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  Fundamental MedicineTeresa Gryder, ND

13 Ways to Love your Kidneys

8/15/2019

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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.
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American Diabetes Association OK's Low Carb Diet

8/7/2019

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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.
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Gout: what it is and what to do about it

4/6/2019

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You get a gout diagnosis when your blood is tested and it contains too much uric acid. It happens more with age, and more to men. Uric acid forms crystals that settle in the joints, and dissolve again when the concentration dips. The problem is that the crystals poke holes in the tissues where they form and damage it, causing inflammation (pain, heat, redness) that takes longer to resolve than the crystals take to dissolve. To fix it you have to both dissolve the crystals and heal the tissue. Here is a list of ideas to help you do just that.

  1. Fast. During an acute flare, stop eating except for veggie juices and diluted fruit juices. There are several reasons for this. One is to cut off the supply of food which gets converted to uric acid. Another is because your body does a better job of healing itself when it’s not busy constantly digesting things. Give it a break. Especially if you have plenty of calories stored on your person, it won’t hurt you to stop eating for a day or three.
  2. Hydrate. Drink water and plenty of it. The goal is to dissolve the crystals and pee off the excess uric acid. Four to five liters of water per day is a good baseline for an adult.
  3. Tart CHERRY juice concentrate. Tart cherry juice helps you get rid of uric acid and helps reduce inflammation that’s causing pain. It’s strong so dilute it in water—2 tablespoons in a glass of water is about right. During an attack drink it all day. For longterm prevention just take one glass of water with tart cherry in it at bedtime. From here down these changes need to be longterm.
  4. Avoid NSAIDS. The problem is that ibuprofen, naproxen and aspirin are notoriously hard on your kidneys, and you need your kidneys working right to get rid of the uric. NSAIDS also impair your healing response. It may be OK to use them occasionally, but DON’T use them every day.
  5. Cut BEER. Beer is one of the strongest diuretics out there, and it contains purines which get converted to uric acid. Double whammy, beer is a gout-maker. Cut it out entirely if possible. Coffee and wine, while mild diuretics, are less harmful.
  6. Cut SOFT DRINKS. Anything with fructose in it, including agave syrup, impairs your body’s elimination of uric acid.  And they make you die sooner anyway, so quit.
  7. Abolish Cigarettes. There are few things more inflammatory than smoking.  Quit, already.  It's not easy but you can do it.
  8. Easy on the Nightshades. These are tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplants. You can eat a little but a lot could trigger an attack. Tobacco is a nightshade too.
  9. Get your Vitamin C. Longterm high vitamin C intake is preventative.  Eat fruit!!  And onions.
  10. Consume OMEGA 3 Fats. Either take Fish Oil or eat fatty fish 2-3 times/week. You need about 3 grams/day from whichever sources, or 4-6 grams during a flare.
  11. Easy on Animal foods. You can eat meat, cheese and eggs but keep the portions smallish longterm. Animal foods contain purines that make uric in your blood.  Eat veggies!!
  12. SLEEP well. Your best healing is done when you get good rest.
  13. If you are able to do most of the things on this list and do them consistently you won’t need drug treatment to clear an attack and prevent future ones. ​
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Don't Eat That Shit: Halloween Candy

11/1/2018

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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!


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SEVEN ALLERGY SEASON TIPS

5/25/2018

 
The long version on this topic went out in a newsletter, but for those of you who are not subscribed, here’s a quick checklist of ways that you can reduce your dependence on drugstore remedies during allergy season. Now that we know benadryl can contribute to dementia, the last thing we want to do is take that every day.

1. Tolerate some symptoms. A runny nose is rinsing allergens out of your head, and that is good. If you want to help your runny nose do its job instead of taking some drug that dries you up and makes the allergens stay in there, try using a neti pot.

2. Exercise daily. Cardio immediately changes the balance of your immune system and makes you better able to fight infections and less prone to hayfever.

3. Eat a clean diet rich in fruit, veggies and fresh fish, and limited in meat and cheese. Mangos, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, ginger and hot peppers have been shown to reduce allergies. Fast food, leftover fish, and aged meat and cheese definitely increase allergies. Kids who eat fast food have a much higher risk of developing allergic asthma.

4. Limit allergic exposures. This includes changing your sheets and dusting your house, cutting back on foods you are sensitive to, not using soaps that you sometimes react to, wiping down your pets, and generally trying to live in a minimal-allergen environment.

5. Increase Omega 3 fatty acids—You can take fish oil or you can change your diet to consume more fresh fish and certain nuts and seeds, specifically walnuts, chia, flax and hemp. Eggs are allowed because there are omega 3’s in the yolk.

6. Be nice to your intestines because leaky gut is another allergy trigger. Avoid stress, eat fermented foods, avoid NSAIDS, and keep going back to that clean diet with lots of veggies. Make sure you are eliminating every day. A happy intestine reduces your risk of allergies and autoimmune disease.
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7. If you drink alcohol, go easy on beer and wine and try mixing drinks with clear liquors instead. Wine contains sulfites which worsen allergies. Gin contains juniper berries which are a fairly strong anti-allergy medicine. And there’s something about gin and tonics that’s perfect when the weather turns warm.

Pesticides in your Food

11/9/2017

 
Most of us don't eat enough fruit and veggies. It's so easy to eat processed stuff and meat and cheese instead. It takes effort to eat a healthy diet. I happen to agree with Michael Pollan who wrote "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." But how can we safely eat mostly plant matter when it has toxic chemicals sprayed on it?

There are several tricks to getting or making clean food. The first and most obvious is to grow it yourself. Unfortunately gardening is time-consuming, and you can't get tomatoes in winter.  Some folks can't or won't grow food. Grow what you can when you can, and forgive yourself when you can't. Home-grown tomatoes are one of the great pleasures in life.

If you're not going to grow it yourself, perhaps you have a job that will allow you to buy clean organic produce. There's more of it available all the time. If you have a local source of produce that isn't organic certified but is still cleaner than grocery store produce, use that. Farmer's markets are nice because you can talk to the farmer about what they use to manage pests and weeds.

The plant foods that you should try to buy clean are listed by the environmental working group every year as the "dirty dozen". The 2017 list (below) includes many of our favorite fruits and veggies. 
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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.
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Ten Tips for Drinkers (You Know Who You Are)

2/2/2017

 
  1. Never mix alcohol and tylenol.  Tylenol’s other names are acetaminophen and paracetamol.  It’s a common ingredient in over-the-counter cold medications (Nyquil), allergy meds, and RX pain meds like Vicodin and Percocet.  People can accidentally take too much because it’s in so many different products.  Tylenol is the world’s leading cause of fulminant liver failure, meaning severe, acute, and potentially fatal liver failure.  Mixing alcohol with tylenol is the kiss of an ugly death.  When you have a hangover and are searching the cabinet for something to treat your headache, use aspirin or ibuprofen or naproxen.  They're not quite so dangerous.
  2. Hydrate.  Most hangover symptoms are caused by dehydration.  Alcohol is a potent diuretic.  You might know this from the way that one beer makes you pee like you drank two.  Instead of taking pills for a hangover, guzzle water.  And if you know you’re going to imbibe, drink water before you even start.
  3. Take lots of vitamin C.  Especially after a binge, vitamin C helps neutralize the toxic breakdown products of alcohol metabolism, and it helps reverse fatty liver disease.  How much is lots?  Four to twelve grams a day, split up into lots of doses.  At the high end of this dose range it will cause diarrhea, but if you really binged, you will already have diarrhea.
  4. Be nice to your Gut.  Drinking alcohol causes Leaky Gut. This is when food particles leak through your gut lining instead of getting processed through the cells like they should. Leaky gut compromises your immune system and is a common factor in autoimmune diseases.  So eat a healthy diet with fruit and vegetables, and eat fermented foods like live yogurt, kefir, kraut or kimchi.  And get help if your gut isn’t working right.
  5. Know when to call 911.  If a heavy drinker suddenly spits up blood, it’s time to call.  Alcoholics can die when blood vessels in their esophagus burst, but they can live to see another day if you call early enough.  If the kids have had red bull drinks (alcohol and caffeine together) and start acting delirious, it’s time to call.  Caffeine prevents people from passing out so they’re more likely to reach a blood alcohol level that is really poisonous. Oh yeah, and definitely get help if someone turns yellow. Their eyes turn first.
  6. Eat FISH. It’s good for your brain.  Heavy alcohol consumption can cause dementia, and consuming lots of good omega 3 fats helps prevent the brain from degenerating.  So learn to love those fatty fishes—or start taking fish oil.
  7. Drink coffee.  You think I’m joking.  Coffee helps reduce liver damage caused by alcohol and by hepatitis.  It’s a powerful effect. Coffee also helps prevent dementia for other reasons.  So enjoy your cuppa joe!  It will help you sustain your Great Satan lifestyle longer.
  8. Sunbathe.  Large expanses of skin in bright sunshine makes hundreds of thousands of IU’s of vitamin D in just 15 minutes, so get a natural dose any time you can.  If you can never expose your white expanses, or if you live where the sun don’t shine, take a vitamin D supplement.  It helps prevent cirrhosis.
  9. Take a B Complex.  Thiamine is vitamin B-1, and a deficiency of this vitamin causes the severe memory loss that affects alcoholics.  You need all the other B’s too, so don’t take just one kind of B.  Take a quality B-complex in doses as big and regular as your drinking, and you’ve headed off this deficiency at the pass.
  10. Don’t be stupid.  I know it’s hard not to be stupid when you’re drunk but plan ahead when you’re not drunk so that you have a ride, a coat, and a place to crash.  Your body wastes heat after heavy drinking, so you can feel warm while you are descending into hypothermia.  Take a little extra care if you’re feeling reckless or have a tendency to behave impulsively.  Get help if you’re really headed down the drain: we need you.  

SNAKE OIL.

2/4/2015

 
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.
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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.

Good Fats for Brain Health

5/12/2014

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Recent post by Dr Gryder at the Madness Medicine Blog.
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Sho Am Lucky: Great Sushi near FunMed office

12/10/2013

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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.
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    Author: Teresa Gryder

    Integrative Physician and Student of Life, Medicine, and the River.

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