Re: Updated diet information

The goal of the Weeks Clinic is to identify with you imbalances and
to address our therapies to the root causes of those imbalances - be
they biochemical, habitual, emotional or spiritual.

As we begin the process of figuring out the answers to those
questions, we invite you to begin your own self-healing process with
the following practical suggestions.

This is the list of healthy habits which I encourage you to
incorporate into your life as a foundation of health.

Prescription for Vitality:
1) Exercise every day - even if only a walk before sleep. The
expression:Use it or lose it!applies here. No need to break a
sweat but you need to Move it or lose it.Exercise keeps one
feeling and acting young! It is also an anti-depressant and mood
elevator as it increased metabolism, heart-rate and endorphins.
Prescription for Vitality: take a brisk walk (pausing to smell any and
all roses along the way) for 40 minutes every day (or more!)

2) Drink enough good water to keep your urine clear (not yellow); but
don't drink a lot of fluid with meals because it dilutes the
digestive forces. This can be uncomfortable at first as you will
initially feel bloated, but if you persevere, the bloating passes and
you begin to feel thirsty for the first time in your life! (Note:
this prescription for water does NOT include coffee, tea and pop
which, though liquid, are in fact dehydrating fluids; Warning: soda
pop and seltzer with its carbonation and phosphate levels is an
important risk factor for developing osteoporosis!) Drink water in
this manner: Gulp down (no sipping!) four 16 ounce wide mouthed
bottles of water (which you have placed in four strategic places) like
your life depended upon it (it does!) each day. Place them as follows:
1st bottle at your bedside; your feet don't touch the floor until it
is consumed. 2nd bottle is at the bathroom sink where you brush your
teeth in the AM before breakfast. Again - no leaving the bathroom
until you finish this second bottle! The 3rd bottle is wherever you
are at 10 AM. 4th bottle is wherever you are at 4 PM. Only sip fluids
after 4 PM to avoid being up needing to urinate at night. Only sip
fluids with meals to avoid diluting digestive juices. Prescription for
Vitality: The goal is to drink ½ your weight in ounces a day AWAY
from food.

3) Stop the Dehydrating Fluids like coffee, pop and (some) teas. Try
Honegar or Lemhoney which are two versions of a highly absorbed
nutrient drink which gives an energy boost (like caffeine) with no
adrenal and pancreatic strain. These great folk remedy recipes involve
getting a squeeze bottle and filling it 1/2 with raw honey and 1/2
with whole-apple organic apple cider vinegar for Honegar (or fresh
squeezed lemon juice to make Lemhoney). Let sit or shake it to mix
both liquids then squeeze an amount to taste into hot water for
a comfy wake-up drink or into cold water for a refreshing pep me
up afternoon drink! It is much better tasting and gives more energy
than pop or coffee as the vinegar acidifies the stomach and
facilitates nutrient absorption including the enzyme-rich and nutrient
dense raw honey. Prescription for Vitality: Honegar or Lemhoney to
taste instead of pop or coffee.

4) Use Digestive Aids appropriately. Most people overeat and digest
their food incompletely. This puts a toxic strain on the immune system
and can be at the root of many health challenges. If you are
overweight, most likely you are overfed and undernourished (because of
insulin dysglycemia - more on that later). Therefore, take one
tablespoon of organic apple cider vinegar (OACV) 30 minutes before
each meal in order to enhance stomach digestion. This cheap but
effective “aperitif� will trigger brain and gut hormones and
enhance digestion. This in turn reduces the burden on your intestinal
tract. Also, caloric restriction is the ONLY strategy proven to
enhance longevity. This truth is valid today as it was 200 years ago
when Ben Franklin wrote: “If Americans ate half as much, they would
live twice as long�. Prescription for Vitality: Eat less but digest
and absorb what you do eat using 1 tablespoon of organic apple cider
vinegar (OACV) in an 8 ounce glass of room-temperature water 15
minutes before each meal. That should be the first thing you do to
prepare the meal. (Also, eat slowly, chew your food thoroughly and get
in the habit of leaving each meal a bit hungry).

5) Take a top quality vitamin, mineral and herbal supplement. See
Not all Chelates are Created Equal for reasons why I advise the
use of chelated products which are more bioavailable and therefore
beneficial. Most over-the-counter products are poorly formulated with
poor quality substances like: cellulose, calcium carbonate, magnesium
oxide, dl-alpha tocopherol etc. Prescription for Vitality: Take a top
qulity multi-vitamin multi-mineral (MVMM) twice a day with meals.

6) Take a top quality essential fatty acid supplement such as like
krill or fish oil or flax/borage/pumpkin seed oil. Avoid trans-fatty
acids such as what comes with fried foods but enjoy certain saturated
fats like organic coconut oil. For those who dislike the taste of flax
oil every morning, we suggest having the mouth full of a juice and
putting the tablespoon of oil into the full mouth then swallowing.
This gives no taste of oil. Women take the flax oil from the new moon
to the full moon and an Evening Primrose/Borage oil from the full moon
to the new moon. This is especially important if cancer is a concern.
Prescription for Vitality: Change your oil using organic top-quality
ESSENTIAL fatty acid.

7) Detoxify the colon. Most old time doctors acknowledge that chronic
illnesses begin with a dis-ease of the gastro-intestinal tract. This
is often the result of too much of the bad bacteria and fungal / yeast
organism (overgrowth) which overwhelms the “good� bacteria like
acidophilus and bifidobacteria. The gastro-intestinal tract is not
just a tube going through your body but rather is full of folds and
wrinkles designed to enhance absorption. Therefore, prepare for the
shocking truth that if the average adult were able to flatten out all
these wrinkles the size of the gastro-intestinal tract it would be the
size of a tennis court! Add to that shocker, the fact that there are
10 times more of these organisms than there are of YOU. Remember that
only 1/4 of what is contained within your skin has YOUR genetic
material in it. The rest is NOT you. Hmmm. That means that you are a
minority within our own skin! The vast majority of the stuff within
you in is NOT you but rather it is either critters like bacteria (both
good and bad types) or fluids or minerals, etc. Therefore, in order to
re-establish a healthy balance in this vast territory, everyone needs
to take a top quality pro-biotic (acidophilus and bifidobacteria).
Prescription for Vitality: Give your 33 foot long gastro-intestinal
tract a break!

8) Fiber - you KNOW you need it but do you know why? Certainly it
helps keep you regular (which is VERY important for you health).
However, fiber also can absorb toxins which your body, in its wisdom,
is trying to excrete. For this reason we recommend ground up organic
(of course!) flax seeds as a daily supplement. This doesn’t supply
the oil, just the cleansing fiber. Prescription for Vitality: use that
old coffee grinder you have now retired from coffee and use it to
grind up frozen (less sticky) flax seeds and put a tablespoon/day on
cereal, salad or whatever!

9) Remember: there is no such thing as junk food-there is
food and there is junk. Now, while junk can be made to look like food,
it is NOT food!) Therefore, eat only unrefined foods that look like
you could find them in nature. For example, carrots and seeds and nuts
are fine but who has ever seen a peanut butter tree or a pasta tree?
You can buy the peanuts and make your fresh peanut butter but most
commercial peanut butter has Sugar added. Equally you can buy the real
grain and make real food from it. Therefore, shop the periphery of the
supermarket where the live foods are sold. No food additives , coloring
and no extra salt or Sugar should pass your lips! Prescription for
Vitality: Only eat things that look as if they were once alive. The
ancient doctors taught that “Life comes from Life� so eat life if
you want to live with vitality.

10) Stop all dairy products (milk, yogurt, cheese, butter) Why? See

http://www.notmilk.com
or call 1-888-not-milk for details. Essentially,
modern pasteurized and homogenized milk is very different from what
your grandparents drank on the farm: raw organic milk. The milk
moustache ads promote a beverage that is toxic with anti-biotics,
pesticides, hormones, pus and other chemicals including bovine growth
hormones. Many people are dairy intolerant and most ear infections,
ADD/ADHD and weight problems are directly related to dairy
consumption. I recommend that you get off it completely for 10 days
then enjoy a big milkshake and feel the phlegm start to drown you.
Then you will know from your own experience how toxic these products
have become for everyone except baby cows. By the way, the milk
referred to in the Bible-the land of milk and honey - was goat
and sheep milk. It was not cow's milk. Prescription for Vitality: No
more dairy. Don't take my word for it. Understand why!

12) White Sugar is the single most toxic food we eat. Avoid it!
Excess sugar is at the root of cardio-vascular and heart disease,
vision loss, obesity, diabetes and cancer. If you don't believe me,
search the web for Amadori products (the biological consequences of
excess sugar). Prescription for Vitality: moderate raw honey is fine
but no more White Sugar ! (Hint: the more you chew your food and mix it
with saliva, the sweeter it tastes!)

13) Turn off your Cell Phone You can still use it but treat yourself
like the CEO you are: only return calls you want to return when you
want to return them. With you phone off most of the day, you can turn
it on every 15 minutes and check messages, like a CEO receiving
messages from an assistant periodically. The radiation from Cell Phone
usage is at best destructive to your immune system and at worst,
fatal. Many physicists and public health officials consider cells
phone to be the most dangerous device we have in our society today.
Prescription for Vitality: free yourself from your Cell Phone :
remember Thoreau our possessions have possessed us.

14) Develop healthy sleep habits in order to receive deep stage 3
restorative sleep each night. Protect your soul as the evening
advances so that you are preparing for sleep by avoiding watching TV
or the news or any adrenalin producing activities. Make your peace
with the world and relax into sleep. Good sleep hygiene is critically
important. In Chinese medicine the liver (or organ of regeneration) is
featured between 10 PM and 1 AM so let's not get to bed after 10PM!
Remember, The Rest of your Days depend upon the Rest of your Nights.
Prescription for Vitality: be deeply asleep between 10 PM and 6
AM.

15) Create meaningful relationships with people in order to serve in
ways which you feel are important. Prescription for Vitality: take the
time to reflect and assess and evaluate how you are spending your
precious time. Guard against victim mentality in all areas of your
life!

16) Read and understand the health principles in recommended
literature/web sites and do not be afraid to ask your doctors
questions. Ask your doctors for clarifications. It will help us help
you to help yourself! Prescription for Vitality: be informed so that
you know that you are going through this effort for YOUR sake and not
because a doctor told you to do it!

17) Enjoy your life and its blessings. Cultivate a sense of meaning
to your life. Read between the lines by pausing to consider deeper
truths and subtle beauty. Seek the gift hidden within every challenge.
Seek it especially in every health challenge. Remember symptoms are
messengers that warn us when we are out of balance from a health
perspective. They should be welcomed and not feared or hated. They are
also healing gestures. A fever, for example, can be therapeutic if
managed within the appropriate ranges. Prescription for Vitality: Slow
down, smile, breathe deeply and appreciate the beauty around and
within you! You are playing with the House’s money. Have been all
your life.

If you read this far, I am grateful for your attention and I welcome
your comments and questions! Email me at admin@weeksmd.com


Additonal information from a different source.
How to Minimize Your food allergies -- and Maximize Digestive Health
Date updated: June 13, 2007
By Michael Rosenbaum, M.D.
Content provided by Revolution Health Group
Here are some suggestions about how to control your food allergies and sensitivities and maintain the integrity of your digestive tract:
Digest your food well. When food is thoroughly digested, it’s less allergenic. Some relevant questions to ask yourself: Is your pancreas functioning properly? Is there enough bicarbonate for the intestine so the pancreatic enzymes can work? Are you eating in a hurry, with no time to really chew your food? Are you eating standing up? Eating under tremendous stress? All of these things can interfere with proper digestion.
Check your pancreatic enzymes levels. The Chymex test from Meridian Laboratories can actually test pancreatic enzyme levels in the body. This and other useful lab work can be ordered by your doctor.
Eat smaller, more frequent meals. We tend to eat huge meals, but smaller meals usually encourage more thorough digestion.
Cook your food. Generally speaking, raw food is more allergenic than cooked food. So one way to prevent allergies is to cook as much of your food as you can, because cooking changes its structure. That explains why applesauce is less allergenic than raw apples; the same is true for tomato sauce vs. fresh tomatoes.
Use the Rotation Diet in planning your meals. This is a system of controlling and also identifying food allergies that involves eating each and every specific food only once every four days, among other restrictions. Be creative so that meals are still interesting and pleasurable.
Experiment with food combining. The food-combining theory is based on not mixing grains and meat at the same meal (or at least not mixing large quantities of both). In this plan, the main course of grain or protein is combined with vegetables, with the idea of encouraging more complete digestion — as minimizing the amount of undigested food moving through the GI tract will decrease the allergic load on the system. Some people report that simpler meals, designed around food combining, are easier to digest.
Relax when you eat. Make mealtime a time of quiet, relaxed pleasure — a refuge from the hectic nature of your day. Do this even if your meal is brief and simple.
Keep your immune system strong. It has been proposed that food allergies are worse in the dead cold of winter and better in the summer. Keep your stores of secretory IgA up by taking a moderate amount of vitamin A.
Do everything you can to prevent dysbiosis and high intestinal permeability. Talk to your doctor about the best ways to do this, and you’ll be well on your way to preventing many food sensitivities .
Minimize stress. The concept of stress reduction is important because stress will affect the amount of digestive enzymes you have and the degree of intestinal permeability. Stress is an underappreciated factor in digestion, as well as in allergies and sensitivities. Few of us realize the degree to which stress impairs the lining of the gut.

Additional information from a different source.
Researchers from University College London have found compelling evidence for the first time to link food intolerances and serious illness.

A six-month programme has shown potential links with foodstuffs and Crohn's Disease, and ulcerative colitis.

The discovery could prompt an entire rethink in the medical profession across a range of conditions, from irritable bowel syndrome to migraine. To date, patient reports of intolerances have largely been seen as 'in the mind', and discounted.

At UCL, researchers worked with three specific groups of patients one with Crohn's Disease (28 patients), a second with ulcerative colitis (25), and a control group with a benign coincidental thyroid lump (24).

Each was asked in advance which of 113 foods they felt gave them a bad reaction, and specifically whether that reaction was a gut reaction or non-gut one.

Then, over the six months, each had their blood tested for individual intolerances of the 113 foodstuffs through Yorktest Laboratories, measuring levels of IgG antibodies.

In the control group, most people were found to have few intolerances; in the disease groups there was a much higher frequency.

Specific findings included:

-- Those with Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis were typically found to be intolerant to three or more foodstuffs.

-- Ulcerative colitis subjects most commonly reported sensitivity to peanut (29 per cent of UC subjects versus 13 per cent of control), cashew (25 per cent versus 13 per cent), lentils and broccoli (19/4), hazelnut and brazil nuts (19/13), chilli (19/8). These subjects most commonly reported sensitivity to chilli (44/8), wheat (40/8), milk (36/8), kidney and haricot beans (both 24/0), coffee and onions (20/4) and oranges (20/0).

Dr. Anton Emmanuel from UCL said: "The results were compelling. If there had been no link, one would have expected the results to be 50/50 - i.e. random chance association between (i) patients with objective measure of food sensitivity and (ii) subjective report of food sensitivity .

"For years, GPs - indeed most of the medical community - have perceived food intolerances as being largely in the mind, and this is probably the first research project to demonstrate that they could well be wrong. Indeed this points to what could be a direct link between food intolerance and patient symptoms."

The researchers are planning further experiments to investigate whether IgG antibodies can predict foods that provoke disease on a double blind placebo controlled food challenge - and conversely, whether specific food avoidances based on antibody results might be worthwhile.

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Additional information from a different source
Get lots of vitamins C and E. These antioxidants suppress
inflammation. In Belgian research, people with the lowest vitamin C
levels had the worst inflammation and peripheral (leg) artery disease.
And inflammation dropped 30% to 50% in normal and diabetic people
given 1,200 IU of vitamin E daily in studies at the University of
Texas Southwestern Medical Center.


Don't cook on high heat. Grilling, broiling and frying meat and
poultry create damaged proteins called AGEs (advanced glycosylation
end products) that trigger inflammation. In diabetics who ate a high
AGE-inducing diet, inflammation jumped 35%; it dropped 20% in those on
low AGE-inducing diets, finds research at Mount Sinai School of
Medicine. To reduce AGEs, poach or boil chicken, and eat more fish.
Broiled fish has about one-fourth the AGEs of broiled steak or
chicken. Fruits and vegetables are low in AGEs; cheeses are high in
them.


Eat other foods that help subdue inflammation, such as ginger, curry
powder, olive oil, grapes, garlic, celery, blueberries and tea.


Contact Contributing Editor Jean Carper, an authority on nutrition, at
jeancarper.com. Sign up for her free quarterly newsletter: Call
800-627-9721 or visit stopagingnow.com.
What's your inflammation level?
Get a blood test that measures C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for
blood vessel inflammation. The higher your CRP, the greater your
inflammatory activity.

Additional Information from a Different Source
Whole grains may cut risk of inflammatory diseases
Date updated: June 18, 2007
Content provided by Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The health benefits of whole grains may extend beyond the heart, according to a new study that links the foods to a lower risk of inflammatory conditions such as Arthritis or asthma.

Researchers found that among nearly 42,000 postmenopausal women, those who ate the most whole grains were about one-third less likely to die of an inflammatory disorder over a 15-year study period.

Inflammatory illnesses include any condition that involves chronic inflammation in body tissue; such inflammation is believed to contribute to a range of disorders, including heart disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders like Rheumatoid Arthritis , respiratory illnesses such as asthma and digestive diseases like COLITIS.

Numerous studies have linked fiber-rich whole grains to a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes. The new findings now suggest they also protect against other inflammation-related diseases, the study authors report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"The observed health effects are broader than heart disease and broader than diabetes," lead study author Dr. David R. Jacobs, Jr., of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, told Reuters Health.

The protection, Jacobs and his colleagues speculate, may come from antioxidant substances in whole grains that protect cells against the damaging effects of chronic inflammation.

The researchers based their findings on data from the Iowa Women's Health Study, which followed the health of 41,836 women ages 55 to 69 from 1986 through 2001.

Among other lifestyle assessments taken at the study's start, the women completed detailed questionnaires on their diets -- including how often they ate whole grains like oatmeal, brown rice, whole-grain breakfast cereal, bran, bulgur and popcorn.

Among those who ate 11 or more servings of whole grains per week, the odds of dying from an inflammatory condition during follow-up were about one-third lower than those of women who rarely ate whole grains.

Lower risks were also seen among women who ate at least four whole-grain servings a week.

Whole grains differ from refined grains, like white bread and snack foods made from white flour, in that they retain more of the fiber- and nutrient-dense components of the grain.

In an earlier study that analyzed the antioxidant capacity of more than 1,000 foods, Jacobs and his colleagues found that several whole-grain products were at the top of the list.

"I personally think that the public would do well to incorporate more whole-grain foods of any type into their diets," Jacobs said.

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, June 2007.

 

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