Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is one of the most frequent diagnoses in any primary care practice in our country and probably around the world. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a name that has been put on the condition in which the patient has intestinal gas, bloating, burping, diarrhea and/or alternating constipation, with a general unpleasant feeling in the gastrointestinal tract.

In conventional medicine when a patient has these symptoms they may get a stool test, colonoscopy and an upper G.I. endoscopy. If all these tests are normal the patient is then told that he or she has "Irritable Bowel Syndrome", and "nothing to worry about". However the symptoms can be quite bothersome and will often lead the patient to seek out the care of an integrative physician.

Integrative doctors in general and my practice in particular know that this diagnosis is a kind of "wastebasket" diagnosis that people are lumped into. With thorough investigation from an integrative medicine point of view many underlying causes can be found that are completely treatable and symptoms disappear.

One of the most common causes of these symptoms is food allergies. Conventional doctors only will call a food an allergen if when the patient eats that food, they break out in hives and a rash all over their body and require emergency care. Integrative doctors know that more subtle allergic reactions can cause the symptoms of IBS.

An article by PJ Whorwell and colleagues, several years ago looked at an additional way to find food allergies. Specifically this blood test looks for "IgG: antibodies in the blood. I've been doing blood tests for this type of food allergy for several years and have found it to be extremely valuable in helping people with the symptoms of IBS.

This study took a group of patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and did the IgG antibody blood tests on them. They followed the patients over 12 weeks. For those patients who were fully compliant with the diet recommended by the blood tests, there was a 26% reduction in symptoms. In addition other nonspecific symptoms including quality of life and anxiety/depression also improved in these patients.

I was delighted to recently find this study which confirms what integrative doctors have been doing for some time. In my practice, this is just one of several tests that I do to help patients resolve their IBS. And I have seen remarkable results with this.

If you have symptoms of IBS, please ask your doctor to do the IgG antibody blood test to see if you have food allergies. Then follow the diet prescribed by the blood tests and see if your symptoms go away.

Let me know if you have found food allergies to be relative to your symptoms and whether a specific diet has been helpful to you in minimizing intestinal symptoms? Questions? Let me know here

I look forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Soram

Reference

Bisphenol A (BPA) is one of the component molecules of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) or hardened plastic. We all know that PVC is everywhere. It is in the inner lining of soda cans, baby bottles, cups, microwavable bowls and many other plastic containers that are in our kitchen and cafeterias. Many cans of food contain BPA. When PVC plastic is heated or is in contact with hot liquids or food it then releases BPA.

BPA for a long time has been associated with the progression of some cancers. Now recently BPA has been in the news prominently. One group of researchers found that BPA, even at weak concentrations, such as in the normal usage of a plastic cup that is in contact with a cup of hot tea, is able to block the benefit of several chemotherapy agents on breast cancer cells. Because of this we realize that BPA is a friend to cancer.

In 2008 the National Toxicology Program recommended that BPA no longer be used in baby bottles, as well as recommended that limited quantities of BPA be released into the environment.

For that reason many of us are not using these hard plastic as much as we  used to.

I encourage my patients who use the hard plastic type of water bottles, such as reusable sports bottles, to not let them bake in the sun in the back of their car.

Some doctors have recommended people use the softer plastic type of bottles that are found in mineral and spring waters at the store. These bottles are made of a chemical called polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and do not contain BPA.

However ,new evidence is now showing that PET may not be safe either!

For more information on this please see my next blog post.

REFERENCE

MORE ON BPA

The more flexible your body, the more flexible your arteries will be. This is the conclusion of several very interesting studies that were recently published in the medical literature.

I'm delighted to say that my article was featured as the prime post in the Living section of the Huffington Post this past Tuesday, May 11, 2010. In my article I teach you how you can test your own flexibility. If you're not flexible enough hopefully that will inspire you to begin taking some Yoga classes or some Pilates classes to increase your flexibility.

Let me know how you like this article and let me know how you like the flexibility test!

Here is the LINK!

A new study in Environmental Health Perspectives written by KS Betts and colleagues looks at the effect of a flame retardant that is used commonly in home and office furnishings as well as electronics and airplanes. The product is called polybrominated diphenyl ether and in this article I will call it PBDE.

Even though products with this chemical, have been banned in Europe, they are still manufactured and used in United States. Most recently manufacturers have agreed to voluntarily discontinue all of these products by the end of 2012. However that is a long time away.

In this study they looked at 150 US children born within 2 miles of the World Trade Center attack in 2001. These women were gathered for the study to look at the effects of exposure to compounds in the dust from the destroyed towers of 911.

PDBE's were measured in the cord blood of over 150 of these children who later participated in at least one session of neuro-developmental testing that was conducted at age 1, 2,3,4,and 6 years of age.

Unfortunately the children who had higher levels of exposures in their cord blood consistently had, on average, lower developmental scores at each of the ages mentioned, compared with those children who were less exposed to the toxic substance.

The relationship was especially strong at age 4 years.

The authors are quick to point out that "it is certain" that sources other than the World Trade Center contributed to the PBDE levels in the children's cord blood.

Of interest is that the cord blood levels observed in these children were indeed similar to those reported in other parts of the United States which suggests that these effects could be widespread. So it is not clear to me if the WTC dust had anything to do with the results of this study.

The authors point out that these findings are consistent with reports of hyperactivity as well as learning and memory deficits found in experiments with mice who were also exposed to PBDE's.

Another recent study has shown that PBDE's may interfere with thyroid hormones as their mechanism of action for interfering with normal brain development.

The authors point out that they are doing more experiments relating to PBDE's developmental effects. Of course in the meantime they recommend that people avoid exposure to these compounds especially pregnant women and newborns.

Unfortunately, these types of exposures are occurring to all women before and during pregnancy. And this is why I advise my patients not to redecorate their house or use nail polish or perfumes with phthalates while they are pregnant.

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I am delighted to share with my readers a new book I am reading called Anticancer, A New Way of Life, New Edition by David Servan-Schreiber. Dr. Servan-Schreiber, the author of the book had brain cancer himself and this changed his life dramatically. As a result of his cancer, he studied all possible ways that he could get well including enhancing his body's own natural cancer fighting capabilities. He is now healthy.

Dr. Servan-Schreiber explains how certain foods and environmental toxins  help cancer cells to thrive. He explains what inhibits them as well. Most importantly, he explains many ways to strengthen your immune system to prevent their growth.

He shows how sugar contributes to cancer.  And most importantly, how it is the sugar that obese people eat in excess, and not the obesity itself, that is the contributor to cancer. This occurs through sugar's impact on a molecule called IGF1, which is related to growth hormone.

He reviews diet and cancer fighting foods. I am delighted that he mentions the important role that vitamin D plays in slowing cancer growth. Of course I discuss this extensively in my own book as well.

 He explains why it is important to avoid sugars and bleached flowers.

He has a wonderful chapter on the role of our environment and the toxicity in our household products that contribute to cancer.

In addition he also talks about the optimized mind-body balance to remain positive and healthy.

I am happy to say that this was the book that I would have written if I only I had the time, and was not in full-time practice of medicine.

If you have friends or loved ones who have been affected by cancer, I urge you to share this book with them.

You can get this book by clicking the cover picture below:

On each of our genes there is a "protective cap" at the ends of each chromosome. These caps are comprised of a certain sequence of DNA. The scientific name for these caps is "Telomeres."

Increasing studies have shown that the length of the telomeres is correlated with cellular aging. Specifically the shorter the telomere, the older the cell.

Because of this, telomere length is now being used in scientific research as a marker of our biological age. This biological age combines our lifetime burden of genetic factors with environmental stressors that have affected our genes. This biological age is independent of our chronological age.
[Read more…]

In a new study just published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Jackson, Leboff and other authors went back and looked at the data from the Women's health Initiative Calcium plus Vitamin D Clinical Trial. This trial looked at over 3000 postmenopausal women age 50-70.

They were looking to see if there was a correlation as would be expected between postmenopausal women's vitamin D levels, and the latitude where they live, as well as the amount of sun in their area of the country as well as their oral intake of vitamin D.

They found that although it would be presumed that these factors would be reflected in the blood level of a woman, it was not the case. There was a rough correlation but it was not the strict correlation that was expected.

They found that their model could explain only 21% of the variation in vitamin D levels after they adjusted for many other factors including food, outside activity, race, age, and the amount of sun their region gets per year.

The authors theorize that because so many people are aware that the sun can cause skin cancer, most people use sunblock or stay covered when they go out in the sun which was not the case many years ago before the relation between skin cancer and sun was recognized. They theorize that this may be why women in more southern climates did not necessarily have higher levels of vitamin D in their blood, as would have been expected.

The authors appropriately note also that the women had only one vitamin D  blood test and because the study was done over several years that one blood test may not have been representative of what happened over the years.

The absolute numbers in the study were that over 50% of the sample of US postmenopausal women had blood levels less than 20 ng/ml. In addition, 13% of the women had blood levels less than 10 ng/ml. Note that if they were using the newly recognized minimal normal level of vitamin D i.e. greater than 30 ng/ML that these percentages would hvae been much higher. The 20 ng/milliliter level is only enough to prevent rickets.

The authors' summarize that models that predict blood levels of vitamin D by  looking at oral intake and/or vitamin D made from sun exposure to the skin should now "be used with caution in making assumptions about the relation between vitamin D status and health outcomes."

This corroborates what I have said in my book and in my blog many times. Everybody should be getting a vitamin D blood test, at least once a year, just like they get a cholesterol or diabetes test once a year.

It is also why I chose to make available in my vitamin D store, an at-home blood test. In this way people who do not go to the doctor often or who do not have insurance, can find out their own blood level which is the only really accurate way to know where you stand in regards to vitamin D adequacy.

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As most of my patients, friends, and readers know I have a special interest in the role that the environment plays in human health. That is why I am a professor at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and their  environmental medicine Center of Excellence in Arizona.

Increasing evidence has consistently been found that environmental pollutants play a significant role in human disease.

Now a new article has come out in the government-sponsored journal Environmental Health Perspectives which shows that persistent organic pollutants (POP's) lead to insulin resistance a condition which is asscociated with diabetes, obesity, fatty liver disease, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. POP's are organic compounds that are resistant to being broken down by our environment through the normal processes. Therefore they persist in the environment and accumulate in human tissue and get magnified in food chains.

Epidemiologic studies have suggested that exposure to persistent organic pollutants in our diet might be a contributing factor to diabetes. POP's are known to accumulate in some foods such as fatty fish.

In this study, when the authors exposed adult male rats to crude, but not refined, salmon oil, the rats developed insulin resistance,  abdominal obesity, and liver problems.

In rats given refined salmon oil this did not happen.

In addition the authors studied fat cells and found that POPS led to significant inhibition of insulin action at the cellular level, which is what we call insulin resistance.

This is a very interesting article because it shows that it may not be just fat that contributes to diabetes and obesity but an environmental contaminant in the fat, that makes it more likely that these diseases will occur.

This is just one more reason to eat organic as much as we possibly can.

REFERENCE

For many years now, observational studies as well as experimental studies have noted the biological consequences of phthalate exposure on neurological development in children.

Now, in what I would call a landmark study, Engel and colleagues, looked at the association of phthalate exposure in the womb and subsequent offspring behavior.

Phthalates are used in the manufacture of plastics. They are very common in women's cosmetics including nail polish, as well as in children's toys, paints, food products, and textiles. Liquid soap, hairspray and perfume often contain phthalates.

This was a multiethnic population that was enrolled in the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health study which took place in New York City between 1998 and 2002.

The researchers took third trimester urine specimens from the mothers and analyzed these urine specimens for phthalate's breakdown products. Subsequently they evaluated the behavioral and cognitive development of the children between the ages of four and nine years old.

The findings are astonishing. Higher concentrations of phthalates in the mother during pregnancy were associated with poorer scores on the following indices in the children: aggression, conduct problems, attention problems, depression, and externalizing problems as well as behavioral symptom Index scales.

It was also noted that higher phthalate levels in the mother were also connected with poorer scores on the global executive composite index and the emotional control scale.

The authors also commented that the areas of behavior that are adversely associated with intrauterine phthalates are associated with children who are diagnosed with conduct or attention deficit — hyperactivity disorders.

This study puts a whole new light on the prevalence of these behavioral disorders diagnosed in our society and  in so many children. Combine this with low vitamin D levels in the mother (which is needed to repair DNA mutations), along with poor diet, and we begin to see why these behavioral disorders are so common in our society.

This is one of the reasons why I advise all of my pregnant patients to use only health-food-store nail polish, no perfumes, non-toxic makeups and an organic diet when they are pregnant.

Please give me your comments and thoughts on this most important article.

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