TrueNorthHEALTH

Bastyr University & TrueNorth Health

“Fasting and Alternatives to Standard Therapeutics (FAST): Determining the Molecular and
Physiological Mechanisms Responsible for Adult Hypertension and Obesity”

Please Help Us Learn About

Fasting and Vegan Diet

Is medically supervised water-only fasting an effective treatment for High Blood Pressure?

Vegan, Low Salt and Low Fat Diets, are shown to be an effective lifestyle therapy to reduce blood pressure and promote weight loss. Another potentially effective therapy to reduce blood pressure and promote weight loss is Short-Term, Medically Supervised, Water Only Fasting.  Safe and effective alternatives for the treatment of high blood pressure and obesity are increasingly needed.  This study aims to find out whether short-term fasting, combined with dietary modification, is more effective at reducing blood pressure and increasing weight loss than dietary modification alone.

If you have High Blood Pressure and are Obese and between the ages of 21 and 65, you may be eligible to participate in a research study about fasting and diet.

Study participants will be asked to get a baseline screening and get periodic blood work in addition to your normal health care.  Participants with a normal physical exam and blood work who also have greater than 140/90 mmHg and are Obese at the initial screening will be eligible to participate in the study.

If a screening visit and blood work results show you are eligible, you will be able to undergo the vegan diet and the fasting treatment as a part of this research study. At the end of the 6-week study, you will also be asked to attend one more study visit after 6 months to obtain additional blood work and physical measures.

This past Sunday, Sanjay Gupta of CNN interviewed former President Bill Clinton about his switch to a vegan diet.
Read more about Mr. Clinton's transformation here.

Dr. Alan Goldhamer talks about the basics of health in this interview with the cool vegetarian.

Water-only Fasting: Treating Patients by Doing Nothing - Interview with Dr. Alan Goldhamer from Aron Choi on Vimeo.

Click here for the original article.

Escape the stress and health compromising influences of the holiday season

Come to the TrueNorth Health Center for 10 days
of spectacular health education and epicurean delights.

December 23rd to January 2nd

This holiday season, we are offering a special program focused on health food preparation, relaxation, fitness, and fun. There will be two brain-titillating and taste-bud-delighting classes each day during our first ever HEALTH FOOD INTENSIVE!  Each of our dozen cooking and food preparation classes will expound techniques and tricks for preparing health promoting food that tastes GREAT!

Food Classes will include:

• Breakfasts for Champions:  How to prepare oatmeal French toast, vegan waffles, oil free granola
• All About Fruit:  How to select, store, prepare, and eat fruit
• Desserts and Treats: Mango-banana pie, vegan pumpkin pie, banana ice-dream
• Beans:  How to purchase, store, cook, and make soups and stews out of
  
• Grains:  Try over 20 varieties of rice and find your favorites
• Lunches To-Go:  Fast and easy tricks for healthy mid-day meals
• Vegetables:  Select, store, prepare and eat vegetables.  Learn about the variety of plants you have never eaten
• Eating Out and Eating Over at Friends: How to go along and get along without compromising your health
• The Secrets to Sauces
• Salads and Dressings
• Juices and Green Smoothies
• Vitamins, Minerals, Protein, Essential Fatty Acids, Water, Digestion, Allergies and more

Fitness activities will include:

• Walking and hiking
• Access to our local fitness center
• Optional services include massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, laboratory testing, medical evaluation and more

Presenters include Chef Ramses Bravo, Chef AJ, Laurie Wood, and Cathy Fisher. There will be nutrition lectures by Michael Klaper, M.D., Alan Goldhamer, D.C and others.

Start the new year off by losing weight while enjoying great-tasting, health-promoting foods!

Costs

Rates start at $139 per night and include a private room, all meals, classes, taxes and fees, a private phone with free domestic calling, hi-speed internet access via WI-FI, and personal laundry service. Special rates for couples, families, or groups sharing our new 2 and 3 bedroom suites are available.

Call now to reserve your spot! 707-586-5555

Those interesting in combining fasting with their trip may wish to use the health intensive as preparation and schedule to stay longer to incorporate a fasting experience.  Our regular program will begin again on January 2nd.

Dr. Goldhamer will be presenting at the Sonoma County Raw Health Expo on "Escaping the Pleasure Trap." The presentation will address
the hidden force that undermines health and happiness. A major problem in conventional AND vegan diets are the inclusion of chemicals,
including oil, sugar and salt that can compromise health. He explains how to avoid the dangers of a vegan diet and how to escape the dietary pleasure trap.

When: Sunday, July 24th at 1pm.
Where: Sebastopol Community Center in Sebastopol, CA

More information available here.

Type 2 Diabetes Associated with Increased Intake of Animal Foods.

The effects of diet and lifestyle on health are notoriously difficult to ascertain. In order to begin to tease out patterns, researchers measure many variables in order to account for confounding variables (ie, factors that also correlate to the thing being studied).

To further make research more difficult, huge numbers of people must be tracked in order to get enough data to make meaningful analyses.  The Health Professionals Follow-Up Study has followed 51,529 middle-aged (age 40–75 y at baseline) male health professionals. That’s more people than live in my hometown! Using data from the Health Professionals study, the researchers from Harvard University found a strong, positive association between a low carbohydrate diet high in animal protein and fat and incidence of type 2 diabetes.¹

The study used data from 40,475 participants who were free of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at the time they entered the study. Every four years, the biannual questionnaire mailed to the participants included a section that assessed dietary habits. Based on the responses in the questionnaires over 20 years, the participant’s diets were scored on their carbohydrate, fat and protein content.  The study also measured differences in protein and fat sources - whether they were of vegetable or animal origin.

After accounting for variables such as smoking status, family history, and body mass index that might also be associated with incidence of type 2 diabetes, the scientists found an increased risk of type 2 diabetes with a low carbohydrate diet high in animal protein and fat. However, a low carbohydrate diet high in vegetable protein and fat was not associated with onset of type 2 diabetes.

¹Am J Clin Nutr 2011 93: 4 844-850

Fasting is like a reboot for your system, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. Dr. Walter Jacobson echoed this sentiment in what he recently wrote about his experience fasting:

Dr. Jacobson, board-certified psychiatrist, author, and speaker, was motivated to try fasting after reading Dr. Joel Fuhrman's Fasting and Eating for Health.

What's your experience fasting? We're collecting stories from people who have fasted at TrueNorth Health Center. Share yours by clicking here.

This week, I was planning to write about recent research that found a strong, positive correlation between a diet including animal proteins and type 2 diabetes.  The study "Low-carbohydrate diet scores and risk of type 2 diabetes in men" was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. As I was reading through the articles, though, I found a number of articles in the current volume of the journal that support (albeit indirectly) a whole-food, plant-based diet. Here''s a few of the articles I found:

• A high-fat diet impairs cardiac high-energy phosphate metabolism and cognitive function in healthy human subjects. The American journal of clinical nutrition Vol: 93 Issue: 4 ISSN: 0002-9165 Date: 04/2011 Pages: 844 - 850.
• This was a small study (n=16) of young males that compared a high fat diet (75 +/- 1% of calories) to a standard diet (23 +/- 1%). The researchers measured cardiac functions and cognitive functions. They found that the high fat diet decreased a major biomarker for cardiac function. They also found reduced cognitive abilities from the high fat diet. The real question to me is how did anyone manage to consume a diet with 75% of calories from fat...I can see why they had to use young males in the study.
• High-protein, reduced-carbohydrate weight-loss diets promote metabolite profiles likely to be detrimental to colonic health: The American journal of clinical nutrition Vol: 93 Issue: 5 ISSN: 0002-9165 Date: 05/2011 Pages: 1062 - 1072
• This study followed 17 obese men and put them on both a high protein, moderate carbohydrate diet and a high protein, low carbohydrate for 4 weeks at a time. The researchers concluded: "After 4 wk, weight-loss diets that were high in protein but reduced in total carbohydrates and fiber resulted in a significant decrease in fecal cancer-protective metabolites and increased concentrations of hazardous metabolites."
• Diet, vegetarianism, and cataract risk: The American journal of clinical nutrition Vol: 93 Issue: 5 ISSN: 0002-9165 Date: 05/2011 Pages: 1128 - 1135
• I found this study one of the more interesting because they had a large sample size (n=27,670). The results they published: "There was a strong relation between cataract risk and diet group, with a progressive decrease in risk of cataract in high meat eaters to low meat eaters, fish eaters (participants who ate fish but not meat), vegetarians, and vegans."

The last study in the list is just part of the growing body of large-scale evidence supporting the hypothesis that a whole-food, plant-based diet will lead to better health outcomes that a diet rich with animal foods and processed products. Hopefully I''ll get around to a more in-depth analysis of the type 2 diabetes study next week.

At TrueNorth Health Center we see many cases of type I and type II diabetes. Both types respond well to our diet and lifestyle recommendations, and type II diabetics often see reduction in symptoms by undergoing a medically-supervised water fast. While we recommend that everyone is medically supervised during a water fast, this is especially important for diabetics, as their blood sugar levels must be closely monitored.

If you have diabetes, as with any disease, it is important to understand what is happening in your body. The following videos give a brief introduction to the physiology of diabetes:

If you have diabetes and would like to find out if our services can help
you, give us at call 707-586-5555 for a free consultation.