Dismiss Your Triggers

The headache triggers I discussed last week (here) include: oxygen deprivation (often from shallow breathing), dehydration (insufficient water), poor diet (foods your body can’t handle), improper exercise and rest, uneven muscle development, poor posture, stress, poor self-image and attitude.

You may be tempted to discount the usefulness of knowing about these triggers in fighting headaches. In the past, for example, you may have been told to remove all headache-causing foods from your diet and thought it was irrelevant. Not so. These foods do have an effect. The secret to understanding these triggers is recognizing how they cause you problems in combination with each other.

True And False

Yes, it is true that all of the above are known headache triggers. It is also true that not all of them cause headaches for you. That should be good news. But what you need to work out for yourself is which of these triggers set off your headaches and in what combination. This takes a bit of effort and commitment on your part, but is well worth it in the end. Trust me. Here’s what I want you to do:

Consider each of the trigger categories, and choose one to work on for a week. If you start with oxygen deprivation, then make that your focus for each hour of each day for a week. Make sure your home and office are well-ventilated. Make a point of stopping what you are doing every hour to inhale deeply and take full breaths. Do your best to sleep in a way that does not disrupt the flow of air into your nose. See how you feel and make notes.

Then, next week, continue your oxygen program on auto-pilot. It should be in a self-sustaining groove so you can now focus for an entire week on hydration. This includes drinking two glasses of room temperature water each morning. You should also avoid diuretic beverages for the week (coffee, tea, soda, alcohol and beer). Drink enough water throughout the day so that your urine is clear in color every time you relieve yourself. Be sure to hydrate after exercise. Again, see how you feel, take notes and then move on to changing your diet and so on.

Know Your Number

After you have spent six weeks on these kinds of measures (one week for each trigger component), you should feel amazing. However, I know that many headache sufferers are in great pain and are on the verge of giving up hope. Even if you have not done the above mini-program, there is still hope – if you can count.

Not all known headache triggers cause headaches in every person who gets headaches. Coffee may cause an instant headache in one person while another can drink an entire pot with no pain. This leads many to dismiss the list of triggers and to think that their headaches are somehow special and unique. Again, they are not.

The secret to applying the trigger prevention method is to know your number. That is, every headache sufferer has a certain number of triggers his body can handle or process in a given day without problem. However, once that number is passed, you may be hit with a headache. For me, that crucial number is three.

On any given day, my body can safely handle three triggers. If I stay within that number, I will not get a headache. However, if I encounter four or more triggers, I am in pain almost immediately.

For example, if I decide to start my day with coffee and add sugar and milk (three of my triggers), I need to be extra mindful of the rest of my daily activities and choices. If I wake up with clogged sinuses (a trigger) and want coffee, then I drink it black. This allows me to remain headache-free, even if I incur one more trigger during the day. If the day is stressful, which I may not have control over, that’s my third trigger. If I allow a fourth, I am out for the count with head pain.

Your number, then, is a threshold not to be passed. Everyone has a different number, but most are fewer than five. If you are able to stay within your daily number, you can prevent your headaches and thus be “cured” of them. When you surpass your number and get a headache, at least you’ll know the cause and not be fooled into believing that you have no control over them or that they are unbeatable.

Beneficial Corrections

Take a shot at eliminating headache triggers and find your number. If you can spend six weeks correcting these triggers, then you will be in a better place for change. If you can’t do that kind of six-week program, then keep a diary of your choices, activities and foods each day, numbering them and associating those numbers with headache intensity. That enables you to learn how to prevent them.

Most headaches are preventable because we bring them on ourselves. Stop hurting yourself, be kinder to yourself and know your number. Here’s to your headache-free life!

As if the public health concern weren’t enough to get parents and educators to lend a hand in curbing teen drinking, the Mayo Clinic conducted a study to quantify how much hospitalization due to underage drinking costs the U.S. healthcare system.

In total, the issue adds up to an estimated $755 million each year. The study authors noted that about 36 percent of high school students have consumed at least one alcoholic beverage, and an estimated 7 percent engage in heavy drinking, which was defined as having more than five drinks consecutively.

“When teenagers drink, they tend to drink excessively, leading to many destructive consequences including motor vehicle accidents, injuries, homicides and suicides,” says researcher Terry Schneekloth, M.D., a Mayo Clinic addiction expert and psychiatrist.

The researchers said that common diagnoses among teens who were admitted to the hospital because of excessive alcohol consumption included alcohol abuse, addiction and emotional issues linked to substance use.

Recently, a study of 11,000 pregnant women found that those who own dogs are 50 percent more likely to get the recommended 30 minutes of brisk walking a day than those without canines. The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Liverpool, in partnership with Mars Petcare.

According to researchers, this suggests that owning a dog may encourage people to get more physical activity.

“We found that owning one or more dogs was associated with pregnant women taking part in brisk walking on a regular basis, helping them to achieve the recommended 150 minutes of activity a week. Findings suggest that ownership of a dog provides some motivation to go for a walk, even during pregnancy,” said researcher Carri Westgarth, Ph.D.

Since obese mothers sometimes have difficult births, it’s important to explore factors that may encourage pregnant women to remain physically active.

“Resistance to chemotherapy is a major problem for cancer patients, especially those with advanced or metastatic disease,” says Nira Ben-Jonathan, a professor of cancer and cell biology at UC who has studied BPA for more than 10 years. “Finding out what contributes to that resistance can give us an idea of what to target in order to make chemotherapy as effective as possible… It’s actually acting by protecting existing cancer cells from dying in response to anti-cancer drugs, making chemotherapy significantly less effective.”

In this study, researchers subjected human breast cancer cells to low levels of BPA consistent with levels found in the blood of human adults. The team found that BPA is acting in cancer cells similar to the way estrogen does — by inducing proteins that protect the cells from chemotherapy agents.

“These data,” study authors write, “provide considerable support to the accumulating evidence that BPA is hazardous to human health.”

Rapid Response

One of the most impressive characteristics of the human body is how fast it responds to changes in lifestyle. If you’ve been dragging down your wellness by eating meals filled with processed foods and leading a couch potato life in front of the television, shifting your habits to include healthier choices produces almost immediate reimbursement.

When scientists at UCLA enrolled a group of people in a healthy lifestyle program, they found that their brain function showed improvement within two weeks. The relatively simple program consisted of:

• Doing crossword puzzles and brain teasers to stimulate brain activity.
• Taking daily walks to boost physical fitness.
• Eating five small meals a day to prevent sharp drops in blood sugar.
• Eating a diet containing more omega-3 fats from fish and fish oil.
• Eating more fruits and vegetables with antioxidant nutrients.
• Avoiding high-glycemic foods like white bread, cakes, cookies and other processed foods that spike blood sugar.
• Consuming low-glycemic carbohydrates like whole grains, beans, lentils, sweet potatoes, nuts, spinach, peppers, zucchini, broccoli, cherries, grapefruit, apples, peaches and oranges.
• Controlling stress with daily relaxation exercises like meditation.

The researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to measure their subjects’ brain activity. They found that the program decreased brain metabolism in the part of the brain directly linked to working memory (a section called the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex). The scientists interpreted the result as showing that each brain they scanned was working at a higher level.^[i]

Cognition Ignition

“The finding suggests that for participants who had followed the healthy longevity program, the brain functioned more efficiently and didn’t need to use as much glucose to perform effectively,” says Dr. Gary Small, professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.

The study also showed that, compared to a control group of people who did not change their sedentary lifestyle or diet, the participants also performed better in verbal fluency, a cognitive function controlled by the same brain region.

“The research demonstrates that in just 14 days, simple lifestyle changes can not only help overall health, but also improve memory and brain function,” Small says. “Our next step is to assess the individual effects of each lifestyle strategy, which may help us develop an optimal combination.”

Heart Help

In a similar way, changing your lifestyle and losing a little weight can also make a big difference in how your heart operates. When researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis put overweight people on a regimen that caused them to merely lose a pound a month for a year, they found that their heart function beneficially reverted back to a younger state.^[ii]

As you and your heart age, heart tissue becomes more fibrotic and less flexible. Collagen fibers accumulate in the arteries and muscle, and they grow stiffer and less able to relax. But losing a little bit of weight seems to partially reverse this process, allowing more blood to be pulled into the heart with each heartbeat.

Extra Elasticity

“(When the heart fills with blood), the left ventricle is a suction pump,” explains researcher Sándor J. Kovács, Ph.D, M.D. “Think of the rubber bulb of an old-fashioned bicycle horn — you squeeze it (the analog of the ejection phase of the cardiac cycle), then let go (the analog of the filling or diastolic phase) and the rubber bulb springs back to its original shape, sucking air back in. Similarly, the heart’s muscle and connective tissue are elastic, and after ejecting blood to the body during contraction (systole), the left ventricle springs back to draw in new blood (diastole). It’s during this filling phase of the cardiac cycle that subtle changes in heart health can be most readily detected.

“Lose weight and right away you can have better cardiovascular health,” says Kovacs.

The message of these kinds of studies is clear: Not only can more exercise and a better diet improve your health, doing so makes you feel better pretty quickly. So put down that candy bar, take a walk and pick up an apple for your next snack. You’ll be impressed at how fast your body gets the message.

[i] Small GM, Silverman DH, et al. Effects of a 14-day healthy longevity lifestyle program on cognition. Am J Geratr Psychiatry, 2006 Jun;14(6):538-45.

[ii] Riordan MM, Weiss EP, Meyer TE, Ehsani AA, Racette SB, Villareal DT, Fontana L, Holloszy JO, Kovács SJ. The effects of caloric restriction- and exercise-induced weight loss on left ventricular diastolic function. American Journal of Physiology. Heart and Circulatory Physiology. 2007 Dec 27

Roughly 700,000 people experience a stroke in the United States every year. Of those, 87 percent have an ischemic stroke, which is caused by a blocked artery in the brain. Some brain damage occurs simply from blood not getting to brain cells. However, it is known that an increase in the presence of free radicals at the site of an ischemic stroke — once the clot is cleared and the blood supply returns — is also a major cause of resulting brain cell damage.

“…If further work confirms what we’ve seen, we could theoretically recommend a daily regimen of ginkgo to people at high risk of stroke as a preventive measure against brain damage,” says lead researcher Sylvain Doré, Ph.D. “Our results suggest that some element or elements in ginkgo actually protect brain cells during stroke.”

The scientists’ observations indicate that the antioxidants in ginkgo protect brain cells. “Ginkgo has long been touted for its positive effects on the brain and is even prescribed in Europe and Asia for memory loss,” says Doré. “Now we have a possible understanding for how ginkgo actually works to protect neurons from damage.”

Carbohydrate Simplicities And Complexities

Carbohydrates are typically classified as either complex carbohydrates or simple carbohydrates (sugar molecules). As a general rule, simple carbohydrates are absorbed quickly into the body and quickly increase your blood sugar level.

The glycemic index is a measurement of the relative rate at which the sugar of any food enters the human blood stream, thereby raising the amount in the blood. The slower sugar is absorbed into the blood stream, the better for your long-term health. For example, on the 0 to 100 glycemic index scale, table sugar (sucrose) rates closest to 100 (very quick absorption). Most often, high glycemic index foods are 70 or more; medium foods are classified from 55 to 69; and low glycemic index foods fall below 55 on the index. These rankings are important: Scientific literature demonstrates that low glycemic index diets can reduce coronary heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

The Ins And Outs Of Insulin

You should be aware of how the hormone insulin affects your physiology. This potent hormone helps the body use blood sugar for energy or store it as glycogen for later use. When a meal or snack causes a rapid rise in blood sugar, the pancreas is quick to secrete insulin. If insulin is secreted too quickly into the bloodstream, it causes sugar to be too rapidly conveyed into the cells of your liver, muscle, brain and other organs. Consequently, when blood sugar drops precipitously as sugar leaves the blood, this abnormal cycle triggers hunger again, which can lead to a cycle of overeating.

Sugar is the molecule that cells use to provide energy for the body. However, dumping sugar into the bloodstream intravenously to provide fuel for the body can cause serious problems.

An excess intake of high-glycemic carbohydrate food spikes your blood sugar. Depending on your metabolic characteristics, this process can send blood sugar abnormally high and demand abnormal amounts of insulin secretion. That can lead to insulin resistance, a condition in which insulin loses its ability to maneuver sugar out of the blood and into cells for energy or into glycogen for storage.

Because whole foods include a comprehensive collection of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, dietary fiber, antioxidants, healthy oils and other micronutrients that enable the body to derive energy from sugar, whole foods are the preferred method for obtaining nutritious energy, much more advantageous than merely consuming straight sugar.

Sugar’s Guises

Sugars are present in foods in many different forms. To make wise food choices, you need to recognize their names and know a bit about their effects on health.

The least healthy sugars are refined and nutrient-poor. A primary member of this sugar type is sucrose, the white and refined table sugar you probably know best. Also included in the refined sugars are powdered sugar, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose (made from cornstarch), invert sugar (consisting of the sugar molecules glucose and fructose) and brown sugar.

A wide range of scientific research confirms the fact that simple (refined) sugar in excess leads to numerous health problems. There are more than 100 adverse effects from sugar documented in the scientific literature. These include: immune system suppression,^[1] impaired mineral absorption,^[2] advanced skin aging, decreased skin elasticity,^[3] accelerated cancer growth^[4] and weakened eyesight.^[5] That’s why I believe so strongly that it’s time to find better alternatives to refined sugar. We need a healthier alternative for sweetening ice cream, shakes, pancake syrups, fruit juices, cakes, pies and cookies. This may be difficult to accomplish when it comes to sweet treats like donuts, candies, sodas and all the other refined, high glycemic flour foods that are so highly popular.

Sweet Contrast

Contrast the refined sugars with the relatively healthier sugars that are closer to their original whole food form.

These include raw honey and grade B maple syrup as well as blackstrap and un-sulfured molasses (made from the juice of sun-ripened sugar cane). These sweeteners contain vitamins and minerals and even antioxidants. Other alternatives include evaporated sugar cane juice that has been re-crystallized, xylitol from wood sugar or birch sugar and some forms of agave nectar from the agave plant. Agave nectar often has a much lower glycemic index than table sugar (depending on the manufacturer). You can also obtain fruit concentrates from apples, dates or kiwis. However, these have largely been depleted of their vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants.

Another helpful sweetener that rates an advantageous 0 on the glycemic index (with no sugar molecules) is the sweet herb stevia, which is not an artificial chemical like aspartame. But all of these sweeteners must be balanced with nutrient-rich foods to sustain long-term health.

Next week, I will discuss complex carbohydrates and inflammatory foods.

To your best health,
Michael Cutler, M.D.
Easy Health Options

“Animals’ interaction with the environment has a profound influence on the growth of cancer — more than we knew was possible,” says researcher Matthew During.

During says that the more complex social dimension in the new living arrangements was apparently the key to the decrease in tumor size. The same improvements weren’t seen in animals who only exercised more, so physical activity in and of itself wasn’t the answer.

The animals showed lower levels of a hormone produced by fat called leptin, indicative of a significant shift in metabolism. Their immune systems also appeared to be “ramped up a bit,” During says.

During and his colleague ultimately traced the effect to a growth factor expressed in the hypothalamus called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Further study showed that manipulations designed to increase BDNF levels also reduced tumor burden. In animals lacking BDNF, the benefits of an enriched environment evaporated.

The researchers point out that the findings lend favor to the view that low levels of stress, or certain kinds of stress, can be beneficial. “A lot of people think stress is bad, but our data show the animals aren’t just happy. Antidepressants won’t give you the same effect,” notes During.

In fact, the animals show higher levels of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids. “The goal isn’t to minimize stress, but to live a richer life, socially and physically,” During says. “You want to be challenged.”

The study was published in the July 9, 2010 issue of the journal Cell.

Of the 17 infant milk formulas tested at Dartmouth, only two listed organic brown rice syrup as the primary ingredient. These two formulas, one dairy-based and one soy-based, were extremely high in arsenic, more than 20 times greater than other formulas. The amount of inorganic arsenic, the most toxic form, averaged 8.6 ppb for the dairy-based formula and 21.4 ppb for the soy formula.

This could be dangerous. These concentrations are comparable to, or greater than, the current U.S. drinking water limit of 10 ppb, and that limit does not account for the low body weight of infants and the corresponding increase in arsenic consumption per pound of body weight.

The Dartmouth researchers also tested 29 cereal bars and three flavors of an energy product obtained from a supermarket. Twenty-two of the bars listed at least one of four rice products — organic brown rice syrup, rice flour, rice grain and rice flakes — in the first five ingredients. The cereal bars ranged from 8 to 128 ppb in total arsenic. Those that had no rice ingredients were lowest in arsenic and ranged from 8 to 27 ppb, while those that did contain a rice ingredient ranged from 23 to 128 ppb total arsenic.

The Dartmouth scientists conclude that: “There is an urgent need for regulatory limits on arsenic in food.”

“Patients don’t get better faster or have fewer symptoms when they get antibiotics,” says Jay F. Piccirillo, M.D., the study’s senior author. “Our results show that antibiotics aren’t necessary for a basic sinus infection — most people get better on their own.”

“We feel antibiotics are overused in the primary-care setting,” says Jane M. Garbutt, M.D., another researcher. “There is a movement afoot, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to try to improve the judicious use of antibiotics. We hope this study provides scientific evidence that doctors can use with patients to explain that an antibiotic is not likely to help an acute sinus infection.”

The study was published in the February 15th edition of the Journal of the Medical American Medical Association .