Thanksgiving Wishes - avoiding the stress

I was asked how I avoid the stress of the holidays the other day. Simple. Keep focused on the true meanings of the holidays. 

We historically set aside this day to give thanks to God for what He has given us in life. Far too often we allow the pressures of excess and commercialization to distract us from the true meanings of holidays. Buy more, eat more, watch more is supposed to equate to loving others more. We often worry about the traditions more than the reason we celebrate. 

To this extent, my family has chosen to break "tradition" this year. We will eat a relatively modest meal together. It will consist of Russian mors, ham, potatoes, squash, fresh baked rolls, and (traditional) pumpkin pie. The focus of this meal is not football, or gorging ourselves. It is purely about the family and giving thanks to God for all He has blessed us with. 

It will be a stress free and joyful holiday for us. 

On this US Thanksgiving day, I want to express my thanks for all my family, friends, and acquaintances, past, present and future. Each one of you has blessed us and brought us to where we are in our lives today. May God bless you more than He blessed us. 

Why I invested in TellSpec (What's in your food?)

I came across TellSpec not long ago on Facebook. After looking into the company, I made an investment in the company by way of indigogo. I began recommending TellSpec to my friends, and I started to be questioned on "why such a supporter of TellSpec?"

Since then, I have been spending some time communicating with the founder and CEO of TellSpec, Isabel Hoffmann. She is pretty amazing, having started 8 companies and negotiating several investment deals and business acquisitions. Her daughter came down with a mysterious disease caused by sensitivity to gluten and other allergens. Inexact food labels made it difficult to find foods that would not contribute to her daughter’s illness. Unable to find a product to help manager her food intake, TellSpec was born. You can read more about Isabel's story in this TellSpec blog post.

Isabel and I were having a discussion the other day when she asked me to share my story with her, so here is my "Why I believe in TellSpec" story.

My medical journey has taught me a lot about how certain things react with the human body. I have gotten tired of hearing “you are an interesting case” and “there is no apparent reason” from doctors.

I also learned that for weight loss in a diabetic, calories in vs. calories out does not necessarily equate to weight loss. This is partially due to chemical reactions from food and medicines.

The observations I now keep in mind daily are:

1. Limiting medications, in favor of real food, has health benefits.
2. I am super sensitive to chemicals and additives in foods, and factors in my environment
3. You cannot totally trust a food label

The main reasons I am a fan of TellSpec relates mostly to the last 2 items on my list. I want to know what is in my food. TellSpec can tell you what is in your food and beverages, including allergens, chemicals, nutrients, calories, and ingredients. It also lets you know about inaccurately labeled foods, and has descriptions of oddball ingredients, like food dyes and what they are made of. It can relate how you feel with the foods you eat, which can help identify food allergies. 

Imagine knowing what is in your food at a restaurant. Or if "fresh foods" have chemical pesticides on them. Or environmental toxins, which have been linked to heart defects. It can even read through the packaging.

When it measures the food, using a miniature spectrometer, the data is uploaded to the Cloud and run through a proprietary analysis algorithm. The resulting analysis is then downloaded to your smartphone. It is a pretty amazing device.

There is a cool video showing the working prototype here.

I believe this device will bring new directions to the "healthy food" or "clean food" world. This, and the team behind TellSpec, is why I stand behind firmly behind the company.

Right now, TellSpec is raising funding for the development and manufacture of the device. You do not get a piece of the company, but for a couple hundred bucks you can get a device (or 2, or 4). You can also get the SDK to develop applications for iOS and Android.

(Another shameless plug: I encourage you to invest, as well, if you care about what goes in your mouth. Only $25 and up.)

Can you trust a food label?

A friend of mine, Kaymann Woo, got me to looking at food labels (more specifically, beverage labels) by pointing out that his fruit drink had no fruit in it. I began looking at what I drank more closely, as I was trying to lose weight and was trying to eliminate "unnatural" things from my diet. I found that my favorite drink had the same issues - lots of things I could not pronounce, and questions about what exactly natural extracts and flavorings were.

I found that my "sparkling mountain water, naturally flavored and with vitamins and antioxidants" really was a chemists dream. It has (in order of inclusion) water, natural flavors, malic acid, potassium benzoate, sucralose, and another 10 ingredients. Delicious.

This led to research on flavorings, I found this CBS video segment from 60 Minutes which is informative. But these were just the start. I started noticing that "healthy" foods were not so healthy, like the "Healthy Apple Chips" I bought the other day, "made with real apples." They turned out to be dried and ground apples mixed with high fructose corn syrup, and formed into what looked like apple slices. The first ingredient in them was the corn syrup. Not so healthy.

How about a vegetable juice so many people buy because it gives lots of servings of vegetables in just one can? It is made with 100% vegetable juice! Read it again, it is not 100% vegetable juice, one of it's ingredients is 100% juice from vegetables. There is also 690mg of sodium in one 11.5 oz can (and also natural flavors, and some other goodies). It has plenty of good stuff in it, but it is certainly not healthy with all that salt. Yet they enjoy almost $1 billion dollars in sales per year.

Here is a good article on food labels from the Seattle Times, where they explore food labels a bit. The Mayo Clinic also has a "how to read the label" article.

The big one I have found is serving size. I recently discovered that an Italian ice product I like, which comes in what looks like one of those single serving ice cream containers and has reasonable nutrition information, actually has 2 servings in each container. One serving is just a few spoonfuls, so to eat the whole container is pretty darn unhealthy. Or the prepared Cuban sandwich I love - 1 sandwich, 2 servings, 500 calories.

How about "white meat only" on your chicken? According to the government, it can have no dark meat, but it can have other "stuff." There are a bunch of Federal labeling rules, but they are relatively lax when it comes to the actual packaging of food.  Or, have we discussed "natural flavors" such as vanilla flavoring? It is from castorium, which is beaver excretions from the far end of the animal. Yuk.

Food companies are in business to sell you food, not to make you healthy. But they understand that "healthy," "low fat," "low sodium," and "sugar free" sell. As such, they package things in packages to entice you to buy. Even the color of the label matters - Cornell University found that the color green on the label actually increases people's perception of food being healthy, even when it is not. We are not talking uneducated people, we are talking people who look for healthy food.

Read and understand the labels. You might be surprised at what you are eating.

GMOs and food additives: food for man, or devil in disguise?

I have to admit, I hate the GMO argument. It is too biased for real life. As Stewart Lyman says in his article on the recent GMO labeling debate, "neither side seems interested in discussing the scientific issues involved." It is also interesting to me that the food additive issue gets discussed, but the information is not overly scientific either.

I admit that I fully support growers producing genetically altered foods (GMO). Without these foods, we would be hard pressed to feed our rapidly growing world population. I am not for banning GMO as some countries have, nor do I think a label that says "contains GMO ingredients" is informative enough to be useful. I think a good alternative is the "Non GMO Verified Project" where foods get a "GMO free" label upon verification, like organic foods get. This is a better solution because it is a voluntary certification, and the program already exists and works well. 

Simply put, when you eat real food, your body recognizes the DNA and natural chemical makeup of it. As a result, you are able to metabolize nutrients correctly and you reap the benefits of that food (nutritionally and health-wise). Eat something unnatural (DNA or chemically) and your body is physiologically confused, resulting in stress on the body. Eating corn modified with fish genes, your body just isn't sure if you are eating corn or fish. Pretty simple concept. I know some corn is modified with genes from Bacillus thuringiensis, which is used as a biological pesticide, and commonly grows in animal feces. Sound more appetizing? I have enough medical problems, I don't need to risk more, like renal problems. I will let those much smarter than I figure out the health issues of GMO and stick with a more natural diet.

Now part of the problem is "how natural is a natural diet?" Because chemicals in foods tend to cause adverse reactions in my body, I try to avoid chemical additives in or on my food, whenever I can. I decided that if I cannot pronounce it, it probably does not belong in my body. Since I have a reduced auto-immune system, I need as few reactions in my system as possible. This is why I started researching clean eating. But you still need to use your head. I have seen clean eating sites recommending eating "power bars" and "liquid Stevia only." I have not seen too many natural power bars, and I have seen plenty of Stevia liquids on the supermarket shelf with questionable ingredients. I personally use a powered Stevia that is 100% natural, so read labels and know what the ingredients mean.

And what exactly are "artificial flavors" and "natural flavors?" They are both chemical flavorings, which supposedly use the "same" chemical makeup. There are arguments about artificial flavors being more healthy, but I prefer something more natural. But keep in mind that any flavoring that is from a natural source can be called "natural flavors."  Natural raspberry, strawberry, and vanilla flavors can come from castoreum (or other natural sources), but it still does not sound pleasant to eat something with an excretion of a beaver butt as an ingredient.

And artificial sweeteners have a bunch of debate around them. My personal view is that the "pink," "blue," and "yellow" sweeteners are all chemical or chemically modified sugar substitutes. Again, I stick with Stevia, but I also watch those carefully. Be careful what you buy, and read the labels.

I do want to say that eating natural should not be a dogma. In our world, one cannot avoid eating some “unnatural” things, or things with additives. As I said in previous articles, our bodies are smart and they do adapt. We just do not live in a "natural world." 

However, a more natural diet is much less stressful on the body, and knowing what we are eating allows us to control the negative reactions our bodies have to “bad” things we eat (and I define “bad things” as things which each individual does not, or cannot, tolerate). Natural foods help alleviate symptoms (not, I do not say "cure") from many maladies, like reduction of inflammation, lowering of blood glucose levels, and reducing pain from headaches, which ultimately allows us to live healthier lives.

Unnecessary drugs vs. natural healing

In writing another blog post, which was getting much too left brained, I went down a few rabbit trails. One of them was prescription drugs, and how some can be replaced with real foods that give the same results in a healthier way.

Note: I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. See your physician before you modify your lifestyle, or change any treatments. 

Where do I get off saying many medications are not necessary? Look, I am a diabetic, and my pituitary gland does not produce most hormones. I understand needing certain medications. Without hormones and insulin, my lifespan would be quite short. But the fact is, regular doses of medications do not work in the body in the same way as if they are produced naturally by a human body. Our bodies are smart. They know when we need more, when we need less, and they adjust accordingly throughout the day. When you need to use regular doses of drugs, you are working contrary to how the body was designed to work in its natural state. You force your body into an unnatural rhythm - "eat exactly at these prescribed times, and these prescribed amounts, instead of when you are hungry." It is kind of like using regular gasoline in a vehicle that requires premium. It works for a while, but eventually you will have engine knock.

Drugs are also cyclical animals. 

You can take one to resolve a problem, and it may cause a side effect. Another drug is taken to resolve the side effect, but it's side effect may exasperate the original problem you had. I was having headaches in 2012, and was prescribed a drug to treat the headaches. One side effect of that drug was nausea. The nausea drug I was prescribed had a potential side effect of causing headaches. In my book, it was better to find a natural way to resolve the headaches. 

Another cyclical example is that, in a diabetic, increased insulin use causes resistance to insulin. Resistance to insulin means increased insulin needs. Increased insulin use causes weight gain. Increased weight causes insulin resistance. See the cycle? For me, eating real food lowers blood sugar levels. In turn, I use less insulin. Resistance is decreased, weight can be lost (with proper diet and exercise), resulting in less insulin, causing greater sensitivity to insulin, resulting in weight loss and less use of insulin... you get the point. Doing this, I have reduced my insulin usage by nearly 50% since July 2013, and have lost some weight.

Doing research, I also found that certain foods reduce inflammation and resolve the resulting pain. My favorite is pineapple, which contains bromelain and gives pineapple its anti-inflammatory properties. Instead of using anti-inflammatory drugs that are dangerous to my kidneys, I can get the same results eating real foods, and knowing what is in them.

What I am saying is research what you need, and you might find natural remedies for what ails you. Drugs of any kind, legal or otherwise, just aren't healthy. 

The thorn in my side: my medical journey

The content here was actually part of another post I was writing, but I decided to break it into two posts to separate the subjects a bit. This is more of a chronological list of recent events. Look to some of the links to my previous posts for the stories behind these things.

My medical history started back when I was 3 years old and I was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes Mellitius. My family on my father's side is predisposed to diabetes, and 2 of my 3 siblings have it as well. I had a great mother who taught me much about the disease, but my control was awful. Despite being a "brittle (labile) diabetic", I enjoyed exceptionally good health for a diabetic compared to my sister and brother. I started on a Diesetronic insulin pump in 1993 to try to control my blood glucose, but even 20 years later, my brittleness is a horror to my endocrinologist, Dr. Mandana Ahmadian.

During the summer of 2009, I had unusually excessive thirst, and I started having to urinate excessively. My doctors attributed it to my diabetes, since thirst is a common side effect of high blood sugars. However, my blood sugars had been relatively sane during that time. I did find that drinking Dr. Pepper quenched the thirst, but I still was getting hardly any sleep. Remember this paragraph; it will come into play later.

On November 15, 2009, I went to Evergreen Urgent Care after having severe headaches for almost a week. I was referred to the Evergreen Health ER, where they loaded me up with happy juice, did a CT scan, a spinal tap, and blood work. They diagnosed me with viral meningitis, gave me a bottle of Oxycontin, and sent me home with the information that it would resolve itself "in about 10 days."

A couple weeks later, I was back at the ER, where we went through the same procedures again. Same diagnosis, same treatment, except they gave me  oxycodone because I had started hearing things that just weren't there. This was my first experience with the shift in healthcare to convincing people that nothing is wrong with them. For the record, Oxycontin's generic name is "oxycodone HCL." One in the same drug (I did not know that at the time). For the record, I began having sleep paralysis (seen in only 6% of the general population - remember this, it will come up again), extremely ugly nightmares, as well as seeing and hearing things while awake.

My wife took me back to the ER 5 times between 11/15 and 12/31/09 when she lost it with the ER doctor who insisted I still had meningitis. WARNING: do NOT peeve a Russian woman - she insisted on an MRI and she won the battle against "We have already done 3 CT scans. An MRI will not show anything different." They discovered I had pituitary apoplexy (like a tumor on the pituitary gland), and I discovered what having a great partner was. They told her I would have been dead within 2 weeks, from lack of hormones, had she not forced their hand. I was given prednisone, dilaudid, testosterone, and sent on my way.

Fortunately, I was referred to Swedish Neuroscience Institute in February 2010 for treatment. They did further testing and found that the tumor on my pituitary gland had bled out into my spinal fluid and dried up (rare), and that is what the ER had detected as meningitis. They also did testing and found I had Diabetes Insipidus (a "rare disease" - remember this, and the 6% having sleep paralysis), which is what caused my severe thirst and urination (told you it would come back up). When asked by my wife if I would ever regain function of my pituitary gland, the specialist said "99.9% chance no." (So 0.1% I would - remember this.)

Fast forward a year to May of 2011, and all of a sudden I was bloating up like a blueberry around my neck, back, and head. After seeing all my usual doctors, and visiting the ER a couple times, I was referred to an allergist who found nothing I was allergic to, but decided he should kill off my immune system because my body was "fighting itself for no reason." On that, I decided to get a 2nd opinion, and went to Dr. Garrison Ayars. He looked at all my records over a 2 week period (literally, all of them), and suggested that maybe one of the pituitary specialists I was seeing might consider that maybe they were over-treating me. 3% of the population is apparently ultra-sensitive to prednisone treatment... and even my 5mg dose (considered "nothing" by endocrinologists) was causing Cushing Syndrome. This also led to more testing by Dr. Ahmadian, and as of today, I produce enough cortisol for normal daily living, but not for stress (remember the 0.1% I mentioned above?) I have gone from taking 22 drugs to small doses of only 7.

Summer of 2012 came with headaches. Again, lots of doctors and nurse practitioners, and suggested "remedies" ranging from practicing yoga to reducing spinal fluid pressure. A year and a half later, and I have figured out that a rise in barometric pressure likely has something to do with it. Still looking into this one.

Recently, I have been struggling with a weight  loss plateau, and myalgia caused by antibodies attacking good cells in my joints and muscles. That is a still unresolved story to be resolved.

I still have a variety of issues, but I am finding great solace in understanding the drugs I need to take, diets, GMOs, and chemical foods. But that is left for the next post. Let us leave it as the apostle Paul did in 2 Corinthians 12:5-10 - "Thank you, God."
  

Lazy writers do not write

What more can I say. With the help of the One up above, I was encouraged to dust off the blog and share some thoughts. Something that comes to mind every morning when I am in the shower is "Gee, I should be writing about that." But I quickly ignore that "thought." What happened this week is someone I am doing some investing with, and some business with, asked me for one of my stories. Ok, God, I get the hint.