Standard American Diet Creates Imbalances of Micronutrients
The standard American diet has become the catch phrase for the way the average American eats. This style of eating is significantly different than the way our ancestors ate. Not only is the food itself different, but the composition of the food that is being consumed is not the same either. Today’s food lacks both on a large and small scale. What I mean by this is that the contents of the food today is much less nutritious and does not have the same health promoting quality.
Seeing the Imbalance of Micronutrients
One of the main differences between those that were eating a primal diet and those that are now consuming the standard American diet is the breakdown of the macronutrients in the diet. Macronutrients are what we think about as the protein, fats and carbohydrate in our food. Though no technically considered a macronutrient, I will also include fiber in our list due to its role. The macronutrient composition of the person eating a primal diet, or the Paleo Diet as it is more commonly known, would have focused more on proteins, fats and fiber. Dense sources of carbohydrates are not readily available in nature. Foods that are dense in carbohydrates are the result of agriculture. They are not as easily found when you are hunting and gathering your food. In sharp contrast, the standard American diet has shifted to highlight the influence of agriculture. The macronutrient breakdown for much of society today is composed of higher amounts of carbohydrates, some fats and protein and little fiber. With such a dramatic shift in macronutrient breakdown, negative effects are guaranteed to en sue.
It’s the Small Things that Matter
However it is not just the large nutrients, or macronutrients in the diet that are grossly different. Rather, it is also the small nutrients, or the micronutrients. The standard American diet is a gateway to malnourishment. How can this be? With so many people overeating, it is indeed true that the standard American diet can lead to malnourishment. It does this through not supplying adequate amounts of micronutrients. Micronutrients are numerous. There are many times more micronutrients than there are macronutrients. We typically think about micronutrients as vitamins and minerals, yet amino acids and some metabolites also are considered micronutrients. These are the compounds that are found in our food that help spark our body to function efficiently.
As might be expected though, these are not found in adequate quantities in the standard American diet. This is why even individuals that eat often can be malnourished. Their bodies still do not receive the cofactors that it needs. Micronutrients are one of the first things that are lost in the refining process. The process of taking a food out of its natural state strips the nutrients out of it as well. As such, you are left with a food substance that does not have the same life promoting qualities as the food that was found in nature. Also, the ugly side of modern agriculture presents again. Due to high demands for crop yield year after year, the amount of nutrients that should be found in the soil is no long there. This means that foods are making it to market with substandard quantities of nutrients. Add together these types of farming practices and refining of food and nutrient deficiencies become rampant. No wonder so many of my new patients test low for micronutrient deficiencies.
The standard American diet lacks large and small. It does not have the macronutrient composition to support a balanced body nor does it contain the micronutrients that act as spark plugs for us to keep our system fine-tuned and firing on all cylinders. The notion of consuming a dietary pattern that can support both the large and small nutrient needs of our body is best achieved by consuming a primal diet, aka the Paleo Diet.
The Standard American Diet and the Sugar Epidemic
After leaving you last time with a prelude to why the standard American diet will wreck your health, I feel it is time to start arming you with information that will help you make the best decisions about your dietary choices. Even more so, I think you will begin to look at food in a whole new perspective once we complete these next few articles. Food should be life to us. It should provide us with the key cofactors that we need to flourish. So with no further wait, let’s get right into why the standard American diet will wreck your health.
Put down the sugar!
First, and probably the most significant, is the glycemic load. This is a fancy way of saying how much sugar we are consuming. In short, we are consuming dramatically more sugar than our forefathers did. The primal caveman diet, where you are eating foods that you could gather and hunt on your own, does not provide contain a high sugar content. These foods would not have been refined and only had limited sugar content, if any at all. In comparison, sugar is found in many foods today. You might remember that in the prelude article I mentioned the curse of having foods with labels. I challenge you to pick these foods up and look at them. Many of them have sugar added, including the ones that you would not suspect.
The Problem with Eating Sugar
Most of us know someone with diabetes now. Diabetes is the disease state that manifest from challenging the body repeatedly with sugar. It is probably the disease most directly correlated with the demise of the standard American diet. This alone says something about the amount of sugar that is being consumed. This is nothing to shrug off. The numbers for the increased cases of diabetes is almost becoming exponential. We are seeing a continuing upward trend in the numbers of cases. It is not bad enough that eating sugar leads to diabetes, but there are more tangible effects such as memory loss, loss of blood flow into the small vessels of the body that affect the heart, kidneys, eyes, and sex organs. This is serious and all results from eating the standard American diet. It has clearly contributed to a state in our country that can be considered a sugar epidemic.
Fat Phobia
A great deal of the increase in sugar in the standard American diet can be attributed to the concerns of saturated fats leading to cardiovascular disease. As a result, society became fat phobic and started turning to fat free options. That created a problem. Without fat, food does not have flavor. If you want something to taste good, adding fat helps. With the removal of fat from the standard American diet, the way to add flavor back was with sugar. Thus the amount of sugar significantly began to increase. Fat free options should also be labeled as high sugar, or high in artificial sweeteners. But of course no one would buy them if they said that.
Sugar Sources
The most dramatic increase in sugar consumption can be found with sodas and fruit juices. Fruits juices are not just squeezed fruit in most cases. Many times there is additional sugar added to the final product. Soda has the added insult of containing high fructose corn syrup, a substance known to contribute to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. That’s right. You can develop liver disease from drinking soda if consumed frequently enough.
Sugar consumption is problem number one within the standard American diet. If you are trying to make dietary modifications, this is the area that you have to start. As a clinician, I see more problems originating out of uncontrolled blood sugar than any other factor I assess. The sad part is that as significant as this is, it is only part of what is wrong with the standard American diet. Much more to come in the following articles.
Why the Standard American Diet will Wreck Your Health – The Prelude
The standard American Diet is far different than the diet of our ancestors, even just 150 years ago. The typical dish that an American would eat now does not in any way resemble their plates. If we look back at the foods that our forefathers consumed, compared to what we consume, the differences are dramatic. However, this change did not occur overnight. Rather it was a slow and methodical alteration of the food supply that has left us consuming things that we have to ask ourselves at times if they are even really food. Think about that for a moment.
Is the Standard American Diet really food?
The standard American diet has left us in a paradox of asking if the food that we eat is really food. This may initially seem like a bit of a ridiculous question, but when you consider what you mostly find on the shelves of grocery stores, the idea does not seem to farfetched. Simply, outside of the produce section and a small area of the meat counter, foods come with labels and labels imply that something is different than when it was originally found in nature. More importantly, the more that needs to be disclosed on that label, the more that foods is likely damaging your health.
Full Disclosure on the Label
The labels of food are very telling and help to further answer this question. If you were living the Paleo lifestyle and eating food that you theoretically had to pick, gather, hunt or fish for, you would not be consuming several different foods at one time most likely. You would be consuming the food you found or the game you captured. Most importantly, this food would not have come with a label. Apart from the reality that there was no government entity to promote labeling, the same can be said when you are hunting and gathering in the grocery store. The foods in the produce section do not come with a label. There is only one ingredient in these foods and that is the food itself. The same goes for protein choices at the meat counter. It is only when you start moving along into the prepackaged foods that you begin to see multiple ingredients, leaving you wondering why some of these ingredients were necessary in the first place. This is the typical profile of the standard American diet food. It needs a label because legally the manufacturer needs to disclose what it contains. Food should only contain food, NOT chemicals and compounds that you need a degree to pronounce the name of.
This is simply a starting point for what is wrong with the standard American diet. However, this is an important one and will help provide you with some structure as you are looking to make changes to your own diet. Over the next few blog posts, we are going to explore the main problems with the standard American diet and how as a society we have drifted so far away from one of the simplest things that we need to stay healthy, real food. If you want to help reinforce why you should be sticking to the Paleo Lifestyle and following the Paleo diet, stay tuned because the information to come could literally be a life changer.
The Standard American Diet is Not Going to Promote Weight Loss
Super size it! Give me a size large! I will take a Big Mac, or a Whooper! Just listen to some of the things that are stated as the norm in our society when it comes to food now. All of these statements suggest an increase in the portion size of the food consumed. The more there is the better, correct? Not likely. Along with this increase in food portion size has also been an increase in waist size. Needless to say, if we are going to talk about weight loss, we are not going to be talking about the standard American diet unless we are referring to what not to do.
The Problems with the Standard American Diet
There are so many problems with the standard American diet that it is almost difficult to find a starting point. Foremost, let’s take a look at what we call food. Food should have sufficient nutrient content and health promoting qualities. This makes sense. We consume food to nourish our bodies. Most of what the average American diet is made up of does not meet these criteria. Foods that are refined, boxed and packaged do not have life sustaining qualities about them. Rather, they have been stripped of these qualities. Therefore, if you are eating a substance that does not provide you with nutrients and health promoting qualities, how can you expect to promote health? You cannot. In short, this food is taking the life from you to help process and metabolize it. You are literally losing more nutrients to try to process this food in your body than you are deriving from it.
The Correlation between the Standard American Diet and Weight Gain
Weight gain does not happen without explanation. It is a culmination of things that collide to create a state of dysfunction in the body. Weight gain is the symptom. The dysfunction is the problem that needs to be addressed. To do so, means that you have to start with the standard American diet. If this is not the central focus, weight loss will not take place. The standard American diet promotes weight gain because we are literally starving ourselves of the nutrients that we need to create an optimal metabolism to burn fat. Fat burning does not happen with the standard American diet due to the fact that the foods included as a part of it create hormone dysfunction, highlighted by blood sugar problems, result in multiple nutrient deficiencies that often go uncorrected, and lead to a severe state of inflammation that is at the root of nearly every chronic disease.
How to Accelerate Weight Loss
Just as weight gain does not happen by accident, weight loss only takes place with the right actions. Most importantly this means dumping your dietary habits that are part of the standard American diet and following a primal caveman diet as part of the paleo lifestyle. The primal caveman diet, what many think of as the paleo diet, is almost the opposite of the average American diet. It is full of high quality nutrients that help charge our metabolism and reduce inflammation. This reduction in inflammation coupled with the inherent hormone balancing effects that the primal caveman diet offers makes it the optimal choice to promote weight loss.
The protocol to weight loss is simple. It begins and ends with abandoning the ideas that have become commonly accepted as to what makes up a reasonable diet (and I use the term reasonable very loosely here!) and transitioning into the paleo diet as the foundation of a healthy lifestyle, aka, the Paleo lifestyle.
What is the Paleo Lifestyle?
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At first mention, you might think of cavemen and chasing animals with primitive weapons when someone mentions the paleo lifestyle. However, we live in a world far different than our predecessors. Vehicles and the ever-so-convenient grocery store have taken the place of walking and gathering or hunting our own sustenance. Yet what has not changed is the way that our bodies function. We are still the same creatures we were hundreds of years ago regardless of the technological changes around us.
Our Ancestors Environment
In more primitive years, we lived a slower paced life where we had only a few obligations, most of which revolved around survival. In fact, for most of the existence of mankind, this has been the case. Survival is probably best defined in this context by t
he action of gathering food and seeking shelter. Our ancestors’ day would have looked much like this. Start off with waking at the rise of the sun and the stimulation of sunlight. This would have likely been followed by a day of considering the most easily obtainable food sources with constant movement throughout the day. The conclusion of an active day would have been at the onset of darkness. No artificial light would have kept the primal human up. I ask you, how many of us live this paleo lifestyle?
The Modern Human’s Day
After considering the paleo lifestyle that man lived on for numerous years, it is a wonder any of us are healthy. Our world is much different today. Consider your own life and habits. Do you routinely wake up slowly and steadily as the sun rises? Not likely. If you do, you are among the few. Most of us wake up to the sound of an alarm clock chirping at us that we want to slap just to get it to shut up. And then there is nothing like starting the day off with a good rush of adrenaline from this style of waking to start you off down the wrong path. This is already followed by a day of activity and nourishing foods, right? Wrong! The commute to work and grind of sitting stationary for hours on end, only to feel the stress of the fast pace of our daily lives, leaves us reaching for quick and simple food options that are far short of being a nutritious selection. None of this screams paleo lifestyle. So what is the paleo lifestyle you might be asking?
The Paleo Lifestyle Defined
The paleo lifestyle is the mimicking of our ancestors lifestyle of diet, activity and rest. These are core elements to good health. Our ancestors applied them simply as a part of their lifestyle. Our world has changed, and now to apply this same ideology means that you have to make a conscious effort. The effort is worth the payoff however. Often the application of the term paleo is limited to the primal caveman diet that our predecessors consumed. However, this is merely one aspect of the lifestyle. The primal cavemen diet, while essential is not the only core element of good health. A good diet with limited rest and activity does not support health. If we truly want to live the paleo lifestyle, a proven pattern to promote health, we have to not only eat a primal caveman diet, but we also must consistently exercise and get adequate amounts of sleep at the right times.
Standard American Diet . . . The Wrong Direction
Just the name, the standard American diet, sounds monotonous and boring. Think about it. The word standard used in this context implies uniformity. It suggests that everything is consistent and there is lack of variation. The underlying tone is that individuals are eating the same thing throughout the population. In this case, that is detrimental for the population. Let’s just talk bluntly for a moment. The standard American diet lacks a lot regarding supporting health. It is in need of a significant overhaul. The consistent way that the population is eating is putting us on a fast track to a society of chronic disease ridden individuals.
The Standard American diet is the Wrong Path
On the surface you might not consider the standard American diet inherently problematic to our health. This was likely the case 100 years ago. However, over the last century, we have come to consume food in a much different way than our ancestors did. They enjoyed a more primal diet that some today call the Paleo Diet or caveman diet. The difference between this pattern of eating and the style of food we consume today is drastically different. We no longer eat like our ancestors and we are paying the price for it. Instead, we eat foods that are adulterated and a combination of food-like products that should leave you wondering exactly what you are putting in your mouth.
Should we even call it food?
Take a walk through the grocery store. Walk down each aisle and look at what the standard American diet has become. It is a buffet of boxed and canned items that look drastically different from what they did prior to being refined and damaged by manufacturing. They have lost their inherent qualities that make them a food we should consume. It is hard to believe that we even call some of the things in the grocery stores food any more. The standard American diet, a different far different than the Paleo diet lends, is made up of foods that have only vague characteristics of the food that we should be consuming.
The Problem with the Standard American Diet
To understand what is wrong with the standard American diet, we need to compare it to the Paleo diet. This primal diet has some unique characteristics that are no longer seen with what is commonly consumed today. Let us start by looking at a few of the most pronounced differences.
Grains
The standard American diet is heavy in grains. Grains are high in carbohydrates and lack the balance and nutrients compared to other food groups. Add to this that most grains are among the highest dietary allergens and are linked to numerous ailments and you quickly realize they have some inherent problems. Moreover, if you are consuming grains, you are likely consuming a genetically modified food. I can say with confidence that none of our ancestor eating a Paleo diet with all of its primal characteristics was consuming genetically modified foods.
Fat
Our bodies need fat, but the right kind. Fats found in the standard American diet promote inflammation, a trait of almost every chronic disease. You actually have to seek out non-inflammatory fats in the grocery store and even when you do, you are not likely to find those that are most beneficial to suppressing inflammation in significant quantities.
There are many other problems with the standard American diet that I will detail in subsequent articles, but for now, knowing that this dietary pattern can destroy your health is the most important thing that you can take away. It is crucial for us to recognize that our ancestors had it right without even knowing it. They ate a Paleo diet that gave them the nutrition they needed.
Paleo Diet Prevents Consumption of Toxic Foods
Our bodies were not meant to eat the diet we are eating..
The more I learn about functional medicine and all of the toxic foods out there and what they can do to our health, the more difficult it is to not be paranoid. It’s like every corner I turn I find something else that offensive to my health.. And I know sometimes I’m right, but also some times I’m making it out to be worse than it is. But for once, I know I’m not being paranoid about one thing, our diet. The way we eat now is nothing like our ancestors ate. We are now eating foods that our bodies are not designed to process. And that is why compared the our forefathers, we have so many diseases and thats why we have so much dysfunction in our bodies.
The Standard American Diet (Aka The S.A.D. Diet)
So I’m sure you are wondering how this is possible? If it’s labeled food, and it’s edible, then it should be considered food right? Couldn’t be farther from the truth.. To be honest, what people are eating these days, when they are in a rush, I’d be hard pressed to call food. It carries almost no nutritional value. And with that said, there are many foods that we should not eat as they don’t promote long term health. In fact, many of them promote disease when consumed regularly.
Are you sure that your food is really food?
Do you know what is the in the food that you are consuming? Another good question is do you really know what you are consuming? Is it what you think it is? I bet you may be surprised to find the answers to some of these questions. So much of our food supply is contaminated with chemicals in ways we would not even expect. From growth hormones to pesticides and herbicides, the food we eat leaves our detoxification system begging for support. Add to this the stripping of valuable nutrients and fiber and you are left with . . . . Well I’m not totally sure what the best description should be, but it hardly resembles the food you would find in nature.
Our food supply has been altered
Food as we have come to accept it, is the byproduct of industrialization. We have let “big money” take over agriculture and control the food supply. We were duped into thinking that big agriculture was the best way to feed the population. This is problematic on a number of levels, but one of the many reasons is that you are getting food that is adulterated all the way down to the genetics. The rouge science of genetic modification has created foods, and I use that term very loosely, that are not tolerated by our bodies any longer. In fact, these are the foods that are likely most responsible for the rapid increase in autoimmune disease in such a short period of time.
The Paleo Movement
If you are beginning to feel a little anxious about the food you eat every day, you should. But before you become too uptight about this topic, know that there is an answer. There is an army of us out there that refuse to accept the fact that we should eat what we have been told by the government and FDA. Rather, we prefer to eat the Paleo Diet, the diet of our ancestors that kept them free of disease. The Paleo Diet is optimally implemented with the consumption of organic sources, but if you cannot afford organic, you can still derive great benefit. The longer I practice, the more I am convinced that for the average portion of the population, the greatest insults come for grains and dairy. These foods as they are produced now are different from what our forefathers had in numerous ways.
There is a better way
As we know the Paleo Diet mostly focuses on eating non grain plants and animals, and the results of that diet are very very different compared to the results from the typical diet we consume in this country. My main goal is to make sure you understand that you don’t have to eat that toxic mess that is called our food supply, you can choose to take a different path. Just because those lifeless foods are in front of you, or cheaper, or easy access, does not mean you have to eat them. You can choose to take the extra step or put in a little more effort, after this is your health we are talking about. Instead trust the Paleo Diet, follow it and you will see results. I should know, it’s the only way I eat now. The Paleo Diet is the foundation of all diets ever existing for mankind, it has literally been proven for thousands of years to be the best diet for humans. It will free you of this toxic burden, guaranteed.
Gastrointestinal Health
Without a healthy gut, nothing will function properly
Change is inevitable, we all go through it sometimes on a larger scale sometimes on a smaller scale. Most changes are good, some are not. We have gone from living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, to agrarian, and eventually for too many of us have become a city dweller society, and with these changes we have undergone changes within our bodies that have had an adverse effect on our health in general. Considering that our GI system has a huge impact in all areas of our health, having a healthy GI tract is very necessary. The GI tract is the keystone for the health of the rest of the body. Without a healthy gut, no other system in our bodies can be expected to function normally. So you can see how very very important it is to keep the gut functioning the way it should, and if you are trying to improve your health your GI tract cannot be discounted.
The Standard American Diet
To really understand how the evolution of human foods have affected our gut, all we have to do is look at our diets. The negative affects of the Standard American Diet (or SAD diet) creates problems and dysfunction for every aspect of our health. For most people this is the very reason that causes the GI tract health to be so unhealthy and damaged. The SAD contains foods that are the very cause of the sluggish bowel movements, and all the refined meats, the sugars, bad fats, snacks and any refined foods really, with minimal fiber, causes the bowels to become acidic. When this happens the lining of your bowels become damaged and this is where the entire function of your gut is, in the mucus lining. When your lining is damaged, your colon cannot do their job. This includes acting as a primary barrier against microorganisms and undigested foods, absorption of vitamins, minerals and proteins and supporting the health of the immune system.
What is Leaky Gut?
Once the bowels begin to move less than 2-3 times each day, putrification of proteins begins to occur resulting in the production of acids. The resulting environment is one that is inhospitable to the resident beneficial bacteria known commonly as probiotics. It is these bacteria that act as part of the immune system and maintain the balance of “good” vs. “bad” microorganisms in the GI tract. With declining numbers of probiotics, the growth of harmful microorganisms increases, resulting in a greater production of acid. Additional acid further compromises the GI lining, compounding the situation and making the integrity of the lining worse. As a consequence, leaky gut develops.
Leaky Gut is more appropriately termed hyperpermeable gut, meaning that things are allowed to pass through more easily than they should. A primary characteristic of the GI tract is a process known as selective permeability. This means that various substances have to carried across the GI lining rather than just being able to filter directly across. Simply, they have to ask for permission. If the substance checks out okay, it is given permission to cross. If it does not check out okay because it is too large or looks foreign, it is denied. Hence, the GI lining is selecting what it wants to grant access. These are the events that take place under ideal circumstances.
It’s like pouring water through a pipe that has slits in it. It leaks.
Yet, we know that most individual’s GI tracts are not healthy because of things such as diet, antibiotics, high stress, and poor brain signaling, to name just a few. When this is the presentation, selective permeability is lost and for this reason we then label the GI tract as hyperpermeable. In this state, the cells of the cells that make up the GI lining are not longer touching each other and have gaps between them, whereas they should all be touching tightly. You can akin this to pouring water through a pipe that has several slits in it. Everywhere a slit is present, water will leak out and there is no way to stop it. This is the case in a leaky gut presentation. Foods, microorganisms, and anything else in the GI tract are leaking past a barrier that they should not.
Without a healthy gut, your immune system weakens.
While a leaky gut has many consequences, the most significant is the loss of regulation of the immune system and the resultant inflammation. From this, a very dire situation can result since on average 60-70% of the immune system is found in and around the GI tract. When the immune system becomes overactive, inflammation is the consequence. It is this scenario that is part of the cause, and at other times the sole cause, in many chronic disease states.
Leaky gut is just the beginning of your worries..
Many diseases states have been shown to be linked to GI dysfunction. The common thread is the inflammatory cascade that is secondary to the dysfunction. It would be easy to see a link in leaky gut and GI disorders such as Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. However, the state of health does not have to be this grim to have an active leaky gut. More common day to day presentations would include skin disorders ranging from acne to psoriasis, a weakened immune system, brain fog and sinus congestion or infections. However, leaky gut has also been linked to conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. In fact, we now know that the cholesterol and blood fat model of cholesterol has become secondary to the inflammatory model with the GI tract being a likely source of the inflammation. Ironically, detoxification programs incorporating proper bowel function often show dramatic reductions in elevated cholesterol levels. The most complex category of conditions associated with leaky gut is autoimmunity. Loss of regulation of the immune system causes it to turn on itself leading to damage of the body’s own tissues by a system designed to protect it.
You can only heal your gut with the right nutrients
Identification of a hyperpermeable GI state is best done through specific testing. Ideal methods include stool and monitoring of antibodies to foods and human tissues. These antibodies should only be produced against what our immune system perceives as harmful, not against food and our own body. Diagnosis and treatment of a hyperpermeable gut often centers around bringing back balance through restoring the GI lining, replacing the necessary missing constituents such as digestive enzymes and acid and probiotics, and eradicating any infections when present. One cannot hope to resolve a chronic disease state and heal a leaky gut by not addressing the necessary components listed above. Often in this state, a reasonable degree of inflammation exists at the GI lining. To allow the cells of the GI tract to move closer together and seal the lining, it becomes necessary to add the nutrients in that this environment is dependent on as well as to soothe any areas of inflammation. Oddly enough, this is something that prescription anti-inflammatories are incapable of as many of them actually breakdown the lining of the GI tract further and have been shown to lead to bleeding in some instances.
But what leads to the leaky gut in the first place?
If this was driven by a poor diet, this must be remedied by dietary modification consisting of consumption of high foods rich in a variety of nutrients, high in fiber, low in sugar and rich in healthy fats. When infections are identified, these must be eliminated. Such infections may include bacterial, fungal, or parasitic. These can be elusive at times, but persistent treatment pays off and eventually results in their elimination. Common to find along with an infection is a decrease of the probiotics. Probiotics being bacteria are susceptible to the effects of antibiotics and sometimes other antimicrobial treatments, yet they can also proliferate themselves once enough of them are in the GI tract. Building up these colonies adds stability to the body by strengthening the immune system, producing nutrients such as vitamins, and inhibiting the growth of foreign microorganisms. One of the factors that can lead to the presence of an infection is lower levels of acid production. Acid has been made to be the villain in our society, yet it acts as our first line of immune defense in the GI tract and initiates the protein breakdown process. When combined with the enzymes produced in the mouth and pancreas, the digestive juices breakdown foods into their smallest possible components causing them to be non-reactive to the immune system.
Your brain, hormones and gut are all connected
Just as important for a healthy GI Tract is healthy brain and and stress functions. When you are experiencing a lot of stress, you are also weakening your immune system because the lining of your intestines, the protective mucus lining inside your gut, will start thinning which in turn lowers your immune cell count gradually. When that mucus lining is damaged, it also makes it difficult for the intestines to repair themselves. All these dysfunctions are connected, and when you are having this much dysfunction in your gut, your brain will be impaired as far as signaling to create the digestive juices needed. When you get to this point you need to look outside of the GI tract to correct the functions.
As you can see based on what I have been discussing here, all of our systems are connected to our GI Tract. The GI system is of utmost importance when it comes to delivering the nutrients each system needs to keep our immune systems functioning correctly. It is a portal that can accept and reject the things we need or don’t need. It is the gateway to our bodies. If you are setting out to address a condition you may be having, the GI tract has to be considered. Through a proper diagnosis, with the right testing to make sure all bodily functions are considered, a precise treatment plan can be created that can specifically start fixing the many aspects of your GI function inside and outside of your GI Tract.
Why am I always tired?
Fatigue is Rampant
If you are fatigued, you are not by yourself. Fatigue is one of the most common complaints presented to healthcare practitioners. Just look around on the shelves in checkout lines in the grocery stores. They are filled with energy support products. Better yet, visit your local convenient store and look in the cooler. You will see an entire section devoted to energy drinks. Are we all fatigued? Indeed we are.
I often ask my new patients if they experience mid-afternoon fatigue. A surprisingly high number answer that they definitely see a slump in energy in the afternoon. Many times they will go on to tell me about fatigue happening at other times as well. Knowing that I have hit on a key concern that they might not have even realized was a problem, the quote that I often get in response is, “Why am I always tired?” There are many answers that could be given for this question. However for many, the answer starts with the diet.
The Forgotten Effects of Fatigue
I am going to share something with you that most professionals know about, but rarely think about in terms of fatigue. If you feel fatigued on a day to day basis and are asking yourself, “Why am I always tired?”, something that you should know about that is the fatigue that you are feeling is happening in all areas of your body. For example, the brain is not producing energy and your mental function is not 100%. This results in things like brain fog and lack of mental clarity. Another good example would be the cells of the liver, which are needed for detoxification and removal of harmful chemicals from our body, would not be able to work as efficiently.
The Link Between Diet and Fatigue
Are you eating real food? That may seem like an odd question to ask, but unless you are eating a diet of unprocessed foods that have a high nutrient content, your diet is likely part of the problem. The diet is directly related to fatigue. Foremost, conquering fatigue means having a steady source of nutrients that the body can use to produce energy. These include such things as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Diets low in these types of foods leave the body lacking in its ability to function. If you don’t have adequate vitamin and mineral status, you don’t produce energy. The key to producing energy is being able to take living food and convert it to molecules of energy. When you are consuming a diet high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, you will produce energy more readily. All of those quick fix solutions you see on the shelves will be a distant memory.
This is not the only way that diet is related to fatigue. Diets high in carbohydrates promote fatigue also. This happens for multiple reasons, but one of the most common reasons non-Paleo diets create fatigue is as a result of the blood sugar roller coaster. Eating more carbohydrates than you need on a daily basis causes highs and lows in blood glucose that prevent the production of consistent energy by the cells. If this pattern continues, it can lead to diabetes. Yet well before the development of diabetes, you will notice lulls in energy.
Are You Fatigued?
Here are a couple of key questions to ask yourself.
1. Do I have less energy on a day to day basis than I did 1 year ago?
2. Am I less productive during the day than I have been in the past?
3. Do I still feel unrefreshed when waking in the morning?
4. Do I have a drop in energy either mid-morning or mid-afternoon?
5. Do I often start my day with a cup of coffee to get me going?
6. Do I routinely consume energy drinks to give me a pick up during the day?
7. If I start reading, do I easily fall asleep?
8. Do I get tired when I drive?
Take the First Step to Battling Fatigue
The first step to beating fatigue is changing your diet. Energy is a product of good bodily function. Just like you are not going to get the best function out of your car with inferior components in it, you are not going to get optimal function out of the body without putting the best foods in. This is where the Paleo Diet fits in. High in nutrients critically needed to support energy production and devoid of non-living foods that rob your body of nutrients, you will soon find that the Paleo Diet will have you feeling like a fine tuned sports car. Moreover, the blood sugar highs and lows that are so commonly a part of fatigue will soon go away and you will find yourself more productive and feeling like your old self again. Now, if you are not sure where to start, the best advice I can give is to have a resource that will provide you with several Paleo options to get you started on the right track. When you do this, you will soon wonder why others aren’t making the change and feeling the same new spark of energy that you have found!
Could Taking Omega 3 Fats Help Reduce Your Cancer Risk?
The Cancer Scare
Cancer is on the rise. Most all of us know someone that has had cancer. It can be the most dreadful thing to hear from a doctor. “You have cancer.” Those three words invoke more fear than almost anything else. The very thought of the reality of those words sends chills up your spine. And if it is you that hears it, all you can think about are all the precious aspects of your life that you may no longer be able to experience or may soon lose. Cancer is without question a scary situation, regardless the type and stage.
Why Are we not Winning the War on Cancer
Cancer is becoming a mainstay word in our society. It comes up more frequently in the healthcare arena than it should. There has long been a war on cancer. In fact, Richard Nixon even signed the National Cancer Act of 1971 to more or less document the initiation of this initiative. In the 40 plus years since that time, little has been done to decrease the incidence of cancer. We are seeing new improvements and better management of the condition. Yet with such advancement, we are failing to address the underlying causes of cancer. This is no different than most other conditions. Traditional medicine ignores the dysfunction that leads to the disease. Why do we wait when we can be proactive? We know the risks, so why not act on them?
The Statistical Paradox
Add to this conundrum the paradox that some say we are winning the battle on cancer. To understand this comment, one must understand the definition of success. Success is defined in some circles as reducing the death rate associated with cancer. This is a noteworthy achievement and one that is appreciated by nearly all that have been diagnosed. However, what we do not see in these number is the case of newly diagnosed cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute Cancer Trends Progress Report – 2011/2012 Update, there were roughly 474 new cases of cancer per 100,000 individuals. In a population of almost 314 million people, that equates to 1,488,360 newly diagnosed cases of cancer in one year. I ask you. Are we winning?
Can Anything Be Done?
With such daunting numbers, it may seem like almost nothing can be done. However, the advantage of having medical science on our side is that researchers have been able to define many contributing factors. This means that we do not have to proceed blindly, but rather can use the information of numerous creditable studies to know where to best support and protect ourselves. One of the least controversial and most well accepted risk reduction techniques is omega 3 fatty acids.
Omega 3’s Provide Hope
The American Journal of Epidemiology states, “These results suggest that intake of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids may reduce risk of total and cancer-specific mortality.” (Am J Epidemiol. 2014 Feb 3). This furthers the point that risk of death associated with cancer can be reduced. Moreover, there is equal evidence stating that there may be a protective role associated with the consumption of omega 3’s with various types of cancer.
How Omega 3’s Benefit
Omegas 3’s have clearly established themselves as having a role in protection against cancer as well as other aspects of this life-threatening condition. Even in light of the occasional controversial media piece, omega 3’s are one of the most well accepted intervention strategies to protect not only against the ailments of cancer, but multiple other conditions as well. With their well-known role as an anti-inflammatory and immune system modulator, and their difficulty in obtaining adequate levels in most individuals diets, you will be hard pressed to find a better start to your cancer prevention strategy than the incorporation of omega 3’s.
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