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Holistic Solutions for Celiac Disease in Kingston, NY

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Whole-body wellness for Celiac disease in Kingston, NY

Celiac Disease in Kingston, NY

Are you living with Celiac disease in Kingston, NY (or anywhere, really)? Are you frustrated that despite strictly adhering to a gluten-free diet, you still suffer from bouts of diarrhea, constipation, stomach upset, bloating or abdominal pain? Do you frequently have other symptoms like constant fatigue, headaches, achey joints, or muscle pain that leave you feeling run down and unable to accomplish what you need to? Do you have trouble getting enough restful & restorative sleep to feel your best each day?

If you’re looking for better solutions to heal from Celiac disease, we can help!

While it’s true that there is no cure for Celiac disease, your body can heal from the damage caused by CD. Once gluten is completely removed from the diet, we know that cells of the small intestine can repair themselves to create a healthier gut, leading to a decrease in symptoms. However, it often takes more than just removing gluten to restore the integrity of the gut lining and limit antibody formation.

Other foods, particularly other grains, can cause cross-reactivity. This is when there is enough overlap between the protein structures that similar antibodies are made, even though gluten itself is not consumed. Therefore, even on a gluten-free diet, chronic inflammation of the gut can continue to be an issue. This often results in continued symptoms.

If you have been diagnosed with Celiac disease, the imbalance and inflammation in your gut has been occurring for a period of months, probably even years, before you started having the symptoms that lead to your diagnosis. In that time, other changes in gut function may have occurred that are also preventing you from healing from the symptoms of CD, such as gut flora imbalances or SIBO infections (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). While a gluten-free diet is the first step in recovering from such imbalances, more may need to be done, including the removal of other types of foods that may be ‘feeding’ the bad bacteria in your gut.

Another reason why you may still have symptoms is that there is still an immune system imbalance. While removing gluten from your diet helps stop the damage of your intestine, it may not be enough to calm down the chronic inflammation of your immune system. Left unchecked, this chronic inflammation may lead to develop of other autoimmune diseases in the future.

In the meantime, this chronic inflammation can drive hormone imbalances that lead to poor sleep, chronic fatigue and malaise, muscle aches, joint pain, headaches or brain fog. The chronically elevated levels of cortisol in response to chronic inflammation can also cause depletion of hormones like progesterone and testosterone. This may result in low libido, mood swings, increased PMS symptoms or even infertility.

The symptoms and problems caused by Celiac disease can show up in all parts of the body. That’s why it takes a holistic solution to find true wellness. If you’d like to learn more about a functional medicine approach to Celiac disease, please read this article. You can also learn more about why a gluten-free diet may not be enough of a solution here.

If you are suffering with Celiac disease in Kingston, NY there is a better solution. I work with patients regularly just like you, to help them find the diet and lifestyle based solutions to feel better and have more energy. I offer a free 15 minute consultation if you would like to find out more about how I can specifically help you. Call me at 845-687-6387 to find out how I can help you live better with Celiac Disease in Kingston, NY.

How to REALLY heal after surgery

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Last week, my husband had a bad accident at work that resulted in an open compound fracture of the tibia and fibula. He was rushed to the hospital for emergency orthopedic surgery to place pins to internal fix his ankle. He will be fine, but has been instructed to not place any weight on the ankle for 5 weeks. He’ll need at least 3 months of physical therapy and rehab after that.

I am not surgeon, but I do know how to heal & grow new bone and recover from surgery. Several years ago I had to have a series of surgeries myself to remove a tumor from my jawbone. My post-op progress had to be measured with periodic x-rays. The prognosis was that it would take 3 years for the bone tissue I lost to fully grow back. I replaced the bone I lost from the surgery in about a year. I plan to employ these same therapies to help my husband heal and recover from his fracture and subsequent surgery as well.

If you have had surgery, or have an impending surgery, here are some of the strategies that you can use to help you heal quickly and recover fully.

1. MOVE. As soon as your surgeon gives the OK, start moving as much as you can within your pain tolerance. Tissues in your body undergo a process called “immobilization degeneration” that can be measured at the cellular level within 24 hours of immobilization. Many tissues, particularly the cartilage in your joints, rely on movement in order to pump nutrient-rich blood in, and waste-product-filled lymph, back out. Try to get out of bed and start walking around as soon as your doctors and nurses give you the green light. Use assistance if necessary (and those socks with the sticky little grips on the bottom. You might be a little unsteady on your feet due pain meds and lack of food. Expect your balance to be if-y.)

2. VITAMIN D3- Many people know that Vitamin D is important, but they don’t know exactly why. Vitamin D has many functions in the body, but one particular one is supporting the function of T-regulatory cells. If you think of your immune system as a symphony orchestra, than T-regulatory cells are the conductor. Vitamin D helps the conductor conduct- and having the immune system all reading from the same page of music is going to be important in recovering well. If you’re recovering from some sort of orthopedic surgery, I would recommend a good quality cod liver oil, something with Vitamins A, D, and K, which are all extremely important in proper synthesis of new bone tissue. The product that I took after my surgeries and that my husband is currently taking is the Blue Ice Green Pastures fermented cod liver oil/high vitamin butter oil blend. My research indicates that this is the highest quality cod liver oil supplement you can take. Unlike many cod liver oil supplements that process the natural vitamins out of the cod liver oil and then add synthetic ones back in, the Green Pastures product uses an ancient fermentation process that concentrates the natural vitamins. In addition to taking a product like this, get out and get some sunshine. The fresh air and sunshine will do wonders for the body. It’s no accident that before we had the benefit of antibiotics, patients with tuberculosis would go to sanitariums/solariums for rest and rehabilitation. Laying in the sun and developing a tan was a way to increase Vitamin D production. You have to do this without sunscreen however, as that blocks the production of Vitamin D (and never try to tan under glass either). So be smart about your sun exposure. If you are very pale or burn easily, start very slowly and work your way up as your tan deepens. Make sure you can go inside or get out of the sun as soon as you notice the first signs of pink on your skin to avoid overdoing it and getting a sunburn. I spent a very pleasant week at the beach in September healing from my last surgery. The Vitamin D I stored not only helped me heal, but also avoid a period of depression that winter that I had thought was normal.

3. BONE BROTH. Acai and goji and cocao get all the credit. Probably because of their rich, vibrant colors. Bone broth might not be much to look at it, but it is at least as much as superfood at those Amazonian juggernauts, maybe more so because it can be made from the leftovers & scraps. Its an excellent way to get the most bang for your buck from the grassfed and pastured meats you are buying. Not only that, but its is full of calcium and minerals for bone growth as well as collagen synthesis. I made a big batch of bone broth before my surgeries so that I could sip on it for the weeks after I recovered. I’m giving my husband a mug of broth just about everyday. The key to really nutritive bone broth is to let bones sit, covered with water for about an hour with 1/4-1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar. The acidity of the vinegar will help pull the minerals out of the bones and into the broth. Broth, especially if knuckle bones, chicken or pig’s feet are used, will also be really rich in gelatin, which helps with cartilage and soft tissue synthesis. A good quality gelatin supplement from grassfed cows can also be used. I have been using the product from Great Lakes, but I also just ordered the Vital Proteins Beef Gelatin and Collagen Peptides products for my husband and I. (So stay tuned and you may see a future post from me about my experience with the Vital Proteins products.) Another great thing about broth is that your system might not tolerate a whole lot of food after surgery. Broth is easy to get (and keep) down while providing infinitely more nutrition than sugar-laden ‘juices’ and saltine-type crackers with almost no nutrition whatsoever.

4. PROBIOTICS. You will have to take some amount of antibiotics after your surgery to reduce the risk of a post-op infection.  Unfortunately, this can wreck havoc on your gut microbiome and lead to imbalances in your gut bacteria that may lead to the overgrowth of opportunistic parasites and a slow erosion of your health. Make sure to discuss this with your pharmacist and physician first, but start a course of probiotics as soon as you can. Either while you’re on the antibiotics if cleared to do so, or as soon as you finish them. Look for a good probiotic supplement that has a wide range of types of bacteria and yeasts in it and at least 30-50 million CFU in a dose.

5. MANAGE STRESS. Repairing from surgery is major stress on the body, a good and necessary one, but still a stress. Unfortunately, too much stress can cause the adrenal glands to output too much of a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol has several functions, but one of the things it does is suppress the immune system. Since it is the immune system that is helping us heal and repair after surgery, this is generally not ideal (unless we are talking about organ transplant surgery.) Do what you can to slow down and take it easy on yourself as you recover. My beach vacation after surgery was not just about Vitamin D, but decreasing stress as well (I’m generally not a lay on the beach and no nothing for my vacation kind of gal- I usually prefer to use that time to scale a mountain side somewhere). Take it easy when you first go back to the gym. Don’t expect to do a lot of high intensity work. Plan to walk, do yoga, tai chi or other gentler forms of exercise. Breathe, meditate, or just lay in the sunshine and take a mental break. Delegate tasks to those offering to help and take as much time off from work as you can afford.

Most importantly, take the time to be really nice to your body. Feed it good quality food, with lots of nutrient-dense, colorful fruits and vegetables. Use the time to hit a “reset” button on your system and do as much as you can to invest in getting as healthy as possible.

 

Glutathione: What it is and why you need (more of) it!

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The short answer here is that glutathione is your body’s main antioxidant. As with any antioxidant, its main function is to reduce free radicals within the body. The damage caused by free radicals accelerates the aging process, as the free radicals destroy essential compounds and tissues, like the lining of your arteries or even your DNA itself.

Inflammation can also increase the production of free radicals and therefore the need for glutathione. In fact, almost any inflammatory condition can be helped by ensuring the body is adequately synthesizing glutathione.

Outside of inflammatory conditions that might call for more glutathione synthesis, we may become deficient in glutathione because of insufficient dietary intake of the necessary building blocks of glutathione. In particular, the amino acid cysteine, which is rare in food, is often a limiting factor in glutathione synthesis.

Magnesium and selenium are two minerals also necessary for the production and function of glutathione. Due to modern farming practices, both of these minerals can be hard to come by in adequate amounts through just diet alone. Vitamin D3 has also been shown to augment glutathione synthesis.

So how can you insure that you have adequate amounts of this very important antioxidant on hand?

  1. Whey protein has been shown to increase glutathione synthesis.
  2. Supplementation with N-acetyl cysteine has been shown to be useful. SAMe has also shown to be beneficial
  3. Optimize your Vitamin D levels by making sure you get 15-20 minutes of sun (or more if you have darker skin) on unprotected skin daily, year around. Consider supplementation if this is difficult.
  4. Make sure you get adequate magnesium and selenium. Magnesium is a safe & effective supplement that almost everyone should be on. Three Brazil nuts eaten daily can help insure adequate selenium levels.

Could your symptoms be caused by leaky gut syndrome?

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Leaky what?

Leaky gut. Also known in the scientific literature as increased intestinal permeability, this syndrome is more common then most people think and has been the subject of many recent scientific studies. As our knowledge of this syndrome grows, more and more people are hearing of this condition.

Leaky gut can manifest in a variety of ways, which can make it tricky to diagnosis. Irritable bowel syndrome, SIBO, food intolerances, Candida infections, depression, memory loss and even autoimmune disease, may all start with a leaky gut.

The GI tract, including the intestine, is the primary place where your inside environment meets the outside environment. Because the outside environment can be full of bacteria, fungi and viruses, up to 70% of our immune system actually resides in the gut as GALT (gut-associated lymphoid tissue), ready to protect us from the potential foreign invaders that have hitched a ride in our food or drink.

One primary cause of leaky gut appears to be gluten ingestion. Gluten is a protein that is found primarily in wheat and other grains like barley and rye. Gluten increases the production of a protein in the cells of the small intestine called zonulin. One thing we know zonulin does is open up the spaces between the cells of the small intestine. As these spaces open, bigger pieces of protein, fat or carbohydrate can cross through the lining of the gut. Once within the wall of the gut, the  immune cells that reside there, the GALT, don’t recognize the larger pieces of food and mount an immune response. This creates an inflammatory response  that can lead to a feeling of swelling or bloating around the gut. Inflammation can be non-specific, so it can also lead to feeling just plain ‘ick,’ particularly after a meal.

This kind of chronic inflammation can lead to the development of more serious health conditions. According to research by Dr. Aristo Vjadani at the University of Maryland’s Celiac Research Center, leaky gut and the resulting chronic inflammation may lead to the development of autoimmune diseases as the cells of the gut’s immune system begin to become confused and start attacking the body’s own tissues instead of the foreign invading proteins. In short, any inflammatory condition may have leaky gut either has an accompanying problem or even as the cause.

leaky gut may be linked to the development of autoimmune disease
leaky gut may be linked to the development of autoimmune disease

So what to do if you think your symptoms may be caused by leaky gut?

  1. Modify your diet. This maybe the only thing you need to do to start feeling much better! Elimination diets are a gold standard for diagnosing food allergies and intolerances and are also the best way to begin healing the gut. Start by eliminating all grains, legumes and dairy for one month. It takes about 21 days for the cells of the intestine to replace themselves, so after a month of following the elimination diet closely you’ll have a brand new gut! After the month, reintroduce one new food group every third day and observe for the return of any symptoms. Permanently eliminate any foods that cause your symptoms to return.
  2. Get tested. There are few tests available to confirm a leaky gut. An older one is the lactose-mannitol challenge. This test is more widely available, but a positive is not necessarily specific for leaky gut. There is one commercial company with a more specific test on the market, available from Cyrex Labs. Unfortunately, this test is not as widely available as the lactose-mannitol challenge.
  3. Find the right doctor. If you google ‘ leaky gut’ you may find official looking sites that say that it doesn’t exist. Some doctors still don’t believe it is real. However, I am sure that the hundreds of research scientists writing papers about it and getting grants to study it would beg to differ! Your best bet is to find and work with a functional medicine doctor who understand and can recognize the signs and symptoms of leaky gut syndrome, order the cooperating lab tests, and then help coach you through the appropriate dietary changes. Many of these doctors can also recommend nutritional supplements that can help your gut heal faster, especially if you have had the problem for a long time.

 

Natural remedies for acne

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There’s no two ways about it, acne sucks. It’s even more embarrassing when you’re an adult and supposed to have grown out of it. The good news is that there is a lot you can do to heal and prevent acne without more creams, chemicals and trips to the dermatologist!

First, let me explain a little about WHY acne occurs so that you can understand better what to do about it. Basically, it works like this:

Clogged Pores -> Inflammation -> Bacteria invade

Usually what clogs the pores in the first place is sebum, or the oil that your skin normally produces to lubricate and protect itself. “Dirt” can also clog pores, this can be make-up, hair care products or even dirt on your hands if you touch your face in the same places all the time.

Once the pore is clogged, a local inflammation reaction happens. This is when the clogged pore gets red, swollen and pus-filled. If some bacteria decide to show up to the party, then it may get even MORE swollen and pussy. Ewww, right?

So now that you know the basics, you can start to see the problems with some traditional strategies for dealing with acne. For example, washing your skin religiously with harsh soaps and detergents may remove the dirt, but it also strips away the skin’s natural lubricant, sebum. In reaction to this your skin secrets even MORE sebum, leading to extra oily skin and MORE clogged pores. Taking antibiotics is another bandaid. It might get rid of the bacteria contributing to the issue, but since they aren’t the root cause of the problem, it doesn’t really fix anything long term.

So how do you get rid of acne naturally?
  1. Great skin is made from the inside out. Step one is to eat anti-inflammatory diet. Get rid of sugar. Nix common allergenic foods like gluten, dairy, soy and tree nuts. Build your meals around high quality proteins like wild caught fish, grass fed beef, lamb & bison, and pastured chicken and eggs, then round out the rest with PLENTY of vegetables. Drink plenty of water throughout the day to flush out toxins and and keep the skin hydrated. (You could noticeably improve skin quality just by drinking more water!!!)
  2. Stop washing your face with soap and water. Use something like the Oil-Control Method instead. With the oil-control method you apply a mixture of castor oil, which draws out impurities, and a carrier oil depending on your skin type. Use a hot, moist washcloth to work the mixture into your skin. Then, wipe off the excess and apply a moisturizing oil like jojoba oil. The reason this method works is because when you are no longer stripping away every bit of lubricant your skin makes,and instead moisturizing it, it doesn’t need to replace the oil and slows down production.
  3. Use natural skin care products with antioxidant ingredients. Have you looked at the ingredients on your skincare products lately? There’s probably a bunch of big, unpronounceable chemicals in it. They chemicals CAN and DO get absorbed by the skin into your body, so if you wouldn’t put it in your mouth, don’t put it on your skin. Not only do natural skin care products ditch the chemical nasties, but they often have fruit and vegetable extracts that are rich in vitamin antioxidants that help decrease inflammation. I love the Carrot Seed Primal Face products from Primal Life Organics as well as the Blueberry White Tea skincare line from Faerie Organics. (Bonus: the Blueberry White Tea moisturizer contains probiotics that help crowd out those bad-acne causing bacteria as well!)
  4. Manage stress! Stress increases levels of androgen (primarily male) hormones that can increase acne by turning up the rate of oil production. Stress also increases inflammation, which can exacerbate acne. Meditate, do yoga, seek therapy, spend time in nature, do whatever you have to minimize stress in your life!
  5. Get your hormone levels checked. If you are woman who tends to break out more around ovulation, this is when androgen hormones are high and increased oil production is a problem. This normal response can be even further exacerbated by too much insulin, which is another reason to eat according to the anti-inflammatory diet outlined above. If you tend to break out more in the week or so before you period, there is a problem with your estrogen-to-progesterone balance. In most women this will be the result of estrogen dominance, but you should have your levels checked in case you are one of those women who has too little progesterone.
  6. Sleep. Sleep deprivation only aggravates inflammation and insulin resistance. Combat both by making sure you get at least 7-9 hours of quality sleep EACH night. You may also want to consider changing your pillowcase nightly to make sure your pores are not getting clogged up with dirt  & oils from your pillowcase.

10 tips for getting a good night’s rest

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a good night's sleep

While it seems like getting sleep should be pretty straight-forward, its not always as easy at it would seem for some. If you struggle with falling asleep, waking during the night and being unable to get back to sleep or waking up in the morning feeling like you haven’t slept at all, you’re not alone. These are often symptoms that there is hormone disruption or dysregulation in the parts of the brain that control our sleep-wake cycles. Because of this, if you are not working on bringing these systems back into balance, getting a good night’s rest can be much harder then simply going to bed at a certain time. Follow the tips below to make sure you are doing all you can to help your body get quality, restorative sleep.

  1. Sleep in a dark room. Light stimulates the pineal gland in the brain and begins the process of cortisol secretion. Cortisol is antagonist to melatonin, the hormone the helps us sleep. Use black-out curtains, cover up any lights from electronic devices, including alarm clocks or even remove electronics from the bedroom altogether.
  2. Sync your sleep cycle with natural light-dark cycles. Our bodies and our brains are still very much adapted to the natural rhythm of light and dark. Recent studies have shown that these natural rhythms even affect the expression of our genes.  To keep it simple, sleep when it is dark, and be active when it is light out. This also means that there are seasonal variations in how much sleep we need. In the summer, with its long days and short nights, we can function better on less sleep. In the winter, however, our bodies crave more sleep due to the longer nights and shorter days.
  3. Avoid screen time within an hour of bed. The blue light emitted from computer screens, TVs, tablets, smartphones and other electronic devices actually stimulates certain parts of the brain, leading to cortisol release and suppression of melatonin production. The corollary to this is to make sure you get a few minutes of bright light during the day.
  4. Use these. If you must use computers in the evening, wear orange lens to block the blue light. This will help protect the parts of your brain that are stimulated by the blue light.
  5. Avoid carbs before bed. Many people crave a carbohydrate-rich snack before bed. This helps boost serotonin production and melatonin is made from serotonin. However, a carbohydrate rich snack will also cause a large release of insulin. When the blood sugar then drops too low, cortisol and even adrenaline may be released to bring blood sugar levels back up by releasing stored glycogen. Since cortisol is antagonistic to melatonin and adrenaline revs up your fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system, this may result in waking up in the middle of the night and being unable to get back to sleep.
  6. Eat to manage blood sugar throughout the day. Focus on getting plenty of protein and good fats to keep blood sugar levels even. Get your carbohydrates from whole foods sources like vegetables and some fruits instead of breads, pastas and baked goods. Large fluctuations in blood sugar levels throughout the day are perceived by the body as stress, prompting the release of cortisol. Cortisol levels that are too high, especially late in the day, will impede sleep.
  7. Avoid caffeine and other stimulants, especially late in the day. Caffeine stimulates the adrenals and also certain parts the brain. While this may be helpful earlier in the day, it can negatively impact sleep later the day. Caffeine has a half-life of 12 hours, so count back twelve hours from your planned bed time to determine when to have your last cup for the day.
  8. Exercise. A survey by the National Sleep Foundation found that those who engaged in vigorous exercise reported the least amount of bad sleep. Exercise can help improve your sleep by reducing stress and helping to reduce the effects on diabetes and obesity, which can both disrupt sleep. If vigorous exercise is too much for you, even a ten-minute walk daily can be a good starting place.
  9. Meditate. Any technique that you practice regularly to reduce stress will work, the key is to pick something that you can easily make into a daily habit. By reducing stress, you help to reduce your cortisol levels and get a better night’s sleep.
  10. Get your cortisol rhythm tested. If stress has been a long-standing issue for you, your hippocampus may have been become dysregulated, leading to an irregular daily cortisol rhythm. Cortisol should be high first thing in the morning and then slowly taper off till bedtime. In some individuals, this pattern may be flip-flopped, resulting in having a hard time falling asleep and then waking up feeling as if you didn’t sleep at all. If this is your case, you may need to work with a functional medicine practitioner who can get you started on supplemental support for hippocampus and adrenal glands.

Better sleep is possible to achieve and worth the effort to improve your health! Improved sleep will not only lead to improve energy levels during your day, but also helps with your weight loss goals by decreasing fat-storing cortisol and decreasing cravings throughout the day.

How to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

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The old paradigm of medicine was genetics. If you had a gene for a certain condition, trait or disease, you had that condition, trait or disease. However, we know now that this is not necessarily true. A whole realm of science has opened up known as epigenetics- how certain factors can affect the expression of genes without changing the underlying sequence of our DNA itself. Many of these “factors” are things we interact with in our environment such as vitamins and chemicals in our food, medications and even cycles of light and dark.

So what does this mean for us? Well it means that genetic diseases, from Alzheimer’s to cancer, are no longer givens but rather, whether or not they develop in our bodies is more determined by our environment and how we interact with it. Surprisingly, not many people seem to know this- it seems we are stuck in the old paradigm. A perfect example of this is the TV show Grey’s Anatomy, where the main character, Meredith Grey, constantly wrestles with the fact that her mother, a brilliant surgeon, developed and died from Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout the seasons of the show, the plot and the characters act as if Meredith herself is doomed to develop Alzheimer’s, chasing down intricate interventions like a clinical trial of a drug injected directly into the brain, in an attempt to delay the main character’s own slip into senescence. But thanks to epigenetics, we know that it doesn’t have to be this way. So much more determines whether or not we develop a disease like Alzheimer’s then just whether or not we have the gene for it.

If Meredith Grey were my patient, here’s the top three things I would tell her to do to have the best chance to prevent developing Alzheimer’s disease.

  1. Use it or lose it. Trite, but true. Neurons need two critical things to survive: fuel (oxygen & glucose) and activation. Yup, if a neuron isn’t given a job to do, it will eventually commit suicide. To be precise, it will commit transneuronal degeneration. Since we have trillions of neurons in our nervous systems, losing a few here and there generally doesn’t cause any noticeable deficits, but add that up over a lifetime, and you can see how the brain may begin to resemble Swiss cheese. To keep your mind sharp, keep engaging it in novel ways– learn a new language or skill, try doing everyday tasks with your non-dominant hand, create a new habit like walking in the back door instead of the front, etc. The brain loves engaging and responding to things in new ways.
  2. Manage blood sugar levels. It’s no secret- we eat a disturbing amount of sugar. According to this blurb in U.S. News and World Reports, over 142 pounds per person per year in 2003. This one fact alone is a big contributor to the astounding amount of chronic disease we treat in this country. One of the things all this sugar does in our bodies is stick to proteins, creating what are known as a glycation reactions. This sugar-protein combo goes through several different types of chemical reactions in the body, eventually creating something called Advanced Glycation End-Products, or AGE’s. And yes, AGEs are what age you! One of the byproducts of AGE formation are the amyloid proteins that make up the characteristic brain plaques seen on advanced imaging in Alzheimer’s patients. This is the main reason that some researchers and clinicians have taken to calling Alzheimer’s disease “Type III diabetes.” So save yourself from a lot of heartache and expensive medical bills and kick the sugar habit! This does not mean substituting “healthy” sweets like agave, honey or fruit for “unhealthy” sweets made from regular sugar. Fructose, the most abundant form of sugar in agave, honey and most fruits, has ten times the glycation activity of glucose. This doesn’t mean you can never enjoy sweet things again, but try aggressively ridding your diet of sugar and you will find in time that your taste buds are much better able to appreciate the subtle sweetness of whole foods like sweet potatoes, parsnips and even carrots.
  3. Quench the inflammatory fire. This is a huge one, in so much as there are many things that can contribute to chronic systemic inflammation. In time, this blog will cover many of them, so stay tuned! For now though, let’s focus on why, at least from the perspective of development of Alzheimer’s disease, its so important to address inflammation. Within our brain, we have specialized white blood cells know as microglia cells. When a neuron dies, one of their jobs is to clean up the leftover debris. The problem with microglia cells is that they are very sensitive and once they get activated, its kind of hard to turn them off. They clean up one dead neuron- and then keep going, sometimes damaging perfectly healthy nearby neurons in the process. This is a process called chronic neuroinflammation. If there is inflammation elsewhere in the body, say in the gut from a food allergy/intolerance, inflammatory cytokines (chemical messengers that coordinate the immune system attack) made in this area of the body can cross the blood-brain-barrier and incite the microglia to continue the inflammatory process in the brain. These activated microglia cells can then create the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. So if we want to work to prevent Alzhemier’s disease from developing, we need to work to prevent chronic neuroinflammation in the brain. Proper diet, adequate sleep and stress management are major factors that can be leveraged to decrease systemic inflammation.

Epigenetics and neuroplasticity (the ability of our brain to respond and adapt to change throughout our lives) are powerful adaptations that we can leverage to create long-lasting health. The core strategies for manipulating epigenetics and neuroplasticity come down to diet and exercise. This is how and why I use functional medicine and functional neurology in my practice to get great results for my patients without drugs or surgery.  So if you’re worried about developing a crippling or chronic disease like Alzheimer’s because its “in your family,” you should consider a functional approach that may allow you to prevent developing the disease in the first place.

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