Month: July 2012

As part of my ongoing research I spent a large chunk of the last two weeks listening to lectures as part of a webinar series called The Future of Health Now. There was a day on the brain where Dr. Daniel Amen and another brain specialist were both interviewed. The woman doing the interviews has a mother with dementia. She asked both doctors for their top recommendations for people who wanted to avoid dementia. The doctors both agreed on the single most important recommendation. Don’t play football. Ever. They expanded on that with recommendations against hockey, boxing or any other contact sport as well as recommending against biking, scootering, skateboarding and skiing without helmets and anything else that might shake your brain or cause a concussion. Apparently, those mild head butts, even with helmets on, even those that do not lead to concussions, loss of consciousness, or anything else interesting, do cause damage which becomes measurable by the time a student-athlete hits college. There also appear to be lesser risks to rugby and hockey but there have not been quality studies on either sport. So there may or may not be something there. As best I could tell they haven’t looked at other high contact sports so not finding a problem doesn’t mean anything either way. But they have the data on football and it is scary. It turns...

This is a bit off topic, but I know a lot of people who are eating gluten-free and dairy-free for health reasons other than autism or celiac, and some people are concerned about nitrites in their hot dogs preferring “nitrite-free” hot dogs. Let me clear this up for you. There is no such thing as a nitrite and nitrate free, pink, traditional, hot dog. Period. Nitrites and nitrates prevent botulism and rancidity. They inhibit the growth of bacteria. In addition there is some recent evidence that they may even be GOOD for you. Celery and spinach are full of nitrates. they have literally hundreds of times as many nitrates as hot dogs. As in 2000 ppm or so depending on the veggie vs 10ppm or so. For you chemistry buffs nitrate is NaNO3 and nitrite is NaNO2 and your digestive tract turns nitrates into nitrites. Nitrites in food can come from either saltpeter (sodium nitrite) or from celery, beets, spinach and other veggies which have natural nitrates. We Americans, despite our low veggie intake still get most of our nitrates from veggies. Nitrite free hot dogs actually use celery or veggie juice to get the nitrates needed for that cured meat flavor. Veggie juice can result in some inconsistent dosing, but may be more palatable to some people. And the “good” meat companies disclose this fully on their websites....

Our nutritionist came to the profession after an incident with her daughter. The child was having major problems in school due to uncontrollable ADD. Convinced that it might be something she was eating, the mother eliminated foods in rotation from her child’s diet. Eventually they eliminated corn and the ADD vanished. Today mother and daughter both work in nutrition and specialize in counseling parents of kids with food issues. When I was a child I was alternately diagnosed as clumsy, stressed out, moody, or something else that could be fixed if I just modified my behavior. Which I did. But I still had a nearly non-stop stomachache and felt horrible. After years of pain I remember the last gastroenterologist telling my mother “She isn’t crazy. Something IS medically wrong with her. I just don’t know what it is.” I loved him for that. And now we know what was wrong. I had Raisin Bran Poisoning aka Celiac Disease. The idea that perfectly good breakfast cereal could make a person clumsy, infertile, depressed, anemic, short and sick to their stomach was not even a consideration. Now it is recognized as a real, life-threatening problem. Just because they cannot prove that something is real, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. And this is why I think it is important to test for other food sensitivities if something is still off. Outside...

I realize that telling people to go get tested privately with poop tests of saliva tests does not endear me to any gastroenterologists. I understand their concern about getting a person properly tested and biopsied. The problem is that getting someone to order a test for you is not so simple. I would love to tell you that when I marched my pot-bellied, skinny yet eating like a teen on swim team, greyish, moody, anemic, delayed toddler into the doctor’s office complaining of utterly bizarre bowel habits that they said, “Oh my goodness, he has every single symptom of a textbook pediatric celiac patient…we should get him tested for celiac disease”…but actually none of the first SEVEN doctors we saw suggested it. It was mostly about talking to me in that soft voice they use on “crazy people” who can’t accept their child’s “autism”. He had every symptom and not one doctor suggested celiac. The person who hinted at it was the nutritionist who I saw to figure out if a proper gluten and dairy free diet might help his “autism”. But then I had to get in to see the pediatric gastroenterologist which meant six more weeks of waiting and letting him stare into space. So I took him off gluten and dairy and ordered some off the reservation tests. Which came back wildly positive for gluten and...

For those of you interested in decent science on health, diet and exercise as opposed to weird undocumented internet allegations, there is a multi-day seminar going on right now that has been sponsored by Whole Foods among others where scientists, science reporters, and doctors are all explaining the latest developments in our understanding of health related issues. Each pair of interviews is available free for 24 hours and then if you want to pay, you can get them all permanently. Ever since I learned that my health and well being issues were related to food I have been addicted to this sort of thing. So if you are interested you can opt-in for access by going to http://www.thefutureofhealthnow.com FYI, I am not an affiliate and get nothing for referring you here, I just heard some lectures today that were both terrific and disturbing (if there are 17,000 studies proving something how does my doctor not know about it?) and you may want to check it out if you are like minded. You can always opt-out if it gets...

In general, I do not bake my own gluten and dairy free bread. I have the good fortune to live ten minutes from Chicagoland’s best gluten-free bakery, Rose’s Wheatfree Cafe and I do my part to keep them in business. That said, every so often I want to make my own bread. Usually this happens when we are planning a picnic. I like to make a monster 2 foot long, 8 inch wide loaf of bread that I can cut in half lengthwise and make into a monster sandwich. Also I like my burger buns to be browner and flatter than hers are. So I have been playing around with bread mixes. I don’t yet have a recipe where I can say “here it is and I really trust this one”. They all have their eccentric qualities. What I can say for certain is keep everything warm, double the yeast, and double the final rise time. It started when I read the back of a bread mix package and it said to use the same 9 x 5 loaf pan I use for meatloaf and to expect “one two-pound loaf”. What struck me about that comment is that my meatloaf only uses two pounds of meat. I mean really, bread that is similar in density to meatloaf? Fluffy store loaves in that size would weigh half that much. So...