Are Millennials the Canaries in the Coal Mine?

Are Millennials the Canaries in the Coal Mine?

I just saw some startling statistics from a recent Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) report:

  • After age 27, Millennials chances of major health problems increase sharply
  • Millennials have higher rates of common health conditions than their Gen-X predecessors did at the same ages
  • As their health continues to decline, Millennials are going to be a huge financial burden on the already overwhelmed healthcare system.

Think about this: Before they reach their third decade of life, Millennials are at risk for chronic diseases that their grandparents may be facing.

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Two Questions:

ONE: Why? What is destroying the health of young people who have grown up with the latest advancements of medicine, diet and a cleaner environment?

TWO: How can this trend be reversed, and how can we make sure that the next generation isn’t in even worse condition?

Children’s Health Has Been Sliding for Generations

You’ve almost certainly noticed that there has been a long-term health slide for our kids. I can recall that when I was in grade school, kids weren’t on drugs for ADHD. The school wasn’t a “peanut free zone” because of severe food allergies. There weren’t any diabetics in my class. There weren’t more than a couple of “fat kids” in my class, either.

The reason behind this deterioration of children’s health would likely be a major reason for the data in this Blue Cross Blue Shield study.

The Reason? Gut Microbes

In your body, there are about 10 times as many microbes as there are cells. That’s about 360 trillion microbes… mostly in your small intestine. They provide many services for your body including:

  • Digesting your food (which is your body’s replacement parts)
  • Producing 75% of your immune system.

Here’s an article from Scientific American on gut microbes

If you damage your supply of gut microbes, you become much more likely to develop many health conditions, especially those caused by a weakened immune system. This would include health conditions created by inflammation, auto-immune, allergies, etc.

Gut Microbes are damaged by:

  • Antibiotics (drugs you take, residual drugs in meat you eat, and environmental antibiotics in hand soap and many other products).
  • Food additives (preservatives, flavor enhancers, dyes, etc.)
  • Environmental chemicals you get exposed to all the time.
  • Eating too much sugar and refined carbohydrates (this causes fungus in your small intestine to overgrow and destroy the beneficial bacteria).

There are certainly many additional challenges that make it difficult to maintain good health in our society. However, most of these stresses piggyback on the gut microbe problem or are made much worse by it.

Then there’s the single largest and most vicious reason for declining health: The Big Lie.

The Big Lie

“Many health conditions are permanent; you can’t get ever get completely well and will need ongoing treatment for the rest of your life.”

This Lie applies to diagnosed diseases as well as non-diagnosed symptoms.

Here’s a partial list:

Diabetes, high blood pressure, IBS, GERD, asthma, allergies, high cholesterol, depression, heart disease, arthritis, chronic respiratory diseases, fatigue, sleep problems, digestive problems, anxiety, hair loss, weight gain, back/shoulder/neck/knee/hand pain, brain fog, memory problems, menstrual and menopause problems, infertility.

I call this the Big Lie because I watch bodies become healthy and heal themselves of every one of these conditions on a regular basis.

None of these problems can be successfully solved using drugs or surgery, and our current medical system uses ONLY drugs and surgeries. So, medically all these conditions are permanent.

Also, our medical system considers that it is all-knowing, and that nothing else other than drugs and surgeries has any validity. So, if you can’t get well medically then you better just learn to live with your problems.

What To Do?

If you think that your gut health may be affecting your health and quality of life:

Click the button below and make an appointment to find out exactly what is going on with your body and how you could resolve this without drugs or surgery.

The Hidden Life of a Holistic Doctor

The Hidden Life of a Holistic Doctor

Newsflash: Your Doctor Thinks You’re a Hopeless Case

Medical doctor friends always tell me that I have the best doctor job in the world. They say, “What you do is what I dreamed of doing when I first decided to be a doctor.” I’ll admit that my job as a holistic doctor is pretty cool, but I didn’t realize what I was (thank heavens) missing out on until recently when a patient who’s also a medical doctor told me a harrowing story of an experience she had in school.

She said, “A professor explained that patients always get worse and worse until they die. He drew a big downward curve on the whiteboard and explained that our job (as doctors) is to make this process as comfortable as possible.”

She said she couldn’t believe that this was really the viewpoint of most doctors, but when she asked around, she found this attitude was almost universal. Sadly, she lost her ambition to treat patients as a result of this and went into another specialty.

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Where did the idea of “help patients get well” go? In the areas of trauma and acute illness I think the “get well” idea is still very much alive. But doctors have no idea how to heal or cure chronic conditions (hormone imbalances, digestive problems, pain, fatigue, depression, weight, diabetes, blood pressure, etc.), and so are reduced to managing the symptoms with lifelong drug therapy. I can almost see how the professor came to his conclusions.

A different way to think: Holistic Doctor

My job as a holistic doctor is to help patients with chronic problems recover their health to where they have a good quality of life and maintain their health by themselves. I’ve been doing this for over 25 years with tremendous success. It’s really fun. My clinic is full every day with patients who had almost given up ever getting their health and lives back… and now they’re getting better and learning how to stay that way. It’s a happy and exciting place to come to work.

I can have a job like this because I’m a holistic doctor, but I’m very aware of the confusion sometimes caused by the word “holistic.”

Holistic? What the heck IS that, anyway?

Holistic: characterized by the treatment of the whole person, considering mental and social factors rather than just the symptoms of a disease.

Most people will certainly misunderstand this definition. Would this mean that a holistic doctor does counseling to help with their patients’ “mental and social factors?” Then there’s this “treatment of a whole person?”… well, would this mean a body, mind, spirit kind of thing? Is a holistic doctor a woo-woo, “think yourself well” approach, or is it real science?

My patients are looking for a serious solution that will work for a chronic health problem that is often destroying their lives. And let’s be real here: a consistent, predictable, effective solution to a severe chronic health condition isn’t going to be a woo-woo approach.

I consider myself a holistic doctor because I work with the physical body and the intelligence that operates it. Your body has an “on-board” intelligence that runs it for you, or else you’d be so busy running your body (digesting your food, controlling your blood pressure, running your immune system) that you couldn’t do anything else! Since it’s this intelligence that knows how to heal the body and what problems are stopping that healing, logically, the body should be the doctor on the case.

The only way to achieve the results I get with my patients is to realize that ONLY the body can heal chronic health conditions. And, since the body is designed to heal itself, the only reason that a person has a health condition would be that their body has run up against some problem that has stopped the healing process from continuing.

My job is to:

  1. Find out where the body’s healing process has gotten stuck or hung up, exactly why this is, and what the body needs in order to overcome the problem and continue healing.
  2. Give the body the help and assistance it needs based on the testing done in #1, using some really interesting and innovative methods.

Holistic, then, means that I am testing the intelligence that runs the body to find out what to do rather than go by “the standard treatment protocol” (doctors use a decision tree set of instructions to determine the treatment steps for most diagnoses, called a protocol or guideline). Only the body knows exactly what is wrong and how it can be healed. The body is the real doctor; I’m just the assistant.

This is a new idea for lots of people

I must educate all my patients about what I do and how it works. This is necessary because, since they are the ones living in the body we’re trying to heal, they have to do most of the work. So, I’m very aware of how little is understood of holistic doctors.

But it’s cool, isn’t it?

If you are on drugs for high blood pressure, there’s a chance you could improve, and your doctor would take you off of them.

If you are diagnosed as a diabetic, there’s a chance you could not be one anymore.

If you have done “everything” to get pregnant and the doctors have told you, “There’s no physical reason you can’t get pregnant, but we are out of options,” you might be able to be a mom.

If your life is a hormonal nightmare of discomfort, mood swings, and pain, that could come to an end.

It’s true that there is no such thing as a free lunch: you will have to work hard and long to accomplish any of these things. But if you are willing to do this, your problem might be solved.

I wish you the best of luck and offer you any help or advice I can.

High Cholesterol or Statin Drugs: Which is Worse?

High Cholesterol or Statin Drugs: Which is Worse?

This article explains how the villain of “bad” cholesterol (called “LDL”) is really NOT the villain at all.

Instead, it’s a combination of cholesterol AND another health condition (“insulin resistance”) that causes the danger of heart disease.

THE PROBLEM: The most commonly prescribed treatment for high cholesterol MAY CAUSE insulin resistance.

Go Figure.

The term “high cholesterol” has become synonymous with “danger of heart disease or heart attack.” Thirty-five million Americans take statin drugs to control their cholesterol despite the side effects of muscle pain (very common), liver damage and… insulin resistance. Keep that last side effect in your mind: insulin resistance.

This article explains how the villain of LDL (“bad” cholesterol) is an essential part of your immune system, controlling inflammation and infection. LDL is also a building block for cells and is what testosterone and estrogen are made from.

So why the bad rap?

New research shows that LDL cholesterol becomes sticky and blocks arteries ONLY if the person also has insulin resistance (which causes high blood sugar).

So, the statin drug you take to prevent your arteries from clogging could be causing the very condition that causes your arteries to become clogged.

To understand more about the causes and solutions of insulin resistance (this is the REAL villain) read Insulin Resistance—More Dangerous Than High Cholesterol.

Dr. Melodie Billiot

Dr. Billiot

Dr. Melodie Billiot

More on Insulin Resistance

Read: Insulin Resistance– More Dangerous Than High Cholesterol

 

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Atherosclerosis– Is Your LDL Sticky?

Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., DACBN, MS, CFMP

Atherosclerosis is the thickening or hardening of the arteries caused by a buildup of plaque in the inner lining of an artery.

For as long as I remember, most people, including myself, have been told that LDL cholesterol is the bad villain of plaque build-up and HDL cholesterol is the good guy.

Of course, with this hypothesis, it would make perfect sense that the higher your LDL cholesterol, the greater the chance of getting atherosclerosis.

However, there is much more to the story and my hope today is to share a different angle that will shed some light on the real issues with LDL cholesterol and its nemesis called atherosclerosis.

The Significant Role of LDL in Our Bodies

Cholesterol isn’t inherently bad. In fact, it’s the building block for creating healthy cells. It also helps your body make testosterone and estrogen. Without LDL, these and many other steroid hormones wouldn’t be made effectively

Contrary to what we have been told, LDL cholesterol also has another good side: its ability to fight infections.

LDL plays a valuable and important role in the body’s response to an assault by infectious invaders. When bacteria invade our body, they release a cell wall component known as endotoxin. What is critically important and something we will dig in deeper in this article is that endotoxins are super inflammatory and can strongly trigger the immune system.

But research has shown that your friend LDL cholesterol is around to bind up this toxin preventing things from getting out of hand.

In a study using mice it was discovered that increased levels of LDL cholesterol were eight times more resistant to endotoxins. This showed a significant decrease in overall mortality when injected with gram-negative bacteria. On the other hand, rats with the lowest LDL cholesterol had an increased rate of mortality and levels of inflammation when injected with endotoxin.

Now, if you are like me, I would be asking, what about humans?

Is there evidence that higher levels of LDL cholesterol are protective against infections in humans? In fact, many studies are proving that higher levels of LDL cholesterol are protective as we age. This is more likely due to the positive impact on the immune system.

The answer is that LDL itself is not harmful, but in certain situations, it can be involved in responding to injury and inflammation. This, of course, makes LDL look like more of a firefighter than simply a criminal causing atherosclerosis.

So the question that we must ask ourselves is: Is there something more sinister behind the scenes that are actually driving heart disease (atherosclerosis)?

As I have discussed in a prior article, the real issue is insulin sensitivity and the stickiness factor.

In people who are insulin sensitive, rising LDL levels do not correlate with increased rates of heart disease. On the other hand, the higher the LDL, the greater opportunity for plaque formation in those who are insulin resistant. Remember it is not all about elevated levels of LDL but the more important villain of insulin resistance.

What will make our head spin is the fact that higher levels of LDL in the blood do not consistently correlate with the progression of atherosclerosis in the absence of insulin resistance.

LDL Stickiness is the Real Issue

Here is the important takeaway from this important article. LDL under certain circumstances (which I will mention in a minute) can get stuck within the arterial wall. So it is not the size or amount of LDL particles moving into the arteries that is important but rather if it sticks to the wall of the artery that determines whether or not it contributes to atherosclerosis.

Here is a good analogy:

If you were to throw a tennis ball at a wall unless the tennis ball and the wall were coated in velcro, the tennis ball would not stick. So to bring it back to reality, unless the LDL particle and arterial wall (the intimal space) were sticky, it does not matter how many LDL particles we have floating around in our arteries. The LDL “balls” only get stuck to the arterial wall when they are coated in what we will call “molecular velcro.” LDL is simply not enough of a problem alone to initiate plaque build-up. The takeaway is: it has to get stuck in the arterial wall to initiate the process of atherosclerosis.

Blocked Blood Vessels

Now the magic question

What in the world determines how sticky the LDL particle and the intimal space are?

There is now growing evidence during states of insulin resistance and inflammation that both the LDL particle and the arterial wall get coated in “molecular velcro” making everything more sticky, increasing atherosclerosis progression.

You may now be asking: really, how common is insulin resistance?

Would you believe that a massive 88 percent of the American population has some degree of metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance)?

So to conclude: 

In the absence of insulin resistance and inflammation, higher levels of LDL cholesterol are probably protective because of their roles in the immune response.

The Trail Out of Diabetes, Blood Pressure, Heart Disease & Obesity

The Trail Out of Diabetes, Blood Pressure, Heart Disease & Obesity

The Trail Out of Diabetes, Blood Pressure, Heart Disease & Obesity

In many cases, there may be a way to prevent future damage to your life from your diagnosis.

It is NOT an “easy way out,” however.

If you possess some grit, determination, and self-discipline, if you are very upset with your diagnosis, and if you want a do-over on what the rest of your life may hold in store: read on.

I’ve found that diabetes, blood pressure, and heart disease can be confusing for many of my patients. These diagnoses can be terrifying, but at the same time, you may not have many (or any) symptoms directly related to the diseases. Often, patients have seemingly-unrelated symptoms that are making them miserable (joint pain, allergies, digestive problems, etc.), but the “pre-diabetes” or “high blood pressure” or “heart disease” aren’t directly producing much obvious trouble.

Most people in the US die from one or more of these illnesses, so your fear and upset with your diagnosis are correctly placed. “Health and Economic Costs of Chronic Diseases” CDC

Here are the basic facts you must know if you would prefer to live a long and active life without fear of disease.

  • For these diseases, medical treatment is limited to drugs to try to manage the disease process. There is no “cure.” If you’ve asked, your doctor will have told you that your only option is drug management and dietary changes to help you live as long as possible, but that the diseases are life-long.
  • I have worked with these cases for 27 years, and my experience has been extremely positive. Most patients respond very well to lifestyle changes and support to assist their bodies to heal themselves. Diabetes lab tests may become healthy, blood pressure and cholesterol drugs may no longer be needed; the weight comes off, etc. I don’t treat the disease. Instead, I support the body’s self-healing processes to help it overcome stress and heal itself.
  • These diseases continuously cause damage to your body, so the sooner you begin the process of recovery, the more successful you are likely to be.
  • To be successful, you’ll have to be dedicated and willing to go the long-haul. Helping your body to heal from these conditions isn’t easy or quick.

Understanding the Causes

These diseases carry a stigma of a poor or unhealthy lifestyle. Your doctor may even “blame” you for getting sick. “It’s all that extra weight I’ve been telling you to get rid of that’s causing your diabetes.”

No one will blame you for getting the flu or a cold. But with chronic illness, there’s an element of personal responsibility. You ate too much junk food, failed to exercise, drank too much alcohol, and now look what’s happened to you.

The truth is that this “personal responsibility” is mostly fiction. We live in a world where most of the available food is disease-causing. We’re bombarded nonstop with food-fiction designed to entice us into eating destructive foods and eating volumes more than we should. Our government supports and condones the sale of these foods, which are deliberately designed to be biologically addictive.

Chronic disease is supposed to be “non-communicable” in that it’s not passed on by bacteria or virus from one person to another. The science on this is quite a different story. You’re much more likely to be overweight if your family and friends are overweight.(1) Where you live is one of the most statistically important factors in whether you have a chronic disease, even more important than your genetics.(2) Culture plays a huge role in chronic disease, as is evidenced by comparing chronic disease in Europe vs. the US. Europeans have dramatically less heart disease, for example than Americans.

Non-communicable chronic diseases are, it turns out, highly infectious.

What Happens Insulin Resistance

The single most significant cause of chronic disease is our “industrial diet.” Our food is loaded with processed grains, sugars, starches, and refined fats. As you continue to eat quicky-absorbed sugars and bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes, the systems in your body designed to handle sugar begin to fail.

Most of the food you eat is broken down by your body into sugars. These sugars are moved into your cells by the hormone insulin. Insulin moves the sugar out of your blood and into your cells, where they produce your energy. If this system is overloaded by the high sugar and carbohydrate content of your diet, over a long period, you’ll develop “insulin resistance.” Now your cells require more insulin to absorb the same amount of sugar. As the insulin resistance increases, it eventually requires more insulin than your pancreas can manufacture to absorb your sugar. At this point, the sugar begins to build up in your bloodstream, causing inflammation, kidney stress, nervous system damage, weight gain, and many more chronic problems.

The first sign that you have a problem is not your blood sugar; it’s a high level of insulin. High insulin will make your body deteriorate. Insulin resistance leads to premature aging, along with heart disease, stroke, cancer, and dementia. High insulin causes weight gain in the belly area, unhealthy appetite, high cholesterol, low HDL, high triglycerides, thickening of the blood, and increased risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and depression.

The Solution

Undoing the dietary causes of these diseases is a significant part of recovering from them. However, if you’ve tried to do this in the past, you may know the difficulty involved. You’ll need a plan, a program, and a team to work with to be successful with permanent diet and lifestyle changes.

Changing your diet is essential, but only about 30% of what you’ll need to do to recover.

The rest of your healing will depend on accurate information and testing to be effective. Despite the uniformity of medical treatment for these diseases, each person develops similar symptoms from different sources. To be successful, you will need to do a treatment program that is individualized and based on accurate testing.

Clinical nutrition is essential in helping your body to heal and rebuild damaged tissue. Cells are made of nutrition (food), so providing the exact “replacement parts” needed in the required quality and quantity is a vital requirement for healing.

A major reason your body can’t heal from a chronic condition is excessive stress. It’s like cutting your finger and not bandaging it; the dirt gets in the cut, and infection sets in, which prevents healing. The bandage reduces the stress on the wound so that the body can heal normally. In your body, stress from bacteria, virus, fungus, toxins, allergies, metals, etc. can prevent healing from occurring, even when clinical nutrition is used. These stressors must be identified with testing and labs, then natural means of reducing the stress can be used (acupressure, homeopathy, supplements, herbs, etc.)


References:

[1] Christakis NA, Fowler JH. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years. N Engl J Med. 2007 Jul 26;357(4):370-9.

[2] Graham GN. Why your zip code matters more than your genetic code: Promoting healthy outcomes from mother to child. Breastfeed Med. 2016 Oct;11:396-7.

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Insulin Resistance (Blood Sugar) Success!
AT THE START:
  • Out of control blood sugar issues
  • Lousy diet
  • Exhausted

SIX WEEKS LATER:

  • Normal range blood sugar
  • On REDUCED blood sugar medications
  • Exercising regularly without becoming exhausted!

AWESOME!

Dr. Billiot’s treatments are great!

 
–CW
 
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Or, are you generally unhappy with the state of your health?
Complete my 75-question health survey (takes 10 minutes) and receive a free doctor phone consultation on the results.
Insulin Resistance Blood Sugar Graph
Insulin Resistance: More Dangerous Than High Cholesterol

Insulin Resistance: More Dangerous Than High Cholesterol

Insulin Resistance– More Dangerous Than High Cholesterol

Contrary to what most people have been told, elevated cholesterol is not the villain it has been made out to be. 

Unfortunately, many people are chasing the wrong criminal when it comes to improving health outcomes.

The medical literature is exploding with the dangers of insulin resistance in increasing cardiovascular disease and other disease entities.

It is reported that chronic insulin resistance is also associated with various types of cancer such as colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, endometrial cancer, and breast cancer.

Insulin resistance is when cells in your muscles, fat, and liver don’t respond well to insulin and can’t use glucose from your blood for energy. To make up for it, your pancreas makes more insulin. Over time, your blood sugar levels go up.

How to Change the Direction of Your Health

Read: The Trail Out of Diabetes, Blood Pressure, Heart Disease & Obesity

 

Some signs of insulin resistance include:

Insulin Resistance Skin Tags Acanthosis Negricans

 

  • A waistline over 40 inches in men and 35 inches in women
  • Blood pressure readings of 130/80 or higher
  • A fasting glucose level over 100 mg/dL
  • A fasting triglyceride level over 150 mg/dL
  • Fasting insulin greater than 6
  • A HDL cholesterol level under 40 mg/dL in men and 50 mg/dL in women
  • Skin tags
  • Patches of dark, velvety skin called acanthosis nigricans

Effective Treatment for Insulin Resistance

Carbohydrates such as simple sugars, grains, and starchy vegetables should be avoided as they stimulate insulin secretion. They should be replaced with higher protein-containing foods and non-starchy vegetables.

Adequate vitamin D intake

Aerobic and resistance training–High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) has been found to be superior to low-intensity cardio. Of course, I suggest that people completely out of shape work their way up to HIIT. Start out slow. Some exercise is better than none.

Get adequate sleep.

Reduce stress– meditation is recommended.

Get adequate magnesium intake.

Take Berberine supplementation.

Conclusion

I recommend one take insulin resistance very seriously. The implications of being associated with increased cardiovascular disease and cancer are overwhelming. The following robust list of peer-reviewed citations should be reviewed. I have provided above a good starting point in reversing insulin resistance.

Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., DACBN, MS, CFMP

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Insulin Resistance (Blood Sugar) Success!
AT THE START:
  • Out of control blood sugar issues
  • Lousy diet
  • Exhausted

SIX WEEKS LATER:

  • Normal range blood sugar
  • On REDUCED blood sugar medications
  • Exercising regularly without becoming exhausted!

AWESOME!

Dr. Billiot’s treatments are great!

 
–CW
Insulin Resistance Blood Sugar Graph
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