READERS SUMMARY: 1. CIRCADIAN BIOLOGY NEEDS TO BE YOUR BIGGEST CONCERN AND NOT YOUR FOOD 2. WHY HAVING AN EVOLUTIONARY ADVANCED BRAIN MAYBE A DETRIMENT AT TIMES 3. THINK ABOUT WHY YOU FEEL AND THINK THE WAY YOU DO BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING 4. THINK ABOUT WHAT IS SAFE BEFORE YOU EAT IT 5. CHANGING YOUR PERSPECTIVE MAY OPEN [...]
READERS SUMMARY: 1. WHO IS DR. PETER UNGAR AND WHY ARE OUR TEETH A BIG DEAL? 2. WHAT DID GRAINS DO TO OUR BRAIN AND SKULL? 3. WHAT IS A CHIARI MALFORMATION AND HOW MIGHT IT BE TEETH RELATED? 4.. WHAT MIGHT BE THE REAL CURE OF SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)? 5. WHY PHYSICIANS [...]
I do not believe there is a more misunderstood disease by conventional medicine than Lyme disease and Fibromyalgia. Many healthcare providers do not even think FM exists to the determent of millions of people. It is estimated that ten million people suffer from these diseases today. 75% of them are women. The reason for that is because leptin is involved, and as you all know it is a sexually dimorphic hormone. These are diseases that affect the fat cells in all parts of our body. They also cause issues with adiponectin, which is also sexually dimorphic. Many women will be glad to know that fact. Understanding Lyme disease actually helps you understand FM very well. Both diseases cause abnormal activation of an immune mediated pathway that takes over cytokine production in the fat cells that line our GI tracts, respiratory tracts, sinuses, and many other organs. Most know that Lyme is most commonly associated with a tick bite, and the host gets infected with spirochete bacteria. What most do not know, is that this tick liberates a neurotoxin that causes most of its symptoms. This neurotoxin activation is common to many diseases just like Lyme disease. FM, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Sick building Syndrome, and mold exposure are just a few. All these diseases activate the same pathway, and this is why they have features that are quite similar clinical findings. Making these connections clinically helped me tie this all together. Since I came to a deep understanding of how important leptin is to our body several years ago, it made complete sense to me to think all these diseases might have a leptin link because of the constellation of symptoms were all tied to specific cytokine activation. This is precisely how leptin resistance develops too. This is how a change of perspective might help a physician see a problem in a new way. It is precisely how Evolutionary medicine prism has allowed me to come to bio-hack just about any disease we face as a species now.
Today is the last day of 2011 and I have written over 60,ooo words for the new book that I agreed to write with Mark Sisson since 12/23/2011. The book has just flowed from me. As I wrote one chapter today, it occurred to me that I have neglected the blog. I thought about what I learned the most about me this year in 2011. I learned that I spent an entire lifetime feeding my left hemisphere and subjugated the talents I had in my right hemisphere. You can’t become an oral surgeon and a neurosurgeon if you pander constantly to your more creative side. In fact, you need to use and develop the skill set in your left hemisphere. It has helped me become who I am today. I realized in the process of writing the book that like a body builder who works on their upper body to the detriment of their other body parts, you can become unbalanced in who you become. I realized rather abruptly that the thing I learned about myself in 2011 is that I have a pretty good right hemisphere that I need to let out of the bag more often. I learned this year how to tap it and how to exercise and use it to complement my left side. In fact, I think I have found evidence of sub intelligence abilities I never knew I had. I stumbled upon them when I decided to launch the blog, and begin to talk about what I have found and the connections I have made between disparate biological systems. The more I wrote and shared, the more interesting things I found hidden inside me. My wife posited that it was likely due to open my world up to the people I serve having a great effect of expanding my own abilities. She is a pretty smart lady because I think she is correct, and she knows me better than anyone on this planet. We got into a discussion tonight while we are getting ready for an open house party for our friends and family tonight for New Years Eve, and it opened my mind to the thoughts I am writing now for you here.
The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree are the presence of a happy family and friends all wrapped up in the rapture of each other. I hope that these 12 thoughts might make the coming days that you spend with your loved ones the beginning of how you chose to spread the Primal Spirit. Christmas is not the sparkling glitter, lights and outward display of commercialism. The secret of the season lies in burning a bright inner primal glow for everyone to see. It’s about re-lighting a fire inside our heart, and sharing that flame to light those who you touch. Sharing that good will and joy are a vital part of finding peace of mind. It’s will lead us to higher thoughts, and elevate us to seek a greater plan to help us achieve our optimal life. This Primal spirit is a glorious dream in the souls of all of mankind. Now is the time to open your mind to its creativity. Here are the Kruse family’s wishes for you our new friends during this holiday season.
I recently did a video interview with a former patient and friend of mine, Mrs. Jodi Wibel, from New Orleans, who sustained a massive change to her life recently. This will be chronicled in an informal video testimonial on my site shortly. Her story inspired me on many levels to write this blog. Much of what she said to me that day really resonated with me. She told me after the interview that I needed to write more about how I think, and how I motivate and seek to help people change themselves when they are at a crossroads. Too often, we and the people around us, become creatures to how we think chronically, without ever realizing it. This thinking is what creates ruts and plateaus in our life. Change is best carried out, not when we are in a rut, but when we are at the edge of our comfort zone. Even our friends and family can be enablers to our bad habitual thinking about change. People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours. When you change for the better, the people around you will be inspired to change also. But only after doing their best to make you stop. Live your truth and don’t ever stop! I tell you this now so you read it and understand it consciously, because this unconscious thought is behind why you do not appear to want change. Once you perceive that this might be a correct statement, you will then begin to look at your circumstances from a new perspective. That new perspective is critical in seeing your life in a new way. Jodi believed it was the key to how the science became part of her “skeptics life” without a fight from her old habitual thinking. You must break free of the shackles of your old mind and embrace all your fears. On the other side of all your fears is the freedom in your life to make choices to give you an Optimal Life. For this entire week, her single thought has filled my mind with how to write this post. I decided to stop trying to feel it and to just write what my thoughts were about how I view change now after my own leptin Rx reset 5 years ago.
Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone. It is the most important one in humans, produced by the adrenal cortex and participates in the body's homeostasis and stress responses. Cortisol concentrations also follow a circadian rhythm. It is a more complex rhythm than the human melatonin rhythm. Unlike the melatonin rhythm, human cortisol rhythms do not seem to be totally associated with day and night per se, but seem to be more closely tied to the "transition periods" from dark to light and to a lesser extent, from light to dark. Transitioning light levels play a tremendous role in cortisol rhythms in humans. In addition to its circadian rhythm exhibiting a predictable peak in the morning, cortisol levels typically elevate sharply in the morning, 30 minutes to an hour after awakening. The glucocorticoid levels synthesized by the adrenal gland across the 24 hour day appear to be under the control of two distinct systems, one governed by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and one controlled by the autonomic nervous system through the adrenal medulla. Evidence supports that cortisol production can be uncoupled from the HPA axis controller of its release (ACTH). Night time light stimulates the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and this sends a neural signal to the autonomic systems to increase cortisol production from the adrenal gland, but not the brain. This is not coupled to pulsatile ACTH release in the pituitary, and has separate neural pathways. Studies have shown that exposure to high levels of polychromatic (white) light (80lux at the cornea) in the morning, but not in the evening, could increase cortisol levels in humans. It appears the intensity of light is critical to the real effect on cortisol levels. Studies have also shown that morning light can increase heart rate, suggesting an impact of light on the autonomic nervous system that modulates cortisol release from the adrenal gland. More recent studies have shown bright light to dramatically reduces cortisol levels in humans.
Once you have added the Leptin Rx to your paleo/primal template and you have successfully experienced all the "small wins" that I mentioned in the Leptin FAQ's blog, what should you do next? If you recall reading the blog on how the leptin Rx works, it basically is a plan to make your gastrointestinal tract perform visceral exercises that it is not accustomed to performing, in order to cause neuroplastic changes in your hypothalamus' arcuate nucleus. It uses the vagus nerve as the "stimulator" to send these new messages to the brain. After a period of time, the inflammation will slowly dissipate at the median eminence, and these afferent signals will force expression of certain genes that have been repressed since we were in utero. These genes and pathways are hardwired into our DNA at conception, and used until the child is 12-24 months old. After this time, they are not expressed any longer, because transgenerational epigenetics favors instead the use of the leptin receptor from an evolutionary perspective. This occurs because the leptin receptor in the arcuate nucleus is far more sensitive and accurate in accounting for electrons from food than was using older circadian and ultradian cycles that we used in uteri during morphogenesis. The human brain learns "what neural circuits" to use by repetitive firing. We have a saying in brain surgery, nerves that fire together wire together. This is the basis of the theory of Hebbian learning. These exercises I told you about in the Leptin Rx signal hypothalamic neurons to adapt to these visceral responses to food in a new way, to sensitize the leptin receptor in order to account for electrons from food in precisely how it was designed to do by evolution. In essence, we are altering the genetic expression of the genes in our arcuate nucleus. I describe it to my patients as "performing brain surgery on them without using a blade." The visceral responses to the Leptin Rx are transcribed by the vagus nerve, and this information is sent to the brain. This message is dramatically different than the one the patient is used to giving the leptin receptor, and the new message induces changes to the neuropeptides in the brainstem. After some time, (6-8 weeks for most) changes will be induced. These can be followed by the clinician or the patient. Those clinical signs are outlined in the Leptin FAQ blog post. In doing this, we force the neurons to see neurochemical signals that radically confuse the leptin receptor and the brain. The brain's response to a signal it does not understand is to revert to an older known pathway or to learn a new way to tackle on old problem. I would suggest you watch How your brain re-learns from 2007 by Dr. VS Ramachandran in a TED talk. He exquisitely explains how this type of learning is stimulated in the brain for phantom limb pain and its treatment. One need not use expensive technology to induce gene expression. It is possible to do without an NIH grant too. It requires some synthesis of thought and experience. When you understand the essence of how the brain works, you just need to design a program and force it upon the brain to decipher what to do. That is the essence of the Leptin Rx reset.
Osteoporosis is a disease in which the bones become weak and are more likely to break. People with osteoporosis most often break bones in the hip, spine, and wrist. If you think this problem is not common, let me pick up the rock you must have been sleeping under. In the United States, more than 60 million people either already have osteoporosis or are at high risk, due to low bone mass. RULE 1. If one is leptin resistant, Wolff’s law is null and void, and you are at very high risk for a fractured vertebrae or hip/wrist. You should stop here and go read EMF-8 Quantum Bone for the pathophysiology of this disease. The key features are to increase your spring water intake to 1-1.5 gallons of non fluoridated water a day and strict avoidance of artifical light and the use of pulsed EMF technology devices. This means that "normal conventional wisdom osteoporotic treatments" and exercise will not heal or strengthen a bone until the underlyig pathophysiology is repaired first. When a person has high levels of leptin, it eventually drives cortisol higher and this stimulates even more inflammatory cytokines from cells. As this occurs, LR develops all over the body. Cortisol is one of the major hormones involved in the sympathetic nervous system. When cortisol is chronically high, as I told you in the Hormone 101 blog, it’s bad news. When someone is leptin resistant, they block osteocalcin’s main function and this causes osteoporosis. This is one major reason why fat people lose their bone. It also definitely proves that Wolff’s law is null and void when you are LR. Even resistance exercise maybe harmful when this occurs. Bone only strengthens when the underlying hormonal terroir is working properly. In LR, it is seriously broken. RULE 2. Andropause and Menopause are associated with osteoporosis, and not caused by it. In both situations the best treatment to overcome it is to change your diet to a high fat and protein diet. You would be a wise patient to avoid all bisphosphonate drugs until it’s too late. This will be hard to do, because most clinicians will push drug treatments over evolutionary medicine treatments. Remember The Seven Dwarfs of menopause: Itchy, bitchy, sleepy, sweaty, bloated, forgetful, and all dried up…and the bones are real dried up!
What are some of the medical conditions that are associated with osteopenia or osteoporosis? 1. Excessive alcohol intake- greater than two drinks a day consistently will do it. 2. Tobacco use- This causes a 100 fold increase in bone loss. Oral tobacco is worse than inhaled smoke 3. Stress- any cause be it emotional, physical, mental, psychic all raise cortisol chronically and kill bone 4. Lack of physical activity increases obesity risk, which increases cortisol from leptin resistance 5. Low calcium intake or absorption from gastrectomy or low acid production from any reason 6. Reduced strength and activity due to a chronic illness or a sedentary life (checked with a grip test) 7. Small build or leanness naturally – correlates with BMI below 19 for women and men. 8. Asian women have a particular propensity to osteopenia genetically and from their diet. 9. Drug therapy, for example, long-term use of corticosteroids such as prednisone-used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, celiac disease, autoimmune diseases, Crohn’s disease, IBD, and ulcerative colitis. 10. Low Magnesium, strontium, boron, Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, elevated PTH levels, low sex steroid levels, high insulin levels, low progesterone levels, any cause of a leaky gut. 11. Menopause 12. Andropause 13. Any cause of chronic inflammation (perimenopause can cause severe acute bone loss) 14. Disuse atrophy from any cause (space travel) 15. Paralysis 16. High carbohydrate diets 17. Veganism or a plant based diet. 18. A diet high in whole grain (carbohydrates) is especially risky due to mineral malabsorption in gut 19. A diet lacking in animal protein and animal fat and cholesterol. 20. Excessive use of statins and thyroid hormone can cause osteoporosis 21. Age and sex: the older one is predisposes to osteopenia. Women lose 1-3{a7b724a0454d92c70890dedf5ec22a026af4df067c7b55aa6009b4d34d5da3c6} of their bone density ever year after their last period. 22. Chronic endurance athletics of any type cause severe bone loss due to chronic cortisol elevations 23. Gastric bypass patients carry enormous osteopenic risks. 24. Severe liver or kidney disease; Renal insufficiency can lead to osteodystrophy. 25. Diabetes 26. People with scoliosis of unknown cause (idiopathic scoliosis) also have a higher risk of osteoporosis. I believe this is because most of these children have severe underlying Vitamin D deficiency and a leaky gut, but this has never been studied in the spine literature. Any time I see a scolisosi patient, I always screen for low sex steroid hormones, low Vitamin D levels, and low Carboxylated osteocalcin levels. Bone loss can be a feature of complex regional pain syndromes.as they develop over time. It is also more frequent in people with Parkinson’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well.