Cleaning Out

Even the American Cancer Association recognizes that around 80% of cancer is related to environmental toxins – from what we eat, drink, and breathe.  According to all sources, despite some futile efforts to control it, the toxic load that we take in only seems to increase.  This is why I always recommend an annual detoxification or cleanse to attempt to flush out all the impurities, toxins, and general unwanted goop that builds up in our system over the year.

In researching different types of cleanses, I discovered that detoxification programs are considered somewhat controversial as there is not a great deal of scientific data to support their significance.  Even though I’m a fan of the data, sometimes common sense must prevail and cleaning out your system once in a while is just that.  There are dozens of methods by which to cleanse, but you must realize that just like with everything in nature, your body will do this naturally if you just give it a chance.  The first step of any detox is to clean up your lifestyle for a few weeks.  This means taking a break from the sugars and artificial sweeteners, the processed grains, the hydrogenated oils, and any other chemicals such as caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol.  For a few weeks, try committing to just fruits, vegetables, and lean meat that has never seen the deep fryer.  This toxic vacation will give your liver, kidneys, colon, and skin to work naturally and clean out.

If you simply cannot commit to this amount of time, you could do an accelerated cleanse by using different herbs such as milk thistle, dandelion root, or burdock.  Unsweetened green tea and diluted cider vinegar have also shown benefit.  Every major vitamin company has their own detox program using their supplements.  Any of these programs should include extra water and fiber to help clean out.  Fresh squeezed lemon water first thing in the morning is effective as are foods such as spinach, kale, red peppers, garlic, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and cilantro.  Join us for our Detox Wellness Talk next Monday, July 2^nd at 5:30 p.m. to learn more about detoxing. Register on Facebook, on Eventbrite or by calling our office at 812-273-HEAL (4325).

Belly Fat

O.K.  I don’t believe there’s anyone out there that is particularly fond of belly fat or as it is often referred to -- the “muffin top.”  In the past, I’ve discussed that the excess around the girth starts producing its own hormones including estrogen.  In that article, I shared how this abdominal fat is a primary predictor of not only cardiovascular disease, but also of diabetes and cancer.  These are 3 of the 4 top killers in our society.  So obviously eliminating the belly fat is a big deal, but for anyone who has tried, it can be a challenge.  One of the reasons losing belly fat is so difficult is that it’s not there only as a result of poor diet and lack of exercise.  Chronic stress will also contribute to the spare tire.

When you have any perceived stress, your body releases certain "fight-flight" hormones including cortisol, norepinephrine and epinephrine.  This is a normal healthy response to any threat or perceived stress. Typically, these hormones will go up and down throughout the day with stress. The problem is that when you are chronically stressed your cortisol levels goes up and stay up. These elevated cortisol levels cause the body to resist weight loss because your body thinks times are hard and you might starve.  So it hoards the fat you eat and takes fat from healthier areas and moves it to your abdomen causing increased inflammation and insulin resistance in the body. This belly fat then leads to more cortisol because it has higher concentrations of an enzyme that converts inactive cortisone to active cortisol.  This increased cortisol retains more abdominal fat and the cycle continues.

So what can be done?  To lose the weight in this area you must reverse the cortisol and fight-flight reaction.  Fortunately, as long as you can find a form of exercise that you don’t resent and get more stressed over; all exercises will at least temporarily inhibit the stress and cortisol response.  Secondly, stress is most often a perception – we are not truly in a life-threatening situation.  Thus, you need to practice shifting your mind and your thoughts from what is wrong in life (stress) to what is right (gratitude).  Meditation to quiet your mind is also critical.  This change in the brain will change the hormones released.  Finally, your fuel sources need to be appropriate.  Caffeine, nicotine, sugar, flour and processed grains all act as stimulants that stimulate stress.  Lean protein, healthy fats (omega 3’s) and the minerals found in raw fruits and vegetables help to shut off the stress response.  In essence, if you eat, think, and exercise appropriately, you can reverse this deadly epidemic to our health and society.

The Trouble of Toxins

A toxin can simply be defined as something found in the body that is not supposed to be there.  The trouble is that most toxins we experience are things you cannot see, smell, or feel and you don’t know they are there until you come down with a chronic disease.  Over 3000 chemicals are added to our food supply and another 10,000 are used as solvents and preservatives.  Add this to the heavy metals and the 77,000 other chemicals produced in North America and you can see that toxicity is unavoidable and is a common denominator in chronic disease.  In fact, the British Medical Journal estimates that about 75% of all cancers are caused by environmental and lifestyle toxins and Americans have somewhere between 400 and 800 chemicals stored in their bodies.

What can you do about this?  The first objective should be to reduce the toxic load.  This means watching everything you eat and drink.  You should eliminate all processed and fast-food and eat only real food that walks on or grows from the earth.  Your food sources should be organic and free-range.  You should drink mostly purified water from a reverse osmosis source.  You need to watch your household products as well.  There are more and more companies that sell natural cleaning products.  You should try to use natural sources of toothpaste, cosmetics, antiperspirants, soaps and shampoos as well.  While you cannot necessarily control the quality of the air you breathe outside, you can get a filter for your inside air – most agree that this is the primary source of airborne toxins anyway. 

In the end, toxicity is a fact of life even if you take these measures.  For this reason, I also recommend that you do a detoxification at least once per year.  Numerous herbs and minerals are known to bind to toxins and help eliminate them from your body.  There are numerous programs out there that work.  But don’t forget one of the simplest ways to clean out your system – regular exercise is as important as anything.  Next week I’ll share some of the most common sources of the most dangerous toxins.

A Heavy Head

I feel compelled to discuss a problem that I consider totally preventable, yet, that I’m seeing more often and in younger populations.  The condition or symptom relates to neck and shoulder pain and headaches, but the real problem or source has to do with posture and position of the head.

The human head filled with circulating blood weighs about the same as a full-sized bowling ball.  In saying this, yes, I realize I sound like the kid from Jerry Maguire; but it’s a very real thing.  When head posture is where it’s designed to be – with the ears directly above the shoulders, hips, and ankles there’s very little problem.  However, as is so common, when the head starts to shift forward, this creates unnecessary tension on the neck, shoulder and upper back muscles that causes pain in these areas as well as tension headaches and spinal misalignments.  Think of this as if you were holding a bowling ball with arms outstretched away from your body.  It gets heavy and pulls on the muscles. 

This forward carriage of the head has always been common as posture is compromised by sitting in front of a computer, driving a car, or reading.  I believe the reason I’m seeing this more often and in younger people has everything to do with smart-phones, tablets, gaming systems and other handheld devices.  As we spend more and more time with our head forward and looking down, we set ourselves up for future problems.  Fixing this problem begins with mere awareness and attention to our own (and our kids’) posture.  Another helpful tip is to hold these devices up, raise them higher by using a lap pillow or sit them up on a counter or table during use to avoid forward head bending.  Beyond this, chiropractic adjustments, massage, and simple head and neck exercises do the trick.  They may not appreciate it now, but educate your kids about head and neck posture to avoid future problems.