Healthy Andy

There’s some really interesting research that recently came out not only on inflammation and obesity, but inflammation and diabetes as well.  Really, the two are closely related because of the influence of the hormone insulin, so this shouldn’t be so surprising, especially if you’ve read my post on insulin and weight gain.

To sum up, consuming a diet high in fat seems to create a problem with inflammation in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that links the nervous system to the endocrine (hormonal) system through a little nubbin at the base of the brain called the pituatary gland (also called the “master gland”).  This inflammation then impairs the effects of two hormones, insulin and leptin, on signalling the body about fat storage.

Okay, let’s break down what that all means.

Inflammation and Obesity

First off, there’s a chemical on/off switch for inflammation in our body called NF-kB (NF- “kappa” B).  When NF-kB is activated, it’s like in those submarine movies where that klaxen horn begins blaring Ah- WOOO-GA!  Ah-WOOO-GA! and a voice shouts over the loudspeaker “Dive!  Dive!”.

Okay, maybe that’s just my hyperactive imagination.  But seriously, when NF-kB is activated, it tells the body that inflammation is necessary in that area.  We’ve discussed NF-kB in detail before in this post on inflammation and antioxidants.  The key thing to realize for this discussion is, a high-fat diet seems to activate NF-kB in the hypothalamus, leading to inflammation in that area.

This leads to resistance to the hormones insulin and leptin.  Insulin we’ve discussed many times before- it’s the hormone involved with controlling blood sugar.  It’s also the hormone of interest in diabetes and the pre-diabetic state called “metabolic syndrome”, “syndrome x”, or just plain “insulin resistance”. 

Resistance to insulin causes all kinds of health problems, but in this case, we’re mostly interested in the fact that abnormal expression of insulin causes weight gain.  If you’ve heard of low-carb diets, the whole mechanism behind their action is to control the levels of insulin in your body so that you don’t get fat.  Once again… abnormal action of insulin leads to fat gain.  Since an inflamed hypothalamus leads to abnormal action (i.e., resistance)  of insulin, it therefore also leads to fat gain.

Inflammation, Leptin, and Hunger

What about that other hormone, leptin?  What the heck IS that other hormone, leptin?

Leptin is a hormone that controls the sensation of hunger and/or saiety (the feeling of being full).  Again, when inflammation kicks in throughout the hypothalamus, you end up with an abnormal expression of this hormone… in other words, an inflamed brain is always telling you you’re not full yet, no matter how full you actually are.

So not only does an inflamed brain disable the hormonal mechanisms that help burn off fat and sugar (that’s insulin), it also disables the hormonal mechanism that tells you to stop stuffing your pie-hole in the first place!  Is it any wonder how this could lead to weight gain? 

There’s been links between inflammation and obesity before, but this is a much stronger link because the hypothalamus, as I mentioned earlier, pretty much runs the show when it comes to your hormones.  That means that inflammation there is going to have a far greater effect than inflammation in the peripheral tissues.

Fat Quality and Inflammation

I talk a lot about the importance of healthy fats in the diet, and how the balance of Omega-3 (anti-inflammatory) fats and Omega-6 (pro-inflammatory) fats is so vital to proper function in the body.  It may very well be that it is not a problem of overall quantity of fats, but an overdose of those inflammatory Omega-6 fats that is leading to this inflammation problem in the hypothalamus.

In fact, one of the articles on the subject shows that saturated fats are far more likely to induce this inflammed state in the hypothalamus, and therefore leading to the disruption in insulin and leptin that contributes to weight gain. Monounsaturated fats did not seem to have the undesirable effects.

My advice is, this is even more evidence to avoid processed foods (which are high in pro-inflammatory Omega-6s) and stick to a whole foods diet (also called a “primal” or “paleo” diet).  Additionally, supplementing with Omega-3 fats like fish oils can help reduce inflammation, and antioxidants can help, as well.  Read that article I linked to above for evidence on how antioxidants seem to shut off that NF-kB inflammation switch.

Since inflammation and obesity are linked, you want to avoid that situation as much as possible.  A healthy whole foods diet is the best defense.  After all, who wants an inflamed brain?

Stay healthy!

Celiac disease is a condition affecting the intestines, generally consisting of an inflammatory response to the protein called gluten in wheat, rye, or barley.  Often misdiagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome, the disease is mostly managed through diet- namely, avoiding gluten, as you might expect.

For a good fifty-plus years, we’ve known about the link between gluten and celiac disease, but recently, some researchers have pinpointed the actual specific components of gluten that trigger the inflammation behind all of the nasty symptoms of celiac disease.  What that means is,  the entire molecule of gluten isn’t what causes the allergic-type reaction, but some little pieces of it.

Out of thousands of peptides, or little itty bitty fragments of gluten protein, less than one hundred are involved in producing the celiac response, and really only three of those do most of the damage.

Why is this important?  Well, now that those three specific pieces have been identified, it’s theoretically possible to create a therapy around those peptides.  Think of it almost like immunization, but with these little pieces of gluten.  You expose someone to tiny amounts of these three peptides, with the hope that the body will get used to them and no longer create a hyperactive response when gluten is consumed.

Of course, the simple way to deal with celiac is still simply avoiding gluten, and since a healthy, whole foods diet doesn’t contain any of that stuff, you don’t have to wait for Science to get around to creating this fancy approach to dealing with celiac disease.  Don’t forget, refining grains like wheat, rye, and barley can create all kinds of other problems for you, including diabetes and obesity. 

It may not be easy to get off of the grains (especially the refined ones), but really, it’s the best path overall for your health, whether you have celiac disease or not.  All the same, anything that can help relieve the suffering of this condition is certainly a welcome addition to the healthcare toolkit.

Would you rather be immunized for gluten, and run the risk of diabetes, obesity, and other health problems once you start eating bread and cake and pasta again, or would you rather train yourself to stay off of grains altogether?  Let me know in the comment section below!

Source:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10713775

Arthritis is a silent, ugly, painful scourge on our society. Something like 46 MILLION people suffer from some form of arthritis, with a million of them being hospitalized due to their condition.  It doesn’t get a lot of press, but it’s nasty and causes a ton of people a ton of pain.

There’s a lot of different kinds of arthritis- the term “arthritis” just means “inflammation of the joint”.  The two main types are osteoarthritis (OA), also called Degenerative Joint Disease or DJD, and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  OA is wear and tear arthritis; it affects one joint at a time and is essentially caused by overuse.  Think of a marathon runner with no cartilage left in their knees.  That’s OA.

We’re going to talk about RA or rheumatoid arthritis in this post.  RA is a systemic disease, meaning it affects the entire body all at once, not just one joint. Actually, it doesn’t just affect the joints, but that’s where most people notice the symptoms.  The joints of the hands and wrists are commonly one of the most affected areas and can lead to severe deformity, leading to the fingers being twisted out of alignment.

The cause is autoimmune, which means that for some weird reason, the body’s immune system is attacking itself.  There’s a lot of autoimmune disorders out there, and all of them suck.  Seriously.  They’re extremely tough to deal with, mostly because Science and Medicine has pretty much no idea why this is going on in the first place.  Conventional medical treatments for RA are less than desirable; cortisone seems to work in the short-term, but has nasty long-term side effects.

Well, now that I’ve depressed you all, here’s some good news. A study done all the way back in the ’80s shows a dramatic improvement in symptoms when patients included 4.5 grams a day of fish oils along with their medications.  It took 14 weeks for this effect to kick in, but still, for anything to work on this nasty disease is fantastic.

There’s more. In the mid-90s, that same idea was tried again, except this time, they actually stopped the medications and switched to all fish oils.  Here’s how it worked.  They started people off with taking their meds and also taking a bunch of either fish oil capsules, or corn oil capsules (to use as a control group).  After about five months, the researchers then stopped giving people their meds, and gave them a fake sugar pill instead, those tricksters.

In the fish oil group, people felt a lot better… even after coming off of their medication!  The corn oil group… not so much.  The fish oil group’s improvements remained even after coming off of their medication for eight weeks, which is pretty incredible.

It wasn’t just symptoms.  RA has some chemical markers which you can objectively measure; the fish oil group had significantly decreased levels of these markers as well as reduced symptoms.  So it wasn’t just all in their heads.

Quick side note:  these people were taking MAJOR doses of fish oils, like nine or ten grams a day.  That’s a bunch.

Okay, so how the heck can this be?  How can fish oils make such a major dent in such an ugly disease?  Well, pull up a chair, kids, because Healthy Andy is going to lay it all out for you.

First, let’s go quickly over inflammation, since arthritis of all kinds is all about inflammation.  Remember from previous posts that inflammation is the very beginning process of healing, and so, it’s very necessary for your health.  It kick-starts not only the tissue repair part of healing, but also the immune response. 

After all, historically speaking, infections were the A Number One big killer of the human race.  Before antibiotics came along, if you got a cut, you were in serious trouble of dying from an infection.  So, your body is hard-wired to over-react when it comes to potential infectious threats.  Any sign of injury, and your immune response is on the scene, pronto, to make sure your body isn’t going to be over-run by any invading organisms.

Your Omega-3 to Omega-6 balance is a big part of how strong your inflammatory response is.  Remember, these are the two major kinds of Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs), fats that your body needs to do its business.  EFAs form some of the chemical messengers involved in the whole process of inflammation; Omega-6s create a strong inflammatory response, Omega-3s, a weak inflammatory response.

When the two kinds of EFAs are in balance, all is well in the world and the degree of inflammatory response stays appropriate to the threat.  Weak threat?  Weak response.  Strong threat?  Strong response.

The problem arises when you have an imbalance, like pretty much everybody in Western society does.  We should have a 1:1 ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6.  Of course, we don’t.  Not even close.  It’s more like 30:1 in favor of Omega-6.

Now, we have a situation where all we can do is over-react to every potential threat, because all we have is a strong response.  It’s kind of like having a tool chest but only owning a sledgehammer.  If you have to hang a picture on the wall, and you only own a sledgehammer, your interior decorating isn’t going to win any awards.

So, knowing this, it’s not to hard to see how taking Omega-3 supplements like fish oils can help with inflammatory conditions.  Now that we restore the balance between a strong Omega-6 response and weak Omega-3 response (or at least, get closer to balance), we put a whole assortment of tool in our body’s tool chest, from a tack hammer on up.  The inflammatory response now becomes more appropriate, either weak or strong or anywhere in between, and we don’t end up pounding holes in the drywall from trying to hang a picture with a sledgehammer.

Since an autoimmune condition like RA is basically inflammation on overdrive, all of the time, it’s going to respond to a return to balance like I just described.  Now, your immune system isn’t going to attack anything and everything in sight with crazed machine-gun fire, including you.  Instead, it’s more likely to respond appropriately, and leave your body tissues alone and stick to killing actual foreign invaders with a surgical sniper rifle shot.

By the way, that guy that did those two studies I was talking about earlier recommends dosing at three to six grams of EPA and DHA total (that’s the active ingredients of fish oil) a day for at least twelve weeks to see if this kind of supplementation will help rheumatoid arthritis.  I’d stick on the high side of that to be certain.  You’re going to need to work up to taking that much gradually, so start with a capsule or two and work your way up from there. 

Of course, if you’re considering any of this, be sure to do it under the supervision of your doctor.  More and more MDs are becoming open to the idea of natural therapies supplementing convential therapies, particularly if the condition is stubborn and nasty like rheumatoid arthritis is.

Hit me up with some comments or questions, and share this info with your friends… you never know who could benefit from it!

Stay healthy!

Antioxidant Information Week rolls on!  Today, it’s a video describing how taking the acai berry, a popular antioxidant supplement often promoted for weight loss,  actually works as far as fat loss is concerned.  Really, it’s not just the acai berry, it’s any highly potent antioxidant of the polyphenol type, but I singled out acai because lots of people ask about it.

I sure hope you read yesterday’s post on antioxidants and inflammation, because our old friend NF-kB is back and causing more problems in our lives!  If not, well, I still explain how it all works, but you might want to check out yesterday’s post when you’re done watching the video for a little more insight on how inflammation is triggered in the body… and how antioxidants help.

So, antioxidants aren’t going to make us lose weight all by themselves, but they will help remove a significant block to losing weight- cortisol.  Don’t discount the importance of this.  We’re surrounded by all kinds of industrial toxins dumped into our water and air, pesticides and other chemicals added to our foods, and all kinds of crap we haven’t even discovered yet.  All of those chemical stressors activate the inflammatory cascade, leading to cortisol and therefore more fat (even if you’re low on calories!).

Let me put it to you this way.  How many of you out there DON’T think  your life is stressful?

Right.  So better help yourself out a bit.

So, one more point in the Win column for antioxidants.  Any questions or comments, please feel free to add them below, and if you found this article helpful, spread the word throughout the land via facebook, twitter, or just plain old telling your friends face-to-face about Healthy Andy!

Thanks for stopping by and stay healthy!

Antioxidant Info Week continues with a fantastic study showing just how powerful and far-reaching the effects of antioxidants can be.  In this study, levels of NF-kB (Nuclear Factor- “kappa” B; sorry, I don’t have Greek symbols at my disposal) were significantly reduced within five days of supplementing with pycnogenol.

Levels of who, were what, by hunh?  Let me explain.

NF-kB is basically a chemical on/off switch for inflammation inside the cell.  If this stuff gets activated by something, pow, you get inflammation. 

Inflammation is pretty important business.  It kicks off the healing and immune response in the body; without it, you’d never fix yourself when you got hurt. I don’t just mean that in the sense of, if something is inflamed and painful, you’ll avoid using it and let it rest and heal.  While that’s true, it goes way beyond that.

The inflammatory response actually physically signals and kicks off the chemical changes in the body that we call healing and the immune system.  So as a short-term response to injury, inflammation is absolutely vital. 

The problem arises when inflammation becomes chronic.  Now we run into situations where we’re getting all inflamed over nothing.  Arthritis?  Chronically inflamed joints.  Crohn’s Disease?  Chronically inflamed intestines.  Asthma?  Chronically inflamed breathing tubes.  The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is, you don’t want to have All Inflammation, All the Time.

How does NF-kB fit in?  Think of NF-kB as a trigger, that sets off inflammation, just like the trigger of a gun, sets off… well, the gun.  Something bumps against the trigger of a gun, and boom, you get a discharge.  Something “bumps” into NF-kB, chemically speaking, and boom, you get inflammation.

Just like any other trigger, NF-kB varies in how sensitive it’s going to be (how easily it’s “activated”).  Ever hear of a hair trigger?  That’s a gun trigger that is so sensitive, the tiniest bump sets it off.  Guess what?  Same thing can happen in your cells.

If NF-kB is super-sensitive, the tiniest little jolt from the surroundings will set it off, and start up the inflammatory process.  So over-active NF-kB, is like the hair trigger of a gun for you to swell up and get inflamed.

Can you see how that could lead to chronic inflammatory diseases like asthma?  If the cells lining your respiratory system get all excited and inflamed at the drop of a hat (chemically speaking), the littlest bit of pollen or mold or dust or whatever is going to set off the hair trigger, time and time again.

Chronic inflammation has other consequences, too (I’ll be posting a video on its role in weight problems tomorrow), and NF-kB does more than just regulate inflammation (it’s involved in cancer too) but I don’t want this post to turn into an 800 page textbook on biochemistry, so let’s just stick with this:  NF-kB is the trigger for inflammation, and if it’s too sensitive, it “goes off” super-easy and leads to chronic inflammatory diseases.

So, it stands to reason that we want to keep NF-kB under control, right?  Not TOO much, mind you… if we can’t EVER pull the trigger, we’d have no inflammation at all, and remember, we do need SOME inflammation to stay alive and healthy.  We just don’t want a hair trigger.

Well, a really cool study shows that antioxidants can help keep NF-kB from becoming overly sensitive.  Actually, there’s a bunch of studies showing this, but this one is my favorite.  The researchers took some folks and measured how active their NF-kB levels were, before and after five days’ worth of supplementation with pycnogenol, which is a pine bark extract and super-duper antioxidant.  After only five days, the average inhibition of the trigger NF-kB was 15.8%.

Remember, we don’t want 100%!  That would be a complete immunosuppressant worse than HIV!  We just want to dial it down a notch, which is exactly what pycnogenol supplementation did.  And after only five days!

Imagine what the effects of this would be for someone suffering from asthma or allergies!  This is just one of the many, many reasons I advise anyone with a pulse to take antioxidants.  They offer so many powerful, far-reaching benefits, it’s literally staggering. 

If you want to know more, I discuss more about antioxidants in my free guide to choosing supplements, which you can download if you take a look at the upper right hand sidebar on this page.

Oh, and the article citation for this reference is “Grimm et al., J Inflamm 3:1-15, 2006″ in case you have a burning desire to look it up.

Did you find this article helpful?  Spread the word and send it to your friends!  Questions or comments?  Post them below!

Stay healthy!

One of my favorite studies on antioxidants involves the use of pycnogenol, a pine bark extract and super-duper powerful antioxidant, and how it dramatically reduced the need for children to use their asthma inhalers. 

Seriously, pycnogenol helps asthma sufferers- isn’t that cool?  Here’s how it went.  The researchers took about 60 kids, ages 6-18, all of whom suffered from mild to moderate asthma.  On average, these kids needed to use their albuterol inhalers about three times a day.

These kids were then given pycnogenol at a dose of one milligram per pound of body weight per day.  Of course, there was a control group who got placebo instead. 

And what were the results?  Dramatic, in a word.  After three months of supplementation with pycnogenol, those kids went from using their asthma rescue inhalers three times a day on average, to about 0.3 times a day on average.  In other words, most kids didn’t use them at all on a given day.

Isn’t that amazing?  A NINETY PERCENT reduction in the use of rescue medication, in just three months of supplementation!  Actually, if you look at a graph of the incidence of inhaler use, medication use drops off steadily starting at just one month of supplementation.  The control group had no change, indicating this was a real effect and not just a mental placebo effect.

Additionally, there was a dramatic decrease in some urine test scores indicative of asthmatic response, and a significant increase in Forced Expiratory Volume (FEV), a test of breathing function (you basically blow really hard into a tube).

Pretty amazing stuff, especially when you recall that this is a nutritional supplement, not a medication, without any of the scary side effects of medication.  Can you see why I’m huge on recommending antioxidants?

The mechanism of  action of all this is probably through the modulation of NF-kB, which is kind of a chemical on/off switch for inflammation in your body.  Since asthma is basically an over-active inflammatory response in the airways, it stands to reason that if you can return an out-of-control inflammatory response to a more reasonable response, you won’t get as bad of symptoms. 

It seems powerful antioxidants like pycnogenol have the effect of returning overactive NF-kB responses back to normal, or at least closer to normal.  This has huge implications for health overall.  Chronic or over-active inflammation is starting to look like the culprit in a whole host of the diseases that plague our society, heart disease among them. 

This article is a fantastic, powerful demonstration as to just how effective antioxidants are in promoting overall health.  The article citation is “Lau et al, J Asthma 41:  825-832, 2004″ for those of you who would like to look up the original published article.

Having read this, would you consider using pycnogenol if your child had asthma?  Comment below!  And don’t forget to use the buttons below to share this article with your friends and loved ones… who knows who might benefit from this information!

Stay healthy!