As humans we struggle with the concept of balance. Yet science shows that nature wants balance. And instead of completely staying out of the sun, we would benefit greatly from understanding how to reap the health benefits from daily sun exposure while protecting especially our face and décolleté from damage.
When skin and the eye are exposed to UVR there is a release of α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH) which naturally lowers our appetite and increases our energy expenditure.
In the central nervous system, α-MSH is cleaved from proopiomelanocortin and then released into different hypothalamic regions to act on melanocortin 3/4 receptor-expressing neurons, lowering food intake, and raising energy expenditure via appetite suppression and sympathetic nervous system.
Most of us know this intuitively, as we tend to lose weight without struggle, when we go on summer-vacation. And this is the reason for it.
In the study they found following:
“In our animal studies, ongoing exposure to low dose ultraviolet radiation (UVR, found in sunlight) reduced weight gain and the development of signs of cardiometabolic dysfunction in mice fed a high fat diet. These observations suggest that regular exposure to safe levels of sunlight could be an effective means of reducing the burden of obesity.”
Read the full study here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5086738/ And feel free to share.
Promising research shows that PFAS may not need to be “forever” in your body and may be treatable with the common medication cholestyramine.
Read the full study here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024000837?via%3Dihub
Yet another vegan “documentary” taking up space on Netflix these days: “You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment”. And it hasn’t even been more than a handful of years ago, there was the last wave of veganism driving through the country with the movie Game Changers on Netflix, swiping across the country with more peer pressure than your average influencer’s lip filler. Same arguments, same counter arguments. It gets boring for those of us who live long enough to see the circling trends in health care - same claims, same debunking and on and on it goes. Each generation has to learn from scratch all over again. Yes I sound like I’m a million years. But really, I don’t have patience for this utter nutritional nonsense trendy stuff proposed by self-claimed experts often with no relevant educational background when it comes to nutrition science.
I never really commented much on it, because we are missing the boat completely when it comes to changing our health by focusing so much on meat vs. plants, and the debate has so many emotional ties attached to it, that it rarely seems constructive to dive in.
We mostly know homocysteine as something we have to worry about not getting too high. And that is absolutely true: too high homocysteine is directly related to higher mortality and risk of cardiovascular disease.
But can homocysteine also become too low?
It turns out that the answer is yes: low homocysteine levels are actually linked to increased disease risk. For example, low homocysteine has been shown to have a strong association with peripheral neuropathy.
Research shows that a surprising 41% of patients with idiopathic peripheral neuropathy have hypohomocysteinemia (too low homocysteine). And sulfur is absolutely essential for healthy homocysteine levels. There can be several reasons for imbalances with sulfur in the body - e.g. mold can affect sulfur and thereby homocystein levels. Unfortunately, it is not always as simple as just doing a mineral test for sulfur and thereafter concluding when levels are found low to simply eat foods higher in sulfur to provide the building blocks in order to normalize homocysteine levels (aka broccoli, cabbage, meat).
However, mineral, vitamin and heavy metal tests are always one of the first things I do on all clients who come in for a health check-up, because this is basic information we need to know before we can dig deeper
Vitamin, mineral and metal test incl. 30 minutes review can be booked as a separate service on the website and is also included in all health check-ups.
Last month I wrote a post about intestinal blockage and how serious a disorder it is - especially because it is high season for this disorder during the holidays. However, now entering January and relentless slimming season, this may also turn out to be high season for intestinal blockage due to the increase in prescriptions of certain popular weightloss medications.
Ozempic and Wegovy - both drugs where side effects include reducing intestinal peristalsis to such an extent that the FDA issued a letter in the autumn in which they made it clear that they will henceforth warn against acute intestinal blockage on the packaging. The risk of intestinal blockage is something most of us incl. health professionals and doctors have been unaware of with this apparent weight loss miracle drug.
Intestinal blockage is potentially life-threatening and if you already have a history of digestive disorders, you should stay far away from these medicines. Regardless of the fact that obesity is linked to a domino effect of biochemical problems in the body, the risk of intestinal blockage is simply too serious.
Last year, I admittedly also considered whether this remedy could be included as part of a broad-spectrum aid to kick-start weight loss in clients with a particularly addictive relationship with food - both to break the habit but also to change the brain's reward system. Unfortunately, it has become more apparent that the problems with muscle loss (leading to reduced metabolism - and increased tendency to gain more weight after treatment) as well as the side effects around digestion - and especially the risk of intestinal blockage - are not sustainable nor worth it.
I’ve been drinking lemon or grapefruit juice diluted into water the first thing every morning for decades, literally. Yes decades, without going further into dating myself here.
While I too get real tired of wild claims about this or that diet, mainly because there is never good science behind, I do not tire of the potential of understanding foods therapeutic impact on the body. Having worked with nutrition for 20 years, I have seen so many diets come and go, it drives me nuts, that we have to make something so simple, so very complicated.
Did you know that Christmas is high season for intestinal loops?An intestinal loop is a bowel obstruction which can be a serious condition. It can occur in the large or small bowel. A small bowel obstruction commonly occurs where loops of intestine can easily get blocked or twisted. Christmas is jam-packed with delicious food, and this is definitely not a raised finger that you should fast or replace roast pork with carrot sticks or other life-draining and unrealistic advice. But it's also high season for hospitalizations with intestinal loops, and there's nothing funny about it if it happens to you or yours.
Intestinal loop is a serious disorder, and the mortality rate is approx. 20% for those where operative intervention becomes necessary! Therefore, the best thing you can do - as with all other diseases - is prevention.
Intestinal loop is a condition where the intestine twists around itself, so that the intestine is pinched off. When this happens, you will very quickly experience massive pain in the stomach because the food accumulates and the intestines are distended. If not treated in time, bacteria from the intestines begin to penetrate the gut lining and cause serious inflammation and potentially deadly blood poisoning. What are the symptoms of intestinal loop?
I am not a big fan of synthetic supplements - and there are plenty of studies supporting that synthetic vitamins are NOT comparable to natural vitamins due to missing co-factors amongst other issues.
Synthetic vitamin C is however what most of us are consuming if we are taking supplements on the regular. And I only recommend synthetic vitamin C if you are acutely fighting an infection as the longterm benefits are severely lacking - on the contrary.
A recent study reported a positive association between supplemental vitamin C intake and kidney stones in a cohort of 23,355 Swedish men; the multivariable adjusted relative risk associated with supplemental use of vitamin C was almost double compared with no use!
Read the full study here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23381591/
NOTE: I absolutely do recommend supplements, but the quality most of us are taking is absolute garbage and not related to better health outcome. The headlines in the newspapers do not differentiate between synthetic supplements and naturally derived supplements, although this is the key issue in the health outcome!