows the aging process, then it’s time to get to work. Shopping and cooking healthy requires work. Exercising instead of sitting on the couch or computer requires work. Getting up early and meditating or praying requires work. Taking your supplements every day requires work. Delaying the instant gratification of sugar, alcohol, drugs, social media takes work. However, the sooner you accept the responsibility and get on with getting on with it, the easier it gets. Healthy habits take work and work takes commitment and energy. It’s a positive or vicious cycle. Putting work into your body slows aging, disability, and death. Not putting work into your body or worse, abusing your body accelerates aging, disability, and death. Wayne Dyer said, “Healthy habits are learned in the same way as unhealthy ones- through practice”.

Is it time to slow down entropy and aging? Is it time to get to work on yourself and your health? Only you and the mirror can answer that question. When you’re ready, we’ll be here.  www.thehealthfactor.net

 


 

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

One Degree of Change #41

 Big may be beautiful, but Covid-19 and Obesity are deadly

 

This week, on the internet I saw the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine with an obese woman on it. The caption on the cover read “This is Healthy”. It immediately caught my attention because I can assure you as a doctor that being obese and carrying a lot of belly fat is NOT healthy. I also believe that fat-shaming or making people who are obese feel “less than” isn't healthy either.

Here is the real dilemma as far as I see it. The world and the U.S. in particular have gotten bigger, not just a little bigger, a lot bigger. Obesity hasn't doubled. It's nearly tripled in the United States over the last fifty years. In the early 1960s, fewer than 14 percent of the individuals possessed a body mass index (BMI) of over 30. Today, the figure collected by the CDCs National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHNES) is closer to 40 percent. Wow, let's face facts, we’ve gotten FAT! 4 out of every 10 of us are now obese? That’s unacceptable and it’s killing our great country in SO MANY ways.

Let’s just talk about Obesity and Covid-19. “Since the pandemic began,” Science Magazine reported in September, “dozens of studies have reported that many of the sickest COVID-19 patients have been people with obesity.” According to one study out in August cited by the flagship journal, overweight patients who contracted COVID-19 were 113 percent more likely to land in the hospital than patients of a healthy weight. Obese patients were 74 percent more likely to end up in intensive care and were 48 percent more likely to die.

Why is this? Well, according to Dr. Robert Silverman, in a recent article entitled: Covid Immunity, focus on what you can control, the human host, “Americans are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection because a primary pathway for the virus to enter the body is through the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors on the surface of cells in the lungs, heart, blood vessels, kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract, brain, epithelial cells, and fat cells. Because fat cells have even more ACE2 receptors than lung cells, those with high adipose tissue levels are more likely to be infected. He goes on to say, “Obese people may already have compromised respiratory function before infection. At the same time, abdominal obesity can compress the diaphragm, lungs, and chest capacity, reducing the lungs’ ability to mobilize. Most significantly, obesity causes chronic low-grade inflammation and an increase in circulating proinflammatory cytokines. Preexisting inflammation plays a significant role in the worst COVID-19 outcomes.”

So, while Cosmopolitan may recognize that 40% percent of women are obese and represent a large “target market” for sales of their magazine, let’s not confuse facts with a sales pitch. I agree that you can be beautiful at any size and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Everyone needs to feel loved! However, if you are FAT or obese (BMI over 30 and/or waist circumference over 35" for female 40" for a male) you will die younger and suffer older. Period, end of the story.

And by the way, it’s not your genetics. 

Join us via Zoom on January 11th at 6:30pm for our 16th Annual 21 Day Purification/Detoxification class!



Wednesday, November 18, 2020

One Degree of Change #40: The Choice of Health or Disease?

 

What’s the real problem and the real solution for Covid-19?

 As cases rise here in the United States, we continue to face the burning question. How do we solve this crisis and get back to life as we use to know it? Another question is will we ever get back to life as we use to know it? We can guess why cases are rising. Is it because we are doing more testing? Is it because we are coming into the time of colds  and flus where we get less fresh air, less sunlight (Cataplex D), and less exercise from outdoor activities? Is it because we let our guard down and started gathering with family and friends more? Who knows? All I do know is that the virus isn’t going away and I’d rather stand up and control what I have control over than run and hide and do nothing. Here is what I know, there are 2 things in life, things we have control over and things we don’t. Why do we (and the news media) always focus on the things for which we have no control? What we have control over is our self. What we don’t have control over is everything else.

As a read the landscape of our current situation, I realize that most people are waiting it out. Waiting to see what happens? Waiting on the vaccine? Waiting to see what the next administration is going to do? Waiting for new and better drugs to treat this virus? However, if you are in a vulnerable category, you better stop waiting and start preparing. It’s like knowing a category 5 hurricane is approaching. If you live on or near the water, don’t be a fool, get the hell out of there. Some people are much more vulnerable to this virus than others. We know that the elderly and people with co-morbidities are much more at risk of being admitted to the ICU or dying should they become infected. We NEED to protect these people. It is the right thing to do! The problem is that this represents a HUGE percentage of our population. 

Let’s face the facts, we are an old and sick nation with some of the highest percentages of older people, and some of the highest percentage of people with NCD’s (non-communicable diseases) such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome (obesity), respiratory and auto-immune diseases. So many people in this country take multiple medications for non-communicable chronic diseases they are suffering from. These people are at risk. Also, we keep people alive a lot longer than 50 years ago. People are living a lot longer because of medical technology and long-term care. However, they are NOT living healthier and these people are the ones dying in the highest order from this pandemic. We have every kind of nursing home and long-term care facility imaginable but are the people living in these facilities prepared for the likes of this virus or any other extremely virulent virus? Why do we think we can totally subvert nature's law of survival of the fittest and natural selection? 

So what’s the real problem here and what’s the real cure? If we see the problem as merely a virus that needs a cure, we are missing the bigger issue and we better wish for a miracle because that’s what it is going to take. A miracle that only a higher power can solve, not just a vaccine, I can assure you. If we see the problem as “out there” waiting to get us, we are missing a huge opportunity to look in the mirror as an individual and as a nation and take responsibility. Responsibility for the real problem, we are a sick, over-medicated, under-nourished, over-stressed, under-rested, overweight, and chronically sick nation. We not only have a chronologically older population that is more susceptible to this virus, but we also have a biologically older population. In other words, people are aging more rapidly biologically than their real age because of their lifestyle and this makes them vulnerable as well. If you are overweight and under-muscled, you are not only at risk of getting a poor outcome with this virus, but with all NCD’s (non-communicable diseases).

Mother Teresa said, "If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean". Well, if each of us would keep ourselves as healthy as possible, we’d find the real cure to this crisis.

There is a difference between a quick, short-sighted, magic bullet approach to solving Covid and a long-term, roll up your sleeves and get-to-work solution for the real problem. Let’s not focus on winning just this battle, let’s win the whole war and it starts by winning the one inside ourselves. OUR HEALTH!

We have a choice of the foods we put in our mouths,  the type of movement we do in a day, and the type of thoughts we think.  These ideas have an integral part in our personal wellness. If you are at the place where you need a Plan of Action for your wellness and health, please reach out to me.  We can schedule a


complimentary consultation to get you on the right pathway.  Remember Health is a journey, not a destination!

Friday, April 24, 2020

One Degree of Change #39

One Degree of Change #39

Challenges to Your Health!


For twenty-six spectacular years I have had the priviledge to be part of the health and wellness team of thousands of patients.  Each patient has their own unique set of circumstances that may create health issues both good and bad.  As a physician in the alternative health care world, I have had the extrodinary opportunity to create health from the inside out.  As a chiropractic physician, I have incorporated my expansive base of knowledge on exercise physiology to guide patients by educating, motivating, and adjusting their spines to enhance their journey to wellness.
Bench Press ADFPA Nationals 1990

The pandemic effect of COVID-19 has altered life for everyone. While we are in a crisis in this moment, I see this as an extraordinary time for wellness opportunities. This situation has created a new normal, changing how we do business, education, and family from this point on. We have new possibilities to thrive by creating amazing circumstances for the future of humankind.

Over the past months, I have watched my family, friends, and patients go through three phases during this challenging event. First, there is overwhelming fear, accentuated by the unknown and the pervasive negativity on television. Second, there is learning. Eventually, they shed their needs to hoard supplies and come to grips with their personal emotions. Finally, there is growth and a potential for marvelous opportunity. Kindness is being demonstrated abundantly. People are creating and sharing ways to stay physically fit, cook healthfully, and spend quality time with their families. Everyday heroes are becoming the norm. And excitingly, many are finding their purpose.

As a Doctor of Chiropractic and a Functional Medicine Practitioner, my hope is that people will use this time to become increasingly mindful of their own health and wellness. This includes eating foods that support their immune system, exercising in order to create a more resilient body, and training the brain to adapt and grow though this experience. If this becomes habitual, it will help to reduce stress and improve overall health in the long term.

I work with patients to create a plan for each of them to thrive in these three key ways. However, there has been a critical missing component: their belief that they matter. If a patient is not emotionally ready or has unhealthy beliefs, no amount of information I provide can help them move towards improved wellness. When my patients are free of negative self-concepts, their path towards a healthier lifestyle is infinitely easier. 

Of course, this time is extremely challenging for all patients.  Let's keep it simple.  Support your immune system, eat real food (watch that sugar) and get outside to exercise during this mandatory "sabatical".  These are three of the most important things we can do for our health and well being.

If you are unsure what to do, please reach out to me @ www.thehealthfactor.net. Your wellness and health are your most important asset!