Tag Archives: Candida Treatment

Questions & Answers

8 Things You Shouldn’t Do If You Want A Healthy Gut

What are the things that can cause harm to your gut health?

1. Having too restricted a diet is going to impact your gut microbial growth negatively. From what I’ve read, people in western countries, only consume between 12 and 15 types of vegetables and four or five different types of animals. If you look at indigenous people in Africa, who don’t suffer from the chronic diseases seen in the developed world, they eat a far more diverse range of plants and have a much wider range of bacteria in their gut with all the associated benefits.

2. Lack of prebiotic in the diet is another common problems. Most people don’t include high-quality, sour yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, or kombucha in their diet. Fifty or sixty years ago, cultured and fermented foods were commonplace. Now it’s become something special rather than routine.

3. Drinking too much alcohol with a detrimental impact on the gut is a common habit. Studies have shown, for example, that when you consume spirits like gin or vodka, you dramatically reduce the population of beneficial bacteria. If you can stick with small quantities of red wine with a high polyphenol content, you can increase the beneficial bacteria content of your gut.

4. Antibiotics are very challenging for the gut flora. Some clients I had would go on antibiotics twice a year for infections that could have been fixed by natural methods. You don’t’ have to automatically jump to ciprofloxacin as soon as someone has a mild sore throat or a little skin rash. Herbs have been used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years for these sorts of reasons. See a naturopath or a functional medicine doctor if you want a second opinion about antibiotic use. Antibiotics are one of the key factors that undermine gut function.

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5. Lack of activity can be a detriment to your gut flora. Exercise is very beneficial for your microbiome. I read a study of professional rugby players that demonstrated they had much higher levels of good bacteria compared to less active men of the same weight and age.

6. Smoking can harm the GI tract, particularly if you’re a heavy smoker. Not only are smokers more prone to strokes and heart attacks, they also have higher inca1dence of inflammatory bowel disease. For example, the risk of Crohn’s disease is twice as high in smokers as in non-smokers.

7. Sleep deprivation can damage gut health. When someone has a healthy circadian rhythm, they have a far better balance of microbes and range of beneficial bacteria in their gut. Good sleep patterns are correlated wth good microbiome patterns. Disturbed sleep can interfere with hormonal levels and thereby impact the appetite and immune systems, including the immune system in the gut.

8. Too much stress can be very damaging to the gut. It can also interfere with appetite regulation and lead to snacking on junk food, which in turn changes the microbiome for the worse. People with low-stress lifestyles tend to have much better gut health.

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Questions & Answers

Start Young: Childhood Habits Make A Difference To Your Gut Flora

I read a fascinating study out of Montreal that followed 22 children over eight years. The study looked at the impact of childhood habits on gut flora.

This study was conducted at the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine, in Montreal, Quebec. The 22 children had multiple stool samples done over the eight years. What the researchers found was that children who were fit, sleeping well, and who had a generally healthy lifestyle, tended to have a much more diverse microbiome when they got older.

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In other words, childhood habits have a significant impact on the biodiversity of the microbiome. If you extrapolate those findings to adulthood, we can expect better mental, physical, and emotional health in those with a healthy lifestyle during childhood.

Encouraging your child to be fit, active, eat healthy foods, and put down the Xbox once in a while can make a big difference to their health in the long run.

Remember that the work I do is evidence-based. It’s not hocus pocus sort of fairy dust. It’s science-based information I like to present to people here because that’s what it’s all about. It combines the best of what science offers and the best of what nature offers. I like that sweet spot right in the middle there. I’ve always worked on that premise.

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Questions & Answers

What You Need To Know About The Mediterranean Diet

It’s worth knowing about the Mediterranean diet.

When I talk about the Mediterranean diet, I’m referring to a diet rife with olive oil, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, beans, and other legumes, fruits, olives, lots of fish, small amounts of dairy, and even smaller amounts of meat. The Mediterranean diet isn’t low fat – it includes olive oil and fatty fish.

Dr. Ailsa Welch is a nutrition expert from Norwich Medical University. She conducted a study that spanned 17 years and included 23,232 men and women, ages 40 to 77. Dr. Welch and her team found that eating a Mediterranean diet significantly reduced the risk of stroke. Women did the best with a 17% protective effect versus a 6% protective effect for men. The 17% reduction in stroke for women applied whether the woman was taking hormone replacement therapy or not.

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The Mediterranean diet includes foods like sardines, figs, and olives. I believe that people in the Mediterranean also tend to be more relaxed, more social, and eat much slower than the typical American. There is also more daily physical activity in the Mediterranean populations.

I read another intriguing study that said that big food companies are taking over where “big” tobacco left off. Most of us are aware that tobacco was promoted to the masses in the ‘50s and ‘60s – not unlike how fast food is promoted today.

The older generation remembers a time when they made their own chicken dishes and pizza. The younger generation is growing up with Kentucky Fried Chicken and Domino’s Pizza instead.

I have personally been following the Mediterranean diet for years. I use lots of olive oil, fish (including salmon, which isn’t really Mediterranean but still very healthy), avocados, nuts, seeds, and legumes. In my opinion, a low meat, high fish diet with lots of vegetables and fresh fruit is one of the best diets to follow.

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Questions & Answers

Does Calorie Counting Encourage Weight Loss?

I read an interesting study out of the States that looked at calorie counts on restaurant menus.
The obesity problem in the U.S. is out of control. In the last fifty years, the prevalence of obesity has tripled. It’s estimated that obesity cost $147 billion per year in the U.S. alone.

In this randomized field study, three researchers looked at the behavior of 5,500 diners at two restaurants. The control group was allowed to order off the menu in a restaurant that provided no caloric information. The other group of study participants ordered at a restaurant that included calorie counts on their menu board. It turned out that knowing the calorie count results in people ordering meals that were 45 to 50 calories lighter.

People often don’t know the calorie count of what they are eating. Despite everything, despite all of these crazy exercises, super pills, Botox, liposuction, and the like, the world is still getting fatter and fatter.

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Instead of big tobacco promoting cigarettes, iwe have big food promoting high-calorie foods. As a result, government agencies are saying to these food chains, “Hang on a minute, you guys, you need to put calorie information up there to show consumers what they’re eating.” And then, of course, the fast-food chains come back saying, “We can’t do that. If we do that, we’re going to lose profits.”

Profits, my foot. What about the $147 billion in care? That’s the cost of looking after diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, and other health conditions associated with junk food and obesity.

Any time you eat fewer calories is a step in the right direction. Every calorie less you eat is less extra fat, protein, and sugar that your body doesn’t need. We live in an ocean of food today, and yet many people are still malnourished. That’s the crazy part.

Don’t forget the best exercise you can do is to push the plate away. Don’t laugh. I’ve seen it work many times.

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Questions & Answers

How To Motivate People To Lose Weight

Obesity is a very big problem in Western countries, particularly the United States. The cost of obesity is nearly $150 billion a year in the U.S.

There is an expert in the field, Dr. Mitesh Patel, who has looked at the types of incentives that help motivate people to lose weight. He even looked at whether financial incentives like tickets for a small lottery win would help people commit to losing weight. Dr. Patel is a behavioural expert and helps businesses improve their employees’ health.

We know that healthy people are more productive in the workplace. Companies are always looking for ways to motivate their employees to develop healthy habits.

If you give a person the chance of winning a $5 lottery every few days and make it a one in four or five chance, it doesn’t improve motivation to any great degree. If you increase the pot to $400 to $500 dollars but the chances of winning are less, there still isn’t much of a difference.

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However, people placed into random lotteries are more likely to hit the goal of 7000 steps per day. In fact, the number of people hitting that threshold went from 26% to 38% in response to a change in the lottery incentive.

It’s sad that people need bribes, incentives, and buddies to push themselves into a fitness program. I feel so sorry that there are so many people trapped in big bodies who don’t feel they have the power to do anything about it.

I’ve helped a lot of obese people come down to an average size. Unfortunately, many of them regained the weight. Some of them didn’t and were able to sustain the weight loss.

I think upbringing influences your body weight. Friends and social circles also impact your weight. If your friends and family tend to be active and eat healthily, you’ll be more prone to do that yourself. It’s hard to be slim when your family has a legacy of watching hours of television while eating pizza and drinking pop.

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