Yogi the Bear's Medicine- Honey

Much of what was has been traditionally learned in natural medicine has been derived from watching which plants were consumed by animals who had fallen ill. Now, we are learning more about a common food item , honey, which is showing promise as a cough & cold remedy. This is important because parents have been seeking cough medicine alternatives since some over-the-counter formulas are being pulled from the shelves due to safety concerns. Now a study in the December, 2007, issue of The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine showed that Buckwheat Honey given to 2-18 year olds was effective in reducing symptoms of nightime cough such as cough frequency, bothersome nature of the cough, poor sleep quality for parents and children, and illness duration for less then 7 days. Buckwheat Honey was compared to formulas of honey-flavored dextromethorphan and no treatment a and faired better then the others when given as a single dose before bedtime. Although promising, it is important to make sure a cough/cold is of an uncomplicated nature prior to assuming that honey will be your answer, so getting evaluated by your physician is always a good idea. Happy and Healthy Holidays, Dr. Rinde

Medical Information Overload

It is tremendously confusing to try and learn about medical conditions through the Internet. I try and direct my patients to one main source through the national library of medicine (otherwise known as medline). This is a http://www.nlm.nih.gov/. It is great starting point to learn about your health. The other confusing thing is deciding what kinds of questions that are helpful when meeting with your doctor. The website Ask Me 3 is very helpul and basically states that the three most important questions when discussing your health condition is 1) what is my main problem? 2) what do I need to do?, and 3) why is important for me to do this? Check out http://www.npsf.org/askme3/ for more info.

Your Dream

This time of year people reflect on their dreams of what they want to create in life. If the voice in your head says "no one will ever believe me or that wont work"....consider this? The bottled water industry is a 50-100 Billion dollar industry in the United States. Someone thought "hmm, I could slap this mystical label on this plastic bottle and fill it up with water (which I know is supposed to be a pure source) and people will pay be $1.25 at least and maybe more!" Guess what? they were right and then some.

Ghrelin and Sleep Deprivation

Generally I recommend 7-8 hours sleep per/night. Pretty tough to get this amount these days right? Well if the incentive to sleep is not great enough consider this; Your appetite is effected by the number hours you sleep per night. Researchers have found that those people who are sleep deprived produce more Ghrelin (an appetite hormone) and less Leptin (appetite suppressant hormone). This is an interesting adaptation but may explain some of the association of sleep deprivation and weight management concerns. Also your body produces Growth Hormone during sleep which could play a role in preserving lean muscle mass. The benefits of good sleep habits are plentiful and a topic for another post. Research shows us there is not much more benefit for sleeping more then 7-8 hours a night. My opinion is that sleep is sacred, but understandable how many of us fore go rest for activity. It is worth experimenting on yourself to see how better you feel after a week of 7-8 hours per night and if you're actually more active (and productive) during the day on this amount of sleep. Let me know what happens.

22 pound weight reduction has many potential benefits

Recently I read an article (chan,97) bestowing the benefits of losing 22 pounds when suffering from obesity related health issues. (ie. diabetes, hypertension, angina, high cholesterol). The message is much different then you might imagine.

A 22 lb weight loss has the potential of of the following: A) blood pressure (20 mm/hg drop in diastolic blood pressure and 10 mm/hg drop in systolic blood pressure), b) cholesterol (10% reduction in total cholesterol, 15% reduction in LDL cholesterol, 30% reduction in triglycerides, and 8% increase in HDL cholesterol) , c) Diabetes ( reduced the risk of developing diabetes by 50%, decreased fasting glucose by 30-50%, and Hemoblobin A1C levels fell by 15%), d) and Angina symptoms decrease by 91%.

A 22 pound weight reduction is very realistic in a 6 months period of time. Weight loss should always be gradual 1-2 pounds per/week and should be done under the guidance of a qualified health professional trained in nutrition, lifestyle, and exercise.

Note: losing weight, in my opinion should be a focus of those overweight and obese and not the focus of those of normal weight or underweight. Keep a healthy and accurate body image and compare yourself to reality and not to air-brushed images in magazines.

source:
Chan,F. 1997. Obesity as a Disease. British Medical Journal.53(No.2).307-321.

Obesity Leveling Off

Center for Disease Control reported that we have hit a plateau in obesity rates since 1999. Well finally some good news about obesity!

http://www.nytimes.ocm/2007/11/29/health/29fat.html

Lets look closer at this trend.

"The national center for health statistics reported that more than one-third of U.S. adults -– over 72 million people -- were obese in 2005-2006. This includes 33.3 percent of men and 35.3 percent of women. The figures show no statistically significant change from 2003-2004, when 31.1 percent of men were obese and 33.2 percent of women were obese. "

So actually obese men increased slightly and so did Women....hmm...don't you love statistics? Well the news is that things are leveling off and that's great news. The no statistically significant change means that the slight increase is not determined statistically significant.

Well, I can say the awareness is at an all-time high and its almost obnoxious how obesity is blamed for everything.

I would hope that this trend is due to the increase in health dietary behaviors and exercise but there is also an increase in bariatric surgeries and other disorders that lower the BMI to potentially unhealthy rates...again don't you love statistics?

Even among a trend of plateau's of obesity it is important to promote healthy weight management while also promoting a healthy body image and a healthy relationship with food.

Corn

With the release of the movie , King Corn, it has me opened my eyes wider to what I already knew. If you try to avoid corn in the standard processed food diet, it is nearly impossible. Try it for one day and you'll see. Hence, another reason why there are major reasons to eat a Whole Foods Diet. Other weakpoints in our standard diet are trying to get enough fiber and trying to avoid simple sugars. If you haven't seen this its worth a look
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/kingcorn/trailer/.

A weighty issue

Managing weight is obviously a very complicated issue. No one has completely figured out how to master the metabolism so that it is running at optimal efficiency. That said, the strategies employed in health care have run from obvious "caloric restriction", to fringe "HcG injections", to preemptive "bariatric surgery". Somewhere in this array of strategies lies a healthy and successful strategy.

One of the most obvious concerns is portion distortion. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has sucessfully pointed out the differences in portion size in the last 20 years. Supersize doesn't only apply to fast food. It applies to coffee, salads, muffins, and well...my weakness....popcorn at the movies. I have summarized this distortion of portions as the NHLBI calls it in my handout that can be downloaded at:
http://www.drrinde.com/portiondistortion.pdf

Either our vision has changed or our stomache's have increased size because we are eating more then 2 times what is normal for a serving . Seriously, for a genetic dna change to occur in the last 20 years to promote this increased caloric consumption is unrealistic. So, it must be a result of behaviorial conditioning. Realistically if you are an adult in your 30's or greater, you are no longer growing vertically which was why when we were younger we were told to "clean our plates". The game has changed and the rules have changed. The mantra shoud be "take only what you need".

The strategies I employ are an interplay of dietary behavior (such as portion awarenes), food macronutrient profile (ie. protein vs. carbs), food pharmacalogic effect (ie. low glycemic, satiating, thermogenic foods, etc), exercise, and lifestyle (ie. stress managment, sleep)

I will be talking about this topic on the Naturopathic Perspective (SCAN TV 77) on December 4th, , 2007 at 6:30 p.m.

Welcome

You're flooded with information daily about natural, alternative, and integrative approaches to health and wellness. Helpful and hopeful are many of the sources of this information, however some of it is confusing and potentially dangerous.

As a licensed and accredited naturopathic physician, I spend much of my time reading through the literature on these topics and analyzing helpful from not so helpful information. My hope is to share this along the way. While this information is useful, nothing replaces meeting directly with a physician who has recieved training in complementary and alternative therapies. So, please always bounce any idea by your physician prior to starting a therapy.

In addition to providing information, I hope to keep you updated on some happenings in my practice, so that we have a way to keep in touch.

In health,
Dr. Rinde