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For Better Health, Chew On This

Most Health Experts Agree…

CHRONIC INFLAMMATION is Public Enemy Number One. Diseases that cause the highest death rates, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and conditions affecting the lungs, kidneys, and liver, along with the ongoing ailments that folks suffer from day-in and day-out — headaches, arthritis, digestive disorders, dementia, nerve and muscle degeneration, and skin diseases, to name a few — are linked to chronic inflammation.

When the immune system is overtaxed and asked to put out fires that are constantly raging, or if there are fires on too many fronts, it can lead to delayed healing, pain and suffering, permanent tissue damage, and death. So it behooves us all to find the root of chronic inflammation in our own bodies, and squelch it at its source (instead of merely covering up the symptoms with prescription and over-the-counter medications).

So where’s your inflammation coming from? There are a few usual suspects that I’ll list here:
• Your Diet (sugar and other refined carbohydrates, charred food, lack of green veggies, gluten, dairy and other allergens);

• Your Environment (pollution, toxic home cleaners and personal care items, and even your negative thoughts);

• Leaky Gut;

• Belly Fat;

• Your Mouth.

Wait…What? My Mouth?

That’s right, your oral cavity. Each of the categories listed above deserve their own explanation, and we’ll get to those in other posts. But for this article we are going to focus on the mouth as a primary source of chronic inflammation.

Periodontal disease and chronic gum infections have been linked to an increased risk of heart disease by about a gazillion studies (rough estimate). But new research has taken it a step further and proven that the pathogens — bad bacteria and other critters — in your mouth that are causing your gums to be swollen and bloody are also moving into your bloodstream and causing your arteries to clog up and choke. For the science-minded among you, here are a few studies to check out :

J Med Microbiol 09:58:1568-1575
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 11; 108
Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 05; 25:e17-e18
J Bacteriol 10;192(12):3024-3032

How can this be, you may ask? How has my mouth betrayed me? Or maybe the question should be, how have you betrayed your mouth?

The mouth has a rich and dynamic blood supply, and the skin in and around the gums is very fragile. Your immune system can handle the occasional onslaught, but if you have chronic gum or periodontal disease (chronic inflammation,) the persistent bleeding provides quick and ready access for the pathogens to have direct entry into your blood stream, your arteries, and your heart.

So What Can You Do? Put These Tips Into Practice:

1. Improve your dental hygiene.
Brush twice a day and floss once a day. I recommend using a dental floss with tea tree oil, and rinsing your toothbrush with hydrogen peroxide before each time you brush. Tee tree oil is a natural antibacterial, and diluted with water it makes a great mouth wash and gargle. Hydrogen peroxide will kill the nasty germs that are lurking on your toothbrush. Another advantage: H2O2 whitens teeth.  Consider ditching the store-bought toothpaste and brushing with food-grade hydrogen peroxide and baking soda.

2. Cut the sugar and sugary drinks.
Streptococcus mutans is the name of the bacterium that causes dental cavities (caries). It’s the culprit that forms the plaque that attracts microorganisms to attach to the surface of your teeth and gums. And just in case you’re wondering, antibiotics can’t touch these bacterium because the biofilm (plaque) that forms on your teeth protects it, which is why antibiotics are ineffective for preventing and treating cavities. Guess what the S. mutans uses to make this biofilm…drum roll please…sucrose, a.k.a. sugar.

Sugar also changes the pH of the biofilm, which causes a demineralization and breakdown in tooth enamel and underlying dentin. When you cut out sugar you starve S. mutans. Buh-bye cavities. Buh-bye inflammation.

But here’s the real kicker for your ticker: S. mutans has also been implicated in heart disease. It is the most prevalent bacterial species found in the artery cell walls of patients who undergo cardiovascular surgeries, and S. mutans infection is a leading cause of endocarditis (heart valve inflammation). So the bacteria in your mouth, fed by sugar, goes directly into your blood stream via your inflamed, bloody gums, and causes your heart to become diseased. Cut the sugar, starve the bad bacteria, save your heart, and possibly your life.

3. Chew on THIS:
Another major step you can take to cut your risk of chronic inflammation and all its tentacles is to use an oral probiotic. You know by now that I am enamored with probiotics, or good bacteria, and all the great things they do for our bodies. Our bodies have more bacteria than cells by far, and if your good bacteria outnumber the bad, chances are you are healthy.

Probiotics are important for digestive health, a strong immune system, hormonal balance, detoxification, and the list goes on and on. But did you know that probiotics are important for your mouth and upper-respiratory system as well? So, while it’s important to swallow your probiotics, preferably one that is enteric-coated to survive the stomach acid and make it into your intestines where it can do the most good, I also recommend chewing a probiotic every day. This allows the good bacteria to infiltrate your mouth and sinus cavities, as well as your upper GI tract. Clinically, I have found that my patients of all ages (children, adults and seniors) who are diligent with their probiotic intake enjoy these benefits:

• Fewer cavities, gum disease, halitosis (bad breath,) and scraping and drilling when they go to their dentists for their regular cleanings and check- ups.

• Fewer sinus infections and other upper-respiratory infections. Bad bacteria can’t set up shop where good bacteria are prolific. The good bacteria also regulate the pH in the mouth and sinus cavities, and help to undo some of the damage from the acid that we come into contact with when we eat and drink during the day.

• Less gastric reflux/heartburn/GERD, and decreased GI symptoms such as nausea. The good bacteria help to squelch the acidity and can give almost instantaneous relief.

• Lower levels of C-Reactive Protein as measured by blood work. C-Reactive Protein is a major indicator of inflammation within the body. Decreased chronic inflammation can translate into less pain and discomfort, a healthy heart, clearer skin, a calm tummy, and better brain health.

So What Should You Do NOW?

I’ll tell you what I do and what I recommend to my patients: get a box of Dr. Ohhira’s Probiotics, STAT from Your Supplements! If you’ve never taken them before, check with your nutritionist or functional medicine doctor, and start slowly. There are times that high dosing comes in handy, but talk to your doctor first.

The maintenance dosage I recommend is 1 pill for every 50 pounds of body weight*. You’ll want to make sure you chew at least one of them, before bed, after you brush your teeth. For example, what I do personally is swallow two and chew one. If you are 200 pounds, your maintenance dosage is to swallow three and chew one each night before bed.

*There’s an added benefit to consuming more probiotics the more weight you are carrying, because research has shown that good bacteria is associated with a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI). Taking the right probiotics can actually help you to lose weight. But that’s the subject of another blog.

Until we meet again, keep the inflammation low and the probiotic count high, and be blessed, healthy and happy.

Dr. Engelbart

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The Fat-Burning, Brain-Optimizing, Energy-Producing Way to Start Your Day

Are you:
  • Frustrated with your lack of energy during the day?
  • Struggling to lose weight?
  • Finding yourself desperately wanting a nap after a meal?
  • Having problems with focus and short-term memory?
  • Craving sugar, foods, and beverages you know are not good for you?

If these problems describe you, you most likely have DYSGLYCEMIA (blood sugar regulation problems). And as it turns out, how you start your day largely determines how your blood sugar and insulin levels will respond over the next 24 hours. Follow my three simple tips every morning, and you will set yourself up with a fat-burning, brain-optimizing, energy-to-spare advantage.

AND these same tips can help you lower your cholesterol and triglycerides, and help prevent you from developing Type II Diabetes.  Read on.

Let’s take a brief moment to review how blood sugar (glucose) and insulin work. Your body converts the carbohydrates you eat into glucose, which is one of the main sources of fuel for the cells in your body and brain (oxygen being the other critical fuel component). The pancreas excretes a hormone called insulin, which transports the glucose from the bloodstream into the cell where it can be used to make energy.

When you eat complex carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, your blood sugar levels rise gradually, and your pancreas has an easier time balancing how much insulin is needed to keep it stable. But if you flood your body with simple carbohydrates (sugars, breads, pastas, and even fruits,) the pancreas goes into high gear and excretes a surge of insulin. This causes your blood sugar levels to abruptly fall, and can leave you feeling fuzzy-headed, irritable, and exhausted (typical symptoms of reactive-hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar).

There are other problems with these insulin surges. For one, they are a signal to the cell that there is plenty of glucose for energy, so it’s time to start storing. In other words, insulin surges trigger the body to start storing fat.

Another other problem is that an insulin surge will drop your blood sugar to a low level, causing you to feel hungry again, and triggering a craving for something that is high in simple sugars. And then the process starts all over again.

After many episodes of this vicious cycle, your cells simply stop responding to insulin altogether. This causes your blood pressure to rise, and your triglyceride and cholesterol levels to soar. This is what is known as insulin resistance, or “Syndrome X”.

If you refuse to do something to stop all this madness at this phase, you are almost sure to develop Type II Diabetes.

So what should you do to stop the excess fat storage and get your energy back? It’s simple, really: start your day by balancing your blood sugar.

If the vicious cycle never starts in the first place, you won’t have to fight an uphill battle the rest of the day (or the rest of your life).

Here’s what you do:
  1. Make sure you eat within 1 hour of waking up (even if you don’t feel like it).
  2. Your breakfast should contain mainly high-quality protein sources.
  3. Avoid having caffeine on an empty stomach.

If you suffer from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) or insulin resistance, it’s likely that you don’t feel like eating anything when you wake up. Most of my patients tell me that eating first thing in the morning is the last thing they want to do. They’d rather just have a cup of coffee, or a glass of juice, or even soda, and wait a couple of hours until they feel hungry.

This is one of the worst things you can do.  Juices, sodas, and even coffee will spike your blood sugar levels, requiring an exaggerated insulin response. As your blood sugar plummets, your brain is sapped of the fuel it needs to do its many jobs (paying attention, remembering where you put your keys, performing your job duties, staying awake, etc.).

So eat something within an hour of awakening to stave off that blood sugar crash. But you can’t eat just anything. A breakfast high in carbohydrates (cereals, toast, bagel, juices, fruit, etc.) will also send your blood sugar to the sky, and insulin has to come to the rescue again.

Make sure you have a high-quality protein meal to start your day right. You don’t have to eat a large portion, but you do need to eat some protein within one hour of awakening to set your blood sugar and insulin on the right track. Some good options are:

  • Eggs or egg whites
  • Turkey bacon
  • Cheese (preferably raw)
  • Yogurt supplemented with branch chain amino acids (BCAAs) or protein powder
  • Collagen hydrolysate (find this at Your Supplements)
  • Protein shake

Even a spoonful of natural peanut butter is better than nothing.

Of course I always recommend foods that are organic, minimally processed, and as fresh as you can find.

Another important note: THESE RECOMMENDATIONS ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN AS THEY ARE FOR ADULTS, especially if your child has developmental delays, learning disorders, ADD/ADHD, or struggles with childhood obesity. Many of the habits that we battle as adults start when we are young.

And remember that your brain needs a steady source of glucose — not wildly fluctuating sugar levels — in order for it to do its job properly.  So these recommendations are critical for anyone struggling with depression, anxiety, insomnia, and any other neurological disorder.

There you have it: three simple tips to help you lose weight, have more energy, and have better brain function. While this certainly is not an exhaustive list on how to balance your blood sugar, it’s a great way to start.

I can’t wait to hear from those of you who put this into practice and reap the rewards!

 

 

 

 

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Insomnia: Simple and Functional Tips That Work

Caution:  Lack of Sleep Has Been Proven to be Hazardous to Your Health

You’re tired. Exhausted, in fact. All you can think about is the time when you can crawl into your bed after a long day and wait for the blissful slumber to overtake you. But for millions of us, this process is not as easy as it should be.  30-40% of adults suffer from insomnia, and find it difficult to get to sleep, stay asleep, or both.

Sleep is a complex function. Rather than being a time when your brain simply shuts down, it is a time of active regeneration for both brain and body. It is a time when our memories consolidate, when our cells regenerate, and when our brain makes sense of what it experienced during our wake hours.

Sleep deprivation should not be taken lightly. It has been used throughout history as an effective method of torture and punishment, and research has shown that prolonged sleep deprivation can literally drive a person crazy.

Lack of sleep doesn’t just lead to fatigue. It has been linked to weight gain, inability to cope with stress, delayed healing, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, compromised immune system function, and neurotransmitter imbalances which can cause depression and altered perception.

Now that you understand that insomnia isn’t just annoying and inconvenient, but actually dangerous, I think it’s time to review some important tips on how to get a good night’s sleep.

The Magic of Ninety Minutes

Researchers refer to “sleep architecture” as the pattern of sleep cycles that one completes during the night (or during a nap).  Each cycle lasts 90 minutes, and consists of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when we do our active dreaming, and four stages of non-rapid eye movement sleep, where we experience deep sleep. In order to enjoy restorative sleep, each 90-minute cycle must be completed. If a 90-minute cycle is interrupted for any reason, you will not feel adequately rested.

For this reason, many sage individuals conclude that if they get six hours of non-interrupted sleep, they feel better, more rested, and more awake than if they get seven hours of sleep. There are even people who sleep three hours each night and then take a 90 minute nap during the day, and claim they feel fantastic, energetic, and extremely well-rested.

My goal here isn’t to get you to try the three-hour-per-night experiment, but I am advising that you set your wake/ sleep clock to a 90 minute interval.  Seven and an half hours seem to be the most popular with my patients.  Research shows that even if you get less sleep overall, if you complete the 90 minute cycle, you will feel better, heal faster, consolidate memories more efficiently, cope with stress better, regulate blood sugar better…you get the idea.

Get Into a Routine

Doing the same things at the same time each night before you go to bed literally trains your brain to predict that sleep-time is approaching, and helps you to fall asleep fast.  If you want to move from insomniac to sleep aficionado, here’s what your goals should be:

  • Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning. Make sure your sleep time allows you to complete a 90 minute sleep-cycle.
  • About an hour before bedtime, go through a systematic routine that you repeat every night.  It might look something like this:
    • 9:30 pm :  Sip a cup of SleepyTime tea (warm or cold) while you take your nighttime supplements (there are a vast degree of options here, and best to have your functional doctor customize a program for you, like I do for my patients.)
    • 9:40 pm:  Change into jammies, wash face, brush teeth.
    • 9:50 pm:  Read a book or magazine.
    • 10:05 pm:  Journal, pray, or meditate.
    • 10:30pm:  Lights out.

Pretty simple, right? The key is to KEEP it simple, and repeat it every night, until it becomes habit. This can take up to 90 days, so be patient and consistent.

Here is what should NOT be in your nightly routine:

  • Caffeine and other stimulant consumption

I shouldn’t have to expound on this very much, as it should be quite clear that stimulants will interrupt your sleep.  Even if you don’t think you are susceptible to caffeine’s stimulant effects, if you suffer from insomnia, you should leave it out of your nightly routine.  In fact, I recommend you stay away from caffeine in all forms (coffee, caffeinated teas, chocolate) and other stimulants such as B vitamins, and herbal stimulants (such as ginseng) for 6 hours before your bedtime.  Your stimulant consumption should be exclusively in the daytime hours when you are trying to stay awake.

  • Exercise

While exercise has been shown to help with insomnia and should absolutely be a part of your DAYtime routine, if you exercise in the evening or nighttime hours, you are messing with your circadian rhythm (i.e. your natural wake-sleep cycle). If you exercise at night, you will rev up the adrenal hormone cortisol at the precisely the wrong time.

Our cortisol levels should be highest first thing in the morning, and then gradually decrease throughout the day, and be lowest at nighttime to allow us to fall asleep easily. During and immediately after exercise, cortisol is released (this is one of the ways exercise revs our metabolism). Several hours after exercise, cortisol levels decrease significantly. So exercising at nighttime can cause a cortisol spike that has a high probability of  interrupting your sleep.  But exercising earlier in the day regulates cortisol levels appropriately, draining you of excess stress hormone, and allowing you to sleep like a baby. Your workout routine should end a minimum of three hours before your bedtime.

  • Alcohol

Even though alcohol is commonly used as a sedative to help many get to sleep, it can greatly degrade your quality of your sleep and mess up your sleep cycle, especially in the second half of the night. Alcohol is a brain depressant, meaning it decreases the function of specific parts of the brain, altering neurotransmitters that are involved in sleep regulation (namely serotonin and norepinephrine). Scientists confirm that alcohol interferes with our sleep architecture, or the balance of our sleep patterns and brain waves.

Alcohol also impacts our blood sugar levels. Unstable blood sugar is a common cause of insomnia, and in turn, lack of good-quality sleep affects our blood sugar regulation — a vicious cycle, to be sure. So lay off the sauce if you want to sleep better.

  • Sugar

As I just mentioned above, blood sugar plays an enormous role in our wake-sleep cycles. Many times people feel sleepy after eating a high carbohydrate meal, so they think if they have a big bowl of ice cream right before bed, it will help them sleep better.

First of all, if you are getting sleepy after eating (day or night), this is your “Blood Sugar Dummy Light” going on, telling you that you had too many carbohydrates in the meal you just ate. Concentrate on getting more high-quality protein in, and cut down on the carbs, such as sugar, corn syrup, pastas and grains, alcohol, and even fruit.

Secondly, if your blood sugar is unstable, I can almost guarantee that you will be waking up at least once in the middle of the night, as you slip into hypoglycemia and your brain starts screaming for some fuel. One simple tip for this is to eat a low-carbohydrate snack before bed to help stabilize your blood sugar. This may be a handful of almonds, a little bit of cheese, or some apple slices with natural peanut or almond butter. This can decrease the fasting time and regulate your blood sugar during the night, giving you a better night’s sleep.

PS:  If you are concerned about a low-carb, healthy snack before bed causing you to gain weight, don’t be. Insulin surges cause you to store fat, and that’s what we are trying to avoid by stabilize your blood sugar. Plus, you are far more likely to pack on the fat pounds by losing sleep, which causes your hormonal and metabolism systems to derail, than you are from getting a few calories in from healthy foods before bed.

  • TV, Gaming, Internet Surfing, Texting, Tweeting, Facebooking, Google +ing, etc.

The main area involved in regulating sleep is in the brainstem. Here we find the Reticular Activating Center (RAC), and just like the name says, its job is to keep us activated and awake. It shouldn’t be active all the time, however. It is designed to chill-out in the evening and nighttime hours so that we can get good, restful sleep.

Guess what keeps the RAC active: LIGHT and SOUND. If you are bombarding your senses with light and sound you will keep your RAC stimulated, and send powerful signals to your brain that it is not time to go to sleep. So as you wind down for the evening, wind the visual and auditory stimulation down also. Your bedroom should be dark and free from anything blinking, flashing, or bright. If you suffer from insomnia, consider cutting off the electronics and wireless gadgets three hours before your lights-out time. Use “white noise” devices, or even ear plugs if you have to while you sleep, to keep spontaneous noises to a dull roar (pun intended). Consider an eye mask to keep excess light from waking you up too early.

In addition to the constant electronics and digital gadgets revving up your brainstem and contributing to insomnia (and anxiety, incidentally), there is a lot of discussion and research these days about the dangers of sleeping too close to your phone, computer, and other electronics, even when they are in the “sleep” mode (ironic, isn’t it?).  The review of the research deserves an entire post of its own, so for now I will simply say it would do us all a world of good to unplug a bit more these days, especially before bed. Don’t use your phone as your alarm clock or sleep with it next to your head. Shut down your electronic devices, or keep them in a different room while you sleep.

Keep it Simple and Functional

There are so many pills and devices out there these days designed to help us sleep, and some of you will need more help than what is in this article. Many of my patients certainly do. But these tips should be part of your sleep rehabilitation even if you are needing medication or additional help.

What is clear to me after 13 years of practice is that people jump to the medications (natural, over-the-counter, and prescriptive) before trying the simple things first. What I have found is that getting back to the basics, as discussed here, can help to restore your sleep pattern so you don’t have as much of a reliance on sleep aids, which many times have side-effects of their own. So give this a shot. You have nothing to lose and a good night’s sleep to gain.

As I mentioned in the intro, sleep is an extremely complex function. Many other systems have to be working correctly in order to enjoy proper sleep. These include the adrenal glands, thyroid, blood sugar, and inhibitory neurotransmitters, just to name a few.  These will be addressed in later blog posts, and of course in the book I am currently working on.  If you have questions or suggestions on what you’d like to hear more about, please leave a comment.

Here’s to a good night’s sleep!