The Simple Key to Better Health

There are many things that you can and should be doing to make sure you are as healthy as possible. But, frankly, most of you will resist doing them for one reason or another. You won’t really change your diet because, “I can’t live without bread!”; or “Cheesy fries are SO good!”; or whatever. Maybe you will try to add a few more fruits and veggies, but give up anything you love? No way!

And what about exercise? You know you need to get more, but your life is so busy! Where can you fit it in? You could park at the back of lot so that you’d at least get a little exercise at the office or the store, but hey, “I’m running late!”; or “The bags are so heavy!”; or whatever.

Recent research has shown that adequate sleep (8 – 10 hours) is necessary to consolidate learning and to reboot our immune system which gives our bodies a chance to heal and fend off invaders. But we live in a 24/7 society. Who has time to sleep?! So much to do; so many places to be. So…not enough sleep.

We’ve become a pill-popping, easy-fix society. Normally, I am against this. But there is one case where I no longer think we have a choice; where popping the pills may be the best and simplest key to better health.

Those of you who’ve read my newsletters and blogs over the years probably know where I am headed with this.  Yes, the simple key to better health is taking more vitamin D3 pills. You can do this in, what, 30 seconds? I think you can manage to fit that into your busy schedule. And the cost is reasonable. Give up a can of soda and you’ve paid for about one week’s worth of pills [2000 IU/day].

Now, your skin is capable of making vitamin D, but… But unless you have very light skin and can spend about 10 minutes/day between 10 am and 3 pm in the sunlight, making adequate levels of vitamin D via your skin is going to be difficult. The range of skin color is large and as each shade darkens, the length of time needed to spend in the sun increases. If you have very dark skin color, you will need to spend around 6 hours in the sunlight. Unless you have an outdoor job and expose your skin without sunscreen or clothing (say, like a life guard), getting enough sun exposure is just not feasible for most of us. And the dermatologists would have a fit anyway.

In addition, making vitamin D via skin exposure to sunlight only works during April – October in northern latitudes. During the winter months, you are draining your stores so that by February, you are running on empty. The easy fix to this problem is to take vitamin D pills year round.

Some of you might think you can get enough vitamin D from food sources, but this is not the case. The best food source is fatty fish such as sardines, but that will give you only about one-quarter of what you need daily. I do eat sardines daily, but I also take a supplement. Milk is not a good source of vitamin D for multiple reasons, but primarily because it provides so little per glass compared to what your body actually needs. Skip the milk and take the pills.

Back in the early 1990s when I first began doing research on vitamin D deprivation, the literature stated that 20 ng/mL was the normal (and presumably adequate) level of 25 OHD (the baseline form of vitamin D used in your body). By the late 1990s, the optimal level was raised to 32 ng/mL. It has been going up ever since as researchers discover more and more health issues related to vitamin D deprivation. The optimal level is now at 60 ng/mL. This level is impossible to achieve with the current RDIs of 200 IU [children and young adults] or 400 IU [adults over 50] or even 800 IU [senior citizens]. The minimum daily dose recommended by most researchers in the field is now 2000 IU/day for older children and adults. During the winter months, you will need more. If you are confined inside or are a senior citizen, you will need more year-round. Vitamin D is fat soluble, so if you are overweight, your fat cells are pulling 25 OHD out of your blood stream, preventing it from doing its job. This means that you will also need to take more vitamin D year-round than may be true of someone who is slimmer.

Because vitamin D is fat soluble, pills should be taken with healthy-fat foods. For instance, I take my pills in the morning with my real egg salsa omelet. You might want to take yours with a handful tree nuts such as cashews. Current researchers do not recommend taking cod liver oil. Cod liver oil contains significant levels of vitamin A in addition to vitamin D. Vitamin A acts as an antagonist to vitamin D limiting its effectiveness. Also, excessive doses of vitamin A are harmful. Therefore, it is better to take a vitamin D pill that is not combined with vitamin A. It should also not be combined with calcium. If you and/or your doctor feel you need more calcium, it is probably because your vitamin D levels are much too low. When vitamin D is optimized, the body can function properly with around 500 mg of calcium/day. Getting too much calcium in supplements can also be harmful.

For those who want to know more, a recent book, The Sunlight Solution by Laurie Winn Carlson, PhD, provides a good source of information on the history of vitamin D deprivation and research, and on current research along with all the various health issues related to vitamin D deprivation. [Full Disclosure: Dr. Carlson devotes two pages to the discussion of my article: Health Disparities: Reframing the Problem. 2003 Medical Science Monitor 9 (3): SR9-15] After reading the book, you will probably want to spend more time in the sun and will definitely want to take more vitamin D.

Vitamin D is not a panacea. Taking a couple of pills each day will not magically change your life, nor will it solve all your health problems. However, if you are reluctant or unwilling to make the type of changes that take more effort (e.g. diet, exercise, sleep), taking vitamin D supplementation will at least give your body and your health a fighting chance. If you decide you want to learn more about these other aspects of your health, in addition to further information on vitamin D, you can order my book: Walking in Sunshine: LifeStyle Changes to Make for a Bright, Healthy Future.

'Tis the Season

It’s that time of year when we start thinking about the health and well-being of ourselves and those we love. As one year ends and another begins, we think about what we’ve accomplished, what we still want to do, and what we need to change.

To help you achieve your goals, you may wish to purchase a PDF copy of my book Walking in Sunshine: LifeStyle Changes to Make for a Bright Healthy Future at this link:
http://www.anthrohealth.net/ahbook.htm

Learn how your individual biology, behavior, and the environment in which you live interact to affect your health and well being. Discover why: adaptations matter, walking is the best exercise, sunshine is necessary, proper diet = better health, natural parenting is effective parenting, and much more.

Walking in Sunshine includes the Flexibilities appendix: color photos and directions detailing each movement in the sequence of stretches that scientific research has shown will help you prevent heart attacks, strokes, and osteoarthritis. Feel and act younger, move more gracefully, lose the achiness. Get flexible and live longer. Flexibilities can also be purchased as a separate PDF copy at this link:
http://www.anthrohealth.net/ahflexbooklet.htm

Walking in Sunshine: LifeStyle Changes to Make for a Bright Healthy Future will help you and your loved ones improve your lives. In addition, a PDF copy is environmentally green. Better your lives while helping the environment.

‘Tis the Season! May you have a wonderful life full of health and well-being.

Gut Check

Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of media coverage on the new guidelines for mammograms and breast self exams. Analysis of scientific research indicates that mammograms can do more harm than good. This is not what anti-breast cancer crusaders like the Susan G. Komen Foundation want to hear. Women are worried and confused because they have been told that they must have mammograms to detect and prevent breast cancer. Now the scientists are saying that is not the case and that, in fact, they can be counter-productive.

For every women correctly diagnosed with cancer after a mammogram there are significantly more women who endure the trauma of a false positive reading. They have no disease but undergo what turn out to be needless breast biopsies where they run the risk of a lung puncture from a poorly-performed needle biopsy. Unless a woman has a family/genetic history of breast cancer, the odds of her getting it prior to age 70 are actually quite low.

No one wants to be the one to tell the average 40-year-old woman without a family history of breast cancer to stop getting mammograms and then find out 3 years later that she developed breast cancer. But, again, the odds of her developing it are low. The cancer foundations and some health professionals appear to be operating under the “better safe than sorry” mantra while ignoring the fact that false positives can also lead to a sorry situation.

In 2002, Gerd Gigerenzer, author of Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You, pointed out that the general public and many medical professionals do not really understand statistics. This lack of understanding leads them to judge inaccurately the actual risks and benefits of health screenings.

According to Gigerenzer, the vast majority of physicians who participated in the research described in his book cannot accurately determine risks and benefits when these are presented in the form of probabilities. (e.g. There is a 25% risk reduction in death from breast cancer with mammography.) Only when the results are presented in the form of natural frequencies do the risks and benefits become clear. (e.g. 1000 women got mammograms each year for 10 years and 1000 women did not. At the end of 10 years, 3 women in the first group and 4 women in the second group died of breast cancer.) If we and our physicians cannot accurately determine risks and benefits when they are presented as probabilities, we could be unnecessarily risking our health. How many of the 997 women who got mammograms each year for 10 years also had false positives during that time? How many experienced the trauma, pain, and potential negative outcomes of the additional testing required to rectify that false positive?

Rather than relying on mammograms (and other types of screenings) to safeguard their health, it would be better for women in their 40s and 50s to actively employ measures that we know can help prevent cancer. These measures include eating plenty of richly-colored fruits and vegetables; eliminating dairy and other saturated fats; getting plenty of exercise; sleeping around 8 hours each night; and taking a minimum supplement of 1000 IU/day of vitamin D3. More vitamin D supplementation may be required to get the blood levels of 25 OHD to the optimal level of 50 ng/mL.

By following these preventive measures all women, even those with a family history of breast cancer, will reduce their odds of developing the disease. And those without a family history will be able to ignore their guts and go with their brains in accepting the scientific data which states that we in the United States have been over-using mammograms. Look at the natural frequency data. Mammograms haven’t been as much help as we thought. Eat right, exercise, sleep well, and take vitamin D. That’s where the science is.

Flexibility for Life

When I was 32 I realized that I was not as flexible as I had once been. This disturbed me because at that time my grandmother was having increasing difficulty moving. Her shoulders were becoming stiff and inflexible. She needed a knee replacement. My grandmother was only 75. I loved her dearly, but I didn’t want to have the same problems with my body. From that point, I put together a series of joint movements I call Flexibilities; and I began doing them every morning when I first arose.

Over the next several weeks, I noticed that not only was I becoming more flexible, but I felt less achy and stiff when I awoke each morning. Doing the movements in the morning meant that I felt loose, alert, and ready for the day ahead. I walked a little taller with a bounce in my step.

Through the intervening years, I’ve continued to do the flexibilities each morning. On those days that for some reason I do not do the movements, I feel a little off. I’ve also found that if I do not do the flexibilities first thing in the morning, I am less likely to do them at all that day.

In addition to doing the joint movements, I do two other things to aid joint health. Each day with my breakfast (blueberries and bananas, tomato salsa omelet, and grapefruit juice) I take a vitamin D3 supplement. Vitamin D3 is vital for skeletal and muscle strength (and many other aspects of health). For lunch I eat water-packed sardines. Sardines are a super food: they are a great source of protein, calcium, vitamin D3, and omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids help reduce joint inflammation (along with many other benefits).

Following this program for over two decades, I have great flexibility, no signs of osteoarthritis, and good overall health. Two research studies provide support for my anecdotal experience.

The first, published about one year ago by UC San Diego researchers, found that flexing joints prompts chondrocytes (cartilage cells) to produce a lubricating substance that keeps the joint surfaces smooth. The more the joint was flexed, the greater the percentage of chondrocytes that produced lubrication, keeping the glassy surface of the joint smooth. Joints that are not flexed produce very little lubrication resulting in an erosion of the smooth cartilage and, eventually, the pain of osteoarthritis.

The second study was published earlier this month in the American Journal of Physiology. These researchers in Texas and Japan found that an individual’s degree of flexibility could be positively correlated with that individual’s degree of arterial flexibility. That is, the most flexible adults had the best arterial condition and the lowest risk for having a heart attack or stroke. Those adults with the greatest joint stiffness were at highest risk of suffering from a heart attack or stroke.

Do you want to live a longer, healthier life? Then you need to add daily flexibilities to your routine. If you would like a PDF copy (for $3.00) of my Flexibilities booklet which includes photos and directions for each movement, click here. http://www.anthrohealth.net/ahflexbooklet.htm

Brainercise

At ever-increasing rates, the population of the United States is becoming overweight and obese. There are two simple explanations for this: lack of exercise and too much high-calorie, low-nutrition food. These are obviously important factors. Exercise and a high-quality, properly-portioned diet need to be at the top of anyone’s weight-loss agenda. But these two factors may be related to two other interacting factors: learning and sleeping.

The brain uses about 20% of the body’s energy budget to maintain itself and to process information. When learning a new task, particularly a difficult one, the brain uses more energy. Once the task is learned, the energy level drops back to baseline. Researchers have found that the best way to consolidate learning, to put it into long-term memory, is to get a good night’s sleep.

Obtaining adequate levels of sleep has many beneficial outcomes. I’ve discussed this topic in some detail in an issue of AnthroHealth News: http://www.anthrohealth.net/AHNews%20V7N1.htm But in this blog I am bringing up a different benefit: weight loss. Researchers have found that individuals who obtain an adequate night’s sleep (around eight hours) are less likely to have weight problems. The reason given for this is that inadequate sleep and/or sleep disruption also disrupt the hormones that control appetite. If appetite is not suppressed, over-eating results.

This sounds reasonable, but I am proposing a different, additional connection. Too many Americans do not want to learn anything new, particularly if it is difficult. There is even an entire class of American citizens who are proud that they know very little. Charles P. Pierce’s Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free describes this group in disturbing detail.

Learning new, challenging things uses more energy and requires more sleep for the new thing to actually stick. Failure to really learn anything new (as opposed to the process of cramming and regurgitating where anything “learned” is quickly lost) puts no energy demands on the brain, so an individual thinks he/she needs less sleep. Less sleep results in hormone disruption leading to loss of appetite suppression and obesity.

Now, I am not saying that all individuals who are overweight or obese are failing to adequately exercise their brains. Each individual has his/her own complexity of factors involved in weight issues. However, it is a real shame that there are humans who, despite having a large brain capable of learning complex ideas and activities, choose not to bother to use their brains to their highest capacity. It is frightening that so many individuals actually take pride in this failure.

In conclusion, if you want to lose some weight, in addition to getting exercise and eating nutritious food, you might try exercising your brain and then getting a good night’s sleep. I recommend doing it every day. Not only will you have the joy of learning something new, but you also may lose some weight.

Let me know if it works for you.

[Bed in graphic is from SLMetalWorks.com.]

Feeling Groovy

Walking is the best exercise. It is the exercise our bodies are adapted to do, so I am happy to see so many people out walking on beautiful days. However, I think that most of them are missing one of the other keys that makes walking the best exercise: being a part of nature.

I see people with a very determined set to their faces, listening to I-pods, and striding briskly along, looking straight ahead with a somewhat blank gaze. Others are so engrossed in conversation with their fellow walkers that they could be walking on a treadmill for all the notice they take of their environment. Then there are the dog walkers. One might think that they would be paying more attention to the environment since their dog certainly is. But that does not appear to be the case.

Now, if you are mall-walking, conversation and I-pods do make the activity more enjoyable. But if you are outside, going as fast as you can from point A to point B causes you to miss out on the additional rejuvenating aspect of walking. It isn’t just about the physical exercise, but also the emotional well being that being a part of nature can bring to your psyche.

When I was a child and visited my grandmother, we went on lots of walks. Grandma never seemed in a hurry to get anywhere. She would point out the beautiful flowers, the interesting architecture. She would stop to chat with friends, or even strangers. It was she who first told me to take time to smell the flowers. And we actually would stop to smell them.

So, yes, we do need the exercise, but sometimes we also need to slow down because life is moving too fast. Next time you take a walk outdoors, do so without any distractions and take the time to really look around you. Notice the beauty, feel the peace, and feel a little groovy.