Some friends of mine lived in Fort Collins and Boulder from 1990 to 2005. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and was very sickly and weak most of the time she lived in Colorado. Then he got a job as an executive at Dell Computer in Austin. Within four weeks of moving to Austin, her condition cleared up – and a year later she had triplets.
So what changed? The tap water in Austin tasted terrible, so they switched to purified water when they moved there. I tried to get them to quit drinking tap water while they lived here, but they didn’t listen to me.
My mother has suffered from several bouts of cancer and severe rheumatoid arthritis for most of the last 20 years. I’m extremely healthy, but unlike my mother I don’t eat any wheat or dairy. If I consume any dairy, my ankles swell up the next day. A week of eating pizza and I can hardly walk. My experience is that managing my health is primarily dependent on controlling what I consume. I have spent exactly $0.00 on doctors the last five years, and saved a lot of money on food by minimizing what I eat.
Like most people, I have a lot of food allergies – but stay healthy by sticking to a very restrictive, minimal diet.
A lot of people seem to get relief from Crohn’s disease by avoiding wheat consumption.
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2013/06/seeing-is-believing/
My wife and I gave up wheat and found immediate relief from chronic heartburn. My wife had to take a Prilosec every morning…after 3 days of no wheat she hasn’t had to take one in 2 years.
Yes but does it have more to do with vitamin D deficiency? Either way, fixing vitamin D deficiency and getting rid of wheat will do wonders for your health in the long run for people that seems to get fat quickly if eaten wrong food such as wheat flour based foods. I believe Dr. Davis does make sure that his patients take enough vitamin D usually 5,000 -10,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day. Wheat belly diet isn’t that much difference than Paleo Diet. That’s what I try to stick to these days but wheat stuff doesn’t really bother me as I cannot get fat for some reason but my wife… I have to watch because of her father who has type 2 diabetes. You can actually reverse type 2 diabetes if you follow paleo diet or wheat belly diet rigorously if the symptoms aren’t too advanced. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/01/paleolithic-diet-clinical-trials-part-v.html Dr. Staffan Lindeberg’s trials over Paleo diet showed very promising for people with diabetes.
PSA: The CDC is smoking something, and accuweather is buying.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/amoeba-climate-change-cdc/18191791
Steve, when I started taking 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 supplement a day 4 or 5 years ago, I noticed that my allergies to pollen have greatly gotten reduced in severity. I suspect the same thing with food allergies.
Refined carbs are like poison to me. They are addictive and create many health issues for me.
People differ greatly in what works for their bodies. The bottom line is the truth of the ancient saying, “Know thyself.” I am 65, and until two or three years ago, my body was in the habit of getting sick every 12 to 18 months. like clockwork, requiring me to get penicillin (or amoxicillin). But I don’t believe in cycles of health, and finally struck on eating a whole clove of garlic and licking up a little chili powder when I felt it coming on, and that works, for me, quicker and surer than any “expert consensus” medicine (echinacea and goldenseal, and Cold Snap, have also been good to me, but not as dramatically as garlic and chili powder–the secret being in taking care of the back of my throat). I drink at least 3 glasses of milk a day, and my body absolutely loves it, just as much as it loves good meat, and good protein of every stripe and kind. I don’t believe in allergies, for my body. I’ve used both purified commercial water and tap water, at different times and for years at a time, and I have found no difference (unless the tap water smells or tastes funny, then I don’t drink it).
With a large dehydrator, Costco beef is merely $3/lb bought in single slabs you can quickly binary cut in two recursively until you have thick strips. A bottle of Worshestershire and a whole pile of garlic (powder or fresh ground) and spice (chili, turmeric, etc.) will adhere just fine. Lacking a dehydrator, a sun lamp next to a wire rack got me through my 30s. Another trick to sneak lots of turmeric into your week is to mix a bunch into Gulden’s snack mustard, which is already the best cheap turmeric mustard to start with. For a filling high fiber beverage, not fresh but bitter frozen blueberries, doubled in volume with water prior to stick blending (or use a blender but suffer froth) easily accepts a crushed baby aspirin and small vitamin D pill. The stick blender also transforms steamed cauliflower from a boring veggie into a fresh fluffy high fiber very low carb alternative to mashed potatoes, and when further diluted with hot water and added bullion, also into gravy.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – A. C. Clarke
And sometimes Crohn’s just burns out and is no longer much of a problem for the person that has it.
I was diagnosed with Crohn’s in 1985. I have lived all of my 51 years in the same central Texas city. I only drink tap water.
Yet my Crohn’s is virtually trouble free now. Did the tap water change? I doubt it.
I did a lot of research on Crohn’s. Even looking in the medical library of health center. There are scores of studies that claim scores of different causes.
I went wheat free in August and dropped 30lbs in nothing flat. Need to do another 30 but I seem to have gotten rid of the easy weight and can’t exercise very well due to a hernia that the doctor doesn’t want to fix till I get closer to my ideal weight. Still losing about 1-2 lbs a week though so hopefully just the walking I am doing will get it done. I was doing an hour 5 times a week on an elliptical and eating 1800-2000 calories a day and steadily gaining weight and feeling like crap all the way, Never thought my morning bowl of Cheerios was killing me and I don’t eat a lot of pasta or bread so I didn’t make the wheat connection. Fiance got rid of her irritable bowel and her blood sugers are falling. I doubt she reverts as she has been type 2 for a while but at least she is getting better and has lost 25lbs as well. she could stand another 25 as well but it took time to get sick and it will take time to get well.
Its very frustrating because her nutritionist insists she eat plenty of whole grains to keep him in a job.
No Pizza and ice-cream! That is bad, so bad, but if works for you, fine.
I grew up in South Africa and is therefore half full of shit, All the water supplied by the Rand Water Water board, to the inland population of about 15 million souls, is mixed with recycled sewage water, on a 1 to 1 basis, meaning half your water intake is recycled sewage, Given that about 95% of you body mass is water, I must be half recycled water/shit. Until you guys in the USA stop pumping your sewage and storm water in the seas and rivers you have not right to talk about a water shortage.
And sorry, I never drink bottled water.
As mentioned by two others on thus thread, vitamin D is a wonder drug, and D deficiency is a national epidemic. I was having trouble sleeping through the night, and I refuse to take sleeping pills. While doing my own research about eight years ago, I ran across a little known vitamin D study that explained how shortages of melatonin could cause sleep issues, and that vitamin D helps produce melatonin. It worked immediately and I have never had trouble sleeping since.
Humans evolved as outdoor creatures, and we naturally produce melatonin when sunshine hits our skin. Now that we spend our days under fluorescent light, most of us do not manufacture sufficient melatonin. I have shared this with family, friends, and coworkers for years and have heard amazing stories of not only better sleep, but diabetics who no longer need insulin, and weight loss.
I take a number of supplements, and by far the cheapest and most effective is vitamin D3. It has worked miracles for me and many people I know.
Two good links below, Gary Taubes and Stephen Guyenet, debating causes of obesity.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html
http://garytaubes.com/2011/09/catching-up-on-lost-time-ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-carbohydrates-kettles-pots-other-odds-ends-part-i/
The money quote applies equally to climate change:
Gary Taube: “So when a shift does happen, it’s almost invariably the case that an outsider or a newcomer, at least, is going to be the one who pulls it off. This is one thing that makes this endeavor of figuring out who’s right or what’s right such a tricky one. Insiders are highly unlikely to shift a paradigm and history tells us they won’t do it. And if outsiders or newcomers take on the task, they not only suffer from the charge that they lack credentials and so credibility, but their work de facto implies that they know something that the insiders don’t – hence, the idiocy implication.”
Vitamin D deficiency is real. Didn’t hear anybody mention that vitamin D can be created by spending time in sunlight…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D
Systematically under-eating and sticking to one set of foods that work for you is also good practice I have found from decades of experimentation on myself in agreement with Steve. My good foods are legumes and vegetables with light meat consumption. No dairy. No bread/cake/sugary stuff. Light alcohol – like a drink or two a week. Pizza is death. Ice-cream is death. To me anyway. Your results may vary.
I am six feet tall, medium build male, just under 60, have weighed in my life as much as 220 lbs; currently weigh 170 lbs. Almost never get sick. Never take vitamins.
My philosophy is that it is up to the individual to take care of their own fitness and health to the greatest degree they can. It most certainly isn’t the government’s job; and when they try they screw up royal. Remember the government generated “food pyramids”? Farcical.
It’s so simple to stay healthy. When folks realize the medical industry ain’t got it together any more than climate scientis it’s gonna implode on itself.
http://www.coljoe.net
I’d observe that Ft Collins is at 5,000 ft, while Austin is at 600 ft.