Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 25

My Interview With Johnny Jet

Since this week is all about travel, I figured it might be interesting to think outside the health box and talk to Johnny Jet,  a top travel expert and the Editor-in-Chief of JohnnyJet.com, a leading travel  website that’s chock full of great info. Johnny visits about 20 countries a year, and is on the road most of the time…. plus he’s pretty health conscious, so i figured his tips would come in handy. Listen for his answer to my question, “What is the hardest country in the world to eat healthy in?” Check out the audio interview here.

 

You can find Johnny Jet at:

Website: http://www.johnnyjet.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnnyJet

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnny.jet

Instagram: http://instagram.com/johnnyjet/

Pinterest; http://www.pinterest.com/johnny_jet/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Johnnyjet/

Melatonin: So Much More Than A Sleep Aid

Here’s a riddle for you: Why do blind women get breast cancer at about half the rate that sighted women do?

We think it has to do with two things: light, and a hormone called melatonin.

Most people who have heard of melatonin know it as a supplement that can help with sleep (which it definitely can). And it’s great for jet lag. But the melatonin story is a lot more interesting– and complicated– than its ability to serve as a natural cure for insomnia.

Melatonin may have a role in protecting you against cancer. It also supports the immune system and is one of the most powerful antioxidants we know of. It protects cell membranes even more than vitamin E does, and is more effective than glutathione (an important antioxidant in the body) at neutralizing a deadly free radical that causes oxidative damage, hydroxyl radicals.

So although melatonin is not by itself a miracle anti-aging supplement, it helps protect against a number of age-robbers.

Take sleep, for example.

During sleep, a great deal of cellular damage that occurs during the day is repaired and that repair process is initiated by secretions of melatonin. And because disturbed sleep so often accompanies aging, anything that can help us sleep better (with ancillary benefits to boot and no side effects) might be something to take note of. Melatonin definitely fits the bill.

Poor sleep quality reduces the secretion of growth hormone, an important hormone that helps us keep muscle and lose fat. It may also raise levels of stress hormones such as cortisol.Lack of rest or disruption of normal sleep patterns can increase hunger, leading to obesity-related illnesses and accelerated aging. Because melatonin is so helpful in getting a good night’s sleep, the use of melatonin as a supplement may have far-reaching consequences for many of the conditions that interfere with healthy aging.

And if all this weren’t enough, melatonin may also be good for the heart. Researchers tested melatonin supplements on women aged forty-seven to sixty-three and found that supplementation improved the “day-night” rhythm of blood pressure, significantly decreasing nighttime blood pressure.

“Melatonin, in addition to being an incredibly powerful antioxidant, may well turn out to be cardio-protective”, says Beth Traylor, MD, of Cenegenics Medical Institute.

Melatonin is a hugely important hormone with many overlapping benefits. virtually everyone over the age of forty doesn’t make enough, and taking a little extra doesn’t seem to have any negative side effects.

Melatonin has been used successfully as a supplement for sleep in doses from as low as 0.1 mg to as much as 10mg.

Jonny’s Travel Tips

This is the time of year when i get what seems like a million requests for travel tips. As we all know, traveling can be a disaster for those of us trying to stick to an eating (and/or exercise) program. In this video, i take a somewhat unconventional look at how to handle the challenges of holiday travel!

Gluten Sensitivity Without Celiac Disease: Is It A Fad?

The following is a guest blog from my friend, Dr. Tom O’Bryan, specialist in the complications of Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity and Celiac Disease.

 

THE MYTH: Gluten Sensitivity without Celiac Disease is a Fad

THE TRUTH: Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is not only real, but experts also tell us it is the most common (and nonrecognized) condition in the family of gluten-related disorders

Recently, there has been a great deal of Internet chatter that gluten sensitivity, without celiac disease, is a fad and does not exist. This viral gobbletygook ramped up after a blogger commented on a study published in 2013 entitled ‘No effects of gluten in patients with self-reported non-celiac gluten sensitivity after dietary reduction of fermentable, poorly absorbed, short-chain carbohydrates’.

First let’s address this study. The title itself would suggest that gluten has no effect on people who ‘report’ being gluten sensitive. So if you don’t read the study and just read the title, it is understandable how a simple mind could conceive that gluten has no effect on the body. But the reality is that the researchers were looking at people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

If there ever was an example of ‘cherry picking’ the data, this is a classic.

– the authors omitted 60% of the potential participants from the study because they carried a DQ2 or DQ8 gene, historically considered the celiac genes. However, roughly 35-40% of NCGS sufferers carry one or two of these genes with negative evidence of CD. Thus a significant number of subjects were omitted who may have demonstrated NCGS.

– another critical issue is the authors omitted anyone with increased inflammation markers in their intestines (Marsh 1). Previous studies have demonstrated that ‘a substantial number of patients (about 40%) with NCGS will demonstrate a Marsh 1 level of inflammation’. Thus another significant number of subjects were omitted who may have demonstrated NCGS.

– the patients included in this study were not complaining of NCGS, since they lacked the typical symptoms of this syndrome, represented by headache, joint/muscle pain, numbness, skin rash, dermatitis, depression, foggy mind and so on. The only extraintestinal manifestations were fatigue and sleep abnormalities, so it is difficult to regard these subjects as suffering from NCGS.

– 7% of the study subjects DID respond to eliminating the gluten proteins from their food, yet the authors chose to say ‘No Effect of Gluten….

– 37% of the patients in their study DID have an elevated immune reaction (antibodies) to the gliadin peptide of gluten. This clearly suggests a sensitivity to the protein with the immune system response. The authors not only ignored this finding, they constructed a new definition of NCGS compared to the definition they used in their earlier paper. In 2011, they wrote ‘NCGS has been defined as those without celiac disease but whose gastrointestinal symptoms improve on a gluten-free diet (GFD) and they included those patients with an immune reaction and elevated antibodies to gliadin.

In 2013 they acknowledged that they’ve changed their minds and are rewriting the definition of NCGS to one that does not include an immune reaction. “We have difficulty with the suggestion that patients with evidence of immune activation in the duodenum should be included in a study of non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). (Our) definition of NCGS encompasses the exclusion of both celiac disease and immune responses to wheat proteins”. How convenient.

Surprisingly, the authors have published a new study and reversed their definition once again. In ‘Non-celiac gluten sensitivity: literature review’ they discovered that GI symptoms may not respond as quickly as other symptoms (brain fog, depression, etc…) to gluten withdrawal, and they now recognize antibodies to gliadin as a biomarker of NCGS. “Short-term exposure to gluten specifically induced current feelings of depression. Gluten-specific induction of gastrointestinal symptoms was not identified. Such findings might explain why patients with noncoeliac gluten sensitivity feel better on a gluten-free diet despite the continuation of gastrointestinal symptoms”.

And they reinserted anti-gliadin antibodies as a biomarker of NCGS ‘Recent evidence shows that a positive test for immunoglobulin G (IgG) antigliadinn antibodies could be useful to identify NCGS patients’ and they demonstrate that. These are the same authors who last year said elevated antigliadin antibodies, an immune response should not be included in the scope of NCGS.

GLUTEN-RELATED DISORDERS IRREFUTABLY EXIST.

Two newly published papers put this question to rest.

In the first, Non-celiac gluten sensitivity: literature review.

‘It has been demonstrated that patients suffering from NCGS are a heterogeneous group, composed of several subgroups, each characterized by different pathogenesis, clinical history, and, probably, clinical course. NCGS diagnosis can be reached only by excluding celiac disease and wheat allergy. Recent evidence shows that a personal history of food allergy in infancy, coexistent atopy, positive for immunoglobulin G (IgG) antigliadin antibodies and flow cytometric basophil activation test, with wheat and duodenal and/or ileum-colon intraepithelial and lamina propria eosinophil counts, could be useful to identify NCGS patients’.

And then, along comes the GrandFather study. The Big Kahuna that asks and then answers the question about NCGS. Entitled ‘An Italian prospective multicenter survey on patients suspected of having non-celiac gluten sensitivity’, this study was performed in 38 Italian centers (all recognized as referral centers of the Italian Health Ministry for the diagnosis of gluten-related disorders). Of these 38 centers, 27 were centers of adult gastroenterology, 5 of internal medicine, 4 of pediatrics, and 2 of allergy. In total, 12,255 consecutively observed patients were clinically evaluated by the investigators, and underwent thorough diagnostic investigation, including blood tests and invasive procedures (when needed) in order to confirm or exclude NCGS and celiac disease.

During the 12 months of the prospective survey, the 38 participating centers (of which only 4 were pediatric centers) identified 486 patients with NCGS. The large majority of patients reported more than two associated gastrointestinal or extraintestinal symptoms. Of the gastrointestinal symptoms, the most frequent were bloating and abdominal pain, found in 87% and in 83%, respectively, of the patients with suspected NCGS. More than 50% of patients reported diarrhea, with the number of evacuations per day ranging from 3 to 10, while 27% had alternating bowel habits and 24% had constipation. After bloating and abdominal pain, epigastric pain was the most frequent symptom, being found in 52% of patients, followed with decreasing prevalence by nausea, aerophagia, gastroesophageal

reflux disease, and aphthous stomatitis. The most frequent extraintestinal manifestations were tiredness and lack of well being, reported by 64% and 68%, respectively, of the enrolled subjects. In addition, a high prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms including headache (54%), anxiety (39%), ‘foggy mind’ (38%), and arm/leg numbness (32%) were recorded. Other extraintestinal manifestations emerging from the analysis of the survey responses were joint/muscle pain resembling fibromyalgia (31%), weight loss (25%), anemia (due both to iron deficiency and low folic acid; 22%), depression (18%), dermatitis (18%) and skin rash (29%).

CONCLUSION

NCGS is a clinical entity with intestinal and extra-intestinal symptoms abounding. As much as we may wish we could ignore the findings, NCGS is real and can manifest in any tissue of the body.

Grain-Free Pumpkin Spiced Muffins

Michelle (my beloved other half)  and I eat gluten free at least 98% of the time. So for gluten week on the blog, I asked Michelle to come up with a few of her favorite gluten free recipes. Enjoy!

This time of year I crave pumpkin flavored treats. With this recipe, you can get your fix without the guilt. Let’s face it, many gluten free baked goodies don’t quite measure up. But these are the best gluten free AND grain free muffins I’ve ever had. Just be ready to make more, because these will go quick!

 

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

2 large eggs

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/3 cup honey

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp ginger

 

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, eggs, coconut oil, honey, and vanilla extract. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix until well blended. Pour into muffin pans and fill 2/3 full.  Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Grain Free Pumpkin Spiced Muffins

Michelle (my beloved other half)  and I eat gluten free at least 98% of the time. So for gluten week on the blog, I asked Michelle to come up with a few of her favorite gluten free recipes. Enjoy!

This time of year I crave pumpkin flavored treats. With this recipe, you can get your fix without the guilt. Let’s face it, many gluten free baked goodies don’t quite measure up. But these are the best gluten free AND grain free muffins I’ve ever had. Just be ready to make more, because these will go quick!

 

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups almond flour

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

2 large eggs

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/3 cup honey

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp ginger

 

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, eggs, coconut oil, honey, and vanilla extract. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix until well blended. Pour into muffin pans and fill 2/3 full.  Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

My Video Interview With Dr. Tom O’Bryan

Dr. Tom O’Bryan is my go-to guy for everything to do with gluten. There really isn’t anyone on the planet more knowledgeable than he on this subject, so if you really want to hear the truth about gluten, gluten-sensitivity, and what gluten does in the body, spend ten minutes and listen to this informative interview I did with Tom. You can also check out Dr. Tom’s world famous Gluten Summit here.

 

Wholesome, Healthy Hummus

Michelle (my beloved other half)  and I eat gluten free at least 98% of the time. So for gluten week on the blog, I asked Michelle to come up with a few of her favorite gluten free recipes. Enjoy!

 

Hummus is delicious. Traditionally something found throughout the Middle East, these days you can find it every market. This naturally gluten free food is traditionally served with pita bread, but I love it with fresh vegetables.  It also makes a great spread on a sandwich instead of other condiments. And although I’m ashamed to admit it, I have been known to eat spoonfuls of hummus all by itself.

But don’t just be dazzled by how good it tastes. Hummus is loaded with fiber, which helps to regulate blood sugar. It’s also packed with protein, high in magnesium, folate, and iron.

 

Ingredients

2 cups prepared garbanzo beans (either boiled or canned)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 medium clove garlic

3 tablespoons tahini paste (sesame seed paste)

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon salt

 

Instructions

Pour garbanzo beans into a food processor or blender.  Add lemon juice, olive oil,  and garlic cloves, and blend until its a smooth paste. Add your tahini paste, and blend again. If needed, add a little water if it’s too thick. When its well blended and smooth, add the cumin and salt and blend again. Scoop hummus into a bowl, pour a little olive oil on top and dust with paprika, and serve!

* Additional lemon, garlic, or other herbs can be added to taste.

Makes approximately 8 servings

Is This Food “Allergy” Making You Sick, Fat, Tired and Depressed?

The Gluten-Free Expo in Sandy, Utah is one of the country’s biggest events dedicated to wheat-free food. The first ten minutes it opened, four hundred people flooded into the convention center; there were 1200 people by the end of the first hour and 6000 by the end of the day.

What the heck is going on?

 

The back story

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye (and sometimes in oats). An extreme intolerance to gluten is called celiac disease. When people with celiac eat foods containing gluten, their immune system responds by damaging the villi— little fingerlike protrusions that line the small intestine and allow nutrients from food to be absorbed through the small intestine into the bloodstream.

This is bad news. Without healthy villi, a person becomes malnourished. And though symptoms of celiac disease vary from person to person, the list of conditions caused by celiac is pretty grim. It includes abdominal bloating and pain, chronic diarrhea, unexplained iron-deficiency anemia, fatigue, arthritis, joint pain, depression, and a whole lot of other nasty symptoms.

About 1 in 133 people have full blown celiac, but here’s the problem. Like many health issues—blood pressure and insulin sensitivity and carbohydrate intolerance—reactions to gluten exist on a continuum. Celiac disease may be the diagnosable “end point” but there are plenty of people who have major problems with gluten. Those problems don’t necessarily meet the diagnostic criteria for celiac but they are pretty darn serious and pretty darn difficult to live with nonetheless.

Dr. Shari Lieberman, in her superb book, The Gluten Connection, suggests that gluten sensitivity can be a factor in a bakers dozen of conditions from neurological disorders to skin diseases. Anyone who has ever seen the great neurologist David (Grain Brain) Perlmutter will never forget the video of a severely handicapped young man who couldn’t stand without shaking uncontrollably, followed by a video of the same young man, completely able to walk and talk normally, six months after Perlmutter put him on a gluten-free diet.

The symptoms of wheat or gluten intolerance aren’t just physical, by the way.

One component of gluten called gliadin breaks down to a substance called gluteomorphin, an opiod peptide that passes into the brain and disrupts brain function. Davis suggests that gluteomorphin may be the reason why wheat products can be addictive for many people.

 

Is gluten-free for you?

I did a video interview with Dr. Tom O’Bryan, who is my go-to guy for anything related to gluten, gluten-sensitivity, or gluten-intolerance. An expert in functional medicine—which studies how everything in the body works together— Dr. O’Bryan went around the world interviewing the top academic experts in gluten intolerance. He assembled his findings in a fascinating program called The Gluten Summit, which is probably one of the most popular and successful educational programs ever marketed on the internet. You can check it out here.

If you suffer with all kinds of weird symptoms whose cause you just can’t figure out, you might want to consider that the culprit might be gluten. Gluten-free foods are available everywhere, and certainly are worth a try, but remember that just because a food is “gluten free” does not mean it’s healthy.

As William Davis, MD, says, in his brilliant book, Wheat Belly, it’s better to be gluten free than to eat gluten free. There are thousands of natural, unprocessed, Paleo-centric foods that are already gluten-free—they come that way! Gluten-free processed foods have a lot of crap in them, and they’re filled with a lot of substitute ingredients that may be almost as bad for you as the ingredient they replace.

If you’re at all interested in the subject of gluten-sensitivity—either for yourself or for a family member or loved one—I urge you to check back on Wednesday to watch to my short video interview with Dr. O’Bryan. You can also read Dr. O’Bryan’s guest blog here later this week.

Dr. Jonny Bowden’s Healthy Holiday Recipe Contest

Thanksgiving, is almost upon us, so what better time to feature healthy holiday recipes?

Let’s face it: this is definitely the time of year when we’re all confronted with some serious challenges in the area of nutrition and diet. So why not get in the right frame of mind with some (hopefully) useful tips and information?

But we would love to hear your ideas on the subject, so we decided to make a game out of it!

Go here to submit your favorite healthy holiday recipe, whether it be a healthy snack like trail mix, a picnic style meal that travels well or a nutritious crowd pleasing meal – we want to hear your ideas!

We will select five winners who will receive an autographed copy of  The Great Cholesterol Myth and we will publish their recipes on our blog in order to share it with the Dr. Jonny Bowden community!

We will contact the winners once they are selected and will publish the recipes November 17th through November 21 at www.jonnybowden.com.

Don’t wait to submit your entry – the deadline for recipe submission to the Dr. Jonny Bowden Healthy Holiday Recipe Contest is Friday November 14th at 8:00 am PST. See below for official rules.

 

Official Rules for Healthy Recipe Contest Created by JonnyBowden.com

ENTRY:  No purchase necessary to enter or win. Contestants will enter by registering here and submitting their healthy holiday recipe.
ELIGIBILITY: This contest is open only to legal U.S. residents, over the age of 18, who have a mailing address in the continental United States. Employees of JonnyBowden.com (along with its contractors, affiliates and subsidiaries) and their families are not eligible. Void where prohibited by law.  Contestants residing in those areas where the contest is void may participate in the contest but may not win any prizes.
WINNER SELECTION:  Jonny Bowden will select five recipes at his discretion.  All decisions are final.
PRIZES:  Winners will receive an autographed copy of The Great Cholesterol Myth shipped to their address within the continental United States. The winner will also have their healthy holiday recipe published on the JonnyBowden.com Blog.
WINNER NOTIFICATION: Winners will be notified within 24 hours of contest end. Inability to contact a winner may result in disqualification and selection of an alternate winner.
NOT ENDORSED BY FACEBOOK: By participating in this contest, you acknowledge that this contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook and release Facebook from any and all liability arising from or related to this contest. The information you are providing for this contest is being provided to JonnyBowden.com and not to Facebook, and will be used to notify you if you have won, and to inform you about special offers from JonnyBowden.com.
CONDUCT: All contest participants agree to be bound by these Official Rules.  Jonny Bowden.com in its sole discretion, reserves the right to disqualify any person it finds to be tampering with the entry process, the operation of its web site or is otherwise in violation of these rules.
LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY: The JonnyBowden.com  is not responsible for late, lost or misdirected email or for any computer, online, telephone or technical malfunctions that may occur.  If for any reason, the contest is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention or technical failures of any sort, JonnyBowden.com may cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the contest.  Entrants further agree to release JonnyBowden.com from any liability resulting from, or related to participation in the contest.
WINNERS LIST: The names of the winners may be obtained by sending an email to projects@talentbranded.com