82, 72, 68, 57, 48, 38, 31
A patient told me the other day that she’d been to seven funerals in the past two weeks. When I got over the initial shock of that revelation, I asked her what the ages of the deceased were. Her answer: 82, 72, 68, 57, 48, 38, and 31.
82 years is a good run; good, but not great. 98 or 105 – that would be great. Physiologists agree that from a biological and physiological perspective, humans should live to 120 years old. Of course, the real issue when discussing longevity is quality of life, activity, and lucidness; many people “die” twenty years before they actually die – they spend the last years of their lives living in some physically and/or mentally debilitated manner.
The goal isn’t to live long, but to live long well.
I was encouraged this week when another patient told me he spent five hours wielding his chainsaw clearing trees on his property – he is 75. The fact that our culture thinks 70 is “old” is a sad commentary on how low we’ve let our standards for health and aging slip. Most 70 year olds, unless forced to, don’t willingly take the stairs if elevators or escalators are available – often because they can’t.
How old will you be when you die? The fact that people are dying in their 60s, 50s, 40s, and even 30s should be as disturbing as hearing about a ten year old’s death. It’s not normal – yes, it’s sadly become the norm, but it shouldn’t be considered “normal”.
The train is off the tracks. The Centers for Disease Control announced in 2009 that, for the first time in the history of man on earth, children born after the year 2000 are not expected to live as long as their parents; this is due to the tsunami of chronic lifestyle disease that is sweeping over our country and other industrialized nations in the form of obesity (the hallmark of being unhealthy), heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune disease from toxic and deficient lifestyles. Because we now live outside the boundaries of natural living, we now have unnatural deaths.
How we eat, how we move, and how we think determine our health outcomes – both as a culture and as individuals.
Being healthy is simple, it’s just not easy. You can do it!
After enduring a lengthy and at times brutal first winter and not-warm-yet spring here in New England, we awoke Easter morning to a 70 degree day! We decided to take advantage of the window of nice weather and packed a healthy delicious picnic and went out to Halibut Point in Rockport to start our day. Chanya and Hope were dancing and singing as they broke out their shorts and tee shirts; even our dog Cooper was spinning with joy (okay, maybe it’s because he knew he was going on an outing; he doesn’t care whether it’s raining, snowing … whatever – he just loves life and his walks).
Later, to fire up our appetites, Chanya and I had a great workout [Pre: 800m run with 30 squats and 30 lunges; Warm Up: 30 each of jumping chins and weighted overhead squats; Workout: 21-15-9 of burpees, weighted lunges, and knees-to-elbows], followed by this non-traditional but scrumptious Easter dinner, which has now made it into our regular rotation:
Roasted Rosemary Turkey Thighs
4 turkey thighs
2 potatoes, sliced thin
1 onion, chopped
4 tsp. sea salt
Fresh cracked pepper to taste
4 or 5 cloves of fresh garlic
3 Tbls. organic butter
Fresh or dried rosemary
1/4 cup white wine
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Season both sides of turkey thighs with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.
Braise (brown) turkey thighs in a heavy skillet (or French Oven) using butter. Flip over and brown on the other side.
Remove thighs from the skillet.
Add the sliced potatoes, garlic, onions and wine to the bottom of the hot French Oven or deep heavy skillet (or Dutch oven).
Sit the turkey thighs, SKIN SIDE UP, on top of the potatoes, onions and garlic.
Sprinkle rosemary over turkey thighs and a bit more sea salt and pepper
Cover and bake for 1-1/4 hours (75 minutes)
Uncover for the last 15 minutes to allow skin to crisp and brown
As a suggestion, serve with steamed brocolli or asparagus, and a fresh garden salad.
We use our Le Creuset enamled cast iron French Oven pot to make the entire dish (see photo).
Try it out and let me know what you think! You can do it!
The Dalai Lama was asked, what surprised him most about humanity?
He replied, “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money, then spends all his money to recuperate his health, then is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present. The result is he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
I invite all of you to breath in life this weekend; taste it like never before. There is no time like the present to be present. It really is all we have.
Recently, two of my heroes made the news. They both epitomize passion, dedication, and a body of work throughout their careers that commands respect and honor; their energy speaks for itself and clearly illustrates their commitment to health and longevity.
In an era where, when people reach age 70, they’re considered to have successfully made it to “old age”, there are the bright spots – these two mentors have redefined the ‘norm’ for aging and the adage live long and live well.
The first was Jack Lalanne, an American icon of health and longevity who recently passed away at age 96. A man who exemplified both health and fitness (they’re not always synonymous), Lalanne walked his talk – he ate for health, he exercised every day for health, he embodied health and by doing so, gave hope and encouragement to many, many people over five decades as the original ‘man of health’. His motto was “healthy people helping themselves”, and every fitness “guru” today can point to Jack Lalanne as the one who paved the way for them – he was the first at many things: he opened the first health club, and he had the first and longest running exercise show on TV (which ran from 1951 to 1984). No mention of Jack Lalanne would be complete without cataloging some of his incredible demonstrations of health, fitness and athleticism: he set the World Record by doing 1032 push up in 23 minutes (he was the first to do “finger tip” pushups), and at age 70 he towed 70 boats with 70 people a mile and a half while handcuffed and shackled. The “jumping jack” was named after him. The world is a better and healthier place because of you Jack – God bless you Jack and may you rest in peace.
The other icon of longevity is my favorite performer who continues to defy not only the ageing process, but what it means to be an “ageing rock and roll star” for baby boomers like myself. On Sunday night in Los Angeles, Mick Jagger gave his first ever performance at a Grammy Awards ceremony. After incredibly creative, technical and strong musical performances by upcoming contemporary stars such as Lady Gaga, Eminem, Justin Bieber, and Christina Aguilera, Jagger stole the show. Within seconds of opening his tribute song to the late bluesman Solomon Burke, and without technology or a troop of costumed and choreographed dancers behind him, Jagger’s charismatic and energetic performance filled the Staples center bringing the audience to their feet as though they’d been at a Stones’ concert for an hour. Later the comments on YouTube were sprinkled with questions as to Mick’s age – the quintessential front man for the Rolling Stones is 67. Makes you rethink what your health should/will be at that age. Check out the video of that performance – it’s classic Jagger: http://q1077.com/mick-jagger-rocks-out-at-grammy-awards/
Where did you learn to think that way? High fructose corn syrup is simply corn sugar.
Is it true or convenient? A little won’t hurt.
Has it withstood the test of time or has it simply been etched it into our culture’s consciousness through sophisticated marketing campaigns. Milk does a body good.
Be careful – we have learned as children growing up, things aren’t always what they seem.
This is a bumper sticker I saw while driving through Gloucester yesterday. It resonated with me not only in the way it was intended – that we get so bogged down in the politics of war that we forget about the lives lost, and the people irrevocably injured. And of course, the irony and futility behind the idea that after thousands of years of man’s progress and social evolution, we’re still killing each other as our method of expressing our political and religious opinions and furthering our economic agendas.
Then as I invariably do, my mind quickly shifted to its one track default mode about health and the unsustainable burden our culture is faced with in our current health crisis (notice I didn’t say health care crisis).
In my mind I then rewrote the bumper sticker to read:
Stop the Dying
Heal the Sick
End the Scam
Prevent the preventable: early, unnecessary, and painful dying Research has proven beyond a shadow of doubt that the vast, vast, vast, vast majority (did I get my point across?) of deaths today are due to chronic disease caused by lifestyle choices that are out of alignment with what God and nature intended for humans to live and experience – which of course leads directly to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. For example, in 2008, the overall prediction was for 10 million people to develop Alzheimer’s disease by 2010, up from 5.2 million, an increase of 92%in two years! The Medicare cost alone going from going from $91 billion in 2005 to $160 billion in 2010 to $189 billion in 20151. And that’s just Medicare (read ‘you and me’ through federal spending, i.e. taxation), not to mention the personal, relational and financial burden individual families will experience (my family experienced this first hand with my father being cared for in an Alzheimer’s facility for 5 years before succumbing, at $55K per year).
Heal the Sick There are literally tens of millions of people who are suffering and not healing simply from the lack of proper information and guidance. For example, current statistics for Type 2 diabetes in the U.S.2:
Diagnosed: 18.8 million people Undiagnosed: 7.0 million people Prediabetes: 79 million people
Type 2 diabetes (which used to called Adult Onset Diabetes; but diabetes is so prevalent now in children it had to be renamed) epitomizes the lifestyle disease profile: it is completely and irrefutably caused by lifestyle choices in the domains of eating and moving. And yet, the average diabetic is not being thoroughly taught/confronted/held accountable for their lifestyle choices by those in positions of influence – their doctors (and family members, bloggers, etc.). Instead, diabetes, like all the lifestyle diseases that plague people today who live in modernized society, is “treated” as a medical condition. For example today, even well intentioned people, professional and non-professional alike, are making the uninformed (i.e. not evidence-based) recommendation for eating pasta and pizza3,4 (pizza is an “insulin bomb” – both wheat and dairy cause rapid elevations in blood sugar, and together they are lethal (and with wheat, you get the added disease-promoting element of pro-inflammatory gluten – inflammation being a hallmark of all disease processes; the only thing worse is a donut).
End the Scam The other day I was consulting with a patient who mentioned that his family paid $1,300 per month for health insurance. I was dumbfounded – that’s over $15,000 per year – for what? The right to treat a lifestyle go awry? In ten years, that’s $150K (which is not accurate because those premiums will inevitably have to rise to fund the ever-increasing rates of … you got it, lifestyle diseases – a brilliant business model for the drug companies and medical community that benefits from our derailed “health care” system). This is a scam of monumental proportions – we as a society are devoting enormous resources to the downstream effects of improper living. If people choose to eat unnatural, processed, non-nutritious, unhealthy food, of course their bodies will manifest will ill health and early, painful death; if people choose to live a sedentary life and not exercise daily (you only have to work out on the days you eat), of course they’ll suffer the consequences of obesity (which is the locomotive that’s driving our culture’s chronic disease train, pulling the cars of heart attacks, stroke, cancer, diabetes, etc.). And then of course there is the never ending “eat everything in moderation” lie– whenever I hear that spoken as a mantra for health, I want to scream! (I devote 15 minutes, whenever I lecture on health and nutrition, debunking the ‘everything in moderation’ lie).
The fantastic aspect of this dialog is of course that it’s all preventable and unnecessary.
The solution is simple. Not easy, but simple. It requires wholesale change in the way we think and act. It requires not a transformation, not an evolution, but a revolution. No longer can or should we think or expect medical science to solve after-the-fact conditions that we’ve created through our unnatural living habits. We must act upon the truth that promoting health yields far more positive outcomes than treating sickness will EVER do. We must honor the laws of nature and how they interact with our physiology – just like we wouldn’t expect the family dog to stay healthy eating chips, fries and soda pop, we can’t expect to either.
Here’s the simple solution:
Eat an all organic (whenever possible) plant-driven diet style to provide essential and health promoting phytonutrients, antioxidants, ionic vitamins, minerals and trace elements.
2) You’re more likely to get the flu this winter FROM getting a flu shot than if you choose not to get one.
3) You can more easily and more effectively avoid the flu with health-promoting lifestyle choices.
Not only do flu shots NOT provide increased immune function/protection (“… inactivated influenza virus vaccines have not been correlated with protection from influenza virus infection.”)1, but they have been shown to INCREASE YOUR CHANCES of getting the flu.2
I know, those statements seem to fly in the face of conventional wisdom (similar to eating fat is healthy), but the truth is that our bodies are genetically programmed to resist ‘bugs’ such as cold and flu viruses and as history continues to demonstrate and the scientific research supports, when man tries to manipulate the body’s sophisticated, intelligent, refined-over-eons-of-time, immune response through chemical drug intervention, it rarely produces a successful outcome. And flu shots have been consistently shown to not work as they’re advertised3 – and boy are they advertised.
The latest and greatest flu shot is the Fluzone High-Dose Vaccine. It’s now in your medical doctor’s office and on the shelves of your local pharmacy. This “new and improved” toxic injection is being marketed to adults 65 and older (toxic meaning, like all vaccines, the flu shot is formulated with toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and octylphenol ethoxylate, which should never enter the human body, along with adjuvant ingredients such as gelatin and egg protein which, when introduced directly into the bloodstream versus the normal pathway of digestion, pose a serious risk of allergic to anaphylactic reactions4). By the way, neither regular Fluzone or Fluzone High-Dose have been evaluated for their ability to cause cancer.5
This new pharmaceutical creation has four times the concentration of a “regular” flu shot (hence the High-Dose name). So that’s four times the potential for depressed total immune function. However, there’s “… no data demonstrating clinically relevant prevention … using a higher dose”.6
DO THIS:
Here’s the best way to avoid getting the flu. The following strategies will bolster your body’s immune system and realistically decrease your chances of getting the flu (or a cold for that manner):
Take 3,000 – 5,000 units of Vitamin Devery day. Vitamin D deficiency, common in modern culture, especially in winter and more so in northern climes, is one of the most agreed upon “weak links” we can reconcile with supplementation (the others being omega-3 and probiotics).7-9
Exercise five to six days every week. Exercise simply makes you healthier, including your body’s ability to fight off everything from cold and flu infections to cancer.10, 11
Eat five servings of vegetables every day(broccoli, purple cabbage, carrots, red leaf lettuce, spinach, celery, squash … you get the idea). From cancer to colds, veggies are THE KEY – the phytonutrients and antioxidants contained in vegetables are the building blocks for a healthy immune system (along with of course, healthy fats and quality protein).12
Get at least seven hours of sleep every night(more if you’re feeling run down or if your ‘coming down’ with something).13-15
Having just relocated to New England I was thrilled to hear about all the local farms where you can get fresh, locally grown organic vegetables and fruit. I was encouraged when I also heard that these farms are popular destinations where families flock to each weekend – I thought ‘What could be better than more and more American families visiting farms for the fresh grown produce and meats as well as the educational experience the children would enjoy?’
Then I was HORRIFIED to learn that the long lines and massive crowds at the local farms in New England are NOT to buy kale, chard, lettuce and broccoli, grass-fed meats and other health-promoting fresh foods, but instead to buy donuts … yes, you read that right, donuts.
Apples are grown all over this area (which you can pick yourself), from which delicious cider is made and sold at these farms, but also, apple cider donuts. Yep, it’s the donuts that people flock to these farms to buy.
Now, if you know anything about healthy foods and unhealthy foods, you know that DONUTS ARE THE ULTIMATE DISEASE FOOD; they’re right up there with Soda Pop (including or especially Diet Soda) in terms of being a food that’s absolutely terrible for your body and guaranteed to move you away from health. Because they’re made with white flour, sugar and then deep fried, it would be difficult to think of a food you could create that shift your physiology more rapidly toward the development of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and obesity than donuts.
I understand that the farm owners are stuck between a rock and hard place (or maybe a rock and an unhealthy person/customer) – they want to provide what their customers are looking to buy, and remain competitive and profitable with all the other farms who are all selling donuts (some of these farms sell over 10,000 donuts in a single day). So, I fully get the market demands and economic realities these poor farmers face with their donut sales, but … nonetheless, it totally depressed me when I heard about this upside down “farming” situation.
I think we should have a NO DONUT weekend that all farms agree to participate in (kind of like “World No Tobacco Day”; yeah, right, can you see that happening?). Actually, what we need is for people patronizing these awesome farms to start asking (demanding?) other healthy products that could replace the revenue generated by donut sales. If not, the future is not looking good for America as we continue to move away from the known healthy lifestyle habits that this country was originally built upon.
Dr. Paul and His Dog Cooper Across America – Part I
Well, I just spent six days crossing this wonderful country called America as I logged 3200 miles driving from Carlsbad, CA to Hampton, NH. The trip was at times picturesque and majestic as well as arduous and depressing. I drove alone, accompanied by my dog Cooper.
Crossing the deserts of California and Arizona on the first day were the least inspiring in addition to being an incredibly hot 115° F, which made for tough work outs at rest areas where I attempted to work out in an effort to fight off the effects of prolonged sitting, and to give Cooper some time to stretch his legs as well (and chase lizards and squirrels). The good news is that I discovered you can jerry rig a functional training workout just about anywhere – I was able to easily get a brief short interval high intensity workout in at the rest stops – see video below for a sample.
One thing that really helped, which isn’t shown on the video, was the 7’ piece of PVC pipe I brought along for the trip and used for full range of motion to loosen up my shoulders and neck (and overhead squats) at each rest stop – driving for long distances wreaks havoc on my neck and shoulder area.
In addition to making a concerted effort to stop and move, pant and sweat, was of course the food planning and preparation I had done, along with my wife Chanya, prior to leaving. In the van I carried a large ice chest that contained my quasi-Paleo food supply of grilled chicken, grilled beef (grass-finished Brady beef from Idaho – that’s another story), tuna salad casserole made with brown rice pasta (I eat a gluten-free diet), two large Tupperware containers with salad, Kalamata olives, olive oil and lemon, Cashew Crunch, Ziploc baggies with cut up veggies (carrots, broccoli, cucumber and zucchini), fresh blueberries, apples, and bananas, rice crackers, tortilla chips, Kracky Cookies (made with raw nuts, dates, coconut and cacao nibs), fresh homemade granola, almond milk, and as I am not much of coffee drinker, dark chocolate covered espresso beans for caffeine delivery, and last, but not least … cold dark beer for the day’s end.
Between the fact that I was embarking on a major life change (relocating from Carlsbad to Hampton), and also leaving my family behind for an indeterminate period was stressful enough, but I was determined to not let the physical stresses of sitting/driving undermine the health I had created to this point.
The first leg proved to be successful. Stay tuned for Part II – Truckers and Cell Phones.
Feeding a family of five is no easy thing. Feeding a family of five healthy homemade meals is even harder (kids ages 16, 12, & 10). It takes extraordinary menu planning, list making, shopping, food prep, clean up … etc., etc.
By now I’m sure you’re aware that my wife Chanya and I are committed to a wellness lifestyle. So, in our efforts to live a healthy life and feed our children organic foods, we are selective as to where we buy our food for both quality and cost savings. We’re very fortunate that we have Jimbo’s, a fantastic whole foods store, only minutes from our house where we buy the majority of our food. We also shop at Trader Joe’s to round out our pantry supplies. Then, every two weeks we make a Costco run for large quantity purchases of walnuts, almonds, frozen fish, frozen berries, Australian rack of lamb (our favorite “home date” meal), and of course laundry soap and TP – the things Costco is known for supplying large families with.
We make a point to keep a stash of oatmeal in those individual packets around for quick breakfasts as well as snacks for the kids. (By the way, a pack of oatmeal, a small baggie of chopped nuts and a banana is the fall back breakfast when travelling – you can make the oatmeal with hot water from a hotel room coffee maker.) Anyway, there I was in Costco with my list in hand, buying the large box multi-flavor variety pack of Kirkland Organic Oatmeal. Organic oatmeal is, from what I understand, the only oatmeal that is not cross-contaminated with gluten from wheat. So there I am at home putting away the Costco load and I notice on the outside of the oatmeal box that one of the packet flavors listed is Chocolate Chip! Yes, THEY NOW MAKE OATMEAL WITH CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!!!!!!
I probably don’t need to tell you that the favorite “flavor” of oatmeal for my kids and – our house is like a youth hostel with non-stop sleepovers – all their friends is of course, Chocolate Chip.
Since when does oatmeal have to be laced with sugar and flavor, out of the box? What happened to Mom making oatmeal, adding sliced banana and controlling the amount of brown sugar that’s added? I guess that went out about the time Archie Bunker left TV (I know, I’m old).
I was so livid – I wanted to walk into Costco headquarters – never mind that they’re in Washington State – with a gun that shoots WTF paintball bullets. The problem is, the Costco execs would probably point the WTF gun right back at me for buying chocolate chip oatmeal for my kids.
