April 2015 Newsletter: No April Fool’s Here: Serious Stuff for Your Health

I hope you are enjoying the series of articles based on the book Body by Science. This month’s newsletter features the third installment discussing the all important area of the hormonal impact of exercise. Unfortunately this is one of the most misunderstood aspects of exercise. While exercise has many benefits, improper exercise can create hormone imbalances. Hormones determine and drive most of our body’s functions, thus hormone imbalances can be at the root of many disturbing symptoms. For a refresher on hormones click here: http://brwellness.com/nutrition-news/?cat=11

One of the best newsletters I receive is from Dr. Bruce West. Each month is packed with valuable information. His February issue was one of the best ever and I wanted to share a few of his nutritional nuggets from that issue. This article follows below.

New stuff in the office: Supplements for pets and water tests.

Did you know that almost 70% of pets in U.S. households are on medications? I was shocked, but I guess not surprised when I read that in an article about Pfizer’s pet drug division. Many of my clients have pets at home and they are just concerned about their pet’s health as their own. Standard Process has an excellent line of pet products, particularly for cats, dogs, and horses. I have several clients who are aware of this and I am able to supply them with product. If you are interested let me know.

Ever wonder if your water supply is safe. I’ve come across some easy do it yourself home water tests from Silver Lake Research. I have in stock the well water test kit ($25) and the city water test kit ($20). For more information on the test kits you can click here: https://www.discovertesting.com/products/display_products_overviews.sd?iid=1&headtitle=Drinking%20Water%20Test%20Kits

If you are interested give me a call or send an email.

Exercise and Hormones: Fat Burning (Yes) and Fat Storing (oh no!)

I have recently introduced you to the book Body by Science by Doug McDuff, MD and John Little. This book offers a clear explanation of the actual science of exercise, how activity relates to hormones, and how this determines what happens in your body. In short, it answers the question I am frequently asked. “Why am I gaining weight when I am working out every day?” 

In the introductory article I summarized his key points. In this article I will address one of those key points. The effectiveness of exercise is all about hormones, fat metabolism and blood glucose levels. Hormones signal the body to burn fat and to store fat. High intensity training works the major muscle groups to exhaustion, uses up glucose, and encourages the body to burn fat and build muscle.

For the rest of the article click here: http://brwellness.com/nutrition-news/?p=21

Nutritional Nuggets from Dr. Bruce West

One of my favorite nutrition publications I get is Health Alert by Dr. Bruce West. Each month I look forward to the latest edition. The official title is Health Alert: When All Other Treatments Fail. I think you get the picture. Dr. West is a Chiropractor and a big fan of Standard Process products. He is also a big fan of the truth. February’s issue was full of juicy nuggets that I’d like to share.

Nugget #1: Almost all treatment for heart disease is unnecessary!

Nugget #2: Artificial sweeteners cause diabetes!

Nugget #3: Heart attacks are not caused by clogged arteries!

Nugget #4: Multiple sclerosis is directly linked to poor gut flora! 

To read the complete post click here: http://brwellness.com/nutrition-news/?p=19

Nutritional Nuggets from Dr. West's Health Alert

One of my favorite nutrition publications I get is Health Alert by Dr. Bruce West. Each month I look forward to the latest edition. The official title is Health Alert: When All Other Treatments Fail. I think you get the picture. Dr. West is a Chiropractor and a big fan of Standard Process products. He is also a big fan of the truth. February’s issue was full of juicy nuggets that I’d like to share.

Nugget #1: Almost all treatment for heart disease is unnecessary! Dr. West states that most of the cardiac procedures are all band-aids as they ignore the underlying issue and are unnecessary for 70% of patients. He also cites a study showing five behaviors in men cause 86% of all heart attacks. I’m sure you can pretty much guess what they are: smoking, eating too much, drinking too much, a big stomach (as a result of eating and drinking too much), and being inactive. His conclusion – it’s about lifestyle!

Nugget #2: Artificial sweeteners cause diabetes! A study of mice showed that consuming artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose (Splenda), and aspartame (Equal, Sweet n low) cause glucose intolerance or type 2 diabetes. In the study one group of mice was fed the artificial sweeteners and another group fed sugar. The ones fed sugar did not develop diabetes, just the artificial sweetener group. This was replicated in a small group of healthy human subjects who were placed on a diet containing artificial sweeteners. Within just one week over 50% of the humans developed glucose intolerance! 

How does this happen? The artificial sweeteners alter our gut flora in the large intestines which changes our metabolism to favor glucose intolerance. This was proven by transplanting feces from the two groups of mice into germ-free mice. The mice that got the feces from the artificial sweetener fed mice developed diabetes. Not so with the mice getting feces from the sugar fed mice. This proves the artificial sweeteners affected the gut flora and led to glucose intolerance!

Nugget #3: Heart attacks are not caused by clogged arteries! Coronary artery blockages rarely cause heart attacks because of the body’s ability to create its own natural bypass system. Go to the website www.heartattacknew.com and see for yourself what the body does on its own! What really causes heart attacks are imbalances in the autonomic nervous system and nutrient deficiencies (particularly B-complex deficiencies – see my article on Vitamin B4 – click here: http://brwellness.com/nutrition-news/?p=38.

Nugget #4: Multiple sclerosis is directly linked to poor gut flora! MS is an autoimmune disease and 80% of your immune system is in our gut and its flora. It turns out that the gut microbes in people with MS are different than those without it! The gut flora of MS patients have bacteria that cause inflammation and other MS symptoms and they lack the bacteria that help control inflammation! Once again we see the importance of the health of our gut flora. Remember we have 20,000 genes. The bacteria in our gut has 1,000,000 genes! 

Multiple sclerosis is directly linked to poor gut flora!

One of my favorite nutrition publications I get is Health Alert by Dr. Bruce West. Each month I look forward to the latest edition. The official title is Health Alert: When All Other Treatments Fail. I think you get the picture. Dr. West is a Chiropractor and a big fan of Standard Process products. He is also a big fan of the truth. February’s issue was full of juicy nuggets that I’d like to share.

Nugget #4: Multiple sclerosis is directly linked to poor gut flora! MS is an autoimmune disease and 80% of your immune system is in our gut and its flora. It turns out that the gut microbes in people with MS are different than those without it! The gut flora of MS patients have bacteria that cause inflammation and other MS symptoms and they lack the bacteria that help control inflammation! Once again we see the importance of the health of our gut flora. Remember we have 20,000 genes. The bacteria in our gut has 1,000,000 genes! 

 

Exercise and Hormones: Fat Burning (Yes) and Fat Storing (oh no!)

I have recently introduced you to the book Body by Science by Doug McDuff, MD and John Little. This book offers a clear explanation of the actual science of exercise, how activity relates to hormones, and how this determines what happens in your body. In short, it answers the question I am frequently asked. “Why am I gaining weight when I am working out every day?” 

In the introductory article I summarized his key points. In this article I will address one of those key points. The effectiveness of exercise is all about hormones, fat metabolism and blood glucose levels. Hormones signal the body to burn fat and to store fat. High intensity training works the major muscle groups to exhaustion, uses up glucose, and encourages the body to burn fat and build muscle. 

First, here’s a little background on fat. Fat is not the evil it is made out to be – either the fat we eat or the fat on our body. Fat (and the ability to store fat) is why humans have survived the many droughts, famines, and lean times in our history. Fat is how we store energy for future use. As I like to say, there were no refrigerators in the Garden of Eden. Having food available 24/7 is somewhat new in human history. Our ancestors ate when food was available and stored the excess as fat, allowing us to survive.

There’s also a popular myth that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were way more active than we are today, but there is little evidence of that. In fact it is not very likely. Since they didn’t have food all the time they would need to conserve their energy to find food and survive! Modern obesity is not from lack of exercise, but from too much food (and poor quality food at that – although that’s another series of articles!).  For most of human history fat storage was essential to survive. Unfortunately today it now leads to obesity and chronic disease.

As mentioned earlier the key to exercise is how it impacts hormones. To understand this we need to look at how our body accesses and stores energy. The following explanation is simplified for the purposes of this discussion. It starts with our body breaking down food into useable components. One of these is glucose which goes into the blood stream. From there, glucose enters cells and is used to produce energy. Excess glucose, beyond what the cells are calling for, needs to be stored. The first storage sites are the muscles and liver where it is stored as glycogen. After that it is stored in fat cells. 

The main benefit of high intensity training is the depletion of glycogen stores from the muscles. When glycogen is moving out of storage the hormone called hormone sensitive lipase is released. This allows body fat to be mobilized and burned for energy. Eventually the glycogen levels will be restored in the muscles coming from this mobilized fat. 

In traditional cardio the glycogen is not released to the same extent. The muscles retain some glycogen, glucose remains in the blood stream and insulin is required to move the glucose out of the blood stream. Since the body does not sense a need to build glycogen stores the glucose is stored as fat. This may also have the effect of keeping insulin elevated which ultimately can lead to insulin resistance. Also when insulin is high, hormone sensitive lipase is inhibited. 

Another hormone that gets into the act is called leptin. Leptin is our satiety hormone – it tells us we are full. The more fat we have, the more leptin is produced so that our appetitive will decrease and our body fat level will stabilize. A modern day problem has become leptin resistance. Similar to insulin resistance our body is not able to respond to all the excess leptin being produced so we are not properly getting the signal that we are full and should stop eating.

The bottom line is that HIT will lower insulin, leptin, and cortisol levels while increasing growth hormone while traditional cardio or “aerobics” will have the opposite hormonal effect.

A few other points of interest:

One of the big truth stretchers of the fitness industry is the measuring of “calories burned” on machines. We have what is called our basal metabolic rate. Just by living we burn calories. The BMR is how many calories you burn just by being alive at that moment. The calories burned being recorded by the machines are inclusive of those calories. The “calories burned” is highly misleading as if you stood on the machine and did nothing you’d still be burning calories!

Another basic truth is that no exercise per se burns a lot of body fat. As explained earlier, we survived by being very efficient with our fat. It is what kept us alive. So, if we were burning lots of fat by hunting and gathering or any other activity, it would jeopardize our ultimate survival. 

In conclusion, our body developed ways to survive food scarcity so we could endure as a species. It was not designed for food abundance. Our modern diet which is high in carbohydrates keeps our blood glucose levels elevated, which keeps our insulin levels high, which keeps our glycogen stores high, so we are not able to burn fat.

And one last key factor is hydration. Most people do not drink enough water. Being properly hydrated improves our liver function which will support fat metabolism and improves cell structure so hormone receptors work properly. And, drought precedes famine. If we are not properly hydrated we are sending an evolutionary signal to our body to hold on to fat as it prepares for the upcoming famine.

Bernard Rosen, PhD is a Nutrition Consultant and Educator. He works with individuals, groups, and at corporations to create individualized nutrition and wellness programs. His office is in Mequon, WI. To learn more or to schedule an appointment, e-mail at bernie@brwellness.com, call (262) 389-9907 or go to www.brwellness.com.