GRAIN BRAIN By Dr. David Perlmutter: Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar - Your Brain's Silent Killers

The gluten brain/chronic disease connection is very strong, as I have been teaching since 2005. I wish to congratulate Dr. David Perlmutter, one of my favourite neurologists, for putting together his cutting edge health promoting  thoughts it into a book, "Grain Brain", a New York Times bestseller. It is sure it empower you to take charge of your health. 

This is what he says about Alzheimer's: My bold

“This is a disease that is highly revenue-producing for mega factories of various so-called Alzheimer’s drugs,” Dr. Perlmutter says. “The point is there is no meaningful treatment in 2013. It is a disease predicated on lifestyle choices primarily, because of the high amount of carbohydrates/sugar that we now, as Western-culture individuals, are consuming.It’s a preventable disease. It surprises me at my core that no one’s talking about the fact that so many of these devastating neurological problems are, in fact, modifiable based upon lifestyle choices.”(like diet, exercise and caloric restriction)


“They've been talking about it for years and years (which is now just gaining traction in mainstream medicine) that our health really depends on maintaining a barrier of the intestine from the bloodstream,” Dr. Perlmutter says.


“We now understand that the so-called blood-brain barrier, or that barrier that keeps things out of the brain where they don’t belong, is also affected by gluten, according to new research. It’s a very exciting time when we recognize that our biggest exposure to the environment is actually the lining of our intestines – not our lungs, not our skin. We are in fact very much dependent on the microbiota, the bacteria living in the gut, to maintain our health.”

Food, including the microbiota, is information to our cells. It tells them what to do. You can change your genetic destiny with the food choices that you make. Even the brain can get more healthy, because of something called neuroplasticity. See what Dr. Perlmutter has to say about neuroplasticity.  I see it in my practice everyday.

If you would like to know more about Dr. Perlmutter here is his Facebook page.

Time to cut back on the grains for all people. Find out if you are gluten sensitive because this will tell you how strict you have to be, because if you are GS, even eating small amounts of gluten, even once a month will increase your risk of dying by 6% a year.
Also increase your consumption of good fats like butter and real olive oil, eat traditionally fermented foods like sauerkraut, and get out side and exercise... these are the fundamentals of a GAPS diet and protocol. And it works.

To Your Health

Dr. Barbara

Latest Cold and Flu News- Garlic

Cold and flu symptoms are a sign of vitamin D deficiency, but once you think you have these symptoms, what do you do? Besides taking extra vitamin D3, take garlic.

Garlic, raw garlic, is an all round health promoting herb.It can be very powerful at preventing and treating colds and flu symptoms. Because it is anti-viral, it can be used against warts. 

See what Cochrane Summaries, ( a newsletter that is part of Cochrane Library, a source of "Independent high-quality evidence for health care decision making") says about garlic.

Read what Dr. Mercola writes about garlic and about commonly offered medical management: ( my comments are in bold)

Cochrane Database—which has repeatedly reported that the science does not support the use of flu vaccine as a first-line defense for those persons over 65 years of age—has also reviewed studies on the alternatives, such as the use of garlic.15

They found that those who took garlic daily for three months had fewer colds than those who took a placebo, and, when they did come down with a cold, the duration of illness was shorter—an average of 4.5 days compared to 5.5 days for the placebo group.

While this may not seem overly impressive, it’s still better than the results achieved by the much-advertised flu drug Tamiflu. If taken within 48 hours of onset of illness, Tamiflu might reduce the duration of flu symptoms by about a day to a day and a half. That's the extent of what this $100-plus treatment will get you. It’s virtually identical to just taking garlic on a regular basis!

However, some patients with influenza are at increased risk for secondary bacterial infections when on Tamiflu—a risk you won’t take by eating garlic... Other adverse events of Tamiflu include pediatric deaths, serious skin reactions, and neuropsychiatric events, including suicide committed while delirious.



Read the whole article to find out the best way to take garlic and why. And what lifestyle issues lower your immune system and how to make changes for better health.

I can't forget to mention the finding, by Canadian scientists, in 2010, reported by the Vancouver Sun, that getting the seasonal flu shot appeared to increase the seriousness of a future flu illness. A new study by US government investigators reported in Science Translational Medicine August 28,2013, may have found the explanation. They did confirm the finding by the Canadian researchers, lead by Dr. Danuta Skowronski.


Get ready for flu season by building up your immune system.


To Your Health
Dr. Barbara

A Hot Weather Favourite: GAPS Friendly Maple Walnut Frozen Dessert!

For those hot summer days I've developed a dairy free GAPS friendly recipe for a frozen dessert. It really hits the spot!

But you can eat it anytime.

Ingredients for a double recipe enough for 6-8 servings:

2 cup coconut milk free of sulfites, carrageenan and starches like guar gum.
1 1/2 cup maple syrup (less maple syrup may suit your taste)
Two pinches of sea salt
10 tsp coconut flour
2 tablespoons water
2 1/2 cups organic coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups walnut pieces

In a medium saucepan, heat coconut milk, maple syrup and salt, simmer for 30 minutes until thick like table cream.
In a small bowl, combine coconut flour and water to form a smooth paste.
Pour smooth paste into saucepan. 
Whisk the contents of saucepan vigorously and bring to a boil, briefly.
Remove pot from heat and gradually blend in coconut oil
Blend in vanilla
Place pot in freezer for 30-40 minutes, until dessert solidifies and turns white. 
Remove from freezer and blend again, until fluffy, then stir in walnuts

To make a smaller amount, just halve the amounts.


Enjoy your maple walnut frozen dessert.

To Your Health,

Dr. Barbara

Dr. Tom O'Bryan on The Existence of Gluten Sensitivity

Dr. Tom O'Bryan is an internationally recognized speaker and workshop leader specializing in Gluten Sensitivity and Celiac Disease. He is a DC who has studied functional medicine and I first heard him speak in 2009 at the American Academy of Environmental Medicine Annual General Conference in Phoenix. 

On his website  he states the following:

"In the last 3 years, the acceptance of Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS) in the medical community as a distinct clinical entity has gone from that of being an orphaned child crying in the world for recognition, to an accepted, unique component of the triad of gluten-related disorders."

His web site has some very informative articles well worth reading.

In future issues I will provide a summary of the major scientific articles that have shown distinctive differences between celiac disease and non- celiac gluten sensitivity, which I shorten to gluten sensitivity. 

To Your Health.
Dr. B

Revised International Table of Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL) Values—2008

People will want to know more about the glycemic load (GL) which is a way to count the impact of the allowable carbohydrates in a GAPS diet on ones glucose blood levels and eventually on ones waist size. Lets face it, if you go on GAPS diet and you have carbohydrate cravings you may load up on the allowable foods that are primarily carbohydrates, and you can get more symptoms and even gain weight. If you were overweight, and you were hoping to lose weight, you would say the diet doesn't work, and you would give up. The higher the blood glucose, the higher the insulin goes, and the higher the IGF a hormone that promotes inflammation, the basis of most of the symptoms and symptoms complexes/diseases associated with celiac and gluten sensitivity. 

There is a limit to how much carbs are allowable.To stop the cycle of inflammation, and carbohydrate cravings, I advise people to eat less than 25 points of the GL list, over the entire day. 

Thanks to a naturopathic doctor colleague  Dr. Mireille Fanous, I have been introduced to a definitive table produced by Professor Jennie Brand Miller of the University of Sydney. This work is an extension of the work of Dr. Jenner of the University of Toronto, Canada who is credited with the development of the glycemic index (GI), or impact of food on blood glucose.

David Mendosa works to defeat diabetes and has published Prof. Brand Millers' list of  2,480 food products and their GI and GL. This list will help guide you on choosing foods and their amounts that would be healthy.

He writes:

This is the definitive table for both the glycemic index and the glycemic load. I am able to reproduce it here courtesy of the author, Professor Jennie Brand-Miller of the University of Sydney. It is based on a table in different format but no more foods published December 2008 in Diabetes Care. However, only the abstract is free online there.

GI of 55 is low; GL of 10 is low.

This table includes the glycemic index and glycemic load of more than 2,480 individual food items. Not all of them, however, are available in the United States. They represent a true international effort of testing around the world.

The glycemic index (GI) is a numerical system of measuring how much of a rise in circulating blood sugar a carbohydrate triggers–the higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. So a low GI food will cause a small rise, while a high GI food will trigger a dramatic spike. A list of carbohydrates with their glycemic values is shown below. A GI of 70 or more is high, a GI of 56 to 69 inclusive is medium, and a GI of 55 or less is low.

The glycemic load (GL) is a relatively new way to assess the impact of carbohydrate consumption that takes the glycemic index into account, but gives a fuller picture than does glycemic index alone. A GI value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. It doesn't tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. You need to know both things to understand a food's effect on blood sugar. That is where glycemic load comes in. The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI. But there isn't a lot of it, so watermelon's glycemic load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low.

Lots of foods on the list are packaged foods and not sold in Canada, however it gives you an idea how a similar food product would impact your health. 

If you want to know more about how carbohydrates including fructose found in fruit causes chronic illness, watch this superb video by Dr. Lustig from University of California, San Francisco, called "Sugar: The Bitter Truth!"

To Your Health.

Dr. Barbara

GAPS-Friendly Fig Newtons!

Here is another, in a series of dessert recipes that are GAPS friendly: Fig Newtons! It's a sweet, delicious and filling snack! 

A little bit goes a long way. I suggest most people keep their glycemic load total to less than 25 points total a day to stay well. Three figs totals 16 points. 1/6 of this recipe is 16 points. There is not much room for much fruit for the rest of the day, but it's so worth it!

For more information on the glycemic load and how to calculate your food's impact on your insulin level, see http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Glycemic_index_and_glycemic_load_for_100_foods.htm

Ingredients:

Fig Spread:

1 pack of cut up dried figs (18-20 figs)

1 cup water

Cookie Dough:

2/3 cup tallow or butter

1/3 cup honey (it can be replaced with stevia to taste)

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp baking soda

2 cups almond flour or other nut flour, like coconut

½ tsp salt

freshly ground nutmeg (optional)

Soak 1 pack of cut up dried figs in water over night and/or simmer until soft and process until smooth.

Preheat oven to 350°F and combine butter, honey, vanilla, baking soda, almond flour, salt, and nutmeg (optional) in food processor until they form a ball. Wrap in wax paper and cool in refrigerator for easier handling.

Roll out half of the dough (or press) into a pie pan or cake pan for the bottom layer.

Spread the fig spread on the layer and roll out the rest of the dough for the top of the crust between two pieces of wax paper floured with your nut flour, for easier handling.

Flip on top of fig filling and bake for about 12-15 minutes until light brown.

Take a break and enjoy your GAPS friendly Fig Newtons!

To Your Health,
Dr. Barbara

A GAPS Friendly Very, Berry Cream Flan!

The theme for the last few blogs have been recipes for desserts. Here's another one, no one will ever guess this flan/pie is made with coconut milk, it's so rich. 

You can personalize your flan by choosing the berry of your preference. I have made one with blueberries and the other with raspberries.

Raspberry Cream Flan

Ingredients for two flans:

Crust enough for two flans:

1 1/2 cup flaked or shredded, unsweetened coconut (without sulfites)

6 pitted Medjool dates

3 tbsp coconut oil

1 egg white

1 tsp vanilla (optional)

Topping for two flans:

4 cups coconut milk

2 eggs + 1 egg yolk

¼ cup honey

10 drops stevia

Blueberry Cream Flan

4 tsp grated lemon and orange rind

2 tsp vanilla

1 pack of gelatin

1 1/2 cups organic berries of your choice

 Crust:

In food processor, combine the ingredients for the crust, in the order written, pulsing after each addition. Press into bottom of a square cake pan, springform, or flan pan. Sprinkle with berries. 

Topping:

Using the same food processor, add all ingredients and blend until smooth and slightly fluffy. Pour over berries.

Bake in 350°F/180° oven for 60-70 minutes or until golden.

This berry cream flan can be served warm or cold. One pie makes 12 servings. 

To Your Health, 

Dr. Barbara