60 Day Turnaround

 The New York Times

…These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of time. In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980’s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma. (Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period.) They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades. Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected. ”That is very disconcerting,” Willett says. ”It suggests that something else bad is happening.”

The science behind the alternative hypothesis can be called Endocrinology 101, which is how it’s referred to by David Ludwig, a researcher at Harvard Medical School who runs the pediatric obesity clinic at Children’s Hospital Boston, and who prescribes his own version of a carbohydrate-restricted diet to his patients. Endocrinology 101 requires an understanding of how carbohydrates affect insulin and blood sugar and in turn fat metabolism and appetite. This is basic endocrinology, Ludwig says, which is the study of hormones, and it is still considered radical because the low-fat dietary wisdom emerged in the 1960’s from researchers almost exclusively concerned with the effect of fat on cholesterol and heart disease. At the time, Endocrinology 101 was still underdeveloped, and so it was ignored. Now that this science is becoming clear, it has to fight a quarter century of anti-fat prejudice.

The alternative hypothesis also comes with an implication that is worth considering for a moment, because it’s a whopper, and it may indeed be an obstacle to its acceptance. If the alternative hypothesis is right — still a big ”if” — then it strongly suggests that the ongoing epidemic of obesity in America and elsewhere is not, as we are constantly told, due simply to a collective lack of will power and a failure to exercise. Rather it occurred, as Atkins has been saying (along with Barry Sears, author of ”The Zone”), because the public health authorities told us unwittingly, but with the best of intentions, to eat precisely those foods that would make us fat, and we did. We ate more fat-free carbohydrates, which, in turn, made us hungrier and then heavier. Put simply, if the alternative hypothesis is right, then a low-fat diet is not by definition a healthy diet. In practice, such a diet cannot help being high in carbohydrates, and that can lead to obesity, and perhaps even heart disease. ”For a large percentage of the population, perhaps 30 to 40 percent, low-fat diets are counterproductive,” says Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, director of obesity research at Harvard’s prestigious Joslin Diabetes Center. ”They have the paradoxical effect of making people gain weight.” …

Dr. Eric’s note:  marketing is the reason for 90% of what we have done in the past 30 years.  We need to be wise, and think!

At this time there has been no request for him to appear at court, so he should be in the office from 8-9am at least.

Dr. Eric is in today, and is on call to testify in a court case the rest of the week. He plans on being here Wednesday as long as he can before being called. We will post whatever we can.

Which is more important?  HA!  I know, ridiculous question, but sometimes we don’t think about it that way.  If we were to consider how we typically approach a day though, it is pretty obvious that most of our decisions aren’t made by stopping and thinking, “what impact do my decisions today have on the next twenty years”.

However, every one of us would say that our future health (physical, mental, social, financial) is more important than the next twelve months.  In other words, though the next twelve months is critical, there is really no amount of short term gain/pleasure, that is worth long term sacrifice.  So with that knowledge, it would seem that decisions should come easy.

But if so, why is the world full of so much pain from poor choices?  Heart disease and cancer are rampant, and both are considered highly preventable.  We are a society of pleasure now, with little regard for pain later.  Now I realize that I am telling you NOTHING new here, and that it is a bit obnoxious for me to think that this Sprout is really going to attract you in any way.  However, there is something in the background here that we need to look at as well.

New found wisdom.

Haven’t some of us, perhaps most of us, learned these lessons in the hardest way?  Finances for so many have been a lifetime of turmoil, followed by a pursuit of smart budgeting, debt reduction, and controlled spending.  The problem is that we had to suffer first to get smart.  Now here is the bigger problem, what if we need to suffer first with our health before we get smart?

You see our finances, though important, are still just our finances.  They aren’t our health.  They won’t scar you to the point of early death.  It is simply money, who cares.  So it is painful, it won’t take your family away, it won’t leave you sobbing over an early grave, it won’t leave you sedentary in front of re-runs of Oprah.  I was in Nashville this weekend for a wedding.  It was a great milestone for us to be part of this wedding, as a friend rebounded from an ugly divorce from a few years back.  However, I got to know the bride’s mother a bit, and it was a sad story of lost health.  She suffers from heart disease, she is sedentary, wants to lose weight but really doesn’t know how, and has found herself in the all too common conundrum of being scared to move.  I know there is hope for her, she is an incredibly sweet woman whom I hope to help through continued education… but it requires inspiration too!

So what if?  What if she had learned the wisdom of health before the heart disease hit, before the sciatica from the degenerated disc came on?  What if she had seen a glimpse of her future when she was 30, I wonder if she would have done differently.  See, one of our greatest areas of concern, is helping you to understand your future.  The advanced diet plan is one of no grains, no root veges, no legumes, no fruit outside of berries every other day.  Basically, freedom from any sugar and anything that readily turns to sugar.  It isn’t a diet that needs to be a lifestyle, but it does need enough time to have an impact on your sugar/insulin/leptin receptors.

So the question I ask, is it that bad if the pursuit of it would change the next 20 years?  Of course not, what is a few months of sacrifice to gain for years?  Well, there are many who would say, “That can’t be healthy”, or “It isn’t necessary”.  To which I would question how you know.  What makes you so confident in your decision, other than your desire to oppose such a change?  Chiropractic.  I would argue that you will never be able to fully judge its effect on your life until you are five years into regular corrective focused care.  I continue to reap new benefits from being adjusted, I am fifteen years into this lifestyle, and I still find improvement.

I hope you see my point.  We will all agree that it is wise to sacrifice in the short term for the long term, and never wise to do the opposite.  Yet we often don’t know what that really means until we have suffered great harm.  I would encourage you to look to those who have suffered, examine their lives, their changes, and the fruits or lack of fruits from their changes, and act accordingly.  We see that the cultural answer to health continues to get it wrong, so our direction is heavily opposed to that culture.  Hope it makes sense!

Be well and blessed!  – Dr. E

This is a followup to the subpoena post.

Dr. Eric WILL BE HERE Monday, Oct. 17.  Although, he MAY NOT BE HERE Wednesday, Oct. 19th.   The office will be open, Dr. Levi and Ryan(our intern) will be adjusting. We apologize for any conflicts in your schedule this may have caused. Please feel free to call the office if you have any questions 770-517-2240.

You gotta love the flu shot… so much hype.  Everywhere I turn I see flu shots available, and every time I see it, all I can think is that it is the best way to weaken someones trust.  Yes, trust.  Your faith in your ability to be healthy on your own, to survive.

There has never once been a study on the overall deleterious effect of repeated flu shots on your overall health.  Dr. Fudenburg once said that his research showed that those who received five consecutive flu shots were ten times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s later in life.  Fudenburg was considered a leading immunologist around the world, he has 850 papers in peer review journals.

The interesting thing is that he is considered without credentials to most of the medical community right now.  THe reason being… a paper he published along with Dr. Wakefield in The Lancet in 1998, which linked autism to the MMR vaccine.  Shortly after this paper was published, there was such immense pressure from the pharmaceutical companies to get the authors to de-associate themselves with this paper, that all but these two denied authorship.  At which time, Drs. Wakefield and Fudenberg were considered outsiders.  Wakefield later admits that he has manufacured a lot of his research that was directed towards his paper.

This was a huge blow to those supporting the autism/vaccine causal relationship… though, if we look at what he said, he didn’t say that his evidence was manufactured, that the science was bad, but rather that he added evidence.  He wanted the paper to be a huge impact, and so he made a significant mistake.

So here we are, back wondering if his science is valid.

But what if we consider the truth of empirical evidence?  Case studies and the stories of those whom you know.  How many times have you had a friend tell you that the only year they got the flu was the year they had a flu shot?  I have heard that story repeatedly over the last ten years.  If it is true that you can live a healthy life, and have an immune system completely capable of killing the flu without any outside help, then is it not worth it to AVOID the flu shot, on the possibility that Fudenberg’s evidence is true?  And Wakefield’s just as much?

Have you ever known someone in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s?  Trust me, it is worth avoiding.  So as you are pressed in every possible place (work, doc office, school, pharmacy…) to stick a needle in your arm and become toxified; consider there is another possibility… a better one.  Get Healthy!

I was intrigued by the article that Dr. Mercola wrote about Steve Jobs, and the possibility that there is one main ingredient that was missing in his life, but first, what about pancreatic cancer?

If you have been to a recent drs report, you may have heard me talk about the low survival rate.  I saw in this article that the survival rate is 4% after 5 years, which is better than the 1% that I have been quoting from about three years ago.  It is an aggressive cancer, a death sentence to many.  Jobs however, had a version of the cancer that is not considered to be as bad, as the cancer started from tumors in the endocrine system.  Neuroendocrine cancer tends to be much more responsive than pancreatic, and results in a high cure rate.

Jobs’ history is well documented with his cancer, as he looked for ways to support himself naturally, as well as using conventional methods.  During his fight with his cancer, in 2004, after scans showed the original tumor had grown despite his attempts to fight it naturally, he had the tumor removed.  When they did this, they removed part of his pancreas, his gallbladder, part of his stomach, bile duct and small intestine.  This suggests that the cancer had spread significantly.

Five years later he had a treatment done in Switzerland that is experimental in nature, that seemingly failed, because it was not long after that he had a liver transplant.  And here, we now have the question of whether this was a wise decision.  Everything else up to this point seemed like it was within the best wisdom that you could have in this situation.  But then the choice to transplant an entire liver, vs. removing the cancerous portion only.  The problem (and this has been questioned by conventional oncologists as well as the alternative health world) is that by transplanting an entire liver, you need to be placed on anti-rejection drugs, which are immuno-suppressant.

This might have been the single most significant choice in his entire fight.  At a time when his immune system had the potential to continue fighting, and perhaps had a better chance to win because most of the localized cancer cells had been removed, the immune system was now being shut down by a drug therapy.  Have you ever heard “They Got It All”?  If you have, then you have heard a lie.  There is no such thing as they got it all.  Cancer cells don’t all stay put.  Cells break off, and there is always a remainder.

The reason why a surgery works isn’t because they got it all, it is because they got enough.  Enough to allow your immune system to do what it needs to.  I am not saying that you don’t want to hear those words, I am saying that there is always work still to be done.  And in Steve Jobs’ life, there was less capacity to do it because of the necessary treatment.

You know, the other area that I wish I knew more about, was Steve’s pursuit of chiropractic.  I believe that he was a fan, simply because of the things I have read about how he lived his life.  He seems like the kind of person who would have been a chiropractic supporter.  But I doubt he was adjusted multiple times per day, or week for that matter.  And if you are a subluxated patient of mine with cancer, I am going to adjust you two+ times a day, no matter what.

In the end, I am going to celebrate this mans life for what he did to help humanity.  There are things I might not have agreed with, but he surely loved the idea of a device that helped more than hurted.

Be well and Blessed!  Dr. E

Have you ever had someone next to you call out for help?  I mean literally call out for help.  You know, say “Help!”  I think it is probably pretty rare that we hear that, though we have heard it before… maybe it was your mom  in the kitchen when you were five, she had two fully loaded cookie sheets in her hands, ready to go in the oven, and the oven door was still closed too far. Perhaps it was your wife trying to get the zipper on her dress up.

How about this, have you had someone ask you for help, without saying help, by telling you about something going wrong in their health?

You know, I have been having a miserable time with my health.  I have been in and out of the hospital with this kidney thing.  My doctor now tells me that I have reflux and my blood sugar is too high!  Can you pray for me?

I have some patients who would hear that, and automatically think of our office.  But I have many more, who would sit there, and think about it.  They would feel bad for the person, and wonder what their next step will be, and then perhaps they would say a prayer for them, or simply forget about it in the next five minutes.  So I am showing up in your face today to ask you, “Is that what you would want someone to do for you?”

As I sit here thinking about how many of you have had lung dysfunction through asthma, and bronchial stress.  And the number of you who have had cardiovascular disease, who have been able to come off of heparin/cumadin/diuretics/beta blockers.  The number of you who took severe meds for migraine headaches or sleep aids, and you have been free of them for so long.  The few of you who were in renal distress and got better against the odds of the MD, or the one of you who had no renal function, and went from dialysis to full function.  The one of you who had large, hard tumors disappear in a moment when miraculous healing came your way.

You see, we are healthcare specialists.  And though the person who is quietly reaching out for help might seem like all they need is an allopathic intervention, I will tell you that they will get the Western approach, that is guaranteed.  What they need is someone leading them towards miracles.  It is the miracle that is so far removed from their hopes, yet so close to being exactly what they need.  It is the miracle that will put their life right.  If you are going to be the one who hears anyone complain about their health, then i would ask you to also be the one who helps that one get it back.  Not get drugged, and get stuck in a rut, and lose months or years of their life.

I spoke to a long time patient tonight, and it was about a problem that has been going on for almost a year.  They had not been utilizing our office for all we offer, and as I heard about this problem in detail, it sounded so perfectly like so many other stories that we have helped, it just takes commitment to the other side of our office.  Not just the chiropractic, but the diet.  It is not 100% guaranteed that we have the answer, but it really fits perfectly.  So why did this person not engage in the first place?

When you fall into maintenance chiropractic care, you assume that we have done everything we can for you.  That is primarily what happens, you become disenchanted by chiropractic and it loses its potential.  You know, it is just the opposite.  Sure, your nervous system is working better than it was, but the potential for something quiet to get started and slip in is always there.  But because you are under care, increasing that care is only a faster way to the change.

I had a patient a year ago who was told they needed their gallbladder removed.  Like so many people are.  I began adjusting them three times a week, up from about 3 times a month.  Within three weeks normal function was restored, it looked better on followup ultrasound, and all symptoms were gone from this SICK gallbladder.

So know this for yourself and anyone who cries out for help from you.  We can answer that cry, and we will respond with a path towards health, not just a path towards symptom free, hyper drugged living.  Total Food Makeover started this Monday and can continue to accept new members.  Healthy Spine Day will be a costume party on Thursday October 27th.  These are opportunities for you and your friends and family!

Be well and blessed – Dr. E

Dr. Eric has been subpoenaed to attend court on Monday, October 17 @ 9am in Athens, Ga.

If the session is short he will return quickly and be here to adjust you. If not, then h Dr. Levi will be here to adjust you.

Any questions call the office 770-517-2240.

Here are some tips for all of you first time, and lifelong Advanced Plan Dieters!  First off however, I loved our opening night on Monday, and there is still room!  Second timers with no new book – $15.  First timers, $40.  Those who just want the Paleo Recipe book – $30.  So there you go!

OK, Dr. BJ Hardick is a friend and colleague as well as a great chiropractor from my graduating class at Life.  He is one of the authors of the Max Living Nutrition Plans book, and his mother maintains this great website, check it out… GOOD FOOD .  So a few quick clarifications for those who were there, and for those who were not, this will be good information too.  I mentioned that dairy is ok, but if you have inflammatory concerns, that you should limit or eliminate it.  I think I need to restate all of this.

My family does not drink milk, we occasionally buy raw milk to drink, but otherwise we are not fans.  So even though dairy is ok, we do not use it as a staple.  I buy it to make ice cream, but again, would rather use raw milk.  The lack of homogenization and pasteurization make the milk less inflammatory, and more readily broken down in the gut.  We eat cheese (buy some raw, some not raw), butter is used regularly in my house, and I recommend it.  The CLA found in butter, especially if it is from pastured cows (grass fed), will provide an exceptional edge in cancer fighting and reduction.

CLA is also found in grass fed beef by the way, and if you were to search those three letters, you would find another daily sprout written just on that.  You can also find CLA in coconut/coconut oil.  It is an incredible fat, that brings forth a wellspring of health!  Get some in your diet please.

OK, back to the dairy.  If you are buying milk to use for a special purpose (again, don’t just drink milk, sorry if I did not make that clear), please at the very least, buy full fat (whole milk) organic.  But if you can, get the raw milk… and make the decision on your own to drink non-pasteurized milk (my disclaimer).

In addition, I spoke of the spirit of the diet, which means you should have a working knowledge of glycemic load, or glycemic index.  This website gives you a short but useful overview of glycemic index, and you can link to their DATABASE from that site as well.  Over time, as you have a better grasp of glycemic indices, you will be better equipped to make day to day choices without carrying a library around with you.

Other areas that are good to re-visit.  There are “products” out there that fit your healthy lifestyle needs.  Chewing gum for example, is awful for you.  I would prefer real sugar over aspartame, but not during a strict part of my diet, which means, I really don’t need that habit, it is only going to hurt me, unless… I buy xylitol sweetened gum, which will allow me to chew gum without cancer risk, or insulin issues (really can’t do anything about the TMJ issues that it creates though).

Sweet Cheeks is another resource, where you can find some recipes that are paleo recipes.  Find all the fruits and sugars, and remove them, and viola, you have a good meal for dinner, lunch, even breakfast.  As the makeover continues on, I will continue to help you with more of these resources.

Another great “product” on the market, is the pictured “Virgil’s – Zero Root Beer”.  Stevia sweetened, naturally flavored with no caffeine, root beer.  Now, I wouldn’t have this on a daily basis, simply because natural flavors has the potential to have some garbage in there, but there are no carbohydrates and no artificial sweeteners.  This baby can make you sing!

Lastly – did I tell you no alcohol?  Well, nothing with sugar or grains for the duration, but really strong red wine can be a cheat (one glass) once you are three weeks in.  Otherwise, just say no!  All in all, as you kill these normal addictions, and comforts, you will become more free in life.  It is an awesome experience to be free!

Be well, be blessed – Dr. E