ENVIRONMENTAL INPUTS
- What is the quality of your diet? Do you eat whole foods? Is yours a plant-based diet? Or are you following a disease-promoting SAD (Standard American Diet) that makes you malnourished and unable to self repair, regulate and heal?
- What are the stressors in your life: your relationships, work, societal pressures, family, money?
- Have you been exposed to toxins in the air, water or in food and has that disturbed the balance of your health?
- Have you experienced physical trauma?
- Do you misuse or under use your body and not provide the regular benefits of moving, stretching, and strengthening that allows your organs, joints and muscle to function as they were designed?
These are all questions from Dr. Hyman's website. I have my own code system; blue is a good answer, red is trouble, yellow is possibly or could be better.
I have my food in control...I totally eat for health.
I have a lot of stress...I used to enjoy the stress (and still do a little), it is one of those self employment things. I would never gamble in a casino...but in life...well ...maybe. I am working on quieting my thoughts and I always have handled stress pretty well....unless others around me are smoking from the ears...I have been working on not letting that be an influence on me.
I am really careful about water, food and chemicals. I live in an older home and sometimes wonder about mold. The person who owned my home before me was not only a stock broker...but he worked on engines on the side. When we first moved into the house black soot rained in the basement (where he did his work). It is finished off now...so we get no more rain, but I have to wonder if there is "stuff" caught between the main floor and the basement ceiling. I also work around fabrics that have chemicals added. My husband also had cancer that is usually caused by heavy chemicals. I should have the house checked...I put it off because it costs about $1000.00...I guess that is still lots less than Dr. bills.
No physical trauma.
I do weight bearing exercise (heavy as I can bear: ). I run, ride my bike and walk too. I do not stretch enough. I will work on that.
Now I know what to work on. Thanks Dr. Hyman!
Inflammation
When I take inflammation tests the lights flash bright red! My C reactive protein levels were ridiculous...and I didn't need a test to tell that...all you need to do is look at me.
I had an aneurysm. I visited with a neuro surgeon...he looked at me and said "if I were you, from the looks of your pictures here, I would worry more about those sinuses than your aneurysm." It is true. I have every single indication of inflammation.
I have a very nasty sounding diagnosis of "leaky gut syndrome." I am allergic to almost everything...healthy or not healthy and I develop allergies to things that I eat for more than 2 days in a row.
7 ways to avoiding inflammation (Dr. Hyman)
Once you figure out the cause and get rid of it, how do you live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle? Here is what I recommend. It’s disarmingly simple, but an extraordinarily effective way to achieve UltraWellness:
- Eat a whole foods, high fiber, plant based diet which is inherently anti-inflammatory. That means unprocessed, unrefined, real food and high in powerful anti-inflammatory plant chemicals called phytonutrients. Nothing full of sugar or trans fats.
- Get an oil change. Eat healthy fats from olive oil, nuts, avocados and omega 3 fats from small fish like sardines, herring, sable, and wild salmon.
- Exercise. Do I need to say more?
- Learn to actively relax to engage your vagus nerve, the powerful nerve that relaxes your whole body and lowers inflammation, by doing yoga, meditation, deep breathing or even taking a hot bath.
- If you have food allergies, find out what they are and get stop eating them.
- Take probiotics (“good bacteria”) daily to help your digestion to improve the healthy bacteria in your gut, which reduces inflammation. (Look for those that contain 10 billion CFU of bifidobacteria species and lactobacillus species. Choose from reputable brands.)
- Take a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement which helps reduce inflammation.
Yay me!!! I score 100% doing everything right on this list!
There was one thing that troubled me..."Common treatments such as anti-inflammatory drugs (ibuprofen or aspirin), or steroids like prednisone, though often useful for acute problems, interfere with the body’s own immune response and lead inevitably to serious and deadly side effects. As many people die from taking anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen as die every year from asthma or leukemia. Stopping the use of these drugs would be the equivalent to finding a cure for both."
I used to get prednisone regularly for my sinus problems. I also still take vicodin when I get migraines. The eye disturbance comes, I take a vicodin and I never feel the headache. I have figured out that my migraines are caused by physical or emotional stress. I am going to work harder on relaxing and see if I can eliminate my headaches altogether. I did quit taking prednisone at the same time I quit taking antibiotics.
HORMONES AND NEUROTRANSMITTERS
HOW DO YOU FEEL today? Seriously, how do you really feel on various scores like this:
My goal is to make your metabolism more efficient, to make your cells more intelligent and cooperative, not resistant. In other words, you will need much less insulin to accomplish the task of balancing your blood sugar.
While I want to tell you how to balance your stress hormones, thyroid function and all your sex hormones, and all your brain and mood chemicals that will take a few more lessons! For now I want to show you how you can reset your metabolism of sugar and insulin by stopping the things that knock you off balance, and providing the things that put you balance in balance allowing you to thrive.
Here is what to do:
GUT
What are they?
This has ALL changed since the beginning of the year. My choice to go vegan, give up processed food and sugar, dairy and wheat has eliminated all of these problems. I am still working on rotation of food for the last.
How to get gut health
So how do you keep your gut healthy?
DETOXIFICATION
How much toxicity is too much
To understand toxicity you must understand the concept of total load.
This is a total amount of stressors on your system at any one time and what happens like glass filling over with water. It takes a certain amount to fill the glass and then, after a certain point, you put more in and it overflows.
When our detoxification system is overwhelmed, is overloaded, that’s when we start getting symptoms and get sick, but it may take years of accumulated stress and toxins to get to that point.
It is because each of us is genetically and biochemically unique. Some of us are good at getting rid of toxins and waste, and others are not. I am not. That is why I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
I became overloaded with mercury and I couldn’t get rid of it because I am missing a gene for GSTM1 – a critical detoxifying enzyme for mercury. But by learning to support my system and learning how to detoxify I was able to cure myself from an incurable condition.
How to detox
There are five key steps to optimal detoxification. Here they are:
Depending on your symptoms, genetic predispositions and environmental exposures, you each may need different levels of nutrients and types of treatment. But remember, getting rid of toxins and learning how to optimize your detoxification system is essential for creating UltraWellness.
I highlighted this because I want to make a special point of detoxifying.
ENERGY, MITOCHONDRIA AND OXIDATIVE STRESS
So here’s what to do to protect your mitochondria and prevent rusting.
I have introduced you to a set of new ideas and concepts that have the power to transform your health personally and to transform health care. It is no small job personally or for our society, but it is essential to stem the impending tsunami of ill health and economic burden facing us, our children and our children’s children.
The solution is UltraWellness, a fundamental change in our world view about health – a view that helps us get to the core of illness, to learn self-care, to take control and empower ourselves for transformation our own health, and to transform our sick care system to a health care system.
Each of us can contribute and makes small changes that will have a big difference and we can move as individuals and as a community toward UltraWellness.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978), Dr. Mark Hyman
(I was going to cut this last part out...but I figured I would leave the mission statement, in respect, for such great information right on his website!)
HOW DO YOU FEEL today? Seriously, how do you really feel on various scores like this:
- Does your mood and energy level swing up and down?
- Do you crave sugar or salt?
- Are you overweight and putting on more and more belly fat?
- If you are a woman do you have premenstrual syndrome, painful or heavy periods and low sex drive?
- Are you depressed?
- Do you sleep poorly?
- Do you feel tired but wired?
- Do you have to live on coffee in the morning and a few glasses of wine at night just to wake up and calm down every day?
My goal is to make your metabolism more efficient, to make your cells more intelligent and cooperative, not resistant. In other words, you will need much less insulin to accomplish the task of balancing your blood sugar.
While I want to tell you how to balance your stress hormones, thyroid function and all your sex hormones, and all your brain and mood chemicals that will take a few more lessons! For now I want to show you how you can reset your metabolism of sugar and insulin by stopping the things that knock you off balance, and providing the things that put you balance in balance allowing you to thrive.
Here is what to do:
- Stop eating flour and sugar products, especially high fructose corn syrup.
- Don’t have liquid calories – your body doesn’t feel full from them so you eat more all day!
- Stop all processed, junk or packaged foods. If it doesn’t look like the food your great-great-great grandmother ate, then stay away.
- Stop eating trans or hydrogenated fats.
- Slow the rate of sugar uptake from the gut through balancing your meals (low glycemic load) with healthy protein (nuts, seeds, beans, small wild fish, organic chicken), healthy carbs (vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains) and healthy fats (olive oil, nuts and seeds, avocadoes, fish oil)
- Rough it up: eat plenty of soluble fiber (30-50 grams a day)
- Eat smaller more frequent meals
- Get an oil change: Make your cells smarter by giving them an oil change with omega-3 fats, fixing the cell membranes so that they can more readily receive the messages from insulin.
- Move your body: exercise improves your cells ability to work better, respond to insulin better and burn sugar faster.
- Relax! Stress reduction also helps improved blood sugar control.
- Make your cells smarter through increasing specific nutrients such as chromium, vanadium, magnesium, vitamin E, biotin, the B vitamins, zinc, bioflavinoids and some newer compounds including alpha lipoic acid, arginine, and carnitine.
- Herbs may also be of benefit including Panax ginseng, ginkgo biloba, green tea, fenugreek and gymnena sylvestre, bitter melon and garlic.
I guess I need to work on my herbs. I also am going to make a point of getting more magnesium for stress reduction...
Stop Draining Your Body of Magnesium- Limit coffee, colas, salt, sugar, and alcohol
- Learn how to practice active relaxation
- Check with your doctor if your medication is causing magnesium loss (many high blood pressure drugs or diuretics cause loss of magnesium)
Include the following in your diet as often as you can:
Kelp, wheat bran, wheat germ, almonds, cashews, buckwheat, brazil nuts, dulse, filberts, millet, pecans, walnuts, rye, tofu, soy beans, brown rice, figs, dates, collard greens, shrimp, avocado, parsley, beans, barley, dandelion greens, and garlic
GUT
What are they?
- Our low fiber, high sugar, processed food, nutrient poor, high calorie diet that makes all the wrong bacteria and yeast grow in the gut leading to a damaged ecosystem.
- Overuse of medications that damage the gut or block normal digestive function – things like anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, acid blocking drugs, steroids.
- Chronic low-grade infections or gut imbalances with overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, or yeast overgrowth or parasites, or even more serious gut infections.
- Toxins damage the gut such as mercury and mold toxins.
- Lack of adequate digestive enzyme function – which can come from acid blocking medication use, or zinc deficiency.
- Stress can alter the gut nervous system causing a leaky gut and change the normal bacteria in the gut.
This has ALL changed since the beginning of the year. My choice to go vegan, give up processed food and sugar, dairy and wheat has eliminated all of these problems. I am still working on rotation of food for the last.
How to get gut health
So how do you keep your gut healthy?
- Eat whole unprocessed foods with plenty of fiber: vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Eat real food, mostly plants, as Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, so simply put it.
- If you think you have food sensitivities try an elimination diet. Cut out gluten, dairy, yeast, corn, soy and eggs for a week or two and see how your gut feels and what happens to your other symptoms.
- Treat any infections or overgrowth of bugs like parasites, small bowel bacteria or yeasts.
- Take digestive enzymes with your food.
- Take probiotics, healthy bacteria for your ecosystem.
- Take extra omega 3 fat supplements, which help cool inflammation in the gut.
- Use gut-healing nutrients such as glutamine and zinc.
DETOXIFICATION
- I have hard, difficult to pass movements every day or every other day
- I am constipated and only go every other day or less often
- I urinate small amounts of dark, strong smelling urine only a few times a day
- I almost never break a real sweat
- I have one or more of the following symptoms: fatigue, muscle aches, headaches, concentration and memory problems
- I have Fibromyalgia or Chronic fatigue syndrome
- I drink tap or well water
- I dry clean my clothes
- I work or live in a “tight” building with poor ventilation or windows that don’t open
- I live in a large urban or industrial area
- I use household or lawn garden chemicals or get my house or apartment treated for bugs by an exterminator
- I have more than 1-2 mercury amalgams
- I eat large fish (swordfish, tuna, shark, tilefish) more than once a week
- I am bothered by one or more of the following: Gasoline or diesel fumes, perfumes, new car smells, fabric stores, dry cleaning, hair spray or other strong odors, soaps, detergents, tobacco smoke, chlorinated water
- I have a negative reaction when I consume foods containing MSG, sulfites (wine, salad bars, dried fruit), sodium benzoate (preservative), red wine, cheese, bananas or chocolate, even a small amount of alcohol, eating food with garlic and onions
- When I drink coffee or caffeine containing substances I feel wired up, an increase in joint and muscle aching or have hypoglycemic symptoms (anxiety, palpitations, sweating, dizziness)
- I regularly consume any of the following substances or medications: acetaminophen (Tylenol), acid blocking drugs (Tagamet, Zantac, Pepcid, Prilosec, Prevacid), hormone modulating medications in pills, patches or creams (the pill, estrogen, progesterone, prostate medication), ibuprofen or naproxen, medications for Colitis or Crohn’s disease, recurrent headaches, allergy symptoms, nausea, diarrhea or indigestion
- I have had jaundice (turning yellow) for any reason or I have been told I have Gilbert’s syndrome (an elevation of a liver test called bilirubin)
- I have a history of any of the following conditions: Breast cancer, smoking induced lung cancer, other type of cancer, prostate problems, food allergies, sensitivities or intolerances
- I have a family history of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or other motor neuron diseases, or multiple sclerosis
How much toxicity is too much
To understand toxicity you must understand the concept of total load.
This is a total amount of stressors on your system at any one time and what happens like glass filling over with water. It takes a certain amount to fill the glass and then, after a certain point, you put more in and it overflows.
When our detoxification system is overwhelmed, is overloaded, that’s when we start getting symptoms and get sick, but it may take years of accumulated stress and toxins to get to that point.
- The total load includes the load of things like heavy metals, mercury and lead, petrochemicals, residues, pesticides and fertilizers.
- It includes food allergies, environmental allergies, molds and toxins from molds.
- It includes a SAD (standard American diet) diet.
- It includes stress — the mental, emotional and spiritual toxins that affect us, the isolation, the loneliness, the anger, the jealousy, hostility, which all translate into toxins in our system.
- Medications can sometimes be toxins. Often we need medications, but the reality is that most of us are over-medicated and use medications for things for which there are better solutions such as lifestyle and diet.
- Lastly, there are internal toxins, things like bacteria, fungus, yeast, that are inside our gut that may be affecting us, as well as hormonal and metabolic toxins that we need to eliminate.
It is because each of us is genetically and biochemically unique. Some of us are good at getting rid of toxins and waste, and others are not. I am not. That is why I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
I became overloaded with mercury and I couldn’t get rid of it because I am missing a gene for GSTM1 – a critical detoxifying enzyme for mercury. But by learning to support my system and learning how to detoxify I was able to cure myself from an incurable condition.
How to detox
There are five key steps to optimal detoxification. Here they are:
- Identify and Get Rid of Toxins
- Fix Your Gut – a source of toxic load for many
- Get Moving – to help your blood and lymphatic circulation do its job
- Get Your Liver and Detox System Working
- Detox your mind, heart and spirit
- Drink plenty of clean water, at least eight to ten glasses of filtered water a day.
- Keep your bowels moving, at least once or twice a day. And if you can’t get going, then you need some help and this can include taking two tablespoons of ground flax seeds, taking acidophilus and extra magnesium capsules in the form of magnesium citrate. If you have any chronic diseases or problems you have to be careful about taking supplements, you should work with your doctor.
- You should also eat organic produce and animal products to eliminate the toxins in our food.
- You should eat eight to ten servings of colorful fruits and vegetables and specifically include, every day, the family of the cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, collards, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, as well as the garlic family, garlic and onions, which help increase sulfur in the body and help detoxification.
- Avoid stimulants, sedatives and drugs, such as caffeine, nicotine, and try to reduce alcohol intake.
- Exercise five days a week with focus on conditioning of your cardiovascular system, strengthening exercises and stretching exercises.
- Get rid of the white menace, which is white flour and white sugar.
- Sweat profusely at least three times a week, using a sauna, steam or a detox bath.
- Take a high-quality multivitamin and mineral.
- Relax deeply every day, to get your nervous system in a state of calm, rest and relaxation.
Depending on your symptoms, genetic predispositions and environmental exposures, you each may need different levels of nutrients and types of treatment. But remember, getting rid of toxins and learning how to optimize your detoxification system is essential for creating UltraWellness.
I highlighted this because I want to make a special point of detoxifying.
ENERGY, MITOCHONDRIA AND OXIDATIVE STRESS
So here’s what to do to protect your mitochondria and prevent rusting.
- Eat less processed, junk food, sugar and empty calories. In fact you should really avoid them altogether
- Detoxify – get rid of environmental and internal toxins
- Address inflammation
- Balance your hormones
Here are things to boost and protect your mitochondria:
- Exercise – interval training increases the efficiency and function of the mitochondria, and strength training increases the amount of muscle and number of mitochondria
- Eat whole real, colorful plant food – 8-12 servings of fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains every day full of antioxidants and phytonutrients
- Take mitochondria protective and energy boosting nutrients such as acetyl-L-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, n-acetyl-cysteine, NADH, D-ribose, resveratrol, magnesium aspartate
- Increase omega 3 fats to help build your mitochondrial membranes
The Mind/Body & Body/Mind Effect
Just consider these facts:- 95% of all illness is caused or worsened by stress
- Low socioeconomic status is associated with poorer health outcomes and risk of death from all causes. This not related to poorer health habits, but to feelings of powerlessness and loss of control
- Internalized racism and stress are associated with high amounts of belly fat
- Stress hormones damage the hippocampus – the memory center in the brain causing memory loss and dementia
- In a study of people who volunteered to have cold viruses injected into their noses, only people with a high level of perceived stress got colds
- Women with metastatic breast cancer survived twice as long if they were part of a support group
- Belonging to a group – a religious group, a bowling club, a quilting group – reduces risk of death from all causes and increases longevity despite health habits.
- In a study of doctors, those who scored high on hostility questionnaires had a higher risk of heart attacks than those who smoked, were overweight, had high blood pressure or didn’t exercise!
- Find the biological causes of problems with the mind by working on all the keys to UltraWellness I have outlined in the last 7 lessons. It could be mercury toxicity or magnesium or B12 deficiency or a toxic gut chemical or gluten allergy that is changing your brain. So by changing your body you can change your mind!
- Learn how to ACTIVELY relax. To engage the powerful forces of the mind on the body you must DO something, you can’t just sit there watching television or drink a beer.
- Try learning new skills such as meditation, deep breathing, yoga, biofeedback, progressive muscle relaxation, take a hot bath, make love, get a massage, watch a sunset, walk in the woods or on the beach.
- Exercise is a powerful way to burn off stress chemicals and heal the mind – well studied and well proven – just do it! It has been proven better than or equal to Prozac for treating depression.
- Clean up your diet from mind robbing molecules like caffeine, alcohol, refined sugars, and eat regularly to avoid the short-term stress of starvation on your body.
- Take a multivitamin and nutrients to help balance the stress response such as vitamin C, the B complex vitamins including B6 and B5 or pantothenic acid, zinc, and most importantly magnesium, the relaxation mineral.
- Use adaptogenic herbs (herbs that help you adapt and be balanced in response to stress) such as ginseng, Rhodiola rosea, Siberian ginseng, Cordyceps, and Ashwaganda
- Take a hot bath or a sauna to help your body deeply relax and turn on the relaxation response.
- Examine your beliefs, attitudes and responses to common situations and consider reframing your point of view to reduce stress
- Consciously build your network of friends, family and community. They are your most powerful allies in achieving long-term health.
I have introduced you to a set of new ideas and concepts that have the power to transform your health personally and to transform health care. It is no small job personally or for our society, but it is essential to stem the impending tsunami of ill health and economic burden facing us, our children and our children’s children.
The solution is UltraWellness, a fundamental change in our world view about health – a view that helps us get to the core of illness, to learn self-care, to take control and empower ourselves for transformation our own health, and to transform our sick care system to a health care system.
Each of us can contribute and makes small changes that will have a big difference and we can move as individuals and as a community toward UltraWellness.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978), Dr. Mark Hyman
(I was going to cut this last part out...but I figured I would leave the mission statement, in respect, for such great information right on his website!)
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Thank you for commenting on my blog. I appreciate the time you took to read it and to offer your remarks. ~Cathy