Osteo-Solutions Blog

Fruits and Veggies Can Strengthen Bones

Well, what a coincidence! Just as I am starting on a rawfood diet there was a study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism saying that fruits and veggies can strengthen your bones.

The study, done by Tufts University, explored the connection between the acid diets that are common in the US and bone loss. Grains, meats and dairy, plus processed food in general, tend to make our systems more acid.

The study included 171 men and women aged 50 and older who were randomly assigned to receive a placebo or doses of either potassium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate, or potassium chloride for three months. The people who took bicarbonate showed significant reductions in calcium excretion and bone resorption.

I have been telling women for many years to take a drink of sodium bicarb with lemon juice at night before bed to cut down on bone loss and to add to the alkalinity of the body. You'll find that info on my pH balance page. So the study didn't actually test any veggies or fruits because it is already well known that they will also add to the alkalinity of the body in a more natural way. Your body will create sodium bicarb out of them itself.

I heard about Dr  Douglas Graham and his "80-10-10 Diet" several weeks ago when I read an interview he had done on a raw food site.I have been using more raw foods lately because I am unhappy with the long-term results I was getting with my low-carb diet. There are two doctors who I have been listening to, via books, to keep the diabetes under control, Dr Rosedale and Dr Bernstein. They both say we don't need any carbs at all and should take as little as possible so our blood sugar numbers stay stable.

Well, when you cut down on carbs then the only thing you are adding is fat and protein.Long term, that is a nightmare for the body. The liver and kidneys can't deal with all that fat, even the good fats. And too much protein is just as toxic to the system. So I have been longing for fruit for the two years I have been trying to stick to this diet.

As with all new diets, in the beginning you always feel better, and I did. But for the last 6 months I have been feeling increasingly toxic and sluggish. I found out that my blood was in a rouleau pattern typical of people who eat too much fat. The blood cannot do it's job of oxygenating the body from that pattern so I was increasingly tired and weak. So when I read what Dr Graham said about fruit and diabetes and fruit and candida, I was very intrigued. He says that fruit has gotten a bad rap, that it is fat that causes diabetes and candida. The fat eaten along with the fruit coats the sugar in your intestines and prevents the insulin you take or make from being able to react with the sugar and push it into the cells.

So I was convinced enough to give it a good try. This diet is considered radical even in raw food circles because he says that 80% of our diet should come from raw fruits and leafy greens, 10% from protein and 10% from fat.Interestingly these numbers are supported by the World Health Organization. Since leafy greens and fruit actually have about that much protein and fat in them, it means you rarely have to eat anything else at all, a few nuts a week maybe. Most rawfooders eat huge quantities of nuts.

People who do not like fruit would have a hard time on this lifestyle because you can't get enough calories from greens. I love fruit but you have to eat an awful lot of it. I am actually eating 5 times a day because I can't eat too much at once. Some athletes are eating a dozen banana at one sitting, or a half gallon of fresh orange juice. Dr Graham has coached Olympic level athletes and is an amazing athlete himself so he has a lot of credentials for superior performance on this lifestyle.

My immediate reaction to the diet - one month -has been profound.

• I've got my energy back to where it was before I got sick so many years ago.
• I'm sleeping less, wide awake at 5 and ready to go.
• I've cut down on the thyroid and adrenal meds.
• I am calmer, my mental chatter seems to have gone away.

One last interesting thing - I have never been athletic in my life. Work has always been my exercise. Now that my work takes place on a computer a lot of the time that is not good for my body. So I am actually starting to look forward to my rebounding and walking and even considered running or jogging! For me this is amazing.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season and don't worry about 2009. Depression starts in the mind, don't let it take root in yours. Live in Abundance and Joy,

Pam

Diabetes Drugs Weaken Bones

A study released today and reported in Reuters reveals that diabetes drugs, Avandia and Actos, are bad for your bones.

"This study shows that these agents double the risk of fractures in women with type 2 diabetes, who are already at higher risk before taking the therapy," said Sonal Singh of North Carolina's Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Singh and colleagues at Wake Forest , working with researchers at Britain's University of East Anglia, based their findings on a pooled analysis of 10 previous clinical studies lasting at least a year involving 14,000 patients.

These drugs are already linked to adverse heart effects including raising the risk of heart failure and carry warning labels for that.

I recently bought the dvd, Simply Raw, Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days and I was inspired and impresssed. The 6 participants, from all walks of life, got off as many as 17 medications and insulin in the thirty days in the clinic eating a raw food diet. As you may know, I have diabetes, type 1.5, (adult onset auto-immune diabetes) myself, and I was inspired to go onto a raw food diet. I will share more about that in a future post.

One person in the study quit because he couldn't handle the raw food. After going off 17 medications in 2 weeks and losing a lot of weight, plus getting his libido back, he still gave up because he missed his old food. I think the factor of mental, psychological and emotional preparation and counseling was not explored enough, certainly not in the movie.

We are all addicted to certain foods and drinks, from coffee, to alcohol, to sugar, to carbs. There is no one immune to addictions in this society. We use all these things to dull our senses and tamp down our emotions. You have to be really ready to deal with what comes up emotionally when you deprive yourself of your addictive substances. Maybe you will find out that there are things in your life that need changing, that you can't live with any more.

Ask yourself, diabetic or not, what would I have a hard time living without? What passes my lips every single day? That is your addiction. Most of our addictions are wreaking havoc on our bodies. It is not normal to feel tired, foggy-brained, creaky or cranky. Our bodies deserve food that fully supports life, then they can heal themselves without drugs. Or, in the case of diabetes 1, with a much lower dose of insulin.

I'm getting ready for my New Year cleanse. I do it every year. But this year I am actually changing my lifestyle around food, a total night and day change. My son gives up alcohol and coffee for the month of January every year just to prove to himself that he can. Think about what you are prepared to give up for the sake of your healthy future?

Take care,

Pam

New Information about Magnesium

I recently tried out some new transdermal magnesium chloride after reading the information on this site. I also bought Dr Sircus' book, "Transdermal Magnesium Therapy". It's very good.

Magnesium is needed for almost every chemical reaction in our bodies and over 68% of Americans are deficient in it. Our levels are often so low that taking magnesium orally does not bring them up to normal. Oral magnesium is poorly absorbed and leads to diarrhea so many doctors give magnesium intravenously to bring patients back into balance.

Now there is a new way to absorb magnesium. The product is called Ancient Minerals and you spray it on your skin, diluted with water to the level that feels comfortable. People have different levels of sensitivity in their skin. Or you can put it in a bath or a footbath.

If you have heart problems, asthma, cancer, depression or migraines, you really need to read the whole site at the above link. But our focus here is on bone strength so, as I've said before, the balance of calcium and magnesium is one of the deciding factors for the health of your bones.

Dr Sircus says, "It is magnesium that controls the fate of potassium and calcium in the body. If magnesium is insufficient, potassium and calcium will be lost in the urine and calcium will be deposited in the soft tissues (kidneys, arteries, joints, brain, etc.)... Calcium causes muscles to contract and magnesium helps them to relax."

The ratio of calcium to magnesium among Americans is estimated to be 6:1 and many researchers think it should be less than 2:1. Now calcium is being tossed willy-nilly into almost every processed food so our numbers are going to get even higher as the younger generation grows up. This is a bad portent for osteoporosis.

Dr Kathryn Ryder said, "Higher magnesium intake through diet and supplements was positively associated with total-body bone mineral density in older white men and women. For every 100 mg per day increase in magnesium, there was an approximate 2% increase in whole-body BMD.

Dr Barnett compared the bones of healthy people and osteoporotic bone and found the calcium content to be similar but the magnesium content much lower in the weaker bone, 1.26% to .62%. That was in the 50's and doctors haven't got the message yet. They are pushing gobs of calcium onto every woman over 40 as if it was the magic bullet for bones, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

Here is a good test - if you can bend over to pick something off the floor and squat to look for something you've dropped, without any creaking or effort, then you are probably not storing too much calcium in your body. If that is not the case for you then some more magnesium would be a good idea.
Or you could have a real test, of course. I'm taking an intense bunch of detox stuff and a stack of supplements right now and then I intend to have a red blood cell analysis done at the end of the month to see what nutrients and toxins I have within my cells. Then I will be clearer on what I need to take after that.

If you have been reading the blog regularly, then you know I have added a lot of new hormone supplements plus the extra D3 lately as well. That makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly which effect is attributable to each thing. But, I can say without a doubt, that spraying the magnesium for a couple of weeks has improved my patience level amazingly. Impatience is my main shortcoming, I think. Others may have different  suggestions, probably a long list of them. :-)  I admit to having felt impatience with my mother often in the past. Now I can walk along at a snail's pace in harmony, I can listen to the same remark I've heard a hundred times before and respond kindly. This week on our shopping outing I felt blessed instead of harassed. That's worth the slightly high price of the transdermal magnesium for sure.

May you be flexible and peaceful - That would be nice for the world in general, wouldn't it? Spray your partner with some magnesium as well.

Pam

New Look at Vitamin D3

You probably all know that calcium will not make bone in your body without the help of Vitamin D3. In my videos there is a clip of me glugging down Cod Liver Oil from a tablespoon. I was under the impression that I was exceeding my need for Vitamin D3 by a pretty large amount, since the RDA, which we all know is ridiculous, is only 400 IU. A tablespoon of Cod Liver Oil gives 1200 IU plus I have 800 IU in my multi-vitamin.

Imagine my surprise when a test showed my Vitamin D3 level to be 27 while the preferred range is 70 - 100. If I upped my intake of the oil then the amount of Vitamin A, which is also in the oil, might be excessive. There is almost no danger in excess Vitamin D supplementation but that is not the case with Vitamin A.

So I started researching and found an amazing new book, The Vitamin D Cure. It is really a necessary read if you want to get to the bottom of the bone-building mystery. Dr Dowd says the same as I have always said, that we take too much calcium and it's dangerous.

Since more than half the American population of any age is Vitamin D deficient this is not a minor problem. Age, brown skin, and obesity add to the likelihood of you lacking in this vitamin.

Our bodies make Vitamin D from the sun mostly, there are few foods that have it. So how much sun do you get on a daily basis, without sunscreen? Not much, I'll bet. I'm in California but a beautiful sunny day might go by entirely without my presence while my nose is buried in my computer. We don't store Vitamin D either so it's not something you can get on your vacation to last the year.

The other thing Dr Dowd goes into in depth in his book is the acidification of our diets, our lack of fresh vegetables and fruits and overconsumption of refined grains and dairy products. He is singing my song - green vegetables every day, as much raw as possible and regular exercise. I really recommend the book. If you take enough Vitamin D3 to get your numbers within the preferred range, you can expect your health to improve in amazing ways including pain erasure and more flexibility.

I am now taking a total of 5000 IU of Vitamin D. That's 3 1000 IU capsules added to the Cod Liver Oil and multi. I will have another test in 3 months and see if I have reached my goal. The number is based on my weight according to a table in the book.

Another interesting thing is that you can cut your extra calcium supplements out when you have your Vitamin D within range. He has a very interesting and somewhat complicated chapter on the interactions of calcium and D3 that explains a lot.  

Your children and grandchildren should be taking more Vitamin D also. The D they add to milk is probably D2, which is not as absorbable and not as easily recognized by the body. It will help them in every conceivable way and perhaps they will not grow up to have bone issues as we do. Dr Dowd makes the case that our bone patterns were laid down during pregnancy and childhood by the availability of Vitamin D. I know that we children were given Cod Liver Oil and Malt from a spoon when we were young but my mother was never given any during pregnancy, the most important time.

So, get the book, it will be something you can recommend to your whole family. Then get some supplements, 1000 IU Vitamin D3. I got Now Foods, 180 capsules for less than $5-. Can you imagine something that will be life-changing that is so cheap! Then get rid of the acidifying stuff in your diet and exercise regularly in moderation. That's a formula to send your biological age going backwards.

Pam

The Alternate Realities of Diet

We all tend to hang out with people from our own sub-cultures, whatever they are. We tend to see those groups of people as 'normal' and forget that not everyone thinks the way we do. The people I identify with, here on the California coast, are usually very alternative health-minded, they eat right and go to Farmer's Markets for their food. They are informed consumers of food. They think and do research before they make considered food choices. They really do believe that we are what we eat.

Going into a regular supermarket for the few items that I buy there, I am always amazed at the garbage that people have in their carts. I think, "Doesn't she know that most of that stuff is poison?"

Well, obviously, she doesn't know. This is the alternate reality of food. She has never seen the pictures of puny rats that are born to mothers who were fed Monsanto's GMO soybeans. She has never read all the books on sugar and sugar substitutes and what they are doing to America's health. She doesn't connect the constant ill health of her children with allergies to everyday non-foods. She merrily believes everything the FDA and the government says. She usually believes that if something was bad for her family the government would stop it somehow.

I pass an older man on my walk on the bluffs every day. He has a cane and walks slowly and in his other hand he carries a soda can that he is drinking from. He looks totally acidic to me and pretty sick. He is obviously walking for his health, sun or shine. I am so tempted to give him a package of my pH sticks and a printout of my pH article to read. I am sometimes even tempted to grab his cola and say "This is killing you!"

But I've learned not to interfere in people's food habits unless they ask - or unless they are my grandchildren. :-)

Most of the processed foods that Americans eat all day long have addictive stuff in them - intentionally for the manufacturer's profit. People don't like it when you mess with their addictions. And, until they've done the research themselves, seen it with their own eyes, there is not much possibility of change.

It is such a huge step from the major food culture into the healthy eating subculture. When I tell women on the phone that they have to give up soft drinks entirely if they want healthy bones, it's like taking candy from a child. When I tell my own mother that the reason for her suddenly dripping nose at the age of 87 is that her body is tired of dealing with dairy every day - her allergies are now showing. She says things like, "It's my only pleasure." Nope, that's not true, or shouldn't be. If all our pleasures come from our taste buds then our lives are pretty messed up.

Yes, eating healthy food does tend to restrict your dining out experiences and your enjoyment of parties. That is difficult. But isn't your health and vitality and well-being worth it. Sadly, most people have to get pretty sick in order to change their way of eating. Osteoporosis is not such a bad disease really. If you have to have a wake-up call, then it seems to be the most subtle one. Anything that causes us to take that big step sideways into the subculture of healthy eating is a blessing.

Pam