Hello again Everyone and Happy Fall: As you may know, we are all in a war with inflammation and infection. A major cause of unidentified food sensitivities that leads to gut inflammation can also potentially create nutritional deficiencies critical to maintaining optimal immune function. Standard methods of detecting gluten induced gut damage (endoscopy…a scope to look down into the intestines) fail to detect wheat sensitivity, and thus the authors suggest that using a withdrawal method might still be the best way to identify hidden food sensitivities. (1) You may have seen my previous blogs on the Modified Elimination Diet, also known as Whole 30 and other iterations. Fundamentally, you simply remove the most common inflammatory foods from your diet for at least 3o days (I find that 120 days is much better) and then re-introduce the food and note any symptoms. You can find more ... Read more
Archives for September 2021
Covid-19 & Health Update: Stop Inflammation with Foods
Hello again everyone: This is such an important topic that I will continue to beat it to death until everyone is eating organic and clean…it is the primary path to reducing the burden of chronic disease that we face in this country and around the world. What do the authors say, and they say it best: “Constant overproduction of pro-inflammatory molecules leads to chronic inflammation. Unlike acute inflammation, which is essential for healing, chronic inflammation can delay healing and, if left unchecked, contribute to a host of diseases. There is growing evidence that some dietary factors can play important roles in maintaining health and even reversing the progression of chronic diseases, with anti-inflammatory effects as important underlying mechanism. Such findings add to the body of evidence that certain dietary components, including polyphenols and other types of ... Read more
Covid-19 and Health Update: Vitamin D Remains Essential
Hello everyone: As the summer winds down, we will not be getting as much sun and our Vitamin D status will slowly erode. This is not a good scenario anytime but is especially not a good thing during a viral pandemic. A new study just released Aug. 31, 2021 reported that lower Vitamin D levels predisposed us to increased risk of developing severe Covid-19…here is what the authors conclude: Conclusion: Vitamin D status may play a significant role in developing severe COVID-19 infection. In this study low vitamin D status was associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality in COVID-19 positive patients. There is a plausible anti-inflammatory biological mechanism supporting the protective role of vitamin D in COVID-19 severity. Further research is needed in this area, in the form of randomized control trials, to determine whether there is a cause-effect relationship between low ... Read more
Covid-19 & Health Update: Exercise Improves Vaccination Results
Hello everyone: In this blog, I want to emphasize how exercise can improve our health during this pandemic and beyond. Exercise causes many effects, but I am focusing on how muscle impacts immune function. As we exercise and use our muscles, they secrete different chemicals, and some are called myokines. This class of chemical signaling agents trigger multiple beneficial effects throughout the body, and if our exercise is not chronically high intensity, it will lower inflammation. As you know, inflammation causes, aggravates, or perpetuates all human ailments. If we have a background chronic inflammatory burden, our immune function is impaired and creates a comorbidity that can possibly make viral infections more damaging. “Vaccination programs, although feted for success in reducing infectious disease morbidity and mortality, are limited by vaccine efficacy, which is ... Read more
