- Announcements: I’m on the Radio, check out the link!
- An Overview: Stress & Brain Balance
- April Top Read’s Highlight on Gluten
Announcements
Do you know anyone suffering from Anxiety and Panic Attacks in Menopause? Be sure to spread the word and catch me on Magnificent Menopause Blog Talk Radio. Click here for the archive.
Please sign up on my website to receive my posts via email. Simply enter your email address in the “Subscribe” box on the right hand side. This will help protect my email and you will always receive the newest entry from my blog and updates on events. this will be the last blog emailed in PDF.
*** Therefore, if you want to keep receiving my blogs, you must sign up on my website. J
April Top Reads: Highlights
As April approaches, signifying spring, rebirth, and renewal, the question on everyone’s mind is, “how many inches predicted this month?” Sigh. Really??!! April snow showers bring May flowers?
How much more snow shoveling shocks can our poor circulatory and sympathetic nervous system handle? Thankfully, Upstate New Yorkers are hardy, and compared to other nature games, we may be considered lucky by many of other environmental terrains. Still, I have faith; the sun will eventually grace the grounds of NYS.
Now, although some may argue this, we can’t do much to change the weather. In fact, worrying about it or trying to change things we don’t have control over, only creates more strain and stress on our biochemistry. It all begins with the thought, that triggers the pituitary, to signal the adrenals, to release the catecholamines and cortisol, to trigger a flight and fight survival response. For a detailed rundown on this stress effect, read my previous blog.
One reason why some people worry more than others or have a harder time adapting to change may be related to the balance of their 5 brain systems. These systems modulate our behavior and how we interpret our environment. It may be that those with a healthy cingulate gyrus have the ability to shift attention, adapt, cooperate, and be more cognitively flexible than their friends with a more unbalanced brain. There are nutrients which can assist someone to be more cognitively loose and flexible and it’s all about assessing which portion of the brain needs attention and what to give. This is the work of Dr. Amen, MD, and it’s produced exceptional responses by many of my patients.
Speaking of circulatory and sympathetic nervous system stressors, what better way to calm our cortisol and catecholamine stress response by nestling up with our cozy chamomile and hawthorn tea while reading about this month’s highlighted health topics? If you’re saying, “well, Ti-vo”, then, you can always come back later when you’re refreshed. J
If you can remember to the dreary days of February of 2010, I did a summary of the immune reactivity of gluten. Recently, the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM) released two webinars with this common theme of a healthy gastrointestinal tract in overall systemic wellness. Due to the fact that over 70% of your immune system and neurotransmitters (via the enteric nervous system) is located in your gut, it’s understandable why a bad diet and nutritional deficiencies can create such havoc to one’s both mental and physical health. Furthermore, complicating the picture is that everyone has different capacities for absorption and digestion related to their genetics, environment, toxic load, stress response, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. However, it is true for all, that eating foods that your body is sensitive or allergic to is not good.
When the body can’t affectively break down a substance, due to a compromise in the digestive or immune process, the gut releases incompletely digested proteins systemically. This is due to a compromise in the gut’s barrier from chronic attack via inflammation. (Remember in February’s Top Reads that these proteins can create an addictive response on the brain, making it hard to quite!? This creates a hurtful habit hard to break. ) The body responds to these “foreign materials” with either an acute, immediate reaction or a low-grade, chronic response creating long-term energy and nutrient drains, potentially leading to chronic illness. When the body’s immune cells respond by trying to attack these “invaders”, which are really complexes of undigested peptides, it can become confused and attack your tissues instead! This is one way to create immune complexes in your body that can lead to autoimmunity.
Not a cozy thought? Maybe not, but empowering. This month, I’d like to highlight Dr. Hyman’s article on gluten. Here’s the excerpt. And don’t forget to read the rest of my April 2011 Top Reads Post on cardiovascular health, the dangers of pop, how healthy bones relate to blood sugar, and more!
The Dangers of Gluten (Ultrawellness)
A recent large study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people with diagnosed, undiagnosed, and “latent” celiac disease or gluten sensitivity had a higher risk of death, mostly from heart disease and cancer. (i)
This study looked at almost 30,00 patients from 1969 to 2008 and examined deaths in three groups: Those with full-blown celiac disease, those with inflammation of their intestine but not full-blown celiac disease, and those with latent celiac disease or gluten sensitivity (elevated gluten antibodies but negative intestinal biopsy).
The findings were dramatic. There was a 39 percent increased risk of death in those with celiac disease, 72 percent increased risk in those with gut inflammation related to gluten, and 35 percent increased risk in those with gluten sensitivity but no celiac disease.
This is ground-breaking research that proves you don’t have to have full-blown celiac disease with a positive intestinal biopsy (which is what conventional thinking tells us) to have serious health problems and complications–even death–from eating gluten.
Yet an estimated 99 percent of people who have a problem with eating gluten don’t even know it. They ascribe their ill health or symptoms to something else–not gluten sensitivity, which is 100 percent curable.
Gluten Sensitivity: One Cause, Many Diseases
A review paper in The New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 “diseases” that can be caused by eating gluten. (iv) These include osteoporosis, irritable bowel disease, inflammatory bowel disease, anemia, cancer, fatigue, canker sores, (v) and rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and almost all other autoimmune diseases. Gluten is also linked to many psychiatric (vi) and neurological diseases, including anxiety, depression, (vii) schizophrenia, (viii) dementia, (ix) migraines, epilepsy, and neuropathy (nerve damage). (x) It has also been linked to autism.(ix)
References:
Drs. Hanaway & Sult. Post 2011 Tampa AFCMP Webinars. Case Studies Differentiating IBD from IBS & Systemic disease and increased intestinal permeability-eczema and the 5R program. Institute for Functional Medicine. www.functionalmedicine.org
Dr. Amen. Change Your Brain, Change Your Body. NY. Three Rivers Press. 2010.
Dr. Stuart White. Mentoring with the Mentors. (Teleseminar). March 24, 2010. StandardProcess.
Stress, Sugar, Hormones, & Overall Health: A compilation of Important Thoughts with Dr. Sarah
