The kidneys are one of those organs that nobody pays much attention to when they are young. They're in the back of the abdomen somewhere, and they don't say much. They just do their thing, filtering the blood and making urine that we eliminate many times a day. Without them we would not be alive.

I'm here to suggest that perhaps your kidneys deserve a little respect before they start failing. The kidneys weaken with age and can really cause a lot of trouble if they fail, but there are things you can do to treat them nice and keep tabs on them.

The kidneys are busy all the time because they get ~20% of your total cardiac output and have a lot of housecleaning to do.  Take care of your kidneys starting now and improve your chances of finishing this life with kidneys that still work.  Here are 13 Ways:

1. Get your kidney function checked annually, or more often if you have a family history of kidney disease, unusual kidney structure, or you are hypertensive, diabetic, or obese, or if there are things on this list that you just can't do.
2. Take care of invisible medical problems.  Most of the conditions that damage kidneys are things like high blood pressure, blood sugar or cholesterol—things that you can’t feel.  Deal with invisible problems because once you feel the damage it’s too late.
3. Avoid NSAIDS as much as you can.  This means ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen.  If you must take them, take the minimum dose for the minimum time.  High doses can be destructive.  Tylenol (acetomenophen) is the only OTC pain reliever that doesn’t hurt the kidneys, and it can cause liver failure.
4. Caution with Medications.  Penicillins, sulfas and thiazides reduce renal function if taken longterm.  If there are other ways to treat your problems, find them.
5. Stop Smoking.  If you’re a smoker you’ve probably already been told the thousands of medical reasons to stop.  Get help if you need it.
6. Get heavy metals (lead, mercury, etc) chelated out if you have too much.  Start with a hair test and go from there.
7. Fix prostate problems.  A swollen prostate can back up urine and drown the kidneys.  Get help if you can't pee.
8. Drink water.  It’s the fluid that you’re made out of, and drinking it helps prevent kidney stones which really suck.  If you have kidney disease already, your doctor will suggest specific amounts.
9. Stop boozing. Alcohol is a strong diuretic and can directly impact kidney function, as well as hurting the liver and adding to the kidney’s work.  Easy on the alcohol.
10. Eat fruit and veggies.  You don’t have to give up meat but limiting meat consumption might be recommended if you have kidney disease.  For prevention of kidney disease the best dietary advice is to eat lots of fruit and veggies for the antioxidants.
11. Be reasonable with salt. Too much salt makes your blood pressure go up which is really hard on the kidneys.
12. Manage your weight.  Obesity is a top risk factor for kidney disease and just like blood pressure, smoking and drinking, it’s not an easy one to fix fast.  Get help.
13. Know the symptoms of kidney failure and get help if they happen.  The early symptoms are non-specific: fatigue, brain fog, loss of appetite and swelling ankles.  The next stage is muscle twitches and cramps, itching, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, hipccups, a sore mouth or a bad taste in the mouth, sleep disturbances and possibly congestive heart failure.  The late symptoms are really bad; get help way before then.

Hi friends.  This blog has been neglected for a while but I'm getting back to it.  I had to look up my log-in information!  I've been working on a couple of books.  One I've been calling "homeopathy lessons" but really it's about the need to look more deeply at every question in medicine.  It does not serve us to dismiss anything out of hand.  We should learn what we can from the very slow evolution of medicine.

Speaking of which, back in January the American Diabetes Association FINALLY decided to add the low carb diet to their list of acceptable diets for diabetics!  They're STILL not telling diabetics to stop eating so much sugar and carbs, they're just saying if you do, you'll have to take more insulin.  There is no sense in that, insulin is not something you want any extra of in your system.  Better to eat less carbs and then have to take less insulin.  So simple.  Curative, in fact.

Anyway, if you have any requests for blog subjects, let me know.  I have such a long list of possible topics that it helps to focus my energies when someone asks a question.

​Hope your summer is going well!!  Here, our tomatoes are just starting to come in.

Happy All Souls Day! The temptation of bad holiday foods is upon us, and our ancestors would be appalled. If you are anything like me, the easy availability of candy is bad news. Let me be the first to tell you to GET RID OF IT today instead of letting it sit around and tempt you into sugar addiction.

The problem with candy is that it is made out of sugar.  Sugar has many names, but it has the same effects. It doesn't matter if it's called honey, agave syrup, corn syrup or rice syrup, it still makes us crave more. And that is BAD NEWS.

It works like this.  Eating too much sugar (and even a little it usually too much) causes an imbalance in our insulin and leptin levels.  That imbalance causes us to feel hungry when we don't need food. That false hunger feeling, which can be a very strong craving, causes us to eat more and worse foods than we normally would. Uncontrolled eating worsens the imbalance which then leads to weight gain, pre-diabetes and diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia and all manner of bad news.

The GOOD NEWS is that this pattern of craving is easy to reverse. If you start your day by NOT eating sugar, you can stop the cravings for that day.  If you keep your sugar and carb intake low day after day, the cravings will disappear completely.  You will find that you aren't really a sugar addict after all.

Eggs and bacon are a great anti-craving breakfast, especially if you keep the portions of potatoes, breads and such small. Even oatmeal is a far better breakfast than a pastry, or even a bagel, sorry to say. The worst possible breakfast in the universe is Halloween candy, so get rid of it!  Throw it in the trash. Cheap sugary candy is the devil and you do not want to give it to anyone that you care about.

One small note about chocolate. People have the idea that chocolate is actually good for you, and this is true, but it has to be a certain kind of chocolate, AND you can't eat very much of it. Hershey's bars are more sugar and rancid milk than they are chocolate, so they are NOT good for you. Very dark (strong) chocolate, eaten one square at a time (not a whole bar!), is the only kind of chocolate that you can claim is good for you. And that is not the kind of chocolate that people give out at Halloween.

I hope this has been enough to get you started in the right direction.  Throw away the leftover candies, and brush your teeth.  Let your kids binge on sugar all at once until they feel sick, then get rid of the rest and make them brush their teeth too. Return to eating whole foods (fruit and veggies) as soon as possible! This Halloween curse can be beaten!

The EPA sets limits for pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other chemicals on food, and those limits are not zero. There's no way you can avoid every toxin in or on commercial food, but it's worth some effort to minimize your exposures. Young people and children have the most to gain in terms of healthy life years.

Some contaminants are easier to remove than others. Strawberries are covered in little pores and it is impossible to get the pesticides off (out) of them, so it is important to buy those organic or choose another fruit. Apples are also hard to clean because they can have a coat of parrafin (to make them shiny) that seals in the pesticides. Potatoes may be less important to buy organic if you peel off a good layer and boil them too.  Boiling has been shown to remove or destroy some of the contaminants.

A review of the literature reveals that washing your veggies in tap water for 30 seconds actually removes most of the pesticides and fungicides. Unfortunately there are some that water does not remove, including chlorpyrifos (a nerve-gas pesticide) and vinclozolin (a fungicide). Thankfully these are removed by soaking in an acid solution, acetic acid being the most effective. Acetic acid is vinegar. The longer you soak your veggies the more of the chlorpyrifos is removed. My rule is to soak my cherries in a 5% vinegar solution for at least an hour.

Why do we care about chlorpyrifos? You may have heard about it in the news. It was originally developed as a nerve gas by the Nazis. Now it is used as a pesticide because it paralyzes insects. No surprise that it also wreaks havoc on the human nervous system. It was slated to be banned until Trump got elected. It's already banned for indoor use. Dow chemical (the maker of chlorpyrifos) donated a million bucks to Trump's inauguration fund to make sure that their profitable poison would remain legal. The EPA reversed course and this toxin will be sprayed on veggies and golf courses, in spite of the fact that it shrinks and deforms children's brains, lowers their IQs, and is linked to lung cancer and Parkinsons. Chlorpyrifos sticks to fruit even when it's rinsed in tap water.

For the foreseeable future we will need to work to avoid this toxin as best we can. This means seeking clean sources for our produce (gardens, farmer's markets, buying organic), washing it, peeling and boiling what can be peeled and boiled, and soaking plants that we eat with the skin on in a vinegar solution for at least an hour.

If you need a little good news to help wash off the sad feeling about all this poison, below are the kinds of food least likely to be contaminated. =-] Eat more of them.

The irony is rich. The term "snake oil" has come to mean everything that is fraudulent. The reference is to the infamous "snake oil salesman" who pitched and sold his wares out of the back of a wagon to the unsuspecting villagers of the American west.

Snake oil has real medicinal value. It was used as medicine before the North American continent was on the map. Centuries ago the Chinese used an oil made from a cold water snake called Enhydris chinensis to treat joint pain and bursitis. It was introduced to the US by Chinese laborers who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad in the mid 1800's. There's evidence that the ancient Egyptians used it too. In the early 1700's the English had a patent medicine made from snake oil. Snake oil was sold here as a panacea in the early 1900's, but the products sold were probably more filler and adulterant than they were actual snake oil.

So what's in it that's good for you? Snake oil, depending on the snakes used to derive it, can be a rich source of an fatty acid known as EPA, eicosapentanoic acid. EPA is used by the body to synthesize series 3 prostaglandins, which are anti-inflammatory and pain relieving. You can know EPA is important because it's in human breast milk.  EPA is effective for treating depression, improving cognitive function, autoimmune diseases including rheumatism, high cholesterol, hypertension, and more. 

EPA can be derived in the body from other fatty acids, but it's much easier to eat in your food. The richest sources are fish: herring, mackerel, salmon, trout, pilchards, menhaden and sardines. Fish do not make their own EPA. They get it from eating algae like spirulina, which we also can eat. Plant foods don't contain any EPA at all.

Part of the reason it's easier to eat EPA than to make it in your body has to do with human genetics. Some people have the gene to make the enzyme which lets them convert ALA (alpha linolenic acid) into EPA. Other people have mutations in their genes that limit their ability to do the conversion. Diabetes and some allergies also limit a person's ability to convert ALA to EPA. ALA is an essential fatty acid, meaning that no humans can make it; we have to get it from the diet.

If we don't make it very well, and we don't eat much fish, we need to get our EPA some other way to keep our cell membranes happy.  Many healthcare professionals recommend that we take fish oil.  Fish oil contains 12-18% EPA.  Salmon oil tops the list at ~18%.  Chinese water snake oil contains ~ 20% EPA, whereas rattlesnake oil is said to contain 8.5%. Cod liver oil has more DHA than EPA and is best reserved for specific uses, like building baby brains or healing brain injuries.

The reason why some snakes have more EPA than others has to do with the temperatures that they live in. Snakes and fish are both cold blooded, so they have to function with their bodies at the same temperature as their environments. Omega 3 fats like EPA don't harden in cold temperatures like omega 6s do. They help keep cell membranes flexible. Flexible membranes don't get injured as easily, and are able to function better. Cold water fish, or cold water snakes, will have more EPA than those that live in warm sunshine, like rattlesnakes.

The next time someone tells you that a treatment is "snake oil", remember this. Public attitudes and language reflect our history, not our future. Science continues to give us reason to revise belief systems, erase myths, and sometimes to welcome old treatments back into the fold.

Recent post by Dr Gryder at the Madness Medicine Blog.

As the winter progresses into darkness and cold, every little thing that makes me happy gets celebrated.  One thing that makes me really happy is delicious sushi.  I am grateful that Sho Japanese Cuisine is right across the street from my office.  They have tasty fish and excellent sake.