Why is Cardiomyopathy the Number One Cause for Pediatric Cardiac Arrest & Heart Transplants?
Pediatric heart transplantation (pHTx) represents a small (14%) but very important and particular part in the field of cardiac transplantation.
Approximately 600-700 pediatric heart transplantation procedures are performed worldwide each year, representing about 12% of the total number of heart transplants performed.
Although there’s not a lot of research behind the real why’s of it, we asked our providers to share some things that are known & information that can hopefully help prevent this pediatric heart issue from continuing to rise!
The Heart and Iron
Our hearts could not function without iron. This mineral is needed to make hemoglobin, which delivers oxygen to the body, and myoglobin in muscles. The most significant muscle in the body is the heart.
Much of what we know about iron in the heart comes from research that centers on people with iron overload at a young age, such as individuals with thalassemia, sickle cell disease, or juvenile hemochromatosis. The most significant research specific to adult onset hemochromatosis and cardiac iron comes from the US National Institutes of Health Hemochromatosis Protocol led by Dr. Susan Leitman and from Professor Dudley Pennell, Director of the National Institutes of Health Research Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit at Royal Brompton Hospital, London.
Over Recommended, Unnatural Sources of Iron
70% of pregnant women report using iron-containing prenatal supplements that are often prescribed by their physicians (4), despite the current debate over whether a recommendation of supplemental iron is necessary in iron-replete pregnant women in the US (5–7). Prenatal supplements are products typically intended for use before, during, and after pregnancy, unless otherwise specified on the product label. We compared the forms and amounts of iron used in formulating prenatal supplements with the forms and am
Misleading information on supplement labels is the most common reason for confusion about these ingredients. Consuming these potentially dangerous chemicals is much more serious than once thought.
Synthetic vitamins and minerals are processed in a laboratory, while natural vitamins and minerals are derived from plants. Your body can tell the difference, even if a microscope can’t. Synthetic supplements contain little or no natural ingredients. Some claim to contain 10% natural vitamins, but the rest of the ingredients will have come from a lab. The “ingredients” of synthetic supplements are chemicals that are constructed in a lab. They may look, feel and taste natural, but your body may not—probably does not—absorb synthetic supplements in the same way that your body would absorb natural supplements.
Iron overload can occur from certain things that pregnant women take such as medications, and synthetic high dose supplements (ie. iron and folic acid) play a role in baby’s heart development.
Magnesium & Iron Together
Although magnesium and iron are not cofactors, which are nutrients that help other nutrients function, they appear together in foods. Just as you’ll find iron in meats, fish, nuts, leafy greens, grains, cereals, fruits, vegetables and other foods, you will find magnesium in these foods as well. Therefore, a deficiency in one likely predicates the other, unless there is a specific cause for either condition. Strict vegetarians are at particular risk for both deficiencies.
But, what happens if you are magnesium deficient but are supplementing iron?
Excess iron intake reinforces the iron accumulation in liver and spleen of people who are magnesium deficient. The saturation of iron binding capacity can be enormously elevated when we are magnesium deficient and loaded with excess iron. Dietary iron deprivation can also diminish the degree of calcium deposition in the kidney of magnesium deficient people. So, magnesium-deprived people have abnormal iron metabolism losing homeostatic regulation of plasma iron, and magnesium deficient people with dietary iron overload may be hemochromatosis – which can cause serious damage to your body, including to your heart, liver and pancreas.
Magnesium deficiency and iron overload together can have a BIG impact on the heart of both you and your baby.
Viral Infections
Pregnancy comprises a unique immunological condition, to allow fetal development and to protect the host from pathogenic infections. Viral infections during pregnancy can disrupt immunological tolerance and may generate deleterious effects on the fetus.
A range of viral infections in pregnancy are associated with specific placental findings, including lymphoplasmacytic villitis with associated enlargement of villi and intravillous hemosiderin deposition in the setting of maternal cytomegalovirus infection (40), as well as rare reports of intervillositis in the setting of Zika virus (41) and Dengue virus (42), among others.
Viral infections, especially streps, can greatly impact a baby’s heart development.
Genetic Predispositions
Like most common diseases, heart failure develops as a result of complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors. Early studies identified variants in genes in the adrenergic and renin-angiotensin pathways that influence the likelihood of developing heart failure and response to evidence-based therapies. These polymorphisms confer relatively minor increases in risk and manifestation of clinically evident HF in patients who carry these alleles likely requires other genetic and environmental insults.
In contrast, mutations in single genes can cause dilated cardiomyopathy independently and typically are heritable in an autosomal dominant fashion. Diagnosis of familial dilated cardiomyopathy requires a careful family history and confirmatory genetic testing, and can have significant impact on the health of the patient’s family members. Though such testing ideally is undertaken in consultation with a genetics professional, numerous resources are available to guide the cardiologist through the process (Table 22). If you have a genetic predisposition component, it’s okay! There still needs to be a trigger – which we can work together to prevent.
Taking Action
Here’s what you can do to:
Be sure to either get your nutrients from whole, mineral-rich, naturally grown foods or take high quality, whole food supplements while pregnant such as folate and avoiding folic acid.
If iron is truly needed then making sure it’s the correct form that doesn’t get stuck in the organs/tissues.
PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR BODY. It’s intelligent. If you feel sick, see if you have a virus.
Coxsackievirus B (CVB) is the most common cause of viral myocarditis. It targets cardiomyocytes through coxsackie and adenovirus receptor, which is highly expressed in the fetal heart.
But many viruses are commonly associated with myocarditis, including the viruses that cause the common cold (adenovirus); CMV, hepatitis B and C; parvovirus, which causes a mild rash, usually in children (fifth disease); and herpes simplex virus.
Fever, rash, fatigue and general sick symptoms would be what to watch for but would be very hard to prevent as most of that stuff isn’t screened for in pregnancy, just like STDs and such.
Specifically ask for a viral panel that directly correlates with myocarditis (if your doctor doesn’t know what to run, check with other doctors)
You can also specifically ask for CVB to be checked!
If you are pregnant or have concerns for your child, do not hesitate to reach out! We are here to help in any way we can.
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[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Understanding the cellular mechanisms of insulin resistance helps us choose more effective therapeutic interventions for the treatment and prevention of prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and other chronic health disorders. Insulin resistance contributes to most chronic disease in America, a country with world-renowned health care, yet 90 percent of people who have this condition have not been diagnosed.
Understanding Insulin
Insulin is a peptide hormone that’s made in the pancreas, an organ that contains clusters of cells called islets and beta cells within the islets that make insulin and release it into the blood. Insulin maintains normal blood sugar levels by facilitating cellular glucose uptake; regulating carbohydrate, lipid and protein metabolism; and promoting cell division and growth. It plays a major role in regulating how the body uses digested food for energy. With the help of insulin, glucose is absorbed by the cells of your body and used for energy.
When blood glucose levels rise after a meal, insulin is released by the pancreas into the blood. Then insulin and glucose travel in the blood to cells throughout the body. Insulin is responsible for several mechanisms throughout the body. It helps muscle, fat and liver cells absorb glucose from the bloodstream, thereby lowering blood glucose levels; it stimulates the liver and muscle tissue to store excess glucose; and it lowers blood glucose levels by reducing glucose production in the liver.
Insulin Resistance Symptoms
The higher your insulin levels are, the worse your insulin resistance. Your body starts to age and deteriorate. In fact, insulin resistance is the single most important phenomenon that leads to rapid, premature aging and all its resultant diseases, including heart disease, stroke, dementia, and cancer.
Insulin resistance and the resulting metabolic syndrome often comes accompanied by increasing central obesity, fatigue after meals, sugar cravings, high triglycerides, low HDL, high blood pressure, problems with blood clotting, as well as increased inflammation… Unfortunately, however, we can’t always feel all these symptoms as insulin resistance is building.
How To Treat Insulin Resistance
Get Your Insulin Levels Tested
Think about this. insulin resistance contributes to most chronic disease in America, a country with world-renowned health care, yet 90 percent of people who have this condition have not been diagnosed. A simple test could change all that. Even without these warning signs, one test can determine high insulin levels years or even decades before diabetes develops. Early detection can help you reverse these symptoms, yet doctors rarely use this crucial test that can detect high insulin levels.
Long before your blood sugar rises, your insulin spikes. High insulin levels are the first sign that can precede type 2 diabetes by decades, Damage begins with even slight changes in insulin and blood sugar.
A two-hour glucose tolerance test can help detect high insulin levels. This test measures not only glucose but also insulin levels, yet doctors rarely order it. Instead, they usually don’t express concern until blood sugar is over 110 or worse, over 126, which is diabetes. Many of our patients have normal blood sugar levels but very high insulin levels and other signs of pre-diabetes, yet when they come to see me they have not been diagnosed with pre-diabetes.
Even when patients have a blood sugar level over 100 mg/dl and a two-hour glucose tolerance test result of over 140 mg/dl, 90 percent of patients who display these conditions have not been diagnosed. That’s because doctors don’t measure insulin…
If your results show high insulin, you need to eliminate the things that are sending your biology out of balance and include what’s needed to help your body rebalance itself. These eight interventions can become extraordinarily powerful to normalize insulin:
Eat REAL foods.
Food is information that controls your gene expression, hormones, and metabolism. Choose low-glycemic real foods including fresh vegetables, fruits, legumes, non-gluten grains, nuts, seeds, and high-quality animal protein.
Remove ALL processed sweeteners.
Far from the free pass some people consider them, artificial sweeteners can raise insulin levels and contribute to insulin resistance. One study in the journal Diabetes Care found sucralose (Splenda) could raise glucose and insulin levels. Give up sugar but also stevia, aspartame, sucralose, sugar alcohols like xylitol and maltitol, and all of the other heavily used and marketed sweeteners unless you want to slow down your metabolism, gain weight, and increase insulin resistance. Many of us have lost touch with what constitutes “sweet,” and we have to retrain our taste buds to appreciate the natural sweetness of, say, natural vanilla or roasted almonds.
Control inflammation.
Dietary sugars of all kinds and refined vegetable oils are the biggest contributors to inflammation. They increase insulin levels and turn on genes that lead to chronic inflammation, creating a downward spiral into more inflammation, poor blood sugar control, and chronic disease. Besides removing the offending foods, address food sensitivities and allergies to control inflammation. Incorporate plenty of anti-inflammatory foods including wild-caught fish, freshly ground flax seed, and fish oil.
Increase fiber-rich foods.
Whereas our Paleolithic ancestors got 50 – 100 grams of fiber a day, we now average less than 15 grams. It’s not a coincidence that high-sugar fruits are also high in water and fiber. Fiber slows sugar absorption into the bloodstream from the gut. Studies show high-fiber foods can be as effective as diabetes medications to lower blood sugar without the side effects. Eat a wide variety of fiber-rich plant-based foods including nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, and legumes.
A number of nutrients play a role in insulin management, including pre-hormone “vitamin” D, chromium, magnesium, and alpha lipoic acid. Deficiencies in any nutrient can stall your biochemical machinery, knocking your blood sugar levels out of balance and making you more insulin resistant.
Incorporate the right exercise.
Exercise might be the most powerful medicine to manage blood sugar levels and make your cells more insulin sensitive. When it comes to exercise, time becomes a huge hurdle for many people. That’s why I recommend high-intensity interval training (HIIT), also called burst training, which you can do in just minutes a day. A study in the Journal of Obesity found among its other benefits, burst training helped decrease fasting insulin and reduce insulin resistance. Combining burst training with weight resistance provides the most effective, efficient way to normalize blood sugar and insulin levels.
Control stress levels.
Chronic stress elevates cortisol, your main stress hormone. Increased cortisol levels elevate blood sugar and promote the accumulation of belly fat that we commonly see in patients with insulin resistance or diabetes. You can’t eliminate stress, but you can reduce its impact. Find what works for you. That might be prayerful meditation, mindful movement & stretching, deep breathing, or exercise.
If this seems like a lot, don’t worry.
We are here for you!
Each person is unique – so what works for some, may not work for others.
It’s important to listen to your body, address what is interfering with your daily life, and take the steps to aid your body in returning to its optimal state of health!
According to the CDC, women are 100% more likely to visit the doctor for annual examinations and preventive services than men. Here at Kingdom Health, half of our patients are men (usually thanks to some caring yet persistent women)! Nonetheless, kudos to you awesome guys!!
Thank you for understanding that your body was created intelligently. And, that admitting when there is an interference, taking the steps to seek care, and then taking action allows you to live fuller so you can get back to doing the things you love.
There is a silent health crisis in America…it’s that fact that, on average, American men live sicker and die younger than American women.” Dr. David Gremillion Men’s Health Network
The main reasons men come to our office is due to symptoms of hormonal imbalance such as:
hair loss
muscle mass loss
loss of bone mass, otherwise known as osteoporosis
difficulty concentrating
hot flashes
erectile dysfunction
cognitive decline
depression
fatigue
memory loss
We also see men due to hypertension, cardiovascular health, inflammation, gut issues, and food sensitivities – because, like so many, prescription medication wasn’t fixing anything.
Men tend to wait until its the last resort until seeking help – DON’T WAIT! There are better options out there!
Here at Kingdom Health, we do not guess – we test. Our providers start care with in-depth functional testing – not your conventional lab work. We test based on your individual health history, your symptoms, and your lifestyle. And, the test we do are full panel tests so that we can uncover what is going on physiologically and biochemically.
Comprehensive testing provides our patients with information and knowledge about the function of their body that they typically do not receive from their conventional doctor visits. These tests are performed to get to the root cause of the symptoms or disease.
In addition to helping resolve health issues, we also have testing to optimize health. Perhaps you are feeling good but you want to feel and function even better. We have testing that analyzes the factors of aging and then allows us to modify these factors. The goal is to Function Optimally and to Thrive, not to merely ‘not be sick’.
HORMONE OPTIMIZATION plays a huge role in not only women’s health but men’s health as well! Testing helps us uncover root of these symptoms so we can work with you to create a plan that will get your body back to optimal health!
Better energy, better libido, better recovery, better gut health, better moods! These are all things are male patients walk out of our office saying.
I started my program focused on gut health & overall better function in the body – and the weight just took care of itself!!
Approaching Weight from a Functional Perspective
Healthy Weight: (adj. + n.) a body’s relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, that does not negatively impact but rather regulates optimal bodily functions; can be comfortably maintained with lifestyle and does not consume one’s thoughts.
You take up space. A measurement of space is weight. The weight of your body is a compilation of purpose! Down to every one of your 724+/- trillion cells.
One of the beautiful things about how we are designed is that we have the ability to guide the purpose of our cells by what we do and how we live.
An Integrative Approach to Healthy Weight
The etiology of unhealthy weight in today’s world is multi-factorial including genetic, psychosocial, emotional, behavioral and environmental factors. Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight may require attention to deeper issues in all aspects of lifestyle including:
Nutrition
Mindfulness
Physical activity
Lifestyle imbalances
Stress management
Quality sleep
Spiritual connection
Addressing Root Issues
When journeying on the path to a healthy weight, it is necessary to address not the symptom of unhealthy weight but rather the root issues that is causing it. With functional medicine, providers often do in-depth testing to uncover what is going on or not going on internally such irregular thyroid activity, insulin resistance, hormonal imbalances, toxic overload, nutrient deficiencies or imbalances, etc.
Evidence suggests the following therapies may be helpful for weight management:
Body therapies such as chiropractic, message therapy, and acupuncture
Mind-body techniques such as meditation, breathing exercises, and artistic expression
Talk therapy including counseling, support groups and motivational interviewing
“We used to eat to fill our stomachs but now we eat to fill our hearts.” – Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
If we stop to look at the real reasons people eat certain foods, it’s not a lack of self-control like the stigma suggests- it is a lack of other things in life.
Don’t Weight! A Better Approach to Healthy Weight
Here are five key elements that can help us tune into our hunger cues, emotional needs, and physical responses to food in a way that makes us feel better overall, with weight loss as an added benefit. Stopping to ask yourself what, when, why, where, and how, every time you eat, creates a sense of awareness and sustainable results that are often missing from diet culture.
When we regulate the body’s biological systems, we automatically regulate the brain chemistry, hormones, and other factors that can lead to an unhealthy weight when left unchecked. And, when we begin to understand that the food industry knows how to hijack those systems at the highest level, we can stop blaming ourselves and start making positive changes!
If the body still can’t seem to find its healthy weight, seek assistance! There may be deeper issues going on.
You probably know it is a root cause of countless health problems and is the only factor common to all chronic diseases – including Alzheimer’s & dementia due to an antimicrobial response to pathogens or other inflammatory causes. The word inflammation comes from the Latin word inflammatio; inflammare which means to set on fire. The best way to describe inflammation is to say the tissues of the body are “on fire.” Your body is creating this fire in response to damaged cells in your body.
What Causes Inflammation?
In functional medicine, we are very interested in the subject of #inflammation because until it is brought under control we simply cannot help people’s bodies restore function and therefore health. When your cells are damaged by anything, your body starts a fire. The purpose of this fire is to contain/limit the damage so it does not spread, break down damaged cells for removal and permit the development of new, healthy cells — just like controlled burns in nature!
So, while your body is not technically on fire, inflammation is like a fire in your body. But, what causes this body-fire? A lot of natural chemicals your body creates in a response to damaged cells.
Below are some of the chemicals your body makes to create this fire:
“Body-Fire Chemicals”
Histamine
Bradykinin
Serotonin
Prostaglandins
Complement system (a group of about 20 different proteins)
Cytokines including lymphokines and monokines
Etc.
As you can see from the list above, the process of inflammation is not caused by a single chemical; it is a complicated process, involving many different chemicals. This is why so few people understand what inflammation actually is… there is not a single cause. You just need to know that inflammation is like a fire in your body.
What Triggers an Inflammatory Response?
Inflammation is an immune response. Innate immune response is how your body recognizes and defends itself against bacteria, viruses, and substances that appear foreign and harmful. The inflammatory response (inflammation) occurs when tissues are injured by bacteria, trauma, toxins, heat, or any other cause that damages cells including microorganisms, physical agents, chemicals, inappropriate immunological responses, and tissue death.
Infectious agents such as viruses and bacteria are some of the most common stimuli of inflammation. Viruses give rise to inflammation by entering and destroying cells of the body; bacteria release substances called endotoxins that can initiate inflammation.
Physical trauma, burns, radiation injury, and frostbite can damage tissues and also bring about inflammation, as can corrosive chemicals such as acids, alkalis, and oxidizing agents. As mentioned above, malfunctioning immunological responses can incite an inappropriate and damaging inflammatory response. Inflammation can also result when tissues die from a lack of oxygen or nutrients, a situation that often is caused by loss of blood flow to the area.
The damaged cells release chemicals including histamine, bradykinin, and prostaglandins. These chemicals cause blood vessels to leak fluid into the tissues, causing swelling. This helps isolate the foreign substance from further contact with body tissues.
The chemicals also attract white blood cells called phagocytes that “eat” germs and dead or damaged cells. This process is called phagocytosis. Phagocytes eventually die. Pus is formed from a collection of dead tissue, dead bacteria, and live and dead phagocytes.
Most Common Causes of Inflammation That We See
Chronic Infections – such as infections of the gut, Lyme’s Disease, Epstein–Barr virus, etc
When inflammation is short-term and controlled, it is a very good thing because it is a necessary part of the healing process. The “fire” of inflammation cleans out the useless and damaged cells and lets new healthy ones take their place. This is what we call “healthy inflammation.” Every time we eat, we also consume a significant quantity of bacteria. The body is faced with the challenge of simultaneously distributing the ingested glucose and fighting these bacteria. This triggers an inflammatory response that activates the immune systems of healthy individuals and has a protective effect In healthy individuals, short-term inflammatory responses play an important role in sugar uptake and the activation of the immune system.
Supporting a balanced intestinal microbial community is essential for the integrity of the immune system, for the prevention and response to infections (inflammation), and for recovery from illness. The microbes and their metabolites influence physiological function (particularly metabolism), local mucosal homeostasis, inflammation, and interactions between multiple body systems. Therefore, an imbalanced intestinal microbiota may have system-wide effects and contribute to blunted immune reactivity. Gut microbiota alterations due to unhealthy lifestyle factors and dietary triggers may contribute to inflammation, intestinal permeability, immune system dysfunction, and the pathogenesis of a broad spectrum of chronic diseases. Healthy lifestyle factors, including a diversified diet, limited consumption of processed and refined foods, and consumption of adequate dietary fiber, may all promote a healthy microbiome and therefore a healthy immune response!
CHRONIC inflammation is BAD
Just like how fire is a cleansing process in forests; this process in nature is beneficial when it occurs periodically. It would be harmful if the forest was constantly burning or if it burned down every year. This is what happens in your body with chronic inflammation…the fire never dies out. The cells of your body cannot repair themselves and new, healthy cells can’t form. Your “forest” can’t rebuild and thrive and function as nature intended.
If the agent causing an inflammation cannot be eliminated, or if there is some interference with the healing process, an acute inflammatory response may progress to the chronic stage. Repeated episodes of acute inflammation also can give rise to chronic inflammation. The physical extent, duration, and effects of chronic inflammation vary with the cause of the injury and the body’s ability to ameliorate the damage.
Some of the most common and disabling human diseases, such as tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic lung disease, are characterized by this type of inflammation. Chronic inflammation can be brought about by infectious organisms that are able to resist host defenses and persist in tissues for an extended period. These organisms include Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the causative agent of tuberculosis), fungi, protozoa, and metazoal parasites. Other inflammatory agents are materials foreign to the body that cannot be removed by phagocytosis or enzymatic breakdown. These include substances that can be inhaled, such as silica dust, and materials that can gain entry to wounds, such as metal or wood splinters.
In autoimmune reactions the stimulus to chronic inflammation is a normal component of the body to which the immune system has become sensitized. Autoimmune reactions give rise to chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.
We could keep going, but we think you get the idea, chronic inflammation causes many problems for your body. Functional medicine providers specialize in connecting symptoms + health history to pinpoint the type of inflammatory response and finding the root cause/s of unhealthy inflammation by asking questions such as what is damaging the cells? what microorganisms, physical agents, or chemicals are prevalent? are the intestinal microbial communities balanced?
Now you have a more in-depth understanding of what inflammation is…the body on fire and this fire is your body’s response to damaged cells. Discover what is causing the damage to cells and you can reduce inflammation.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Inflammation”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Nov. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/science/inflammation.
Cammarota G, Ianiro G. Gut microbiota and cancer patients: a broad-ranging relationship. Mayo Clin Proc. 2017;92(11):1605-1607. doi:1016/j.mayocp.2017.09.009
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/9071.htm
Shanahan F, van Sinderen D, O’Toole PW, Stanton C. Feeding the microbiota: transducer of nutrient signals for the host. Gut. 2017;66(9):1709-1717. doi:1136/gutjnl-2017-313872
Worldwide, 50 million people are living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
This illness affects a third of people over the age of 85 in the U.S. By 2050, there could be as many as 7 million people age 85 and older with Alzheimer’s disease, accounting for half (51%) of all people 65 and older with Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disease and the most common form of dementia. Dementia is not a specific disease. It’s an overall term that describes a group of symptoms.
This Brain Dis-ease can rob people of the ability to think clearly, perform everyday tasks and ultimately, remember their family or who they even are. Because the disease is so devastating, and since previous treatments failed to come up with a cure, we’re always on the lookout for Alzheimer’s natural treatment options and Alzheimer’s news, scouring the medical journals for Alzheimer’s breakthroughs.
It is claimed that “no one survives a diagnosis of dementia,” a disease with “no effective treatment.” As practitioners, we have struggled over the years with patients with cognitive decline, since there has been so little to offer… There is still much that we do not know about the brain, but there are several theories for dementia root causes including free radical damage, an inability to use glucose properly, vitamin deficiencies or environmental toxinsthat can be used to improve cognitive function and, perhaps, prevent dementia and its related diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Understanding the Brain
Your brain is your most powerful organ, yet weighs only about three pounds. It has a texture similar to firm jelly. It is comprised of 3 main parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brain stem.
The cerebrum fills up most of your skull. It is involved in remembering, problem solving, thinking, and feeling. It also controls movement.
The cerebellum sits at the back of your head, under the cerebrum. It controls coordination and balance.
The brain stem sits beneath your cerebrum in front of your cerebellum. It connects the brain to the spinal cord and controls automatic functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate and blood pressure.
Your brain is nourished by one of your body’s richest networks of blood vessels. When you are thinking hard, your brain may use up to 50 percent of the fuel and oxygen. With each heartbeat, arteries carry about 20 to 25 percent of your blood to your brain, where billions of cells use about 20 percent of the oxygen and fuel your blood carries. The whole vessel network includes veins and capillaries in addition to arteries.
Your brain’s wrinkled surface is a specialized outer layer of the cerebrum called the cortex. Scientists have “mapped” the cortex by identifying areas strongly linked to certain functions. Your brain is divided into right and left halves. The right side is responsible for controlling the left side of your body and the left side is responsible for controlling the right side of your body.
Your brain is a NEURON FOREST. Neurons are information messengers. They use electrical impulses and chemical signals to transmit information between different areas of the brain, and between the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Neurons are the chief type of cell destroyed by Alzheimer’s disease.
An adult brain contains about 100 billion nerve cells.
Branches connect the nerve cells at more than 100 trillion points. Scientists call this dense, branching network a “neuron forest.”
Signals traveling through the neuron forest form the basis of memories, thoughts, and feelings.
Cell Signaling & Signal Coding
The real work of your brain goes on in individual cells. The neurotransmitters travel across the synapse, carrying signals to other cells. Scientists have identified dozens of neurotransmitters. Alzheimer’s disease disrupts both the way electrical charges travel within cells and the activity of neurotransmitters.
100 billion nerve cells. 100 trillion synapses. Dozens of neurotransmitters. This “strength in numbers” provides your brain’s raw material. Over time, our experiences create patterns in signal type and strength. These patterns of activity explain how, at the cellular level, our brains code our thoughts, memories, skills and sense of who we are.
Understanding How Alzheimer’s and Dementia Affects the Brain
Alzheimer’s disease leads to nerve cell death and tissue loss throughout the brain. Over time, the brain shrinks dramatically, affecting nearly all its functions.
Scientists can also see the terrible effects of Alzheimer’s disease when they look at brain tissue under the microscope. Scientists are not absolutely sure what causes cell death and tissue loss in the Alzheimer’s brain, but the plaques and tangles in the figures below are prime suspects.
Alzheimer’s tissue has many fewer nerve cells and synapses than a healthy brain.
Plaques, abnormal clusters of protein fragments, build up between nerve cells.
Dead and dying nerve cells contain tangles, which are made up of twisted strands of another protein.
More About Plaques…
Plaques form when protein pieces called beta-amyloid (BAY-tuh AM-uh-loyd) clump together. Beta-amyloid comes from a larger protein found in the fatty membrane surrounding nerve cells.
Beta-amyloid is chemically “sticky” and gradually builds up into plaques.
The most damaging form of beta-amyloid may be groups of a few pieces rather than the plaques themselves. The small clumps may block cell-to-cell signaling at synapses. They may also activate immune system cells that trigger inflammation and devour disabled cells.
More About Tangles…
Tangles destroy a vital cell transport system made of proteins. This electron microscope picture shows a cell with some healthy areas and other areas where tangles are forming.
In healthy areas:
Orderly, parallel strands for delivering key materials to the cells
A protein called tau helps keep the strands straight
In areas where tangles are forming:
Nutrients and other essential supplies can no longer move through the cells, which eventually die.
Tau collapses into twisted strands called tangles
The strands can no longer stay straight and disintegrate
Progression Through the Brain
Plaques and tangles tend to spread through the cortex in a predictable pattern as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. The rate of progression varies greatly. On average, a person with Alzheimer’s lives four to eight years after diagnosis, but can live as long as 20 years, depending on other factors. The course of the disease depends in part on age at diagnosis and whether a person has other health conditions.
In the earliest stages, before symptoms can be detected with current tests, plaques and tangles begin to form in brain areas involved in.
In mild to moderate stages, brain regions important in memory and thinking and planning develop more plaques and tangles than were present in early stages. As a result, individuals develop problems with memory or thinking serious enough to interfere with work or social life. They may also get confused and have trouble handling money, expressing themselves and organizing their thoughts. Many people with Alzheimer’s are first diagnosed in these stages.
As Alzheimer’s progresses, individuals may experience changes in personality and behavior and have trouble recognizing friends and family members.
In advanced Alzheimer’s disease, most of the cortex is seriously damaged. The brain shrinks dramatically due to widespread cell death. Individuals lose their ability to communicate, to recognize family and loved ones and to care for themselves.
Using Functional Medicine To Treat Alzheimer’s And Cognitive Decline
With functional medicine, the goal is to treat the root cause of the issue instead of only alleviating the resulting symptoms. For instance, the leading hypothesis from conventional medicine asserts that amyloid plaques in the brain cause Alzheimer’s and aims to remove the plaques to cure Alzheimer’s. Thus, billions of dollars have been invested in trials to clear amyloid-beta with no success to date. In fact, there is some evidence that several have worsened cognitive decline.
Functional medicine goes deeper. Rather than solely focusing on the removal of amyloid plaques, functional medicine asks why plaques arise and seeks to prevent their development in the first place.
The whole-body systems approach of functional medicine has proven optimal for treating the chronic illnesses that lead to Alzheimer’s disease, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and more. Consequently, these efforts have led to unprecedented success for treating Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s Is a Multifactor Pathological Condition
Dr. Dale Bredesen, a renowned AD researcher, goes against popular opinion and states that AD is a multifactor pathological condition. Amyloid-beta is not the main problem, but rather the brain’s response to one (or more than one) insult (3). By removing the insults and optimizing health, this method has reversed AD in many cases. Through years of work, Dr. Bredesen has identified several types of AD, each with unique causes (4, 5):
Type 1 (“inflammatory”) is due to an antimicrobial response to pathogens or other inflammatory causes.
Type 2 (“atrophic”) is associated with reductions in factors that support brain health, like estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, insulin, and vitamin D.
Type 1.5 (“glycotoxic”) is a composite of types 1 and 2. Inflammation from high blood glucose levels combines with a trophic loss of insulin sensitivity.
Type 3 (“toxic” or “cortical”) is associated with exposure to toxins or toxicants (a toxicant is any toxic substance; toxicants can be poisonous and they may be man-made or naturally occurring) such as heavy metals, insecticides/pesticides, antimicrobials, and commercial/industrial toxins.
Type 4 (“vascular”) is associated with reduced vascular support.
Type 5 (“traumatic”) is associated with previous head trauma.
Your Lifestyle & Environment Play Key Roles
Since lifestyle and environmental factors play a major role in the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease, a functional medicine approach is the ideal strategy for addressing Alzheimer’s at its roots. To accomplish this goal the Functional Medicine operating system consists of the Functional Medicine Timeline, Advanced Testing, and the Therapeutic Lifestyle Factors (Sleep & Relaxation, Movement & Exercise, Nutrition, Stress, and Relationships). Advanced Testing allows the practitioner to evaluate imbalances at the cellular level. This helps sort out why the disease has occurred in the first place. By understanding each of these imbalances, the patient is empowered & supported to make changes to correct them!
Ready to talk with a provider about getting to the root of you or your loved ones cognitive decline and discover pathways to healing? Our staff and practitioners are eager to help you!
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]What if we told you that a health condition affects about 72 million — or 1 out of every 3 — American adults under old guidelines? And, what if we told you that under new guidelines that number will rise to about 103 million Americans?
We’re talking about a highly common, yet preventable, condition called high blood pressure, also known as hypertension — which is why you need to pay attention if you have high blood pressure symptoms.
High blood pressure (HBP) isn’t just a problem in and of itself, but it also leads to other dangerous health conditions, including stroke, heart attack, chronic heart failure and kidney disease.
Did you know that most people with high blood pressure or hypertension have no symptoms, even when their blood pressure readings reach dangerously high levels? In fact, about many U.S. adults with high blood pressure still doesn’t know they have it. Scary, we know.
The good news is that even mainstream medicine will agree with us when we say that lifestyle factors such as stress management, diet, and exercise are the most important tools for preventing and treating high blood pressure naturally and successfully.
functional blood pressure categories
Under the guidelines, formulated by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, the number of men under age 45 with a diagnosis of high blood pressure will triple, and the prevalence among women under age 45 will double.
What is High Blood Pressure?
Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of the arteries as the heart pumps blood. High blood pressure happens when this force is too high. Scary, but true: Most people who have this condition display zero signs or high blood pressure symptoms, even when their blood pressure readings are at dangerously high levels.
Elevated: Systolic between 120–129 and diastolic less than 80;
Stage 1: Systolic between 130–139 or diastolic between 80–89;
Stage 2: Systolic at least 140 or diastolic at least 90 mm Hg;
Hypertensive crisis: Systolic over 180 and/or diastolic over 120, with patients needing prompt changes in medication if there are no other indications of problems, or immediate hospitalization if there are signs of organ damage.
The top number is systolic pressure, the blood pressure when the heart beats while pumping blood. The second or bottom number is diastolic pressure, the blood pressure when the heart is at rest between beats.
Frequently, there are no high blood pressure symptoms as blood pressure increases, but some warning signs for very high blood pressure can include chest pains, confusion, headaches, ear noise or buzzing, irregular heartbeat, nosebleeds, tiredness or vision changes.
What Causes High Blood Pressure?
Knowing what triggers high blood pressure can help you prevent or reverse it. Like with most other chronic diseases, the reason someone develops HBP has to do with several factors.
HBP seems to be highly dependent upon the type of lifestyle someone leads – which can develop based on family patterns. Women are at an increased risk when taking birth control pills, during pregnancy, or if taking hormone therapy medications to control menopause symptoms. Obesity or being overweight increases the odds because this puts more pressure on the heart and arteries.
High blood pressure has a real laundry list of risk factors. The good news is that the majority of these hypertension risk factors are well within your control. They include:
Age — High blood pressure risk increases as age increases. It’s more common in men through the age of 45. Women are more likely to develop high blood pressure after age 65.
Family “history” — High blood pressure tends to run in families based on lifestyle factors.
Race — High blood pressure is especially common among African-Americans and often develops at an earlier age than it does in Caucasians. Serious complications, such as stroke, heart attack and kidney failure, are more common among African-Americans suffering from high blood pressure.
Being overweight — The higher your body weight, the more blood you need to supply oxygen and nutrients to your tissues. As the volume of blood circulated through your blood vessels increases, so does the pressure on your artery walls and your blood pressure.
Not being physically active — People who are inactive tend to have higher heart rates. The higher your heart rate, the harder your heart must work with each contraction and the stronger the force on your arteries. Lack of physical activity and exercise also increases the risk of being overweight, which are some of the reasons a sedentary lifestyle is dangerous.
Tobacco use — Whether it’s smoking or chewing tobacco, both immediately raise your blood pressure temporarily. Additionally, the chemicals in tobacco damage the lining of your artery walls, which causes your arteries to narrow, increasing your blood pressure. Secondhand smoke can also raise your blood pressure.
Too much alcohol — Over time, heavy drinking can damage your heart. Having more than two drinks a day for men and more than one drink a day for women may affect blood pressure negatively.
Too much unnatural sodium in your diet — Too much salt or sodium in your diet causes your body to retain more fluid, which increases blood pressure.
Too little potassium in your diet — Potassium is a mineral that helps balance the sodium content of your body’s cells. If you don’t consume enough potassium or retain enough potassium, you can accumulate too much sodium in your blood stream. That’s one reason why you want to avoid low potassium.
Stress — High levels of stress can lead to a temporary increase in blood pressure.
Certain chronic conditions — Certain chronic conditions also may increase your risk of high blood pressure, such as kidney disease, diabetes and sleep apnea.
Pregnancy — Sometimes pregnancy can contribute to high blood pressure.
High blood pressure is most prevalent in the adult population, but children are also at risk. Sometimes children can experience high blood pressure symptoms that are caused by problems with the heart or kidneys.
However, more and more children who experience high blood pressure are dealing with this chronic issue at a way too young age because of poor lifestyle habits. When we say poor lifestyle habits, we’re referring to an unhealthy diet and a lack of exercise, which both directly relate to the increase in childhood obesity and childhood hypertension.
Take Action: What You Can Do to Reverse High Blood Pressure Symptoms
Eat Well!
High-potassium foods — According to the American Heart Association, a diet rich in potassium is an important part of controlling blood pressure because it lessens any negative effects of sodium on the body. Potassium balances the effect of sodium and helps lower blood pressure. Potassium-rich foods include things like coconut water, melons, avocados and bananas.
High-fiber foods — Unprocessed foods high in fiber, such as vegetables, fruits, seeds and beans, should be the basis of any healthy diet, especially one looking to lower blood pressure readings.
Omega-3 rich foods – Consume omega-3 foods like grass-fed beef, wild-caught salmon, chia seeds and flaxseeds to reduce inflammation.
Apple cider vinegar — Apple cider vinegar is naturally very high in potassium. It also helps to keep the body alkaline, which can help naturally lower your blood pressure. Make your own “shot” or use apple cider vinegar in your salad dressings!
Tea — White tea in particular can actually thin the blood and drastically improve artery function. Drinking white tea several times a day on a consistent basis can actually lower the pressure of your blood and protect the body against one of its common health enemies, stroke. This only works when you drink the tea every day, a couple of times a day.
Dark chocolate — Look for a dark chocolate that contains at least 200 milligrams of cocoa phenols, which can reduce blood pressure, is low in processed sugars & fats.
Supplement When Needed!
1. Magnesium
The mineral magnesium is great because it helps relax your blood vessels and can have an immediate impact on naturally lowering blood pressure (and many people have a magnesium deficiency, which plays in to high blood pressure). To start, talk with a provider to address the type & amount of magnesium for your blood pressure issues.
2. Fish Oil
One of the main causes of high blood pressure is inflammation in the arteries over time. Study after study has shown consuming fish oil, which is high in EPA and DHA forms of omega-3 fatty acids, reduces inflammation of the body, which is why fish oil benefits heart health. Taking a high-quality, fish oil dose every single day with your meals is one of the best natural ways to lower blood pressure.
3. Coenzyme Q10
Coenzyme Q10 or CoQ10 is an antioxidant critical for supporting heart health, and it’s crucial if you’ve ever been on blood pressure or cholesterol-lowering medication. Talk to a provider to determine the amount of CoQ10 per day you need for a great, natural remedy for high blood pressure.
4. Cocoa
Available in powder form, consumption of cocoa increases your intake of flavanols, which help lower blood pressure and improve blood flow to the brain and heart. Cocoa is also a natural vasodilator, which means it increases nitric oxide in the blood and widen blood vessels.
5. Garlic
Garlic is another natural vasodilator, and if you can’t get enough of it in your diet, then it’s readily available as a whole food supplement in liquid or pill form. A 2016 study showed that aged garlic reduces peripheral and central blood pressure in patients with uncontrolled hypertension. It also has the potential to improve arterial stiffness, inflammation and other cardiovascular markers in patients with elevated levels.
Natural Lifestyle Remedies
1. Increase Physical Activity and Exercise
Physical activity can help you maintain a healthy weight and lower your blood pressure. Ideally, you should engage in some form of physical activity and/or exercise for at least 20 minutes per day to unlock the benefits of exercise. Children and adolescents should aim to get one hour of physical activity every day. Walking, gardening, swimming, playing, hiking, etc. are all great, fun ways to get in physical exercise & improve your heart health!
2. Reduce Stress
Yet another reason to reduce stress is its ability to raise blood pressure. But don’t relax by relying on physical substances such as eating more or using tobacco or alcohol. These activities only increase the problem.
For high blood pressure symptoms and good health in general, it’s a great idea to practice daily relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, healing prayer and/or meditation, painting/coloring, etc. These natural stress relievers help you relax and reduce your blood pressure.
3. Essential Oils
Essential oils can lower blood pressure by dilating arteries, acting as antioxidants to reduce oxidative stress and by decreasing emotional stress. The best choices when it comes to lowering high blood pressure include neroli, lavender, ylang ylang, sweet marjoram, clary sage and frankincense. You can use these oils in a diffuser. You can also include a few drops in a neutral carrier oil or lotion and massage the mixture on your body – talk with a provider or an Apothecarist to ensure no medical implications apply to you.
4. Keep Up with Chiropractor Visits
Blood pressure levels tend to go up with age of life & stress levels, which is why prevention, early detection and management through a healthy lifestyle are so crucial for lowering blood pressure. Remember that you likely won’t have any noticeable signs or symptom of high blood pressure, so you can’t just assume that everything is normal and okay because you don’t feel any differently.
If you’re at a high risk for various forms of heart disease, make sure to have your pressure checked professionally at least once every month. If your blood pressure is normal, great — you can work on keeping it that way as you get older! But if it’s high, you’ll need to make some changes and work with your doctor to manage the condition, possibly by changing your diet and helping you lose weight. Keep in mind that HBP is a chronic disease and ultimately needs lifelong treatment, so support is helpful to make it easier to stick to a healthy lifestyle plan!
5. Eat a Nutrient-Dense Diet to Maintain a Healthy Weight
Want to know how to control your blood pressure without the need for medications? The first step is looking at your diet. Your diet is one of, if not the most, important piece of the puzzle when it comes to controlling your blood pressure naturally. People with high blood pressure tend to eat an unhealthy diet that’s low in nutrients, electrolytes (especially low levels of potassium), antioxidants and fiber.
Sodium, alcohol, refined grains, sugar and trans-fats can all raise inflammation that makes it more likely you’ll develop HBP. Center your diet around unprocessed, whole foods as much as possible− especially fresh, local, organic veggies, fruit, healthy fats and “clean” protein. Your doctor might recommend you follow The DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) which includes the high fiber foods above and limits alcohol and unnatural sodium (table salt). It’s rich in essential nutrients, protein, and fiber but encourages you to choose unprocessed, low-sodium and no-added-salt foods.
7. Quit Smoking
Smoking damages your blood vessels and raises the risk for various heart problems. It will also worsen complications and make it harder to reverse the problem. The U.S National Library of Medicine offers resources to help you quit, such as links to join online or in-person support groups offered in many hospitals, workplaces, and community centers for free.
Further Actions May Be Needed:
One out of 5 U.S. adults with high blood pressure still doesn’t know he or she has it, as people can experience no high blood pressure symptoms despite having even dangerously high levels. If you know you have high blood pressure, immediate action may be necessary. It is important to be reactive as well as proactive while pursuing natural ways to lower blood pressure and improve heart health.
In-depth testing
In-depth testing with functional ranges may be necessary to get to the root of your abnormal blood pressure. If you are still dealing with high blood pressure after trying to modify your lifestyle, try in-depth testing to uncover what else could be going on.
Get a support system
Change can be difficult and uncomfortable. You are 99% more likely to succeed if you have a support system to guide you, accompany you, and encourage you throughout your healing journey.
Whether you are in Cape Girardeau or need to schedule a telehealth appointment, our providers have the tools, experience, and compassion necessary to guide you to the correct healing pathways!
Uncovering the “why” behind your symptoms is key to unlocking true healing. The “why” is found within your life story. Our practice was created to give you and your practitioner the time necessary to uncover the intricacies of your health journey.
Your health journey starts the moment your life begins. Here are some questions & reasons your functional medicine provider may ask you when starting to uncover the “why’s” behind physical symptoms.
“In the United States, about half the C-sections we do appear to be avoidable. This study is the first to estimate the potential population-wide harms of this trend to mothers over the long term” – co-author Dr. Neel Shah, who leads the Delivery Decisions Initiative at Ariadne Labs
Did your mother give birth to you vaginally or by C-Section?
A caesarean section (CS) can be a life-saving intervention when medically indicated, but this procedure can also lead to short-term and long-term health effects for women and children. Given the increasing use of CS, particularly without medical indication, an increased understanding of its health effects on women and children has become crucial.
There is emerging evidence that babies born by CS have different hormonal, physical, bacterial, and medical exposures, and that these exposures can subtly alter neonatal physiology. Short-term risks of CS include altered immune development, an increased likelihood of allergy, atopy, and asthma, and reduced intestinal gut microbiome diversity.
The persistence of these risks into later life is less well investigated, although an association between CS use and greater incidence of late childhood obesity and asthma are frequently reported. There are few studies that focus on the effects of CS on cognitive and educational outcomes. The study, published in the Aug 9 issue of JAMA Surgery, was led by researchers at Aalborg University in Denmark and at Ariadne Labs in Boston. More than 23 million women across the globe have C-sections each year, making it the most common surgery in the world by far. More than one million women have hysterectomies later in life to remove their uterus, most often because of pain and/or bleeding.
Understanding potential mechanisms that link CS with childhood outcomes, such as the role of the developing neonatal microbiome, has potential to inform practitioners so they can better aid in restoring patients to optimal health.
What were some of your biggest losses, traumas & life events?
Providers need to understand how trauma can affect treatment presentation, engagement, and the outcome of physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral health services. Trauma, including one-time, multiple, or long-lasting repetitive events, affects everyone differently.
Some individuals may clearly display criteria associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but many more individuals will exhibit resilient responses or brief subclinical symptoms or consequences that fall outside of diagnostic criteria. The impact of trauma can be subtle, insidious, or outright destructive. How an event affects an individual depends on many factors, including characteristics of the individual, the type and characteristics of the event(s), developmental processes, the meaning of the trauma, and sociocultural factors.
From sleep disorders to food addictions/coping mechanisms, working with a provider to recognize traumas & triggers, create safe environments, and aid in re-regulating nervous systems in healthy & helpful manners can help restore mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
Were you exposed to antibiotics early in life?
During birth, a relatively sterile unborn child becomes a newborn coated with microbes on every surface. This collection of bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi found in and on the human body is called the microbiota. The collective genomes of the microbiota are considered to be the metagenome, and the totality of the microbiota, metagenome, and their interactions is the microbiome. The microbiota has many critical functions including protection from pathogens, development and maintenance of the immune system, and helping the host access nutrients in food. The gut microbiota has been of particular interest, as perturbations of this community have been linked to disease states including autoimmune disease and neurological disorders. Antibiotics have consistently been shown to change the gut microbiome in humans and animals.
The infant gut microbiota increases in diversity and richness while becoming more stable over time, especially once solid foods are introduced into the diet, until the community resembles an adult-like state at around three years old.
Since the gut microbiota is important in host immune development, nutrient absorption, and protection from pathogens, changes in the community composition could have deleterious effects on the host. The spectrum of diseases for which an altered gut microbiota has been implicated is quite broad. Several excellent reviews have focused on the relationship between the microbiota and host immunity. One critical aspect of this field is that T cell populations in the gut can be influenced by the microbiota and its metabolites. One of the most studied groups of bacterial metabolites, short-chain fatty acids, have been shown to exert epigenetic regulation of transcription factor genes to influence regulatory T cells in the gut. Changes in T cell populations are one mechanism by which alterations in the gut microbiota may be contributing to autoimmune diseases including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), asthma, allergies, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis (MS) Thirteen studies, including a total of 527 504 children, were included in a systematic review and concluded exposure to antibiotics in infancy was associated with an increased odds ratio (OR) of childhood overweight and obesity.
Understanding your unique gut microbiome is vital to creating an environment that allows the rest of your body to function properly & thrive!
Were you breastfed as a child?
Health outcomes in developed countries differ substantially for mothers and infants who formula feed compared with those who breastfeed. For infants, not being breastfed is associated with an increased incidence of infectious morbidity, as well as elevated risks of childhood obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, leukemia, and sudden infant death syndrome. For mothers, failure to breastfeed is associated with an increased incidence of premenopausal breast cancer, ovarian cancer, retained gestational weight gain, type 2 diabetes, myocardial infarction, and the metabolic syndrome.
Compared with breastfed infants, formula-fed infants face higher risks of infectious morbidity in the first year of life. These differences in health outcomes can be explained, in part, by specific and innate immune factors present in human milk.1 Plasma cells in the mother’s bronchial tree and intestine migrate to the mammary epithelium and produce IgA antibodies specific to antigens in the mother-infant dyad’s immediate surroundings, providing specific protection against pathogens in the mother’s environment.2 In addition, innate immune factors in milk provide protection against infection.
Not breastfeeding or weaning prematurely is associated with health risks for mothers as well as for infants. Epidemiologic data suggest that women who do not breastfeed face higher risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, as well as obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. As in the pediatric literature, most evidence arises from observational studies, which are subject to confounding by other health behaviors. For maternal health outcomes, associations are generally reported according to lifetime duration across all pregnancies, rather than duration of feeding for each pregnancy.
Given the compelling evidence for differences in health outcomes, breastfeeding should be acknowledged as the biologic norm for infant feeding. Physician counseling, clinics, and hospital practices should be aligned to ensure that the breastfeeding mother-infant dyad has the best chance for a long, successful breastfeeding experience. And, if it is not an option for a mother, practitioners should be informed so that they can best support the mother and infant through supplementary practices.
Did you achieve puberty at an early age?
Adolescence is increasingly recognized as a critical period in the life course, a time when rapid development of the brain, body, and behaviors opens a window of opportunity for interventions that may affect health throughout life.
Puberty results in very rapid somatic growth, brain development, sexual maturation, and attainment of reproductive capacity. It is accompanied by final maturation of multiple organ systems and major changes in the central nervous system and in psychosocial behavior (Patton and Viner 2007).
A range of social determinants of health arise in adolescence, with peers, schools, and eventually the workplace becoming strong determinants of health and well-being as the influence of the family wanes (Viner and others 2012). These social changes are apparent even in traditional or more sociocentric cultures. More than half of the top 10 risk factors identified in the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD 2013 Risk Factors Collaborators 2015) are largely determined during adolescence.
Adolescence is also a time when young people may modify or alter the pathways to adult health or illness (Viner and others 2012). Early life experiences may reinforce both good and poor trajectories. Similarly, resilience during adolescence may improve outcomes for young people born into adversity. The transfer from primary to secondary school, sexual debut, and entry into the labor market may be critical points for preventing the accumulation of health risk (Viner and others 2012).
Adolescence is a time of great developmental plasticity and risk for the onset of a range of disorders that can carry a high burden of disease throughout the lifespan. It offers a critical developmental window of opportunity for intervention and prevention. Puberty and brain development during adolescence are responsible for dramatic shifts in burden of disease, away from childhood conditions toward injuries and emerging noncommunicable diseases. Knowledge of the unique developmental processes that characterize adolescence and the role they play in both risk and opportunity during this phase of life is expanding rapidly. What remains is the task of translating this knowledge into intervention and prevention methods that target modifiable, developmentally sensitive mechanisms to maximize the effectiveness of intervention approaches during this phase of life.
What is your work environment like?
Chronic, sustained exposure to stressful working conditions can result in a variety of long term health problems, including: Cardiovascular disease, Musculoskeletal disorders, & Psychological disorders.
Objectively assessed job demands were significantly associated with blood pressure and Cortisol levels. The model also predicted elevations in physiological responses after individuals left work, suggesting that potentially health-impairing reactions to jobs that have high demands and low controllability might carry over to home settings and thus pose a high risk of long-term health impairment. The results have implications for the role of personal control in occupational stress.
The goal is to create conditions that do not trigger the biologic and behavioral pathways to disease & disorders. Creating and implementing practices and environmental support requires leadership and strong cross-functional collaboration outside of the traditional structures for workplace health, safety and wellness.
Knowing the impact your environment has on your overall well-being is crucial to learning how to aid your body through nutrients, adaptogens, and healthy stress management practices.
At Kingdom Health & Wellness…
We want to help you make connections between events in your life and the current state of your health. That’s why we often refer to holistic medicine as the “investigative journalism” of medicine.
We believe a practitioner should take the time to go through your health history in depth, perform advanced testing, and help you create a game-plan to address the lifestyle factors necessary to truly make a difference and improve the quality of your life.
Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (US). Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US); 2014. (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 57.) Chapter 3, Understanding the Impact of Trauma. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/
Champagne N, et al. Obesity/Overweight and the Role of Working Conditions: A Qualitative Participatory Investigation. Univ. Mass. Lowell, Oct 2012. www.uml.edu/research/centers/CPH-NEW.
Development of the human gastrointestinal microbiota and insights from high-throughput sequencing.
Dominguez-Bello MG, Blaser MJ, Ley RE, Knight R
Gastroenterology. 2011 May; 140(6):1713-9.
Rasmussen SH, Shrestha S, Bjerregaard LG, Ängquist LH, Baker JL, Jess T, Allin KH. Antibiotic exposure in early life and childhood overweight and obesity: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Diabetes Obes Metab. 2018 Jun;20(6):1508-1514. doi: 10.1111/dom.13230. Epub 2018 Feb 25. PMID: 29359849.
Sandall J, Tribe RM, Avery L, Mola G, Visser GH, Homer CS, Gibbons D, Kelly NM, Kennedy HP, Kidanto H, Taylor P, Temmerman M. Short-term and long-term effects of caesarean section on the health of women and children. Lancet. 2018 Oct 13;392(10155):1349-1357. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31930-5. PMID: 30322585.
Stuebe, Alison. “The risks of not breastfeeding for mothers and infants.” Reviews in obstetrics & gynecology vol. 2,4 (2009): 222-31.
Succession of microbial consortia in the developing infant gut microbiome.
Koenig JE, Spor A, Scalfone N, Fricker AD, Stombaugh J, Knight R, Angenent LT, Ley RE
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Mar 15; 108 Suppl 1():4578-85.
Face mapping is the ability to see the reflection of the body’s organs on each part of the face by observing the face’s complexion — such as luster, dullness and color [and breakouts!] — as well as the tongue and face expression.
What’s the meaning of face mapping, and how does it work?
It’s an ancient theory (but not a scientifically-proven process) based on the belief that symptoms that affect the face are indicative of deeper health issues.
Acne face mapping is one of the most popular application. While face mapping differs depending on the origin, most practitioners believe that acne on the forehead represents a kidney or digestive issue, while acne on the chin and jaw indicates dysfunction of the intestines and colon, as well as hormonal imbalances and high stress levels.
Chinese face mapping (or face reading) is based on the idea that poor functioning of the liver, kidneys, stomach, spleen and intestines are responsible for many problems that develop on the skin, due to how they disturb the body’s flow of energy.
Dermalogica face mapping is one popular program that’s available in certain locations, including spas and salons. Dermalogica is a company that offers skincare advice based on a combination of ancient Chinese face mapping diagnoses and science-based knowledge.
Some of the most common recommendations that consultants make based on face readings include:
Avoiding irritation caused by fragrances and skin/haircare products
Removing makeup and pore-clogging cosmetics/toxins
Preventing sun damage
Staying hydrated
Resolving stress
Eating a balanced diet
Addressing food allergies
Avoiding bacteria from contact with cellphones and dirty pillow cases
Functional Face Mapping
From our most gorgeous glowing days to our worst breakouts, our skin is constantly communicating with us about the ways our diet, health and habits impact our bodies as a whole. Face mapping is an incredibly useful tool for interpreting the “messages” behind our common complexion concerns, providing valuable insights that can help us bring greater balance to our skin and our lives.
Face maps can differ somewhat depending on their origin, but most divide the face into at least 10 different zones.
Here is a basic face mapping chart that can be used to help indicate underlying causes of skin problems:
Blemishes on your forehead — impacted by the small intestine and bladder; may be tied to unmanaged stress, poor digestion and sleep deprivation
Breakouts between/above your eyebrows or nose area — said to represent an imbalance in the kidneys, stomach, bladder or spleen. When acne develops near the nostrils, it may also be tied to gut-related problems and inflammation of the small intestine.
Lines/wrinkles between your eyebrows on the right side — can indicate that you are repressing emotions such as anger. This may be tied to poor liver function and require acts of forgiveness, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Lines/wrinkles on the left side of your eyes — may represent problems with functions of the liver and spleen
Breakouts or lines above the eyebrows — represents a problem with heart function
Puffiness under the eyes — said to be connected to poor kidney function
Acne on the chin, around the mouth and on the jaw — said to be due to imbalance in reproductive system, as well as the large intestine or colon and stomach. When acne forms below the lips and lower chin, it may represent that the whole digestive system is not functioning properly, including the spleen and kidneys.
Red cheeks — can be tied to dysfunction of the stomach, liver and lungs; may also indicate an immune response, respiratory issues or allergies
Red nose — may indicate heart-related issues like high blood pressure and inflammation
Irritation on your neck — can be representative of stress that affects the immune system
Three Major Root Causes of Acne & How to Heal Them
Environmental Toxins
If your skin issues are caused by environmental toxins, you might see blemishes between the eyebrows and on the temples, in the eye area, and on the apples of the cheeks crossing over the nose. In this instance, your body could be telling you that your liver is stressed. This can cause inflammation around the temples, your kidneys or thyroid are imbalanced which can lead to eye puffiness and darkness, or your vascular system is under pressure which may be connected to the flare-ups on your cheeks.
What you can do:
Focus on aiding your detox system through movement, deep breathing exercises, & nutrients
Remove excess toxins & inflammatory foods from your diet/lifestyle
Hormonal acne can also show up between the eyebrows, on your temples, and around your eye area because of hormonal changes that happened each month, which can stress the liver. Cysts that appear from the corners of the mouth and directly down to the chin could represent imbalance in your colon, and can manifest as excess mucus clusters and angry, red cysts.
What you can do:
Aid your liver & hormone organs with increased water intake, leafy greens, & other nutrients
Calm your mind and make sure you are getting at least seven hours of sleep.
Adaptogens such as maca powder or rhodiola can help even out mild hormonal imbalances.
Talk with a practitioner about getting to the root cause of your hormonal imbalances & create an action plan specifically for you & your body.
Imbalanced Gut
The gut is the root of lots of health problems, including acne. An imbalanced gut can show up on the forehead (which might indicates problems in the small intestine); below the cheekbones, from nostril to ear lobe (this could suggest a stomach imbalance); or the upper lip (another sign of possible stomach woes).
What you can do:
Aid your gut with vital nutrients, hydration, & whole food probiotics
Address deep gut imbalances such as stomach lining and acidity
Occasional blemishes, redness, or lines in any of these zones is no reason for panic! If you do have skin issues or deep lines that concern you, consider functional medicine. Holistic practices such as acupuncture or PRF facials are great at reducing stress and facial lines as it improves your body’s circulation and promotes collagen production. Herbs are a great complement to strengthen organ function and regulate hormones.
For in-depth testing to accurately get to the root of your skin issues, contact our office & schedule with one of our functional clinicians!
Resources:
McCarthy, P., 2007. The Face Reader. [online] Available at: <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zY5bANKdpg4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
Miroslav Stefanov, Michael Potroz, Jungdae Kim, Jake Lim, Richard Cha, Min-Ho Nam,
The Primo Vascular System as a New Anatomical System,
Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies, Volume 6, Issue 6,2013, Pages 331-338, ISSN 2005-2901,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jams.2013.10.001.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2005290113002082)
Wa CV, Maibach HI. Mapping the human face: biophysical properties. Skin Res Technol. 2010 Feb;16(1):38-54. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0846.2009.00400.x. PMID: 20384882.
Xue CC, Zhang AL, Greenwood KM, Lin V, Story DF. Traditional chinese medicine: an update on clinical evidence. J Altern Complement Med. 2010 Mar;16(3):301-12. doi: 10.1089/acm.2009.0293. PMID: 20192915
After a couple of months planning, we are delighted to announce the launch of our newly redesigned website. We wanted a new website to better collaborate with our customers, distribution partners. We hope you like the fresh new look to the brand website, and the improved navigation that will allow you to find our new developments. We value your opinionPlease contact us to let us know what you think of our new website – all comments and feedback are welcome. Please also let us know if you cannot find something or would like to make any suggestions for new information. Many thanks for your ongoing support and we look forward to hearing from you.
Here at Kingdom Health, we do not guess – we test. Our providers start care with in-depth functional testing – not your conventional lab work. We test based on your individual health history, your symptoms, and your lifestyle. And, the test we do are full panel tests so that we can uncover what is going on physiologically and biochemically.
Don’t Weight! A Better Approach to Healthy Weight
What were some of your biggest losses, traumas & life events?
Were you exposed to antibiotics early in life?
Were you breastfed as a child?
Did you achieve puberty at an early age?
What is your work environment like?