A Great Start to the New Year!
By Dr. William H. Karl, D.C.
Ringing in the New Year means time to start looking back, reevaluating, and committing to new goals. Changing one’s diet and exercising more are some of the most common goals – often sworn in over pizza and beer. Sound familiar?
OK, now for the serious stuff… It’s been estimated that the average American will spend 80% of their savings in the last 20% of their life on healthcare costs. Rather than having money to enjoy their golden years, their savings are exhausted while trying to hold onto their health. To help you avoid this in your future, I hope you’ll make year-long/life-long commitments, not only New Year’s resolutions for 2018.
With so many diet plans and information on them everywhere, it’s become very confusing. This is understandable because if one diet worked reliably for everyone, it would be wildly popular and we’d be back to the lean people we were 75 or more years ago.
Although obesity, diabetes, and cancer weren’t as prevalent one-hundred years ago, pioneers in the field of natural healthcare were trying to develop an understanding of the factors leading to compromised health. In the early 1900’s, Dr. Pottenger Jr. began investigating the diets and hormones that contributed to obesity. Already on the path to understanding the role of clean, chemical-free foods as they contribute to long-lasting health, he conducted experiments with hundreds of cats. In his experiments, cats that ate raw food and raw milk stayed the healthiest, as did their offspring. We now know that raw dairy (from grass-fed animals) contains healthy CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) along with many other beneficial substances.
A disease is typically the result of damaged nervous systems (unable to direct the body’s functions), lack of specific nutrients, and an excess of poisons. To stay healthy and avoid disease, we need to avoid poisons in the environment as well as in our food. Poisons in modern-day food include a long list of altered sugars and artificial sweeteners which lead to inflammation and fibrosis that eventually results in disease, structural damage, aging, and death. Wow! And all you were trying to do was avoid some calories…
I believe that age should be defined by retention of abilities rather than years spent on this earth. The rate at which the physical body ages is influenced by the number of proteolytic enzymes in the body. Although we have lots of these proteolytic enzymes when we’re young, they decrease with age for presently unexplained reasons. When we’re injured or have bodily damage, these proteolytic enzymes break down the resulting fibrous tissue surrounding the damaged area. The fibrous net of scar tissue that forms makes it appear as if we’ve aged because scar tissue interferes with normal functioning. While a small number of chronologically older people may not appear to have reduced abilities, the majority of adults benefit from supplemental proteolytic enzymes because life is hard on a body. Few people go through life unscathed.
Age is also related to one’s mental abilities. Eating fruits and vegetables in a variety of colors provides a range of antioxidants necessary to maintain a healthy body and mind. All major nutrition studies tell us we need at least 10 different fruits and vegetables of a variety of colors each day. We’ve found some economical ways to help you do this and look forward to sharing them with you at our workshop on January 11th.
Getting off sugar is perhaps the best thing you can do for your brain as well as your waistline. Because sugar requires insulin, the more sugar you ingest, the more insulin is required which can eventually wear out your pancreas. Many people don’t realize that the pancreas is responsible for doing much more than regulating sugar. If you take the pancreas off its other life-supporting tasks because you have a sweet tooth, you may pay a big price for your indulgence, including diabetes, cancer, or even pancreatic failure.
The next best thing you can do for your brain is feeding it raw, naturally fermented coconut oil. The less processed the coconut oil the better. Coconut oil turns into a ketone which your brain burns for fuel without needing insulin. Lots of my patients have had amazing results with coconut oil. It isn’t just for those with growing cobwebs in their heads!
The body is designed to burn a variety of healthy oils and shows appreciation for having ample amounts, responding to increased metabolism and immune function, healthier skin and nails, etc. When it comes to fat-burning, GLA (gamma linolenic acid) and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) are often overlooked and underutilized. GLA stimulates the underactive brown fat in overweight individuals to become more active which helps burn more calories. Over 500 published research studies support CLA’s ability to exert positive effects on weight loss, preventing and controlling type 2 diabetes, protecting against heart disease, reducing the risk of atherosclerosis and modulating immune response (Healthy Fats for Life, 2004).
Excessive body fat is dangerous. When fat accumulates around organs, it interferes with their functions. In the past, certain sugars called fructose (fruit sugar) had the job of accumulating fat around our bellies to get us through lean times. We burned off the fat, turning it into ketones as needed. Since then, many things have changed. We no longer have lean times each year and most people regularly ingest poisons (including estrogen-like substances) which promote more belly fat and inhibit fat burning. Belly fat has an enzyme called aromatase that turns muscle producing testosterone into more estrogen, resulting in more belly fat.
Certain foods inhibit estrogen uptake in the body while others are estrogenic. Many people are surprised to learn that foods they think are healthy actually promote early dysfunction and hormonal imbalances. Come to our Weight Loss/ Detoxification workshop to get a better understanding of this complex world, learn about GLA and CLA, and get a great start on a Happy Healthy New Year!
