Feeling sick? Go see doctor..take a pill

Today, I would like to share my opinion about the 'conventional modern medicine' paradigm. I've told and shared my views with tons of my friends, relatives, colleagues as well as clients about how modern conventional medicine paradigm works. Some seemed to agree with me, but most of them, seem clueless and surprised. 

Let me ask you. What is the first thing you did, whenever you feel sick, or having 'high' fever, or maybe bad cough or catch a cold? Yes, you are right. Go see a doctor. Question, does any of you realize that what conventional doctors study? Well, go ask any of your friends or relatives who completed his or her med school degree. Let me give you a hint. Pharmaceutical drugs + diagnosis and treatment of symptoms? Wonder why everytime you are sick, you take a pill. Fever? No problem, take panadol. Cough? Sure, take cough syrup. How about sorethroat and flu? Oh yeah, antibiotics! 

Another question. Wonder why everytime you go inside the clinic's room, you only get approximately few minutes with the doctor? I bet most of you don't realize and even care less why is that so. Imagine, you go into the clinic room, doctors ask "What's wrong?". You said, "I have fever, bad sorethroat and cough". Doctor replied " Sure. I'll give you panadol, antibiotics and cough syrup". Then you walked out of the clinic, paid the lady in the pharmacist counter, walked out of the clinic, and thought you will recover in few days time after completion of these so called 'medicine'. But, do you know in fact if  your temperature is below 39.9 degrees celcius, you are highly recommended NOT to take panadol or any other drugs which go against your immune system trying to fight and kill off the pathogens? Do you even know why you have a fever? Well, I wrote before about how to treat fever without using any drugs given by doctor or over the counter meds. Go read it.

Meanwhile, does any of you realize that a lot of doctors hate their job? Being a doctor is supposed to be righteous, honorable and proud right? Saving people's lives and improving people's health and treating root cause of the illness right? Well, I doubt it. Conventional doctors, never treat underlying root cause. It's primarily all about pharmaceutical drugs and symptoms. Think about it, they are in a model that does not work, as they never treat the cause. They are unknowing pawns of the drug companies and make relatively little money. Then, they have to deal all day long with complaining patients, who are all failing to get better because of the doctors' ignorant recommendations.

The system is set up to sell the quick fix, what they label the so-called "cure". Only in many cases, the "cure" merely adds new problems to a patient's list of complaints. The business of being a doctor in this country has been reduced to being the front man for a multi-billion dollar drug business whose primary mission seems to be enriching their bottom line by keeping you sick! 

These days, the initial assault to your health comes from all around you: The water delivered to your doorstep is filled with harmful chemicals, our food chain has been hijacked by Monsanto's pesticide saturated GMO agriculture "foods" that also dominates what we feed to our livestock. Sugar and artificial sweeteners, found in almost everything these days, are other health destroyers that are pervasive in our food supply. And when you're finally sick enough to see your doctor, after years of this daily abuse, what does he or she tell you?

Oh yeah, the doctor wants you to take a pill! That's practically the only advice left for doctors to give, between the pressure put on them by the insurance companies to keep office visits brief and inexpensive, and the pressure put on them by the drug companies to push their pills. And the pills the doctors recommend to you are backed up by 'studies' that are funded by the drug industry. And the FDA uses these drug industry-funded 'studies' to put their rubber stamp of approval on just about anything sent down the pike. 

With the vast majority of physicians using the drug model described above, an enormous level of frustration is inevitable, as virtually none of their recommendations ever solve the problem. It merely treats the symptoms and causes other side effects. So, it doesn't surprise me to hear that one third of doctors are unhappy about some aspect of their profession.

They are on the front lines of the largest sustained assault on public health in the history of civilization, and rather than advise patients about the true underlying conditions that lead to health, they are left putting toxic band-aids on gaping wounds. The doctors as well as patients are frustrated when the wounds don't heal, because the entire apparatus has been rigged to produce continually diminishing health. Finally, the doctors must continue to work within this model because if they deny a patient any drug that the drug industry-supported 'studies' are touting as the "solution", they might be sued for malpractice! I know that sound insane, but it's the painful truth. 

Then, there is the peer pressure they receive if they start to adopt natural therapies and are viewed as weird or strange by their professional colleagues. But the system is rigged against them, putting constraints on their time, their medical options and their livelihood if they try to practice medicine outside of the accepted conventions of the current system.

Finally, how can you protect yourself from being sick? I know I know, lead a healthy lifestyle and eat healthy foods and exercise right? Well, that's right, I couldn't agree more. But, question is, why someone like you, who think that you have been eating healthy and exercise regularly, but still not feeling that healthy and often falls sick? How about people who develop chronic degenerative diseases or illnesses? How about infertility? Unable to conceive or erectile dysfunction? I know Viagra or Cialis is considered magic 'performance' pill for most men, but it doesn't treat the underlying cause of your reproductive system ongoing problems. Ever wonder why you often feel bloated or having digestion problems or maybe becomes overweight/obese? Perhaps, the diet/foods you have been eating, might not be healthy after all. How about exercise? Jogging does help on body transformation or lose body fat effectively? Well, sit down quietly, have an open mind and think. 

Are you fit and healthy? Or ticking timebomb?

I'm sure some of you would have read the recent news of soccer player Fabrice Muamba collapsed during the game on the pitch suffering from heart attack. For those who don't, I've uploaded the video and news from the link below. The reason why I decided to write this post, as there are still alot of people who are clueless about what causes heart attack or heart disease. Although I will tell you to read my previous posts "High Cholesterol causes Heart Disease?", but I would like to compile some of the real live situations which happened to people like us, and athletes from around the world. Yes, even supposedly the fit and healthy  athletes.

The billion dollar question, "Why do supposedly fit and healthy people suffer heart attack or failure?". Doesn't exercise meant healthier? How could this had happened? Why rich big sports clubs with their supposedly good physicians and cardiologists failed to predict or diagnose before the athlete collapse (weeks and months earlier)? Why developed countries such as USA, UK and other western countries with high tech advance technology and medical treatment, but suffer such a high heart disease rates? Does the lipid profiling in health screening tells you anything at all? Does total cholesterol serum levels an accurate predictor of heart disease?

Accounting for 17% of all deaths (according to the WHO) and killing over 616,000 people in the United States alone in 2008. In 2010, coronary heart disease alone was projected to cost the United States $108.9 billion. This total includes the cost of health care services, medications, and lost productivity.

As you can tell, heart disease not only kills but it weighs heavily on the health care system of a country. For years it was believed that eating too much fat was the cause of heart disease. And for that reason, the 1980's saw a new “low-fat” movement. However, heart disease still increased. And so too did obesity. 

If fat was the problem, then why are people still having more heart attacks, getting fatter, and even developing Type 2 Diabetes then and now? Well, a big part of the answer is SUGAR. Sugar is a big reason why 1/3 of Americans have high blood triglyceride levels, making them, or maybe even you, more susceptible to a heart disaster! Most of the industrialized, developed nations suffer similar consequences as well. Don’t be fooled by low-fat products because if fat has been reduced or removed, then manufacturers know that something else has to take its place. In many cases, it’s sugar.

So why is sugar so bad? Well, it’s a DRUG that literally destroys every cell and system in your body. Under healthy conditions, insulin stores sugar in your cells. It’s a building or storage hormone. You might not like that about insulin but that’s the way it goes. If you don’t want as much insulin circulating in your blood, and thus less sugar stored as fat, then don’t spike your blood sugar with poor quality foods or high glycemic foods. When insulin resistance occurs, your cells NO longer respond to insulin. Therefore, no sugar can be stored. At first glance, those wanting to lose weight might think that’s a good thing but let me tell you why it’s not.

Aside from the fact that too much sugar in the blood WILL ruin your arteries, nerves, and other precious tissues, It also increases triglycerides (fats) in the blood, raising your risk of heart disease. Insulin resistance is manifested by hyperinsulinemia (too much insulin), increased glucose production in the liver, and decrease glucose disposal. In fat cells, insulin resistance triggers an increased release of hormone sensitive lipase (HSL), resulting in elevated rates of triglycerides breakdown AKA lipolysis into free fatty acids. These free fatty acids then move to the liver. In the liver, free fatty acids can either be converted to ATP energy in the mitochondria OR converted back into triglycerides for storage or incoporated into dangerous VLDL particles.

Not only does insulin resistance increase your blood triglycerides via increased VLDL formation but it also activates all of the lipogenic (fat-forming) genes in your liver. This essentially means that more processes occur to convert sugar into fat, rather than energy. Folks, for more detailed explanation of how sugar plays a huge role in heart disease, read my previous SUGAR posts.

Meanwhile, apart from sugar, another primary contributing factor of heart disease is STRESS. My whole high cholesterol posts covers almost everything about how STRESS leads to heart disease. This apply similiar affects from physical exercise routines, which primarily from endurance training or sports. Also, I covered and explained how endurance training or similiar activities impact our body hormonal, mentally and physically, in earlier "Cardio vs Weight Training" posts. 

By the way, does any of you know why more and more people participate in marathon? Firstly, it's free. One doesn't need to pay for any fee as outdoor running doesn't cost a cent. Secondly, we have been hardwired to think that endurance or marathon training is healthy and improve cardiovascular health. Ask yourself, do you want to have a physique of a sprinter(lean,strong, muscular, fast and explosive) or marathon runner (gaunt and skinny)? 

Jim Fixx (Died of heart attack at age of 52 yrs while running)

Which body do you prefer? 

Articles/Studies: 

• http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2012/03/18/fabrice-muamba-collapse-video-fa-cup-spurs-bolton-tie-abandoned/
• http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/315696/20120317/muamba-collapse-heart-attack-premier-league-botlon.htm
• http://people.umass.edu/excs597k/carpenter/sdathlete.htm
• http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/heart-attack-risks-are-greater-for-athletes-who-compete-in-endurance-sports-263
• http://content.bandzoogle.com/users/cippianhotmail/files/Athletes-Fit-But-Unhealthy.pdf
• http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/15/1903.full

Best Motivational Video - It's time to be a better, stronger, healthier version of yourself!

Folks, watch this motivational video every day. Watch it when you wake up. Watch it before you hit your workout session. Watch it before you decided to put that donut or french fries in your mouth. Watch it if you feel like skipping your workout for that day. Watch it if you feel lazy or unmotivated. Watch it when you feel you are straying off your goal and program. Watch it and ask yourself, "Do you want to be weak, sick and out of shape for the rest of your life?". Or do you want to be a stronger, better, healthier version of yourself, for the rest of your life? Either do it, or lose it, there is no try. Train hard and smart, get rid of your shitty diet, and change your lifestyle. It's about time...

Cough! Cough! What do to?

Ever wonder why your cough is not recovering as you would expected? Have you been coughing for weeks? Or do you tend to have 'cough' symptoms regularly? Will 'medications' prescribed by doctors fix your chronic long term coughing symptom? Do you have any idea what those 'cough syrup' does to your body? Well, perhaps it is something else which is causing the inability to recover for your coughing condition.

The truth is, there are several causes of long term reoccurring chronic cough. For most people, first reaction to fix the coughing dilemma, is to consult conventional doctors, and usually been given cough syrup, antibiotics or similar drugs. Has anyone heard of H.Pylori? How about Vitamin B12 deficiency?

H. pylori bacteria, the actual cause of most cases of peptic ulcers and GERD in America, may be associated with vitamin B12 deficiency and could be the underlying cause for your cough in the first place. Studies have shown that removal of the H. pylori bacteria from the stomach increases absorption of B12.  This bacteria appears to interfere with your stomach's parietal cell's production of intrinsic factor, which is essential to getting the B12 your body needs out of the foods you eat.

In fact, without intrinsic factor, which diminishes as you age, it's virtually impossible to get B12 from your diet.  This also means the older you get, the more likely you will need to supplement B12. So, if you suffer from a mystery cough, you may actually be suffering from a bacterial infection in your stomach that is causing both chronic deficient B12 levels (the stomach needs normal levels of hydrochloric acid to absorb B12 and H. pylori restricts stomach acid production) and possibly GERD related asthma symptoms. The first step to removing this cough from your life will be to remove the underlying causes of both GERD and poor B12 absorption: You need to get rid of your H. pylori infection.

Contrary to what the pharmaceutical industry wants you to believe, the class of drugs including H2-receptor antagonists like Zantac and Tagamet, and proton pump inhibitors like Nexium and Prilosec, are the last thing you want to put into your body to deal with GERD and poor digestion.

These drugs will further shut down your stomach's production of stomach acid, which will further inhibit your ability to process nutrients like B12 from your food that your body needs. Besides, the cause of GERD is not caused by excess production stomach acid, it's caused by not enough production of stomach acid. GERD begins to show up in your 30's and early 40's, when production of stomach acid naturally begins to diminish with age.

So, don't believe the myth the drug companies want you to believe about the source of your stomach ailments, it's not an overproduction of stomach acid!  Most likely it's the H. pylori bacteria, which is treated with probiotics. That's right, not antibiotics. Probiotics, which naturally compete for space with the infectious bacteria and drive it right out of your stomach once healthy levels return to your intestinal flora.  Be sure when purchasing a source of probiotics to insist on only the highest quality available.

If H. plylori turns out not to be the source of your GERD, you probably need to start supplementing immediately with Betaine HCL to increase the acid in your stomach.  Consult a holistic doctor who will advise you on the appropriate dose and duration of this form of treatment. In Malaysia, it is quite difficult to find a good hollistic doctor or practitioner.

Now, you must be asking, what causes Vitamin B12 deficiency? Well, some of the causes are coffee, gastric bypass surgery, exposure to nitric oxide, specific Diabetes Type II drugs, etc. The reason your body needs intrinsic factor is because vitamin B12 is a very large molecule. It is actually the largest vitamin discovered thus far, and the way it gets absorbed into your body is by far the most complex. Intrinsic factor is a molecule protein made by your stomach. It grabs onto the B12 molecule and together they move through your stomach to your small intestine. When they reach the end of your small intestine, the intrinsic factor is absorbed first, pulling the B12 with it into the cells of your large intestine, where they are absorbed for use by the rest of your body.

Since the only way vitamin B12 can be absorbed into your system is through bonding with intrinsic factor molecules, which naturally decline as you age and also in response to an H. pylori infection, it's now easier to understand why so many people are not getting adequate B12 into their bodies.

Meanwhile, how do you know if you have Vitamin B12 defficiency? Some of the symptoms are fatigue, lack of energy, muscle weakness, mental fogginess or some people call it 'brain fog', memory problems (cognitive), trouble sleeping, mood swings, lack of motivation, etc. There are also long term chronic Vitamin B12 defficiency symptoms which includes depression, anemia, dementia, neurological conditions, infertility and heart disease as well.

Finally, what are the sources of Vitamin B12 you can get? Well, for vegans or vegetarians, I'm sorry. The only   availability of its natural form is in animal based foods. These include seafood, beef, chicken, pork, milk, eggs. Well, still can't recover from your irritating cough? Maybe it's time to check for H.pylori infection and defficiency in B12, instead of taking drugs given by doctors. Good luck.

P/S: Taking strepsils or any other similar 'throat pills' WILL not fix your cough dilemma. You are just ingesting more sugar and dangerous artificial sweeteners and colorings.

Dermalogica : Ideal Cleansing Solution?

Today's post, is about Dermalogica Skin Care Solution. I've heard from tons of people including friends who think that it is a highly recommended ideal skin care products. Is that right? Or maybe not? Ever wonder what these products do to your body and health? Unless you are extremely well verse and knowledgable about toxic chemicals such as estrogen mimickers, obesogens, etc, otherwise, you will not realize which harmful chemicals you are putting onto your body, and eventually into your blood stream and other parts of your inner body.

Let's see. A quick review on one of the Dermalogica so called 'skin care' products. Managed to 'grab' this product called "Essential Cleansing Solution". I will not be the judge and conclude the safety and quality of this product, but I will let you make the decision. Anyway, your skin and health is your own responsibility, right? Below, are some of the 'harmful' ingredients in the product. Finally, review, think, research and ensure your money is well invested. Health is always top priority to everyone. Spent wisely and be a smart consumer.

Harmful Ingredients: Propylene Glycol (Can cause central nervous system depression and kidney damage)
                                MethylParaben  (cancer causing agent, endocrine disruptor)
                                PropylParaben (cancer causing agent, endocrine disruptor)

SLEEP : Why is it so important for us? (Part 14)

I haven't been getting a lot of good quality sleep lately, been really busy with work, designing nutrition programs, provide personal training sessions for clients, not to mention trying to squeeze some time keeping up with the latest health and medical research and reading some of my favorite books as well. Trying to maintain this blog for FREE, is another thing. Let's just hope that I can keep writing and sharing as much health, nutrition and fitness truths to all of you out there as long as I could. No promises, just keep blogging. 

Today, this chapter, will be the last chapter for this topic. You could call it as 'prescriptive chapter' or the ending of the long posts which describes how carbs/sugar, sleep wake cycles, hormones, appetite, mental well being,  biological aging, mood, energy levels, lights exposure after dark, weight management are all linked strongly together. 

Now, after reading all the previous 13 posts of SLEEP topic, what happen next? You must be asking to yourself, "What to do now? How can I ensure my circadian rhythm or biological clock tunes properly?". What I can tell you is that there is no ONE answer to it. Grab your coffee or tea, sit on a comfortable chair, this would certainly be one of the most important pillars of health. Before we dive in further to finish off this last post, let me do a quick recap on what I have wrote and discussed in the earlier posts.

As we've learnt, in times of actual famine, not just when your side of the planet went dormant or winter, only those of us with stored carbohydrate got to live. Those of us who didn't have any stores died. Our DNA hates that. So, an acute insulin response to eating carbohydrates became genetically established over millennia for survival.

Through the miracle of technology, we have lost the famine period. The famine period emptied the stored sugar in your muscles and liver, and, more important, from your accumulation of body fat. The next summer, feasting filled it again. That means that episodic high insulin was our salvation. For maybe four to five month out of twelve, insulin levels were elevated to make use of the feast-before-famine period. Continuously elevated insulin meant only one thing for mammals. Winter is on the way. If that day never comes, you just keep storing as long as there are long hours of light.

Now, you are in deep trouble with mother nature. Research and common sense would indicate that being overfed, in the grand scheme of things, is asking for it. In the 'food web', every species must stay in balance or all bets are off.

Since the stakes are so high, the rules are usually pretty strict. Light and dark cycles control insulin through carbohydrate craving, but also more directly, through your stress mechanisms. Remember, when the lights are on, your cortisol stays up because it's a blood sugar mobilizer. It also helps your to be ready to run or fight. Continuously high levels of cortisol. which are mobilizing your blood sugar, means insulin stays up too, to disperse that blood sugar to your muscles. So, just watching TV late into the normal sleep period keeps your insulin up longer then nature wants it to be, causing insulin resistance and you know what that means.

You get fat by just smelling a cookie or cake. For paleolithic man, long days meant the end of summer and the  approaching end of the food supply. The short sleep cycles of long days translated into an increase need for carbohydrates to store fat and to seratonin into melatonin for the part of the year when he would sleep more in order to reduce metabolic functions to save energy when it was scarce, so carbs-craving is a precursor to sleep, and modern man still responds to instinctive behaviors led by hibernation drives. As a result, we crave carbohydrates only when we are tired, not when we need food.

Now, this is what you should pay attention and focus. It will be a long elaboration, that's why your big mug of coffee comes in handy. Needing food, protein and fat, being hungry for food, is very different from being hungry for sleep, and we are so eternally hungry for sleep that we have destroyed the trip switch for normal appetite. As far as breakfast, lunch and dinner are concerned, figure out what season it is, and try to eat in sync. Well, that doesn't really apply to some countries which has no season at all, and Malaysia is one of them, primarily humid tropical weather all year long, apart from recent raining seasons. I always educate all my friends, colleagues and relatives as well as family members, eat according to how your autonomic nervous system regulates, both sympathetic and para-sympathetic.

Now, don't run, or perform any sorts of  chronic aerobic exercises or routines. Lift weights or perhaps try Pilates or Yoga, Tai Chi or Chi Gong. Meditation does help to calm the mind and soul, and performing marathon or any long endurance training simply will not help.

In winter, eat meat and green stuff(veggies), and very little carbohydrates, around 25 to 50 grams per day. When designing your food plan for winter or cold season, the first thing to do is choose your carbohydrates. I've met tons of people who think that carbs are all the same. Carbs are carbs. That is partially true as complex carbs in vegetables and grains, and the simple sugars in fruits and candy, are all registered as sugar by the body.

Now, lose the bread or any food products from the bakery. I will blog one day about how dangerous grains and gluten pose to our body, and any bread is still fake food. Just don't eat it. Bear in mind, there are no bread trees or pasta bushes. Bread and pasta do not occur in nature. Cheese and eggs are good, if it's only from grass fed free range cows without contamination of pesticides, antibiotics and synthetic growth hormones. Have some organ meats, eat liver or pate. Of course again, from healthy free range animals.

If you want to control your appetite, you must sleep as many hours as you would in nature according to seasonal light exposure. That means for six to seven months out of the year you need a minimum of 9.5 hours in total darkness each night. to keep your hormones from switching to summer mode. Up to fourteen hours a night is normal in winter for animals in nature. During summer, you can live on margaritas and stay up late and have sex all day and all night. For those working night shift or rotation schedules, I'm sorry, there is no way out. Either quit your job or pay the price for your health and life.

But as fall comes, or somewhere in September:

- Go to bed earlier, incrementally
- Turn off the TV after 9pm
- Better yet, take it out of the bedroom (It would be distraction if in same sleeping room)
- Sleep as many hours as you can without getting fired or divorced
- Always get up as close to dawn as possible

If you can't fall asleep that easily, read for fifteen or twenty minutes. Reading will put youto sleep faster then late night television anyway. Bottom line, the pulsing light of the TV screen after dusk erodes melatonin secretion over the long haul by frying your pineal gland, which is as bad as it sounds.

Now, pay attention. Nine and half hours of solid sleep each night for at least seven months out of the year is the minimum required to beat cancer, diabetes, heart disease and depression. Strive for a steady pushing forward of bedtime until 9.5 hours of sleep is a habit at least close to seven months a year. Once it happens, you will most likely wake up without an alarm clock and you won't be able to stay awake any later than 9.30 or 10pm. Will this affect your social life? Answer is YES, so will be cancer and obesity.

Your immune system will thank you for it by keeping you alive.

- Keep lights in the house at low levels of intensity after dark. Pretend it's romantic. There's really no reason to have your kitchen or living room lit up like Nou Camp stadium during a night game. Besides, the money you save on your electric bill and your shrink will pay for the supplements we are going to suggest.

- If you are going to a movie or watching TV after 9pm, wear rose colored glasses to block green light. In a clinical trial, just wearing red glasses after sundown, increased melatonin secretion by 70%. Well, you may look goofy, but you decide yourself.

- Once you do make it to bed, be sure you sleep in utter darkness in a fairly cool room. Think cave. You wouldn't want to sleep in a room which makes you sweat your pants waking up in the middle of then night.

- Hang heavy drapes. Any leakage of lights will reduce or stopped melatonin production. Any part of your whole body will register any light leaks in your bedroom.


Now, remember to eat every meal with some good clean quality protein. Protein is essential. Eat it every day, every meal. Remember, no protein, no neurotransmitters or immune function. It is as simple as that. Vegetarianism is laudable, but it's impossible to get enough protein from their diet. Even monkeys murder for meat! Fats are essential too. They are necessary for all cellular functions. For the low or non fat dieters, watch out, apart from high risk of depression and malnutrition, no fat, no hormones, and that means cancer. Ensure it's from plants of animals, and not processed or junk foods. Of course, avoid refined or hydrogenated oils aka transfat, as well as eliminate as much sugar as possible. Also, avoid anything which labels non-fat or low fat. Those foods contains higher sugar content and chemicals as additives to fool your palate into believing that they have fat in them.

Only eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Avoid canned fruits and frozen vegetables, usually are processed. Drink at least half your own body weight of clean filtered water, as I've always tell everyone who asked for my advise. Avoid other beverages, and water should be your only fluid consumption. To think of it, doctors, dieticians, health magazines advised the public to drink 8-9 glasses of water daily. If a lean average adult drink 9 glasses of water daily, what would happen to a huge 220 pounds male dude if he consumes the same portion of water? Common sense folks!

As this is the final and last post of this SLEEP topic, I hope all of you readers out there, find this information helpful. I hope more people are aware of how important proper sleep wake cycles could affect your overall state of health and quality of life. Thinking you could survive and be healthy with 5-6 hours of sleep each night is just simply ridiculous. Till then, have a pleasant sleep.

SLEEP : Why is it so important for us? (Part 13)

All of us lie awake when we should be sleeping pondering that same question, 'How close are we to death?'. When will I die? Will I live old enough to play with my grandchildrens? Will I still be able to hike up that hill behind my house when I reach 60's? In this post, I will discuss more of cortisol and how it affects our state of mind. 

The solution medicine has latched on to is really just an antidote to their low fat regime. It is, quite simply, to exercise more and hysterically. All that medicine ever suggested was for you to live on sugar and run like hell on that treadmill and burn it off. Not to mention doing marathons or long endurance sports activities which thrash your adrenals and makes you biologically old if you do it years after years regularly. 

As your weight goes down, your insulin receptors go back up, then bloos sugar also falls because your muscles soaked it up as you exercise through the now functioning insulin receptors. This is the way exercise lowers blood sugar. When your insulin is lower, you can't make as much cholesterol and that number goes down too. Then, the doctor declares you as cured, but, you are not cured. 

Now, you just have a new disease, because it never occurred to them that you don't have to work off what you don't take in the first place. In reality, running, jumping or climbing response with ancient subroutines. A fear response that throws your cortisol into high levels. High cortisol is a blood sugar mobilizer, so it throws your blood sugar up again, when your blood sugar goes up, insulin follows.  That means the continous rebounding of excessive exercise alone can make you insulin resistance over time. Here's how it works.

Running,  Jumping, Climbing = Being Chased

Chase = Stress Response

Stress = Cortisol release = Blood sugar mobilization

Blood sugar up = Insulin Up = Insulin Resistance = Fat storage and Hypertension

Let's face it. You would never go from your chair to the door really fast unless something was chasing you. Agree? This cortisol fear trigger is the big key to mental illness and heart disease. When the lights are on too long in 24 hrs, it's summer. During summer, we mated and ate until we burst. The light, fighting, and eating meant our cortisol never dropped for three to five months or so, out of the year. You, on the other hand, live, in your head, in constant fear and panic on the verge of death. 

When you live in prehibernation mode, but never get to go dormant, you go crazy. You go crazy because you have stayed up so long. You see, in nature, staying up that long would mean you've eaten half of the planet, which is way more then you share. And, you are mostly likely no longer fertile from swimming in all that insulin. Therefore, you have no business living. So, nature takes you out by altering your reality so you won't want to live anymore. You actually go crazy so you will take yourself out. 

The way nature effects this mechanism in your body is by ultimately creating a bipolar state of mind. Nature doubles the odds of your suicide impulse control. So, if you don't do yourself in while in the throes of despair during the depressive state, you will probably make some dangerous, life threatening moves while you are high as a kite. Either way, nature wins. 

And don't forget the cortisol principle. When the sun never sets or you never turn off the lights, your cortisol never drops. High cortisol only occurs in nature when you need it to run away or deal with pain. High cortisol is meant to be episodic, not chronic. In nature, chronic high cortisol would mean you are a reproductive loser, best reason to take you out and social outkast. 

Having chronic high cortisol and chronic high insulin together puts your mind in the constant 'panic' state of summer mating. The lights are on, the food (carbohydrates) must be plentiful because your insulin is up, and naturally, because of the light and all of the excessive exercise, your cortisol is up for competition. You triggerred ancient programs and subroutines that would only ever switch on in true states of peril, such as 'run for your life' or 'your DNA won't show up in the next generation'. When your seasonal insulin/cortisol 'clock' is off, real mental illness, not just gross mood swings, but true manic depression and schizophrenia can occur.

There are studies which showed that depression, manic depression and schizophrenia is simply being out of light and dark rhythmicity. Even The National Institute of Mental Health agree with the studies conducted on these mental illnesses. When you sleep, you feel better and more sane. I'm sure your mother told you that aint it?

Your mind is not your brain, it is the echo that follows one beat behind the biochemical and biophysical actions in the body and brain. Your mind is a receiver that amplifies and gives a context to everything that is going on in your body and in the environment. It's like a television set of sorts, which receives signals from a remote source, such as body, planet and other living things. When we watch television, we all know that there are no little people in there. It's hard to realize, but the same is true of your head.

There are major players involved which includes seratonin, dopamine, GABA and melatonin to identify the loops in the machinery. Sleep controls food suply and reproduction, which control your mental state. Now, let's discuss abit about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is, most often, an extreme form of manic depression, which is also known  as bipolar disorder. It is, an excessive unregulated amount of dopamine in the brain leading to episodes of mania that come complete with hallucinations, including sounds and smells.

When you overeat carbohydrates, not only does your body become insulin resistant, but your brain can, too. In the brain, seratonin and dopamine stand on opposite sides of the board of the log. If's one's up, the other down. It's the duality again. Too much seratonin and you're paralyzed, too much dopamine and you are stucked to the ceiling. I know I know, you guys must be thinking, isn't seratonin supposed to be the 'happy hormone' and we need it? Yes, you are right, but if the levels are too much, imagine the petrol in the car over spill, what will happen? It's important, we need it for our brain, and sufficient levels would be the key here. Seratonin and insulin are on the same side of the equation in metabolism. There are also on the same side of the brain. Insulin, because hormones can be neurotransmitters too, can suppress dopamine levels, just as seratonin does. But bear in mind, neither seratonin nor insulin can suppress dopamine if there are no receptors to register their presence.

Now, schizophrenia is the ultimate state of insulin resistance in the brain. There are other factors involved too but I will not explain it in this topic. It is, in effect, cerebral diabetes Type II, the result of endless summer in your head. You see, sleep loss really can drive you nuts!

When the light that controls appetite, which controls insulin, stays permanently switched on, the production of neurotransmitters such as seratonin and dopamine, which are controlled by insulin, become wildly unstable. Well, sleep early, avoid high carbohyrates(especially refined carbs) meal before bedtime, ensure there are good amount of quality clean protein couple hours before you hit the bed(during dinner) as L-Tryptophan converts into melatonin and seratonin, and of course, turn off all devices which transmit signals such as mobile phones, wireless routers, radio, and other similiar gadgets, unless you want them to kill your melatonin receptors and disrupt your quality sleep. Goodnight folks, sweetdreams. 

SLEEP : Why is it so important for us? (Part 12)

Carbohydrates and insulin comprise the tools we need to survive scarcity only if we know when the time is coming. There must be a clocking mechanism in place to prompt us when scarcity is around the corner. The hormones melatonin and prolactin are the drivers of our body's time perception, our clocking mechanism. The public has no real idea what effect that over the counter melatonin they are buying for jet lag really has. It just compounds the problem. It actually decreases natural production by shrinking the gland in your head that makes melatonin, the pineal gland.

In order to view the clocking process as it was meant to be, let's jump on the merry go round feedback loop. The handhold to grab for this ride is the time of day. if you were to jump on at 6pm, depending on the time of the year and your latitude location, the light of the sun would be starting to fall, or diminish. Just prior to sundown is dinner time in all cultures, it doesn't matter which country you are located. The quality, or spectrum of the light is shifting too, as the sun makes the break for it. In this daydream, we have had an okay day hunting and are now joining the group for a bite.

Now, let's assume you got a bite. Insulin would rise to deal with the incoming carbohydrates you had dried last summer to eat later and cortisol would start to fall because you have been fed. That's why we all go for sugar when we're stressed out. Remember, we are imaging the mythical natural world here, not ours. In our world, cortisol would never falls until we're completely, unconciously asleep. And even then, because of light leaks, not completely.

As the sun sneaks off, you and your significant other might try to prolong the day and warmth by huddling around a small fire entertaining each other. Sex would be an option, depending again on the season, the climate and how charming you are.

As the pink light of sunset comes over the landscape, you start to get really sleepy, because while the reflected 'green' bright light of the day shuts off melatonin production, the 'rose' light of the setting sun blocks the green spectrum, causing a release of melatonin to ease you into the night's altered state.

Back at the paleolithic campsite, you would look for a warm spot to settle down because rising melatonin is already cooling you off. Huddling together for warmth also reinforces pheromone communication. Early sleep, is usually REM sleep, so premonitions or hallucinatory 'visions' continue the evening's earlier entertainment as your brain sorts and tags the mind's perceptions. Drifting into deeper NREM sleep as your melatonin surges shifts your brain activity to immune maintenance.

All reproductive activity is slowed at night. That means a better chance for pregnancy would be offered by daytime mating. At night, sex steroid hormones take a backseat to increased prolactin production from the pituitary. Both prolactin and melatonin are powerful players in reproduction too, due to the fact that melatonin controls the production of estrogen and testosterone and prolactin makes milk. Melatonin and progesterone are both master switch hormonal controllers. If either one of them is out of sync, it reads to nature as "pushing the red button". A chronic lack of melatonin an progesterone, such as that which occurs with aging, tells nature you are not viable anymore.

When you are not a player, nature takes you out. Because of melatonin, any increase or decrease in dark time triggers physiologic and behavioral changes via sex hormones in many species, like changes in breeding and migration. Readiness of reproduction, in turn, determines the amount and timing of progesterone release in women and DHT secretion in men.

Readiness of reproduction, in turn, determines the amount and timing of progesterone release in women and DHT secretion in men. So, going to sleep with the sunset means as a whole body melatonin bath, and a sharp increase in prolactin. Prolactin is not only active in humans milk production, it is essential in all mammals for lactation. The most major effect of prolactin in all species is to enhance production of T cells and NK cells. These are the first lines of cancer defense.

First of all, caves are dark, our bedrooms aren't. We try to sleep with the lights on all the time, that is if we even go to bed at all. I've known tons of friends and colleagues who pretty much have screwed up their sleep wake cycles. Most of my clients' circadian rhythm are off, you can even notice why their weights are not dropping off the scale. Not only do we live in endless summer, we live at endless lunch. Bear in mind, unlike during our caveman period, we now have abundance of food available everywhere, anywhere, 24/7. There's always foods, usually carbohydrates, and lightwise, it's always straight up noon. Not only have we lost half a year every year to lights and indoor heating and cooling, we've lost the night to blinking digital timers, police sirens, street lights,, headlights, illuminated billboards, restaurants, motels, TV, Internet, movies and tons of others which used to be our stories around the dying campfire, or perhaps stories told by our great grandparents. The real problem is that, the campfire never dies because the TV and Internet is always on.

Check this out. There is long night sleep(14 hrs) and short night sleep(8 hrs), where study at the NIH, back in 1993, showed that obvious difference hormonally between short and long nights was the amount and length of prolactin secretion. This change in melatonin and prolactin secretion reflected the long night's fragmented sleep pattern. The long night subjects spent as many as five of fourteen hours lying almost awake. This group slept in two nightly bouts, each preceeded by up to two and a half hours of wakefulness, with a high secretion of prolactin throughout. That means that they got a total of nine hours of actual sleep as we know. And, in our time, nine hours of sleep is all we know. The sleepless five hours were very much like the awake alert quiet state infants display repeatedly in a twenty four hour period. Interrupting the subjects, by talking to them, caused prolactin to drop.

It is statistically proven that ninety or so percent of all babies are born between midnight and 4.00am, the exact time their mothers would, in nature, be in meditative state with high endorphin (painkiller) levels, just like yogis who are able to walk over beds of nails and hot coals without any effects. In this state, an unmeditated birth would be far more tolerable. It was in this period of time, which we no longer have access to, that we solved problems, reproduced, and transcended the stress, and most likely, talked to the gods.

When you are tired, you really are experiencing massive metabolic derangement between you and the bacteria controlling your immune system and reproduction, which is translating to mental health in a way. Short nights that mimic summer mean, reduced melatonin secretion, which reduces white cell immune function. Also, a severe reduction in the most potent antioxidant you have, which is melatonin. Meanwhile, less prolactin at night and way too much in the daytime, as prolactin secretion at night means more and stronger T and NK cells. Prolactin during the day means autoimmunity and carbohydrate craving.

But, the biggest problem with short nights year round, beyond appetite derangement, is that insulin will stay higher during the dark, when it should be flat, and cortisol falls so late it won't come up normally in the morning. This is a reversal of normal hormonal rhythms. You should wake up with elevated cortisol to deal with stress during the day. You should wake up hungry with low insulin and cortisol rising. Instead, your cortisol is low and your insulin is up. Wonder why you just can't drag your little butt off the bed in the morning? Your eyes just can't open and your body is as heavy as a gigantic log.

Bear in mind, the reversal you have created by staying up late, making your insulin and cortisol stay high at night, when they should be low, continue into the daylight hours. The first symptom of melatonin overflow, is needing an alarm clock to wake you up. When you have a melatonin 'hangover' you are still too sleepy to wake up even though morning light should suppress melatonin spontaneously. The real problem is that without a rise in cortisol, you have no dopamine.

Your cortisol is not high enough to deal with stress during the day and even whacks time perception. Without cortisol to enhance dopamine, the day seem to go too fast. With your prolactin abnormally high in the morning and no dopamine, you are kind of stupid too, with no memory or ability to plan. I'm sure some of you experienced 'brain fog' or poor cognitive memory ability during some point during the day. Rings a bell? Now, the same scenario reruns in the afternoon. Prolactin abnormally suppresses leptin again, so around mid day 3pm, you really crave carbohydrates and get impatient and even dumber.

What's the difference when you have hormones surge, as long as they surge? Unfortunately, timing is everything. You can't make melatonin in the daytime or with the lights on. So, how are you still sleeping with the light of the sun shining? Well, hunger should be your alarm clock. One of the evolutionary functions of melatonin is that it enhances the appetite suppressing effect of leptin, so you stay asleep instead of roam around hungry all night. It's a feedback loop. Melatonin enhances leptin and leptin keeps your brain in the 'fed' stage, so you stay asleep and make more melatonin.

Unfortunately for us, less sleep at night, and therefore less melatonin and less leptin, makes you eat more, day and night. Just losing sleep at the beginning of your night is enough to make your hungrier for sugar and you get fat. That's why sleep loss makes you fat. Once you start eating carbohydrates day in and day out, your start to retain water. This is a bad thing folks. Stay tuned.