Dec
17
2012

From Wheat to Autoimmune Disease and Obesity

By | Allergies, Arthritis, Diabetes, Gastrointestinal Disease, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Hormones, Nutrition, Obesity, Stroke

Introduction

This is a summary of the lessons from the 2012 Anti-Aging Conference in Las Vegas…from wheat to autoimmune disease and obesity. It is not possible to summarize all the multitude of lectures from a three day conference on one page. However, what was striking was that several topics developed into a common thread. These were the topics of autoimmunity, obesity, diabetes, hormone disbalances and more. Dr. William Davis, the author of the book “Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health” explained how the BASF, a major chemical company from Germany was able to chemically modify the genes of wheat in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Clearfield wheat has much more gluten

The farmers liked that the new wheat (called Clearfield wheat) grew with stronger roots, shorter final stems and much larger grains so the yield per acre was higher. The developers of this type of wheat patented it under the name of Clearfield wheat. They did not publicize at the time that there was a significant increase of the gliadin content. Clearfield wheat contains much more gliadin in comparison to the old wheat strains people consumed for thousands of years. Gliadin gets rid of the glue like substance between the gut cells. This causes leaky gut syndrome, something that came out in many other lectures throughout the conference. This exposes the immune cells to foreign proteins from the gut.  The immune system in turn hyper react with the production of autoimmune antibodies.

Stages of autoimmune diseases

Dr. Aristo Vojdani explained in his lecture that there are three stages of autoimmune disease. First, there is the silent stage where there are no symptoms, but the immune system is starting to react. Next there is autoimmune reactivity, which is the second stage. The third stage is autoimmune disease where there are signs of loss of body function. Autoimmunity develops in about 1/3 of identical twins in families who are prone to this. When the researchers examined non-identical twins as a control group, only 2% to 5% of twins developed it.

Autoimmune diseases due to genetics and the environment

This tells us that genetics are responsible for only about 1/3 of the cases of autoimmunity. The other 2/3 come from the environment such as genetically modified foods. In addition, fat cells secrete toxic chemicals and inflammatory cytokines.  Dr. Vojdani emphasized that gliadin in our foods has become one of the major factors of driving autoimmune diseases up in the last few decades. The immune cells with the name of T cells determine whether they accept our own cells as “self”.  Alternatively, they consider other cells as “foreign” and attack them. This occurs in autoimmune diseases such as Celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, MS and others.

Las Vegas December 15, 2012v

Las Vegas, December 15, 2012

There are regulatory T cells, which are good. But there are also T cells whose genetic material underwent a change and became Th17 cells. These cells are a kind of “Pac Man” cells that attacks body cells. Altered gut flora (called gut dysbiosis) in connection with a leaky gut syndrome contributes to the formation of these aggressive Th17 cells. It is the combination of gliadin with bowel dysbiosis that drives the development of autoimmune diseases. Behind this is the fact that the gut plays a major role in the normal functioning of the immune system. Normally there is a tight connection between the gut cells that form the lining of the gut so that there is no exposure of immune cells from the blood to the contents of the gut flora.

Antibody titer tests

We are fortunate that researchers have developed antibody titer tests for the major food groups and these can be valuable pointers that can be used as a tool during the first two stages of autoimmunity before autoimmune disease causes permanent damage. Using these tests on large population groups researchers have found that common food allergies develop against wheat, dairy products, soy and eggs (as Dr. Pamela Smith remarked and Dr. Thomas Alexander explained in detail). A few blood drops suffice to determine IGG, IGA and IGE antibodies.  The test includes a whole battery of antibodies against common foods. This helps the physician to monitor the development and treatment of autoimmune diseases.

Obesity wave

Back to the leaky gut and obesity. The obesity wave in North America and the rest of the world started when the newly patented Clearfield wheat was introduced. With the higher gliadin in wheat products the balance in the gut was changed, more gliadin entered the body, it bound to the opiate receptors of the appetite center (although it is structurally differently from opium) and caused a hunger for more of the same product. The excess calories –in this case from wheat products- are stored as fat.

Aromatase in fat cells causes estrogen dominance

Fat cells by themselves have their own hormones and inflammatory substances causing various diseases. Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes and even cancer are among these. Add to this that with obesity the enzyme aromatase from fat cells causes elevated estrogen production. This causes estrogen dominance and results in heart disease and breast cancer in females. In males too much estrogen causes heart disease and prostate cancer.

Leaky gut syndrome

The story of the A4M conference 2012 in a nutshell: Wheat products with the increased gliadin (gluten) content caused increased leaky gut syndrome in the population since the 1970’s. This is the cause of the wheat addiction, which was further fueled by the obsession of the regulatory bodies to recommend eating according to the food pyramid (a splendid marketing pyramid for wheat consumption, as one of the recommended products are cereals and wheat). With these findings the cause of the obesity wave can be clearly seen. Along with obesity comes the flood of autoimmune diseases, which have developed from the action of the Pac Man type TH17 immune cells that attack various tissues in the body. The common denominator in the body is a low-grade chronic inflammation that Dr. Vojdani explained in more detail. This causes blood vessel diseases culminating in high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

There were many other lectures that I attended. Some dealt with bio-identical hormone replacement. Others discussed telomere health and the effect of fitness on an ongoing basis to achieve longevity. In almost every lecture various speakers discussed the importance of lifestyle issues. This went through the conference lectures like a red thread. Nutrition is not the only factor in longevity. Exercise on a regular basis has a powerful healing effect. It can be instrumental in preventing about 50% of diseases, especially the main killers like heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

More info

More information on celiac disease: http://nethealthbook.com/digestive-system-and-gastrointestinal-disorders/celiac-disease/

Dec
11
2012

What a Wonderful World

By | Anti-aging medicine, Arthritis, Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Men's Health, Nutrition, Prevention, Stroke, Weight loss, Women’s Diseases

Recently I traveled from Palm Springs to the Caribbean and back and I had to think: what a wonderful world! There were connecting flights and there was waiting at various airports. I had lots of time to watch people and to observe what was happening around me.  Louis Armstrong’s song (1967) “What a Wonderful World“ came to mind. I thought that this would be a fitting title for this Blog. Earlier we had come from Canada escaping the winter. The deep blue sky of Southern California and the sight of palm trees (instead of pine trees) is something that makes our hearts beat faster.

The desert is a special place

The desert is a special place. We had friends join us for a week and we had visited Joshua Tree Park with the grotesque looking rock formations. During the flight it was interesting to see the landscape, as we crossed the desert areas of Arizona and New Mexico, seeing what difference people make when large areas are irrigated and the desert transforms into lush, green areas. It is also very visible, where the desert has taken back the land that no longer is irrigated.

Travel to Dallas Fort Worth and Miami

We came to Dallas Fort Worth and the sky was clear. We traveled on to Miami and the sky was showing signs of pollution, although it was a sunny day. After our take-off from Miami we saw the ocean. I have flown over that region many times before, but this time I detected oil slicks on the surface of the ocean of the Gulf of Mexico, leftovers from previous oil spills. So, the Armstrong song of a “wonderful world” came back to me in a different context. I looked at the landscape and what industries can do to it. Erroneously we had just seen several BP commercials while waiting for our plane at the airport where BP was congratulating itself for the role it plays in cleaning up the environment having spent several billion dollars. But there are still oil slicks…

What a Wonderful World

What a Wonderful World

Watching people on the plane

I looked at the people around me in the plane. More than 35% of them were obese; many of their faces looked sagging and prematurely aged, particularly in women. Males, even middle aged ones looked like they were pregnant (abdominal fat) and often their hair was receding, thinning on top and quite a few were bald. All of the texts I had read about anti-aging medicine came back to me. Too bad that people were eating the wrong foods and obviously did nothing to counter their built-in aging clock from depleting hormones as we age.

Menu of the airline

I looked at the menu of the airline. I won’t mention the name of the airline, but I can assure you that 10 different airlines would have almost the same menus. There would only have been one chicken salad that I could have eaten. In the past I tried to order this and I was told that due to popular demand this item was sold out. Instead they wanted to offer me potato chips, cheese and crackers. My wife and I had anticipated this scenario and we had bought a chicken salad and water before we boarded the plane. We also had packed healthy organic energy bars and a trail mix consisting of nuts and raisins to use as snacks during the trip.

Cutting out starchy foods, eating fresh vegetables and lean meat instead

While travelling we stuck to the same principal of cutting out starches, bread, rice, pasta and only eating fresh vegetables, salads and lean meat (chicken, grass fed beef, ribs, lean pork and veal), which we always do since the fall of 2001.  We also avoid all alcoholic beverages and sugar containing sodas. When we returned to Southern California we were delighted to see that our body compositions when measured with the body composition scales were identical to what they were before the trip.

I think we can all contribute to this wonderful world, if we participate in whatever we can do such as these steps.

End wars

End wars because on the long-term they do not lead anywhere to solve conflicts (in my lifetime I am thinking about the Vietnam war, long-winded Ireland crisis, the Korean war and the German reunification at the end of the Cold War). Right now there is the Middle East conflict, which screams for a peaceful solution. As we are conscious about the devastation that is caused by wars, we have to start with ourselves. We have to resolve our own conflicts that may be present in our own lives. Tolerance, acceptance and forgiveness are the tools.

Address pollution 

Pollution needs to be addressed by the US and all of the world’s countries (including Canada where I live most of the time). This means that anti-pollution devices need to be installed in industrial plants and chimneys. Recycling needs to be done on a larger scale. China and India and other emerging market countries need to be taught how these new anti-pollution measures work. This is an ongoing project, but we need more co-operations between government, industry and countries all around the globe. Also we have to start with our own behavior: we can become more aware of reusing and recycling instead of creating more waste in our landfills.

Become better caretakers of our bodies

What can we do to make us part of this wonderful world? We need to become better caretakers of our bodies. Instead of looking at quantity we must look at quality in choosing  natural food wherever possible. Growing up in Germany after the Second World War in the 1960’s and early 1970’s made me witness that high consumption of fat, sugar and starchy foods (potatoes, pasta and bread) caused people to age prematurely and get heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, arthritis, obesity, diabetes and cancer. At that time the “Wirtschaftswunder” (translated into English it means “economic miracle”) had propelled Germany into a nation of  high consumers. During the war they had been poor and often went hungry, they were slim and heart attacks were at an all-time low.

Unhealthy foods and snacks

After the war they made up for times of deprivation and overindulged:  pretzels, buns, bread, butter, French fries, sweets, cakes, cookies, jams, chocolates, pralines-everything was consumed with gusto!  What happened to Germany in the 1960’s and 1970’s is happening again right now in front of our eyes with the obesity wave in the US, Canada and all the other civilized countries around the world. Food companies have been very successful with their advertising through the media. Already kids get hooked to the wrong foods! Hyperinsulinism will ensure that we get hungry every two or three hours. Refined carbs and extra calories are turned into fatty acids by the liver and stored as fat. It shows that we have to resist the wrong food temptation and cut out all refined carbs.

Healthier alternatives

It is healthier to stick to salads and vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, and spinach and eat a small piece of lean meat with it. Have probiotics as plain yoghurt (0% to 2% fat). If you need a sweetener, use a small amount of Stevia, which is a natural sweetener that leaves your body chemistry untouched. Have some fruit as a dessert like blueberries, cherries or strawberries. Eat an apple, the occasional grape. Drink lots of purified water or mineral water.

Buy organic food

Buy ORGANIC food whenever possible. Farmers treat most of the vegetables and fruit with insecticides, which contain residuals in them. When these are ingested, they act like estrogenic substances causing breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. The safest in our society is to stick to organic foods. More expensive, but the best insurance against future disease. Question politicians whenever possible to make yourself heard. You want unadulterated food and water. And as I’m writing about water, have a water filter under the kitchen sink with a carbon filter. In addition, it is good to have reverse osmosis to get rid of chloride or fluoride from the city water. This is what you use to cook your food. You may want to take an iodine tablet once or twice a day to counteract the negative effects of chlorine from having a bath or shower (the skin absorbs chlorine). Why? Because chlorine and fluoride can displace the iodine of the thyroid hormones and make you hypothyroid.

Regular exercise

Exercise every day. Nobody gets fit in their muscles from sitting in front of the TV for hours. You also don’t get fit from spending hours and hours of computer work. If you have to, counterbalance this with an exercise program of 1 hour per day. Walk 30 minutes on a treadmill and do 30 minutes of weights or use specific exercise machines in a gym to strengthen your upper and lower extremity muscles.

Replace missing hormones with bioidentical ones

Did I mention hormones? Yes, I did above when I mentioned depleting hormones as we age. We know for some time that each hormone of the body has its own peak in life and then it declines in production as we age. Or should I rather say, we age when these hormones decline? I like the latter way of wording it, because we can measure hormone levels and when one of the hormones is too low, we can replace it with a bio-identical hormone and the person’s energy comes back and whatever function was missing is restored. This is in essence what anti-aging medicine does. Many conservative physicians and clinics do not like to hear this. Big Pharma does not like to hear this when I am talking about replacing hormones in the body with bio-identical hormones. But the patented cheap copies that are mass manufactured and sold at inflated prices are no fit to the hormone receptors in the body and therefore are dangerous. The artificial drugs cause heart attacks, strokes and cancer as the Women’s Health Initiative has shown in 2002.

What people need to do

What did I think the people I watched on the plane should have done? Their physicians should have tested the hormones of many of them. Many of the overweight or obese patients would likely have had high fasting insulin levels. The extra fat does not just sit there; it is a hormone producing factory for inflammatory compounds and estrogen-like substances. This causes heart attacks and strokes in women. It causes prostate cancer and hair loss in males as well as impotence (“erectile dysfunction”). What I said above would help these people that I met. When you lose fat through changes in the diet and when you start an exercise program, the body mass index slowly comes down as fat melts away. The estrogen production comes down, the inflammatory substances abate. The person feels more energetic and may even think straighter. This is when you realize what a wonderful world it is.

Saliva hormone test

One special test is a saliva hormone test that looks at 5 steroid hormones: DHEA-S (storage form of DHEA), testosterone, estradiol, progesterone and cortisol. Every man and every woman needs a certain balance between these hormones and this test should be done when there is a change in energy or appearance (hair loss) somewhere when we are 35 to 40 years. In women it is important that the progesterone level is 200 times fold higher than the estradiol level (progesterone/estradiol ratio) or she is at risk of developing breast cancer and other cancers (ovary, colon etc.). In a man it is important that his testosterone to estradiol ratio is higher than 20 to 1. This protects him from cancer of the prostate or other cancers.

Bioidentical hormone creams

The physician or a knowledgeable naturopath can prescribe whatever hormones are missing. The health care provider needs to be familiar with the use of bio-identical hormone creams. This program can prevent diseases like osteoporosis, diabetes, cancer and arthritis. It also prevents disabilities.

With this I leave 2012 behind and I am looking forward to a new year (2013). I am looking forward to the time when more people can see Louis Armstrong’s vision of a “What a wonderful world”.

More information on:

1. Pollution: https://www.askdrray.com/protecting-yourself-from-environmental-toxins/

2. Obesity: https://www.askdrray.com/stop-obesity/

3. Processed food: https://www.askdrray.com/caution-processed-food-ahead/

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Dec
01
2008

Climb Stairs And Stay Healthy

By | Fitness, Health, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Men's Health, Prevention, Women’s Diseases

Everybody knows that walking from the TV to the fridge does not qualify as exercise, and those few steps to the mailbox don’t do the trick either, when it comes to staying fit. But by the same token it is also a fallacy to believe that only the work-out in the gym will reap benefits and improve aerobic capacity. According to Dr. Philippe Meyer and colleagues at Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland, the mundane task of taking the stairs can show statistically significant changes in aerobic capacity, decrease in body weight, decrease in fat mass, waist circumference, decrease in diastolic blood pressure and increase in heart healthy HDL cholesterol. Dr. Meyer asked 77 healthy hospital workers including 20 physicians to exclusively use the stairs at the 12-storey hospital. During this 12 week quest for more fitness promotional signs encouraged stair climbing. All of those 77 participants were a sedentary group of individuals. Nevertheless they had to walk…the cafeteria was on the twelfth floor! At the baseline the participants walked up and down an average of 4.5 storeys per day, and at the end of the twelve weeks they were walking about 20.6 storeys per day.

Climb Stairs and Stay Healthy

Climb stairs and stay healthy

The tangible results showed that aerobic capacity and fat mass remained significantly improved, even though the participants walked less storeys after 12 weeks. It seems that initial change of habits-walking instead of taking the elevator- had made the difference in the transformation from couch potato to more active individual.

Stair climbing is an excellent exercise for healthy individuals in the general population. This high intensity exercise cannot be recommended to heart patients that are not entirely stable or to a patient who has angina. In these cases caution and a supervised exercise program is needed.

More information about fitness: http://nethealthbook.com/health-nutrition-and-fitness/fitness/

The Medical Post, November 18, 2008, page 17

Last updated Nov. 6, 2014

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Dec
01
2008

Home Monitoring Works For Patients On Blood Thinner

By | Heart Disease, Prevention, Stroke

The standard treatment for patients with risks for blood clots is a prescription for the medication called warfarin. Patients who suffered a stroke or who have atrial fibrillation will receive this drug, as do individuals who have a mechanical heart valve. Following pulmonary emboli blood thinners are also required for a period of time. Even though warfarin is a medication that has been in use for several decades, there are important guidelines. Warfarin is a blood thinner, and it is imperative that the blood values of the patients are closely monitored. Too much warfarin could lead to disastrous bleeding, whereas too little medication can lead to blood clots. Both conditions can be life threatening. As a result, patients who are taking warfarin have to present for blood tests on a weekly basis at a lab. Managing proper coagulation may become less cumbersome in future, as a trial that was run at 28 Veteran Affairs medical centers has shown. Tests enrolled 3,644 patients who required warfarin, and they received training in using a home monitor, which took about 30 minutes. They used the home monitoring device for 2 to 3 weeks, after which they returned to their local center for assessment, how successfully they had monitored their INR level.

Monitoring INR at home

 

 

The results were encouraging: 2,922 patients-80% of the original group showed that they could successfully handle home monitoring, either by themselves or with the help of a caregiver. They would phone in their test results on a weekly basis and would receive instructions by phone for dosage adjustment. The advantage for the patient is the fact, that they become more involved and empowered in their own care and show more engagement towards their health.

More information on:

1. Atrial fibrillation: http://nethealthbook.com/cardiovascular-disease/heart-disease/irregular-heart-beats/atrial-fibrillation/

2. Pulmonary emboli: http://nethealthbook.com/lung-disease/pulmonary-emboli/

The Home INR Study (THINRS , Presented at the Annual American Heart Association Meeting, New Orleans, Nov. 8 to 12, 2008

Last updated Nov. 6, 2014

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Dec
01
2008

Fifty Percent of US Population Do Not Take Enough Calcium

By | Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Nutrition, Osteoporosis, Women’s Diseases

Even though supermarket shelves are stocked to the hilt with a wide assortment of groceries, not all is well in the USA. At the annual meeting of the American College of Nutrition Theresa A. Nicklas, D.P.H. summed up the current situation in the following statement: “The American population is overweight but undernourished.” Results from a study of more than 25,000 people showed, that half the population does not get enough calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Many people consume more calories than they need, but nutrients like the ones mentioned before and which are essential for functions such as immunity, bone health and blood pressure are falling short of the recommended amounts. The only age group in which the recommendations for calcium intake were met was the age group up to 8 years. In adults the needs were not met, and more females than males were deficient in all of the three nutrients.

Fifty Percent of US Population Do Not Take Enough Calcium

Calcium intake prevents osteoporosis

 

 

The situation could be corrected by consuming 3 to 4 equivalents in the dairy group. It should be added that not only dairy foods are rich in calcium. For individuals who do not consume dairy foods, soy products are rich in calcium, as are almonds, almond butter and nuts. Legumes (beans) as well as green vegetables (bok choi, collard greens, turnip greens) are calcium sources that should be incorporated in a nutrient rich diet.

More information about osteoporosis: http://nethealthbook.com/arthritis/osteoporosis/

Annual Meeting of the American College of Nutrition

Last updated Nov. 6, 2014

Dec
01
2008

Disease Of Peripheral Blood Vessels Occurs With Metabolic Changes

By | Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Prevention, Weight loss

Metabolic syndrome has serious health consequences: diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease are just a few conditions that are associated with it. It is also known that diabetic patients are prone to pressure sores and ulcers of their feet and if the leg became gangrenous, the patient would lose it due to the need to amputate. Peripheral artery disease or PAD has recently been studied by Dr. Aruna D. Pradhan, and the prospective study involved 27,000 women. At the beginning of the study the middle aged women were free of cardiovascular disease, but a quarter of them had the hallmarks of metabolic syndrome. Twenty five percent of those with the condition also were diabetic. During the 13 years of follow-up 114 women developed peripheral artery disease and those patients with metabolic syndrome were 62% more likely to develop the disease. The individuals with metabolic syndrome had other features: they were less likely to exercise, more likely to smoke and their weight was higher. But 7,000 women with metabolic syndrome had another important feature in their lab tests: they had markedly higher levels of biomarkers of systemic inflammation, which was manifested in higher levels of C-reactive protein.

Disease Of Peripheral Blood Vessels Occurs With Metabolic Changes

Metabolic syndrome causes peripheral artery disease

 

 

Once all the criteria are stacked up against each other, it becomes obvious that the presence of metabolic syndrome alone is not responsible for the most significant increase in peripheral artery disease. It is not the high cholesterol levels or the high triglyceride readings that are the villains in this condition. The driving force is systemic inflammation, as documented by the high C-reactive protein levels in blood tests.

More information about hardening of arteries: http://nethealthbook.com/cardiovascular-disease/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-the-missing-link-between-strokes-and-heart-attacks/

American Heart Association, New Orleans, Nov. 8 to 12, 2008

Last updated Nov. 6, 2014

Nov
01
2008

Pills For Diabetes Not Always Useful

By | Diabetes, Fitness, Heart Disease, Nutrition, Obesity, Prevention

Oral anti-diabetic drugs have been on the market for decades. They are often prescribed to patients with type 2 diabetes in an effort to control blood sugar levels. Type 1 diabetes patients, those who suffer from diabetes since childhood, generally require a different therapeutic approach. They receive insulin in the form of injections, or more recently by pump. The usefulness of the oral antidiabetic drugs has been researched by Elizabeth Sevin, PhD,MPH of John Hopkins Blomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore. Pooled data analysis found that patients who took one of the older medications, metformin, were at a reduced risk of death from cardiovascular illness. Metformin works by blocking the breakdown of glycogen (a storage form of sugar) in the liver, reduces absorption of sugar from the gut and increases insulin sensitivity thus controlling blood sugar more tightly. This protected the heart from cardiovascular illness. None of the other oral medications for type 2 diabetes was significantly linked to cardiovascular illness, but cardiovascular disease and mortality was higher in the patient group that took the drug rosiglitazone.

Pills For Diabetes Not Always Useful

How metformin works for type 2 diabetes

Due to the controversial reports about this drug, the researchers took a closer look at all the other oral anti-diabetic medications. None of them, not even the newest ones, proved to be superior, and the only one that showed a slight benefit was metformin. The author cautions that the association is too weak to be of significance, and a lot more long-term research would be needed to substantiate the benefits for cardiovascular protection.

More information on Diabetes: http://nethealthbook.com/hormones/diabetes/type-2-diabetes/

Comments on Nov. 18, 2012: I do not see any further benefit for more research on oral anti-diabetic agents. Rather this type of research would indicate that subcutaneous insulin treatment 3 or 4 times per day as originally suggested by Banting and Best is still the best treatment for diabetes coupled with an exercise program and a low fat, low glycemic carbohydrate diet.

Arch Intern Med. 2008;168:2070-2080

Last updated Nov. 6, 2014

Nov
01
2008

Low Testosterone And Heart Disease

By | Heart Disease, Hormones, Men's Health

More men than women seem to be affected by cardiovascular illness, and the reasons have been manifold. At one time work stress was cited for the prevalence of heart disease in men. Other lifestyle factors, lack of exercise, being overweight, poor dietary choices and smoking have been found to play significant roles. The risk for cardiovascular disease increases with age, as does the likelihood for hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels and glucose intolerance.

Some attention has been paid to the fact that hormones can also play a role, and research has now shown that testosterone has some direct cardiovascular effects. Testosterone has been found to dilate blood vessels. The effect can be likened to the calcium channel blocker Nifedipine. It has also been substantiated that males with coronary artery disease and heart failure tend to have low levels of testosterone. If testosterone deficient men receive replacement therapy, vasodilatation (dilation of blood vessels) has been demonstrated in males who have received testosterone replacement for a few months. Male hormone replacement therapy has also been found to relieve the symptoms of angina in patients with heart failure. The question, how testosterone fits into the concept of disease prevention, comes up in this context. Researchers have found enough evidence that a low testosterone blood level has an independent association with accelerated atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries).

Low Testosterone And Heart Disease

Testosterone in men prevents heart disease

Animal experiments have shown that the development of fatty streaks in blood vessels happens at a higher rate in castrated animals. The more encouraging finding is the fact that this condition is reversible by replacement of testosterone. Male hormone therapy has received a lot of bad press in the case of overtreatment with androgens to achieve muscle growth in body building. However, in this case there was no testosterone deficiency and athletes and their coaches were using doses that were too high. This type of administration entails grave health risks and has nothing to do with good medicine. In case of hormone deficiency replacement the normal body function of a younger male is restored with bioidentical testosterone, which can be a tool to better health for the aging male. Anti-aging physicians are very familiar with this treatment modality.

More on the heart vessel protecting effect of bio-identical hormones:

http://nethealthbook.com/cardiovascular-disease/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-the-missing-link-between-strokes-and-heart-attacks/

Journal of Men’s Health – Volume 5, Issue Suppl (September 2008)

Last updated Nov. 6, 2014

Oct
01
2008

Lifestyle Can Be A Killer For Middle Age Women

By | Cancer, Fitness, Heart Disease, Nutrition, Vitamins and supplements, Weight loss, Women’s Diseases

Generally it is assumed that persons in their thirties and forties should be in their prime, and health concerns are cropping up in the higher middle age or only in old age.
Also, women were thought to generally enjoy better health and life expectancy, but the large Nurses’ Health Study on 77,782 women in the age group of 34 to 59 years shows other aspects.
Even in females who had no heart problems and no cancer at the onset of the study, lifestyle choices can make it or break it. At the end of the study that spanned 24 years, it became obvious that a total of 28% of all the mortalities could be attributed to smoking. If risky lifestyle choices were combined in the form of smoking, being overweight, having a lack of physical activity and a qualitatively poor diet, this number jumped to 55%. Alcohol intake did not change this estimate significantly.

Lifestyle Can Be A Killer For Middle Age Women

Lifestyle Can Be A Killer For Middle Age Women

It is obvious that for the benefit of better health and less mortality in middle age women, diet, exercise, a healthy body weight and eradicating smoking are key factors.

Reference: BMJ 2008;337:a1440

Comment on Nov. 18, 2012: So how many years longer will a woman live, if she quits at age 30? The Million Women Study found out that she will live 10 years longer than the control group of smoking women (see link). Nothing has changed since 2008. Lifestyle issues remain at the forefront.

Last edited December 3, 2012

Sep
01
2008

Runners Live Healthier Lives

By | Arthritis, Fitness, Heart Disease, Nutrition, Weight loss

It has been known for some time that exercise is healthy for you. But how do runners do on the long-term? This has been investigated in a recent study spanning 21 years from 1984 to 2003 published in the August edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine. 538 members 50 years or older of a nationwide running club were compared to a sample of 423 healthy controls. In the beginning of the study the members (all males) were 50 years or older. Disability levels were assessed with a health questionnaire and classified into a scale from 0 (no disability) to 3 (unable to perform). Death rates were also determined.The results showed that disability scores were always lower in runners (0.17) than in controls that did not run (0.36), which translated into 39% less disability. In 2003 the death rate was 34% in the controls, but only 15% in the runner group, in other words a 38% better survival of runners compared to the controls. In 2005 a further follow-up showed that the survival curve was still increasing for the runners who had now entered their eighties.

Runners Live Healthier Lives

Runners Live Healthier Lives

The authors of this study pointed out that length of life, health status and disability status can all be significantly improved with regular moderate exercise such as running. Other studies have suggested this as well, but none has followed this up over such a long period (21 years). Increasing healthy lifestyle behaviors will also reduce health care costs and prevent disabilities from chronic diseases.

Choose your fitness activity as reviewed here: http://nethealthbook.com/health-nutrition-and-fitness/fitness/

Reference: Arch Intern Med. 2008;168:1638-1646

Last edited November 5, 2014