What this naturopathic physician eats

I've been getting requests for information on what I eat.  My diet is similar to many people's diets that I know.

Tuesday morning breakfast: organic instant oatmeal with a handful of pecans, Activia vanilla yogurt

Tuesday lunch:  leftover pot roast with rutabaga, onion, turnip, carrot and parsnip.  A dash of horseradish sauce.

Tuesday dinner:  Corn tortillas, lettuce, organic ground beef with taco seasoning, salsa, cheese and sour cream

Tuesday dessert: Bite sized brownies with some real whipped cream, cup of mint tea

Supplement type food, not really a meal:   prune juice, lecithin and ground flax seeds, kefir

What do you think?  Do you eat similar things?  You will probably notice I did not have any fruit on Tuesday except for the prune juice and the strawberries in the kefir.  I don't eat much fruit, I'm more of a veggie person.

Does the Feeling of Love Affect Health?

Valentine’s Day.  So many of my friends hate this supposed romantic holiday.  They feel stress, guilt, disappointment and/or feel that it is a contrived, forced commercial holiday.  I too feel that it’s a commercial holiday and that love should be shown more than one day out of the year.  However, the power of love is not just a romantic cliche.  Romantic love is not the only type of love out there.  There is friendship, parental love, religious love, certain types of love that is sexual but not romantic, crushes and agape love.  I’m sure there are others.
Do you ever wonder if love affects your health?  A couple years ago I did some research because I was curious about it.  Women with breast cancer  who were in support groups survived twice as long as women without help.1  After a serious illness, people who own pets had a higher survival rate and fewer complications.2   Studies are showing that having a positive relationship protects against disease.  When you are happy and joyful, feeling loved, loving back, happy to be alive, that message gets transferred to your immune system.
Cortisol is a hormone that is involved in stress and the “fight or flight” feeling.  A study was done of newlywed couples’ cortisol levels along with positive and negative word count during a 30 minute period while the couples discussed their relationship history.  When the wives described their marriages using negative words, their cortisol levels were much higher than their husbands who were experiencing the same negative events.  After ten years, the women whose cortisol increased were more than twice as likely to be divorced.3
In naturopathic medical school we were taught that spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health are interwoven.  When we are filled with love, joy and peace, our brains produce endorphins and other chemicals which have a healing effect upon our bodies.
Why doesn’t the presence of love in our life cure us all of the time?  I think it’s the combination of genetics, environment and free will.  Sometimes we don’t make the lifestyle choices that are in our best interests.  Sometimes we are in environments that we can’t control and it results in disease.  Lastly, we all have to die of something at some point.
My general advice for feeling loved is to take care of yourself, love yourself.  Specifically you can increase your feeling of being loved by:
Eat regular planned meals in a relaxed environment.
Make good friends with whom you can communicate your emotional life.
Participate in activities that foster a feeling of happiness in yourself.
Don’t put yourself down when you make a mistake, just resolve to do better next time.
When you are feeling overwhelmed, seek help from loved ones, support groups, your spirtual leader, counselor or health professional.
I’m pretty sure there are good things about being a grumpy or sad person, but if you can manage to have a little love in your life, I think you’ll find that you do actually feel better whether it’s emotionally or physically.

1 Taken from Breastcancer.org.
2 18th Annual Conference on the International Society of Anthrozoology and the First Human Animal Interaction Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, in November 2009.  Read more at Suite101: Pet Therapy Dogs Help Patients Recover Faster: Healing Using Animal Assisted Therapy
3Presented at the American Psychological Association Annual Meeting  on August 4, 2000 by Janice Kiecolt-Glaser.

Spring Allergies

Every year at the end of January or beginning of February, I start getting an upswing in environmental allergy patients.  For us on the Oregon coast, this is when mold can take hold in your bathrooms and in your walls.  I even can smell it outside in some yards when I go for a walk.  If you are allergic to this mold, your eyes will itch, you may have a little bit of drainage down the back of your throat and perhaps a small headache. Sneezing, coughing and dark circles under the eyes are other symptoms.
It gets worse in March and April, when the scotch broom gets going.  If you are allergic to Scotch broom it may seem as if the symptoms are ten times worse than the allergy to molds.  For other folks it could be any one of a number of tree, weed and grass pollens that become airborne in the spring.
There is no one cure for these allergies.  Many people will use an over the counter medication such as antihistamines, decongestants, nasal sprays and eye drops.  
As a naturopathic physician, I’d like to offer some alternatives to these OTC medications:
*    Hepa air filter air purifiers really help quite a bit.  Keep it in the room you spend the most time in, usually your bedroom.  Make sure it’s rated for the size room you use it in. Clean the filter often.
*    Keep doors and windows closed and stay indoors during the morning when pollen counts are highest.
*    Wash your hair after being outside.
*    Change your pillowcase every few days.

I can just hear you asking, “Isn’t there something natural I can take for allergies?”  Yes, of course there is, but I think keeping the allergen away from you is a good first step.  Also, just because something is ‘natural’ doesn’t make it safe for everyone.
Natural things that have worked well for my patients:
*    Stinging nettles.  In tea or capsule form 3 to 4 times per day away from meals, it works best if you start it before the allergy season.
*    Bioflavonoids, especially Quercetin.  Research shows that it blocks histamines and is anti-inflammatory.
*    NAC or n-acetyl-l-cysteine.  About 600mg every 4 to 6 hours helps to dissolve mucus.
*    Neti pot or nasal  irrigation.  Use warm water, ¼ teaspoon of salt and a pinch of baking soda to wash through your sinuses once or twice per day.

If your ears are bothering you because of allergies, try using dry heat on your ears.  I take an old sock, put a cup of either flax seeds or uncooked white rice in it and heat it up in the microwave no more than 3 minutes.  Then I wrap it in a cloth and put it on my ear for about 5 minutes. It can be reused over and over again.

Do you have some favorite spring allergy remedies?  Let me know in the comments below!