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What's New at the Practice?
The clinic is now a virtual/telehealth practice. Please look to the information above for an explanation of a telehealth practice and how to make an appointment from the comfort of your home.
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We accept HSA Medical Cards!
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KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
ARTICLES TO HEAL BY ...
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Study: Sugar hidden in junk food eight times more addictive than cocaine
A junk food addiction is a lot more like a drug addiction than researchers previously thought. They now claim sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine.
Dr. Nicole Avena of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai tells The Huffington Post that pizza is the most addictive food by far due to the hidden sugar you'll find in just once slice. The tomato sauce on the pizza, for example, can have more sugar than a few Oreos.
Other extremely addictive foods are chips, cookies and ice cream.
Cucumbers are the least addictive food, followed by carrots and beans.
Dr. Avena found behaviors and attitudes toward some foods closely mirror addiction patterns. The most addictive foods are the ones which are high on the glycemic index.
"Several studies really do suggest that highly-palatable, highly-processed foods can produce behaviors and changes in the brain that one would use to diagnose an addiction, like drugs and alcohol," Avena says.
Cardiologist Dr. James O'Keefe says sugar contributes to cardiovascular disease, as well as liver disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and Alzheimer's disease.
"When we eat wheat flour and sugar in processed foods, spikes our sugar, then insulin. Those are the hormonal disturbances that make you store belly fat, and then you are hungry for more sweets and starchy junk food," O'Keefe told KCTV.
O'Keefe says it can take six weeks to kick a sugar addiction, and you can experience strong cravings almost like a drug withdrawal. But he says the long term benefits are worth it.
"Blood pressure comes down, diabetes goes away, obesity goes away, complexion clears up, mood clears up, sleep improves. It is really, really striking," O'Keefe told KCTV.
So what should you eat? O'Keefe recommends a "back to the basics" diet.
"Lots of vegetables, lots of fruits and nuts, berries and water and sparkling water," O'Keefe said. "I'll tell you they are not happy. Had to get rid of cereal, Pop Tarts and crackers."
How can sugar be more dangerous than cocaine?
Highly addictive
Sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine. In fact, it lights up the brain like a christmas tree—affecting the same regions of the brain as cocaine – and heroins-use elicits.
The food industry hires “craveability experts” in order to assure you get addicted to their processed foods. These guys are paid to invent “addictive, hyper palatable processed junk foods” with the goal of capturing the biggest market share—what the insiders call ‘stomach share’ (Dr. Lustig). Sugar is technically a poison that the body can process in small amounts. Yet, we’re currently overdosed 2-3 times that, and as our tolerance to sugar increases, we need more and more of it to get the same effects.
Animal testing is not recommended nor supported, yet it’s worth mentioning that animals who were put on electric shock continued to consume sugar while being shocked. A human being would most likely cease snorting cocaine if under such pressure.
Easy access
You can get a hold of this white powder (and its other forms) by walking into any store or shopping mall. It’s well-stocked on the shelves of grocery and convenience stores, strip malls, shopping malls, drug stores, and fast food chains. You don’t need a prescription, nor are you required to be “of age.” Minors can indulge it until their hearts desire, and many do. Convenience is no joke as it’s laced throughout the kitchen pantries of most homes. Not only can you eat it—you can drink it too!
Legal
You don’t need to go undercover, meet your dealer in a dark alley, or be prepared to run from the police in order to score some. In fact, police officers, with their enduring long hours alongside their coffee and donut addictions, are as high on it as anyone. This drug is legal, anyone can buy it, and it’s everywhere. It doesn’t get any more genius, nor profitable, for those lining their pockets beckoning their addicts.
Highly promoted
Print marketing, such as magazines and billboards, constantly remind you how much you need it. Television, with more commercial-filled minutes than quality material, purposefully use subliminal marketing to ‘hook’ you on their drug of choice. The food and drug industry is incestuous. Those who fund the mis-represented research on sugar naming it ‘safe,’ are none other than the sugar-pushers themselves, camouflaged by fancy organizational names.
Disguised as reputable health and nutritional organizations with your best interest at heart lie such culprits as Coca-cola, General Foods, General Mills, Nestles, and the list goes on. Science finds it difficult to accomplish much without sponsors, and those who sponsor the research are none other than those who reap the benefits. The systems intended to help keep you healthy and your food safe, including the FDA, are broken and in most cases corrupt.
Their vision is impaired by the tremendous profits they reap from a long laundry list of addictive substances they promote, including processed foods, fast food, sodas (all of which are burdened with sugar) and even pharmaceuticals. Sugar is a widespread culprit, therefore—quite possibly the most dangerous.
‘Hidden’ sugars
The mere fact that sugars are often hidden from the consumer is largely why it’s so dangerous. The majority of sugar-aholics aren’t aware that beyond being seduced by their sweet tooth, they’re also being consistently dosed with sugar present in processed foods.
It’s become quite difficult to find foods beyond the produce section that aren’t ridden with sugar. In fact, there are approximately 600,00 different food items sold in a typical grocery store of which approximately 80% of them have added sugar.
More often than not, sugar falls in the top half of the ingredients list signifying that it’s been added in abundance. Unfortunately, few people have learned how to read food labels. Those who do read labels are often fooled because they don’t realize “fruit juice concentrate” is one of the many ways they hide sugar. People assume fruit is always good— which is far from the truth.
It’s far more complicated than looking for high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The fact that the use of fructose is eight-fold that of its use in the 1950’s should concern you, but it’s the multitude of ways in which it’s ‘hidden’ that’s really disconcerting.
Keep in mind there is not a Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of sugar. You don’t need it. The sugar you consume from eating fresh fruits is really more than enough, and anything beyond that begins to wreck havoc on your body.
Socially accepted
Everyone is doing it. It’s socially accepted and even peer-pressured to indulge in sugar. In fact, if you don’t eat sugar, you’re quite likely to catch drift about it from colleagues, friends, and family. “Ah, com’on just have one little slice, it’s not going to kill you.”
Or ”Don’t worry, eat this piece of chocolate and you’ll forget all about it.” We use sugar just like any other drug, as ‘pick-me-ups’—energetically and emotionally. The next thing you know you can’t live without it.
Leads to Obesity
Equally accepted by society is the overweight epidemic (largely created by sugar consumption). Being overweight has become as common and socially accepted as sugar addiction, which brings it’s own set of problems.
Sugar plays a primary role in the extra pounds carried around by our society. For example, when fructose is consumed, it doesn’t trigger the typical insulin response that tells your body that you ate anything. Instead it goes straight to the liver. Rather than converting to glycogen it becomes fat. It basically says to the body “make fat and stay hungry”.
The food industry amplifies the problem focusing on calories as the solution for weight-loss. All calories are not created equal. What this causes is people forgoing 100 calories of a healthy food, such as almonds, in order to eat 100 calories worth of M&Ms.
Elusive addiction
Like most addicts, sugar-addicts don’t realize they’re hooked. And even when they do, they justify:
“I know I shouldn’t eat sugar but I love it.” Or, “I know it’s bad for me but I don’t do anything else that’s bad for me.”
The average American consumes 150 pounds of added sugars each year.
A favorite quote that really hits home here is…”to know and not to do—is not to know”. When people really comprehend the reality of sugar, when they really figure out what’s in processed food, they’d be insane to continue eating it—at least in the quantities in which they currently do. It’s with good reason that people feel remarkably better when they quit eating process foods and/or sugars.
Creates and Feeds Disease
Not that cocaine won’t lead to illness if you snort enough of it, it’s yet important to note that sugar not only creates but also feeds chronic degenerative disease. Consumption of sugar is linked to insulin resistance, Diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, obesity and quite possibly cancer and dementia. It feeds nearly every disease process, particularly cancer and candida. Cancer cells love sugar, as do parasites. Yeast, and therefore candida, as well as other detrimental bacteria thrive on sugar and acidity (which sugar also creates).
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Dr. Christopher on Diabetes
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The Ravages of Alzheimer's
According to Dr. Christopher, "Alzheimer’s is a progressive condition that damages the areas of the brain involved with memory, intelligence, judgment, behavior and language. It is the most common form of mental decline, or dementia in older adults. Alzheimer’s is more severe than the mild memory loss that many people encounter as they grow older. It affects not only memory, but behavior, the ability to think and to function from day to day, and personality. Generally close family members notice the symptoms first."
Symptoms:
Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s relies primarily on the appearance of symptoms. The main symptoms, memory loss and the loss of the ability to communicate, become more pronounced as time goes on. They might start to have trouble doing daily tasks, might appear disoriented or lost in familiar settings, and may also display personality changes. They may also develop depression, paranoia, or general unease.
Risk Factors:
Family History of Alzheimer’s Disease
Presence of apolipoprotein E-4 gene
Smoking. Studies have been done that show that more cases of Alzheimer’s develop in men and women who smoke than in people that do not smoke.
Head Injury. There is growing evidence that head injuries can lead to Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in people who have a family history of Alzheimer’s.
Elevated homocysteine levels. Research is suggesting that people with higher homocysteine levels are at an increased risk for Alzheimer’s. This can be caused by low levels of vitamin B12 and folate.
Exposure to lead. The research is early, but studies indicate that people who have been exposed to lead may be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
Exposure to Zinc. Studies are inconclusive at this point, but evidence is showing that zinc may play a role in Alzheimer’s. Zinc is an important part of a healthy diet, so make sure that you get your zinc in an organic form, just to be on the safe side.
Exposure to Aluminum. Studies are contradictory, but have shown that inorganic aluminum may cause Alzheimer’s. To be on the safe side, don’t cook with aluminum pans, and get your aluminum organically.
Depression. Studies show that those with depression are 58% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
He mentioned several herbal medications that he had seen work in the past:
Gingko. Increases circulation to the brain, aids in countering memory loss.
Rosemary. Rosemary has been traditionally known as the remembrance herb. Using rosemary in cooking, as well as the essential oil would probably be beneficial.
Other Treatments:
Sunshine and Exercise. Studies have been done that have shown that 20 minutes of sunshine and exercise a day lead to a marked improvement among Alzheimer’s patients.
Brazil nuts. Brazil nuts are high in lecithin, which contains choline. Choline is a building block of acetylcholine. Acetylcholine breakdown has been shown to be a factor in Alzheimer’s.
Keeping Active. Keeping both the body and the mind active will go a long way to staving off Alzheimer’s disease.
Gardening: James Duke recommends keeping an herb garden as not only a source of herbs to combat Alzheimer’s, but as a way to preserve brain function. Gardening requires thought, creativity, and physical activity.
For myself in my practice, one of the most important protocols I found was in the diet. Dr. Christopher called it the musous-less diet, a vegan diet consisting mainly of raw, living, whole foods. This was made up of fruits and vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds.
It is interesting that has found some support in the medical community with the discovery of type 3 diabetes. Most of us know about types 1 and 2 but it was only around 2005 that type 3 was discovered and was found to have a relation to memory. I will discuss this in the next article following this one.
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The link between type 3 diabetes and memory loss
Type 3 diabetes is a controversial name sometimes used to refer to Alzheimer's disease, a type of progressive dementia. Strong links have been made between the two conditions, most notably that dementia may be triggered by a type of insulin resistance occurring specifically in the brain.
According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), aside from advanced age having diabetes or prediabetes is the second biggest risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.1 Although a small amount of research found an increased risk of dementia with type 1 diabetes, the vast majority of studies have concluded that this link between diabetes and Alzheimer's is specific to type 2 diabetes.
However, classifying Alzheimer's as type 3 diabetes is controversial, and many in the medical community are unwilling to recognize type 3 diabetes as a medical diagnosis until more research is done.
The Connection Between Alzheimer's and Diabetes
Studies show the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease among people with diabetes is 65% higher than that of those without diabetes.1 With such a strong link, research has focused on explaining the connection between the two diseases.
In type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease, the cells that produce insulin, called beta cells, are attacked by the body's immune system, causing glucose to build up to high levels in the bloodstream.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when insulin becomes less sensitive to glucose (sugar) and therefore less efficient at removing it from the bloodstream, allowing it to build up rather than being taken into the cells to be used for energy.
In Alzheimer's disease, it appears a similar problem of insulin resistance occurs, but rather than affecting the body as a whole, the effects are localized in the brain.
In studies of people's brains after death, researchers have noted the brains of those who had Alzheimer's disease but did not have type 1 or type 2 diabetes showed many of the same abnormalities as the brains of those with diabetes, including low levels of insulin in the brain.2 It was this finding that led to the theory that Alzheimer's is a brain-specific type of diabetes—"type 3 diabetes."
Studies go on to find that this condition can lead to a plaque build up in the brain, between the neurons, thereby, blocking the signals.
WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT
Like both other types of diabetes, diet seems to play a significant role. Most American's diet is so filled with processed carbohydrates, simple sugars and low fiber, it is no wonder the pancreas becomes stressed thereby creating an insulin issue. As Dr. Christopher constantly stated, throughout his lifetime, a diet rich in raw, living foods, the mucous-less diet, can do more for healing not only the rest of the body, but the brain itself. I have seen in my practice, when patients with forms of dementia and memory loss, changed their diets to one of living, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds, they would show a remarkable increase in cognitive function as well as an increased memory capacity. Sadly, as another article in this newsletter presents, sugar is extremely addictive and most will not make the necessary changes in their diet to promote healing. As Dr. Christopher stated, "Talk to a friend about their diet and you will lose a friend?. Amen.
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HERB OF THE MONTH
Feverfew
What is Feverfew?
While some people grow feverfew as an ornamental flower, due to its aesthetically appealing flowers, this plant scientifically known as Tanacetum parthenium is far more commonly used in traditional medicine and modern herbal therapies. These are hardy flowers and can often spread to large areas of land quickly, which is why some cultures see it as an invasive weed. However, people who recognize the value of feverfew appreciate this durable and resilient nature. Native to Eurasia, feverfew now enjoys a global presence and can be found on all major continents.
Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) is a flowering plant of the Asteraceae family.
Its name comes from the Latin word febrifugia, meaning “fever reducer.” Traditionally, feverfew was used to treat fevers and other inflammatory conditions.
In fact, some people call it the “medieval aspirin”.
Feverfew contains a variety of active compounds, such as flavonoids and volatile oils. However, its main compound of interest is parthenolide, found in the plant’s leaves.
Studies show that parthenolide may be behind most of the potential health benefits of Feverfew.
THE RELATION BETWEEN FEVERFEW AND MIGRAINES
For centuries, people have been taking feverfew to treat migraines.
Migraines are moderate to severe headaches that affect one side of the head. They’re typically accompanied by throbbing, pulsating, or pounding pain.
In test-tube studies, compounds in feverfew — such as parthenolide and tanetin — helped stop the production of prostaglandins, which are molecules that promote inflammation.
Other test-tube studies show that parthenolide may inhibit serotonin receptors, prevent blood platelets from releasing inflammatory molecules, stop blood vessels in the brain from widening (vasodilation), and stop smooth muscle spasms.
All of these factors have been linked to migraines.
Health Benefits
Feverfew leaves (either dried or fresh) and fever extracts are purported to have many health benefits. Not all of these benefits are supported by scientific evidence.
In alternative medicine, feverfew is typically used as a herbal remedy for the following conditions:
- Psoriasis
- Menstrual cramps
- Asthma
- Skin conditions
- Stomachaches
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Test-tube experiments have demonstrated that feverfew may help fight the inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis, although no human studies have proven feverfew to be more useful than placebo in the treatment of this disease.
Pancreatic Cancer
In a 2005 study, scientists discovered that parthenolide extracted from feverfew inhibited the growth of pancreatic cancer cells in the lab. While medical experts report that that feverfew seems to be well tolerated among cancer patients, it's too soon to tell whether feverfew may be useful in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
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Seasoned Stuffing Loaf Recipe
Ingredients
2 large Carrots
1 cup Almonds – soaked
1 cup Walnuts – soaked
1 cup Sunflower seeds – soaked
½ Red Pepper – finely diced
¼ Red Onion – finely diced
1 Celery stalk – finely diced
1 cup Mushrooms – diced and marinated in 3 Tbsp Tamari
2 Garlic cloves – minced
½ tsp Poultry seasoning, or Savory
½ tsp Rosemary
½ tsp Thyme
1 tsp Onion powder
2 tsp Salt
Directions
Chop vegetables and marinate mushrooms. Rinse and drain all nuts and seeds. Process these with carrots and garlic as fine as possible in a food processor or put through a single gear juicer with blank plate to grind extra fine. Transfer this to a large bowl and add the rest of ingredients: chopped vegetables, seasonings along with the marinated mushrooms and tamari they were being marinated in. Mix all well together (hands work best).
Form 2 loaves on teflex sheets and dehydrate for 3 to 4 hours. This will soften the vegetables and help meld and bring out the flavours.
Slice and serve with Cranberry sauce. This is also great as leftovers and great eaten cold or warmed up. Keeps well in the fridge for up to a week.
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Raw, Vegan Egg Nog
What you need:
1 banana
1 cup almond milk
1 tsp agave nectar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
spiced rum or brandy (optional)
What you do:
1. In a blender, combine banana, almond milk, agave nectar, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
2. Cold Option: If you prefer it cool, add alcohol to the blender and mix.
3. Warm Option: If you prefer it warm, place in saucepan over low-medium heat; heat until warm. Pour in glass and add spiced rum or brandy, if desired.
Serve and enjoy!
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Laughter Is Good Medicine
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