Johns Hopkins Update : From Doug Lane CFAI

Johns Hopkins Update AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (‘TRY’, BEING THE KEY WORD) TO ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY . Cancer Update from John s Hopkins : 1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size. 2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime. 3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors. 4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, but also to environmental, food and lifestyle factors. 5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet to eat more adequately and healthy, 4-5 times/day and by including supplements will strengthen the immune system. 6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc. 7.. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs. 8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction. 9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications. 10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites. 11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply. *CANCER CELLS FEED ON: a. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses, but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt. b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved. c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little other meat, like chicken. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer. d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including be an sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C). e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine Green tea is a better alternative e and has cancer fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it. 12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines becomes putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup. 13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells. 14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the bodies own killer cells to destroy cancer cells.. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells. 15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, un-forgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life. 16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells. 1. No plastic containers in micro. 2. No water bottles in freezer. 3. No plastic wrap in microwave.. John s Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals cause cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don’t freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Dr Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn’t bad but you don’t know what is in the paper. It’s just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper The dioxin problem is one of the reasons. Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead. This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in your life. Posted by Coach Lane at 6:51 PM 0 comments

How Much Fish Oil Should You Take?

How Much Fish Oil Should You Take?
Written by Calvin Sun from Crossfit Invictus>>>http://www.crossfitinvictus.com/blog/

Just about everyone is convinced that fish oil is the one supplement that you must add to your nutritional regime. Numerous studies have shown supplementing with fish oil has a variety of health benefits
including reducing inflammation, improving blood lipid profiles,
improving cognitive function, preventing cardiovascular disease,
increasing immune function, and reduced risk of cancers. But how much
fish oil should you take in order to reap the benefits?

Robb Wolf, along with many other nutrition gurus, recommends 0.5 grams of omega-3 in the form of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid (EPA and
DHA) per 10 pounds of body weight for healthy individuals. However, if
you are recovering from an injury, overweight, stressed, not sleeping
well, and/or eating a poor diet, you’ll probably want to increase that
dosage to 0.75 – 1.0 grams per 10 pounds of body weight. Keep in mind
that not all fish oil products are created equally. Higher quality fish
oil supplements tend to have a higher dose of EPA/DHA per serving than
their poorly manufactured counterparts.

Here is Robb’s method for calculating required fish oil per day simplified into three easy steps. You’ll need to reference the nutrition label on the back of your fish oil
supplement in order to determine your dose.

Step 1 – Calculate grams of fish oil required per day
[Body weight in pounds / 10] * [Fish Oil Factor] = Required dose of fish oil per day

Step 2 – Sean uses the Kirkland Signature Enteric Coated Fish Oil sold at Costco. It contains 410mg EPA and 274mg DHA per serving (1 softgel).
410mg EPA + 274mg DHA = 684mg EPA/DHA per soft gel

Step 3 – And we’ll just plug the values from steps 1 and 2 into our final equation here…
16.125 grams / [684mg / 1000] * [1]= 23.57. We’ll round up to the nearest whole number for a total of 24 soft gels per day for Sean

Now this may seem like large amount of pills, but keep in mind a few things, Sean is a big guy and the last couple months have left him
pretty banged up. I told him to switch to a liquid fish oil in order to
allow him to get the adequate amount of omega-3s without feeling like a
Colombian drug mule. Carlson makes a great fish oil that contains 800mg
EPA and 500mg DHA per teaspoonful. That means Sean would only need
about 12 teaspoons or 4 tablespoons of the Carlson liquid product
compared to 24 Costco soft gels. Ideally, he would split up the dosage
evenly over the course of the day and take the fish oil with meals.

Is
all of this too much math for you? Not a problem. The folks over at
Whole9 have simplified the entire process by creating a fish oil
calculator based on the same method. Click HERE to go to it. Simply plug in your body weight, fish oil factor, EPA, DHA, serving size, and you’ll get your required daily dose.

WHAT’S THE POINT?

WHAT’S THE POINT?
Chad Dougherty, CFAI Trainer

It’s hard. It’s heavy. It’s 5 am and the alarm is letting you know the suck fest is about to start all over.   The last six months have been a blur. It started with your best friend from college calling about his new fitness program and how you had to get on board. “Remember college, when we could both run a 23 minute 5k? He said, “This stuff will bring you back. Plus, it will make you look like a stud again”. So you sign up at your local “CrossFit” gym. It’s been a good six months. Your “Fran” time has gone from 13:49 with the bar and jumping pull-ups, to 8:30 as Rx’d.   Pretty cool. You can dead lift your bodyweight and look and feel great, but don’t realize it. You’ve started to wonder why you go. What’s the point? Your not 21 again, your still carrying around half of your old gut. You work this hard and you’re still not ripped? You feel like hitting the snooze button and going back to bed. Stop, and take inventory. You’ve forgotten about the heartburn, it’s gone. Winded at the top of the stairs? No. You’re picking the kids up and throwing them around like the “good old days”. Your blood pressure has dropped a bit, and you can play basketball with the kids until they want to stop. Health happens when you’re not looking. It sneaks up on you because you’ve already forgotten what it was like before. You felt dull, slow, and weak, with unexplained physical ailments. But now you’ve become a “CrossFitter”. You’re already better than college, because now you have a 21 minute 5k, and you can do 20 pull ups. You’ve discovered it’s about more than looks, it’s about longevity. It’s about the daily tasks that have become easy. It’s about your perception of life, it’s curiously better. You continue for all the things you want to have happen, but haven’t. You’ve tapped into the unforeseen, or better yet, you understand the possibilities. You are one of the fortunate few. Now it’s up to you. You’re strong. You’re fast. You’ve already changed your life, and the lives around you. You can continue at the current pace and get a little fitter, stronger, and faster each day. Or you can step it up and realize changes you only hoped for. A little more pain, a little more tolerance to that pain. You change your diet. You get enough rest. You fill the holes in your technique. This is your world. Go get it. Is 60% enough? Maybe. Is 80% better? Yes. Have you given enough? You tell me. Let’s light it up.

Editors Note:   Rx’d; or “as prescribed”, means ‘exactly’ as the WOD was written.    Just because you lift the prescribed weight…doesn’t mean you did the entire WOD legit.   If the WOD calls for Rope climbs…in order to post an Rx…you must climb the rope.

From Crossfitameliaisland crew

 

Dairy. Something to consider.

The Dairy Manifesto

Thursday, 8 July 2009


by Dallas ( Thanks to Crossfit Daytona )

We get a lot of questions about our nutritional recommendations, and Melissa has written extensively on diet and nutrition on her blog. The general, high-level concepts that we always start with are “eat more fresh, perishable food” and “cut out all that processed stuff“. When we start talking details, however, one of the first hard and fast recommendations we make is “cut all dairy.” That means milk, cheese, ice cream… even “natural” and “healthy” dairy like Greek yogurt and kefir. Here is a synopsis of why I tell my people (yes, you) to stop consuming dairy (yes, all of it).

  It’s not you. It’s us.

 Why We Don’t Do Dairy

A. Dairy provokes an inflammatory response in the gut, which can adversely effect how you digest and absorb not just dairy products, but all your food. Furthermore, this chronic inflammation can cause “microperforation” (tiny holes) of the intestinal lining, allowing dairy proteins and other foreign substances to cross into the bloodstream (where they do not belong). This causes an immune response as the body attacks these foreign proteins, and is linked to autoimmune conditions such as asthma, lupus, allergies, arthritis, psoriasis and acne.

 As an aside, celiacs (those with a gluten intolerance) tend to cross-react with dairy, which means consuming dairy can exacerbate their celiac disease. This is primarily because of the similarity in structure between gliadin, a protein constituent of gluten, and casein (milk protein). It has been shown that 1/3 to 1/2 of celiacs also have specific milk protein intolerances.

 It is important to note that the dairy-induced inflammatory response is a separate issue from lactose intolerance (which is simply the inability to properly break down the milk sugar). In general, dairy products are bad news for us, regardless of whether we can digest lactose or not. You may not even realize you have an issue with dairy until you give it up for a period, and then reintroduce it. Everyone responds differently, but most of the time the reintroduction of dairy after four or more weeks of being completely dairy-free is not a pleasant experience. Cheese (a concentrated milk protein) is one of the most common food intolerances.

 B. Dairy (particularly milk) spikes insulin levels. It is the combination of proteins and sugars (lactose) in dairy that is responsible for this response, and all varieties – skim milk, 1%, 2% and whole milk – are virtually identical in how they affect insulin. When you drink a glass of milk your blood glucose levels go up a little, but insulin increases three or four times what you would expect. That really doesn’t make sense, because you don’t need that much insulin to deal with the glucose in the system.

When too much insulin is present in the system, the body has trouble releasing the energy already stored in fat cells, and thus asks (in the form of hunger pangs) for more food to burn for instant energy. If this dietary pattern continues, fat stores grow while energy levels need continuous “topping-up” with more food. In summary, insulin spikes should be avoided, especially if you’re trying to manage your body composition or perform optimally. (And, of course, we want that.)

 C. Dairy (specifically, cheeses), like grains and processed foods, have an acidifying effect on the body. A net acid-producing diet promotes bone de-mineralization (i.e. osteopenia and osteoporosis), and also contributes to the following maladies and illnesses: kidney stones, age-related muscle wasting, hypertension, stroke and asthma. By replacing cheeses, cereal grains, and processed foods with plenty of green vegetables and fruits, the body comes back into acid/base balance (and a more positive calcium balance). Recent research out of Tufts University has shown that a more alkaline diet preserves muscle mass. We like muscle mass.

 

FROM THE RECIPE BOOK

X part passion:X part precision in the ideal combination for maximizing the effort to gain ratio. Too much anger is self-destructive while too much analysis inevitably brings paralysis. An elastic boundary somewhere in the middle that frequently expands and contracts provides the latitude for growth, maintenance, repair, experimentation, learning, destruction, happiness, and pain. Move too far in one direction and be forced to commit. The passion of the most devout religious zealot combined with the precision accuracy of a sniper is a rare quality and the most dangerous combination for making unparalleled progress towards self-actualization. All though we live in a one size fits all society and routinely employ the same prescription as an umbrella to treat a variety of issues we can’t afford to subscribe to swallowing the same pill as the masses. If we don’t incorporate our personal needs into the prescription then we might as well join the Jonestown crusade.

Nutrition

Broccoli Bacon and Cashew Salad

(from Alexia)

Ingredients:
1 broccoli stalk cut into florets
3 slices of bacon, fat removed, diced
½ cup toasted cashews
1 tbsp oil

1. Boil or steam broccoli until tender and cooked through
2. Cook bacon until crispy and drain on paper towels
3. Combine in large mixing bowl with oil and cashews

Bacon-Avocado-Lettuce Wraps

(from Alexia)

Ingredients:
2 slices of bacon per person
¼ of an avocado per person
1 large leaf of romaine or butter lettuce, sliced tomato

1. Cook bacon and drain on paper towels
2. Wash and dry lettuce leaves
3. Slice avocado thinly
4. Place bacon in lettuce leaf lengthwise and top with avocado and tomato slices
5. Wrap lettuce and secure with toothpicks

Curried Shrimp

(from Alexia)

Ingredients:
4 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion, chopped
½ cup tomatoes, pureed
2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander
½ tsp turmeric
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
1 pound large shrimp, peeled
3 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed

1. In a large saucepan, heat oil
2. Sauté garlic and onion over low heat until tender, about 10-15 min
3. Add tomatoes, ginger, cumin, coriander, and turmeric; simmer for 5 minutes
4. Place shrimp in simmering sauce and cook for 10 min until cooked through
5. Stir in cilantro
6. Remove from heat, add lime juice and serve.

Get Some Rest

Written by Calvin Sun

 It seems to me that sleep has become an inconvenience in our lives. We are all so busy with endless lists of obligations to work, school, friends, family, and so much more. We have become a society of overworked, caffeine-addicted zombies. As a result, most of us don’t sleep enough. And it’s not just an issue of quantity, quality is affected in that many of us are also stressed to the point where we aren’t able to achieve adequate amounts of deep sleep. Sleep is not simply a continuous state of unconsciousness, rather it is a physiological process that occurs in cycles of approximately 90 minutes. Each of these cycles can be broken down into five different stages. The first four stages are considered non-REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and the fifth stage is known as REM sleep. Stage 1 The first stage of sleep lasts about 5 to 10 minutes and varies between drowsiness and light sleep. Muscle activity slows down, although you may see some occasional muscle twitching. Most are easily awakened in this state and will not feel as if they have slept. Stage 2 The second stage is a period of light sleep where respiration and heart rate slows. Body temperature will also decrease slightly during this period. EEG readings will show larger brain waves and occasional bursts of activity. Stage 3 Stage 3 marks the beginning of deep sleep, it occurs approximately 30 to 45 minutes after the sleep cycle begins. The brain begins to produce slower, high-amplitude waves known as delta waves. Stage 4 Stage 4 is a very deep sleep. It is characterized by delta waves and is also known as slow-wave sleep. Physiologically, breathing is more rhythmic and muscle activity is limited. If you are awakened during deep sleep, you will probably feel groggy, confused, disoriented and may be unable to function normally for up to half an hour. Stage 5 – REM As its name suggests, rapid movement of the eyes distinguishes REM sleep from other stages of sleep. Brain activity during REM sleep is similar to that during waking hours. Intense, vivid dreaming occurs during REM and most of the dreams you can recall occur during this stage. Studies suggest that REM sleep is essential for processing and consolidating emotions, memories and stress. While every stage of sleep is important, stages 3 and 4 – or slow-wave sleep, seem to be of particular importance. Several studies have shown that when deprived of sleep, there is an increased amount of slow-wave sleep the following evening. Many neuroscientists have suggested that this indicates there is a physiological “need” for slow-wave sleep as it may be the most “restorative” form of sleep. Sleep is still not completely understood as there is an abundance of on-going research on the subject. We do, however, know that sleep is essential to your health as sleep deprivation can result in a variety of undesirable conditions.