Are you someone who suffers with seasonal allergies? Do you deal with sneezing and itchy eyes?  Most people turn directly to medicines to help, but believe me when I say you do have options besides heavy antihistamine use! In this article I’m going to look at some background around allergies and help you figure out what to avoid (and this may surprise some of you). More next time on foods and supplements you can eat to support you through the allergy season.

What is an allergy?
An allergic reaction happens when your immune system misidentifies something completely harmless as a threat and starts working hard to attack offending “foreign invader”. This causes an inflammatory response.

There are two ways our bodies interpret and react to ‘foreign invaders”.

The first is a true allergy, which is an immediate allergic reaction. These reactions are what you go to an allergist for. The standard test is a skin scratch test where a drop of the reactive allergen is placed on your back or arm and then the skin is pricked. If your skin puffs up, you are allergic to that substance. You might find you are allergic to ragweed, pollen, grasses etc.  An allergy is actually a disorder of the immune system and the key to fighting seasonal allergies is building a strong immune system.

Hidden food allergies can be at play.
The second type of allergic reaction is a delayed immune response. It’s not a true allergy. Sometimes called an intolerance or sensitivity these can occur in a matter of hours to days and can show up in a variety of symptoms in people. Very often the secondary immune reactions are due to unknown food intolerances. And since these delayed response reactions are not immediate they don’t show up on a scratch test done in an allergist office. Thus these types of secondary immune reactions frequently go undetected. Here are some of the symptoms people experience. When you look through you’ll understand why they might be mistaken for seasonal allergies.

•        Itchy eyes
•        Runny nose
•       Scratchy throat
•       Skin irritations; acne; psoriasis, red patchy skin
•       Headache
•       Joint/muscle pain
•       Bloating, gas, or other gastritis like symptoms
•       Poor focus and concentration or difficulty making decisions aka brain fog
•       Diarrhea
•       Constipation

Often the foods we eat on a daily basis end up being those that we are sensitive to. Interestingly, we also tend to crave the foods we are most reactive to. Because we are experiencing a delayed reaction in the following hours or days, we don’t recognize these familiar foods as being problematic for us.

The six most common trigger foods are:
Gluten
Casein from dairy
Soy
Eggs
Nuts
Corn

If you need help determining whether you have hidden food allergies, please get in touch and we can certainly help!

Gut Flora
With non-food allergies, the connection between the food you eat and the symptoms you feel is not always clear but that doesn’t mean the connection isn’t there.

Your gut is a crucial part of your immune system, because it’s the first line of immune defense against any item that you eat. One of its biggest jobs is identifying which things are harmless and which are dangerous. This is the part of the immune function that breaks down in an allergic reaction. The good news is, there’s strong evidence that probiotics help alleviate allergy symptoms by changing the immune response in the gut.

We see how gut flora affects things in practice when looking at children raised on farms. They have much lower rates of allergies. The hypothesis is that exposure to a reasonable level of dirt and bugs when young, gives them a better resistance to allergies because of its impact on the patterns of gut flora. 

Inflammation
Allergies, as I mentioned above, involve an inflammatory response. Anything that causes inflammation in the body is going to put the immune system on high alert and it will respond more to seasonal allergies. The key causes of inflammation include eating sugar, foods to which you are sensitive (see above), alcohol, caffeine, industrial seed oils (like canola and soybean oils) and processed foods as well as having a stressful lifestyle or lack of sleep. Anti-inflammatory foods and supplements like Omega3 fats and others have been associated with reducing allergies. More on this next time.

Cross Reactivity
Often those with a seasonal allergy will experience an allergic response to certain foods. Here’s a list of common foods that cross react with pollen allergies:
Birch pollen: apple, carrot, celery, pear, tomato, cherry, tree nuts
Goosefoot pollen: banana, melon, peach (infrequently: nectarine, asparagus, kiwi, potato, olive, onion)
Mugwort pollen (weed): carrot, celery, aniseed, peach
Ragweed pollen: melon, cucumber, banana, sunflower, echinacea
Timothy grass: apple, litchi, tomato, celery, corn, bell pepper, paprika
Source:
www.foodintolerances.org

Hopefully that was some food for thought for those of you who are popping pills this allergy season. 
Remember:
Medications only relieve symptoms of allergies & don’t deal with the underlying causes. 
A natural approach can often be more effective. 
Dealing with allergies takes patience and a combination of tactics. 
Start by removing foods that could be causing you trouble. 

As always, let us know if we can help.

​What does cholesterol do in our bodies?

• Cell membranes – This is kind of technical but cholesterol keeps the cell membranes at just the right level of fluidity and permeability and helps regulate what goes in and out.  In other words we need the cholesterol for the cells to function properly.
• Memory and learning – Cholesterol is needed for the neurons in the brain to form connections.  (One of the main benefits of sleep for learning and memory is due to the fact that cholesterol production is highest when we sleep.)
• Digestion of fats – Bile acids are made from cholesterol and this allows us to digest fats and access fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
• Vitamin D –It isn’t just the sunlight that increases our vitamin D levels.  Cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D.  Vitamin D is best known for its role in calcium metabolism and bone health, but new roles are continually being discovered for it, including in mental health, blood sugar regulation, the immune system, and cancer prevention.
  • Hormones - Cholesterol is the precursor to all steroid hormones, including:
  • Glucocorticoids (blood sugar regulation)
  • Mineralcorticoids (mineral balance and blood pressure regulation)
  • Sex Hormones (many functions)

Sounds important, right?  Well that’s because it really is!

So why do we think of cholesterol as the enemy?
Cholesterol has been one of the most maligned and misunderstood substances of the twentieth century.

Eating foods high in cholesterol was thought to raise blood cholesterol levels.  At the same time, high blood cholesterol has been painted as the enemy or our arteries and the main cause of heart disease.

The popular version of cholesterol goes something like this: when you eat fatty foods, especially foods rich in animal fat, the saturated fat and cholesterol in these foods ends up in your blood and sticks to your arteries. Since saturated fats are solid outside your body, they will be solid inside your body too — (despite the 30-degree increase in temperature – ha ha!). Arteries are much like pipes. When they get caked up with grease, blood flow is impaired, and a heart attack ensues.

OK, so that is just not true!

The truth is that atherosclerosis, where plaque builds up in the arteries, is actually caused by inflammation.  Initially it is caused primarily by the consumption of industrial seed oils like canola oil, which are degenerated due to the heat and pressure of processing.  Other causes of inflammation in the body can then accelerate and exacerbate the process.

Since cholesterol is found in fatty foods that contain a greater proportion of saturated fat, these high cholesterol foods are likely not the culprits of atherosclerosis and heart disease.

So, bring back cholesterol in your diet!  Bonus – it’s found in delicious foods that you are going to love reintroducing!

Want some help navigating all of this?  Get in touch for some personalized suggestions.  We can help you with your diet and offer comprehensive cardio metabolic blood testing which is a step above what you'll get from your doctor.

Check our blog next time for more info on your cholesterol blood test numbers and what to look for.

Are you afraid of fats? If so, you’re not alone. I talked about industrial seed oils in my last blog post Nutrition Myth: Canola Oil is a Healthy Alternative for Baking

We were told that a low-fat diet would help us get the body we want. In fact, it’s one of the biggest nutrition lies that the public has ever been told.  The truth is only now being revealed to us.  The truth is our bodies need fat — more specifically, they need healthy fats.

Here are some healthy fats you don’t need to fear:

1. Butter

​antioxidant. ​Butter’s also rich in fat-soluble vitamins and trace minerals, including beneficial selenium, a powerful antioxidant.

2. Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is rich in medium-chain fatty acids, which are easy for your body to digest, not readily stored by the body as fat and small in size, allowing them to infuse cells with energy almost immediately.
These fatty acids also improve brain and memory function. Plus, the high amount of natural saturated fats in coconut oil mean that it increases HDL cholesterol and promotes heart health, while the antioxidants found in coconut oil make it a great anti-inflammatory.
Choose extra virgin varieties, as refined or processed coconut oils can eliminate many of the health benefits.

3. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Olive oil benefits are profound! First, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is great for heart health.due to its high levels of monounsaturated fats. The high amount of antioxidants in EVOO means it protects your cells from damage. It also helps improve memory and cognitive function, and works as an anti-inflammatory.
I recommend only extra virgin varieties of the oil. This means no chemicals are involved when the oil is refined. Unfortunately, many common brands are fake olive oil! Get in touch if you’d like some info about the best olive oils to buy.

4. Avocados
The benefits of avocados are so numerous that they’re one of the healthiest fruits you can consume. They’re rich in monounsaturated fats, which raise levels of good cholesterol. Avocados are also packed with the benefits of vitamin E, which help prevent free radical damage, boosts immunity and acts as an anti-aging nutrient for your skin.
Avocados also contain more protein than any other fruit. For pregnant women, and for all of us, avocado is also one of the great folate foods. Folates can help reduce the risk of birth defects.
Add avocado oil into your kitchen. It has a mild taste that won’t overpower dishes the way other oils might. Its high smoke point of about 520 degrees means that you could even grill or fry with it although it is best used raw on salads, sandwiches or vegetables.

​With all the scary (mis)information out there about saturated fats most people no longer use butter, lard, bacon fat, beef dripping etc. for their cooking and baking. Consumption of industrial seed oils has risen in response as a supposed healthier option.  These oils - soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, corn, and canola oils— are found in just about all processed, packaged and refined foods.

Industrial seed oils contain high amounts of a polyunsaturated fat, the omega 6 fatty acid called linoleic acid.  For years we’ve been told polyunsaturated fats are good for us but the truth is that these are highly unstable to heat and light and can cause a lot of damage in the body. This is the case particularly when you consider that the oils are usually stored in clear plastic and on the store and pantry shelves for a long time before we use them. Exposure to heat and chemicals during processing, and then again during cooking, mean that the oils get oxidized and harmful compounds are formed.  These contribute to a process of cellular damage called oxidative stress.

As a result these oils are associated with a variety of inflammatory diseases ranging from Alzheimer’s to fibromyalgia to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.  They are a major component of atherosclerotic plaques that clog arteries and play a central role in the development of heart disease. High intakes of linoleic acid are especially problematic when the omega-3 fat DHA, found exclusively in fish, is low or absent. This creates a chronic inflammatory environment in the body.

What should you do?
This is a pretty easy fix!!  Throw out all of your industrial seed oils and instead cook with high quality (this is important!) coconut oil, butter, ghee, lard or bacon fat.  Use mono-unsaturated fats like extra-virgin olive oil and avocado oils raw for salad dressings and dipping.

​Sometimes being healthier is just a matter of an easy switch over from something unhealthy to a better alternative and doesn't have to be about deprivation or dieting.  Here's one that is simple; a great way to raise your micronutrient intake and reduce your exposure to toxins.

​I often get asked about the difference between our approach and a traditional western approach to health.  So for those of you that are curious, let’s start with what you are already familiar with in the health care system.

A traditional approach to healthcare starts from looking at symptoms and from there to reach a diagnosis.  Typically treatments are based on addressing those symptoms.  For example, if you go to your doctor with aching knees you may end up walking away with a recommendation to take a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug to get rid of the symptom.

I’ll just mention that this is despite the fact that 100,000 people are hospitalized in the US each year due to their consumption and 15,000 of those die.  Side affects include: hearing loss, cardiovascular problems, heart failure, GI complications and bleeding, allergic reactions and miscarriage.  If you have been given this recommendation I would say that the chances are high that the associated risks were not explained.  I personally know one such individual that collapsed unaware that he had a bleeding ulcer.

Doesn’t it seem that the traditional approach can sometimes create more problems than it solves?

That’s why we’d address things completely differently. Functional nutrition looks for prevention and the underlying causes of symptoms.
So instead of asking “how do we get rid of the pain?”, we ask “why is there pain?”.

In our example, we would look to see what aspects of the individual’s food behavior and lifestyle might be causing an inflammatory response in the body.  So in other words it is a holistic approach that looks at the whole person and not just symptoms.  Understanding clinical nutrition is to understand the science of what food does in the body and how it is affecting a person’s health.  To work through that might not be a quick fix, requiring some changes to habits that can take time and possibly some detective work to identify which factors are at play for the specific individual. We work along side you to help you determine what changes are going to help you and how you’re going to get there.  The best thing about it is that you are in control and empowered with your health as we work as a team.

We’re here to help!  Please reach out if you need help navigating a lifestyle change or a health concern.

​Swiss Chard Tzatziki

INGREDIENTS
1 cup green or red Swiss chard, stemmed and finely chopped
1 garlic clove
1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 cup Greek yogurt (whole)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS
Prepare an ice bath; set aside.
Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil.
Add chard; cook until just tender, 3 to 5 minutes.
Drain. Immediately plunge into ice bath to stop the cooking. Drain.
Using a mortar and pestle, grind garlic and salt into a paste. Stir chard, yogurt, garlic paste, oil, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper in a medium bowl.

Tzatziki can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 1 week.

​This is a myth perpetuated by political lobbyists and shaky science!  Some of you will already be aware that the tide is turning, but for most this is a new paradigm.  It might just rock your world but…

Bring Back the Butter!!!
There is no evidence that a diet high in fat causes weight gain.  Neither is it responsible for heart disease.

Back in the 1950s Dr. Ancel Keys identified a correlation between diets high in saturated fat and incidence of heart disease.  But as we all know, correlation does not mean causation.  Apparently there is a strong correlation between US spending on science, space and technology with deaths by strangulation, hanging and suffocation.

More recently we’ve learned through multiple studies over the decades that there is in fact no causative link between saturated fat and heart disease or obesity.  Lowering saturated fat in the diet can reduce total cholesterol but it is the HDL (high density lipoprotein) particles that reduce and these are not linked with heart disease.

It is by now glaringly obvious that low fat diets have not helped our population get slim.  They typically involve a higher carbohydrate intake, especially high sugars and starches, that increase triglyceride levels, fat storage and have adverse effect on heart health.

The quality of the fats you consume is more important than the amount.  Fats communicate with our genes via binding to receptors on the nucleus of our cells.

Some fats, like trans fats and polyunsaturated, industrial seed oils like canola oil, or animal fats from ‘feed lot’ animals, send the signal turn off your fat burning genes and make it hard to lose weight.

Other healthy fats, like omega 3s from fish, monounsaturated fats like olive oil, and saturated fats like coconut oil and animal fat from healthy, pastured animals, turn on genes that increase your metabolism, help you burn fat and make you more insulin sensitive.

So, if you want to lose weight, put down that non-fat milk and enjoy a whole milk latte! 

If you need help making dietary changes to help you lose weight and keep your heart healthy and manage your blood lipids we’d be happy to help, so get in touch. 

You don’t just “get” cancer or “catch” diabetes!  Our medical system is based on the premise that diseases just appear.  This approach came about due to the germ theory of disease which basically said that the germs and bugs were out there and some people just came into contact and got sick – the unlucky ones. When antibiotics came along as a way to kill bacteria they worked so miraculously that it seemed to confirm this theory and now society still looks for magic pills to cure every disease.

But here’s the problem….this completely ignores what is really going on!

Yes, antibiotics do kill bacteria but it is not just by a pure stroke of luck that some people get sick and others don’t.  An undernourished individual is more likely to pick up an infection than someone with a strong nutritional status.  Here the “environment” provided to the germs – the healthy or unhealthy body - plays a key part in the outcome.

In a similar way, the cause of most modern disease is a result of the interaction between our genes and the environment that we provide them. These diseases neither result from mystery bugs nor because our genes determine it but due to lifestyle factors that play into the environment that surrounds our genetic material.

It’s true - our genes are fixed! However, most people have an average of about 1000 genes that include a “typo” know as a gene SNP instead of the “normal” gene.  These SNPs can mean our genes are more inclined to express themselves in an unhealthy way BUT this only occurs if lifestyle factors provide a poor environment for the genes.  If we provide a good, healthy environment the genes behave well and we don’t get sick.  So even though we might know about various health issues that we have been prone to in the past, or perhaps we know something about our own or our family history, we still have control over the situation.

Your Genes are NOT Your Destiny!

Maybe that’s an inconvenient concept for some people who for example might prefer to blame their diabetes on their family history and use prescription drugs to manage things.  For those of us seeking optimal wellness though, this information is very empowering.  It puts you in the driver’s seat because instead of running to the doctor for a solution to your chronic ailments you can work on a healthy environment for your genes – aka a healthy lifestyle.

Take a look at the aspects of your lifestyle mentioned below and consider how you are doing.  Don’t let your genes dictate your destiny!

If you feel a need to make change and need some direction then please get in touch.  We specialize in empowering people with a healthy lifestyle by helping them navigate change in a realistic way.

Quick Lifestyle Review:

• Your exposure to toxins – Are you eating processed foods containing additives, preservatives and dyes? Are you eating foods that have been exposed to pesticides, hormones or antibiotics? Do you use toxic cleaning supplies?  Does you work expose you to toxins? Etc.

• Your stress levels – Think about your relationships, family, work & money.  Are you managing your stress levels well?  Do you have good ways to combat stress?

• Your exercise routine – Do you move your body regularly and incorporate stretching & strengthening to allow it to function in the way it was intended?

• What you eat – Do you eat whole foods that provide your body all of the nutrients it needs to function properly?  This is surprisingly difficult to do due to the quality of our food supply.