456 Cognitive Dissonance [29 January 2018]

An article on the Vitamin D Council’s website inspired this column. It begins with two quotes. “All progress requires change; those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” (George Bernard Shaw) and “Science progresses one funeral at a time” (Max Planck).

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort or psychological stress occurring when new information conflicts with long held beliefs. To relieve the tension people usually reject or ignore the new information in favor of the original belief.

The article’s author, founder and current medical director of the Vitamin D Council, John Cannell, is expressing his frustration at the lag time for medical discoveries to be put into the practice of saving lives. Specifically he mentions Vitamin D as a treatment for preeclampsia of pregnancy and autism. There are more than one hundred peer-reviewed published studies showing the effectiveness (and safety) of vitamin D for each of these two conditions (and many more) which are being ignored by the medical industry. Almost without exception these studies end with a call for more and larger studies before making any recommendations. This is especially true for pregnancy. But how much grant money and how many dead women are required? Are the 46,000 deaths from preeclampsia in 2015 not enough?

We know from many studies that optimum vitamin D levels in pregnant mothers reduce the risk of their baby developing autism. Why aren’t all pregnant women tested for vitamin D in their first trimester and supplemented when indicated to bring their levels up? There is no risk in doing so and a terrible risk in not.

Cannell blames the lag time on cognitive dissonance. Those in the medical industry responsible for developing and carrying out treatment protocols can’t fit the growing pile of new information on natural health products with what they have been taught to believe, so they ignore it. And all we can do is wait for their funerals.

The notion that natural health products are somehow “unscientific” makes it easier to ignore them. Why synthetic chemicals should be considered more scientific than vitamins and minerals is perplexing. The problem as I see it is not that they are “natural” but rather that they are not patentable. Without the profit from patent protection few corporations are willing to cover the cost of getting these products approved. I see a strong role here for governments and charities to fund the necessary research, since it is the people, and governments paying for health care, who will benefit from safer, more effective, and less expensive treatments.

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

455 Benefits of Sleep [22 January 2018]

Of the three pillars of good health – nutrition, exercise and sleep, sleep is arguably the most important. There has yet to be found a single biological function in our bodies that does not benefit from a good night’s sleep. Yet it is often overlooked, under-appreciated, and neglected.

The 2017 book “Why We Sleep” by Mathew Walker PhD explores research findings on sleep over the last 20 years. Walker claims that insufficient sleep:
• lowers immune system, increasing susceptibility to infection
• increases risk of Alzheimer’s
• doubles risk of cancer
• increases blood sugar to prediabetic levels
• increases risk of heart disease and stroke
• worsens all psychiatric conditions – depression, anxiety, suicide
• increases hunger even when you are full, contributing to obesity

Essentially, the less you sleep, the shorter you live. And that’s before taking traffic accidents into account. More people are killed by drivers who are sleep-deprived than by those under the influence of alcohol and drugs combined.

I have previously written about sleep many times: 008 Third Pillar of Health; 103 Sleep, Leptin & Weight; 104 Importance of Sleep; 105 Natural Sleep Aids; 334 Glymphatic System; and 369 Sleep & Cancer.

Rather than review all the things we can do to improve our sleep (Walker has his own list of 10 items) I will discuss one – melatonin supplements. Dr. Philip Rouchotas (whom I have quoted several times lately) regularly prescribes melatonin in his practice to improve his patients’ sleep. He warns that dosage is very case-specific, ranging from less than 1 mg to as high as 15. Patients need to use trial and error to find what works for them. The ideal dose will provide you with 7-8 hours of quality sleep and let you wake refreshed (not groggy). Personally I have found 11 mg works for me – I sleep until 6:00 or 7:00 when I take it, but wake at 4:00 or 5:00 if I forget.

Melatonin has other benefits in addition to helping us sleep, which I discussed in #236 Melatonin Benefits.

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.

454 Global Warming Effects [15 Jan 2018]

Last week I showed that global warming is more serious than mainstream news has led us to believe, and that it may even be taking us into another major extinction event. Three July 2017 New York magazine articles by David Wallace-Wells describe how an increase in global CO2 and temperature will affect life on Earth over the next few centuries.

The most obvious effect is that the Earth will get hotter. A large portion of the tropics including most of Australia will become uninhabitable and people in temperate areas such as the USA and Europe will suffer significant heat stress. Wallace-Wells predicts “the deadly European heat wave of 2003 which killed as many as 2,000 people a day will [at 4 oC warmer] be a normal summer.” Kidney failure from heat stress is already killing El Salvador sugar cane workers that were unaffected only a few decades ago.

Food production will be greatly affected. The ideal grain growing climate of the American and Canadian prairies will move north into the rocky Canadian Shield. Severe drought will limit or prevent food production over much of the currently inhabited world. Much of the best arable land along the coasts will be under water or damaged by salinity from groundwater contamination and storm surges.

Tropical diseases such as malaria will spread poleward from the tropics.

As the atmosphere warms, ozone levels rise adding to air pollution. Oxygen will be depleted as forests die off from drought and wildfires. The Amazon produces 20% of Earth’s oxygen and has already experienced two “100 year” droughts since 2000. At some point the air will become unbreathable.

Damage from extreme weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes and wild fires will increase. We are already seeing stronger and more frequent hurricanes.

The ocean is predicted to rise between 4 and 10 feet by the end of the century, displacing at least 600 million people. The oceans absorb about a third of the carbon from the air causing the water to become acidic and oxygen-depleted, killing coral reefs, fish and other marine life.

Armed conflict will undoubtedly increase. Migration out of flooded and drought-stricken areas will dwarf the 65 million currently displaced by war and genocide. Conflicts over dwindling land, water and food is inevitable.

Economic recession will follow from the loss of agricultural production, loss of flooded infrastructure, destruction from storms and fires, increased war and crime, shorter lifespans, and increased mortality. Economists predict a greater than 50% chance that global GDP will drop 20% by 2100 and a 12% chance it will drop 50%.

Our grandchildren will grow up in a much different world than we did.

Sources for further reading:
New York magazine articles from July 2017
The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells
The Models are Too Conservative - interview with Peter Douglas Ward
The Worst Case Scenario - interview with Wallace Smith Broecker (the man who coined the term "Global Warming")
NASA Climate Data
The Sixth Extinction - An Unnatural History - Elizabeth Kolbert
The Flooded Earth - Peter Douglas Ward

453 Global Warming [8 Jan 2018]

In January in Saskatchewan we often hear "Global warming? Bring it on!". But do we really know what we're joking about?

Like most of you, I suspect, I considered global warming (or climate change as it is now called) to be a distant possible problem that would affect future generations to some degree. A few coastal cities would be flooded, hurricanes become stronger and more frequent, alternate droughts and floods become more common and more severe. Then I read “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells (nymag.com, July 2017) which opened my eyes to the full potential scale and impact of global warming.

In my December 18 column [#451] I described how rising CO2 is reducing the nutritional content of crops. This effect, in the long term, pales in significance.

The current atmospheric CO2 level of 407 ppm is the highest in the last 800,000 years. During the warm periods between the last four ice ages the CO2 level never reached more than 300. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution man has added 365 billion tonnes of carbon from burning fossil fuels, and deforestation has added another 180 billion. And it’s going to keep rising at a faster and faster rate. There are 1.8 trillion tonnes of carbon in the arctic permafrost waiting to be released when it melts. Other factors that will accelerate the rate of warming include the albedo effect (less ice and snow to reflect heat); the die off of forests and grasslands (which extract carbon from the atmosphere); and increased cloud cover (which traps more heat).

What does this mean in terms of global temperature?

The low end of the projections predict a 2 oC rise (the goal of the Paris Climate Accords, which is unlikely to be achieved). This will be enough to flood low coastal cities and countries like Miami and Bangladesh. The upper end could be as high as 8 oC. Even the median projection of a 5 oC rise will have catastrophic effects.

There have been five major extinctions in the history of life on Earth. The most recent at 66 million years ago (mya) which wiped out the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid impact. The other four were caused by climate change – sudden rising or cooling of Earth’s temperature. The most severe, called the Permian-Triassic, occurred 251 mya, triggered by a massive volcanic eruption in Siberia. The Earth warmed by 5 oC resulting in the loss of 96% of its species.

So the current warming trend means more than just milder winters in Saskatchewan and the flooding of a few cities or even an extra-long or extra warm interglacial period. It could mean the beginning of Earth’s sixth major extinction event.

452 Adrenal Fatigue [1 Jan 2018]

This is the first column of 2018 and the beginning of my last year – I plan to retire this column at #500 sometime next December.

In March 2015 [#311] I discussed the three stages of adrenal fatigue: wired & tired; stressed & tired; and burned out. In #312 I listed the 9 healing steps used by Dr Robin Berzin in her practice with patients with adrenal fatigue. I reviewed this information in August 2016 [#380]. This week I will share new information from Dr. Philip Rouchota’s naturopathic practice.

Philip begins by cautioning that there is not a lot of scientific research on the topic as mainstream medicine does not recognize adrenal fatigue as a real condition. This is puzzling to me because diabetes is well recognized as the pancreas’ inability to produce sufficient insulin, and hypothyroidism as the thyroid’s inability to produce sufficient thyroid hormones. Adrenal fatigue is simply the inability of the adrenal glands to produce sufficient cortisol, with predictable signs and symptoms.

There is a lab test for it, called Adrenal Stress Index, but this is costly so practitioners usually rely on clinical presentation including: high level of stress, extreme fatigue, afternoon crash, awake feeling unrested, and overuse of caffeine.

Mental health issues like depression, anxiety and insomnia frequently occur along with AF. Dr. Rouchota treats these first, which usually clear in 3 months, before addressing the remaining fatigue. AF is slow to resolve, often taking 4-6 months to see any improvement.

The treatment for AF is the same for all stages and the goal is the same – to normalize cortisol production. Dr. Rouchota’s protocol includes:
• Mediterranean diet
• Meditation breathing – shown in studies to normalize cortisol and reduce anxiety
• A good multi or B complex
• Adrenal glandular concentrate
• Cordyceps mushroom extract
• Adaptogen herbs such as Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, Astragalus, Passionflower
• L-theanine – relieves stress and relaxes without drowsiness
• Melatonin – to ensure sufficient quality sleep

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.