Hello again Everyone and Happy Fall: As you may know, we are all in a war with inflammation and infection. A major cause of unidentified food sensitivities that leads to gut inflammation can also potentially create nutritional deficiencies critical to maintaining optimal immune function. Standard methods of detecting gluten induced gut damage (endoscopy…a scope to look down into the intestines) fail to detect wheat sensitivity, and thus the authors suggest that using a withdrawal method might still be the best way to identify hidden food sensitivities. (1) You may have seen my previous blogs on the Modified Elimination Diet, also known as Whole 30 and other iterations. Fundamentally, you simply remove the most common inflammatory foods from your diet for at least 3o days (I find that 120 days is much better) and then re-introduce the food and note any symptoms. You can find more ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: Stop Inflammation with Foods
Hello again everyone: This is such an important topic that I will continue to beat it to death until everyone is eating organic and clean…it is the primary path to reducing the burden of chronic disease that we face in this country and around the world. What do the authors say, and they say it best: “Constant overproduction of pro-inflammatory molecules leads to chronic inflammation. Unlike acute inflammation, which is essential for healing, chronic inflammation can delay healing and, if left unchecked, contribute to a host of diseases. There is growing evidence that some dietary factors can play important roles in maintaining health and even reversing the progression of chronic diseases, with anti-inflammatory effects as important underlying mechanism. Such findings add to the body of evidence that certain dietary components, including polyphenols and other types of ... Read more
Covid-19 and Health Update: Vitamin D Remains Essential
Hello everyone: As the summer winds down, we will not be getting as much sun and our Vitamin D status will slowly erode. This is not a good scenario anytime but is especially not a good thing during a viral pandemic. A new study just released Aug. 31, 2021 reported that lower Vitamin D levels predisposed us to increased risk of developing severe Covid-19…here is what the authors conclude: Conclusion: Vitamin D status may play a significant role in developing severe COVID-19 infection. In this study low vitamin D status was associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality in COVID-19 positive patients. There is a plausible anti-inflammatory biological mechanism supporting the protective role of vitamin D in COVID-19 severity. Further research is needed in this area, in the form of randomized control trials, to determine whether there is a cause-effect relationship between low ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: Exercise Improves Vaccination Results
Hello everyone: In this blog, I want to emphasize how exercise can improve our health during this pandemic and beyond. Exercise causes many effects, but I am focusing on how muscle impacts immune function. As we exercise and use our muscles, they secrete different chemicals, and some are called myokines. This class of chemical signaling agents trigger multiple beneficial effects throughout the body, and if our exercise is not chronically high intensity, it will lower inflammation. As you know, inflammation causes, aggravates, or perpetuates all human ailments. If we have a background chronic inflammatory burden, our immune function is impaired and creates a comorbidity that can possibly make viral infections more damaging. “Vaccination programs, although feted for success in reducing infectious disease morbidity and mortality, are limited by vaccine efficacy, which is ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: Food, Inflammation & Chronic Disease Link
Hey everyone: Why do I keep giving you information about food? Perhaps you do not need it, however, at least 70% of our citizens do. So, please pass along this information and reduce the potential misery and suffering of your family, friends, community, and planet! “Chronic illnesses and health problems either wholly or partially attributable to diet account for the largest burden of chronic illnesses and health problems Worldwide. These diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, obesity, dementia etc.) are epidemic in modern societies and typically afflict 50–65% of the adult population, yet they are rare or non-existent in hunter-gatherers and other less Westernized people.” “What the World needs is an integrated and sustainable food policy that makes the best and most appropriate use of the technologies at our disposal to promote ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: Inflammation Clock can Reveal Biological Age
Hey there everyone: As you know, inflammation causes, aggravates, or perpetuates virtually every human illness. On top of that, inflammation is primarily an immune event, i.e., the immune system controls, coordinates and regulates virtually all the inflammatory processes that occur within us. Scientists are beginning to look at our inflammatory burden as one of the primary drivers of aging that can be measured. The more our non-purposeful inflammation is under control and well managed, the healthier we are and the longer we live. Purposeful inflammation is part of the process that keeps us healthy, and it waxes and wanes as needed and does not linger. For example, if we get a cut on our hand, it will turn red, get warm, swell, and hurt…the classical signs of purposeful inflammation because inflammation is the first component of all healing and repair. This inflammation will usually ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: US Dietary Patterns Impair Immune Function
Hello once again everyone: We all know that alongside the pandemic of Covid-19, there is a pandemic of chronic disease that creates comorbidities, and it is this combination that is killing our country and other parts of the world. Here is a paper that outlines how the Standard American Diet (SAD) contributes to alterations in immune competence through changes in our gut immune system and gut microbiome. Here are some quotes from the two links below that are both about the same study: “Eating a Western diet impairs the immune system in the gut in ways that could increase risk of infection and inflammatory bowel disease, according to a study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Cleveland Clinic. The study, in mice and people, showed that a diet high in sugar and fat causes damage to Paneth cells, immune cells in the ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: Diet & Nutrition During the Pandemic
Hello again: Here is a paper detailing the known fact that an optimal immune response to any infectious insult is required to keep infections at bay. This is really straightforward information about a vital topic considering that diet is a primary contributor to overall health, future risk for disease, as well as adequate immune response and a lower inflammatory burden. Here are the basics from the abstract: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/6/1562/htm “The coronavirus-disease 2019 (COVID-19) was announced as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Challenges arise concerning how to optimally support the immune system in the general population, especially under self-confinement. An optimal immune response depends on an adequate diet and nutrition in order to keep infection at bay. For example, sufficient ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: It is Still About Inflammation & Comorbidities
Hello Everyone: You probably know that over 90% of the deaths related to Covid-19 are among those with the most comorbidities. You also probably know that we are having an ongoing pandemic of chronic disease as well as Covid-19. And furthermore, you probably also know that both of these pandemics are fueled by inflammation, i.e., chronic diseases such as heart disease, pre-diabetes, obesity, overweight, brain fog and dementia, fatigue and infectious disease are associated with chronic low-grade inflammation. Here is a great paper to help summarize this information along with what we can do about it. It is well written, and you do not need a science background to get this important information. Along with standard medical care, incorporating an anti-inflammatory lifestyle can significantly reduce the risks of these issues. Here are some selected quotes: Read more
Covid-19 and Health Update: Dietary Alterations Effective for Migraine
Hello Everyone: This blog related indirectly to Covid-19, as you will see below. I am reporting on new research that reveals that the composition of essential fatty acids (EFA’s) in the diet has a profound influence on migraine frequency and severity. Here are the essentials: https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1448 What is already known on this topic
- Modern industrialized diets tend to be low in n-3 eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and high in n-6 linoleic acid
- These fatty acids serve as precursors to endogenous signaling molecules (oxylipins) shown to increase (linoleic acid) or decrease (EPA+DHA) pain in preclinical models
- Adults with chronic and episodic migraine in the United States were randomized to the H3 diet ... Read more
