Life Saving (Natural) Treatment for Diabetes

Reduce mortality or the need for kidney transplants among diabetics with kidney disease by 50% by just changing diets. This is significant news even for diabetics who just want to prevent kidney disease in the future.

An Italian study has found that among diabetic patients with kidney disease who followed a Carbohydrate Restricted, Low-Iron, Polyphenol Enriched diet, only 20% needed a kidney transplant or died four years after starting this diet VS 39% of diabetic patients who followed the current standard advice of protein-restriction. Briefly, this diet means:

• Reducing carbohydrates from current consumption by 50%
• Replacing iron-rich meats such as beef with low-iron meats such as chicken or fish; as well as eating protein rich foods that inhibit iron absorption such as soy
• Elimination of all beverages except for tea and red wine. Tea is highly beneficial because black tea binds to iron to prevent absorption, while green tea is a good source of polyphenols. Red wine consumption is limited to 150 mL.
• Exclusive use of polyphenol enriched olive oil

The study says that except for carbohydrate restriction, other foods were allowed ad-libitum, meaning “at one’s pleasure.” Although I would always say to follow this within reason.

You can also view a nice summary of this study from the American Academy of Family Physicians website.

New Year Resolutions

Simple, easy new year’s resolutions that can have a big impact on your well-being:

1. Get more sleep. Before you reach for the melatonin, work on the basics first. Sleep hygiene means trying to go to bed the same time each night, have a ritual such as taking a hot shower or drinking some tea (chamomile is very calming), and avoid heavy exercise before bedtime.

2. Get moving. An interesting study from 2005 finds that people who tend to fidget or move more throughout the day tend to be thinner. They estimate that they use 350 calories more than non-fidgety types. What does this mean in our everyday life? It can mean walking for ten minutes at lunchbreak, watching TV standing rather than just sitting on the couch, getting up from your desk job a few minutes every hour to stretch, taking public transport one day a week.

3. Meditate. Take a few moments to step back from the rush and stress of daily life. Sit back, and watch things unfold–watch your thoughts pass through your head, observe your mental chatter, be fully present to your breath going in and out of your lungs, turn off the computer a few minutes earlier than you normally do and be idle for a while. You can meditate with your eyes closed or while looking at a tree or falling water. It doesn’t matter how you do it or for how long, just do it. Think of meditation as radical idleness.

4. Everyday, perform an act of self care. Before you go to bed, ask yourself what you have done today to nourish your body or your soul. Self-care includes being more kind and easy on yourself.

5. Drink more water and eat more vegetables. You’re heard this one before–that’s because these two simple acts are very powerful medicine. They simultaneously cleanse and nourish us.

Good luck! I invite you to post your personal resolutions as well as tips that may be useful for others. Thank you and have a wonderful and healthy year ahead!

Plastics & Puberty

New York Times ran two recent articles on precocious puberty (one,two). It seems that American children are showing signs of puberty earlier than previous generations and this has raised concerns for many.

What’s to blame? It may be a combination of factors: widespread exposure to hormones in meats and milk; hormone-mimicking molecules found in plastics (such as phthalates), household and personal cleaning products and PVC; and childhood obesity as fat cells secrete estrogen. Some say it’s because children are healthier these days. One article narrates how a child got exposed to testosterone through a testosterone cream his father used by skin-to-skin contact.

We do not know how these products affect children in the long run and into adulthood. Precocious puberty may only be the tip of the iceberg, considering that hormones act on almost all cells in the body.

What can we do? One big step is to avoid exposure–eat more organic meats and milk, use “green” household products, use glass instead of plastic containers to store food. Cook in stainless steel pans instead of teflon.

Skin Deep

Should we be concerned about soaps and cosmetics?
Absolutely. Our skin is a living organ and absorbs what we put on it, specially substances that are oily or lipophilic (def. capable of combining or dissolving in lipids or fats) like lotions, creams, some soaps and cleansers because these easily pass through our lipid cell membranes.

Many products out there do contain ingredients that are known to be harmful to health or carcinogenic. How can this happen? Because the cosmetic industry is largely unregulated. They do not have to go through a safety check from the FDA. Even if they did have to go through FDA, I would still be careful: we already know rigorous screening from the FDA has allowed many drugs with harmful side effects to go to market.

What brands should we avoid?
Check out the website www.ewg.org, an environmental advocacy group. This website names names. They have listings by type of products like toothpastes, skin care, hair care, make-up etc. Generally, the “organic” brands tend to be safer, but I was pleasantly surprised how some cheaper brands available in neighborhood stores actually stack up pretty well compared to more expensive brands.

It will take work to find the brands that will have the right balance between safety and the cleaning or enhancing effect we want from the products. But it’s worth it.

Wild vs Farmed Salmon

Farmed salmon has been shown to have 5-10x more PCB’s than wild salmon, and higher levels of pesticides like DDT, flame retardants and other carcinogens.

Based on EPA guidelines (updated 1999), humans should not be eating farmed salmon more than once a month. Much less for children or older people. FDA guidelines, which allows for more frequent consumption of farmed salmon, were published in 1984 and are outdated–they do not reflect newer data. In my opinion, we should never consume farmed salmon until corrections to the fish-farming industry are made and implemented. Farmed salmon can be a reasonable source of protein in the future if done sustainably and safely–but until then, I would stay away from it.

How to tell if salmon is farmed or not? If the label does not explicitly state that the salmon is wild, then assume that it is farmed.

Wild salmon is a much safer choice compared to farmed salmon, and a better source of omega-3’s. If we translate the EPA advisory, we can eat wild salmon 5-10x in a month.

PCB’s are ubiquitous and it has been detected in many of our meat based protein sources: beef, chicken, other seafoods, even milk. So the bottomline is to minimize our exposure: do not overeat, eat organic as much as possible, rotate between different protein sources. Consider vegetarian sources of protein.

Heavy Metal Chelation

Heavy metal chelation is done to pull out heavy metals from body tissues. Before chelation, a provocation test is usually done to measure the baseline heavy metal load of a patient.

Chelation can be done orally with agents like DMSA which binds to heavy metals in the body so that it can be excreted in the urine. DMSA has been used safely in children who have lead poisoning. Thus, it can also be used in children with Autism who have suspected elevated mercury levels.

Chelation is usually done in cycles and over a period of time to account for the movement of heavy metals from inside the cells to outside, where DMSA can bind to it.

Ribose and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia

A pilot study conducted at the Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Center in Dallas, TX shows promising results that D-Ribose may help Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and/or Fibromyalgia.

66% of patients reported improvements which may include improvements in energy; sleep; mental clarity; pain intensity; and sense of well-being.

D-Ribose is one of the steps in the energy production pathways of the body. A truly significant improvement of fatigue after taking D-Ribose may indicate genetic deficiency in myoadenylate deaminse enzyme.

You can view the study abstract in pubmed. Study ID 17109576.

Carnitine Helps Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Two grams of carnitine per day has been shown in a small open-label randomized trial to improve symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Two forms of carnitine were used in this study, acetylcarnitine and propionylcarnitine, where 59% and 63% of subjects reported improvement respectively.

Interestingly, acetylcarnitine improved mental fatigue while propionylcarntine improved general fatigue.

Carnitine is an amino acid that helps the mitochondria create energy and ATP.

High Protein Diet Good for Diabetes Type II

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has shown that a diet with a higher protein ratio (30-40-30 protein-carbohydrate-fat based on calories) showed clear benefits for diabetes type II patients.

They showed improvements in blood sugar control, hemoglobin A1C (dropped 0.8 points) and reduction in triglycerides.

You can see a sample menu here; and a summary of “nutrition facts” here.

The diets still looks like the standard American diet (SAD) and can definitely be improved on by the inclusion of healthier types of proteins and fats.

Some notes:
1. Diabetics with any form of renal disease should see a professional first before they increase protein.
2. Remember that 1 gram of carbohydrates or protein = 4 calories; fat=9 calories.

Pesticides, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology of 3,531 British veterans of the Gulf war and the war in Bosnia shows that the incidence of “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity was particularly associated with Gulf deployment and self-reported exposure to pesticides.”

Another study published in the Annals of Occupation Hygiene shows that the incidence of chronic fatigue is correlated to exposure to organophosphate pesticides.

Organophosphates are potent neurotoxins and are used in various pesticides, herbicides and nerve gases which works by inhibiting the acetylcholinesterase function in nerve cells.