Stress Heart Risks: New Studies Show How Stress Affects Cardiovascular Health
Fat Facts
While a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, I became known as the “fat doctor,” a title I held with great pride. My work entailed tag-teaming with surgeons in the operating room and harvesting human fat cells during surgery. Bless every one of the wonderful research subjects who agreed–rather happily, I might add!–to let me remove a small sample of fat from various parts of their bodies, both deep inside (deep in the belly) and just under the skin (subcutaneous). Next, these gleaming gelatinous globs of fat were carefully placed in the portable liquid nitrogen cylinder that accompanied me everywhere. Then it was off to my lab to prep the specimens for our experiments.
Hunched over my lab bench, I would marvel at the beauty, power, and mystery of the fat cells, or adipocytes (adip=fat, cyte=cell), I beheld under my specialized microscopes. It also occurred to me that most people probably don’t have a clue as to what fat cells do other than inspire torment and angst when they’re trying to crowbar themselves into a pair of jeans.
So how about a quick primer on all things fat, so that you can, as I have, learn to appreciate, not disparage, these incredible and integral parts of our anatomy? I’m only talking about fat as a physical entity and won’t be speaking to any issues related to why people are under- or overweight. This is just an anatomy lesson!
Interview with Tina Turbin
I had the pleasure to chat with author Tina Turbin the other day. She’s an author and campaigner and her main area of interest is in the treatment of celiac disease using dietary changes. Lowcarb and Paleo type diets could well make a good starting point for many.
MM: How did you get to know about paleo and what was it that attracted you to it in the first place?
TT: Okay for me those are two different questions so as far as the first question is concerned, I am celiac and I could not have gluten. There’s just no question about it.
MM: Right!
TT: I’m a very sensitive celiac and also two of my three children have been diagnosed with celiac and one of them has the gene. You have to have the gene to even be able to have celiac. If you don’t have the gene you’ll never have celiac disease so for anybody without the gene – you know – all the better for them.
MM: Okay.
TT: It doesn’t mean you can’t be sensitive or have allergies or react to gluten but you will never have the autoimmune disease,
celiac disease. I had this after close to seven years of being misdiagnosed and once I was diagnosed I went into the field aggressively to
raise awareness as an advocate working with over 200 of the gluten free companies, many of the surgeons, the doctors, the research scientists at the university, the restaurants, the gluten free groups, the celiac groups, the various chapters around, radio shows, you name it I was out there full fledge because I’m a children author as well. So, I really wanted to make this known. There’s an issue here. There’s a real issue and I wanted to really make it known, I wanted to be supportive in raising awareness to getting people properly tested and have doctors know what those indicators are because they’re not taught that in the university well enough. If they’re taught it at all – it might be just a one day or half a day crash course you know, as part of their program over years of study. You know it’s just not right and over I felt that it needed more. So here I am out here promoting that the diet, working with all these people and I went on the standard gluten free diet and did I make improvements?
Absolutely!
There’s no question about it but I was still not thriving healthwise and even though my kitchen had been a dedicated a gluten free kitchen – so I no longer had the toasters, the old pots and pans in fact, every-thing was thrown out and it was deep cleaned. Yet, I would still come home having
eaten and say “Gosh! Maybe that (meal) had some cross contami-nation in it and I’d look at the packages – and you know they had the gluten
free certification. But I was still reacting. The answer came from the fact that I had done a review and worked with Dr. Lefler who wrote a
book – which is phenomenal by the way – and in one of his chapters he ended up discussing refractory celiac disease or what you could call nonresponsive celiac.
So, once again I find myself doing my own homework… I was like okay, here are the various reasons of why somebody with celiac disease might
not be responding to this diet favorably so I called Dr. Lefler and I said you know I am not getting cross contamination, I’m out here on big fronts making big strikes but I feel like I’m kind of in a little corner all by myself and that I maybe one of these people who are not responding. I was basically told “you know Tina there’s many,many like you”.
So I started talking to people on my own and finding out that – I would say – one out of three people I was speaking to who are celiacs were in the same boat as me but they had never said anything. Those are my own statistics, one out of three people I was speaking to.
And as a result of that I started looking at what could it be. I narrowed it down to “I think I am still responding to grains”. Then what happened was that I was doing another review for a diet called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet which eliminate the grains, but does allow some legumes and does allow at some point of the healing some dairy. Well my husband was gone for a week and I thought well instead of just reviewing this – I’m going to put it to a test.
Work-Life Balance: Three Power Tips
Here are three quick action steps to help you create more work life balance this week — field tested and doctor approved.
Work-life balance is key to preventing burnout , but exactly HOW do you create balance in the first place?
I am an executive coach to hundreds of over-stressed physicians. One of the key components to preventing physician burnout is restoring some balance to your life. You must chisel out some space in your weeks for yourself and the important people in your life for one simple reason.
When you are stressed at work, home is where you must be able to recharge.
There has to be some balance, or you will eventually tumble into the downward spiral of burnout.
I know for a fact that doctors don’t learn how to create a balanced life at any point in their training. In fact, residency is where we learn to focus 110 percent on work and keep going right through the complete exhaustion of 120-hour weeks.
There are no role models. Faculty members often model just the opposite… the chronically burned out and unbalanced doctor. Fortunately you will see certain older physicians who have this figured out. They have outside interests, seem more relaxed, have great relationships with their significant other… I can tell you many of them went through a burnout crisis a few years back to reach this balanced state.
Bypass the crisis… take the shortcut to work-life balance. Here are three tools I teach my physician coaching clients. Each one is short, simple and proven to work in the real world. They will work for you too.
1) Date Night Secrets
My highest work-life balance recommendation is a date night twice a month without fail. My recommendation holds even if you don’t have a significant other — see (a) below. Use the Schedule HACK Process to make sure you have a date night at a minimum of once a month — twice is way better.
Here are two date night power tips.
a) Don’t Forget to Date Yourself
If you don’t have a significant other (or yours is unavailable) take YOURSELF out on a date for gosh sakes. Dinner and a movie, mani/pedi, massage, read a book for pleasure (imagine that!) Just do it… twice a month… together OR alone.
b) The Pay it Forward Rule
Always follow this date night rule: Your date night is not done until you put the next one on everyone’s calendar.
Here’s why.
I see people try to make date night a habit. They are all excited about the first one — in many cases it is the first date night in YEARS! — and the second one never happens. They don’t schedule the next date and never find time in their busy week to put it on the calendar. Don’t let this happen to you.
At the end of your date (even if it is just you, as above) get out your calendar(s) and schedule the next one… every time. Stick to this rule and you will create the habit.
2) Put Big Rocks in the Bank
If you have a big vacation travel trip on your big rocks list for this year, here is how to make sure it will happen. Don’t wait to book it.
– Look out as far as you need to on your calendar
– Pick the dates for your trip
– Book the tickets and pay for them now
If you don’t book and pay, you will always find a last minute reason not to go and your trip is in serious jeopardy.
When you book and pay months in advance, I will guarantee you will make that trip.
How to Really Stand Up (Straight)
If you’re watching the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards, the Oscars, or other award shows this season, you may notice how so many of the celebrities walk onto the stage and announce the contestants with such good posture. For most people, that poised walk doesn’t come naturally. Working with actors frequently, I teach them the importance of this upright stance and how to achieve it with ease instead of stiffness.
Whether actors or not, we all have occasions when we want to present our best, confident selves. For an actor, it is stepping onto the stage. For everybody else, it may be walking into a party or into that important job interview.
So, how can you have such a powerful and upright stance? How does an actor pull it off? What is the actor’s secret?
First, let’s look at what NOT to do.
The typical response to “stand up straight” is:
1. Lift up the front of your chest, 2. Pull your chin up as you pull the back of your head down a little, and 3. Pull your shoulder blades together.
Try it. Feels familiar, right? And how long do you stay in this held-up “straight” position? It’s probably not more than a few minutes before you’re back down to a slump or leaning on one leg. It feels like too much effort to stand up this way.
When we look closely, we see that these three steps have the opposite effect of standing straighter and taller.
Let’s break it down and look at what you actually did:
1. Lifting up the front of your chest looks good in front, but what happens in your back? The lifting is usually done by pulling down or compressing the muscles in your back. From my observations, lifting up the front of your chest actually shortens your spine instead of lengthening it.
2. Pulling the back of your head down by lifting your chin up has a similar effect. The weight of your head (around ten pounds) is actually going down in the back, compressing your spine even more, and actually positioning you less in the upright direction.
3. Pulling your shoulder blades together narrows and compresses your spine even more and thereby prevents it from lengthening.
Pulling your whole upper body in this manner often causes you to pull yourself off the balance of your feet and therefore lose your grounding and support. Pulling your chest up, head back, and shoulders in takes a lot of work and does not give the sustainable results you are looking.
Get Fit: 5 Secrets to Exercising During Menopause
If you’re like most women, your sneakers are probably collecting more dust bunnies than miles. But if you want to find hormone happiness during perimenopause and menopause, it’s due time to dust those babies off!
“All exercise, ranging from housework to running marathons, impacts menopause in a positive way,” In fact, exercise can help prevent the muscle and bone loss from which many postmenopausal women suffer, according to the American Council on Exercise. Also, arecent Penn State study found that menopausal women who exercise experience fewer hot flashes in the 24 hours following their workout. While a recent study from the MsFLASH Research Network found some conflicting information — that aerobic exercise isn’t significantly associated with reduced hot flashes — it did find that exercise does have positive effects on sleep quality, insomnia and depression in both perimenopausal and menopausal women. What’s more, exercise may be effective at treating menopausal depression, according to a recent review published in The Cochrane Library,” says Dr. Diana Bitner, MD, a North American Menopause Society Certified Menopause Practitioner & Physician and board-certified OB/GYN. “My patients who exercise on a regular basis have fewer menopause symptoms as well as improved body chemistry — lower cholesterol, better sugar control, less weight gain, and stronger bones. Women who exercise have better sleep, better mood and better quality of life.”
According to Dr. Bitner, body fat (which, of course, tends to increase after menopause) spurs hot flashes and night sweats, leads to poor sleep, saps energy, brings down moods and can wreck self-image. Put that all together, and that also means a torpedoed libido. “I talk to my patients about belly fat as a furnace that makes them hot and tired. As belly fat increases, energy decreases and hot flashes, night sweats and sleep disturbances increase. As belly fat increases, so does insulin resistance — and this can cause cravings for carbohydrates and more menopausal weight gain,” she says. “If a patient has a high BMI and body fat percentage, her risk of snoring and sleep apnea increases, adding another reason for poor sleep, low energy, and hot flashes.”
Ready to dust off those kicks? Here’s how to boost your body for good: