Should a Non-Celiac be gluten-free? This used to get you laughed out of a doctors office but the idea that gluten sensitivity is real has recently received some validation the in research.
Which is great news for all the Non-Celiac’s who have been telling
their doctors this for years. This past Sunday a gluten expert panel
spent an hour covering these ideas and more common questions about
gluten. The panel was hosted by an FDN named Ameer Rosic and featured Dr. Tom O’ Bryan, Nora Gedgaudas and
Steven Wright. Dr. Tom is an amazing doc who founded the Gluten Practitioner Program. For those who want some of the most in-depth training available to date on gluten check out this program on gluten sensitivity.
No Celiac, No Care? The burning question that so many of us have: "I hear that gluten is bad for you, but I feel fine if I eat a little now and then. So do I need to worry about completely eliminating gluten? In other words, if my body was having trouble with gluten, would I be able to tell?" The more you listen, the more it sounds like none of us can really digest gluten, regardless of whether we have noticeable symptoms. And trying to wiggle around this, by eating other things like sprouted bread or ancient species of wheat, is not going to fool our gut. It's still wheat. If you’ve never taken time
to read any of the research studies on gluten then this video can save
you about 6 months of your life as it covers most of the highlights.
Awesome talk from Tedmed 2010. This is what it's all about!
"Our current approach to treating disease is like using hacksaws to treat trauma...
You can take the green pills and the red pills and the blue pills, and go to specialist after specialist and get diagnosis after diagnosis, Or you can step into twenty first century medicine and look at the causes that connect everything together... Functional medicine is a disruptive technology that's going to overthrow the tyranny of the diagnosis" Inspirational!
NOTE: At FDN Health, we would add the following note to this great article on stress and aging: Stress isn't just from outside your body. There can be lots of underlying health issues stressing out your adrenals without you knowing it. Work with an FDN, and take extra stress off your body!
Chronic stress has been shown to have a number of negative health impacts,
from insomnia to weight gain to an increased risk for heart disease --
not to mention impairing the immune and digestive systems as well as the
central nervous system. And when it comes to aging, we've all heard
that worrying will give you wrinkles, but is the science there to back
up the idea that stress accelerates aging? Although more research is
still needed on the exact mechanisms by which psychological stress
contributes to biological aging, what we do know is that stress can be a
contributor to premature aging.
“When we’re under ongoing stress, it creates that fight-or-flight
reaction in an unrelenting way, and as a result, stress chemicals are
released into the body. What we know so far is that the release of those
stress chemicals creates biological changes,” Dr. Vivian Diller, PhD,
tells the Huffington Post. “It’s very possible that if you have a life
filled with that constant stress, little by little the body is breaking
down.”
To determine what those biological changes actually look like, Diller
explains, we have to go down to the cellular level, and research is
beginning to shed light on this process. Scroll through the list below
for five ways that stress can impact the aging process.
1. Job Stress Can Damage Cells, Leading To Early Aging. A 2012 study, published in the journal PLoS ONE,
found that work-related exhaustion can can have a harmful effect on
critical DNA in the cells. Researchers measured the length of DNA
sections called telomeres, and found that individuals with the most job
stress had the shortest telomeres -- and when telomeres become too
short, the cells can die or become damaged. Those who did not experience
work exhaustion had longer telomeres. Telomere shortening has been
linked to Parkinson’s, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and
cancer, the study notes. “We know that the telomeres [wear down] over time, but possibly
anxiety and stress may expedite that," says Diller. "That is the closest
we’ve gotten to understanding the relationship between stress and how
our body may age faster.”
2. Even The Anticipation Of Stress May Accelerate Cellular Aging.
UC San Francisco research found
that the mere anticipation of stress can increase an individual's risk
of age-related disorders. In the study, 50 women (half of whom were
caretakers for a patient with dementia, and therefore presumably deal
with daily stress) were told that they would have to engage in public
speaking or math problems. The study found that those who felt most
threatened by the anticipation of the stressful event exhibited greater
signs of aging on the cellular level. The researchers proposed in a university release
that greater anticipated threat levels in daily life may promote
cellular aging in chronically stressed persons. There's still research
that needs to be done ("The science is a little grey here," says
Diller), but already it is beginning to pinpoint some ways that stress
affects the aging process.
3. Stress Ages The Brain. Chronic stress has been shown to contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease,
and recent research has shown that greater stress may be the reason
that some women's brains age more prematurely than men's. UC Berkeley
scientists found that the pattern of gene activation and deactivation
that occurs as the brain ages seemed to progress more quickly in women. "A higher stress load could be driving the female brain towards faster aging-related decline," researcher Mehmet Somel told New Scientist.
4. Stress Can Lead To Vision & Hearing Loss. In addition to speeding up heart rate and increasing blood pressure,
production of the stress hormone adrenaline can also lead to temporary
vision and hearing loss. "With prolonged and repeated adrenaline production, that’s when we
see a constriction of blood vessels, which may relate to a decrease in
hearing and vision," says Diller. “We don’t know if these are permanent
losses, but we definitely begin to behave and feel less vital if
adrenaline is constantly pumping.”
5. Chronic Stress Can Contribute To An Unhealthy Lifestyle. "What stress does -- aside from these brain changes, bone changes,
and chemical changes -- is that people tend to take care of themselves
less," says Diller. "People who are under stress are known to eat more
poorly, exercise less, drink more, and probably rely on medication. All
of those things are going to show up on your body."
Developing healthy habits is critical to aging well. Regular exercise protects the aging brain, and conversely, sleep deprivation can accelerate aging. And as you get older, good nutrition becomes increasingly important in how the body ages, according to WebMD.
The takeaway? Cultivating a less stressful lifestyle may not only
promote healthy aging in its own right, but also by setting the
foundation for other habits that are crucial to successful aging.
CBS News 3/29/13 Normally we shudder when we think of bacteria, but a new study
reveals that some of these microorganisms may be able to help us lose
weight.
The study, published in the March 27 issue of Science Translational Medicine,
showed that bacteria in the guts of mice changed after they had gastric
bypass surgery, a procedure in which surgeons divide a person's stomach
and connect the small intestine directly to the smaller walnut-sized
portion. When these different microbes were transplanted in sterile mice
who did not have the surgery, those animals lost weight quickly.
"Simply by colonizing mice with the altered microbial community,
the mice were able to maintain a lower body fat, and lose weight - about
20 percent as much as they would if they underwent surgery," senior
author Peter Turnbaugh, a Bauer Fellow at Harvard's Faculty of Arts and
Sciences (FAS) Center for Systems Biology, said in a press release.
For
the experiment, the researchers performed the gastric bypass surgery on
a group of obese mice and recorded their weight loss, metabolic
performance and gut microbe levels. They then compared their progress to
other obese mice who had placebo surgeries and stayed overweight or had
placebo surgeries and then were placed on a lower-calorie food diet. The
mice who had the gastric bypass surgery lost about 30 percent of their
body weight in three weeks and had different bacteria in their stools
than the other two groups. The mice who had the placebo surgery and
didn't go on a weight loss diet regained the weight they initially lost
by the end of three weeks. That suggests the surgery, not the weight
loss, changed the microbes in the mice.
To further confirm the
results, lean, germ-free mice received gut microbes from one of the
three groups. Those that got the bacteria from the gastric bypass mice
lost weight and fat, while the others did not. Turnbaugh said
that though the numbers seem high, weight loss could have been even
greater.
Because the mice who received the bacteria weren't on a special
diet to increase their weight, there could be an even more drastic
weight loss if the mice were eating high-fat or high-calorie food, he
said.The study shows that gastric bypass may be successful for weight
loss for more reasons than just simply making the stomach smaller and
shortening the area where the body absorbs calories. But, scientists
don't exactly know why or how the bacteria changes just yet. "We
know the effects of bariatric surgery are not just mechanical and we
don't know the full reasons why it works so well, especially in the
resolution of diabetes," Dr. David Haslam, associate professor of
pediatrics and molecular microbiology at Washington University in St.
Lewis, told the BBC. "There is more to it than meets the eye."
It's
still a long way before this process is replicated in humans, but the
researchers hope that one day they will be able to use this method to
help dangerously obese people lose weight without surgery. One of the
problems with the study is that the bacteria was able to be transplanted
in germ-free mice, but it will be hard to do that for humans, Jeffrey
Cirillo, a professor with the department of microbial and molecular
pathogenesis at Texas A & M Health Science Center, explained to HealthDay.
However,
for people who just need to lose a few pounds here or there, Turnbaugh
still thinks hitting the gym is their best option.
"It may not
be that we will have a magic pill that will work for everyone who's
slightly overweight," he said. "But if we can, at a minimum, provide
some alternative to gastric bypass surgery that produces similar
effects, it would be a major advance."
"We need to learn a good
deal more about the mechanisms by which a microbial population changed
by gastric bypass exert its effects, and then we need to learn if we can
produce these effects - either the microbial changes or the associated
metabolic changes -- without surgery," senior author Lee Kaplan, an
associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, added in a
press release. "The ability to achieve even some of these effects
without surgery would give us an entirely new way to treat the critical
problem of obesity, one that could help patients unable or unwilling to
have surgery."
Reed Davis, Founder of FDN, talks about adrenal dysfunction, an extremely common
hormonal imbalance that often lies at the root of health challenges.
Unfortunately, most doctors completely ignore it. Testing for adrenal dysfunction is one of the cornerstones of FDN.
A brisk walk may be just as good as a run for keeping the the heart healthy. That’s encouraging, considering less than half of Americans meet thegovernment’s recommendation of
at least 2.5 hours of moderate to intense aerobic exercise a week. A
new study published in the American Heart Association (AHA) journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology found that walkers lowered their risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes as much as runners.
Researchers studied 33,060 runners who were participating in the
National Runners’ Health Study and 15,045 walkers enrolled in the
National Walkers’ Health Study over six years. All the participants were
between the ages of 18 to 80, with most in their 40s and 50s. The
exercises answered questionnaires about their physical activity, and the
researchers calculated how much energy they expended based on the
distance the volunteers reported walking or running. They also recorded
any doctor-diagnosed heart conditions. MORE: A Daily Walk Can Reduce the Power of Weight-Gaining Genes
The scientists found that while vigorous running required slightly
higher levels of energy than moderate intensity walking, both translated
into a parallel drop in incidence of high blood pressure, high
cholesterol, diabetes, or heart disease over the study period. And the
more the participants walked or ran, the greater the benefit in lowering
their heart disease risk. Although walking isn’t as intense as running, the study authors say
both target the same muscle groups, which could explain why
their results in improving heart health are so similar. The results
suggest that the type of exercise may not be as important as how much
people walk or run. Here’s what the researchers found:
Running significantly reduced the risk for being diagnosed with hypertension by 4.2% while walking reduced the risk by 7.2%
Running reduced the chances of having high cholesterol by 4.3% and walking by 7%
Running lowered risk of diabetes by 12.1% while walking dropped the risk by 12.3%
Running reduced coronary heart disease risk by 4.5% compared to 9.3% for walking.
The results are encouraging since walking may be a more appealing and
sustainable for more people than running. Because running is a more
intense form of physical activity, runners are able to burn more
calories and exercise the heart to higher levels within a shorter period
of time, but the results support the idea that any physical activity,
as long as it’s consistent, can have lasting benefits. Last summer, the
Centers for Disease Control released a report
showing that more Americans are walking for exercise, and that those
who walk are three times more likely to meet the recommended level of
physical activity. The TIME story on the report detailed the benefits:
What’s more, people who walk are significantly more
likely — three times more likely on average, in fact — to meet the
government’s physical activity recommendations. Overall, the survey data
showed, more Americans were meeting that goal in 2010 (48%) than in
2005 (41%), and more walkers (60%) than non-walkers (30%) met the
guideline. The more people walked, the more likely they were to meet the
exercise requirement: compared with non-walkers, those who walked 10-19
minutes a week were 34% more likely to meet the standard; those walking
20-29 minutes a week were 52% more likely; people who walked 30-59
minutes a week were 80% more likely; and those walking more than hour a
week were nearly four times more likely to get the minimum amount of
recommended exercise.
MORE: An Easy Way to Get Enough Exercise: Take a Walk More data will likely continue to compare intense activity such as
running with more moderate exercise like walking for everything from weight loss to longevity,
but more studies show that for many, particularly those who are
relatively sedentary, walking may be a healthy and effective way to
start increasing physical activity. And research also supports the idea
that for the heart, it’s not the quantity so much as the consistency of
exercise that may keep atherosclerosis and high blood pressure at bay.
A run of poor sleep can have a potentially profound effect on the internal workings of the human body, say UK researchers. The activity of hundreds of genes was altered when people's sleep was cut to less than six hours a day for a week. Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers said the results helped explain how poor sleep damaged health. Heart disease, diabetes, obesity and poor brain function have all been linked to substandard sleep. What missing hours in bed actually does to alter health, however, is unknown. So researchers at the University of Surrey analysed the blood
of 26 people after they had had plenty of sleep, up to 10 hours each
night for a week, and compared the results with samples after a week of
fewer than six hours a night.
More than 700 genes were altered by the shift. Each contains
the instructions for building a protein, so those that became more
active produced more proteins - changing the chemistry of the body.
Meanwhile the natural body clock
was disturbed - some genes naturally wax and wane in activity through
the day, but this effect was dulled by sleep deprivation. Prof Colin Smith, from the University of Surrey, told the
BBC: "There was quite a dramatic change in activity in many different
kinds of genes." Areas such as the immune system and how the body responds to damage and stress were affected.
Prof Smith added: "Clearly sleep is critical to rebuilding
the body and maintaining a functional state, all kinds of damage appear
to occur - hinting at what may lead to ill health. "If we can't actually replenish and replace new cells, then that's going to lead to degenerative diseases." He said many people may be even more sleep deprived in their
daily lives than those in the study - suggesting these changes may be
common.
Dr Akhilesh Reddy, a specialist in the body clock at the University of Cambridge, said the study was "interesting". He said the key findings were the effects on inflammation and
the immune system as it was possible to see a link between those
effects and health problems such as diabetes. The findings also tie into research attempting to do away
with sleep, such as by finding a drug that could eliminate the effects
of sleep deprivation.
Dr Reddy said: "We don't know what the switch is that causes
all these changes, but theoretically if you could switch it on or off,
you might be able to get away without sleep. "But my feeling is that sleep is fundamentally important to regenerating all cells."
