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The following is a video of an excellent presentation by Dr. Dean Ornish on the remarkable healing effects that come from simply living a healthy lifestyle.
Dr. Dean Ornish: Healing and other natural wonders
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Many people these days fail to get adequate sleep due to being busy and trying to squeeze too much into their schedules. Oftentimes people don’t realize the importance of sleep in health other than of course, not feeling sleepy. But adequate sleep is important in several aspects of health, incuding mental function, weight control, muscle building, resistance to the effects of aging, and joint and soft tissue repair.
Some of these important aspects of sleep you may be aware of. Most people realize that without adequate sleep, their mental functioning and memory is impaired. This is not just a short-term issue either. While the research is just beginning, there is some speculation that chronic sleep deprivation may be involved in various neurodegenerative disorders and severe loss of brain function in later life.
Few people are aware that sleep is an important factor in weight loss and muscle building. Without adequate sleep, the body does not produce significant amounts of growth hormone, which is an important fat-burning hormone. In addition, sleep deprivation leads to alterations in hormones that control hunger, typically resulting in increased hunger and subsequent increased eating and weight gain.
Growth hormone is also important in the stimulation of muscle growth from exercise, so inadequate sleep can dramatically interfere with getting maximum results from an exercise program. For those who perform heavy exercise, the decreased growth hormone from lack of sleep results in delays in muscle recovery and may actually lead to a situation in which the heavy exercise breaks down muscle faster than the body can re-build it. This results in a net loss of muscle mass and conditioning and may lead to overuse injuries.
As with muscles,other soft tissues may begin to break down faster due to diminished growth hormone caused by sleep deprivation. This includes connective tissues in joints and even the skin. Over time, sleep deprivation leads to premature aging of the tissues and increases the appearance of aging in the skin and may predispose the joints to arthritis.
In my experience with treating pain syndromes, most patients who are chronically sleep deprived are far more pain sensitive and more prone to developing trigger points and tightness in their muscles. One gentleman I have been treating over the years shows dramatic differences in the state of his muscles when he is getting only 3 to 4 hours of sleep per night versus getting 6 or 7. With greater amounts of sleep, his muscles are much looser and he has far less tenderness. These differences appear to be primarily sleep-related as his stress levels and other lifestyle factors stay relatively constant.
By now you probably are beginning to appreciate how important it is to get adequate sleep. So, what is “adequate”? It varies to some extent, but for most individuals about 7 hours of (mostly) undisturbed sleep per night is necessary for normal production of growth hormone. Some people need a little more than that, and some can get by with a little less, but a minimum of 7 hours is usually a good target to shoot for.
If you’ve been getting by on much less than that, you may be surprised at how much better you feel once you change your habits to get more sleep. Not only will you feel more rested and mentally alert, but chances are you will find it much easier to get results from your weight loss or exercise regimen and you’ll probably also be pleasantly surprised at how much better you look and feel overall.
Stay tuned to my blog for more natural remedies to keep you healthy!
→ 1 CommentTags: Memory Loss · Trigger Points · Healthy Lifestyle · Weight Control
Ask Your Doctor…
This clip from “Real Time With Bill Maher” is a humorous look at the fundamental problems with the way we approach health in industrialized nations, particularly the United States.
Stay tuned for more on healthy living here on my blog.
→ No CommentsTags: Humor · Healthy Lifestyle
Why Soy Is NOT a Health Food www.mercola.com
As a natural health care provider, I commonly get questions about soy. Dr. Mercola covers the topic very thoroughly in this informative video. Many people are under the impression that eating a lot of soy products is healthy because the soy industry has produced considerable propaganda suggesting that soy is one of the main reasons that people living in Asia are typically much healthier overall than Americans. While the relative health of people in Asia and people in the West is subject to debate, the actual consumption of soy in Asian countries is actually relatively low. Soy foods such as tofu are typically eaten in small quantities, more as a condiment or otherwise small part of some meals, not as a staple as it is often used in vegetarian diets in the U.S..
In addition, the soy consumed in Asia is actual soy, not the genetically modified version that is the primary form available to Americans. While the long-term effects of consuming genetically modified foods are still unknown, there is considerable concern about them in Europe and Asia and some concerns starting to develop among health experts in the United States.
While consuming soy now and then is probably harmless and possibly even beneficial, frequent consumption of non-fermented soy products is ill-advised for the multiple reasons discussed in the video.
Stay tuned for more health and nutrition tips here on my natural remedies blog.
→ No CommentsTags: Healthy Lifestyle
A common thing I hear from both my patients and from people in general is that they are trying to lose weight to get healthier. Of course, for many “get healthier” is code for “look better and be more attractive”, but that’s a whole different issue. Most people are under the impression that being overweight is causing their arthritis, their high blood pressure, their diabetes, and a host of other health problems. Many doctors reinforce this concept and may say things like, “Mr. Jones, you simly MUST lose weight to get that blood pressure of yours under control”. But is being overweight the CAUSE of health problems, or is it just another SYMPTOM?
Yes, numerous research studies have shown an association between being overweight/obese and having other health problems. But an association simply means that they are commonly seen together. It does not prove that one causes the other.
Think about it for a minute, do ALL overweight people have high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.? I can tell you that from 15 years of experience as a health care provider, the answer is “No”. Let’s look at the opposite side of the coin. Do normal weight or skinny people EVER get high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.? The answer is absolutely “Yes”. So, obviously, being overweight in and of itself is NOT the cause of high blood pressure, diabetes, and other conditions commonly associated with being overweight.
In fact, as I mentioned before, being overweight or obese is actually just another symptom of some other underlying problem. Now, that problem may be physical or emotional, or some combination of he two. It may even be a conscious choice for some people who, for one reason or another, prefer being overweight.
For the purposes of this article, I won’t be discussing emotional and personal choice reasons for someone being overweight any further, but I wanted to acknowledge those factors.
The physical causes of being overweight usually come down to the interactions and balances of various hormones. Most people who are overweight due to physical causes will have one or more of four basic underlying problems. These can be categorized as the thyroid pattern, the adrenal pattern, the liver pattern, and the estrogen pattern. These basic patterns were first described by Dr. Eric Berg. Dr. Berg references the last pattern as the “Ovary” pattern, but I have found that it is primarily related to excess estrogen, and it can occur in males (who have no ovaries, but do have some estrogen), so I feel it is more correct to refer to it as the estrogen pattern (with all due respect to Dr. Berg). More information is available on these patterns on other posts on this blog, and more will be added in the future. For this article though, I simply want to make you aware of these basic patterns.
This brings me back to the concept of losing weight to get healthy. In actuality, most people would do better to focus on getting healthy to lose weight. For example, someone with a liver pattern will typically have an extremely difficult time losing weight because their excess weight is largely in the form of water retention. You can’t exercise away water retention and while diet is important to help the liver pattern, the wrong diet can actually make things worse. Specifically, a high-protein program like the Atkins diet will almost always make someone with the liver pattern GAIN weight. It will also tend to give them elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels and increase their blood pressure. This is not to say that the Atkins diet is a bad diet. It’s just completely wrong for someone with the liver pattern.
Diet isn’t the only factor though that determines whether someone becomes healthy enough to lose weight. Exercise is another big factor. For example, the best type of exercise for someone with the thyroid pattern (high intensity, short duration exercise) would be the worst type of exercise for someone with the adrenal pattern.
When you know what to look for, the body will give you signs to tell you what’s wrong and what needs to be done to restore balance and health. Once balance and health are restored, losing weight becomes a much easier process.
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more on getting healthy to lose weight.
