Sunday, February 12, 2012

Why I went Gluten Free

For years I suffered with migraine headaches that just seemed to get worse. I wanted to prevent them and I wanted to get off my prescription medication. I became very concerned about the medication I was using when I found out from an insurance underwriter that it was flagged as increasing my risk for stroke.

Getting off gluten was not easy for me and I tried at least half a dozen times before I was able to successfully "wean" myself off. I guess you could say I found that I was addicted to gluten!
 
When you tell people you don't eat gluten many think this GF diet is a "fad". Nothing could be further from the truth. For those skeptics who think there's no good reason to remove gluten (or for those convinced they could not live with out these grains) please let me illuminate some facts.

Why is gluten getting such a bad rap?
First gluten is is very inflammatory and inflammation is the driver of all chronic disease. Gluten is  now being linked to a host of other serious disease states. You don't have to test positive for the antibodies to be gluten sensitive or intolerant either. So there are "degrees" of reactivity so to speak. Celiac Disease is the most severe form and is an autoimmune disease. For Celiac's eating gluten is life threatening. Again, you don't have to test positive for Celiac's disease to be gluten sensitive. I think this causes a great deal of confusion for people. You can (and many people do) react to gluten without having the antibodies (tTG; TGA;AMG; AMA; EMA; ARA) show up on a blood test. This test is useful but it's not the only gauge of gluten reactivity. Food intolerance's (or sensitivity) are what's known as delayed immune system reactions. This means it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days for symptoms to present.

Second, many wonder why there are so many people affected now. By one estimate at least one in every 100 people are gluten sensitive! That's a huge number of people. One theory for the rise in gluten sensitivity is that gluten is a relatively new food for humans. If you think back to Paleolithic times grains were not eaten. People ate what they hunted or gathered and grains were not one of those foods. Grains are a farmed crop and as such are commercially grown for use in thousands of products.

These grains contain gluten: 
Wheat – including wheat germ and wheat bran
Rye
Barley including barley malt
Bulgur
Couscous
Spelt
Kamut
Semolina
Triticale
Einkorn

Because Gluten containing grains are used in so many foods we love to eat like pasta, bread, crackers, pastries and desserts. Plus gluten is used as a filler in thousands of products. Grains are also fed to livestock as feed.....so you are starting to see how massively profitable this grain thing is now aren't you? Your probably also beginning to see why eliminating gluten can be a challenge for those who eat many packaged and processed foods or who dine out frequently.

This love affair with gluten grains has Americans in particular eating them at every meal and as snacks, so the sheer quantity of gluten people are now consuming is another reason at least in theory, why we are seeing a rise in gluten intolerance.
 
Common Symptoms of Gluten Intolerance:
The best way to gauge gluten reactivity is by symptoms you notice when you have eaten gluten containing foods. Here are some common symptoms of gluten intolerance:

skin eruptions - acne; rosacea, psoriasis
digestive issues - constipation; diarrhea, gas, nausea, IBS
pain/inflammation - joint paint, muscle pain, head aches (migraines especially!)
Other symptoms: weight loss/gain, depression, exhaustion , itchy eyes, runny nose, sneezing

If you have any of these symptoms -
Do a trial of removing gluten and gluten containing products for a few weeks and see if you notice improvement and less symptoms. If you do you'll know your better off with out gluten in your life. It does not support you. You may also find you have less pain and inflammation removing not only gluten but dairy, and corn too. Soy is also very unhealthy (see my The soy deception book review in this blog).

When I removed gluten I stopped having migraines. this was a very big life changer for me as my migraines had become very severe and debilitating. My rosacea also went away once I stopped eating gluten :-) !!!

Auto Immune and other diseases are now being linked to Gluten!
The list of disease states now linked or suspected to be connected in some way to gluten intolerance keeps growing. If you search the PubMed database you will find this is an area of expanding research. Here are conditions that have been shown to be aggravated if not brought on (more research is required for absolute confirmation) - although I have seen enough to convince me to stay off gluten for the rest of my life.

Cancer
RA & OA
Fibromyalgia
Lupus
MS
IBS & IBD
Schizophrenia
Neuropathy
Autism
ADD & ADHD
Epilepsy

And since gluten feeds yeast these are common aliments associated with gluten:
Candida/Yeast overgrowth
Toe fungus
Psoriasis

Bottom line is your better off with out gluten in your diet!

Here are some other helpful links:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/04/12/gluten.free.diet.improve/index.html

http://migraine.com/blog/expert-featured-article/gluten-sensitivity-and-migraines/

http://drhyman.com/gluten-what-you-dont-know-might-kill-you-11/

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Is your Make Up Toxic?

Did you know the cosmetics and personal care industry in the US is self regulated? This means the FDA does NOT require testing on 80% of the chemical ingredients in these products. Women use these products daily and are at high risk because of exposure to endotoxins and other chemicals linked to cancer.

In the Metro Detroit area? You can find out about your risk and what you can do to minimize it at my class Feb. 22. Click the link for more details


http://myemail.constantcontact.com/February-Wellness-Classes-from-Nourish.html?soid=1103840564316&aid=yIYE7YzCEgU

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Heart - Gut Connection


The Heart/GUT Connection

Most physicians don't look at the connection between heart disease and digestion - but YOU certainly should. I am seeing more and more people who have been diagnosed with heart conditions (i.e. high cholesterol, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, TIA) who also have gastrointestinal and digestion problems, so I began to wonder if there was a connection?

Inflammation & Disease
     
Ask any health practitioner and they'll tell you that all disease states arise from chronic inflammation. Ask your   cardiologist and they too will tell you cardiovascular diseases are inflammation driven.   

-Let's take plaque on arterial walls as an example. Plaque is formed as a result of the body's immune responds. In the arterial walls this creates what is known as atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is actually a result of the body responding to healing an injury - patching up a lesion. So, in order to halt or slow this kind of inflammation driven responds we need to discover what is causing it. In other words figure out just where the inflammation is manifesting. 

Conventional medicine would have us believe it's all related to a high saturated fat diet - or genetic or some combination of both. But there is more to it than this. Unfortunately, too few doctors make the connection between poor digestion (which we know creates inflammation) and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases.  

Proper & Impaired Digestion

During proper digestion bile secreted by the gallbladder carries cholesterol out of the body. However, with dysbiosis - ( an imbalance of more bad bacteria than good bacteria in the gut) - this process falters or fails. The result is a rise in cholesterol (not to mention estrogen and various toxins). When this happens, a simple gut detox and inoculation with beneficial bacteria will most likely help lower cholesterol, but have you ever  heard of a patient being given a "prescription" to do this from their cardiologist?  (If you have please email me!) 

We also know there is a link between helicobacter pylori infection and atherosclerosis. H.pylori, is a bacterium that is able to survive the highly acidic environment of the stomach. It is almost always present with peptic ulcers, gastritis, and duodenitis.  In researching this topic I discovered that h.pylori also destroys vascular tissue! And, autopsies are turning up h.pylori in the lesions of stroke and heart attack victims too.    

Lack of stomach acid leads to other problems too:

A  healthy stomach has sufficient hydrochloric acid. (HCl) destroys pathogens as soon as they enter. This is essential to a healthy GUT and to proper digestion. It's estimated that 90 percent of Americans are deficient in HCl, and that h.pylori can be found in 50 percent of the world's population.      
  
Proton pump inhibitors; such as Prolosec and Plavixwork by blocking acid production in the stomach. These are commonly prescribed for people with acid reflux, GERD and duodenal ulcers. Well guess what? The stomach is where protein digestion takes place and stomach acid is absolutely necessary for proper breakdown and digestion of protein.   
  
With out proper stomach acid the protein you eat is not digested and this leads to these large undigested particles of food passing through your intestines into the blood stream. When this happens - BINGO! You have an immune response reaction (aka = inflammation). This also impairs your body's ability to absorb the nutrients from your food. With out proper digestion and proper absorption of nutrients the body cannot be nourished properly and is left more susceptible to illness and chronic disease.   

This had me wondering again: 

- How many people who have cardiovascular disease also have had their gall bladders out?

- How many also have hypothyroidism?

- How many people who have CVD are taking PPI's?  

All of these conditions are related to improper digestion and increased inflammation!    

In  a report published just this month in Science Daily new research shows that the types and levels of bacteria in the intestines could possibly be used to predict a person's likelihood of having a heart attack, and that manipulating these organisms may help reduce heart attack risk.  

You can read the report here:

   

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