Food

I have become a student of food, of late, as I don't like being on drugs that will destroy your body. I have been prescribed drugs for one thing when the side effect, for example, would cause heart disease or kidney failure. This is fine for a reboot, but it is not a life. Taking a statin, for example, without any notion of when it stops, is suicide.

My lawyerly prejudice against MDs has been heightened. I won't bore you with the stories, but if they were lawyers, they would be deemed incompetent - not remotely attentive to detail or current literature. Even when I provided citations, they do not read. I don't think they do, actually. They attend continuing medical education courses run by drug reps. Curiously, many bow to the doctors' wrong pronouncements. They abandon all responsibility for their own health. (A friend's surgeon just told him Co-enzyme Q-10 doesn't do anything and people fall for ads. This is a breathless error. I wouldn't write his life insurance)

Anyway, I am ready to pontificate. Also, I will organize my notes herein, so I have a reference point. I will not try to provide science, but will provide a good overview of what the body seems to be telling us. (I used Barry Sears, Ph. D., the Okinawa Program, and Mayo and Cleveland clinics - online). Any thoughts? Let me know.

1. The one major problem underlying almost all disease is "inflammation." You need to get to ultimate causation, which medicine does not.

One needs to reduce LDL cholesterol, sure, but cholesterol will not hurt you unless you have already hurt yourself and your body is attempting to seal injuries via "fibrin" and cholesterol, creating a band aid of plaque.

For example, cholesterol is not a cause of anything, if you read ads, etc., closely you will see it is a "marker" or "factor," but we tend to fall for the medical line that we need to take anti-cholesterol drugs to prevent whatever. Not so, we should, however, eat better to reduce LDL cholesterol. Plaque causes heart attacks and strokes, when the inflammation results in so much plaque the body can't deal with it and the plaque lines the arteries. The plaque waits to pop off and get you, there being too much plaque to for the body to reduce.

Inflammation kills. Take anti-inflammatory foods and exercise. See below. This is where you need to take in anti-oxidants: berries, broccoli, grains, spinach, soy, spinach. Also, great for anti-inflammation: beats and radishes - all parts. Rod says he puts cinnamon in all sorts of things. Do that, then focus on reducing plaque and blood pressure, as the narrowing and stiffening of arteries causes the high BP. There is no point in addressing plaque if you don't stop making it. Inflammation ages arteries and is the foundation, generally, of high blood pressure.

2. Insulin is a normal hormone, but it is not normal to pig out on carbs. Insulin is secreted to control carbohydrates. If our insulin is too high, we put weight on - period. Damage is done. You will never lose weight eating just carbs and get that beer belly or diabetes, a long-death sentence. A high carb diet makes no sense.

IMPORTANT: insulin is secreted when the mouth tastes "sweet," so non-sugar sweeteners are even worse, in my view, than sugar as the insulin drops with no glucose to attack or store, so it floats around causing damage. Guess what I used to drink all the time to avoid sugar?

First, we all eat too much and eat big meals. It is essential to spread out eating over five or more little meals. For me, now, a Boston Market dinner is three meals and, curiously, I am not hungry. (Chicken and turkey are good for you.) This is good news for cheap people.

At each meal (or snacks) 20% has to be protein. For breakfast, I have moved to half a bagel with peanut butter (and pop two or three almonds). Thirty percent should be fat, a good fat - no fries or chips. Use olive oil and canola oil. Even if you don't reduce calories, by spreading them out and taking protein, there will be remarkable improvements and you will not be hungry. If you don't do it now, you will lose weight.

At each eating, there must be some protein to counteract the carbs. There is a counter condition created by protein which reins in the insulin. (Putting things in the ZONE). This hormone has a name I can remember - glucogon. Yeah, get that glucose gone hormone. This is the way to mobilize the fat which insulin has stored in your belly or butt. This is why you eat a LITTLE meat or fish at every meal. Fish oil pills are are great.

3, Exercise - critical. There are many physiological results from MODERATE exercise. The hard exercise is fine, but moderate is key to ongoing health. You already know this is important, so I won't go into it. Just do it - 300 calories of something each day. (Basically 30 to 40 minutes of something - even just walking).

I should note exercise will work to clear out your arteries, preventing heart and artery disease. Apparently, those little trampolines, are great at removing plaque, a rare thing, as is "hitting the wall" or releasing lactose. There are other "chelation" ways to go too, but those two are simple and free, though you have to work. I find arm exercises release lactose readily as I tire quickly there. Eating natto is also a chelation method. Yuch. The pill: nattokinaise.

4. Calm down. Books refer to meditation or yoga here and they are very serious. Just do it, don't argue. Get relaxed, that's an order. Part of the benefit is the reduction of stress. REDUCE STRESS. Take it seriously. I once read stress is really a feeling of not being also to handle responsibilites, when you get down to it. So, if you can't, go do something else.

Take time each day to breath deeply or do tai chi or yoga. No magical incantations are necessary. A lunchtime ritual would be good to calm the days high blood pressure (a result of inflammation, insulin, plaque and, probably, need of exercise.) Feed a duck or keep fish.
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So, simple food recommendations based upon much research. I advise you take these seriously, not as throw away observations, unless you want to be me:

1. Soy, miso, soy milk - every day. This stuff is amazing on many levels. Soy milk is tasty.
Cow milk is stupid and avoid it. If you can't, only use no fat.
2. Unless on warfarin/coumadin, eat green leafy vegetables several times a day.
3. Eat Mediteranian syle - avoid white wheat pasta, have olive oil, 1 red wine, (always avoid white wheat or, as Carlton Fredericks called it "embalmed flour.")
4. Red wine, grape juice, cranberry juice (not cocktail - sugar), vegetable juice (no salt added),
5. Curcumin (tumeric), Onion, Garlic, Ginger, Cayenne, Thyme, Tomato, Cinnamon
6. Little fish (salmon and mackeral are good) or meat at each meal - or almonds or other nuts. Protein size: fit in palm. i.e. every Americans eats 2 to 3 times too much.
7. Fish oil pills, multi vitamin, flax seed/oil, (reduce LDL)
8. tocotrienols (60 x more potent than Vitamin E) - palm and bran oil, grains (that 1/2 cup of oatmeal a day you hear about. Look for d-docotrienols and gamma tocotreinols (the new star.)
9. Green tea everyday.
10. Possible supplements - any "green" stuff, i.e. vegetables, pyconogenol, polyphenols, tocotrienols, cartenoids, Co-q-enzyme Q, niacin, folic acid (probably most important one - vit B). There is debate as to taking regular or slow release niacin. Watch this area.
11. Eat a banana every day. Also, eat apples or the white insides of citrus, as well as the fruit.
12. Get Calcium and Magnesium each day. Perhaps, a supplement. Americans are deficient in these critical substances.
13. Pig out on my 4 Bs: beets, berries, bran, beans.
14. Almost forgot - drink water all the time. You want to achieve clear urine.
15, For a plaque attack there is the Japanese natto (supplement is nattokinaise) one of the few artery vacuums. It has been desribed as soy snot and tastes as good, but it is remakable.