Chronic Fatigue and Nutrition

ANNOUNCING A NEW ACUPUNCTURISTS ONLINE COURSE

Immune Matrix LLC (Copyright) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:41:46 +0000

SEVENTEEN OVERLOOKED CAUSES FOR INSOMNIA

(2CEU approved for Acupuncturists, State of California)

This continuing education online course is designed to inform alternative medical practitioners of some overlooked causes for insomnia. It will give you guidelines and tools to begin to determine the multiple factors impacting your patient’s insomnia symptoms. Cost $50. Please contact Immune Matrix LLC by Phone at 408-262-6900 for registration information. Thanks You

CHILDHOOD OBESITY – WHAT’S WRONG WITH BABY FAT?

Immune Matrix LLC (Copyright) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:51:39 +0000

2010/07/31
Published

Complacency, ignorance and busy lifestyles all contribute to the growing trend of overweight children in our society. This article is designed to enlighten and empower you as caretakers to begin to take steps to change the course of health and longevity for our future generations.

It was a bold statement when the American Medical Associated published papers nearly two years ago stating that our generation, this generation, would be the first generation to begin to experience parents outliving their children! The reason, childhood obesity creates medical conditions that previously only plagued adults in their middle years. Conditions such as hypertension, osteoarthritis, arthritis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, diabetes, stroke, and heart attacks speak loudly of the dangers of childhood obesity.

On February 9, 2010 USA Today published an article about childhood obesity prevention. It stated that our First Lady, Michelle Obama has announced her quest to eliminate childhood obesity in one generation. Most of us parents can relate to her story. USA Today reports:

Her daughters were 6 and 9, and Michelle Obama was like any other working mom — struggling to juggle office hours, school pick-ups and mealtimes. By the end of the day, she was often too tired to make dinner, so she did what was easy: She ordered takeout or went to the drive-through. She thought the girls were eating reasonably well — until her pediatrician in Chicago told her he didn’t like the weight fluctuations he was seeing. “I was shocked because my kids looked perfectly fine to me,” Obama says. “But I had a wake-up call.” Like many parents, however, “I didn’t know what to do.” Today, the self-described “mom in chief” is launching Let’s Move, a campaign to help other parents deal with a national health crisis she describes in epic terms.

If our First Lady was moved into action by the health changes her pediatrician saw in her “apparently healthy looking” kids, then can you imagine the health changes going on in a child that actually looks obese!

It’s a fact that American is getting fatter, and is fatter than it was a generation ago. Fast food and sodas are hugely to blame as they were not a common feature in one’s lifestyle one generation ago. Television and computer games also did not exist a generation ago such that they now become a number one babysitting feature in our homes. Childhood abductions cause parents to keep children indoors. This is a sad commentary on our modern society as only a generation ago, children played freely outside and neighbors watched out for the neighborhood children.

With the increased mobility of society, families do not stay put as they use to and now neighbors hardly know each other, yet alone watch out for each other’s children. Therefore, in one generation, multiple economic, technological and cultural factors have converged to isolate and make our children more sedentary and choose “fast” “processed” food for convenience over long term health consequences. However, realizing these factors, we do not have to be victims of technology, or economics or our fast paced culture.

Where there is an obese child there is an obese parent and the parent may not even realize it. The first step is to wake up to your own reality and take stock as a parent on your own health and lifestyle habits as they teach and impact those of your family especially if you shop and cook for your children. Part one here will focus on you as a parent.

How Much Overweight Do I Need to Be to Affect My Child’s Health?

Overweight parents through their lifestyle can easily cause their children to become obese. First you must become knowledgeable about what lifestyle factors contribute to obesity in yourself before you can understand how it could affect a growing child.

An Index For Obesity:

The Body Mass Index gives a fairly accurate measurement of one’s weight relative to the ideal. Men, women and children all have different ranges of

BMI. The BMI is used to determine obesity ranges. Your BMI is calculated by taking your weight in pounds and dividing it by your height in inches.

The American Council on Exercise has determined a BMI index for men and women as follows:

Classification

Women % fat

Men % fat

Average

25-31 %

18-25%

Obese

32%+

25%+

Fit

21-24%

14-17%

Athletic

14-20%

6-13%

BMI	Height (in)
BMI	58	59	60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72	73	74	75	76
Wgt. (lbs)	4′10″	4′11″	5′0″	5′1″	5′2″	5′3″	5′4″	5′5″	5′6″	5′7″	5′8″	5′9″	5′10″	5′11″	6′0″	6′1′	6′2″	6′3′	6′4′
100	21	20	20	19	18	18	17	17	16	16	15	15	14	14	14	13	13	13	12
105	22	21	21	20	19	19	18	18	17	16	16	16	15	15	14	14	14	13	13
110	23	22	22	21	20	20	19	18	18	17	17	16	16	15	15	15	14	14	13
115	24	23	23	22	21	20	20	19	19	18	18	17	17	16	16	15	15	14	14
120	25	24	23	23	22	21	21	20	19	19	18	18	17	17	16	16	15	15	15
125	26	25	24	24	23	22	22	21	20	20	19	18	18	17	17	17	16	16	15
130	27	26	25	25	24	23	22	22	21	20	20	19	19	18	18	17	17	16	16
135	28	27	26	26	25	24	23	23	22	21	21	20	19	19	18	18	17	17	16
140	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	23	23	22	21	21	20	20	19	19	18	18	17
145	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	23	23	22	21	21	20	20	19	19	18	18
150	31	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	24	23	22	22	21	20	20	19	19	18
155	32	31	30	29	28	28	27	26	25	24	24	23	22	22	21	20	20	19	19
160	34	32	31	30	29	28	28	27	26	25	24	24	23	22	22	21	21	20	20
165	35	33	32	31	30	29	28	28	27	26	25	24	24	23	22	22	21	21	20
170	36	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	24	23	22	22	21	21
175	37	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	24	23	23	22	21
180	38	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	24	23	23	22
185	39	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	24	23	23
190	40	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	24	23
195	41	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	27	26	25	24	24
200	42	40	39	38	37	36	34	33	32	31	30	30	29	28	27	26	26	25	24
205	43	41	40	39	38	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	29	28	27	26	26	25
210	44	43	41	40	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	29	28	27	26	26
215	45	44	42	41	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	28	27	26
220	46	45	43	42	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	28	27
225	47	46	44	43	41	40	39	38	36	35	34	33	32	31	31	30	29	28	27
230	48	47	45	44	42	41	40	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	30	29	28
235	49	48	46	44	43	42	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29	29
240	50	49	47	45	44	43	41	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30	29
245	51	50	48	46	45	43	42	41	40	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	32	31	30
250	52	51	49	47	46	44	43	42	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31	30
255	53	52	50	48	47	45	44	43	41	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32	31
260	54	53	51	49	48	46	45	43	42	41	40	38	37	36	35	34	33	33	32
265	56	54	52	50	49	47	46	44	43	42	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33	32
270	57	55	53	51	49	48	46	45	44	42	41	40	39	38	37	36	35	34	33
275	58	56	54	52	50	49

Take a few minutes to calculate your BMI:

Weight:______ Height in inches:______ My BMI:______

Circle one, I am: Average, Obese, Fit, Athletic

My BMI goal is: _________

Now that you know what your BMI is, you will know whether a doctor would consider you as falling into the obesity category. This is one index doctors use to evaluate patients for obesity. Now let’s look at the contributing factors as there is generally not one cause alone.

Complacency:

Complacency takes many forms and it’s based upon assumptions. How many of these assumptions apply to you?

a) I’ve been overweight all my life

b) I’ve tried to loose weight but can’t keep it off so I can’ expect my kids to either

c) Everyone in my family is heavy set

d) I don’t have time to exercise, that’s why I’ve gained weight

e) I have too much stress

f) My hormones are off

g) I’ve never lost the pregnancy weight

h) I can’t afford “wholesome” food

i) I don’t have time to cook meals from scratch

j) My kids are too picky about what they eat

k) My kids seem healthy

l) Kids will outgrow the fat

A lifetime of weight challenges, or coming from a family of obese individuals does not mean that you are victim of your genes or hormones. Medicine is learning more each year about our metabolic and hormonal differences and the ways to balance them beginning with ways to combat insulin resistance that cause Syndrome X, often a precursor to diabetes.

Inactivity alone will not lead to the degree of obesity that leads one’s children into obesity. Diet plays a huge part. Busy parents can make better grocery store decisions that allow for healthy meals and snacking for the whole family without having to give their children processed foods or slave in the kitchen for hours.

It is cheaper to eat junk food and fast food. However, this food is not only devoid of nutritional value but contains saturated fats, trans fats, pesticides, herbicides, food additives and other carcinogens that rob bodies of nutrition in an effort to combat and detoxify these substances and negatively impacts our immune and metabolic systems leading to early disease. You can be obese and malnourished; it’s very common!

The thought that kids outgrow the baby fat or fat in general is false. Infantile obesity causes the body to make more fat cells than normal weight babies and sets them up for metabolic disorders and childhood obesity. Furthermore, obesity research has found that when people do loose weight and loose fat mass, they don’t loose the number of fat cells. Those fat cells shrink in volume. Regaining fat mass is all to easy to do from retention of intracellular toxicity and fat storage.

Lifestyle habits that create fat storage in childhood are more difficult to overcome in adolescence and adulthood because they are so ingrained. Therefore, outgrowing one’s baby fat is impossible unless one makes a deliberate change in their lifestyle habits that cause obesity.

My kids are healthy so why should I worry? Obesity is a slow and chronic degenerative mechanism of disease. It takes time for obesity to do the following:

1) cause our cells be become resistant to sugars (insulin resistance)

2) cause our fat cells to begin to secrete hormones that increase food cravings and affect our blood sugar regulation

3) cause increased cholesterol and plaque formation in our circulation

4) cause fatigue

5) cause increased toxic accumulation

6) cause excessive estrogen storage, even in boys!

7) cause Alzheimer’s at an early age

8) cause developmental delay and brain processing disorders

9) cause adult onset diabetes at an early age

10) cause emotional issues related to body image and self worth

11) cause sleep disorders including sleep apnea

12) cause fatty liver

13) cause fatty tumors, cancers

All of the above are occurring in the youth when they use to occur only in middle-aged adults!

Where does one begin to determine how and where to make the most effective changes for our children to steer them away from chronic childhood obesity. If you are like most busy parents the thought of it can be overwhelming. You don’t have time to read a lot of books and figure out by trial and error what you need to do help your child loose that fat, but you want to make changes that will effectively help your child redirect their path toward loosing the weight and living a longer healthier life.

Immune Matrix Institute, a non-profit educational organization has implemented a twelve-week online course called REVERSING CHILDHOOD OBESITY. This course was designed for the busy parent. It is administered in one lesson plan, home assessment test and project per week that can be done by the entire family, especially for those home schooling parents in a way that is fun and educational for the children involved. Unless we also teach our youth, they will not value the changes you make in your home. This course will allow you to pass on a living legacy of healthy habits that will benefit them for a lifetime. The cost is $25 a week and is tax-deductible through this non-profit, and includes personalized online coaching through the forum and is one of the most effective ways to implement gradual changes that educate and improve the health of your child and entire family. Don’t delay, get started today.

Please note:
Information on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional. You should not use the information on this site for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication or other treatment.

DIABETES CONTROL

Immune Matrix LLC (Copyright) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:26:19 +0000

The focus of this article is to discuss the little known or understood phenomenon of how the immune system interferes with sugar metabolism and insulin usage. This makes diabetes control difficult and fuels diabetes complications. The information in this article can help you to begin to improve your insulin resistance, sugar metabolism, delay the progressive degenerative conditions associated with diabetes, and prevent the development of adult onset diabetes in pre-diabetics.

Long before anyone develops “adult onset”, “obesity-induced”, Type 2 diabetes their cells begin to develop resistance to insulin. How does this happen? Before one’s cells become fixed in insulin resistance, the immune system can develop a sensitivity to sugars and the metabolic byproducts of sugar digestion and metabolism. When this occurs, you have developed an immune based interference with the digestion and absorption of sugars. When you eat complex or refined carbohydrates, you are less able to break them down into simple sugars. These larger “undigested” molecules cannot fit into the cell receptor sites and can become recognized as “foreign particles” that the immune system then assists in removing from one’s blood and lymphatic system. The more the immune system “recognizes” these undigested particles (and therefore “larger molecules”), the more inflammation and immune system interference you develop towards your sugar metabolism.

How does insulin resistance develop when we are not breaking down and digesting our carbohydrates into simple sugars? Our cells need simple sugars as fuel. They begin to send signals out to the body to increase insulin because they are hungry. However, all the insulin in the world does not help this poor cell to get the simple sugars it needs because your body is not breaking down its carbohydrates into simple sugars. The result is that the extra insulin your body made to stimulate your cells to take in more simple sugars is ignored by the cell because there are no simple sugars to take in. Over time the cell receptor sites ignore the insulin signal in increasing degrees. Think of insulin like yelling “fire” in a crowed room. At first everyone acts upon the alarm call. However, repeatedly yelling “fire” will soon have everyone in the room ignoring your call. This is what happens when insulin secretion is excessive. And you now see the problem wasn’t insufficient insulin to begin with (in cases of adult onset or obesity induced insulin resistance, syndrome X or metabolic disease) but rather insufficient available simple sugars (because the body was unable to break down its carbohydrates into simple sugars).

Complex and refined carbohydrates have to be broken down by enzymes with a specific affinity for the sugar that needs to be broken down. For example, lactase is the enzyme needed to digest cow dairy sugar called lactose, and maltase is the enzyme needed to digest malt, the sugar in gluten products. The synthesis of digestive enzymes is one of THE most energy draining and complex processes the body has to undergo. With age, with low intestinal probiotics, with increased immune inflammation, the body becomes less and less efficient at making digestive enzymes.

It is a well known anti-aging secret that taking a broad spectrum digestive enzyme as soon as you start to eat your meal improves your body’s ability to “break down” complex and refined carbohydrates into simple sugars our cells can absorb, oils into simple fatty acids, and proteins into simple amino acids. Taking digestive enzymes will not prevent or inhibit our body from making its own digestive enzymes. Taking too large a dose of digestive enzymes only breaks down one’s food faster and can cause hunger and more frequent bowel movements as food moves through your digestive tract faster. Simply take one pill instead of two prior to meals if you feel that you are getting hungry too soon after eating.

The first goal to improve one’s diabetes is to gain better control over one’s sugar metabolism. Adding a digestive enzyme is a first step. Eliminating refined carbohydrates should be the second step. If you are unable to eliminate refined carbohydrates (all processed carbohydrates such as bread, cereals, crackers, pasta) and eat only rice, potato, and starchy vegetables such as beans and legumes in their place, then you must cut down the volume of refined carbohydrates you eat and never eat them without the presence of protein. Protein helps to prevent the quick conversion of a refined carbohydrate into sugar, which leads to a spike in your insulin.

Even if you take insulin, it is well known that over time the body becomes resistant to it (insulin resistance increases over time even with medication) and therefore one should never have the attitude that “all I need to do is take my insulin and everything will be ok”. This is not true. With medication you will not go into a diabetic coma, but the inflammatory processes that result from undigested sugars circulating in your body will continue to erode your eyesight, affect peripheral capillaries and circulation, all common and known degenerative changes associated with diabetes.

Therefore, even if you take insulin or oral medications to help control your blood sugar there is plenty that you can do to improve your own carbohydrate digestion and cellular absorption of sugars by watching the type of carbohydrates you eat, limiting portion sizes of those carbohydrates, eating protein with carbohydrates and taking a broad spectrum digestive enzyme with your meals. This is the beginning of making living with diabetes a better lifestyle choice and it will improve your blood sugar and insulin resistance. It will also make your medications more effective and stall the need for your doctors to increase your dosages over time.

For more detailed information on sugar metabolism, see our other articles about sugar cravings, BeneGene for natural glucose control, and stress and obesity. Future articles will address other aspects of lifestyle changes that will improve living with diabetes.

HOW HORMONES MAKE US FAT?

Immune Matrix LLC (Copyright) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:54:37 +0000

2010/08/11
Published

Obesity, weight gain and weight management is about more than calories taken in and energy expenditure out. The balance of our hormones forms the energetic template and structure around which our body rebuilds itself. The purpose of this article is to give you a beginning perspective on how our hormones form this template around which our body structures its metabolism and form.

The main hormonal players in the obesity game are:

1) thyroid hormone: T3 aka triiodothyronine

2) growth hormone

3) sex hormones: estrogen/testosterone

4) adrenal hormone: cortisol

5) leptin

6) gherlin

THYROID HORMONE:

The active hormone of the thyroid is T3 called triiodothyronine. The pituitary excretes thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) which stimulates the thyroid to make T3 from thyroxine (T4). Traditionally doctors would take a blood test for your TSH, T4 and T3 levels. If TSH was elevated, then it indicated the body’s attempt to stimulate the thyroid to make more T3.

It has only been in the last year that free T3 levels are now being tested routinely by astute doctors and heal care providers. What is free T3? It is T3 that is not bound by anti-bodies. It has been discovered that individuals with autoimmune inflammatory conditions such as chronic fatigue, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, allergies, arthritic conditions, environmental sensitivities, food sensitivities, irritable bowel, and other immune driven conditions will develop an immune sensitivity to their own thyroid hormone. Many times this is a temporary condition that resolves once the underlying immune sensitivities are brought under control and resolved. However, sometimes they become a full blown auto-immune attack against the thyroid gland itself and not just against the thyroid hormone. These individuals will go on to develop Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or Wilson’s syndrome. Therefore, adding free T3 to one’s blood test helps the medical practitioner to determine how much T3 is available for you to use as you can only use T3 that is unbound (unattached to an antibody). With the addition of testing for free T3 one can now find effective low thyroid hormone levels when total T3 looks normal!

Why is thyroid hormone implicated in obesity and weight gain? T3 controls your body’s energy metabolism called your basal metabolic rate. It controls your rate of protein synthesis which has a direct impact on your body’s ability to maintain your muscle mass. It also plays a crucial role in your sugar metabolism by controlling the rate in which glycogen is broken down into glucose and it boosts the effect of insulin. Without this useful hormone you are more likely to become insulin resistant and develop Syndrome X, from it. T3 also directly affects your heart, controlling its force and rate of contraction and your oxygenation as a result. It’s hard to feel like moving your body when you heart is feeling sluggish!

GROWTH HORMONE:

Human growth hormone (HGH) is considered a master hormone because it affects all areas of our body. When we are young, in our early 20’s we have the highest level of growth hormone and as a result we look pretty good! By the time we reach our 40’s our levels of HGH have declined significantly. Research has observed that along with the steady decline in growth hormone we see a steady loss of muscle mass, decreased in energy as a result and increase fat mass. Stimulating the pituitary gland in the brain to synthesize HGH causes an increase in muscle mass back to one’s prime age and loss of fat mass. Studies are confirming that individuals suffering from obesity have lower than normal HGH levels.

The metabolic effects of HGH involve protein, fat and sugar metabolism. HGH increases the uptake of amino acids by the body helping it to build muscle. It also enhances the usage of fat, stimulating the breakdown of triglycerides. Therefore, it helps us have better cholesterol levels and fat metabolism. HGH is also crucial in sugar metabolism because it boosts the liver’s ability of the liver to make glucose. However, a side effect of injectable HGH is secretion of excessive insulin and the development of insulin resistance! There is a huge difference between taking supplements to stimulate the synthesis of HGH and taking HGH directly (which is known to cause side effects of hypertension, joint pains, insulin resistance and heart problems).

SEX HORMONES AND OBESITY:

For women the onset of menopause results in perplexing weight gain. Research has discovered that the loss of estrogen receptors (ER-alpha receptors) in the brain, in particular your hypothalamus caused a chain reaction of metabolic effects that result in increased appetite, increased insulin resistance and increase abdominal fat! These receptors control hunger, thirst and temperature! Loss of these receptors in rats resulted in increased insulin resistance and immediate weight gain, especially belly fat and increased appetite! (American Chemical Society 2007, August 20, Revealing Estrogen’s Secret Role in Obesity.)

Men approaching middle age can also become hormonally imbalanced and their testosterone synthesis can divert to a higher level of estrogen synthesis. Its effect is to increase fat retention especially in the breasts of men.

With increases in fat retention, fat cells store estrogen! This makes the problem worse because it isn’t the level of estrogen that keeps us slim but our usage of it. Too much stored estrogen in tissues makes our body resistant to using estrogen and we become “estrogen dominant”, and store estrogen. This increases fat storage and our risk for estrogen dominant cancers in both men and women. When estrogen is able to enter our cells (because the cells are not resistant to absorbing estrogen) it helps to control appetite. (Yale University, Jan. 4, 2007, Estrogen Curbs Appetite in Same Way as the Hormone Leptin.)

Obese men have lower testosterone levels and obese girls and women have higher testosterone levels. Testosterone is necessary to maintain muscle mass. It has not been conclusively determined to date whether this apparent imbalance of testosterone in obese individuals comes from the gradual onset of obesity or whether the imbalance of the hormone itself induces metabolic imbalances that fuels obesity. Like estrogen, both factors are probably true.

EXCESSIVE CORTISOL:

Cortisol is produced by our adrenal glands located above our kidneys. When we are under stress or while we are fighting off infection, our body increases our cortisol to stimulate the body to ramp up its sugar metabolism and immune action. The problem arises when stress or infection becomes chronic and the body becomes resistant to the stimulating effects of cortisol. Insulin resistance and immune fatigue will result, stimulating fat storage, especially belly fat.

LEPTIN:

Leptin is a relatively newly discovered hormone, in 1994. This hormone is found in direct proportion to the level of body fat we have. This mean the fatter we get the more leptin we make. It is made in white fat, brown fat, breast tissue, bone marrow, the pituitary, the liver, ovaries, muscles and the stomach.

So called ‘normal’ levels of leptin help our body to control our appetite by acting on our brain, in particular the hypothalamus to inhibit our appetite. Compounding the excessive production of leptin by the above tissues is the fact that the very act of eating food stimulates our body to make more leptin. Add this fact to the fact that as we gain more fat cells, the secretion of leptin increases and we develop resistance to any excessive hormone secretion, including leptin. Leptin resistance causes us to have increased appetite because the hormone becomes ineffective!

GHRELIN:

Ghrelin is a hormone secreted by the empty stomach. Its function is to stimulate hunger. If we skip a meal, especially breakfast we end up making more ghrelin overall. The result is that when we do eat the synthesis of ghrelin declines but our overall level of ghrelin is higher contributing to night time hunger!

Another function of ghrelin is to increase the volume of food we want to eat and to increase out fat mass! As you can see, if you wait too long to eat and get too hungry, you will make more ghrelin and then you will overeat. The food you do eat will then be stimulated to fat storage because of this hormone. Balance is everything, so don’t ignore hunger and don’t skip breakfast!

DOPAMINE:

Dopamine is a brain chemical, a neurotransmitter that is linked to our ability to maintain focus, and produce feelings of satisfaction and pleasure. It also plays a part in our body’s metabolism. Studies have found a link between low dopamine receptors in the brain and obesity. With increases in obesity (increases in BMI) they found fewer dopamine receptors! Fewer receptors mean that you are more likely to eat more to try to stimulate the dopamine “pleasure” circuits and can become addicted to food just like drugs and other compulsive behaviors. What has not been determined is whether the reduction in dopamine receptors is a cause or consequence of obesity.

Drugs that increase dopamine receptor sensitivity are highly addictive and become less effective over time. What has been shown to increase dopamine receptor sensitivity and release is exercise! (Brookhaven National Laboratory Feb.6, 2001, Scientist Find Link Between Dopamine and Obesity)

With all the above hormones, there are complex regulatory mechanisms that cause each hormone to interact not just with our brain but with other tissues in our body and other hormones. Correcting imbalances is a complex picture that involves balancing all one’s hormones with proper lifestyle, stress reduction, supplementation and diet.

ANNOUNCING ONLINE E-COURSE: GUIDELINES FOR OPTIMUM HEALTH

Immune Matrix LLC (Copyright) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:04:36 +0000

2010/07/23
Published

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT TO GET OUT OF THIS COURSE?

It is the goal of Immune Matrix Institute to give you a fundamental understanding of core nutritional and health care concepts that we feel are essential building blocks to enable you to:

1) understand basic concept of good nutrition

2) be a better informed consumer of nutritional supplements

3) handle common infections before they require drug treatment

4) understand basic concepts of digestion

5) understand healthy lifestyle choices in diet, nutrition and exercise

6) understand how your immune system works

7) communicate better with your doctor(s)

8) make better decisions about healthy snaking

9) make better food choices for your health

10)have a basic understanding of key lab tests

11)know what to keep in your medicine cabinet

12)how to have better emotional health

13)cope with life stress better

This course is our foundational course for future advanced courses on specific health care topics. We are currently seeking continuing education credits. Please let us know if you have specific continuing education credit needs.

The course includes 230 pages that will be sent to you either on Word doc or PDF format, please specify. It covers 15 chapters with quizzes and a final exam on What is Health, Body Basics, Building Blocks of Nutrition, Vitamins & Minerals, Allergies, Immune Sensitivities, Inflammation, Acidity, Detoxification, Dysbiosis, Leaky Gut, Infections, Sleep (17 areas of health that impact sleep), Clean Eating, Meal Tactics, The Home Medical Pantry, Physical Activity, Emotional Health, Stress, Elderly and Needs of Children, Colds & Flu, Vaccinations, and Physical Exams and Lab Tests.

Cost: $199.00 (Includes 30 days Q&A forum chat with Immune Matrix health care practitioners and author of blog articles.) To pay by phone call 408-262-6900, or buy online at www.immunematrix.com online store.

What this course is not designed to do is to diagnose or give you medical advise about any disease or condition. This course is also not intended to have you rely upon your own skills to the exclusion of your seeking medical advice for unexplained symptoms or conditions or follow up care. This course is also not intended to have you change or stop any prescribed medications without first consulting your prescribing physician.

DO I NEED TO DRINK WATER?

Immune Matrix LLC (Copyright) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:58:34 +0000

2010/06/30
Published

The purpose of this article is to give you guidelines about the importance of water to our health, what type is best for us and how much we should be drinking. Homeschooled children also need to have adequate water intake during the day to maintain mental clarity and energy. By the time we feel thirsty, we are already dehydrated! Even slight dehydration can slow our metabolism by as much as 15%!

I hope it surprises you to know that there are people out there that do not drink water! They drink tea, coffee, sodas or fruit juices and think that this is sufficient. Some justify their lack of affection for water because they don’t like the taste. Others complain that if they drink water they have to run to the bathroom all the time and find that a terrible nuisance!

I Don’t Like the Taste of Water

When you don’t like the taste of water, either your water is bad or you have a sweet tooth and have grown accustomed to drinking sodas and fruit juices. We can educate our taste buds to tone down our need for sweet tasting drinks by diluting our drinks with water or mineral water more and more until we are down to drinking water. We can also put lemon or lime or a slice of cucumber in our water to give it a slight refreshing taste. Lemon and lime help to make us less acidic and more alkaline.

Being more alkaline is a good thing, because bacteria, yeast, candida and virus love to grow in an acid environment. Immune Matrix has found that by having their patients focus on making their diet more alkaline promoting, chronic bacterial and viral infections commonly seen in lyme disease, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel, and those suffering from allergies show greater improvement than those that do not alkalinize their diet while taking their anti-microbial medications.

We can also add an EsterC packet to our water, powdered acai, or powdered greens to our water for the taste. The vitamins and minerals and anti-oxidants they provide are a fabulous addition to our otherwise deficient diets. These are all healthy alternatives to drinking artificially flavored drinks, sodas or heavily sugared fruit drinks.

Water Goes Straight Through Me

If when you drink a glass of water you find yourself needing to urinate within 30 minutes or sooner, then it’s highly likely that you do not have enough minerals in your system to use the water. Minerals help to transport water across the cell membrane. To find out if you are mineral deficient, a good baseline test to run is a hair analysis. Allergy Research Group has a modestly priced hair test kit available online at www.immunematrix.com. It provides a fabulous detailed written report and graph of essential minerals and trace minerals and some heavy metals. It compares their ratios and gives you recommendations on dietary guidelines and causes for such mineral imbalances. With this information you can determine if you need to focus on adding more magnesium, selenium, chromium, molybdenum to your broad spectrum mineral supplement. These minerals tend to be what we are most deficient in. It can take a few months to increase one’s mineral stores. During this time pay attention to how long it take before you need to urinate after drinking a glass of water. Soon you will find that drinking water does not cause you the same type of urinary stress it use to.

It is easy and safe to add minerals to one’s water. Many liquid minerals are completely tasteless. Immune Matrix gives its patients a product called HydraCell by RBC available online at www.immunematrix.com. This product contains trace minerals and changes the viscosity of water making it more absorbable into cells. It can be added to any liquid and improves the taste of all liquids from soups, orange juice, coffee, and water. Its minerals also alkalinize the liquid. Therefore, if you want to make your coffee less acidic, add a squirt of HydraCell, and add it to all water to increase its mineral content. It can be fun to do blind taste test on one’s family to see which liquid they find tastes better, the one with or without the HydraCell. This is an excellent homeschooling educational test to educate children about minerals and acid and alkaline foods.

What pH Should My Water Be?

If you have never heard about the subject of pH, make sure you read our articles about acids. Our blood maintains the ph of 7.4. When we eat high carbohydrate foods or animal protein, these foods make the fluid compartments more acid. Our body uses our mineral stores to neutralize the acid, consuming our precious minerals in the process. If we also drink acid pH fluids, such as sugary drinks, artificially sweetened drinks, and coffee, then our body has to neutralize the acidity that these drinks induce.

It may be confusing but drinking lemon water or lime water helps to alkalinize the body. However, you can and should also test your water to make sure it is not acid. This is also an excellent project for homeschooling. Take a pH test strip (available online at www.immunematrix.com) and have your child dip it quickly in and out of the water. Then have then look at the color and compare it to the chart. Your child will learn what neutral pH is and what acid pH is!

We have tested the water of area water companies and found their water to be as acid is 5.5pH! It’s best to drink water with a pH of 7 or higher. How do I do that? Adding minerals to your water increases the pH. HydraCell trace mineral drops alkalinize your water. You could then add a squirt of HydraCell to the water, stir and have your child retest the water with a new pH test strip and compare the difference. This will help to educate everyone in the family about how what we put into our bodies is important and how being too acid can give us more colds and infections.

Are Some Waters Bad for Us?

Avoid drinking distilled water! Distilled water has NO minerals. Drinking distilled water will pull minerals out of your tissues and cause you to become de-mineralized over time. The best water to drink is spring water, mineral water or ionized water. These waters have minerals essential for our health. In our toxic world we have a greater need for minerals than 100 years ago! Without sufficient minerals we are unable to detoxify efficiently. Therefore, it is essential to have alkaline mineral water to drink.

Drinking water stored in plastic bottles is to be discouraged. The plastics in these bottles foster elevated estrogens in the body. This is bad for women and growing children, and the environment. Having a reusable non-plastic drinking bottle will help you also to keep track of how much water you are drinking during the day.

When Should I Drink My Water?

Some individuals with low stomach acid or low digestive enzymes will do well not to drink water when they eat, as this dilutes their digestive enzymes, and alkaline water will counter the effect of one’s stomach acid. Therefore, drinking one’s alkaline water between meals is a better ideal. Homeschooling parents need to remember to give the children high mineral alkaline water before they become thirsty and have set times of the day that they are given water to be better able to keep track of their total water intake. This will improve mental clarity and reduce episodes of constipation common in growing children. For adults with hard stools or constipation, drinking a warm glass of water upon rising really helps to hydrate and relax the bowels in the morning.

In summary, drink water (half your weight in ounces: 100lb person drinks 50 ounces per day). Drink more for exercise or sweating. Make sure your water is neutral pH of 7 or higher. Add trace minerals to the water. If you have a high acid diet of carbohydrates and animal fats, you need more minerals to alkalinize. Have some lemon water during the day. Drink water between meals and avoid water stored in plastic bottles.

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IS MY ESTROGEN HORMONE THERAPY SAFE?

Immune Matrix LLC (Copyright) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:09:31 +0000

2010/06/27
Published

The incidences of breast cancer have not declined despite routine mammogram testing and the increasing trend to use natural compounded hormones. One of the reasons is doctors who prescribe hormone replacement therapy, whether natural or synthetic hormones, do not follow up and continue to monitor their patient’s hormone levels! Failing to watch your body’s reaction and accumulation of hormones in response to therapy can be deadly and lead you directly to the development of uterine and breast cancer as a result of elevated estrogen! In most cases there are no warning symptoms until you develop that lump in your breast or end up in your gynecologist office complaining of uterine bleeding, a warning sign for cancer in post-menopausal women! Don’t let you or your doctor’s apathy cause you to develop an estrogen based cancer.

How Often Should I Have My Hormones Tested?

Your prescribing doctor should test their patients’ hormone levels regularly. Failing to do so can push their patients to the development of breast and uterine cancer. However, rather than blame, take responsibility in directing your care because assuming you are fine because the doctor assumes you are fine can result with an unpleasant surprise a year or more down the line!

At the beginning of any hormone therapy program, you should be tested within the first 60-90 days to determine how your body is reacting to the hormones. You cannot tell by how you feel! Thereafter, to be proactive get tested every 3 months if there is a history of cancer in the family, or if you have allergies, chronic fatigue, lyme disease, eczema, dysbiosis, or any other chronic inflammatory condition because it means that your liver detoxification pathways do not work their best. Adding any hormone therapy to a body that suffers chronic inflammation can easily result in estrogen dominance when your liver detoxification pathways are not properly supported with the extra load of exogenous hormones. If you are not suffering from any type of chronic inflammatory condition and your 3 month lab test after starting hormone therapy showed optimal ranges, then your next test could safely be put off for 4 months, but no longer.

If your doctor won’t run a test or he/she minimizes the need for testing then there is an affordable test you can obtain and do from home through www.immunematrix.com (Extended Postmenopause Panel – Diagnos-Techs, Inc./saliva SKU: SKU16269). The results take 2 weeks to come in and can then be communicated to your prescribing doctor to adjust your hormone dosages. You can also contact Diagnos-Techs, Inc. (http://www.diagnostechs.com) and look up a referral for a doctor affiliated with this laboratory in your area, who will then be familiar with this type of testing.

Testing within the first 3 months of starting a hormone program allows you to catch elevated estrogens, progesterone and testosterone before they increase your risk of cancer. Immune Matrix has seen cases in which a patient was only tested once in the year by a famous physician (too busy to follow up with all their patients, and the patient presumed by this doctor’s fame that they were covered) and that woman went on to develop estrogen based breast cancer by the end of the year as a result of elevated estrogens! Immune Matrix makes it a point of testing any patient on hormone therapy for this very reason. Make sure you don’t slip through the cracks with your doctor. Become educated and know your hormone levels. It’s easy to do.

The expanded Postmenopausal Hormone panel by Diagnos-Techs, Inc. offered online by Immune Matrix tests via saliva for: DHEA, Testosterone, Estrone, Estradiol, Estriol, and Progesterone and based on the ratio of the hormones, it calculates your Breast and Uterine Proliferation Index or risk! This is why this test is so valuable! The chart below is an example of the index you will receive and it is diagnostic for estrogen dominance. The chart also explains your risk factor for breast or uterine cancer.

Looking at the chart above, this particular patient had not been tested by her prescribing doctor after having been put on hormone therapy. Her DHEA was elevated at 25 when it should not have exceeded 10ng/ml. Her testosterone was elevated at 32 when it should not have exceeded 20pg/ml! Her estrone was greater than 100 and it should not have exceeded 64 pg/ml! Her Estradiol was 66 and it should not have exceeded 13pg/ml! Her estriol was in excess of 100 when it should not have been in excess of 38pg/ml! And her progesterone was greater than 2000, and it should not have exceeded 300pg/ml! This is why this patient was found to be estrogen dominant with no apparent signs but fatigue (caused by excessive progesterone). If she stayed on the hormone replacement program her doctor prescribed, her risk for breast cancer and uterine cancer would be greatly enhanced!

Another major problem with most hormone replacement therapy is the use of transdermal progesterone. Time and again Immune Matrix finds that the hormone is stored in fat tissue. This causes elevated progesterone levels which do not respond to PTA (pituitary-adrenal-thyroid) feedback loop, frankly because the hormone is locked in a fat cell. Excessive progesterone makes you sluggish and tired! This patient went to another doctor who gave her B12 shots for fatigue. This helped but this patient needed to get rid of the cause, excessive progesterone. This patient also needed to detoxify her excessive estrogen and testosterone and DHEA by proper methylation support for her liver until her hormone levels optimized. Thereafter, her progesterone should be changed to sublingual where it will not be stored by fat cells! The dosages of her other hormones will have to be adjusted and then she will have to be retested in 60 and no more than 90 days to make sure she stays in the optimal range. This is the best way to prevent the development of estrogen based cancers while on hormone therapy.

Another simple test that can be done is to have a blood test that checks your hormone levels and also tests LH (leutinizing hormone). LH increases as the pituitary senses estrogen dominance from the drop in bio-available progesterone. Remember that as women age, their failure to ovulate means they fail to make progesterone. Progesterone allows a woman’s cells to use estrogens. This is one main reason why breast and uterine cancers rise sharply in menopausal women, because their lack of synthesis of progesterone causes the estrogen to go unopposed by progesterone, thus they become estrogen dominant. Excessive estrogen irritates the cells of the breast and uterus and can cause proliferation of cancer cells as a result. If your LH is elevated, you need to be on an oral progesterone, preferably sublingual and you need more of it. As your progesterone levels optimize, your LH levels will drop to normal values.

Take the time to double check your hormone levels. Do not assume from your doctor’s verbal assurances unverified by lab work, or based on your doctor’s demeanor of authority over you, or based upon their reputation in the community that your doctor has you covered without verification with proper lab testing. And without proper lab testing you cannot know if your hormone therapy is throwing your hormone levels out of balance. The risk of not knowing can cause you to silently become estrogen dominant and lead you into a cancer diagnosis. This mistake can cost you your life!

WHY SO MUCH MUCOUS? a Homeschooling Guide

2010/06/24
Published

Do you or your children have chronic sinus congestion? Are mornings filled with the sound of coughing to clear lungs of mucous congestion? Do you or your children wake up and need to blow your nose? Do you find yourself clearing your throat during the day feeling like thick sticky mucous gathers there? Do you feel bloated? Do you retain water? Is your digestion sluggish? Do your limbs feel heavy, your body feeling heavier than it somehow should? Do you have low energy or find it hard to have the energy you use to have? Are you or your children more sluggish and lethargic, especially upon awaking and then in the mid-afternoon? Do you gain weight easily? Are your children overweight? Does your face or eyes feel puffy? These are all common symptoms of dampness caused by too much mucous in the body.

Certain conditions predispose us to mucous production such as: seasonal allergies, asthma, eczema, candidiasis, leaky gut, irritable bowel, Chron’s disease, dysbiosis, chronic fatigue, food sensitivities and food allergies, acid reflux, hormonal imbalances, PMS, heavy metal toxicity, diabetes and Syndrome X. However, you don’t need to have any of these conditions to suffer from chronic mucous.

What is Mucous?

Mucous is excessive excretions from the body. Any membrane can secrete mucous as a defensive mechanism to infection, inflammation or digestion. Areas of the body where there are mucous secreting membranes are our mouth, bronchioles in our lungs, our digestive tract, especially our colon, and vaginal canal.

Mucous from Infection

During times of infection, from bacteria or viral attack the body increases the mucous secretions to help transport white blood cells to the area of attack and to purge our body of these pathogens. Drinking plenty of water helps our body keep these secretions from getting too thick and stagnant and will prevent the formation of secondary infections from forming in our sinus and lungs due to stagnant mucous. For example, we may get the flu and have a very runny nose and cough up mucous. If we don’t drink enough liquid the mucous thickens in our system and will promote the growth of opportunistic bacteria that leads to sinus, ear and lung bacterial infections.

An easy way to prevent secondary infections from thick mucous is to use Health Max silver solution (available online at www.immunematrix.com). Immune Matrix has its patients keep it on hand and instructs them to spray 2 pumps of a nasal sprayer in each nostril during times of cold and flu and sinus congestion. This will help prevent sinus infection. The silver is not absorbed and this silver is one of the safest on the market. Immune Matrix also advises parents to put a dropper in the ears of children with ear infections to prevent the need for stents.

Our body can also suffer the overgrowth of yeast and candida in our digestive tract and in girls and women their vagina tract. Symptoms of excessive mucous from dysbiosis of the digestive tract will promote excessive sinus congestion, lung congestion, intestinal bloating, sugar cravings, aggressive or irritable behavior in children, and excessive vagina secretions.

Mucous from Inflammation

Excessive mucous is also made by the body in response to inflammation. Inflammation is caused by the development of immune sensitivities to sugars, house dust, pet dander and grasses and weeds in particular. These are the worst offenders that lead to the production of excessive mucous in the body.

What kind of sugar sensitivity leads to excessive mucous production? Sugar is in any carbohydrate. If one has developed problems with sugar metabolism and is not breaking down and digesting their carbohydrates into simple sugars, this can foster the overgrowth of the wrong type of bacteria and yeast. Overgrowth can occur in the digestive tract and can lead to invasion of the pelvic organs, leading to vaginal candida in girls and grown women. It also causes excessive upper respiratory mucous.

What can you do with suspected sugar metabolism issues? First, avoid eating carbohydrates without a protein. Second, do not eat fruit, especially high glycemic fruits between meals. They become converted to sugar too quickly by the body and will feed the dysbiotic pathogens that promote mucous production. (see our other articles for homeschooling, sugar cravings, food cravings, seasonal allergies, food allergies and disabilities, and water) Third, stop any cow dairy! Fourth, add a digestive enzyme to be taken as soon as you begin eating. Immune Matrix gives their patients a vege cap broad spectrum enzyme called Digestion. (available online at www.immunematrix.com) They also have a Chewable Digestion enzyme for children. This will increase the break down of the carbohydrate into simple sugars increasing nutrient absorption. Fifth, get de-sensitized to those sugars and sugar metabolites that increase inflammation by an experienced practitioner. Immune Matrix has proprietary advanced metabolic pathway panels to improve sugar metabolism on many levels and is a part of their detailed initial work up of all patients.

In addition, the more sugar sensitivities one has, the worse the house dust, grass and weed sensitivities will be! Cutting back on one’s carbohydrate consumption, balancing one’s carbohydrates with protein and vegetables, becoming more alkaline (drinking lemon water between meals) will greatly reduce one’s sensitivity to house dust, grass and weeds! This is particularly helpful for those suffering seasonal allergies, and those suffering from chronic fatigue.

The more sugar sensitivities one has the worse the PMS and menopause symptoms will be also. Bloating, weight gain, water retention in the abdomen, and extremities, constipation, bloating, frequent sighing, hot flushes and hot flashes are all made worse by sugar sensitivities!

If you are homeschooling your child, you have the added advantage of having a kitchen readily available for healthy snacking prepared in advance during their breaks. Make it a point to explain to your child what healthy eating is about and why. You will be amazed to find that once a child understands what is good for them, they begin to take pride in eating healthy and will even keep the rest of the family on track!

Cow dairy is a carbohydrate and it has the added issue of promoting mucous production by its very nature. Therefore, whenever there is an issue with excessive mucous, the first thing to stop is all cow dairy (milk, yogurt, all cheese, ice cream!). In addition, for those children that tend to get frequent sinus and ear infections, cutting out cow dairy will greatly reduce the frequency and severity of their infections! Alternative sources for calcium are oranges, almond milk, goat products, rice milk and dark green leafy vegetables (they can be juiced with a smoothie and you never know the vegetables are there!) Cow dairy is also especially troublesome from a mucous standpoint for anyone suffering from asthma, bronchiole infections, chronic fatigue, any type of allergy, eczema, Chron’s disease, irritable bowel and candida infections.

If complete avoidance is not possible, then make dairy a once a week treat and keep an eye out for the side effects of increased mucous production within 24 hrs of eating it. This may discourage you or your child from having it. Other individuals may be able to handle a weekly dose without accumulating excessive mucous.

Those suffering skin conditions such as eczema may see wet or damp and oozing skin patches. Removing dairy and excessive carbohydrates is important as is eliminating dysbiosis in the intestinal track. Doctor’s Data has a microbiology stool test for this available online at www.immunematrix.com.

I hope this article helps you to understand that eating mucous producing foods will put our bodies in states that promote infection (ear, lung, sinus). It will make existing conditions of dysbiosis, chronic fatigue, eczema, irritable bowel, PMS, menopause, seasonal allergies, environmental sensitivities, brain fog, lethargy, heaviness, weight gain, bloating, any type of infection worse! Careful attention to avoiding mucous promoting foods, and alkalinizing your body will greatly reduce or eliminate recurrent infections and play a significant role in resolving many such conditions over time.

Please note:
Information on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional. You should not use the information on this site for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication or other treatment.

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WHAT TYPE OF MAGNESIUM SHOULD I TAKE?

2010/06/22
Published

Page 6 of 6 (The Magnesium Deficiency Epidemic)

In Parts 1 and 2 we discussed why most of us are magnesium deficient and those lifestyle factors that cause us to burn magnesium at a faster rate. In Parts 3 and 4 we discussed why magnesium plays a crucial role in our staying healthy and energetic. We also learned which type of conditions are made worse with magnesium deficiency and how magnesium deficiency can play a central role in our developing other conditions. In Part 5 we discussed how to determine our relative magnesium needs and how to get tested for intracellular magnesium. Here we will guide you to choose foods high in magnesium as a regular part of your diet. Empowered with this knowledge, you will be able to begin to restore the mineral balance so crucial to proper metabolic function.

Experiment with different types of magnesium to determine what works best with your body. Taken with or without food and spreading the dosages out during the day, can have a huge benefit in your body’s ability to absorb magnesium. Those who reach bowel tolerance too soon and are unable to take sufficient magnesium supplements should consider also adding a transdermal magnesium, available online a www.immunematrix.com called MagneDerm™.

Magnesium that is chelated, meaning bound to other minerals, may contain ionized unbound inorganic magnesium. This is not easily absorbed by the body. It is better to avoid unbound material to improve absorption.

Some recommended brands include:

Advanced Medical Nutrition, Inc (AMNI) Amino Mag, Solgar Magnesium Glycinate, Albion chelate also has a patented magnesium, J.R. Carlson Magnesium Glycinate or Immune Matrix’s favorite, a powdered magnesium that has little to no taste and will not deplete your body of L-glutathione, taurine, B6, and thiamin. This is why Immune Matrix favors the Magneleuvers brand because it does not deplete the body of other essential nutrients to metabolize magnesium! Magneleuvers is manufactured by SEROYAL out of Belgium and this powdered magnesium is very bioavailable and easy to add into any liquid drinks with hardly any taste of its own. It is available online at www.immunematrix.com. According to Immune Matrix, it is a top performer among their supplements tested on the most chronically ill patients with severely compromised digestive tracts for both children and adults. Patients needing to replenish their magnesium can safely take one powdered packet in their water, juice or tea every two hours until bowel tolerance is reached. Magnesium is also available topically for those with sensitive digestive systems at www.immunematrix.com.

Milk of magnesia and magnesium citrate are used as laxatives in hospitals and nursing homes. This means that the amount of magnesium in these products is not as absorbable into our cells and therefore serves the function of acting as a laxative. For obvious reasons this type of product is not good to take when one is trying to build up their magnesium stores.

If one is seeking to boost energy, or has been told they have mitochondrial disease or are suffering from chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lyme disease or a chronic viral infection, then taking magnesium along with malic acid (extracted from apples), an important metabolite in the Kreb’s cycle responsible for making ATP would be helpful. Malic acid also helps the body eliminate aluminum. Therefore, you should consult an experienced health care provider, one experienced in heavy metal chelation and liver detoxification pathways to determine your optimum dosage. They should be aware of signs of liver detoxification pathway problems to ward of symptoms that could arise from the inability to eliminate heavy metals and signs of drainage problems associated with toxic congestion.

Foods high in magnesium:

Below is a food chart listing magnesium content of food. Some of the best foods high in magnesium are sunflowers, topping the list, followed by wheat germ, and cashews! Legumes, nuts such as almonds, dark-green leafy vegetables, cocoa, dried fruits, shellfish, wheat bran, brewer’s yeast, barley, millet, corn and beet greens are especially high in magnesium.

Magnesium Content of Foods

Type of Food	Food	Serving Size	Milligrams Magnesium
Nuts and Seeds
	Almonds, dried	2 oz	168
	Brazil Nuts, Dried	2 T	128
	Cashew Nuts, Dry Roasted	2 oz	148
	Coconut, Dried	2 oz	52
	Flax Seed	2 T	70
	Peanuts, Dry Roasted	2 oz	98
	Peanut Butter, Natural	2 T	51
	Pumpkin Seeds, Dried	2 oz	304
	Sesame Seeds, Whole, Dried	2 oz	64
	Sunflower Seeds, Kernels, Dried	2oz	200
	Walnuts, Black, Dried	2 oz	114
	Watermelon Seeds, Dried	2 oz	292
Leafy Greens
	Chard, Boiled	1/2 cup	76
	Collard Greens, Boiled	1/2 cup	26
	Kale, Boiled	1/2 cup	12
	Spinach, Boiled	1/2 cup	79
	Spinach, Raw	1 cup	44
	Turnip Greens, Boiled	1/2 cup	16
	Seaweed, Kelp	3.5 oz	121
	Seaweed, Spirulina, dried	3.5 oz	195
Grains
	Barley, Pearled, Cooked	1/2 cup	17
	Barley, Whole Grain, Cooked	1/2 cup	61
	Corn, Yellow, Cooked	1/2 cup	26
	Quinoa, Cooked	1/2 cup	89
	Buckwheat Groats, Cooked	1/2 cup	51
	Millet, Whole Grain, Cooked	1/2 cup	53
	Oats, Bran	1/2 cup	96
	Oats, Whole Grain, Cooked	1/2 cup	56
	Oatmeal, Quick, Regular, or Instant, Cooked	1/2 cup	56
	Rice, Long Grain Brown, Cooked	1/2 cup	42
	Rice, Long Grain, White, Cooked	1/2 cup	13
	Rice, Wild, Cooked	1/2 cup	27
	Rye, Whole Grain	1/2 cup	35
	Wheat, Bran	2 T	10
	Wheat, Bulgur, Cooked	1/2 cup	29
	Wheat, Couscous, Cooked	1/2 cup	15
	Wheat Germ, Raw	1/4 cup	69
	Wheat Germ, Toasted	1/4 cup	91
Beans
	Adzuki Beans, Boiled	1/2 cup	60
	Black Beans, Boiled	1/2 cup	61
	Cowpeas (Black-eye). Boiled	1/2 cup	43
	Great Northern Beans, Boiled	1/2 cup	44
	Green Snap/String Beans, Boiled1	1/2 cup	16
	Green Peas-Boiled	1/2 cup	16
	Hummus	1/2 cup	36
	Kidney Beans, Red, Boiled	1/2 cup	40
	Lentils, Boiled	1/2 cup	36
	Lima Beans, Boiled	1/2 cup	41
	Navy Beans, Boiled	1/2 cup	54
	Pinto Beans, Boiled	1/2 cup	48
	Soybeans, Boiled	1/2 cup	74
	Tofu, Raw	1/2 cup	127
	Tempeh, Cooked	1/2 cup	58

Miscellaneous
	Blackstrap Molasses	2 T	86
	Chocolate, Unsweetened	1 oz	88
Fruits & Vegetables
	Acorn Squash, Baked	1/2 cup cubes	43
	Apple, Raw w Skin	1 medium	6
	Avocado, California	1 medium	70
	Avocado, Florida	1 medium	104
	Banana	1 medium	33
	Beets, Boiled	1/2 cup	31
	Blueberry	1.2 cup	4
	Broccoli, Boiled	1/2 cup	19
	Cantaloupe	1/2 cup pieces	9
	Carrots, Raw	1 Medium	11
	Cauliflower, Boiled	1/2 cup	17
	Cucumber, Raw	1/2 cup sliced	6
	Dates, Dried	5 dates	15
	Grapes	1/2 cup variety kinds	3
	Kiwi	1 medium	23
	Mango	1 medium	18
	Mushrooms, Boiled	1/2 cup, pieces	10
	Okra, Boiled	1/2 cup, sliced	46
	Onions, Boiled	1/2 cup	11
	Orange	1 medium navel	15
	Peppers, Sweet, Raw	1 cup, chopped	10
	Potato, White, Baked w Skin	1 potato	55
	Potato, White, Baked w/o Skin	1 potato	39
	Potato, White, Boiled w/o Skin	1 potato	26
	Potato, Sweet, Boiled w/o Skin	1/2 cup mashed	16
	Strawberry	1/2 cup	8
	Tomato, Raw, Ripe	1 tomato	13
	Tomato, Boiled	1/2 cup	16
	Watermelon	1/2 cup	8
	Zucchini, Boiled	1/2 cup sliced	19
Flesh
	Beef, Brisket, Braised	3.5 oz	24
	Beef, Ground, Lean, Broiled well done	3.5 oz	24
	Beef, Tenderloin, Lean, Roasted	3.5 oz	30
	Chicken, Dark Meat, w/o Skin, Roasted	3.5 oz	23
	Chicken, Light Meat, w/o skin	3.5 oz	27
	Seafood, Halibut, Baked/Broiled	3 oz	78
	Seafood, Salmon, Sockeye, Baked/Broiled	3 oz	20
	Seafood, Shrimp, Boiled	3 oz	29
	Seafood, Tuna, Skipjack, Baked/Broiled	3 oz	37
	Ham, Roasted	3.5 oz	17
	Turkey Breast, Smoked	3.5 oz	22
Dairy
	Milk, Cow, 2%	8 oz	33
	Milk, Nonfat	8 ox	28
	Milk, Goat	8 oz	34
	Milk, Soy	8 oz	45

Sources: Bowes and Church’s Food Values of Portions Commonly Used, Sixteenth Edition; Food Processor for Windows [Nutrition Analysis Software]. Version 7.60. Salem, OR: ESHA Research; 2000 Dec; USDA Nutrient Database.

We recommend that you become aware of foods that make you acid and what an acid diet is. (Please see our other blog articles.) Choose more alkaline producing foods. Try to drink lemon water sometime during the day to alkalinize yourself between meals. Begin to add more foods high in magnesium to each of your meals! Get tested for your intracellular magnesium ratios, especially if you suffer from any medical condition because there is much you can do within your own lifestyle to improve your symptoms and alter the course of your condition. Become aware of what you find stressful in life and try to remember that no amount of stress is worth the price of your health. Remember that what you do on a daily, weekly, basis has a significant impact on your body’s health.

Don’t be hard on yourself when you try to make positive changes. Remember that it takes 6 weeks to develop a habit! Decide to make one change at a time to your lifestyle, whether it is the reduction of soda from 3 drinks per day to only one for this week, or its entire elimination if you can. Give yourself weekly goals. Most importantly, when you try to eliminate a bad lifestyle habit, remember to replace it with a good one. Therefore, don’t just say that you are eliminating soda. Have a plan on what you will do in its place, otherwise you will find yourself ordering out of habit that soda because you can’t think at that moment what would be better for you to have.

Small steps lead to big changes. Don’t let a silent magnesium deficiency undermine your health, make an existing medical condition worse, or lead you to the necessity of becoming drug dependant for hypertension or osteoporosis when lifestyle changes and proper mineral balance can divert you from developing these conditions to begin with!

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HOW MUCH MAGNESIUM DO WE NEED?

2010/06/20
Published

Part 5 of 6 (The Magnesium Deficiency Epidemic)

In Parts 1 and 2 we discussed why most of us are magnesium deficient and those lifestyle factors that cause us to burn magnesium at a faster rate. In Parts 3 and 4 we discussed why magnesium plays a crucial role in our staying healthy and energetic. We also learned which conditions are made worse with magnesium deficiency and how magnesium deficiency can play a central role in our developing other conditions. Here we will discuss how to determine our relative magnesium needs and how to get tested for intracellular magnesium. Empowered with this knowledge, you will be able to begin to restore the mineral balance so crucial to proper metabolic function.

Western medicine tests only for serum magnesium, the magnesium moving in your bloodstream, and this is not tested routinely! By the time your serum magnesium levels are low, your intracellular magnesium levels can be dangerously low, especially in heart muscle. One of the reasons serum magnesium is not routinely tested in one’s routine CBC panels is because low magnesium alone is not diagnostic for a disease. However, we know that low magnesium levels plays a crucial role creating certain disorders and in making many diseases worse.

Magnesium is nearly undetectable in your blood, ranging from 1.7-2.4mEq/litter, as opposed to its cousin, sodium, at a whopping 140mE/liter! Total body magnesium is not reflected in serum magnesium, neither is intracellular magnesium! Less than 1% of total body magnesium is found in the serum or blood plasma! Interesting to note is that most of our magnesium is stored in our brain, our heart and skeletal muscle. There has been no research confirming any correlation whatsoever between serum magnesium levels and the levels of magnesium stored in heart tissue! Now you can begin to see why serious problems can develop with chronic depletion of this essential mineral.

People with normal serum magnesium can still have depleted total body magnesium. IntraCellular Diagnostics, Inc.™, has a test called EXATEST™, that involves simply taking a scraping from the inside of one’s mouth and sending the sample to them. It tests intracellular minerals magnesium/calcium, phosphorus/calcium, potassium/magnesium, potassium/calcium, potassium/sodium, phosphorus/magnesium ratios and the ions, magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, sodium, and chloride. Test kits can be ordered from www.immunematrix.com at their online store.

With certain conditions such as chronic fatigue, many such patients may test normal on serum magnesium but have continued exhaustion until intracellular magnesium stores and its ratios with other essential minerals are replenished. Sometimes patients will only respond to magnesium injections or intra venous therapy. Other key supplements the chronic fatigue patient needs to add are B12, C, E, beta carotene, CoQ10, and d-ribose.

How much magnesium do we need?

It has been estimated that the average western world’s intake of magnesium is between 200-300mg/day with only half that absorbed! With increased environmental and food toxins needing to be removed by the body, the stress of modern life and our acidic bodies, we have an ever present need for a constant supply of magnesium. For those who like the apparent safety margin of computing their magnesium requirements, the chart below is a rough guideline for calculating one’s daily magnesium needs. The first two rows are normal daily magnesium requirements which by modern living standards from stress, the average diet, the bioavailability of magnesium in our food and our acid states should be considered low for our actual needs!

CALCULATING DAILY MAGNESIUM NEEDS:

Milligrams Per kilo body weight	body weight	Total milligrams magnesium
8-10	70 kilo	560-700 mg
3.5-4.5	150lbs	525-675 mg
13-15 for loss factors	70 kilo	910-1050mg
13-15 for loss factors	150lbs	1950-2250mg
Maximum 15	70 kilo	1050mg
Maximum 15	150 lbs	2250mg

Using the chart above, if you weight 150 lbs and want a moderate dose of magnesium, then you multiply your weight of 150lbs times 3.5 to 4.5, giving you a total daily milligram dose of 525-675mg.

However, most of us are already deficient in magnesium from an intracellular standpoint. Many of us suffer additional conditions that induce further depletion of magnesium or have magnesium deficiency symptoms! If so, you can use the “loss factor” calculations in the table above to find out a higher range to take.

Break the doses up into 3 or 4 and take them throughout the day. Smaller and more frequent dosages have proven to increase absorption by as much as 29% when compared to taking the entire dose at once. (Heaney, RP et.al. J of Bone and Mineral Research, 5:11;1990 p. 1135-1137)

It is also helpful to take your magnesium with other supplements or with food. However, if you are taking iron supplements, magnesium interferes with the absorption of iron! You need to take iron and magnesium 2-3 hours apart from each other.

Proper dosing without testing for intracellular magnesium ratios is not possible. You cannot determine if you have sufficient intracellular magnesium based on bowel tolerance symptoms. Bowel tolerance is the term used in taking vitamin C and magnesium. Your body absorbs both vitamin C and magnesium and when it cannot absorb anymore, it purges what it cannot absorb through your bowels, the stool. To assume that once you have reached bowel tolerance you have sufficient magnesium is incorrect! If you have bad intestinal absorption or intestinal inflammation or problems with cell membrane nutrient transport, then your body may not be able to get the magnesium into the cells and you will reach bowel tolerance sooner. But remember this does not necessarily mean you have sufficient intracellular magnesium.

Determining one’s magnesium needs is not quite an exact science because stress, our diet and daily needs fluctuate. In addition, the body takes time to deliver magnesium to where it is needed in our cells and tissues. It is also good to become familiar with your body’s signs if you are unable to test for intracellular magnesium. Do you suffer constipation? If so, consider magnesium deficiency as your primary concern and build up to the maximum dose spread out during the day, even as often as every 2 hrs until you have a bowel movement and your bowel movements begin to approach normal consistency. If your bowel movements become unformed and loose, back off on your dose the next day, and monitor your dose daily in this way. Therefore, you do not have to fear becoming toxic from taking in too much magnesium.

If you have kidney disease, work with your primary care provider in determining your maximum magnesium intake. However, getting to know your body’s signs and needs for magnesium are essential. Constipation, tight neck and shoulder muscles, leg and foot cramps are all red flags to begin to take magnesium, especially upon waking in the morning and preferably with a glass of warm water. If your stools tend to be hard, then you can definitely benefit from a magnesium supplement.

Does your body feel stiff, with stiff muscles or tendons? Do you have chronic inflammation, sugar metabolism issues, low energy, or have problems with insomnia or restless sleep? Magnesium will be the first thing to balance to improve these symptoms because they are all made worse with magnesium deficiency.

Finding your proper dosage will take some time in getting to know your body and what it is currently going through. Episodes of stress, having to take medications you have not taken before, eating too many refined carbohydrates or drinking a lot of alcohol will all cause acute depletions in your magnesium, causing your daily dose requirements to vary. If you have one or several of the chronic conditions listed above, then you would be well advised to work with a medical practitioner knowledgeable in reading organic acid and mineral lab findings to interpret your body’s metabolic needs for essential minerals and to insure you are getting a proper balance of your minerals.

Be aware also that as you replenish your cellular magnesium stores, your need for l-tryptophan, melatonin, St. John’s Wort, insulin, sleep medications, anti-depressants, cholesterol lowering drugs, thyroid medication, anti-hypertensive drugs and diuretics, osteoporosis medications will change. You will need to monitor or reduce and in some cases eliminate the drugs as your body goes back into mineral balance. Always work with an experienced medical practitioner knowledgeable about testing and weaning you off of your prescription medications.

Part 6 will discuss what type of magnesium to take and how you can choose foods high in magnesium as part of your healthy lifestyle.