I’ve got a Friday Round-up of Topics, none of which seem connected, but since all of them have to do with health, weight, and mood, or in other words, our well-being, they are:)

First, I’ve had a few questions about Male Testosterone.  Hormones are a VERY complex subject, it’s not cut and dried like diabetes T2, which is easy; so I don’t have great, definitive explanations, but I do have some information.

Testosterone levels are decreasing – drastically – WORLDWIDE.  They’ve literally plummeted in the last 20 years.  The CDC says the average middle aged man now has the testosterone levels of a much older man from 20 years ago.  Babies, boys, teenagers, and young men ALL test lower.  This has DRAMATIC consequences, as low testosterone causes:  triglycerides and small, dense, cholesterol to increase;  coronary artery dilation diminishes (= high blood pressure); insulin output increases; central abdominal fat increases; ESTROGEN levels increase (associated w more stroke, heart attack, and cancer); blood becomes sticker/more fibrinogenic; decreased HGH (human growth hormone); less bone mass and more bone fractures.  I could go on, as this is a VERY short list.  The links between low T and brain health ( or lack there-of) are HUGE.  The whole “oh, too much testosterone makes men violent and crazy” – that’s not happening here, at all.  We’re talking about the average man being way below normal.  Did you know the human heart has more testosterone receptors than any muscle in the whole body???

If your testosterone is low, PLEASE, find a good doctor WHO SPECIALIZES IN HORMONES, preferably someone who thinks outside the Standard Box, and get help.  Try PrimalDocs, or PaleoPhysicians, or FunctionalMedicine.org for starters.  Dr. Eugene Shippen has a great book called The Testosterone Syndrome.  Here’s a GREAT podcast which contains a ton of information on testosterone by Dr. Ty Vincent.

Become informed and take charge of your own health.  Learn as much as you can, no matter what you’re dealing with.

Next up, more cholesterol news:  Jimmy Moore’s Cholesterol Clarity Book is finally out and it’s FANTASTIC.  He interviews 29 MAJOR experts in cholesterol, lipids/fats, and heart disease – literally the cream of the crop and the most breaking of breaking news.  He’s running interviews of these researchers and doctors on his podcasts, and here’s one from MIT lead researcher, Dr. Stephanie Seneff – this is a MUST listen to if you’re interested in your health.

Read, listen, learn:  become Invested, Involved, and In Charge of your OWN health.

Switching gears again,  did you know your brain uses more energy when you’re doing something you don’t like/don’t want to, i.e., exerting WillPower, than when doing anything else?? Isn’t that interesting?  The problem with that?  You can feel exhausted and weak;  in other words, using WillPower leaves you more vulnerable to falling off any wagon you’re on.  Obviously, WillPower can be used for many things: work, shopping, being lazy, procrastinating, exercising, etc, but I’m referring to healthy eating habits.   Want to use LESS willpower?  Fill your mind with Biological Facts about food, nutrition and your body!  It’s SO MUCH easier to make healthy choices when your decisions are guided by facts and not feelings.  This goes back to me saying make Health your priority, as opposed to Weight Loss.  If you think processed, refined foods are the devil, you won’t eat them.  If you just think they’re kind of high in calories, but you can make-up for that later, you’re sunk.

Lastly:  if you’ve been to any of my talks, you know that I love to talk about Digestion; specifically, that the pH of our stomach should be between 1.5 and 3.5, which means HIGHLY ACIDIC.  This is optimal because the acidity of our stomach is a line of immune defense against bacteria, virus, and pathogens, and because that high acid triggers digestive hormones and enzymes to break down our food to the barest little molecules for our body to use.  Gas, bloat, GERD, reflux – these are all signs of NOT ENOUGH ACID as opposed to too much.  Seriously.  If you’re on an acid suppressor, you’re in trouble.  I do long talks on this, but quickly,  know that if your stomach has INsufficient acid, you’re not getting the nutrients you need from your food, no matter how great your diet is.  Also, the parietal cells that produce the acid also produce Intrinsic Factor, which is the ONLY thing that allows our body to use Vitamin B12.  Low/No B12 means HIGH homocysteine.  High homocysteine is a leading factor in Heart Disease.     Low stomach acid also means minerals like Zinc are much LESS available;  zinc is a major mineral needed for Testosterone production.    Low stomach also also inhibits proteins from breaking down to Amino Acids.  Amino Acids are CRUCIAL for building Neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, GABA, etc) which promote good brain function – like having plenty of WillPower.

We’re not just a bunch of independent symptoms.  We’re a Whole Part.  Start thinking of your health and your body as Completely Connected, because it is.  Any questions?

WORKSHOP REMINDER:  I’ve got another workshop/talk planned on Blood Sugar, and it’s relationship and effect on Weight, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Thyroid, and Mood.  The date is Wednesday, August 28, 6-8pm,  the charge is $30/person, and the venue is the Marshall Community Center, 4133A Rectortown Rd, Marshall, Va.  This is literally right off Rt 66, and very easy to find.  There’s plenty of parking and the room is big, so bring a friend or a family member if you’d like.  You can pay at the door.

How bout some more Fun Facts on Fats?  Specifically, animal fats:)

You might be surprised to know that Beef Fat is only 46% saturated, 43% monounsaturated, and about 10% polyunsaturated.  Hmmm.  Weird. That seems a little different than we’ve been told.  It also contains CLA ( a fatty acid that fights cancer, lowers triglycerides and heart disease risk); ALA (a fatty acid that lowers blood pressure and improves insulin sensitivity), and steric acid ( a fatty acid that lowers LDL cholesterol).  The Omega 3 to 6 ratio?  About 1:1, especially if it’s been fed grass and not just grain.

Poultry fat is about 70% UNsaturated and 30% saturated, pretty much the same as Olive oil as it contains the same fatty acid: oleic acid (40%), which lowers LDL cholesterol.  Turkey fat contains palmitic acid, which lowers total cholesterol and LDL.  Poultry fat is also loaded with an antiviral/antibacterial fatty acid, so eat it for your immune system.  The Omega 3 to 6 ration?  About 1:1.

Lard (oohhh, scary lard!),  is 40% saturated, 50% MONOunsaturated, and 10% PUFA.  Wow.   We’ve been lead to believe that lard goes straight to your butt or arteries.  Not. True. Our body uses those fatty acids for many, many jobs.  Lard also has potent anti-microbial fatty acids, and HUGE tocopherol contents (these make Vitamin E) in the fat.  Hmm.

What about cream?  That’s artery clogging, right?  Wrong.  Cream is LOADED with vitamins A and D, and K2.  It also contains a fatty acid called Butyric Acid, this builds the lining of your gut (good bye leaky gut), is a favorite food of the good bacteria in your colon, and lowers triglycerides, LDL, and total cholesterol.  Cream also contains CLA.

Wow.  These foods sound like Health Foods, right?  Right.

For decades now we’ve heard that Saturated Fats are bad, and that replacing these harmful fats with vegetable oils would be good for us.  The message has been effective; statistically speaking, consumption of vegetable oil has skyrocketed, and consumption of saturated fats from animal sources and coconut/palm oil has plummeted.  Think you don’t eat many vegetable oils?  If you’re eating premade, processed, refined food, or restaurant food, you’re eating vegetable oils.  That’s a guarantee.

This advice from our government and public health experts has been a disaster:  now our consumption of trans fats and Omega 6 oils is so high, that we’re seeing side effects in spades: epidemic numbers of heart disease, cancer, auto-immune disease, diabetes, asthma, and weight gain, to name a few.   The structure of Poly-Unsaturated (PUFA) vegetable oils is fragile and unstable; they’re incredibly prone to damage form heat, light, and air.  The really bad part is that our body uses these damaged fatty acids in our cell membranes, hormones, brain matter, etc.  Think of the implications for a moment.  Think what it’s doing to your child’s brain, immune system, and weight to eat the Standard American Diet full of Inflammatory, Disease causing vegetable oils, trans fats, sugar and flour.  What’s it doing to you?

Here’s a Success Story from one of my favorite sites, Marks Daily Apple:  http://www.marksdailyapple.com/a-different-kind-of-success-story/#axzz2dAUkAenw.  Hope to see you Wednesday night – I promise loads of Information and Inspiration.

I’m back from my Diabetes, Cholesterol, and Thyroid Seminar, oh my gosh was it fantastic!  Our speaker was a Dr. Kleber from Colorado, and not only was he smart as a whip, but he had a serious gift for public speaking.  He wowed us!

I’ve got a lot of information I want to pass on to you all, and some of it I’ll do in my blog posts.  However, I want to do a couple talks in the next 2 weeks so that if you live local, I can really help you understand why what you eat and how you live affects your blood sugar regulation, which affects not only your Weight, but your risk of Diabetes, Heart Disease, Thyroid issues and more. I’ll be posting those dates by tomorrow.

The more I learn, the more it’s drilled into me that it’s All About The Food.  We’re NOT deficient in pharmacuticals or over the counter medications like anti-inflammatories or antacids;  food breaks down to nutrients that build our body and our mind; it matters what we eat.  Let me rephrase that:  food has nutrients that build and repair us.  Repair, as in, fixing the damage from Heart Disease and Diabetes, and even auto-immune issues; repair as in switching your body from primairly burning sugar/glucose, to primarily burning fatty acids.

Here’s a few facts on Cholesterol and Heart Disease:

*75% of people who have Myocardial Infarctions/heart attacks, have NORMAL levels of LDL

*80% of people in the Framingham study (on-going since 1948, tens of thousands of men and women are participating) who have an “event” had cholesterol levels identical to the population that was/is event free.

* Cholesterol is a REALLY REALLY bad predictor of Heart Disease, but if it’s a certain number, your doctor will put you on a statin anyway.

There’s a test now, called the VAP test, I’ve had it, that measures the Particle Size and Density of your cholesterol.  This is important to know, and easy to get.  Cholesterol is mainly made in the liver, and the liver directs it to areas of damage or need (remember, it’s a Repair molecule, a building block, and an Antioxidant).   But EVERY SINGLE CELL IN OUR BODY can and does make cholesterol.  Is this some giant mistake God made??  Is He sitting up there lamenting this design flaw?? NO.   If we didn’t have cholesterol plugging up our arteries after all the crap we put in our bodies to damage them, we’d have an arterial breakthru and die.  Instead, we have this NUTRIENT that the liver sends out time after time for years to plug and patch the trauma sites.  This adds years to our life. The bad side is these plaque patches get bigger and bigger, depriving the heart and brain of oxygen.

So why the VAP test?  What is this about particle size and density?  Isn’t it just about “good” cholesterol and “bad” cholesterol?  No.  It turns out there’s BAD HDL (yep), and non-damaging LDL.  The picture has changed in the past few years, but if your doctor is pushing a statin for a  total cholesterol value of 200, he’s still living in the past.  The VAP test is easy, and cheap, and most insurance companies are doing it.  ASK FOR IT, and if your doctor doesn’t know how to read it, find a doctor who does.

There are 5 types of HDL (that they know of now, one is a pretty recent discovery),  only 1 of them – HDL 2b, is highly Cardio Protective.  HDL 3b may actually be associated with an INcreased risk of heart disease.

What about LDL, the “bad” stuff?  If it’s high on your lipid profile, above 100, your doctor will want to put you on a statin to lower it, except….. Statins Don’t Lower LDL – statins lower TOTAL cholesterol.   (Some LDL cholesterol is actually a repair molecule anyway – why would we want to lower that?)   LDL size and density matters, a lot.  Big, fluffy LDLs do NO damage, small, dense LDL DOES.  The doctor said to think of the LDLs as beach balls or bowling balls going thru your arteries, banging into the arterial wall.  Which ones do you think would be a problem?

Here’s something super scary:  Beta Blockers(for heart disease), Thiazide and Loop Diuretics (for high blood pressure and edema), and Insulin (for diabetics who’s number one cause of death is heart disease)  all CAUSE A SHIFT IN LDL TO A SMALLER, DENSER FORM.  Hmmmm.  Aren’t people on those meds to make them “well”, but instead one of the side effects is potential arterial damage?

The worst LDL identified so far?  Lp (a), which is 10x more atherogenic than LDL-C.  Why would our body make Lp(a)?  Because it’s a REPAIR molecule for arteries; here’s the kicker:  if you have the NUTRIENTS available to fix the damage – Lp(a) WOULDN’T BE CALLED IN.   There’s also the whole “don’t cause any damage in the first place” argument too.

What damages arteries?  Sugar/flours/Glucose (toxic),  Insulin, Chemicals from: cigarettes, drugs, cleaning products, body care products, “food products”/i.e. fake foods; bad oils/hydrogenated oils, free radicals, cortisol from emotional stress, and homocysteine.

Can arterial damage be reversed or prevented?  Absolutely!! Again, it’s Food,( and supplements, and stress management, and exercise).  The choices we make everyday add up.  They matter.  A little Diet Soda here, a little pasta there, fried food at the fair, school lunches, weekly stops at the convenience store, Starbucks chemical coffees, too much beer, constant snacking,  etc etc.  It all adds up.  Everything we do matters.

Tomorrow I’ll have those dates for you, plus some interesting info on diabetes.  Eat Real Whole Foods!