Two years ago today, an hour after this picture was taken, I had my dear boy Jay put down. He was the dog of my life.
On this Easter morning, I want him back. I miss him terribly. But I can't. So I go back to his life and ask myself, if he was the dog of my life, was I worthy of his devotion?
And so the lesson that he still teaches me resonates this Easter morning. All that I know will die. As will I. In my life, knowing that this is all that there is, do I pay attention to to what really matters? Do I pay enought attention to the people that are close to me? Do I pay enough attention to what matters to them? Do I pay enough attention to myself? Do I live the life that I have the privelege of having?
Maybe there is a Rainbow Bridge? Maybe there is an after life? But I can never know this in my life. This life and those I love are all that I can know now.
But I still long for him. If I was to spend eternity with another being it would be with him.
You have chronic back pain. You go to the Dr. She prescribes a pain killer. If this does not work, she recommends surgery. Not once will she discusss why you have back pain. You get addicted to pain killers. The pain increases. The back surgery is now mandated. You get worse....
You have breast cancer. She confines her discussion to treatment. She never talks about why you got it other than to offer generalities or "Genes". (Less that 10% of breast cancer is releated to genes). You go through treatment and then are told that you have to take at least 5 years of tamoxifen. You feel terrible and have pain and side effects. You still have no idea of what you can do to reduce your chances of a recurrence. Your doctor does not know.
You have type 2 diabetes. You are prescribed insulin. You never have a program to get you to eat better. AND the dietary advice she gives is likely wrong. You are put on more and more drugs. Then you have to have a foot amputated. Then you might lose your sight....
You have had a heart attack. You are prescribed statin drugs. You are told that you have to get your cholesterol down. You are told to lower your intake of animal fat and to eat more healthy grains. You get worse. She ups the dose. You start to get side effects.....
You have depression. You are told to take anti depressants. After a year, you feel worse. She ups the dose. You start to feel suicidal....
You have rheumatism. Your are prescribed a drug like Vioxx. You get worse. She ups the dose. You have a heart attack. See above.
Medicine has become centred on drugs that deal with the symptons of chronic illness. I think this is because of how everyone in medicine gets paid. Dr's get paid for time and for selling products. They don't get paid for giving advice. Especially advice that does not include selling a product at the end. God forbid that a pill may be a simple as Vitamin D. Or the advice being learn how to get better posture. Cost a book or a few lessons.
Do you think that a pill will get you well? Or are you like millions today who are starting to take charge of your own health?
A real "Traditional Marriage" would be one that surely has lasted for millions of years and that was the same the entire world over for all humans. There is such a model and it not one man and one woman united to raise a family.
The Real Traditional "Marriage" was the Tribe.
Who we are as men and women was formed by this experience. The story of the real traditional mariage began more than 2 million years ago with the advent of a new proto human. Home Erectus.
HE had the first modern human body plan. She had narrow hips, enabling her to run and her babies had big brains. She lived in a hunting culture where the tribe moved a lot. She and the baby had to be mobile. How evolution solved this complex equation produced us - modern homo sapiens.
So this is why we are what we are and not what the traditionalists think. This is the real tradtion.
The Homo Erectus infant could not be carried to term as our ape cousins do. The pelvis had to be narrow to allow us to run but the dense nutrition of our new diet had expanded the size of the brain. The head would be too big to fit through the now much narrower pelvis. The evolutionary answer to this paradox was to birth the baby prematurely. HE babies and human babies are born at least 6 months premature. HE, and human, babies are totally helpless when compared to apes and other primate babies. Raising a HE baby was a much more complex job that any other ape or monkey mother would have confronted.
This then set up the next evolutionary challenge. How does a mother, who is on the move all the time, care for a helpless infant? How does she ensure that she does not have more children than she can carry or care for?
This problem was solved by long term breast feeding. Constant breast feeding suppresses fertility. Hunter Gatherers cannot afford to have lots of children. Long term breast feeding reduces fertility. Constant breast feeding for two years also ensures that the child has the most robust immune system possible. Tribes that had long intervals between children had an evolutionary advantage. Children with good immune systems, had an evolutionary advantage. Long term breast feeding was the process. Breast milk evolved as a long term diet for infants that adjusted its composition as the child aged. Also, in the pre tool era, breast milk was an easier form of feeding a child than pre chewing the food.
Once again, there is another problem that has to be solved. If all the mature women in the tribe are having children, as apes and other primates do, the demands of raising a big brain child that is slow to mature will overwhelm the tribe. Raising a complex, slow to mature advanced hominid, was too much for a single mother on her own.
This too drove an evolutionary response. In tribes where the middle aged women stopped being fertile, more kids lived until adulthood. Many closely aligned females shared the work. And so Professor Sarah Hrdy thinks menopause, a uniquely human attribute evolved. Human females are the only primate to have menopause.
And so what about the men? How did this challenging role of raising young who were helpless or of little use until maybe 8 affect men? The answer might be in how HE used sex as a social binder.
Human females are the only primates, other than bonobos, to have emotional and recreational sex. Human females do not come into estrus as all other primates do. When they are fertile, there are no visible signs. Human females can choose when they have sex and with whom. Sex was not closely linked to reproduction. With long term breast feeding, their fertility only came on in 2 or 3 year intervals. They are the only primate whose vaginas have adapted to face to face sex. Why is this so? There must be a good evolutionary reason for sex to be fun. Sex must have been used to strengthen bonds between men and women and not only for procreation. Then the question arises, was this to strengthen the pair bond or to strengthen the pair bonds?
What then is the “Traditional Family”?
From evolution’s point of view, would it be smart for a woman to place all her meat expectations and all her protection on one man? What if he was killed? Who would feed her and her children? What if she died? Who would look after her children? (Sex at Dawn by Ryan and Cacilda Jetha ) Would it be smarter to have more than one partner and so that all the children were the children of all the tribe? We can never know. But it is likely that, in a culture where there was no property and where all food was shared, that sharing partners would be the norm. The physiological set up for human sex suggests strongly that sex is a deep part of how we “groom” each other and so strengthen our social bonds.
In this case the whole tribe has to raise all the children.
As well as sharing the men, did women share the babies? Human female physiology suggests that we did. Human females, who live in groups, coordinate their estrus cycles with each other. There is a good evolutionary reason for this. It means that there are always several lactating women at all times. Should a mother die, her child can still be fed. Tribes that could do this had better evolutionary outcomes.
Many factors bond the social group intensely. Food is shared. Bodies are shared. Love is shared. Children are shared. Hunting itself is intensely bonding. As is gathering and communal food preparation.
So what about health and aging? In such a small group, was there room to spend 20 years looking after granny? Here is where Michael Rose’s Plateau comes into view.
In a group of 35 people, that moved all the time, there is no room for grandpa and grandma to retire, get feeble and need to be looked after. In a group of 35, with 16 young, it is also vital to keep the key knowledge intact about where the water is, what plants will heal, where the game goes, what the stories are and all the vast repertoire of hunting and gathering lore that we cannot imagine today. We talk of skills today and have no comprehension of the skills needed to hunt and gather. In tribes where the old were active and contributors, the next generation survived.
Here is the most important evolutionary outcome of all. We, as Professor Michael Rose makes clear, are designed to grow old as fit, healthy and active people. Yes, we will get wrinkles and go grey. But we are designed to age well. Tribes where the old were not well, did not last.
So as the institutions of the modern age wither and die, we may well be forced to consider this model again. For we need more than a stressed out couple or single person to raise a child. We cannot just ship dad off to the home. We cannot afford to all live alone.
I see some form of this real traditional model coming back - what about you?
The latest figures published by Cancer Research UK show a total of 47,700 women were diagnosed in 2008, over 5,000 more than a decade earlier, a rise of 3.5 per cent. The numbers affected by the disease have doubled since 1971 and the lifetime risk has risen to one in eight, from one in nine a decade ago. (link) In the US and in Canada the risks are about the same - between one in 8 and 9 and the overall increase is the same too.
This cannot be a matter of genes or chance. Only about 5-10% are directly linked to genes. Something has changed in how we live to drive this. If we know what are the drivers, we can be at choice to change how we live to reduce our risk. We can turn back the clock.
But are our doctors working to help us do this?
I have yet to meet a woman who tells me that her doctor is helping her avoid breast cancer. Public Health focuses on screening. Research is ALL about the CURE. I never see anything about research into how to avoid it. I have not met a woman who told me, when she was disgnosed, that the reasons why she might have cancer were discussed. All have told me that the discussion was focused entirely on treatment options. I have not met a woman who, once teatment was over, was advised about the future risks. The sole discussion was about the importance of taking Tamoxifen.
So what do we know that we can use to reduce the risks?
One pathway is becoming clear and that is the role of estrogen. Tamoxifen acts to reduce the amount of estrogen. Your doctor will be forceful in prescribing this but will almost never talk to you about why you may be doing things that drive up high levels of estrogen.
The role of estrogen was highlighted in the recent scare about Hormone Replacement Therapy. HRT pushes up your estrogen levels. Here is the clue:
"From 1999 to 2005, breast cancer incidence rates in the U.S. decreased by about 2% per year. The decrease was seen only in women aged 50 and older. One theory is that this decrease was partially due to the reduced use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) by women after the results of a large study called the Women’s Health Initiative were published in 2002. These results suggested a connection between HRT and increased breast cancer risk."
It seems that high levels of estrogen are linked. So what drives high levels of estrogen?
The pill - it is only in the last 50 years that women have been taking the pill for 20 years or more
Soy - Soy can boost estrogen - it is only in the last 50 years that many women have used alot of soy - sales have climbed from $300 million in 1992 to over $4 billion in 2008 - it was thought to be a healthy alternative but it is novel and may be worth removing from your diet.
Women who are obese are much more at risk. Body fat drives high levels of estrogen. We get fat by a failing metabolic system that is mainly driven by a high carb low animal fat diet. This has become the main diet over the last 50 years
Glucose is what feeds cells, cancer cells need a lot of glucose. A high "sugar" diet helps your cancer cells get ahead.
Most Americans are sleep deprived. Women more than men. Sleep is not just a rest but a major healing reset
Activity sets up a strong immune system, most of us are totally sedentary. We sit on average for 14 hours a day
High levels of Vitamin D seem to reduce the risks (link) - A 2011 meta-analysis by Garland and colleagues estimated that a serum level of 50 ng/ml is associated with 50% lower risk of breast cancer. While there are some variations in absorption, those who consume 4000 IU per day of vitamin D from food or a supplement normally would reach a serum level of 50 ng/ml.
Reducing levels of estrogen and boosting our immune system is surely the way to go? I know this is not easy though. Diet is a major part of this. So can you bring yourself to change this? Being on the pill is so easy. Can you change this?
So please let me say this as a husband who has stood by his wife go through the hell of a diagnosis and the full on treatment. I promise you, you would not wish this on your worst enemy. I promise you that changing how you eat. Going off the pill. Going to bed early. Taking Vitamin D. Being more active are a small price to pay to reduce your risks.
In 1840, as the new industrial cities grew from populations of 50,000 to millions, the result was high death rates. All these people crowded in cities with no water systems and no idea about why bad water made you ill, set up the conditions for Choera and Typhoid. In London, at the time, life expectancy dropped to 22! But once we understood the mechanism for this kind of infection, great public works conquered cholera and made it possible to live in big cities. By 1900, 8 million people lived in London and few if any got cholera.
We are confronted by the same kind of problem today but this time the villain is chronic illness.
Once again, a new part of our culture, industrial food and our work culture, has inadvertently put millions of us at risk. Not from a quick death but from a lingering one.
With chronic illness the issue is not death but long term disability. This is what this looks like today: (source NPR)
Nearly all of these problems are caused by lifestyle.
14 million American are on this chart. In some parts of America, 40% of the adult population are included. In Canada, the average man is disabled by 65 and lives another 10 years. The average woman is disabled by 70 and then also lives another 10 years.
These people cannot work. Many have to be looked after by their adult children. Most have to be looked after by the state. The direct cost is $240 billion. Who can know what the indirect cost may be? (More here from NPR)
Because all of this is caused by lifestyle, medicine cannot help. In most cases medicine makes this all worse. For medicine can only treat the symptoms not the root causes.
For instance, Type 2 Diabetes is caused by our diet. Unless diet is dealt with, there can be no improvement. But your doctor deals with T2D by putting you on insulin. In time, your insulin resistance will break through and you will get even sicker.
On PEI, adults in 2006 with diabetes had to be hospitalized much more often than those without it. 16 times more often for lower limb amputations. 6 times more often with kidney disease. They had 5 times more heart attacks. 4 times more heart failure. 3 times more strokes. They stayed 3 times longer in hospital. Had 2 times more visits to physicians and 2 times more to specialists.
Most diabetics don’t just take one medication, but several. A typical regimen for an adult diabetic after a couple of years of treat- ment and following the dietary advice of the American Diabetes Association includes Metformin, Januvia, and Actos, a triple-drug treatment that costs around $420 per month. Two forms of insulin (slow- and fast-acting), along with two or three oral medications, is not at all uncommon.
None of this medical intervention works to stop the disability! None of this addresses the root cause. Your Doctor is not paid to help you change your life. He is paid to give you a pill or to amputate your leg. Nearly every item on the chart is lifestyle related.
Back Pain is a result of stress caused by lack of control. A pain reliever or back surgery can make no difference. Heart disease is caused by diet and lifestyle. Depression is caused by diet and by mental habits. Anti depressants cannot help over time. Even many cancers have their cause rooted in lifestyle.
What often makes things worse is that, once we take medication for one thing, this drives side effects that open up another pathway of chronic illness. What makes it even worse still is the nature of chronic illness itself. All of them are rooted in one cause, inflammation. So if you have one expression of it, then more will emerge as you get weaker.
The disease spreads and the costs grow exponentially.
Some states already have 40% of adults now disabled. What will happen when this is a national figure? We expect that Type 2 diabetes will be at 30% soon.
And what about you and me? It is one thing to think about this as something that will happen to other people. But it won't. It will be the fate of most people who live the modern life. How will YOU cope when you go down this path? Who will look after you? Will this be your daughter's inheritance? Do you really want to condemn her to this? How will you afford to live like this for a decade or more? Do you have a lot of savings? Most Americans have almost none.
This is why I have written my new book - You Don't Need Medicine to get Healthy. I hope to publish it in early April. I am in the proof reading phase right now.
It is a practical manual that will help you find the root causes of chronic illness and help you take control so that you can either avoid it or if you have it get better. For there is no pill or treatment for diet, for lack of sleep, for lack of control, for lack of activity. Only we can change these parts of our lives.
We are entering the age of Personal Health. Like media, we will shift the focus away from the institutions to ourselves. Here is Larry Smarr who is on the leading edge of this movement.
Join the health revolution of our time - take back your power and your financial future.
This food disrupts our git flora and leads to inflammation - which is at the core of ALL chronic illness. And BTW the fats that are bad for us are all based on vegetable oils. None of which existed before 1960.
The American Gut Health Project on Indiegogo is the largest citizen science project ever done. It has opened a second phase and you have 3 weeks left to sign up.
Welcome to Phase II of American Gut. During Phase I we raised $339,213, making it the largest crowd funded & open source SCIENCE project in history.
We have now expanded the project and anyone in the world can join during Phase II. Help us reach 10,000 participants!
*Note this is a "Flexible Funding" campaign so the project and all analysis will go forward regardless if the funding goal is reached. So join us, you are in no matter what! Anyone in the world can sign up.
Many children today find it very hard to concentrate. Many are hyper active. Many are on the autism spectrum. Many have very serious allergies. Many are consistently ill. Most of these kids have digestive problems. All of this presents the child with a barrier to learning.
There is a link.
The main thesis of this, and the related posts, is that we as parents have much more influence over our child's ability to learn and to develop than any school. This influence is at its most powerful in the first 3 years of life and our influence begins prior to conception.
We know that we give our kids our genes. We also see, over time, the mystery of how our kids pick up our habits and gestures.
But there is a new element that we inherit that science is just now starting to see as being very important and, unlike genes and habits, this inheritance is largely in the control of the parents. It is the innate gut flora and immune system. More information here. In the womb, your baby is a blank slate in terms of gut flora and immune system.
Ideally, and of course we can't always have the ideal, when your baby is born vaginally, she picks up mainly mum's gut flora and sometimes a bit of dad too. So if your gut flora is healthy then, your baby will inherit a healthy system herself. Then if you breast feed, she will pick up your immune system. If you have a good immune system, then your baby will quickly develop a good immune system too.
I am now going to do a dangerous thing. I, a man, will offer adivice to women.
I know being a man makes it odd to give advice - I can never have a child or breast feed, but as a father and a grand father, I hope that you can have give your baby the best start possible and so I offer you all that I know to help you in this. And BTW, Dads to be, your gut flora is in the vagina too so it is up to us to get with the program as well.
Why should this matter?
We are learning that gut health is at the core of not only general health but also it is strongly linked to the development of the brain. There is a strong link being made between gut flora and autism and many kinds of attention disorders. Here is a series of articles on Gut Fora and why it is important and what you can do to improve it.
So what to do? Great gut flora and a great immune system is the best start you can give your child.
Work to have the best gut flora and immune system you can have prior to delivery
Test your gut health
Do your best to give birth vaginally and then to breast feed for as long as you can
So what might compromise your gut flora? The two risks are anti biotics and grains.
The easy risk to deal with are antibiotics. You know if you have taken them and so, if you have, you can work to repair the damage. For while they kill off the bacteria that we worry about, they also kill off the bacteria that we depend on. If you as a mother to be have been on a course of antibiotics before or during pregancy, work hard to restore your gut health. Probiotics are very useful in repropagating your gut. Fermented food such as sauer kraut and kefir help too. Cereals and legumes work against good gut health. Animal fat and fish oil help too.
The harder part is to reduce or eliminate grains from your diet. Cereals are the foundation of the western diet. They are the core of most of our meals and snacks. But they contain elements that disrupt our gut flora.
The best science resource for all of this is Dr Natasha Campbell McBribe - Here is her site.
Then after birth, please think about your baby's diet then. It makes no sense to be careful with your diet before she is born, and then revert back to the diet that can compromise her gut health. The challenge is that all of our culture tells you to feed your baby cereals. The culture makes it hard to continue breastfeeding.
So all I can do is to ask you this one question. Do you want your child to have the best start that you can give her, or not?
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