Archives for March 2016

Mar
19
2016

Book Review: “Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right”, By Ray Schilling, MD

This book entitled “Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right” (Amazon, March 18, 2016) is dealing with the practice of medicine then and now. Medical errors, false diagnoses and wrong treatments are nothing new in the history of medicine. It happened in the past, and it is happening now. My first book was about anti-aging. The title was “A Survivor’s Guide to Successful Aging” (Amazon 2014).

Book overview

Chapter 1

Here I describe describe that famous people like President Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Churchill, Beethoven or more recently Michael Jackson have something in common: all of them suffered the consequences of blatant medical mistakes. In Beethoven’s time lead containing salves to plug the drainage holes from removing fluid from his abdomen caused lead poisoning. In this chapter I review also how doctors treated the illnesses of the above-mentioned celebrities, but then ask the question: “What better treatments have offered to prevent some of the disastrous treatment outcomes?”

Chapter 2

Modern drugs seem to come and go. We learn that twenty-first century medications that are supposed to be the latest therapeutic agents are having their potentially deadly consequences too: COX-2 inhibitors, the second generation arthritis drugs cause strokes and heart attacks! Your doctor may still prescribe some of these dangerous drugs for arthritis now.

Chapter 3

This chapter deals with the fact that medical treatments for people’s diseases may be inappropriate when the doctor treats only symptoms, but the doctor does nothing about the causes of their illnesses. This is a scary thought.

Chapter 4

What does it take to prevent these poor health outcomes, so that we will be able to prevent any disastrous outcomes pertaining to our own health care in the present and future? As we will see, the problem today is still the same as it was in the past, namely that many physicians still like to treat symptoms instead of the underlying cause of an illness. Big Pharma has the seducing concept of a pill for every ill, but it is not always in your best interest, when these medications have a slew of side effects. “Gastric reflux” means a mouthful of stomach acid. Big Pharma simply offers the patient with the symptom of gastric reflux a multitude of medications to suppress this symptom. But it is more important to dig deeper to find the reason for the illness and treat the underlying cause.

Chapter 5

We all need our brain to function. This chapter concentrates on the brain and how we can keep our brains functioning optimally until a ripe old age. This review spans from prevention of head concussions to avoiding type 3 diabetes (insulin sensitivity from overconsumption of sugar). It manifests itself in Alzheimer’s disease. It is a form of diabetes of the brain that leads to deposits of a gooey substance. Prevention of this condition is also reviewed .

Chapter 6

This chapter reviews what we now know about how to keep a healthy heart. Certain ingredients are necessary such as regular exercise, a healthy Mediterranean diet, supplements etc. The good part is that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain. You are preventing two problems (brain and heart disease) at the same time.

Chapter 7

What should we eat? And why does healthy food intake matter? Without the right ingredients of our body fuel, the body machinery will not work properly. The Mediterranean diet is an anti-inflammatory diet that is particularly useful.

Chapter 8

We need healthy limbs, bones and joints. We are meant to stay active in our eighties and nineties and beyond. No osteoporosis, no joint replacements, no balance problems that result in falls! Learn about how to deal with problems like these in this chapter.

Chapter 9

This chapter deals with detoxification. What do we do as we are confronted with pollution, with radiation in the environment and poisons in our daily food? A combination of organic foods, intravenous chelation treatments and taking supplements can help us in that regard.

Chapter 10

I am dealing here about reducing the impact of cancer in our lives. A lot of facts have come out in the past 10 years telling us that reduction of sugar and starchy food intake reduces cancer. Curcumin, resveratrol and vitamin D3 supplements also reduce cancer rates as does exercise and stress management. All of this is reviewed here.

Chapter 11

This chapter tells you all you need to know about your hormone status. Women need to avoid estrogen dominance; both sexes need to replace the hormones that are missing. By paying attention to your hormonal status and replacing the missing natural hormones with bioidentical ones, most people can add 10 to 15 years of useful, active life!

Chapter 12

Here you will learn more about anti-aging. You will learn about the importance to keep your mitochondrial DNA healthy. Apart from that there are ways how to keep your telomeres longer; certain supplements that are reviewed will help. Also your lifestyle does make a big difference in how old you can turn.

Chapter 13

This chapter investigates the limits of supplements. Many supplements are useful, but you do not want to overdo it and get into toxic levels. More is not necessarily better!

Chapter 14

Here is a review of an alternative approach to treating ADHD. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder has been over diagnosed, has been neglected and has been over treated with dangerous drugs. An alternative treatment plan is discussed, which includes a combination of therapeutic steps.

Chapter 15

This gives you a brief summary of the book.

Kirkus Review

Kirkus Reviews reviewed the book on March 17, 2016: “A retired physician details how various preventative measures can fend off disease and disability in this consumer health guide. Schilling (A Survivor’s Guide to Successful Aging, 2014) had a family medicine practice in Canada for many years before retiring. Although Schilling ventures into some controversial territory in his latest book, it’s generally an engaging, helpful synthesis of ideas that draws on reputable research from the Mayo Clinic and other sources. Overall, it serves as an intensely detailed wake-up call to the importance of preventative health. He largely brings an accessible and even-tempered tone to his narrative, warning readers, for example, that preventative health measures can only aid in “a delay of aging, not ‘eternal living.’ ” A thought-provoking, impassioned plea to be proactive about one’s health.”

Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right

Healing Gone Wrong – Healing Done Right

Conclusion

In this book it becomes evident that it is better to prevent an illness whenever possible rather than to wait for illness to set in and cause disabilities or death. You heard this before: “Prevention is better than a cure” or “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”. I will give an explanation, based on scientific data that there is indeed evidence to support these notions on a cellular level.

Mitochondria, the energy packages within our cells

The mitochondria, the energy packages within our cells, are the driving force that keep people vibrantly healthy well into their nineties. All this can only happen when the mitochondria function properly. If toxins poison the mitochondria and as a result they malfunction, we are not looking at a person with vibrant health. Instead sixty or seventy year-olds may use a wheelchair. If you want a life without disabilities, a life without major illnesses and enjoy good health to a ripe old age, you are reading the right book.

The book is written in American English.

Available in the US: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1523700904

In Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Healing-Gone-Wrong-Done-Right/dp/1523700904/  

In other countries the book is available through the local Amazon websites.

Mar
12
2016

Fiber, An Essential Food Ingredient

The Standard American Diet will not provide enough fiber, an essential food ingredient. The fiber intake in the US population is between 12.5 grams and 16.8 grams on average, which is way below the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine as listed below.

Depending on age and gender the Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine, National Academies has recommended the following guidelines for adequate daily fiber intake in grams per person.

Institute of Medicine fiber recommendations (gram per person per day)

Males: age 9-13: 21 grams; age14 to 50: 38 grams; age 51 and higher: 30 grams

Females: age 9-18: 25 grams; age 19-50: 21 grams; age 51 and higher: 21 grams

Children: age 1-3: 19 grams; age 4-8: 25 grams

Brief history regarding fiber

Sir Dr. Denis Burkitt, the famous English surgeon, examined bowel movements (stools) of African tribes in comparison to his English countrymen and came to the conclusion in the 1940’s that the Western world needed to remedy constipation problems and cancer of the colon problems by eating more fiber.

He is still right: fiber is mainly treating the constipation (not preventing the cancer), but the chemicals that are also in the vegetables contain a multitude of natural anti-carcinogenic substances, which provide the powerful preventative action against colon cancer and many other cancers. Lycopene, not known at the time of Sir Dr. Burkitt is one of these and is found in tomatoes and tomato products.

Old historic observation by Dr. Burkitt still relevant today

Sir Dr. Burkitt’s observation that high bulk foods (like vegetables and green leaves) prevent cancer is as valid today as it was in the mid 1900’s. In the meantime it has become evident that fiber also lowers cholesterol and helps prevent heart attacks and strokes as well.

What are some of the problems with fiber intake?

Here is a typical day for a Standard American diet:

1. The average breakfast with two toasts, an egg and sausage. This contains 0.7 grams of fiber. The coffee or tea or juice that is consumed contains no fiber.

2. For lunch you may eat a hamburger in a bun and a helping of French fries. There are 2 grams of fiber in the bun and 3.9 grams of fiber in the French fries, a total of 5.9 grams. Alternatively you may want to eat a pepperoni medium pizza: 0 grams of fiber!

The Standard American diet goes on

3. Dinner may consist of one baked potato (3.4 Grams of fiber), beef steak (0 grams of fiber, no matter whether it is an 8 oz. or 10 oz. steak) and mixed vegetables (1 cup, which contains 5 grams of fiber). For dessert you may have a bowl of ice cream (1 gram of fiber). If you eat in a restaurant you also get a bun with butter (0 grams of fiber) plus a small garden salad (0.9 grams of fiber).

4. Snacks during the morning: medium oat bran muffin: 5 grams of fiber

5. Afternoon snack: cinnamon roll: 1 gram of fiber.

Fiber total of the day for Standard American diet

Grand total of the day for Standard American diet: 22.9 grams of fiber. It depends whether or not you consumed the mixed vegetables and the bran muffin. If you did not eat the mixed vegetables and the bran muffin, you may only have consumed 12.9 grams of fiber. If you had pizza for lunch, you only got 7 grams of fiber that day.

Sources of fiber from foods

You can see from these few examples that processed foods tend to have a lot less fiber than vegetables and fruit. Particularly pastas and bread are devoid of fiber, but very rich in calories. So, if we were serious about wanting to increase our fiber content in the food we eat, we need to ensure enough intake of fruit and vegetables that contain fiber. There are many useful websites that list the fiber content per food item: if you look for the fiber content of a medium sized apple using this website, you find that it contains 4 grams of fiber.

This would be a much better snack than an ice cream with no or very little fiber. Here are more fiber suggestions.

How can we increase fiber intake?

We need to think about the whole nutritional equation, how many calories are in food, how much sugar, how much fat and protein. If we want to increase the amount of fiber we take in, we definitely have to watch the sugar content of the food item in question.

For instance ¼ cup of raisins has 2 grams of fiber in it, but also 29 grams of sugar, translating into 130 calories. Conversely, ½ cup of raspberries contains 4.6 grams of fiber and has only 20 calories. This choice is definitely a winner compared to raisins.

Use the Internet to learn about the fiber content of the various foods while you keep an eye on sugar content and calories as well. The idea is to maximize the fiber content in your food intake by cutting out fiber empty foods and adding fiber rich foods as much as possible.

Example of a fiber rich day

1. Breakfast: Omelet with green onions, mushrooms and spinach. Garnish this with ½ avocado and two tablespoons of salsa. The spinach/onion omelet with mushrooms has 3 grams of fiber. ½ avocado provides 5 grams of fiber; the salsa adds 0.6 grams of fiber. Breakfast total: 8.6 grams of fiber.

2. Lunch: Greek salad with turkey breast (4 grams of fiber). Add a snack of one handful (1.5 oz.) of walnuts as desert: 3 grams of fiber. Lunch total: 7 grams of fiber.

The fiber rich day goes on

3. Dinner: Small salad, salmon with broccoli and 1 grilled tomato. Fruit salad for desert. Salad: 0.9 grams of fiber; salmon: 0 grams of fiber; ¾ cup of cooked broccoli: 7 grams of fiber; grilled tomato: 0.6 grams of fiber; fruit salad: 3 grams of fiber. Dinner total: 11.5 grams of fiber.

4. Snacks throughout the day: 1 pear in the morning: 4 grams of fiber; 1 apple in the afternoon: 4 grams of fiber; 1 handful of walnuts: 3 grams of fiber. Snacks total fiber: 11 grams of fiber.

Total of fiber for the fiber rich day: 38.1 grams of fiber.

Fiber math

This is where it is getting interesting. Depending on whether you are a woman aged above or below 50 years or a man aged above or below 50 years, you have different fiber intake requirements as mentioned above. With the fiber rich diet you have exceeded your daily goal easily whether you are a man or a woman above or below 50. You won the race easily. Fiber intake does not mean that you eat fibrous food that tastes like sawdust! This diet example shows you delicious and nutritious food.

Measuring fiber content of food

But with the American Standard diet you barely reached the goal if you ate your mixed vegetables and the bran muffin and you are a woman above or below the age of 50. 22.9 grams of fiber is not enough for a child between the ages of 4 and 8 and it is definitely not enough for a man above or below the age of 50.

Watching what we are eating based on fiber content

This type of math just shows you how deficient our modern Western type food intake is. And if you look at the aspect of it being delicious or even nutritious it leaves a lot to be desired! This is what Sir Dr. Denis Burkitt found when he compared the food intake of civilized English citizens with tribes in the African jungle. He recognized last century that England’s fiber deprived diet compared to the fiber rich diet in Africa was responsible for the much higher colon cancer rates in England. It is only now that we are recognizing the enormity of his investigations.

Cardiovascular significance of high fiber

Apart from reducing colon cancer incidence fiber has also gained recognition for prevention against heart attacks and strokes. It turns out that the enterohepatic pathway is interfered with through the intake of fiber. Cholesterol from bile is bound to fiber in the gut and transported to the sewer instead of being taken up through the enterohepatic pathway, which includes the portal vein system and the liver. The end result is that triglycerides and LDL cholesterol fall, while HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) is raised, and hardening of the arteries slows down significantly. The patient lives longer, heart attack and stroke rates go down, and there is less disability.

Supplement fiber, if you are not getting enough in food

There is good news. Psyllium husk, Metamucil and any other fiber supplement can help you to reach and surpass your daily fiber goal. There is no danger of overdosing as any surplus simply comes out in your stool. You will notice as you increase your fiber intake that your stool volumes go up. Sir Dr. Burkitt actually weighed the stool of patients in Africa and in England: African tribes had voluminous stools, while people in English had much smaller stool volumes. This is how Sir Dr. Burkitt detected the importance of fiber intake.

Example of how to fit fiber into your dietary schedule

Let’s assume you are a male aged 45 years and your diet is a bit better than the average Standard American diet with a daily intake of 25 grams of fiber. Your daily goal is 38 grams of fiber, so you are 13 grams short. You can solve this problem. Get a fiber supplement from the health food store where 1 teaspoon contains about 5 grams of fiber. Be careful: fiber is very thirsty and uses up a lot of water. If you use psyllium husk powder, make sure to add about 1 cup of water to 1 ½ teaspoons of the psyllium husk powder or another similar product. Once you added enough water and stirred well you can drink it down.

Always drink enough fluids to get the fiber down

Between fiber gulps drink some more water to dilute any fiber stuck in your esophagus as it goes down into your stomach. Enough fluid intake is crucial, as the fiber binds fluid in your digestive tract. Repeat this procedure (1 ½ teaspoons of psyllium husk powder with lots of water) at lunchtime. You have now added 15 grams of fiber (2×7.5 grams) to your daily 25 grams of fiber. This brings you to a total of 40 grams of fiber, well above your goal of 38 grams. If you plan to use a fiber supplement it is recommendable that you start with small amounts of fiber. Start  maybe with just one teaspoon per day and increase the amount gradually.

The best is to switch your diet to the fiber rich diet

Your alternative would be to switch your diet to the fibre rich diet described above. Your basic intake was 38.1 grams, just enough to reach your goal. If you want to play it even safer, you may want to add another handful of walnuts (3 grams of fiber) or ¾ teaspoonful of psyllium husk powder with water to bring your total fiber intake to above 41 grams.

With the introduction of the various fiber products that you can buy at the health food store, it is now much easier to manage your total fiber intake.

 

Fiber, An Essential Food Ingredient

Fiber, An Essential Food Ingredient

Conclusion

In the past few years we heard from cardiologists that heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure could all be helped by much higher fiber intakes. But the public in general has not listened very well to this message. Gastroenterologists also have been urging people to eat more fiber for colon cancer prevention, but many other cancers are also diminished by regular fiber intake. Breast cancer is one of these cancers responding to extra fiber intake. The bottom line is that we all need to pay attention to what we eat. We need to learn how little fiber there is in many foods. The tables can be found online. It may come as a surprise to you that a healthy bowl of tossed salad has only very little fiber. The total fiber content in our food may not add up to what we need (see table above). Simply supplement with psyllium husk powder or another fiber supplement. Do not forget to drink plenty of liquids. This is not only help for those who experience constipation. It is powerful prevention of heart attacks, strokes and many cancers.