ANTIAGING

I get asked alot about aging. Aging is inevitable. How quickly we age is based on a number of factors. Genetics (all about triggers), stress, diet, gut health, toxin exposure (detox), free radicals (antioxidants), sleep (sleep deprivation in this country is epidemic) and lack of social interaction. All of these can be addressed given the right supplements and lifestyle changes (never easy). There is a way to determine how quickly we are aging by taking a test that looks at telomere length. Telomeres are found at the ends of our chromosomes and many clinicians feel that telomere shortening is the best marker of your true biological age and are negatively impacted (shortened) by the above mentioned factors. Obviously, addressing as many of the above mentioned factors, can slow down shortening and in some cases actually increase the length of your telomeres. I recently ran across a supplement that has been shown to stop and possibly increase the length of telomeres. If you have any questions re: the test or anti-aging intervention including the aforementioned supplement give me a call 940-435-9655 or Amy 940-372-4596.

WEIGHT LOSS

Excessive weight loss is epidemic in this country. Once estrogen dominance, adrenal stress (cortisol) and hypothyroidism have been ruled out what is left is life style which is major reason for weight gain (poor eating habits and no exercise to name a few). I have used a few with my clients (HCG in particular) and familiar with others (Atkins, ketone, pharmacology/phentermine low calorie). All of them encourage weight loss to some extent but are not usually sustainable with up to 85% failure rate due to complexity, expense, time etc. The ideal scenario is to initially eat a healthy balanced diet (45% healthy carbs, 25% healthy fats, 30% protein) at or below their BMR (basal metabolic rate-what it takes to keep things going at a resting state), which for most women is around 1,500 kcal daily in conjunction with exercise. The down side to this approach is that it takes time and in the meantime you are hungry because despite the fact that you have plenty of fat to utilize for energy (why you are dieting in the first place) your body does not efficiently utilize the fat for energy and will attempt to address that need by using what fat it can to produce ketones (basis behind the ketone diet which works however over time may become a detriment by lowering our bodies Ph (metabolic acidosis and lead to dehydration) but again not enough to meet your energy needs on a low calorie diet. However, if you were able to directly utilize your fat more efficiently (avoiding ketosis) and providing enough energy to avoid hunger and fatigue while eating BMR or less and exercising, you would be able to achieve desired healthy weight loss. I was recently introduced to a supplement that, in fact, claimed to do just that. It uses high doses of pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) that maximizes the utilization of your fat while eating a balanced low calorie diet (below BMR) without feeling hungry and tired (allows for exercise) and achieving a healthy weight loss. Being a bit curious and traditionally dubious I had a few folks that I knew were struggling with HCG, ketone diets etc., try it. After about a week with no hunger/fatigue and exercising I measured their body composition. Both of them had an increase in muscle mass % and a decrease in fat%.

Pretty simple. While taking the supplement, eat a balanced diet below BMR until the desired weight is achieved then continue eating the same balanced healthy diet (not unlike Atkins) meeting daily energy needs. For more information, contact Amy to order 940-372-4596.

Importance of checking drug interactions with CBD

When prescribing or purchasing CBD, in any form, it is very important that a medication profile be reviewed and checked for potential drug interactions. There are 2 major cyp450 enzymes that metabolize CBD; cyp3a4 (metabolizes most drugs) and cyp2d6. I recently had a client that came to me with a number of issues (after extensive interviews including a med profile which, at the time, only include something for sleep the primary ones being a compromised immune system which presented as a chronic EBV viral infection, spleen issues, chronic sore throat, swollen lymph nodes etc. and, more importantly, chronic gut issues which included ongoing stomach ulcers, SIBO (syndrome of inappropriate bacterial overgrowth-out of balance gut bacteria, gut inflammation, potential parasite and a 20 pound weight loss over a 3 month period. These issues were supported by a stool test and a nutritional test. I proceeded to treat the immune issues with LDN, colostrum, vitamin d and high dose vitamin C. I started to treat the gut issues with high dose probiotics, digestive enzymes and GI microbix and oregano for the potential parasites. I started CBD oil for both the gut and immune issues. Shortly afterwards I got a call from the client telling me that she was presenting with, initially, severe sweating of her hands (palmar hyperhydrosis) along with extreme fatigue which only got progressively worse over the next week. At this point I thought she may have been experiencing a "herx" reaction to parasite/bacteria die off (even thought about testing her flor Lyme as this is the kind of Herx reaction one might see). I started her on acetyl-glutathione and zeolyte powder for the assumed toxins. She then called me to tell me that she remembered that just recently her psychiatrist put her on fluoxetine, an SSRI antidepressant, that when I looked at the side effects severe sweating, extreme fatigue etc. She then told me that shortly after starting this drug she had minor symptoms of sweating etc. When I looked for a potential drug interaction with the CBD it turned out she did in fact have an interaction with cyp2dr which was preventing the metabolism of the fluoxetine thus steadily increasing her blood levels. Fluoxetine when used routinely has a half life of up to 6 days. A few days before I told her about the drug interaction she went ahead and stopped the drug anyway after she read the side effects. I also suggested she stop the CBD for at least a week before starting again (waiting for the serum levels of the drug to go down. Since then her symptoms have steadily declined.