April’s 2007 edition of The Journal of Periodontology had two studies that showed periodontal bacteria (bugs normally found in inflamed gums) in the arteries of people with heart disease and in the placentas of pregnant women with high blood pressure.
It is still too soon to say with certainty that gum disease directly causes other illnesses, but the evidence is compelling.
Other than bleeding, gum disease has few symptoms and rarely causes much discomfort.
Preventing Chronic Degenerative Disease and Obesity – Get in the Anti-Inflammatory Zone Naturally By Dr. Karen Wolfe
A recent headline in USA Today, and an article in Men’s Health (Dec. 04), and a book by Dr. Barry Sears, The Anti-Inflammation Zone, all highlight the dangers of silent inflammation that occurs within the cells of the body.
The USA Today article by Steve Sternberg quotes studies that appeared in New England Journal of Medicine. It says: “Inflammation is as potent as bad cholesterol: Two leading research groups independently report today that lowering blood levels of a protein that promotes artery inflammation is just as important as reducing bad cholesterol for preventing heart attacks and strokes. Their conclusions reflect a major shift away from the notion that bad cholesterol, or LDL, is the primary villain in heart disease. Levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) also must be reduced to halt the disease’s progression, researchers said.”
The article in Men’s Health, Bonfires of the Arteries, sites “Inflammation is the slow burn that sparks thousands of heart attacks and strokes every year.”
“Half of all heart attacks and strokes in the United States each year occur among people with essentially normal cholesterol levels, says Paul Ridker, M.D., a professor of medicine at Havard medical school. There’s more to heart disease than just lipids. In addition to the problem of cholesterol, there’s the problem of the immune system or the inflammation response. A heart attack occurs when plaque ruptures inside your blood vessels. But that rupturing hinges not just on how much plaque you have but also on the degree of inflammation, Dr. Ridker says. Your level of CRP – measured by a simple blood test – helps detect this condition so you can predict whether you’re in danger of cardiovascular disease and stroke.”
Many people take drugs to dampen down inflammation. After numerous months of controversy, the FDA removed Bextra from the market this month amidst reports that it posed health risks to the heart and stomach, and can cause a potentially fatal skin condition. Vioxx was also taken off the market in September 2004 because of dangerous and life-threatening cardiovascular side effects. The FDA established new warning labels for anti-inflammatory drugs, both prescribed and over-the-counter and older, popular non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) and naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn), are also coming under increased scrutiny. This is a big step in protecting the consumer from the dangers of these drugs, but it’s left many wondering what to do now.
Top Ten Tips to help reduce inflammation (CRP) levels in the body naturally
Take a High Quality Multi-Antioxidant - A study in the American Journal of Medicine showed that people who took a multivitamin each morning for 6 months decreased their CRP by 0.7 milligrams per liter. And a University of California at Berkeley study found that people who took 500 mg of vitamin C saw a 24 percent drop in CRP after just 2 months.
Get in Anti-Inflammatory Food Zone - people who most closely followed a Mediterranean diet – one rich in olive oil – had CRP numbers 20 percent lower than those of their less oily brethren. Here are some other specific diet tips.
Reduce your intake of high glycemic foods. White foods of all kinds (pasta, French fries, white bread, white sugar products) all produce inflammatory chemicals in the cells. Eliminating or greatly reducing these will make a difference immediately. To speed up the process and see for yourself, I recommend a digestive cleanse process.
Avoid all partially hydrogenated fat. These fats create inflammatory chemicals and also damage cell membrane function.
Hold the red meat, eggs, and night shade vegetables. Some people are intensely sensitive to the arachidonic acid in red meat and eggs. When they stop eating these foods, their joint pain goes away quickly. Others are sensitive to the nightshade vegetables, which include tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and zucchini. It’s easy enough to stop them for ten days to see if you notice a difference. Sometimes this is all that is necessary!
Get enough omega-3 fats in your diet. Getting enough omega-3 fats in your diet is a natural and highly effective way to help the body resist inflammation. Wild Alaskan salmon is loaded with omega-3 fats, as are omega-3 rich eggs, sardines, and flax seeds. You can also get omega-3 fats in supplement form. I recommend 1000-5000 mg per day in divided doses.
Eat colorfully! Follow a diet rich in plant foods of all types, especially the highly pigmented ones such as blueberries, raspberries, kale, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and squash. These are loaded with naturally-occurring antioxidants that decrease inflammation and thwart oxidative stress caused by free radicals. For more information about this, see the book The Color Code.
Floss - inflammation effects of periodontal disease also cause inflammation of your arteries.
Stop Smoking - Smokin takes toxic chemicals into the lungs and distributes them to every cell in the body, accelerating the aging and inflammatory process exponentially.
Get Good Fats - In a new Harvard study, people who consumed the most omega-3 fatty acids (1.6 grams per day) had 29 percent lower CRP readings than those who ate the least. Fish oil has a direct anti-inflammatory effect by either: inhibiting the formation of arachidonic acid (AA), or inhibiting the enzymes that transform AA into pro-inflammatory eicosanoids.” Dr Barry Sears tells us “On a scale of 1 to 10 for supplements, I give high-dose fish oil a 12. It’s the number-one anti-inflammatory supplement you can take – as long as you take an ultra-refined product that has had the vast majority of the inherent toxins removed… If you only take one supplement in your life, make sure it’s high-dose fish oil…
Increase Lean Muscle Mass and Reduce Body - Reducing fat helps reduce CRP.
Get Fiber - Consume your recommended 20-plus grams of fiber..
Practice the Friendship Solution - Social interaction helps reduce depression which helps to lower CRP.
Release Resentment - According to Louise Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life and the famous little blue book Heal Your Body, arthritis is associated with feelings of criticism and resentment. A good affirmation for this is the following.
I now lovingly release all past hurts, resentments, and grievances and open myself up to love and approval on all levels.
Be Moderate - It is certainly true that some people need a bit of NSAID or COX-2 inhibitor to get through their day at least while they’re making other lifestyle changes. If this is true for you, don’t spend a moment worrying about it. This just leads to more stress chemicals. Sometimes taking a small risk for significant pain relief is worth it. Just use the least amount that does the job, make the changes you can make as lsuited, and then let it go.
As an alternative to the drugs removed from the market by the FDA, consider other joint-healthy supplements. Two of the most powerful and beneficial are glucosamine sulfate and OPCs.
Glucosamine sulfate is found naturally in high amounts in joint tissue. It stimulates the body to make cartilage, thus helping repair the joints; glucosamine also helps protect joints against destruction. When taken orally, it is absorbed selectively by joint tissues where it exerts a powerfully therapeutic effect in those with osteoarthritis. Many good studies have shown that it works better than NSAIDs and placebos at relieving the pain and inflammation of osteoarthritis in at least 50 percent of people—with only minor side effects Recommended dosage is 500 mg, three times per day.
Oligomeric Proanthocyanidins (OPCs) are a powerful group of antioxidants found in both pine bark and grape seeds. There’s good research on both grape seed extract and pine bark. Because OPCs help repair connective tissue, they are also very good for bones, hair, nails, and skin.
You don't have to miss out on this year's exciting line-up of diverse programming and keynotes including, Governor Mike Huckabee, world renowned pharmacologist Candace Pert, PhD and former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Louis W. Sullivan MD,
I will be providing a BLOG for you to keep in touch with what is happening at the 2007 National Wellness Conference. It will prove to be the year's most important health and wellness gathering
Part One: The Body as the House of the Soul This is the first article in a series on Spirituality and Healing. Dr Karen Wolfe is a physician, speaker and author with a special interest in integrative medicine. She lectures throughout the country. Please contact Dr. Karen if you have any questions and comments.
The 17th-century philosopher Rene Descartes thought mind (or soul) and body were polar opposites, so different in fact that there seemed no way for the soul to act on the body nor for the body to act on the soul. And so science became more and separate from religion, and medicine become separate from the soul. This belief in materialism and rationalism has sliced through every aspect of life – medicine, education, technology- and we began to believe only that which we could see and touch and explain.
Dare I now propose that the wonderful tools of science that we have worshiped since the great scientific revolution, though valuable, are limited ? Dare I suppose that the universal truth that we are all seeking needs to embody a certain mystery of how the world works ? Dare I proclaim that I believe that the body is in fact the outward manifestation of the soul as reflected in the saying, “The eyes are the windows of the soul.”
Today, both science and medicine are proving Descartes had it backwards. The “intelligence” packed into every cell of the body is mind boggling and scientists are wrestling with evidence that our consciousness and perhaps even our souls are properties that emerge from our bodies. In short, we are glorious biological beings – with minds and spirituality firmly rooted in our physical selves.
Our soul and our mind are “embodied”. In other words, they are the intelligence that runs every cell of our body. Taken to the next step, Dr Anne Foerst, the theologian who helps build humanoid robots at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence lab tells us that this embodied intelligence is “embedded” in the world. What this means is that we develop only in relationship to our surroundings and to other people – and that our lives are much more “virtual” that we believe.
Despite what Descartes had us believe for so long, the lessons that we are now learning are that mind, body and spirit cannot be separated.
So how can we use this information in a practical way day to day?
If we take our bodies seriously as the house of our spirituality then the conversation between body and soul becomes rich indeed. In her book, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, Christiane Northrup, M.D. states it this way
“Trusting the wisdom of the body is a leap of faith in a culture that fails to acknowledge how intimately the mind and body are connected. The wisdom of the body I mean that we must learn to trust the symptom in the body are often the only way that the soul can get our attention. Covering up our symptoms with external “cures” prevents us from healing the parts of our lives that need attention and change.”
We have the body we have because it is precisely the vehicle in which we can best do what we came to do. We cannot always understand this with our rational, logical intellect. There are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.
Successful Aging: Myths & Realities by Karen Wolfe, MBBS, MA
This is part one of a series of articles on successful aging. Dr Karen Wolfe is a physician, speaker and author with a special interest in wellness and the mind/body connection. She lectures throughout the country and has recently published her audiobook titled Successful Aging : The Antioxidant Advantage which will be the subject of the next article in this series. Questions and comments for Dr Wolfe can be sent via email to info@karenwolfe.com.
Successful aging is more than the distinction between being sick or not sick. For many years gerontologists were mainly concerned with the distinction between pathologic and nonpathologic states. But absence of disease is not enough. Successful aging is the combination of three key issues:
1. Low risk of disease and disease-related disability
2. High mental and physical functioning
3. Active engagement in life
Have you considered what determines how well we age? How can we maintain optimal physical and mental strength throughout later life?
Research into aging has been revolutionized in the past ten years by the MacArthur Study which created a network of leading research scientists from key fields to determine what aging actually involves. These scientists identified the factors that were enabling vast numbers of people to preserve and even enhance their mental and physical vitality in later life.
In essence, they found that lifestyle choices such as changes in diet, mental stimulation and social connections – more than genes – determine how well we age. These choices can make a difference no matter how late in life they are made.
Let’s first address the top five myths about aging that are in significant conflict with recent scientific data and are far more fiction than fact.
MYTH #1 – To be old is to be infirm: Decades of research refute the myth that to be old is to be frail. Between 1982 and 1994, the population over age sixty-five that reported any disability fell from 24.9 per cent to 21.3 percent. Older Americans are generally healthy. Even in advanced old age, an overwhelming majority of the elderly population have little functional disability, and the proportion that is disabled is being whittled away over time. The combination of longer life and less illness is adding life to years as well as years to life.
MYTH # 2 – You can’t teach an old dog new tricks - MacArthur research on mental function in old age is encouraging. The fears of age-related loss are often exaggerated. Current estimates are that no more than 10 percent of all elderly people, aged sixty-five to one hundred or more, are Alzheimer’s patients and 50% of those aged seventy-four to eighty-one show no mental decline at all.
MYTH # 3 – Age-related changes are irreversible – It is time to dispel the false and discouraging claim that old age is too late for efforts to reduce risk and promote health. Not only can we recover lost function and decrease risk, but also in some cases we can actually increase function beyond our prior level. Research shows that it is almost never too late to bring healthy habits such as smoking cessation, sensible diet and exercise. Making these changes can mark the transition from the risky state we call “usual aging” to the goal we all share: “successful aging”. Here are some facts:
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The risk of heart disease, stroke and lung cancer begins to fall almost as soon as you quit smoking – no matter how long you have smoked.
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Exercise dramatically increases physical fitness, muscle size and strength in older individuals and resistance exercises enhance bone strength which limits the risk of osteoporosis and fractures of the hip, spine and wrist.
MYTH # 4 – Genetics determines the rate at which we age – People commonly assume that genes account for the rate at which our body functions decline with advancing age. MacArthur research provides very strong scientific evidence that we are, in large part, responsible for our own old age. We have the powerful capacity to enhance our chance of maintaining high mental and physical ability as we grow older.
MYTH # 5 - Older people are unproductive in society – So much of what is considered “productive” in our culture is related to paid work. Much of the “heart” of our society lies in mothers staying home to look after children and the countless volunteer hours individuals spend to contribute to their communities in many ways. Our national statistics ignore a great deal of “productive” activity that keeps our society going. One third of older men and women work for pay and one third work as volunteers in churches, hospitals and other organizations Also, companies that have emphasized recruitment and retention of older workers confirm that older employees meet or surpass expectations, often bringing the added value of increased insight and experience to the work environment.
Now lets look at some of the realities of successful aging. Researchers have been able to identify the following psychological traits associated with successful agers.
REALITY #1 – Self-Efficacy – This is a belief in your ability to solve problems as they arise, and to handle continually shifting personal situations. Individuals who exemplify this attitude are more likely to take an active role in maintaining their physical and mental health as they age. Recent research suggests that self-efficacy rises when people take on tasks that are challenging but not overwhelming and who receive enthusiastic support and reassurance from others while working on tasks.
REALITY # 2 – Physical Activity – Exercise does more than keep you strong and flexible. It also preserves mental function. Exercise stimulates nerve growth factor, which stimulates growth of new brain cells.
REALITY #3 – Mental Activity – Only 10% of those age 65 or older have Alzheimer’s disease. Far more common among older people is a gradual decline in short-term memory. Fortunately, research has shown that this decline can usually be prevented – even reversed – via memory training.
REALITY #4 – Social Involvement - For years, researchers have known that strong social support is key to successful aging. The MacArthur researchers were surprised to find that the wrong kind of support can be harmful. People who enjoy lots of emotional support – expressions of affection and encouragement – fare well as they grow older. They tend to stay healthier and have less emotional stress. In contrast, individuals who gets lots of hands-on assistance in which others do for then things they are capable of doing for themselves – gradually fall victim to feelings of “learned helplessness”. Their sense of well being and independence are undermined.
REALITY # 5 – Caloric restriction and antioxidants – According to the free radical theory of aging, free radicals age the body from the outside in as well as the inside out. When ultraviolet radiation from the sun hits your skin, it excites a molecule on the skin’s surface that reacts with oxygen in a process called oxidation. Also, our cells use oxygen to react with the food we eat to produce energy. This process of biological oxidation unravels the mystery of cellular aging. The free radicals produced by radiation exposure and through normal energy production in the body – are instrumental in aging. Caloric restriction reduces biological oxidation and free radical production.
For all of us the rewards of successful aging are great and the research available to us now will transform our thinking about the quality of life that is possible to obtain and sustain as we grow older.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Packer, L. & Colman, C (1999) The Antioxidant Miracle : Your Complete Plan for Total health and Healing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Rowe, J. & Kahn, R. Successful Aging (1998) Random House, Inc. NY
Healing and the New Physics by Karen Wolfe, MBBS, MA
There is a new science that is challenging the Western society world view of health. It is called quantum physics. Although its first principles were enunciated by Max Planck as far back as 1900, quantum physics is often termed "new physics".
Conscious mental activity can affect our physical body. Mind is an irrefutably genuine factor in the process by which health and disease unfold.
Dr Larry Dossey, in his book Reinventing Medicine, explores Era-3 medicine, where thoughts, attitudes and healing intentions of one individual can influence the physiology of another person. This is very well supported by scientific studies into the healing power of prayer. This can’t be explained with the known principles of physics and world view of traditional science.
What is the "New" Physics? The new physics began to emerge when a foundational assumption governing Newtonian physics began to be challenged. Evidence began to mount to challenge the assumption that the conscious attitudes and biases of the experimenter have no effect on the outcome of the experiment. Contemporary quantum theory has created new theories designed to account for the interconnectedness of the observation process.
Quantum mechanics are not the fellows who repair automobiles in Mr Quantum’s garage. A "quantum" is a quantity of something, a specific amount. "Mechanics" is the study of motion. Therefore, "quantum mechanics" is the study of the motion of quantities. Quantum mechanics does not replace Newtonian physics, it includes it. Newtonian physics is still applicable to the large-scale world, but it does not work at the sub-atomic level.
OLD PHYSICS (Newtonian)
NEW PHYSICS (Quantum)
The Universe is governed by laws that are susceptible to rational understanding. By applying these laws we extend our knowledge of, and therefore our influence over, our environment.
Our knowledge of what governs events at the sub-atomic level is not nearly what we assumed it would be. We cannot predict subatomic phenomena with any certainty. We can only predict their probabilities
Predicts events
Predicts probabilities
There is an external world "out there" that exists apart from us and can be studied objectively.
There is no such thing as external objective reality that is separate from our own experience.
We can observe, measure and speculate about the external world without changing it.
It is not possible to observe reality without changing it
Separateness
Wholeness
The external world is indifferent to us and to our needs.
We are part of nature, and when we studying nature, nature is studying itself.
Claims to be based on "absolute truth"; the way that nature really is "behind the scenes"
Claims to only correlate experience correctly.
How Does it Work? Classical science starts with the assumption of separate parts which together constitute physical reality. Since its inception, it has concerned itself with how these separate parts are related. The starting point of this process is a mental attitude which initially perceives the physical world as fragmented and different experiences as logically unrelated. Newtonian science is the effort to find the relationship between pre-existing "separate parts".
Quantum mechanics is based upon the opposite assumption. The starting point of this process is a mental attitude oriented toward a perception of the "unbroken wholeness" of which everything is a form.
There already exists an instrument of thought based on "unbroken wholeness." For example, all Eastern religions are compatible in a very fundamental way with Quantum physics and philosophy. All of them are based upon the experience of a pure and undifferentiated reality. In Zen Buddhism, the master guides the student to the point where conscious searching is finally abandoned. The rational mind is thought to impede acquisition of true understanding. Our greatest growth is achieved only through the complete integration of the spiritual and physical. In this light, perhaps the ultimate spiritual goal is not so much to transcend, but to finally acknowledge and embrace the immanent oneness of our own being.
Philosophy or Physics? Consider the following sentences:
The word "reality" is derived from the roots "thing"(res) and "think" (revi). "Reality" means everything "everything you can think about." This is not that-which-is. No idea can capture "truth" in the sense of that-which-is.
There is a similarity between thought and matter. All matter, including ourselves, is determined by "information." Information is what determines space and time.
The ultimate perception does not originate in the brain or any material structure, although a material structure is necessary to manifest it. The subtle mechanism of knowing the truth does not originate in the brain.
Were these statements made at a physics lecture or a philosophy class? In fact, these sentences were excerpted from different parts of two physics lectures that Professor Bohm gave at Berkeley in April, 1977. Perhaps the physics curricula of the twenty-first century will include classes in meditation.
7 Principles of the "New Physics"
All reality is interconnected at the deepest levels
All time is simultaneous, and unmarred by either natural or artificial demarcations or divisions.
Each body is in dynamic relationship with the universe and every other body via sub quantum contact.
All matter, space and time are relative.
The observer is so interconnected with the thing observed that isolation and insulation are impossible and "pure objectivity" is fiction.
The elemental components of the human body are in dynamic relationship with all the other particles throughout the universe.
The mind functions holographically. Each thought creates a discrete three-dimensional reality (parallel universe) in which anything is possible.
The Role of Conscious Thought Niels Bohr proposed that the dynamics of conscious thought occur on such a minute scale, involving such infinitesimal exchanges of energy, that only a quantum mechanical explanation could properly account for the actual phenomenon of consciousness.
The New Physics and Healing Thanks to David Bohm, the renowned physicist who developed the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, we have returned to the concept of "wholeness" and not "separateness". There is an intrinsic unity of the constitutional elements of our being. Bohm believed in man’s essential oneness, he disdained dichotomy in favor of the doctrine of wholeness. Bohm held that we all possess the ability to listen to our bodies, and to thus harness the disease process to redirect our lives and to finally acknowledge and embrace the immanent oneness of our own being.
References Dossey. Larry (1999 Reinventing Medicine – Beyond Mind-Body to a New Era of Healing. Harper Collins, NY
Medical research has proven oxidative stress to be the root cause of over 70 chronic degenerative diseases such as: heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s dementia, macular degeneration, lupus, MS; the list goes on. The area of the body most affected by oxidative stress will determine which chronic degenerative disease is most likely to develop. Oxidative stress happens when our bodies are affronted daily by excessive production of free radicals caused by our polluted environment, stressful lifestyles, and over-medicated society. Though we can dramatically reduce the amount of free radicals our bodies produce by not smoking, decreasing stress levels, and avoiding toxic chemicals, most of our bodies are still unable to fight the overwhelming daily attack on the natural defense system. Balance is the key--we need enough antioxidants available to neutralize the free radicals being produced in our bodies.
Cellular nutrition involves providing the cell with all of the essential nutrients--antioxidants along with the supporting B vitamins and antioxidant mineral--at optimal levels; (amounts shown to provide a health benefit in medical literature) not RDA or RDI levels (minimal levels needed to prevent acute deficiency diseases like scurvy, pellagra, or rickets).
Cellular nutrition is "preventive medicine" at its best because we can literally prevent the disease process at its core by preventing oxidative stress from occurring, thus allowing the best opportunity to enhance the body’s natural antioxidant defense system, immune system, and repair system.
Should you be taking nutritional supplements? I highly recommend the book What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You by Dr Ray Strand (Thomas Nelson, 2002). It documents the overwhelming medical evidence in our medical literature that clearly shows the tremendous health benefits of taking high quality nutritional supplements.
Buyer beware! Not all supplements are created equally. Contact Dr. Karen Wolfe to find out how to choose a high quality nutritional supplement.
Dr. Karen Wolfe · (949) 500-5565
Serving the Orange County, California communities of: Aliso Viejo, Capistrano Beach, Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, Coto de Caza, Dana Point, Dove Canyon, Foothill Ranch, Fountain Valley, Irvine, Lake Forest, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, Monarch Beach, Newport Beach, Portola Hills, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana and Tustin, CA.
