• Study finds connection between Yoga and Mood
• Chinese medicine may help Chemo patients
• Bottled tea may not be as good for you as fresh brewed tea
• Disasters are especially tough on people with mental and physical disabilities

Yes, sure- in between there are other, somewhat more technically oriented papers touting some original and interesting works, but the news stories and research geared toward ‘ordinary people’ has been mind-numbingly obvious.  But just in case, I will add a few more of my own (sure to be validated by science when there is money to fund such insights):

• Locally grown, pesticide-free foods are better for you
• Sleep is important
• It is helpful to have loving and supportive people in your life
• Health-care is not perfect
• You live longer, and are happier, when you take good care of yourself
• Chicken soup helps

There you go!  Consider yourself doubly informed.  I will try to drop some of the sarcasm (which has been shown to induce alienation and/or entertainment to those in proximity), and bring you more posting in the near future!

Of the 27 patients who fit the criteria (of which only three were women, reflecting the curious male predominance of RBD [REM sleep behavior disorder]), the median interval between onset of the sleep disorder and of the neurological disorder was 25 years, the team found. For six of these patients, Boeve says, the sleep disorder was first noticed by their spouse on their honeymoon or shortly afterward. In one case, RBD preceded Parkinson’s disease by 50 years…

“In the neurodegenerative realm, we just don’t know any other clinical manifestations that can start so far in advance,” Boeve says. “There are so few other illnesses that can have a window of decades from one clinical manifestation to another.”*

While dreams as predictors of psychology have always been of mixed review as a useful diagnostic or therapeutic tool, Chinese medicine for one has for thousands of years seen dream content as a useful window into physical health of the mind and body.  Much of this analysis surrounds the theory of Five Elements.  Some examples include:

“When the Kidneys are in excess one dreams that the spine is detached from the body…when they are weak, one dreams of being immersed in water.” -Spiritual Axis, chapter 43

“When the Liver is deficient, one dreams of very fragrant mushrooms. If the dream takes place in Spring, one dreams of lying under a tree without being able to get up.” -Simple Questions, chapter 80

“When the Heart is in excess, one dreams of laughing…when the Heart is deficient, one dreams of mountains, fire, and smoke.” -Spiritual Axis, chapter 43

While the modern research and the old Chinese understanding are of course based on very different tenets, it is always nice when modern medicine picks up on patterns that can be found by good observational skills, rather than relying on a microscopic analysis.  This is the sort of good medicine that is so sorely missing too often- and is a natural extension of the ability of a doctor with good bedside skill.

The body and mind give just about every clue that we need to maintain health, if only we were all observant enough to see it.  Just as jewelweed will grow near poison ivy, nature offers cures and insights that are closer than we think!

Just another reason to question everything that modern medicine assumes.  Eggs good one day, bad the next, etc.  Learn how to read the research, and determine your own truth!

Calcium supplements are commonly prescribed for skeletal health, but a recent trial suggested they might increase rates of heart attack (myocardial infarction) and cardiovascular events in healthy older women…

…They found that calcium supplements were associated with about a 30% increased risk of heart attack and smaller, non-significant, increases in the risk of stroke and mortality.

Science Daily

They also found several cocktails of molecules that drive human beta cells to replicate, as well as important differences between mouse and human beta cells that could influence how these approaches are best used to treat diabetes, which is caused by insufficient insulin production leading to abnormal blood sugar levels.

“Our team was the first to show that adult human beta cells can be induced to proliferate or grow at substantial rates, which no one thought possible before,” said senior author Andrew F. Stewart, M.D., professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Pitt School of Medicine. “Now our effort has been to unravel these regulatory pathways to find the most effective strategy that will allow us to treat — and perhaps cure — diabetes by making new insulin-producing cells.”

Science Daily

Coconut milk is considered very healthy in both Ayurvedic medicine and modern research.  It has been found it to have lipid-balancing qualities as well and antimicrobial properties in the gastrointestinal tract and topically. It has been studied for protective effects on drug-induced gastric ulceration. The health benefits of coconut (in particular the oil) are thought to include hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, blood sugar imbalances, HIV and cancer, dental care, and bone strength. These benefits of coconut oil have been attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc.*

In what I think is my favorite bit of trivia, coconut water has been used successfully as a substitute for more conventional IV fluids.* The professor (Gilligan’s Island) would be proud.

Coconuts are an amazing source of MCT (medium chain triglyceride) oil, which is thought to be useful for a wide array of metabolic and other health concerns. MCTs have been widely used to support ketogenic diets (used for various health conditions, as well as Atkins dieters). MCT’s are more easily and rapidly digested than other types of fats, and are metabolized quickly to encourage an increase in energy expenditure, while decreasing fat storage. Substituting MCT Oil for other fats in a healthy diet should support healthy weight and body composition.  MCTs are the preferred forms of fat for many patients with fat-metabolism defects (yours truly included!).

In my second favorite fact of the day, coconuts apparently produce a rare gem!

Certainly the rarest and most valuable botanical jewel is the legendary “coconut pearl” that occasionally forms inside a coconut (Cocos nucifera).Like the pearls of oysters and giant clams, it is a shiny calcareous sphere. It is difficult to place a monetary value on a genuine coconut pearl, but the odds of finding one in a coconut are certainly less than one in a million. To put it another way, if you cracked open and thoroughly examined one coconut every 15 minutes during a normal eight hour work day, it would take roughly 80 years to go through a million coconuts! In his classic six-volume work entitled Herbarium Amboinense, the distinguished 17th- 18th century naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumphius described and illustrated exquisite coconut pearls, often mounted in jeweled settings of gold and silver, owned by Malaysian dynasties.*

Last, but definitely not least… Coconut milk makes spectacular ice cream!

Here is my own take on the recipe:

Ingredients: egg yolks (2), coconut milk (1 can, not ‘light’), 2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup sugar (or equivalent other sweetener – I like xylitol if your stomach approves of it).

On the stove, bring sugar and yolks slowly (to a temperature you feel comfortable with in terms of eating yolks) while whisking slowly.  You want the egg to warm through and the sugar to melt without making scrambled eggs (kind of like making sweet hollandaise).  Add vanilla and remove from heat.  Add coconut milk and stir until cream is incorporated.  Cool in the fridge and then run in ice-cream maker (or keep in freezer and stir every 15 minutes until set).

Feel free to throw in melted chocolate, etc, but the vanilla alone is pretty perfect.

Here's hoping you'll understand
I want to fell like a natural man
Get up early in the morning to do what I can
You can't help no one with money
If you can't with your hands
- Arlo Guthrie (Cooper's Lament)

While this blog, as a general rule, is dedicated to the process of negotiating health – sometimes in spite of the efforts of your care providers, there is another side to this story.  It is likewise not an easy path to be a genuine healer to your patients.

Medicine is a tricky business on a number of fronts.  Considerations and challenges arise for even (if not especially) the practitioner who desire above all else to be of service to their fellow humans.

From the start, it is a challenge for a practitioner who is actively trying to build a practice, to push finances completely out of mind when making treatment recommendations.  This is equally true for the chiropractor who may recommend more sessions per week than is strictly necessary, as it is for the surgeon with an opening in her schedule.  It is hard to provide the best possible care when struggling for survival.

For practitioners who accept insurance reimbursement, their hands are essentially tied in terms of the approach that they can afford to take to allow their practice to be sustainable.  You probably resent the 15 minute office visit for it’s limited potential for addressing anything but the most overt maladies.  More likely than not, if your practitioner still has the desire to help and heal, she also resents practicing in this way.  Hopefully she would prefer to take as long as is needed to understand your situation, and to find ways in which she might help.

No matter how skilled a practitioner, there is an ever-present awareness of the limitations of the medicine.  There is always more to know, more techniques to learn, and some other way that might be better.  But as skilled as a practitioner may be, it is difficult to reach even a small percentage of patients in a true healing context.  Many patients come to a practitioner looking for an external solution to an internal problem – but drugs, herbs and physical manipulations alone can not address the imbalance that so often has developed out of profound lifestyle or even existential roots.  The act of healing is the art of bridging the gap between a human out of balance, and the ever-shifting potential of a life in health.  Everything else is palliative, and may well have it’s place, but a band-aid alone (no matter how cutting edge and technological) is not a healing process. Ultimately, it is an understanding of the truth in mortality itself that opens the door to healing.

It could all seem a bit grim for the prospect of attaining good health, but it is indeed quite hopeful.  Know that there are countless healers who genuinely want to help.  They want to help in ways that they perhaps haven’t even discovered yet.  Finding allies in the healing process, those who understand both the limitations and the potentialities of medicine, is a tremendous boon.  You may not find one healer with all the answers, but with discernment you will find many who want very much to help you find your own truth.

Life lessons from the Dimsum Cart:

1. You can try to influence which table you get, but much of it can be simply chalked up to fate. There is a moment when you arrive for lunch, when upon entering the room you are steered toward a particular table.  Sometimes the table you are headed for is less than ideal (the perfect spot for receiving dimsum is near the kitchen exit and on the inside curve of the cart pathway).  You have a moment in time when you can redirect your lunch party to a better table, but you need to do it quickly and with tact.  “Oh, can we sit over here?” you ask, pointing to a better locale.  The answer can go either way, and you live with it- but it is worth a shot!

2. Timing, likewise, is important, but not completely in your control. If you are on the later end of lunch service (say, after 2pm in most places), the kitchen will not be cranking out fresh dishes with the same vigor.  You can still have a spectacular lunch, but odds are in your favor to arrive right at the beginning of the lunch rush-  early enough to not wait too long for a good table, but late enough to be seated during the prime of service.

3. Communicating with people in their own language will take you far. Sometimes those dimsum ladies (especially when their own English is not all that good) will pass you by.  Perhaps the dishes they have are more unusual and not many non-Chinese eaters choose them, so they assume you will not want it either.  But you are a food adventurer and you will not be denied your chicken feet today!  A few words learned in Chinese will go a long way to indicate that you are an educated consumer.  If you can teach your accompanying young child some Chinese, they will go out of their way to bring you anything you want!)

4. Speak up.  The world is too busy to come over and ask what you want. Again, those carts whiz by.  Speak up and stop them to get what you want.

5. Find out who actually has the qualifications to help you. Sometimes you need to appeal to a higher power, in this case “a vest.”  If you need something special ordered, or need your check totalled, you need to speak to the one who can help you.  You need the man in the vest.

6. Don’t wait too long for perfection. We all have our favorite dishes, our preconceived idea of the perfect sequence of dishes or events.  But if you wait too long for just the right thing, you may miss out on the other wonderful things that are passing by.  Plus, your wonderful dish may be cold and greasy by the time it reaches the table.

7. Stop if you are done. An important lunch lesson (too often overlooked by me!).  The reason for dimsum is to satisfy your hunger.  When the hunger is gone, stop eating.  Piling more in may not lead to added satisfaction!

I couldn’t decide if this post was going to be about life or healthcare.  I find the ideas within to apply well to both.  Share your life lessons learned from lunch in the comments!

But how does this happen?

“It is fine and good for Kwai Chang Kaine to think monk-ish thoughts and overcome the burning sensation in his forearms as he lifts a burning hot metal flowerpot… but how will this help me and my sciatica?!” you may ask. Good question.  It can help through some of the following physiological mechanisms:

• Meditation changes the perception of pain. Even brief training in mindfulness meditation had a positive impact on pain perception in a study conducted at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.  A single hour of meditation training, spread out over three consecutive days changed the participants’ sensitivity to pain,  even when the study subjects were no longer actively meditating.

• Meditation reduces the emotional response to pain, including anxiety and the anticipation of future discomfort.  Particularly in chronic pain conditions, we tend to predict our own level of discomfort and act accordingly.  I can personally attest to noticing how I may favor one limb over another or cringe in anticipation, even though the pain reaction may no longer be present!  Meditation teaches us to be more focused on the present and  less time anticipating future discomfort.  It is this aspect of meditative benefit that leads to the next benefit-

• Meditation is useful for addressing depression. Depression of course can be a debilitating component of chronic pain, and for many of the reasons pain responds to meditative technique, so does depression.

• The other health benefits of meditative practice also help peripheral causes of pain. A lower heart rate, better hormonal balance and improved immune function, reduced muscular tension, lowered oxygen consumption,
  and decreased respiratory rate are just a few of the systemic benefits that meditation confers.

• Meditation has a high rate of compliance. To deal with chronic pain, we need alternatives that patients will really use.

So how do we apply these ideas in real life?  And what is this absorptive state I was talking about anyway?  Stay tuned for part 3 of the series!  As always, feel free to ask for scientific sources if you want proof beyond my words, and please comment your thoughts below!

“The perceptions of passing time that we observe from our external clocks cause our internal clock to run faster. Hurry sickness is expressed as heart disease, high blood pressure, or depression of our immune function, leading to increased susceptibility to infection and cancer.”

- Larry Dossey

A diagnosis is a process of give and take, and no matter how skilled or committed your practitioner, no one else has the same commitment, drive, and persistence as you can have in assuring that your course of treatment is the best possible option for you.

It is the job of a health care practitioner, be it an MD, a Chiropractor, or an Acupuncturist, to give you a diagnosis before you walk out the door. To a good practitioner, every diagnosis is but a hypothesis to be tested and proven. There is no such thing as a good diagnosis without a successful treatment that follows. But all too often, patients receive a medical diagnosis and the practitioner seems to be satisfied that their job is done – That it is the very act of naming your illness that is their top priority. Drugs or treatment of some kind may follow, but they seems satisfied that they have succeeded in naming your problem. Congratulations, it is a disease!

There are two very good reasons that come to mind as to why you might very carefully question your given diagnosis.

1. If your diagnosis simply does not ring true.

If your diagnosis leaves out too many pieces from falling into place in the puzzle that is your collection of symptoms – you should consider very carefully what you have been told. Now, we animals are a complex lot, and you can not expect any pattern of disease to fit the textbook (or Wikipedia) description. But if you find that the very mechanism of your primary diagnosis does not explain some of the very fundamentals of your main health concerns, then it may be a good time to ask why. Practitioners tend to find the solutions with which they are comfortable, which have worked before, or which genuinely seem to fit the the pattern they see before them. But practitioners are also biased in their humanity. They tend to see what they want to see, or find solutions where perhaps they should be just noting clues to the puzzle. If your puzzle has pieces left out, do not abandon them. They fit the picture someplace!

2. If it fails the “what if” test.

When meeting with your health care provider, ask them what else would account for your particular constellation of symptoms. What else could explain the health pattern you are experiencing. It is a near certainty that they will have at least a few other diagnostic alternatives in mind. When they mention what the other possibilities to you, take the time to ask “What if” it is indeed each of those other diagnoses. What would the implications to treatment be, and why have they ruled this option out?

Holding your practitioner accountable in this way puts them on the spot in a very productive way – you are essentially holding medical rounds on your case with a review board of one. Compare this to the passive patient who accepts whatever conjecture their doctor gives them, and you can see how much stronger the diagnostic process will be when you are an active participant in the diagnostic procedure.