Most people alive today would probably agree that organic, pesticide-free, whole wheat, grain-based diets, low in animal-based foods, richer in plant proteins from lentils and beans, and consisting mainly of vegetables are ideal diets. The ancient Egyptians ate this way. To repeat, it was organic, pesticide-free, and whole-grain. Ask the folks who made the food pyramid (My Plate) and the Eat Lancet Diet, and they will love it. Does it sound amazing to you? Well, not to me. My Plate has adult men eating around ten slices of bread per day, or the equivalent of 47 teaspoons of table sugar! I wrote about how the Eat Lancet Diet causes malnutrition on January 1, which is a similar diet to My Plate. If you are interested in their recommendations—the Lancet's diet causes protein deficiency, among other things. Let’s see how the ancient Egyptians who ate the same way fared.
Read MoreI have been on the carnivore diet for almost three years. From the start, raw eggs have been a big part of my diet. My go-to recipe is one dozen yolks mixed with bone broth. It fits in a tall glass that I drink down each morning. Another way I consume my raw egg yolks is to mix them with water and honey. If this sounds strange, this post will clarify why I consider it an important part of my diet.
Read MoreA few years back, I wrote about the negative health consequences of visceral fat, which is the kind of fat that surrounds our organs. Too much of it is bad for our health. I spoke about several ways to measure it, but I want to concentrate on one very easy and free method called the waist-to-height ratio. It is a simple and free method you can do at home to determine your health risk. I will tell you why it is so important and tell you how to calculate yours. For the math-challenged, I have a link to an automatic calculator.
Read MoreThis is the presentation I am giving today at PaleoFx in Austin Texas.
Read MorePhilosophers have long distinguished two basic forms of well-being: a hedonic form representing the sum of an individual's positive affective experiences and a deeper eudaimonic form that results from striving toward meaning and a noble purpose beyond simple self-gratification. It turns out, so do scientific researchers. There is robust scientific evidence that living a eudaimonic life extends life. This post will cover some of the science behind eudaimonia and how to achieve it.
Read MoreI want to share a shocking brief digital simulation showing how our faces have been drastically shrinking over several hundred years. I got it from Dr. Michael Gelb DDS in NYC, who got it from best-selling author James Nestor. Please concentrate on the lower face; you will see how the jaws are shrinking and moving back toward the throat. This causes the tongue to partially or fully occlude the airway, especially when we sleep. You should also notice how the face is less attractive now. In fact, it is rare to see someone who has realized their potential for full facial development. People with properly developed faces will always have straight teeth, room for their wisdom teeth, superior beauty, and better health. Whatever they do for a living, they appear to be actors and models. Since most of us have underdeveloped faces, this epidemic has gone primarily unnoticed by us, including most physicians and dentists. This needs to change because, as you will see in this post, it is one of the major contributing factors for many, if not most, of our modern health problems.
Read MoreMany traditional ways of measuring your risk for having a heart attack are not nearly as accurate as many believe. For example, many believe that our total cholesterol and LDL are the best indicators for heart disease, but the association is weak. As far back as 1964, Garrett, Horning, and Creech found no definite correlation between serum cholesterol levels and the nature and extent of atherosclerotic disease. They published their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The famous Framingham heart study concluded in 1977 that HDL was a much better predictor of heart disease than LDL, and total cholesterol was not associated with any risk. In 1997, The Lancet published a paper on the elderly that showed for each 18 mg/dl increase of cholesterol, the chance of death went down by 15%. Amazingly, they also found that mortality from cancer and infection was significantly lower among the participants in the highest total cholesterol category. We believe these readings to be the best way to predict heart disease because we have been told to. Today I will show you some more statistical hocus pocus that helped promote these tests, and tell you about a much more accurate one you should get.
Read MoreThe appearance of heart attacks in the early 1900s has also coincided with steep rises in type 2 diabetes, cancer, obesity, macular degeneration, and Alzheimer's; traditionally, processed carbohydrates and saturated fats get most of the blame. Before the early 1900s, most of these conditions were rare. As we will see, processed carbs were already a big part of our diets, but seed oils were introduced right when we started our trend towards all of these terrible conditions. I will cover the rise of vegetable oils in our diets, along with chicken fats, that parallel our rise in modern diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Read MoreOne of my dogs, Luna, was injured this week and is in the hospital. Thankfully she is expected to make a full recovery. Her absence has been a reminder of how important she is to our family. But her absence has also reminded me how important she is to our health and well-being. She puts a smile on my face, calms me, and makes me happier. Let's look at the science behind how dogs can help us be happier, healthier, and live longer.
Read MoreThe most effective treatment for chronic conditions is diet and lifestyle intervention, which help restore normal hormonal and metabolic function. Even mildly abnormal glucose levels are an early warning sign for many chronic conditions, such as insulin resistance, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, mitochondrial health, blood vessel damage, heart disease, strokes, and brain health. Blood glucose measurements are one of the best ways to assess metabolic function and overall health. A fasting blood glucose test and the hemoglobin A1c level are two of the most common measurements doctors look at to evaluate your metabolism. Both of these measurements have limitations. Because they are one-time measurements, they fail to consider the bigger picture, miss fundamental problems, and are unreliable (specifically a1c). A better way to understand the dynamic nature of our blood glucose is a continuous glucose monitor, also called a CGM. In this post, I will l talk about the many benefits to using one.
Read MoreSleep is a significant component of health. Sleep disruption in adults leads to increased anxiety, pain, reduced quality of life, mood disorders, disturbances in thought processes, memory, and physical performance. Inadequate sleep impacts children and adolescents' psychosocial health, school, and sports performance, and risk-taking behaviors. In otherwise healthy individuals, long-term consequences of poor sleep include high blood pressure, cholesterol problems, heart disease, weight gain, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. One of the key ingredients to a good night’s sleep is the ability to lower our core body temperatures. This post will cover some of the science behind the sleep-temperature connection and talk about ways to help us cool down for optimal sleep.
Read MoreHeart disease is the number one killer in America, and LDL cholesterol has gotten most of the blame. But for the last 40 years, researchers have known that oxidized LDL, not LDL, is the true villain implicated in heart disease. Furthermore, only a few randomized controlled trials have ever tested the traditional diet-heart hypothesis that blames saturated fat for heart disease, yet it remains the gospel truth. Ongoing 40-year-old research shows that linoleic acid is the real culprit that causes oxidation of LDL, contributing to atherosclerosis-associated inflammation. Similar research actually shows saturated fat to protect against oxidation. Today I will cover this new research and tell you about a simple way to lower your risk of heart disease.
Read MoreToday I am sharing a video about a child who was incorrectly diagnosed as having ADD/ADHD when his real problems were allergies and poor breathing that we call sleep disordered breathing. His mother describes a kind of domino effect that when recognized, is easily treatable. At my offices, we have teams of pediatric dentists, orthodontists, surgeons, orofacial myofunctional therapists, and lactation specialists to detect and treat these problems early. When needed, we refer to ENT, allergists, speech pathologists, and more. If more people were aware of the connection between childhood behavioral problems and sleep disordered breathing, millions of children would not suffer as they do. Please watch the video and share it; even if only one child is helped by your sharing, it will be worth it.
Read MoreAs an active clinician with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, I am always searching for new perspectives on our poor health. Sometimes I find antique descriptions of current health problems. I recently found and read a book by George Catlin on how our children can achieve beautiful faces and superior health by ensuring that they sleep with their mouths closed. I had thought this knowledge to be a recent scientific finding, so naturally, I was intrigued and read the book in a few short hours. I was highly impressed with the Native American wisdom he shared. Sadly, the knowledge was largely forgotten and is only followed by a few people today. Here's some of what I learned...
Read MoreMedical researchers have known for some time that we cannot always assume that our bodies always use vitamin D efficiently. About 25% of the population do not respond to standard doses of vitamin D3 supplementation. Many of them have healthy levels of vitamin D. A new condition has been identified called vitamin D resistance. Only a fraction are genetic in origin. Most cases are acquired during life. Some of the causes are known. This blog discusses the causes and the treatment options.
Read MoreBefore the advent of farming, our jaws were larger; our faces were broader, our teeth were straight, we had adequate room for our wisdom teeth, larger brains, and more space in our throats to breathe. It is a virtual certainty that our changing diets contributed to crooked teeth and a lack of adequate space for wisdom teeth and constricted airways. SMALL JAWS CAUSE BIG PROBLEMS. Heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, ADHD, depression, and anxiety are a few. In this post, I am going to cover how our lifestyles have changed leading to our current problems, and what we can do about it.
Read MoreThe combination of obesity, specific heart-health markers, and some metabolic measurements are collectively known as metabolic syndrome. Essentially our metabolism has a direct impact on our overall health and heart health specifically. The health implications are dire, not just for our cardiovascular systems. With Covid-19, obesity is strongly associated with increased severity of COVID-19 infections, even in the absence of other underlying health issues. In this post, I have included an interactive guide to all of the steps you need to include to improve your looks, mood, and energy level. Your "body composition" will take care of itself as you focus on the things listed in the guide. Best of all, your chances of dying from disease and infection will diminish.
Read MoreCombined with age and neck circumference, a Mallampati Score over 2 is about 94% predictive of sleep apnea. When I see a Mallampati score of 3 or 4, I know the airway is compromised and dig a little deeper into the patients’ backgrounds. If you have never heard of the Mallampati classification system, you are in the majority. It is actually something you can measure yourself. Read on if you are curious.
Read MoreAt our grocery stores and dinner tables, even the most thoughtful consumers are overwhelmed by the number of considerations to weigh when choosing what to eat—especially when it comes to meat. Guided by the noble principle of least harm, many responsible citizens resolve the ethical, environmental, and nutritional conundrum by quitting meat entirely. But can a healthy, sustainable, and conscientious food system exist without animals? Sacred Cow probes the fundamental moral, environmental, and nutritional quandaries we face in raising and eating animals, especially the most maligned of farmed animals, the cow.
Read MoreDietary salt intake has been a hot topic for many decades. The consensus is that salt in the diet should be limited, mainly because it increases blood pressure, which is the most significant risk factor for heart disease. How much truth is there in this recommendation? We will find out today.
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