SUMMARY: Eat eggs. Help heart, brain! Learn about two January 2017 studies (Finland & UConn) that found a high-cholesterol egg diet did NOT increase risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s, and it improved the lipid profile! Serum antioxidants increased as well! Also learn about the benefits of eggs, egg quality, and pass the word to avoid BPA exposure (plastics used for food storage) especially for those pregnant and during lactation because low dose BPA exposure (below that which the FDA considers is safe) increased the risk of an egg white allergy for infants. AIP folks literally separate the white from the yolk for re-introduction! Last, think about eggs as a healthy fat boosting carotenoids as found in the salad — egg studies posted here.
Another Microbiome Introduction Presentation today!
Summary: Looking forward to giving today’s Microbiome Introduction Presentation! Rather amazing that many of the healing diet vegetable and fruit tenets, being micronutrient, phytonutrient, and antioxidant rich AND containing fiber that actually nourishes the microbiome, follow the vegetable and fruit recommendations from the cancer centers like Dana-Farber Brigham Women’s! Bonus of the healing diets is that they contain healthy fats that permit the absorption of those necessary food components!
SCD PALEO Pot Roast with Orange and Dates
SUMMARY: What do I feed 4000 pounds of twenty-four men the night before the big game? SCD PALEO Pot Roast with Orange and Dates redic EASY and delic! This dish has graced our table repeatedly over the years. In fact, my boys request this dish when we feed their basketball team the night before big games. Bonus: Double it always. This is an EASY make Ahead and Freeze. I send it to school so my kidos slurp in extra immune boosting bone broth. It travels over twenty-four hours as the ice in my cooler and feeds my ever expanding clan at the beach. The secret ingredients: Dates, apples, pineapple, allspice, red wine vinegar, OJ, and parsley (still coming out from under our garden’s blanket of snow) combine with the tenderness of a Dutch Oven. Credit for this culinary redic delic creation goes back years to Mara from the SCD Breaking the Vicious Cycle yahoo blog. It is without a doubt my favorite amazing healing diet recipe. Add it to your arsenal!
Study Recruiting for Antibiotics, Autism Symptoms
Summary: The 2014 1st International Symposium on the Microbiome in Health and Disease with a Special Focus on Autism brought out anecdotal parent findings that autism symptoms improved or worsened on antibiotics. Baylor College of Medicine study in conjunction with Texas Children’s Hospital, is now investigating those findings! If you have an autistic child, consider enrolling now before they are sick, so you have a test kit if prescribed an antibiotic over the next two years. You would send microbiome samples pre and post the antibiotic. Those are to be evaluated for changes to behavior and the microbiome — the bacteria, yeasts and fungi that also inhabit the gut, as well as examining metabolites (small chemical molecules) found in the GI tract. The study is free to participants and fully paid for by N of One: Autism Research Foundation which is founded by John Rodakis, the father of an autistic son who experienced symptom improvement due to an antibiotic dose Thanksgiving 2012. Participate if you can to increase understanding of Antibiotics, Autism Symptoms which at present, has a gap in the published autism research. This initial data may more effectively sub-type autism and develop and deliver more effective microbial-based interventions.
Why You Must Understand Epigenetics
SUMMARY: Why Must You Understand Epigenetics? Because epigenetics is the real driver of your health status, and diet plays a major role in gene expression (aka epigenetics), at least in this post’s animal study! Mention this fun fact at holiday gatherings as others notice and comment — good and bad — about your favor of healthy whole foods with resist of the nutritionally empty and microbiome harming options! Epigenetics is a big word but it simply means the process by which your genes are turned on or off (aka expressed) in good or bad ways. You already know, diet pre-selects “who” comprises the gut microbiome. This post shares the University of Wisconsin-Madison mouse study which found that the molecules produced by the microbiome (aka metabolites) tells our genes what to do (turn on or off). This study looked at two diets: a carbohydrate rich diet (one rich in plant carbohydrates similar to fruits and vegetables humans consume) and pitted it against the Western, Standard American Diet (SAD) (think high in simple refined carbs, added sugars, and unhealthy fats — this is found in most all home cooked, grocery prepared, and restaurant meals as they use convenient processed ingredients). Their results showed the plant based diet yielded a more rich microbiome which in turn, produced metabolites that seemed to favor host-microbe communication as they chemically communicated with cells, including cells FAR beyond the colon (the liver and white fat tissue), to dictate gene expression and health (metabolic — insulin, lipid to name a few) in its host. In contrast, the metabolites of the SAD did not provide this communication likely because it was MISSING the necessary metabolites to do so! If you think this is awkward party talk, what is even MORE AWKWARD is feeling others watch what you eat so that they can learn what foods express their genes best! You’ve worked hard to learn microbiome. I am in awe and proud of you. Now it’s your turn to pay it forward and teach others by doing!
Microbiome: Parkinson’s begins in the gut
SUMMARY: Yesterday, Dec. 1, 2016, a major gut — brain animal study paper published finding for Microbiome: Parkinson’s begins in the gut, at least in mice. While this has been kicked around for years, this animal mouse study finally proves the theory. This post documents the Dec 2016 Parkinson’s mouse study. You’ll recognize some of the authors: Rob Knight, Sarkis K. Mazmanian, Ali Keshavarzian, and Kathleen M. Shannon if you follow my work as I have worked with these labs or follow them closely. If you have or are concerned with brain and cognition, be it autism, MS, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression, etc… consider extending this papers findings and seriously start looking in your gut for answers to the why in your brain. I can’t stand that it takes so long for folks to get real and realize that what goes into our body impacts the brain too. Usually they don’t get it until they have major symptoms of impairment. It’s also beyond me that folks don’t understand that bowel habits are windows into how our body handles what we put into it. My pearl there is that you need to know what the Bristol Stool Chart is and how to use its incredibly useful information to learn what your body, especially what your microbiome or those trillions of beasties, thinks about the menu you feed it. Though the human studies are far off, the writing is on the wall. if you care about your brain, START fixing your gut. This post was updated Jan 25 and 26, 2017 to include a webinar and podcast dated Jan 17 and 19, 2017, discussing the Mazmanium study along with insights for diet and the “Parkinson’s” microbiome. Diets for Parkinson’s was further updated Sept 23, 2018.
Fasano, FREE: Early Nutrition Influences Microbiome, Disease
SUMMARY: Our food choices are fundamental for health. The next Integrated Functional Medicine Grand Rounds installment with Cleveland Clinic is coming up on Tuesday, December 13, 2016. Listen, for FREE as Dr. Alessio FASANO, MD speaks on How Early Nutrition Influences Microbiome, Disease. This is an incredible opportunity officially titled: “How Early Nutrition Influences Gut Microbiome and Metabolic Profiles in Health and Disease: Shifting From a Disease-Centered Approach to Patient-Oriented Functional Medicine.” For background, I have followed Dr. Fasano’s work for ages. He is a leading gut inflammation light who put Celiac Disease, and Non Celiac Gluten Sensitivity, on the map in the US when all US health agencies literally told him those were “across the pond”. When that happens, you know you are about to make a major break thru that will ruffle lots of feathers. He persevered, and his findings will re-write the medical books. Those findings opened the doors for what is now understood as: Gut permeability ⇒ immune stimulation ⇒ inflammation ⇒ gut and systemic ramifications ⇒ autoimmune and chronic disease. Listen in to Dr. Fasano, FREE, Early Nutrition Influences Microbiome, Disease!
My Healing Diet Holiday Appetizers, a Roundup!
SUMMARY: Openers Thanksgiving Day are actually all day long in our home. Friends and family stop in knowing a culinary taste dream awaits them. Incredibly though, my openers are simple with many made way ahead of time and pulled from the freezer a day or two ahead. That is the only way to go because, well… it is too much fun celebrating with my guests then being creative in the kitchen! Here’s my roundup! You will find the recipe links below, or if the recipes have not yet posted, I printed the instructions below. The Holiday Board on my Pinterest has these plus even more greats if you want other variety! Hoping you enjoy My Healing Diet Holiday Appetizers Roundup! Happy holidays!
Fiber Additives Starve Gut Microbes. They Eat Mucus Lining.
SUMMARY: This is not a 1950s sci-fi movie. This is what is likely happening now in your gut according to an amazing study just now publishing in Cell. If you are eating the Standard American Diet, the normal, helpful bacteria in your gut are not getting natural whole food fiber. Instead they are being fed fiber additives supplemented in processed foods, or isolated fiber supplements you are buying. Surprisingly, both the fiber additives and the supplements FAIL to feed your microbiome, and instead, they CANNIBALIZE the mucus lining for fuel, at least for mice, according to this study. Repeat: Fiber Additives Starve Gut Microbes. They Eat Mucus Lining. That compromises the intestinal barrier role in preventing pathogen infection. Bottom line: EAT WHOLE FOOD BASED FIBER to feed your microbiome, AND DON’T COUNT ON THE FIBER ADDED IN PROCESSED FOODS OR THE SUPPLEMENTS YOU TAKE FOR THAT FIBER. No wonder so many are sick.
Colic Formula fed microbiome IS different
Summary: Colicky formula-fed baby? You now have DNA proof that a colicky formula-fed infant needs HELP. Every parent having an infant with colic needs to read this post. Current new parents are fortunate because you can do something about your baby’s colic. Take this Oct. 2016 study to your pediatrician and push for an answer because a baby’s colic formula fed microbiome is very different compared to that of formula-fed infants that do not have colic. A SUPER EASY answer, may be a probiotic. Talk with your doctor. This post links to the infant colic microbiome studies as well as the studies looking at safety of probiotics in infants having colic. Parents of children that had colic as infants, noodle around the implications of an altered microbiome for your child. Think about implementing the American Gut findings for the factors that optimize the microbiome as a good place to start.