Naturopathic Doctor - Doni Wilson - Herbal Medicine, Wellness Center | Holistic Doctor

What you need to know to be healthy in 2012 - Part II

So how do we turn off the cytokine response and subsequent inflammation?!!
To read Part 1, click here 

• Step 1. Stop stimulating them!  While you can do your best to avoid a broken bone or tick - the best way to take away the cytokine signal is by removing the foods in your diet that are triggering cytokines on a daily basis.  
  
  Find out which foods by doing an IgG food panel.  You can order an IgG food panel through my online store and do it yourself at home.  I find this to be the single best first step toward wellness for all health conditions.
  
  If you can’t invest in the IgG food panel at this time, a basic place to start is by avoiding the foods most likely to trigger cytokines: dairy, gluten and eggs. Check out TheHamptonsCleanse.com for how to do this.

• Step 2. Blueberries to the rescue!  By choosing foods that counter the cytokine messages, you can stand a chance at reducing the inflammatory response.  
  
  Research shows that blueberries (and other berries) contain substances that put a halt to cytokine messages.  My favorite way to get berries is in frozen, organic blueberries and/or a liquid concentrate called Proberry.  

• Step 3. Make prostaglandins! Our bodies make anti-inflammatory messengers called prostaglandins out of omega-3 fats (fish oil and flax oil).  All you have to do is consume them!
  
  Omega-6 fats, which are easy to find in the common American diet, come from corn oil, safflower oil and sunflower oil.  Omega-6 fats, along with animal fats - in anything that comes from animals - lead to inflammation.
  
  So remember! Omega 3 fats lead away from inflammation - take fish oils daily to squelch cytokines.
  
  If you’d like to read more about fish oils, click here for a very thorough article in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition from 2002.
  
  Keep in mind, however, that not all fish oils are what you want to be putting into your body.  It is important to consider everything from the source of the fish, to the way the fish oils are processed, as well as the way they are packaged and stored. Over years of being in practice and reviewing various fish oil products, the product I now recommend is ProOmega by Nordic Naturals.

Ok so now that you know what cytokines and prostaglandins are, and how to use blueberries, as well as fish oils, to help your body clear out inflammation-producing messages - you are well on your way to health in 2012.

Even if you are able to begin by introducing even one of these concepts into your life each week, it will make a difference! Mastering your health and wellness as you go, before you know it, your body will be running on messages that keep you well. 

Wellness wishes to you,

Dr. Doni

DONIELLE WILSON, ND is a natural health expert and Naturopathic Doctor with a private practice in New York City, Port Jefferson, NY, and Connecticut. She specializes in showing women, men and children how to achieve their wellness goals by finally getting the answers they’ve been looking for to their most perplexing health challenges. To learn more about Dr. Doni and her unique approach to achieving health naturally, please visit Dr. Doni today.  

What you need to know to be healthy in 2012 – Part I

In order to be healthy, you need to know about “cytokines” and blueberries.

How have you been feeling these past few weeks, the first of the year, and soon after the holidays?  

The most common answer is: tired, achy, bloated, fat, anxious and depressed.  

That is unless you’ve already been avoiding your food allergens and supporting your adrenals - in which case it is possible to have a wonderful holiday and feel good too!

I’m going to explain how feeling that way (tired, achy, bloated, fat, anxious and depressed) is a direct result of cytokines, and how the solution can be found in blueberries. 

Cytokines are messengers for the immune system. They deliver messages throughout the body, including in the nervous system (brain), to increase inflammation. 

In some ways cytokines are like email messages between cells, and the message is “create an inflammatory response - redness, swelling - there is something to fight off and repair here - hurry!”

The body responds to that request leading to rapidly increasing amounts of inflammation, which I refer to as an “inflammatory cloud.”  

What got the cytokines going in the first place?  Well...it could be a significant trauma or infection...such as a broken leg, Lyme-bearing tick-bite, or flu virus.  It could also be a food that looks to your immune system as if it’s a foreign substance.  

“Food, really? How could that be?” you might be thinking.  Yep, when food is not well digested (from eating quickly, stress and/or antacids), and when the intestinal lining is not-so-healthy (which is the case for most of us as a result of antibiotics, gluten and other toxins), leaky gut can develop and then food can go where it’s not intended to be - below the intestinal lining where antibodies (IgE, IgG, IgA) and cytokines are on guard to protect us from foreign stuff (viruses and bacteria).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are the antibodies and cytokines to do when they come into contact with bread, cookies, milk, cheese and eggs over and over each day? 

They do their job. The antibodies attack the food, and then signal the cytokines to alert the system (your body) to attack! 

For some people the result is diarrhea, bloating, gas and/or reflux - focused in the belly.

For others, depending on your genetic tendencies, the outcome of cytokines can be anything from feeling like you have the flu (achy, fatigue, headache, blah) to irritability (cytokines in the nervous system), sinusitis, menstrual cramps, frequent urination, high blood pressure or heart disease, low thyroid function, eczema or psoriasis, and even an overall condition such as autoimmunity (confused immune system impacting areas of the body), fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue. 

This is how Nitika Chopra, founder of YourBellaLife.com and my patient, describes how the "inflammatory cloud" feels to her: "I feel faint afterwards, totally cloudy and weak/exhausted.  I can't stream words together. This is when I have honestly eaten something that doesn't normally bother me, but I probably should avoid."

To read more about how what is going on in your gut could be causing symptoms in your head, see this recent (Jan 17, 2012) article in The Wall Street Journal. 

What's more, these symptoms can go on for days, weeks or months, depending on whether the cytokines continue to be triggered by reactive foods. 

Now that we know what cytokines are and how they affect us, see part 2 where I’ll share strategies for how we can turn them off.

DONIELLE WILSON, ND is a natural health expert and Naturopathic Doctor with a private practice in New York City, Port Jefferson, NY, and Connecticut. She specializes in showing women, men and children how to achieve their wellness goals by finally getting the answers they’ve been looking for to their most perplexing health challenges. To learn more about Dr. Doni and her unique approach to achieving health naturally, please visit Dr. Doni today.  

How to have a Thanksgiving without gluten and dairy?

The thought of Thanksgiving (TG) without gluten and dairy may at first seem like the end of the world. 

Actually, much of Thanksgiving does not involve gluten and dairy - thank goodness! 

For example, turkey, sweet potatoes, and vegetables are inherently free of gluten and dairy. Even some stuffing recipes (rice, corn) don't contain gluten and dairy.  

So it might not be as difficult as you originally thought!  : ) 

Some simple steps could be...

• Gravy made with cornstarch instead of (wheat flour)
• Sweet or white potatoes made with rice/almond/coconut milk instead of cow milk
• Or make the potatoes roasted with onions and olive oil instead of mashed or as a souffle
• Stuffing made with rice, corn or gluten-free bread crumbs instead of wheat bread

One important note is the most people who are intolerant to dairy CAN have butter.  This is because butter is composed of the fats from cow milk, not the sugar (lactose) or protein (whey and casein).

Even pumpkin pie can be made without gluten and dairy with a few relatively simple tweaks.  My challenge each year is to make a pumpkin pie that is not only gluten and dairy free, but also egg and sugar free (since my sweetheart is intolerant to eggs and we are both intolerant to sugar/fructose). I did a trial run on the pie yesterday and will post the recipe for you below. 

One concern that patients have mentioned is when you are going to someone else's house for Thanksgiving.  Here are a few possibilities I recommend: 

• Offer to bring a dish - the one least likely to be gluten, dairy free in a traditional TG
• Navigate through the meal to choose the foods that don't contain gluten & dairy
• If you do end up getting exposed to gluten/dairy, then this becomes an opportunity to see how your body responds to them (notice how you feel for the next few days)

Here are websites I LOVE for finding gluten-free, dairy-free and even egg-free recipes: 

• Silvana's Kitchen
• Elana's Pantry
• Easy Eats Magazine

I would love to hear about the recipes you find and try out!  Please join in and post them in my online forum.  Click here!

One more note about Thanksgiving: The way we traditionally eat TG is a HUGE challenge on our digestion and insulin because the tendency is to load our plates with more food and carbohydrates then we usually eat at any one time.  

In fact, I believe that the sleepiness after TG dinner, that we usually consider to be associated with serotonin in the turkey, is actually due to eating more food than the digestive enzymes can handle, and raising the blood sugar (glucose) higher then the insulin is ready to transport into the cells.  

One thing you could try this Thanksgiving is to modify the way you eat, in terms of time and amount.

Here is a sample menu for the day based on my ideal eating recommendations...

Noon: Pre-dinner snacks that are 50:50 protein and carbs
2 pm: 1st TG dinner = 3 oz turkey and 1/4 cup roasted sweet potatoes and 1/4 cup steamed veggies
(approximately 200-300 kcal of 50:50 protein and carbs)
5 pm: 1nd TG dinner = 3 oz turkey and 1/2 cup rice stuffing

Dr. Doni's GF, DF, EF, SF Pumpkin Pie
Pie crust, pre-made, frozen, by Gillian's (or home made)
15 oz can of Organic Pumpkin
EnerG (egg replacer) 2 tsp in 1 Tb water
2 Tb Maltitol
1/2 cup almond milk
Cinnamon (1/2 tsp), ginger (1/4 tsp), cloves (1/8 tsp), nutmeg (1/4 tsp) and salt (1/4 tsp)
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes 

I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving!  

Dr. Doni

DONIELLE WILSON, ND is a natural health expert and Naturopathic Doctor with a private practice in New York City, Port Jefferson, NY, and Connecticut. She specializes in showing women and their loved ones how to achieve their wellness goals by finally getting the answers they’ve been looking for to their most perplexing health challenges. To learn more about Dr. Doni and her unique approach to achieving health naturally, please visit Dr. Doni today.