Sensible Thoughts

The sun is out, the weather is warm, and the kids are running around happily in the backyard. The official return of summer is fast approaching, and everyone is in the mood to celebrate. What better way to do this than with a backyard barbecue?

Unquestionably, the scent of grilled meat satisfies some deep, unconscious biological need. That’s why humans have been doing it for thousands of years. It tastes good, it smells good, it pleases all the senses. Unfortunately, it’s really not very good for us, and there are now more concerns about this favoured warm-weather past-time.

Not again, you might be thinking. Yes, yes, we know, we know! We already know that the chemicals that form in grilled meat, particularly red meat, are linked to cancer in animal studies. We know this, and we’re going to keep doing it anyway! We’re not going to stop! It’s just too enjoyable.

Well, yes, all that is true, and I am truly sorry to have to rain on your little barbecue party, but I’m afraid there’s more.

New studies are now showing that people who eat grilled meat also have an elevated risk of fatty liver, insulin resistance, and high blood pressure. After carefully cataloguing the dietary habits of more than 100,000 people through several, different, on-going studies, it was found that people who ate the most barbecued meat had a 17% higher risk of high blood pressure, compared with those who ate less barbecued meat, or none at all. It’s the high cooking temperature which seems to cause the problem, with the dry, charred meat causing chemicals to form which then create oxidative stress, inflammation, fatty liver, insulin resistance and finally, high blood pressure.

Previous studies on barbecued meat have focused on the potential association with cancer, which is why this new information is more disturbing, because researchers weren’t looking for it. As Dr. Linda Van Horn, registered dietician and spokesperson for the American Heart Association says, « these studies begin to suggest that grilling at high temperatures has some sort of inflammatory response in the blood system that basically then contributes to an increased risk of all kinds of chronic disease, not only cancer ».

Does this mean we should never eat barbecued meat again? Well, if you are truly concerned about your health, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. But since most people really enjoy the taste of barbecued food and consider it one of the great pleasures of life, this doesn’t seem practical. That being said, if you are currently struggling with high blood pressure, fatty liver, and/or insulin resistance, you may want to take special care to avoid barbecued meat, for the most part. The rest of us can still indulge, as long as we keep the frequency low. Following these rules will also help to keep your risk as low as possible :

1. Remove any old char from your grill before you start cooking.

2. Use lean meat when you barbecue to avoid excessive flames and charring.

3. Marinate your meat before grilling. This prevents meat from becoming too dry and over-cooked.

4. Reduce the temperature of your grill and avoid lengthy cooking times.

5. If your meat does become charred, cut off the burnt parts and avoid eating them.

These are essentially the same steps that have been recommended to us in the past as a way to help prevent cancer when eating grilled meat. So, nothing new really. It’s just that there’s now even more reason to avoid over-indulging during the barbecue season.

This summer, please enjoy the sun, take pleasure in your friends and their conversation, laugh like crazy, watch the stars come out and be grateful for all that’s been given to you. But for the sake of your health, please keep your consumption of grilled meat to a minimum.

About six months ago, big, reddish-purple blotches began to form on my mother’s forearms. They looked like the birthmarks you sometimes see on a newborn’s fragile skin. This greatly concerned and perplexed both her, and the rest of our family. At first, there were only a couple of them, but soon they began to spread until both of her forearms were virtually covered with them. They probably covered her legs as well, but it was on her arms that they were most directly visible.

It was hard to know what was causing these conspicuous red marks. My mother is now 81 years old and has had Parkinson’s Disease for over twenty years, so we’ve long become accustomed to seeing all sorts of odd symptoms come and go. But when questioned, even the nurses who care for her couldn’t provide us with any answers. Nobody knew anything for sure.

It turns out the culprit was a little pill that she’d been taking daily for years to help reduce her stroke risk. You might be taking it too. According to the USPSTF (United States Preventative Services Task Force), a full 40% of American adults now take it every day. This popular little pill is low-dose aspirin, and its use is so widespread because studies have shown that its blood-thinning properties may help to prevent cardiovascular events and strokes, particularly in those who are vulnerable.

Except it turns out that those studies weren’t very thorough, and were also too optimistic. Several more recent studies now show that daily low dose aspirin has just as great an ability to kill as it does to save. For, while this common drug did help a small percentage of people avoid a severely debilitating or fatal heart attack or stroke, it also increased the rate of dangerous internal bleeding by a roughly equal amount. So, instead of preventing death, it just changed the cause.

Not only was internal bleeding more likely, but those who took a daily dose of aspirin daily were also more likely to die overall, due to increased cancer risk. This finding was particularly disappointing to researchers, as they’d been hoping to prove that daily aspirin use would reduce the risk of cancer, particularly colorectal cancer. Not so.

In response to this new research, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association are changing their guidelines for aspirin use. They now recommend daily, low-dose aspirin only for people whose high risk for heart attack or stroke is outweighed by their risk of internal bleeding, and this will be a much-reduced group. If you don’t have a high risk for heart attack or stroke, you should discuss the situation with your doctor in detail, so you can weigh all the pros and cons together and plan an approach for heart and stroke prevention that works best for you.

For the most part, the emphasis will be on changing your lifestyle, like reducing your blood pressure and cholesterol levels through diet, increased exercise, and cessation of smoking. This may seem impossible for those who have tried, but according to the American Heart Association, nearly 80% of all cardiovascular disease can be prevented entirely through these kinds of lifestyle modifications. We all need to be moving more, and adding more fruits, vegetables and whole grains to our meals. And while it’s always tempting to look for an easy fix, like a simple pill, lifestyle changes provide greater, and more lasting benefits, with no negative side effects.

As for my mother, those red blotches on her arms finally started to go away once aspirin was taken out of her daily drug regimen. It appears likely that they were a sign of hemorrhage in the small blood vessels throughout her body. Considering this new information, we’re lucky she didn’t suffer from more extreme internal bleeding, resulting in death. Instead, I’m happy to report that she’ll soon be celebrating yet another birthday, and when we last spoke, was delighting in all the pretty spring blossoms that have come out with the return of the warm weather. Spring has a marvellous way of providing fresh hope for us all.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. If you have a cleaning solution, why not add antibacterial agents, such as triclosan, to make it more effective at killing germs? It was a really effective marketing tool. Sales increased, and the use of bacteria-fighting chemicals became so ubiquitous that it was hard to find a cleaning solution without them.

Flash forward to the present and the word « triclosan » has become foul. In response to the FDA’s request for more information about their long-term health effects, companies have begun removing triclosan and other anti-bacterial agents from their popular cleaning formulas. This says a lot. In order to keep their popular anti-bacterial soaps and cleaners on store shelves, manufacturers were required to prove their safety, and/or show that they worked better than regular soap and water for preventing the spread of viral or bacterial infections. Obviously, they failed.

If you look over the recent studies about triclosan, you wouldn’t be surprised. Not only have they been shown to damage the microbiome of your gut, but they may also effect the way your hormones work, negatively affecting thyroid functioning. In addition, triclosan has now been found to impair muscle function. In research done on mice, the addition of a single dose of triclosan reduced heart muscle function as much as 25%, acting very much like a cardiac depressant. Grip strength was also reduced by as much as 18%.

Since there is no proof that antibacterial chemicals reduce infection any better than simple soap and water, and since these products are also be contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, why use them? Often, the best course of action is also the simplest one. Find products with the simplest, most natural ingredients available, and avoid unnecessary chemicals whenever possible. When something flashy comes along that claims it will make our lives safer or easier, we’d be wise to ignore it and remember this rule.

Beet juice looks like blood itself, oozing out of the vegetable as you chop it. It stains your hands, your knife, and saturates entire pots of soup with its vivid colour. The red is so brilliant and rich that it’s commonly used as a natural food colouring, brightening other foods with its vibrant hue. If colour is an indicator of nutritional value, then it’s no surprise to find that beets are packed with iron, calcium, B vitamins, and antioxidants. Really, we should all be incorporating more beets into our diet.

Now, new studies are showing that we have even more reason to eat beets. One study done by the London School of Medicine found that drinking 2 cups of beet juice a day can lower high blood pressure. Another found that beet juice increases stamina, helping individuals exercise 16 percent longer than controls who are not given beet juice.

Even better, there is now evidence that beets may be able to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Researchers at Wake Forest University recruited older, sedentary individuals, and then divided them into groups. The average age of all participants was 65. One group was given beetroot juice to drink before starting an exercise regimen. The other group also exercised but was only given a placebo. Before and after the trial, MRIs were taken of all participants to see if any changes were made to the brain.

At the end of six weeks, both groups showed improved neural connectivity in their brains, particularly in areas of mobility. However, the group that drank beet juice juice before exercising benefited more significantly. Excitingly, their MRIs showed brains comparable to those of 26 years olds.

Researchers suspect it is the high concentration of nitrate in beets which is responsible for this positive change. Nitrate is converted into nitrite in your body, and previous research has shown that nitrite widens blood vessels and increases blood flow, particularly to areas that are oxygen deprived.

When you exercise, you are inducing a state of oxygen deprivation, and this low-oxygen state stimulates the conversion of all that nitrate from the beets into nitric oxide, which then relaxes and dilates blood vessels, bringing more oxygen-rich blood exactly where it is needed. For the beet juice-drinking participants of the study, this oxygen-rich blood went to the white matter of the frontal lobes – the areas of the brain commonly associated with dementia.

This is not the first time that beets have been heralded, and I suspect it won’t be the last either. In yet more studies, beets have been shown to thin bile flow through the liver, helping to prevent liver and gallbladder problems. Their high fibre content has been linked with a reduced risk of some cancers, particularly colon cancer. Because beets are a good source of folate and betaine, they can also help to lower blood levels of homocysteine, which will reduce your risk of heart-attack. And beets are also a good source of lutein, an antioxidant which protects eyes from macular degeneration and cataracts. If there truly is a superfood, beets may be it.

The next time you go to your local grocery store, seek out some beets and take note of that spectacular life-giving red colour. Treat your body to a good dose of it. It may be the closest thing to magic in a bottle.

So often in life, we’re told what we shouldn’t do. Don’t speed. Don’t worry. Don’t lie. Don’t give up on your dreams. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t text and drive. Don’t smoke. Don’t spend too much time on Facebook. Don’t watch too much TV. Don’t sit for too long. These are all good aspirations, and if you can follow them all, no doubt your life will be the better for it. Nevertheless, it can feel a little like whack-a-mole after awhile. By always focusing on the negative, you can become overly-anxious. After all, it’s impossible to remove every last potential threat to your health and happiness, and if you work too hard at it, your life can become so small and restrictive that you suck the joy right out of it.

Which is why I really liked the results of a study published in The Lancet just this past week. After re-analyzing a mountain of health data from countries all around the world, starting from 1990 and working all the way through to 2017, researchers concluded that the number of people who die each year from drinking too many sugary drinks, or eating too much red meat are actually relatively small. Don’t get me wrong. It certainly doesn’t hurt to avoid these things. But you may be surprised at how small the potential boost to your health is, compared to what you’ve been led to believe.

According to the researchers of this study, if you really want to improve your health and prevent disease over the course of your life, you’d be better off focusing on what should be in your diet, rather than what shouldn’t be there. And what appears to cause more deaths the world over aren’t trans fats, tobacco smoke, or chemical preservatives, but just a plain, old unhealthy diet in general. We’re just not eating enough whole grains, fruits, vegetables, fibre, legumes, and polyunsaturated fats.

According to the study, one in five deaths in 2017 occurred because of too much sodium, and a lack of whole grains, fruit, seeds and nuts. Overall, more than half of all deaths were due to just three risk factors: eating too much salt, not eating enough whole grains, and not eating enough fruit. In case you think those results don’t apply to you, they held true regardless of the socioeconomic status of most people and nations. So we’re not just talking about poor people in under-developed countries, here. It means all of us. Says Ashkan Afshin, assistant professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, “studies are published every year on how we eat; however, the amount of data considered and the global representativeness make this study worth attention.”

So, what can we do to improve our diet now? Rather than concentrating on avoiding certain types of food, we should instead try to ensure that half of our plate is filled with fruits and/or vegetables at every meal. Also, we should try to vary the kinds of fruits and vegetables we eat so we’re not consuming the same nutrients all the time. You can make a start by including just one whole grain, fruit or vegetable to each meal or snack and then work from there. Over time, as the amount of whole grains, fruits and vegetables in your diet increases, you should find that less healthy options start to disappear because you just won’t have room for them.

You have a secret.  I know you do.   The person sitting next to you has a secret too.   According to a new study conducted at Columbia Business School,  we all carry secrets, with the average person keeping 13 all at once, including 5 that are buried so deep, they’ll never see the light of day.

It’s interesting that we use the word “carry” when we talk about secrets.  Intuitively, we understand their weight and the burden they place on us, so we choose language that accurately conveys this.

What this new study tells us, is that the “weight” of your secret is no joke.  When you keep a secret, it causes increased stress, sleep loss, reduced productivity, and memory loss.  Because secrets raise your cortisol level, your immune system can weaken, your blood pressure can rise, you can develop osteoporosis more easily, and your skin will wrinkle.  Still think that secret is worth keeping?

Neuroscientists now believe that it’s better to confess your secrets than hold on to them.  The same is true of grudges.  They use up too much of your willpower, and too much of  your conscious thought to be healthy.

According to this new study, the difficulty of secrets doesn’t come when you think it will – during those brief moments where you’re consciously hiding what you know from others.   No.  The damage to your health comes when you’re finally at home, alone with your thoughts, in the middle of the night.  That’s when the rumination starts.

You might try to avoid thinking about your secret, but your mind won’t let you.  A battle will rage between your pre-frontal cortex, which controls decision-making, complex thought and deception, and your cingulate cortex, which is triggered when you feel anxiety or fear.   The bigger your secret, the greater your anxiety and fear.  It will wear you down.  You will feel burdened.

According to Chinese medicine, worry, or excessive thought – such as you might experience when keeping a secret – is said to weaken your spleen.   Normally, when your spleen is healthy, you will have strong energy, a good appetite, and a light feeling, as if you are being lifted up.   However, when your spleen weakens, not only will you feel tired and listless, but you’ll feel heavy too, like you’re carrying a ton of bricks on your back.  That’s the heaviness secret-carriers feel.

So how can you help your spleen?  Well, for one thing, don’t willingly carry a secret for others, if at all possible.  If you must keep that secret and you have no choice, you can reduce its weight, and the burden on your spleen, by writing it down.   Somehow, the act of putting your secret down on paper releases some of the load, reducing stress hormones and blood pressure, and improving your mental health.  Telling your secret to a trusted friend helps too.

To further help your spleen, you can also consider taking our Meta Plus tincture, which contains herbs that directly strengthen spleen functioning. But whatever you do, think carefully before agreeing to keep a secret for someone.  Above all else, your mind yearns for authenticity, and you will never be authentic when you’re withholding the truth.