Here’s a quick way to tell if you’ve picked the right pediatrician for your new baby: Tell him the baby spits up or vomits and cries about it afterwards.

If he smiles reassuringly and says, “that’s what babies do,” you may have found a keeper.

If he reaches for his prescription pad… well, it’s time to find a new doctor.

It’s crazy to think doctors are diagnosing newborns with stomach acid disorders such as gastroesophageal reflux disease, aka GERD, in the first months of life — crazy, but it’s happening every day.

And of course, every diagnosis has a drug, right? So according to a new editorial in the Journal of Pediatrics, some doctors are actually giving babies and even newborns stomach-acid drugs such as the proton pump inhibitors used by millions of adults.

Forget for a moment the potential for side effects, which are bad enough to scare even adults away from these meds, because, as Dr. Eric Hassall writes, there’s an even bigger problem with this growing practice: It doesn’t work.

He should know, because he’s done some of the research on PPIs and children himself — and he actually supports the use of these meds in kids older than 12 months (boooo!).

But he draws the line on babies.

Because babies can’t actually tell us how they’re feeling, studies measure their levels of crying and irritability. And repeated studies have shown that babies who get PPIs don’t cry any more or any less than babies who get placebos.

In other words, they’re not crying because they have GERD. They’re crying for some other reason, or maybe no reason it all.

Dr. Hassall puts it best in his editorial: “Because of the high prevalence of spitting up, unexplained crying, or both in otherwise healthy infants, these symptoms and signs are just ‘life,’ not a disease, and, as such, do not warrant drug therapy.”

I wish Dr. Hassall had ended his editorial there, but he didn’t.

Like I said, he actually supports the use of these meds in older kids — so he had to tack on one last ominous sentence: “There is plenty of time for that in later years.”

Ask most doctors, and they’ll tell you that when it comes to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), you have one of two choices: drugs or surgery. But a recent study should have them – and you – considering a third option.

After following patients for 12 years, the researchers determined that “both treatments leave room for therapeutic improvement.”

That’s one way of putting it. Of the patients who had surgery, only about 50 percent remained in remission, and only 40 percent of the patients on meds remained in remission.

But even then, postoperative difficulties had many patients trading one set of symptoms for another: heartburn and regurgitation for difficulties in swallowing, excessive flatulence, and the inability to belch or vomit. And to make matters worse, many of the surgery patients (38 percent) eventually had to go on drugs anyway.

If you think this makes acid-suppressing drugs like Prilosec look like the best possible option, you’re not the only one. Dr. Sutart Jon Spechler of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas said, “I find it difficult to fathom why a typical GERD patient would opt for a potentially hazardous surgery to fix a problem managed almost as well by a reasonably safe medication.”

Of course you’d expect him to say that. The study was funded by AstraZeneca, the maker of Prilosec.

If this study was all you had to go by, you might come to the same conclusion. Fortunately, there’s plenty of other information on this drug.

For starters, Prilosec is only approved for short-term use. The manufacturer itself doesn’t recommend using beyond 14 days. Could that be because long-term use of the drug in rats led to an increase in gastroinstestinal cancers? Or maybe because it can cause joint, muscle, and leg pain? Or possibly it’s because of the diarrhea, abdominal pain, and nausea?

Whatever the reason, I can’t think of one person who only took this drug for 14 days. The study itself examined patients who had been taking it for 12 whole years! Even if patients tried to stop taking the drug, they’d be on it again before long because it doesn’t fix the problem. Once you stop taking it, all of your old symptoms are likely to flare up again in less than a week.

The bottom line is that drugs like Prilosec will come up short every time. It’s part of a class of drugs called proton pump inhibitors that work by reducing stomach acid to around 10 percent of normal levels. Problem is, you need stomach acid. And in reality, many of the people who have reflux problems are actually suffering from too little stomach acid – not too much. Which is why, as contradictory as this might sound, you should actually be looking for ways to increase your stomach acid levels.

One of the great pioneers of stomach acid is Dr. Jonathan Wright, and you can learn more on the real causes of heartburn, acid reflux and GERD from his website, www.wrightnewsletter.com. For a more detailed explanation – and a solution – pick up his book, “Why Stomach Acid Is Good for You.” It’s widely available from bookstores, online booksellers and libraries. v In the meantime, try some DGL, or deglycyrrhizinated licorice. You can find it in a vitamin shop or health food store, where it’s often sold as a chew. Just don’t confuse it with sugary licorice candies – they’re definitely not the same thing.

Many people who use DGL get the quick relief they’re looking for… with none of the problems of meds.

May 2008 PDF

SPECIAL EDITION

Drug-free in 90 days

You may feel like you’re sentenced to a lifetime of dependency on a pile of prescription meds, but think again. Just 90 days from today, you could be off your drugs for good.

If I’ve proven one thing in my years of practice, it’s that I can help my patients finally be well again—without resorting to a prescription pad.

And if your mainstream doc hasn’t devised a plan to get you off drugs, blame it on the company he’s keeping. A barrage of drug reps and a dogmatic medical association have convinced him (wore him down) into believing that drugs are the answer—the only answer.

Let’s start with cholesterol, hypertension and GERD. For each of these conditions, I am offering you here the general guidance that will help you to free yourself from medications that you don’t truly need. Keep in mind that some recommendations will overlap, because, as I frequently tell you, your body is a wondrous, interconnected creation. And that’s why mainstream medicine fails. It looks at you as a heart, a blood vessel, or—God forbid—just a number on one of those slippery, sliding scales that were created by drug company medicine.

The first thing you need to do is to have a conversation with your doctor. Tell him that you have a goal of being medication-free. He may look as if he has been struck, protest loudly, and may even say “Absolutely not!” Stick to your guns. Let him know that you’re not deserting him, but have come to enlist his help on your journey back to wellness.

If he tells you that it can’t work or that he won’t work with you, find a new doctor.

It can work. I’ve seen it work with my own patients. It might not work the way some doctors practice medicine, but I treat people—not their symptoms.

Once I have a handle on a patient’s lifestyle, family history and interests, I recommend a course of action to get them back in balance—and to wean them off drugs. And just as often, I’m greeted with an incredulous look as if I’d suggested something scandalous.

If getting people off drugs is considered scandalous, well then, I’m happy to be guilty as charged. I get to know my patients face-to-face, not chart-to-chart—and you deserve a doctor who does the same.

Get off cholesterol drugs before the kids get back to school

The biggest gun on the market is statins. If your doc put you on one, you probably thought, “That’s it. I’m now a statin-lifer!” At least, that’s what all the TV commercials and magazine ads would have you believing.

Cholesterol is the main building block for all of your sex and stress hormones. It also helps maintain the integrity and function of every cell in your body. For starters, it’s a repair molecule. If you get a rip in the inner lining of one of your coronary arteries, maybe due to damage caused by high blood pressure, cholesterol leaps into action to plug up the wound. Think of it as your body’s self-produced glue, manufactured by your liver. You need adequate amounts of cholesterol to run your body. So it flies in the face of common sense and good science to aggressively scrape your body clean of every drop of it. But mainstream medicine doesn’t let these pesky facts get in its way.

Statins are criminally overused—up to twice as much as they are needed, and to the tune of $22 billion per year. We’ve become a nation cuckoo over cholesterol.

If you don’t already have heart disease or multiple risk factors, including a parent or sibling with heart disease at a young age (under 60), the studies clearly show statin drugs are of minimal benefit.

Big Pharma and its M.D.s-for-hire have taken a complex issue and slapped an oversimplified (but profitable) drug “solution” on it based on very faulty science.

Cholesterol has become the most maligned and poorly understood element of the human body. High cholesterol has been targeted as the cause of heart disease—a misconception that shows a grotesque ignorance and distortion of the medical science. As I discuss in a moment, cholesterol particle size and type are much more important than cholesterol levels.

Skip a cure that’s worse than the disease

About half of all first heart attacks occur in folks with so-called “normal” cholesterol levels. That blows any idea of “normal” right out of the water! It’s just an arbitrary guideline. And yet, this guideline is what most docs still rely on to “treat” your cholesterol condition.

Statins lower levels of coenzyme Q10. This would make me laugh at the irony if the problem weren’t so deadly serious. CoQ10 is a key player in energy production, and your heart requires a ton of it. This is why so many patients on statins suffer from muscle weakness and breakdown and why —irony of ironies—there’s increasing concern over heart failure from these drugs.

Also, dropping your cholesterol levels too low and too fast can cause a host of problems, such as memory loss, erectile dysfunction (ED), and nerve damage, and may even increase the risk of cancer.

So the idea that you need a statin drug in order to be healthier just because your numbers are high is absurd. It’s a classic example of brilliant marketing combined with incomplete—and rigged—science.

Foundations first

You probably think that if you eat a plate of cholesterol-rich scrambled eggs, your cholesterol levels will go through the roof. Not so. If you’re like most people, the amount of dietary cholesterol you ingest has little impact on your body’s natural cholesterol levels. Your liver makes production adjustments up or down based on what you eat. However, that’s not a license to eat whatever is put in front of you. Practice moderation and smart selections to improve all aspects of your health—not just your heart health. To reach and maintain ideal cholesterol levels, reject America’s standard anti-food diet that includes fast-food hamburgers, ice cream, highly processed baked goods and sugar-laden sodas. Vegetables should cover half your plate, with protein and starches getting a quarter each.

Here’s a little more guidance to help you decide what to put on your plate:

• Keep your selections simple.
  
• Choose vegetables of all colors. Steam them lightly for optimal taste and nutrient retention.
  
• Satisfy your cravings for a sweet treat by eating moderate amounts of fruit. It’s plenty sweet enough to have as a dessert—your taste buds just need to be recalibrated.
  
• Stick to a moderate intake of protein, avoiding anything that has been shot full of hormones and antibiotics. Fish, free-range chicken (leave the skin on—you need some fat), and beef—preferably from organically raised cattle and from a local source. That’s the best way to ensure that you’re eating the healthiest steak and burgers possible.
  
• Eat eggs every day if you want to, cooked with butter or olive oil. The anti-egg propaganda is nothing more than an offshoot of the marketing of cholesterol as heart enemy #1.
  
• If you like soy, use only the fermented kinds (miso and tempeh). Skip those big globs of tofu, soy powders, bars and soy milk, which for the most part are nutrient-robbing anti-foods.
  
• For your starches, choose minimally processed whole grains and starchy vegetables like potatoes (I didn’t say french fries), sweet potatoes, and winter squash (in moderation).
  
• Don’t even think about eating anything promoted as “low-fat.” That’s just shorthand for “high-sugar.” And a low-fat diet may actually contribute to heart problems. Nothing promotes undesirable, risk-heightening, small and dense LDL particles more than highly refined and processed carbs (such as cookies, cakes, crackers, and chips) and anything else with wheat and high fructose corn syrup.
  
• You need fat, plain and simple. Natural fats are perfect, derived from such sources as fish, healthy meats, nuts and nut butters, avocados, real butter (no margarine), and olive oil. You can even include small amounts of full-fat cheese and yogurt if you like. Trans fats (aka hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats) found in solid margarines and packaged baked and frozen goods should not be eaten, period.
  

Get off your La-Z-Boy

Studies show that just as eating well can help to reduce blood-cholesterol levels, exercise can do so as well. Even the drugmakers say you need to increase your level of exercise and fix your diet. (Of course, that message gets trampled in the mad rush to sell pills.)

The best exercise is the one you’ll do. Get a pedometer, because people who use one tend to walk more. Build up to 10,000 steps per day. And if you’re really serious, add some strength training. Use weights, weight machines, elastic bands, or even your own body weight as resistance. (You might try yoga, for example.)

Keep in mind that I’m giving you 90 days to build up your activity level, so you don’t have to head out tomorrow and try to run a marathon. That’s not necessary—but getting more active is. Don’t wait for tomorrow—start today. Keep up the momentum, just as soon as you’re done reading this issue!

Other forms of exercise you can try include gardening, dancing, chopping wood, bicycling and swimming. Hike on a local trail. Turn on the radio and dance in your living room. Give your tennis arm some practice. Have fun—exercise isn’t supposed to be so deadly serious. In the process, you’ll live longer and happier while making a meaningful dent in your risk of heart disease.

A positive outlet will bring you a positive cholesterol level

Do you want to know what’ll kill you faster than bad food, a sedentary lifestyle and cigarettes combined? Stress. It will increase your cholesterol level: When your body perceives a threat, it uses up more cholesterol in order to support its stress response. More important, stress provokes inflammation and magnifies your risk of heart disease and an early death.

I’m not telling you to perform a miracle and have zero stress. As a rule, stress is one of those givens —like death and taxes (and the bumbling of the FDA). However, you need to deal with it by becoming its manager instead of its victim. Your foundation has already been laid with real food and regular physical activity, which will build physical hardiness. The emotional stuff’s a horse of a different color. If you focus on the negatives, guess what happens: It becomes your world. And so starts that vicious, disease-inducing cycle that will literally wring the life right out of you.

I can’t emphasize enough the health-promoting, stress-evaporating power of time spent in a worship group, in a social club, and with friends and family members. Proven practices like deep breathing, prayer, meditation, and biofeedback can also help you manage your stress reaction. I recommend a form of biofeedback called Heartmath, which is being used successfully all over the world. You can purchase what’s called an Em Wave (for about $200) at www.emwave.com. You’ll quickly learn relaxation techniques with this excellent tool.

Nutraceuticals for lower cholesterol

There are natural supplements you can take that, along with your positive eating plan, will promote all-around good health while getting your cholesterol levels back in balance:

• Multivitamin: It’s a must as a blanket insurance policy. I recommend a food-form multivitamin from New Chapter, Megafood, or Garden of Life, because your body can handle them better. Men, choose one without iron. Ladies, be sure to get some extra calcium and magnesium, and men—just extra magnesium. You can take just plain old calcium and magnesium citrate, 600 to 1,200 mg of calcium and 400 to 800 mg of magnesium daily.
  
• Fish oil: This potent anti-inflammatory can protect against sudden death from abnormal heart rhythms, bring down high triglyceride levels and promote the desirable large, buoyant LDL particles. It may also boost good HDL cholesterol. Take 2,000 mg total EPA and DHA (the active form of omega-3s, as spelled out on the label). If your triglyceride level is above 150 (the ideal is below 100), take up to 3,000 mg daily.
  
• Vitamin D: Another anti-inflammatory, vitamin D protects against heart disease. Take 1,000 to 2,000 IUs daily. Ask your doctor to check your vitamin D level. (The optimum blood level of 25-hydroxy vitamin D is between 50 and 60 ng/ml.)
  
• Probiotics: They will promote healthy bacteria in your gut, balance your immune system, and, most importantly, normalize your cholesterol level. Take 10 billion colony-forming units (CFUs) daily to keep your gut “colonized” with good bacteria.
  
• Red yeast rice: I’m talking about a natural statin, which is why I caution you to treat it pretty much like a drug. It’ll improve your cholesterol and reduce inflammation. Red yeast rice behaves in a more balanced way in the body and causes fewer side effects than prescription forms. More and more cardiologists are using it—especially for people who can’t tolerate or simply refuse to take prescription statin drugs. It contains monacolins, which are the active ingredient, and it’s chemically identical to one of the first classes of statins, lovastatin. I recommend 400 to 600 mg per day, with the approval of your doctor.
  
• Antioxidants: I recommend Zyflamend from New Chapter or Vitanox from Medi-Herb. If you take extra vitamin E, choose a mixed tocopherol form (preferably one that also includes the four tocotrienols). Gamma tocopherol, not alpha tocopherol, protects LDL cholesterol from harmful oxidation. Don’t take over 400 units per day, and let your doctor know what you’re taking, because vitamin E has mild blood-thinning effects.

Here are additional options to round out your tool kit, based on your individual need:

• Plant sterols: They reduce absorption of cholesterol, lower levels 5 to 15 percent, and may confer some anti-inflammatory benefits.
  
• Tocotrienols: Part of the vitamin E family, this powerful anti-oxidant lowers LDL cholesterol and may protect against stroke and cancer.
  
• Sytrinol: Derived from citrus fruits, it lowers LDL-cholesterol and triglyceride levels while promoting favorable large and fluffy LDL-particle size. Take 150 mg twice daily.
  
• Pantethine: It lowers LDL cholesterol, boosts HDL and brings down triglycerides. Take 300 mg three times per day with meals.
  
• Niacin: The RDA for this B-complex vitamin (B3) is 20 mg daily. But prescription doses of up to 2,000 mg per day are used to boost HDL and bring down triglycerides (a pattern typically found in people with, or at risk for, diabetes). It’s effective, but it causes unpleasant flushing. Regular old off-the-shelf niacin will do if it’s taken with meals. Start at 250 mg per day with dinner. That dose can then be increased by 250 mg per week. This needs professional supervision, as liver and blood sugar tests need to be followed.

A primo blood test

I’m assuming your doctor is looking at a basic blood-cholesterol test: total, LDL, HDL and triglycerides, and hopefully a C-reactive protein that measures inflammation and is a strong predictor, when high, of heart-disease risk. (Ideally you want it below 1.0). I recommend you ask for the VAP test from Atherotec or a similar test from Berkeley Heart Labs or Spectra Cell. They all supply similarly fine details that allow a more accurate assessment of risk.

Focus on these two numbers

If you’re numbers-oriented and want to reduce your heart-disease risk, work on boosting your HDL to over 50 and reducing your triglycerides (TG’s) to below 100. These lower heart-disease risk more than worrying about lowering your LDL. Low TG’s favor a desirable, large and fluffy LDL particle type. Statins don’t budge either of these very much.

Boost HDL by up to 50 percent and lower TG’s:

• Niacin (Up to 2,000 mg a day)
• High dose fish oil (3,000 mg EPA+DHA daily)
• Exercise
• Cut back on carbohydrates, and cut out entirely the highly-processed stuff

Lower your blood pressure without beta blockers

If you were diagnosed with high blood pressure, your doctor probably made a notation on your chart that you have essential hypertension. That’s what over 90 percent of cases are called, and it means “cause unknown.”

Nonsense. If you can normalize high blood pressure with real food, exercise, appropriate weight loss and good stress management, the causes are fake food, inactivity, overweight, and poor stress-handling skills. Plain and simple.

But the term essential hypertension is a cop-out that results in the overuse of drugs. And as it turns out, two common drugs used to treat high blood pressure, hydrochlorothiazide and beta blockers, hasten the onset of diabetes. Many doctors are unaware of this not-so-little secret. And many who do know about it hem and haw on the subject. After all, those drugs lower blood pressure! But why choose the lesser of two evils, when there are solutions that don’t involve putting you at risk for the devastation of diabetes.

Smart changes will bring you smart results

Salt gets a lot of blame for hypertension. And in some cases, it’s true. Excess salt intake in salt-sensitive individuals equals increased blood pressure. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. Excess salt causes the retention of fluid and actually triggers a mild surge of your stress hormones. If your blood pressure is creeping up, cut back on the salt. Also knock it off with buying those nasty processed foods—they’re overloaded with sodium.

If you must have salt, use the right kind. Plain old table salt is a processed chemical that’s foreign to your body. A bit of sea salt is okay, however, as it has a full complement of health-supporting trace minerals—like the sea water you’re made of. You can also fill your saltshaker with Mrs. Dash, a salt-free spice mix—or create your own. You may initially struggle with salt cravings, but they’ll disappear in about two weeks.

If you drink alcohol, cut back. More than a drink or two per day can increase your blood pressure and also lead to weight gain due to empty calories, which can be another factor in your escalating blood pressure.

Even if you’re 50 to 100 pounds overweight, losing just 10 to 20 pounds can make a difference. But don’t try to lose all that in just a week or two. More than two pounds per week will be mostly water, not fat, and won’t improve your health. Cutting 200 carbohydrate calories per day adds up to a 25-pound weight loss in a year. That’s about two light beers right there. That weight difference will help send your blood-pressure number south, where it belongs.

Clean up your stuff

The cornerstone of your blood-pressure-lowering campaign consists of real food, exercise and stress management. It’s what I call “cleaning up your stuff,” and this trio is many times more powerful —and ultimately a lot cheaper—than any pills you can take. And taking supplements can help move things along while you fix the underlying problem. Again, you have 90 days to make changes. I recommend the slow-and-steady approach, because that’s the one that will stick for the long haul.

• Fruits and vegetables: Bump up your intake. They’re rich in potassium and magnesium—minerals that relax your blood vessels and lower your blood pressure.
  
• Skip these: Heavily processed, salt-laden, alien-to-God’s-creation foods.
  
• Breathe: No, I’m not being a smart-aleck. While you may do it every day, there are a variety of ways to breathe. Check out RESPERATE (www.resperate.com), a clever device that will guide you toward a healthy breathing pattern and lower your blood pressure. It’s supported by solid research and is recommended by major institutions like the Mayo Clinic.

Get this key blood test

Ask your doctor to test your vitamin D status. Here’s why: Vitamin D performs a lot of key functions in your body. One task is regulating the action of your renin-angiotensin system, which is your hormone system responsible for regulating your blood pressure. If this system is inappropriately activated, your body will retain salt and fluid, increasing your blood pressure. This could be an important factor in your high blood pressure —as it is for many people. Vitamin D works at the fundamental level of the cell nucleus to regulate genes that influence plasma renin. Over half the population is deficient in vitamin D. Correcting this deficiency helps normalize blood pressure by normalizing renin activity, in addition to conferring a whole host of other important health benefits.

The renin-angiotensin system is the target of two types of drugs, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs). These drugs will no doubt drop your blood pressure, but they also carry side effects. Vitamin D3 works similarly, but safely at a more fundamental level.

In my own practice, I’ve found that correcting vitamin D deficiencies with 1,000 to 2,000 IUs daily is all that’s needed to normalize some patients’ blood pressure. It makes more sense to give the body what it’s missing before you start chasing after high blood pressure with a drug hammer. That’s good medicine. If your 25-hydroxy vitamin D level is too low (<30 nanograms/milliliter), get it up to the 50 to 60 range and see where your pressure goes—it just may solve the problem.

To a regimen of vitamin D, I recommend adding:

• 4 Fish oil: Omega-3 fats from fish oil loosen up your blood vessels and lower blood pressure, but over 90 percent of the population doesn’t get enough. Fish oil protects against heart disease, diabetes, dementia and cancer while supporting joint health and a healthy mood. The best natural sources are cold-water fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines and herring. If you opt for a supplement form, shoot for 2,000 milligrams total EPA plus DHA—the active forms.
  
• 4 Magnesium: Deficiencies of this key mineral are rampant thanks to the Standard American Diet, with over 50 percent of the population not getting enough. It has mild “calcium-channel-blocker” effects, which means it’ll help to relax tight, narrow blood vessels and reduce blood pressure. Magnesium is found in fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. Add 400 to 600 mg from food-form vitamins or up to 1,200 mg of the widely available magnesium citrate capsules.

There are several well-designed blood-pressure remedies to consider that drop blood pressure and support general good health. I’ve seen great results with “Blood Pressure Take Care” from New Chapter, an innovative company in Bennington, Vermont. Its premium products are available at retail stores and on the Internet (www.newchapter.com). I have no financial ties with the company—I’ve just witnessed the positive effects its products have had on my own patients.

This particular formulation includes specific probiotics, grape-seed extract and hawthorn. These work safely in combination on multiple pathways to help reduce blood pressure. They also supply antioxidant support and help maintain healthy levels of HDL “good” cholesterol. Also, check out Vasotensin, a unique formulation that’s derived from bonito fish and is made by Metagenics (www.metagenics.com). It helps prevent blood vessels from narrowing.

Freedom from GERD medications in 90 days

Got heartburn? The drug companies salivate at the thought, and mainstream medicine has turned this very treatable problem into a chronic medical condition. It’s not. Most people get heartburn now and then. A regular occurrence could be a problem, but let’s separate fact from fiction before we jump on the purple-pill bandwagon.

A regular occurrence of heartburn is called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which occurs when stomach-acid backflow (reflux) erodes the lining of your esophagus. This can worsen to Barrett’s esophagus, which increases your risk of esophageal cancer. The reason why doctors worry over heartburn and tend to jump the gun is due to statistics: Nearly 16,000 people will be diagnosed with esophageal cancer this year, and 13,000 will die from it.

You can often get rid of heartburn by taking an acid-blocking drug—either an OTC H2 blocker like Pepsid, Zantac or Tagamet or a much more powerful proton-pump inhibitor like Medium, Proton, Propose or Prefaced. Indeed, you can use any of these drugs now and then to kill heartburn without risking a lot of damage to your health. They can also be used short-term to help you heal ulcers or esophageal erosions.

But it’s a very bad idea for you to take them long term and certainly not every single day. As you age, you make less stomach acid—but your need for it doesn’t decrease. Also, as you age, the protective mucosal lining of your stomach and your intestine may thin out. The regular use of NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, naproxen and aspirin, or even inadequate nutrition, can cause this. Another big cause of a thinned-out lining is prolonged stress, which can occur if you’ve handled a lot of emotional or physical stress poorly over many years. Cortisol will actually gnaw away at this lining over time.

Reduced stomach acid with or without a thinned-out GI mucosal layer can cause the symptoms of GERD. In short, your digestive system just isn’t working as well as it should. It’s estimated that up to 90 percent of all cases of GERD may be due to either of these problems—not too much stomach acid, as the Nexium pushers want you to believe. So the regular use of any acid-blocking medication is less than ideal (read “bad medicine”).

Don’t settle for feeling better temporarily—we can fix the problem permanently. The following non-drug measures will control symptoms of GERD, because for the most part, with this condition, when you get rid of the symptoms, you get rid of the problem.

Here are the basics to start with:

• Drop five to 10 pounds: Losing just this small amount may make the difference—even if it doesn’t bring you back to your normal body weight. Excess weight around the middle only serves to push stomach acid back up into your esophagus.
  
• Avoid tight clothes and belts: Literally loosen up, or you’ll be helping to push acid back up into your esophagus.
  
• Eat smaller meals: Overeating causes stress on your system. Finish up three to four hours before bedtime. And what you do eat, chew thoroughly.
  
• Kick butts: Smoking aggravates heartburn problems. (Though if you keep smoking, heartburn may be the least of your worries.)
  
• Raise your bed: Lift the head of your bed four to six inches or sleep in a recliner to help get rid of symptoms. Obviously it won’t fix the underlying problem, but it’s another tool that will help provide relief.
  
• Watch for food triggers: Pay attention to and minimize likely food-type instigators. Caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, hot spices and peppers, tomatoes, mint, and peppermint are common culprits.
  
• Protect your GI mucosal lining: Clamp down on cortisol, or it’ll continue to wear down your lining. A stress-reduction program will maximize your chances of long-term healing. Talk therapy, prayer, meditation and long hikes are just some of the ways to release the steam from the cortisol pressure cooker.
  
• Cut out NSAID’s: It’s bad enough that they kill 15,000 people per year. There’s no point in taking a chance on thinning out the mucosal lining of your stomach and intestines. A highly effective and safe botanical anti-inflammatory is Zyflamend made by New Chapter (www.newchapter.com).

The next level

To improve your gut function, the following will help you pull out all the stops:

• Probiotics: They provide general gut support and anti-inflammatory protection. Take at least 10 billion colony-forming units daily. This usually amounts to two capsules twice daily, and preferably with food. If you don’t like to take a lot of supplements at once, feel free to take one in the morning and the other one before bedtime.
  
• Fish oil supplement: 2,000 milligrams total EPA and DHA daily to help tune up your gut function.
  
• Digestive enzymes: Take these before a meal as part of an overall treatment plan for improving your digestion and relieving symptoms. Jarrow-Zymes Plus by Jarrow Formulas is a quality, widely available product.
  
• The Heidelberg test: Ask your doctor to determine whether or not you have too little stomach acid by ordering this test. It involves your swallowing a small capsule and waiting for 40 minutes.
  
• Betaine hydrochloride: You can also diagnose and treat low stomach acid with betaine hydrochloride, which will promote higher stomach acid levels. Do this only under supervision of an experienced practitioner.
  
• Bitters: These stimulate the digestive juices (aka stomach acid), a fact well known for centuries. Folks used to drink bitter aperitif beverages before meals. Swedish bitters (without alcohol) are widely available in stores and on the Internet. (Just type “Swedish bitters” into www.google.com to locate sources.) Try it before your meals.

Pump up your GI mucosa

There are several things you can use to build a thinned-out GI mucosal layer, whatever the cause. Mallow root (marshmallow), deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL), aloe vera gel, zinc carnosine, the amino acid glutamate and mastic gum are all known for their gut-healing properties. There are a number of top-line supplement companies that combine all of these healing agents into one convenient formulation so you don’t have to swallow a hundred pills per day. One such product is GI Revive from Designs for Health. Another useful product is Seavive, a fish protein derivative that helps heal the GI tract. It’s made by Proper Nutrition (www.propernutrition.com). You may need to take these products for three to 12 months to build up your GI mucosa.

Mark your calendar…

By the end of this summer, you could be off your drugs for good. I want you to look back on 2008 as the year you made your personal turnaround in terms of wellness. And when this natural regimen works for you, think of how many people you can influence to get off of their own crippling drug prescriptions and onto a new way of actually feeling healthy for the first time in years.

Drugs can intensify GERD symptoms

According to the National Institutes of Health, the following drugs and drug categories are associated with GERD:

• Calcium-channel blockers for high blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythms (ex. Norvasc, Diltiazem and Procardia)
• Tricyclic antidepressants (ex. Elavil)
• Sedatives for insomnia and anxiety (ex. Ativan, Valium and Klonopin)
• Beta blockers
• Bronchodilators for asthma (ex. Albuterol)

A hidden cause of GERD

If you have developed a hiatal hernia (HH), that may explain your GERD. It’s caused by a weakness in the tight band of tissue, called the lower esophageal sphincter, between your esophagus and your stomach. A barium swallow test can diagnose it, as can an esphophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD)—a mouthful that basically means a slender tube with a camera is inserted down into the stomach. It’s a safe, well-tolerated procedure, and it’s done under sedation.

Some chiropractors can pop a HH back into place with brief finger pressure. This may hold for weeks or months. There are also several newer, minimally invasive procedures performed at larger medical centers that can correct the problem and get you off drugs (see www.mayoclinic.org/minimally-invasive-surgery).

Also, make the changes I’m recommending here for GERD relief without drugs.

December 2007 PDF

Redefining “normal”: Is your doctor aware of these emerging markers of heart-health risk?

The medical mainstream clings to measuring cholesterol levels as if they were the last life raft in the sea of civilized medicine. It seems as though too many doctors have been programmed to believe that cholesterol numbers are the defining criteria for the presence or absence of heart disease. The truth of the matter is that this pigeonhole approach has made them miss the bigger picture.

This national obsession with cholesterol isn’t really a surprise when you consider who’s helping to drive it—the drug companies. Cholesterol drugs aren’t just another product in their profitable inventory. Lipitor alone is a $13 billion plus-per-year payday for its maker, Pfizer, and that’s hardly small potatoes.

But your cholesterol number is just one of the many pieces making up your heart-health puzzle. No matter what the clever ad campaign says, there’s more to protecting your heart than just solely focusing on lowering your cholesterol levels. Here’s an eye opener for you: Nearly half of those who suffer from an initial heart attack have normal cholesterol levels. I remember one night when I was on call in our little 24-bed hospital. I had admitted two patients with heart attacks, and both had rock-solid, normal cholesterol levels. One of the patients was even on Lipitor.

So much for the grand herald of heart disease. It’s time to set aside the snapshot approach to your heart health, because it’s just not enough. The last thing I want is for you to have a heart attack when you thought you were in the clear, all because you were told your cholesterol level was normal.

And there are some surprising links to heart disease that tend to get brushed aside in favor of the cholesterol fanfare.

Cholesterol’s conniving instigator

I’ve talked before about the insidious nature of inflammation. It’s a chameleon, quietly blending in with and playing in the background of numerous disease processes. Those diseases get the medical limelight once onstage—but no one finds the underlying cause to be glamorous enough to give much attention. And it’s the very thing we should be keeping a close eye on.

Inflammation is how your immune system spells “confusion.” That turmoil results in a barrage of beatings to the rest of your body, changing the role of the immune system from protector to a destructive force. And where your heart’s concerned, ongoing inflammation aggravates any existing plaque, making it more likely to break open and block an artery, causing a heart attack.

Inflammation also injures the lining of the blood vessels that supply nourishing blood to your heart. That injured lining provides a birthing ground for the formation of cholesterol-laden plaque, which can eventually break open and cause a heart attack.

The best measure of inflammation is the highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) blood test. Let’s focus on three main factors that feed the inflammation beast: blood sugar, insulin and fat cells. Too much of any of them is a bad thing. Too much fat, especially centered around your middle, promotes inflammation. Even a 10 to 20 pound weight loss can make a big difference.

Insulin lowers blood sugar by pushing it into your cells where it gets burned up as energy. Diabetes occurs when your pancreas can’t make enough insulin to get the job done. By then, both your insulin and blood sugar levels are too high. Even before diabetes happens, there’s a period—often years—where your blood sugar may look “normal,” but you’re making too much insulin for your own good. High levels of insulin suppress your blood sugar levels. Your body’s cells try to resist insulin’s efforts to push sugar into them from your blood. This is called “insulin resistance.” Genes are a factor but the main causes are a lousy diet, excess body weight and too little physical activity.

High insulin levels—even in the presence of “normal” blood sugar levels—are a menace: They contribute to the formation of atherosclerotic plaque, promote the oxidation of LDL cholesterol into its more harmful form, and increase the likelihood that you’ll form artery-blocking clots. They also make you retain water and sodium, which elevates blood pressure and boosts blood triglyceride (TG) levels—adding to your risk of heart disease.

This is an intricate, dynamic interplay between insulin and cholesterol, and that’s a big reason why snapshot cholesterol levels barely scratch the surface.

Let’s be clear: Cholesterol is actually an important molecule in your body, serving as a building block for your hormones. It’s also an integral part of your cell membranes and works as a repair molecule. Cholesterol is doing all sorts of things, depending on what your body needs. But when inflammation gets in the mix, it basically instigates cholesterol to misbehave.

For example, high blood-sugar and insulin levels tell your liver to package up LDL “bad” cholesterol, also created in your liver, into apo-lipoprotein B-100, Apo B-100 for short, where it can accumulate on your artery walls as dangerous plaque.

On the flip side, you have apolipoprotein A1(Apo A1), which packages up your HDL “good” cholesterol and carries it away from the artery walls and back to your liver. There, it gets broken down and eventually excreted through your bowels. So the balance between cholesterol influx (into the artery wall) and efflux (back to the liver) is a key factor in what’s really going on with cholesterol and how likely it is to cause heart trouble.

Is your cholesterol fluffy?

Heart-disease risk involves more than just how much Apo B and Apo A1 are in your system. It’s a classic case of when size matters, and I’m talking specifically about your LDL and HDL particles. If you have small, dense LDL particles, they’re more likely to insinuate themselves into your artery walls. Once implanted, they’ll form that highly undesirable and potentially artery-blocking plaque. LDL particles that are large, buoyant––fluffy, even—are much less likely to do so.

But having large particles is not the best-case scenario when it comes to your HDL. When HDL particles are smaller, they’re more agile and can transport that much more cholesterol back from the artery walls to the liver where it gets broken down, which is a good thing.

To recap: Large LDL particles = more benign, and small HDL = more helpful.

These should be your particle-size goals. (I’ll be explaining how to find out what yours are in a moment.) It’s important to know that your LDL and HDL numbers can look perfectly normal on standard blood tests—without particle size having been taken into account. If you happen to have the more dangerous particle-size patterns, you could very well be a heart attack waiting to happen. Once again, so much for “normal.”

LDL’s brutish buddy

Lipoprotein(a) doesn’t get much press but should. It’s a nasty little particle made in the liver that attaches itself to cholesterol particles, aiding and abetting their building up in your artery walls. High levels are inherited and can be present in the face of perfectly “normal” cholesterol levels. I often see elevated levels in someone with a family history of early heart disease and normal cholesterol levels.

Bill, a patient of mine, comes to mind. When I first began treating him and took an extensive medical history, I asked him about any family history of heart disease. He looked puzzled a moment but then sat back and replied, “Well, my dad had his first heart attack when he was 48. We always thought he was healthy as a horse up ‘til then. Normal cholesterol. He didn’t smoke and was skinny as a rail. He even chopped wood all his life! The heart attack came as a real shocker.”

Niacin and estrogen will lower levels some. Niacin in particular has been found to lower LDL and triglyceride levels, raise HDL levels, and have a positive influence on lipoprotein(a). If your lipoprotein(a) level is elevated, your best bet is to get aggressive about addressing all of the risk factors of heart disease that we’ve talked about. Let’s start with the first step.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a few tests

Right off the bat, you need to get clear on what your numbers are. Here are the things you need:

(1) Glucose and insulin testing After an overnight fast, you’ll be given a blood test that will measure your fasting insulin and blood sugar levels. A level over 90 could mean diabetes, unless you start making changes today. A fasting insulin of 5 to 6 is ideal. Anything over 10 spells trouble down the road. Measuring both glucose and insulin two hours after a 75-gram drink of sugar water can be useful, especially if your fasting numbers are borderline.

(2) VAP test This one will let you know how much Apo B and Apo A1 are in your system and also analyze your LDL and HDL particle sizes. The ideal ratio between Apo B-100 and Apo A1 is 0.7 or less. Go to www.thevaptest.com to learn more. Similar tests are available from Berkeley Heart Labs (www.bhlinc.com) and SpectraCell (www.spectracell.com). Check the fine print of your medical insurance coverage to be certain you follow their lab-work guidelines.

(3) Highly sensitive C-reactive protein On this test that measures inflammation, less than a 1.0 is ideal. Anything between 1.0 to 3.0 is borderline, and the higher it runs over a 3.0 spells a corresponding increase in risk for heart disease.

You can also use your triglyceride (TG) level as a rough guide to both LDL particle size and how well your HDL is working. A high TG level is bad news, another risk marker of heart disease. An ideal level to aim for is under 100. A low ratio of TG to HDL is also desirable. If it’s over 4-to-1, your risk of heart disease will increase. Shoot for a ratio of 2-to-1 (e.g. a TG level of 100 and an HDL level of 50).

A few folks inherit high TG levels—I’ve seen them well into the hundreds and even, in very rare cases, higher than a thousand. There’s also an inherited pattern of moderately high TG levels (over 200) and low HDL levels (less than 40) that often accompanies diabetes. So be aware not just of your numbers but what they mean.

I have my numbers…now what?

There are some natural remedies you can use to get your numbers in alignment. To lower your TG levels, try niacin, which is good old-fashioned vitamin B3. As a bonus, it’s also one of the few agents that’ll boost HDL. As you raise your HDL level, it’ll go to work to clean up your LDL. The higher doses needed for this purpose, 500 to 2,000 mg per day, are doses one might take when using it as a drug rather than as a supplement. Take it before bedtime.

It can cause flushing and has some potential liver toxicity, so use it under the supervision of a health-care professional. A “natural” form of niacin, inositol hexaniacinate, is essentially flush-free with a much lower risk of liver problems but is generally much less effective at moving the numbers in the right direction. It’s certainly worth a try, though. If it works, you’re in business—without having to try high-dose niacin and risking the side effects.

The truth is, most of you can normalize your TG levels with diet, exercise and fish oil. That same regimen will confer an overall anti-inflammatory effect. This is the very thing we started out looking at as a risk factor. Adopt a healthy whole-food diet, eliminating all the processed foods loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats (aka hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats). As for fish oil, you’ll want to take 2 to 3 grams total EPA and DHA (check the figures on the label and add them up yourself). It can also boost HDL levels, lower Apo B-100 and help maintain healthy blood sugar levels. I like a product from Nordic Naturals. Go to www.nordicnaturals.com to locate a store near you that carries their products. You can also look for Carlson, Spectrum, or Jarrow products.

Top 10 paths to a cast-iron healthy gut

Do you want to feel better all the time and have a healthier immune system? Then gird your gut for the task, because it does play a central role—literally and figuratively.

A poorly functioning gut can’t even begin to adequately process the 40 to 60 tons of food you’ll consume in a lifetime. It already works overtime to sort out the good stuff from the bad.

When your gut doesn’t perform well at this so-called “barrier” function, the result is an overloaded immune system and a surge in inflammation throughout your body. That will put you at risk for a whole host of chronic degenerative diseases that plague modern societies. The list includes heart disease (for more on heart disease, see the front-page article of this issue), diabetes, arthritis, dementia and cancer.

Many of my patients complain of suffering from heartburn. It’s a common misconception that heartburn is simply the result of too much stomach acid. But as you age, you produce less stomach acid—slowing down your digestion. Also, the protective mucosal layer of the esophagus and stomach can thin out—increasing the likelihood of heartburn symptoms and ulceration.

Heartburn is a common symptom (along with bloating) of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Stomach acid backs up into your esophagus when the valve between your stomach and your esophagus doesn’t close properly. It’s associated with one of the fastest-growing cancers in this country—esophageal cancer. Acid has no business visiting your esophagus, because it will burn your esophageal lining.

As you might guess, I’m not a big fan of acid-blocking medications like little purple pills. These weren’t originally intended for long-term daily treatment except for certain rare disorders. Yet they’ve somehow transitioned into a daily habit for millions of Americans, no doubt to the never-ending delight of the drug companies.

A typical lazy response: Band-aid a symptom and ignore the underlying causes.

What you need is to strengthen your gut—and you’ll be happy to hear that it doesn’t require sit-ups. These are my top 10 picks—and common-sense suggestions—for building and protecting your mucosa, for improving your digestion by breaking down food more efficiently, and for promoting healthy gut bacteria.

Flora friendly

Your gut hosts a population of bacteria, or flora. They’re a varied lot, made up of both healthy and disease-causing bacteria that must live in a balanced state for optimum health. Common gut-flora strains that aid in digestion include the Lactobacillus and Bifidobac-terium groups. Here’s a fact you can wow your friends and neighbors with: Over 70 percent of your immune system is located in your gut, where all of the sorting goes on for everything you put in your mouth. And in order to promote the health of your immune system, you need a zealous population of healthy bacteria—probiotics (meaning “for life”). They also act against candida albicans, the overgrowth of which results in candidiasis (or “thrush”). Probiotics also protect against food-borne toxins, enhance the absorption of vitamins and minerals, and support toxin removal from the colon.

Even gut flora get support

Prebiotics are undigestible fibers found in fruits and vegetables. They support probiotics in their role of maintaining gut health by promoting their growth. Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) are a commonly mentioned type of prebiotics. You can ingest them naturally from many foods, including garlic, onions, Jerusalem artichokes, asparagus and chicory. And it seems that as a country, we’re not getting enough. The average daily ingestion of prebiotics is about 2 grams, but 5 to 6 grams are recommended. A good supplement comes from NOW and it’s called Inulin Prebiotic FOS, available in many vitamin and health food stores or via the internet.

Increase your acidity

As I mentioned, gastric-acid production decreases as we age. Add to that the regular administration of antacids, anything from self-prescribed TUMS to power prescription meds like Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid, we’re further aggravating the situation. Let’s be clear: You need stomach acid. It’s necessary for the initial breaking down of food in the stomach. It’s also required for the normal release of pancreatic and biliary enzymes and for aiding the availability of nutrients. Large proteins only partially broken down can pass into systemic circulation, provoking a generalized inflammatory response. Digestive enzymes are therefore beneficial, improving digestion, helping to treat a slew of conditions ranging from GERD to eczema, and even having the potential to prevent age-related macular degeneration (ARMD). You can get these digestive enzymes in a formula. Look for one that includes at least protease (100,000 USP units), lipase (20,000 USP units), and amylase (100,000 USP units). Take 2 to 3 tablets just before meals. Betaine HCL is commonly used to promote increased stomach acidity, best under the supervision of a health-care professional. Here’s a natural way to fend off meal-related symptoms such as heartburn: Simply slow down your fork transit and take the time to chew your food thoroughly. It’s called “drinking your solids and chewing your liquids.”

Myth-busting

There’s a common misconception that stress promotes acid secretion, burning the holes in your stomach that we call ulcers. The fact is, stress provokes hormonal changes that cause your digestion to slow down and the protective mucosal layer of your stomach to thin out and break down. Most of us don’t make enough stomach acid—again, especially as we age. Adequate stomach acid is necessary for the proper absorption of nutrients like calcium and magnesium, for protein digestion, and for control of harmful bacteria.

Gut killer without conscience

Antibiotics have been used irresponsibly for years, sparking the advent of resistant super-germs. They wreak havoc on the normal balance between healthy and unhealthy gut bacteria, disturbing immune-system function. If you ever do need an antibiotic, take a high daily dose of a probiotic. I recommend 10 to 20 billion colony-forming units. This will protect against diarrhea. There’s one potentially fatal bowel infection associated with antibiotics, called C. difficile colitis. A probiotic yeast, Saccharomyces boulardii, is especially helpful against it. Frequent antibiotic use in women may be a factor in breast cancer. Not to mention, all of those antibiotics freely prescribed by pediatricians for ear infections, which can cause long-term compromise of the immune system in kids.

Toss these gut shredders

Don’t let these seemingly benign pills fool you: They’re all potential statistic makers. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil), naproxen (Naprosyn, Aleve), celecoxib (Celebrex), and indomethacin (Indocin) are respon- sible for an estimated 15,000 deaths per year. They compromise the integrity of the mucosal lining of your stomach, provoking ulcers and bleeding. Amazingly, few people outside of the medical profession are aware of this. It’s a rare day in the hospital when I don’t have to care for an elderly patient, usually from a nursing home, who has suffered gastrointestinal bleeding due to NSAIDs. Daily use is also inviting other problems such as heart attacks and kidney failure. Intermittent use—a few times per month, for example—for no more than a few days at a time should be OK for most. But there are safer options. Fish oil is a great remedy: Take 2 to 3 grams total EPA and DHA of it daily.

Take your bitters

The substances found in bitter-tasting plants help stimulate gastric acid, aid the flow of bile in the liver and repair the gut wall. The value of a bitter “digestif” before a meal has been recognized and practiced for thousands of years by many cultures. Strangely, it’s a flavor left out of most American diets—to our detriment. Examples would be dandelion and mustard greens, escarole and chicory. There’s also a fine tonic called Swedish Bitters, widely available in most natural food stores. You can also get it online at www.swedishbitters.com.

Apply a soothing gut glue

Demulcent is just a fancy word used to describe some useful old-time favorites: licorice and marshmallow. I’m referring not to the candy store variety, but specifically to the remedy versions, deglycerinated licorice (DGL) and marshmallow root. These are soothing, mucilaginous (“gluey”) substances that quell gut inflammation. They help build and support a healthy mucosal layer. Regular licorice has an “aldosterone-like” effect. (Aldosterone helps regulate your sodium and potassium levels.) It can cause salt retention and high blood pressure in some people while in others it’s useful for exhausted adrenal glands, but best used only under the care of an experienced practitioner. DGL doesn’t cause the retention or a blood-pressure problem. It’s great for healing ulcers, though.

Mellow your middle with this Mediterranean native

This broad-leafed succulent plant, native to Mediterranean climates, has been used for thousands of years in many cultures, spanning from ancient Egypt to China. It has a gel rich in tonifying polysaccharides (a type of carbohydrate), which contains some of that famous healing component. It can also function as a soothing demulcent and is excellent for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), heartburn being the main symptom. Be sure to use an aloin-free gel formulation, which most are. Aloin is a powerful, cathartic laxative that inevitably causes diarrhea.

Mucosal mender

One study showed that when you give a powerful NSAID like Indocin (indomethacin), gut permeability increases threefold. But zinc carnosine, taken in a dosage of 37.5 mg twice per day over a five-day period, prevents this. It protects the gut and stabilizes and heals its mucosal lining. It’s excellent for healing ulcers as well as treating “leaky gut” syndrome. (Leaky gut syndrome can be caused by NSAID and antibiotic overuse—surprise, surprise.) Two high-quality products are Zinlori by Metagenics (available only through certain healthcare practitioners—go to www.metagenics.com to locate one) and PepZinGi by Jarrow (www.jarrow.com and also available in grocery stores and pharmacies).

By the way, no smoking is allowed. You can add GERD and stomach ulcers to the long list of diseases in which smoking is implicated.

FORGOTTEN CURES
This plant grows in dense thickets, and could make your hair do the same

Patients come to me with a variety of health concerns. There are some with quite serious illnesses but others who have simply the nagging little annoyances that any of us can be afflicted with from time to time.

Self-esteem is as important a piece of the total health picture as, say, eating right or getting plenty of fresh air and exercise. One thing that some of my friends and patients are concerned about is hair loss. And while some decide to embrace their hair loss—one of my patients has taken to shaving his head in a “Mr. Clean” tribute, others want their hair back.

The main cause of over 95 percent of the hair loss in men is what we call androgenic alopecia. A key factor is the excess conversion of testosterone to a form called DHT via an enzyme known as 5-alpha-reductase. The well-known drug finasteride (Propecia, Proscar) blocks this enzyme. Studies have shown it reduces DHT levels in the scalp and encourages hair growth. As a result, it is FDA-approved for male hair loss.

But who wants yet another prescription to take? I’ve heard a few anecdotal reports through a friend about using saw palmetto for this very purpose—and it seems to work. So, I decided to do some research.

Normally, saw palmetto is associated with treating prostate problems. It has a long history of use in treating mild to moderate enlargement of the prostate, called benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH). However, it may work in a similar fashion on the 5-alpha-reductase enzyme.

Finasteride is a drug with considerable side effects, including erectile dysfunction and loss of libido (making loss of hair seem almost mild in comparison). It may also encourage an especially aggressive form of prostate cancer. Not many men want to sign up for these types of problems and are obviously reluctant to risk them by taking this drug. Though I do have to say that for some guys, when it comes to their hair—all bets are off. So it’s important to find a safer solution.

Very little research has been done to date, but the good news is that there has been some. One small study was done with 19 male participants ages 23 to 64. All of these gentlemen had mild to moderate androgenic alopecia. Each of them received 200 mg of saw palmetto plus 50 mg of beta sitosterol, a plant sterol that is used both to treat high cholesterol and BPH. In the prostate, the exact way it operates has yet to be understood. At any rate, at the end of the study, 60 percent of the participants showed improvement. Obviously, larger studies are needed—and I suspect we’ll begin to see more.

What this means for you, however, is this. It’s worth a try for three months. If it works for you, you’re in business—no side-effect-laden prescriptions needed. Go ahead and include the beta sitosterol if you wish, though, from the research, it’s unclear whether it helps or not. Saw palmetto is pretty inexpensive and easy to find on store shelves. (I like the widely available, high-quality product made by Nature’s Way.) We don’t yet understand all the reasons as to why it works for some individuals and not for others. But it’s safe (certainly safer than finasteride), and here’s a bit of a bonus to go along with it: Some men report that it boosts their libido. That should be a little extra incentive for you to at least give it a three-month trial period.

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Mysteries that have been known to work miracles

Q.I’ve heard that spirituality can promote good health, but I’m wondering if that’s not just a “new age” idea. On occasion, I’ll feel a little anxiety, but not so bad that I want to take a drug for it. I’ve been thinking that I should try doing something spiritual, maybe even going back to church, just to find that natural sense of calm I used to enjoy. I’m intrigued by people who are quite spry even after having conquered various physical ailments that would fell most. I notice they all tend to have a strong spiritual core in common. What’s your take on this?
––A. Spruce, Reno, NV

A.You’re not alone in your curiosity. There’s a remarkable story that has been developing about the connection between spirituality, faith and living a longer, healthier life.

It seems that modern medicine—with all its bells and whistles—still leaves something to be desired, literally. Healing is a multilayered practice, and I believe we’ve only scratched the surface of fully understanding all there is to know—if it’s even fully knowable.

There’s an impressive history in our religious traditions of rituals that have been conceived of and practiced for thousands of years that promote good health.

These rites run the gamut: Prayer, meditation, meaning-making (finding meaning for your life), deep breathing, music, communal worship, forgiveness and compassion. That’s a buffet of options and it provides an opportunity for truly complementary medicine.

That’s not to say that there aren’t many wonderful miracles provided daily by medicine. Thank God that today we do have so many options available to us and that we don’t live a thousand years ago (at which time I may have only been able to offer my patients a good blood letting!)

Medicine is powerful, but it seems that the majority of practitioners in the medical field feel we must make a choice: That we somehow can’t mix high-tech gadgets with things that we can’t necessarily see or quantify but many of us believe—and some of us even know from personal experience —works.

And you can’t practice medicine for too long without running up against a case that you just flat-out can’t explain. It’s not in the medical books, and there’s only one way to describe it (I’ve even heard seasoned medical professionals refer to it this way): a miracle.

Your body is a marvelous system that continuously works to repair and regenerate itself. There are mind processes that, though we can’t see them, have effects on our bodies. They can be measured in our brain waves, as seen in studies done with meditation. Prayer is a similar mind-and-body process, though the “how-it’s-done” part of the equation may be different.

Scientists have long been curious about this whole subject. More and more research has been done, con-firming what has been known through faith, intuition, insight and personal practice for ages.

I am especially interested in the role that I see faith and participation in a worship group plays in my patients’ health. Research actually suggests something that is already believed and practiced by many: That gratitude, forgiveness, worship with a group and having a belief in a higher power are associated with reduced risks of depression and anxiety problems.

Also, these very things form the foundation of addiction and recovery programs—helping folks create positive intentions that take them down the path to recovery and provide deeper meaning in their lives for support.

Prayer has also been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease. In folks facing a chronic disease or terminal illness, spiritual beliefs and practices have been associated with greater life satisfaction, a greater degree of content-ment, and diminished pain and anxiety. There’s also evidence that attendance at religious services improves the likelihood of living longer, even after taking into account such common health risks as smoking and high blood pressure.

There’s a phenomenon called “self-efficacy”, which is the ability of people who are determined to get better or lick a certain health problem to actually find a way to do it—just as you mentioned. I see this over and over in my own practice. It’s often associated with a firm belief that we have had the primary tools for achieving repair and healing all along—it’s just a matter of practicing with them.

Now, that’s what I call a positive attitude—and it goes a long way in the healing process. Hey, how many people believe in the power of pharmaceuticals and the best wishes of the drug companies? But they’ll laugh off these phenomena just because they can’t see them, touch them, or shake them out of a bottle—much less explain them.

As the research continues, I imagine the topic will remain a controversial one for some time. In the meantime, I encourage you to attend to your spiritual side—defining what that means to you. It’s a personal decision, whether it be learning to meditate, adding regular prayer to your daily ritual, or going back to church as you mentioned. You’ll be amazed by how any of these practices can bring you results that you thought were available only in a prescription bottle.

The text contained herein does not constitute medical advice. Health Revelations advises that you consult your own physician before acting on any recommendations contained within this publication.