Digestive Wellness: Strengthen the Immune System and Prevent Disease Through Healthy Digestion, Fourth Edition (146 page)

Insulin testing:
While fasting insulin testing can be useful, doing a one- and/or two-hour test after you’ve been given a glucose challenge gives a result that is more in line with what happens to your insulin levels after you eat a meal.

Vitamin and mineral testing:
There are often micronutrient deficiencies in people with metabolic syndrome.

Move more.
Probably the most potent regulator of energy, stress, mood, and weight is exercise. Find an exercise program that you enjoy and do it routinely.

Take a probiotic supplement.
Find a supplement that contains bifidobacteria and lactobacilli. (See
Chapter 6
.)

Heal inflammation and leaky gut.
See
Chapters 4
and
9
for ways to do this.

Reduce inflammation.
Clean up your diet. Get rid of all high-fructose corn syrup, sugars, and most processed foods. Add turmeric and spices to your foods to help reduce inflammation. Eat high omega 3 fish, such as wild salmon, sardines, and herring. Take 1,000 to 3,000 mg fish oil daily.

Eat bitter melon.
Bitter melon is available in Asian stores. Research repeatedly reports that it helps to stabilize blood sugar levels.

Reduce carbohydrates, increase protein.
Trade some grains, starches, and sugars for protein foods such as legumes, fish, chicken, and bison.

Take a blood sugar support supplement.
There are many products on the market that are designed to help reduce blood sugar and increase insulin sensitivity. Look for products that contain magnesium, B-complex vitamins, butter melon, holy basil, cinnamon, fenugreek, green tea, Gymnemna sylvestre, chromium, vanadium, and lipoic acid. There may also be some ginseng, prickly pear, banaba, manganese, biotin, zinc, vitamin C, bilberry, and additional antioxidants. Use as directed.

Osteoporosis is a disease where bones are porous and have a tendency to break easily. It affects about 20 percent of women over the age of 50. It also affects men but, due to their higher initial bone mass, less often. Osteoporosis contributes to more than 1.3 million fractures a year. Twenty percent of people who have a hip fracture die within a few weeks, and many others end up needing long-term care.

According to Susan Brown, Ph.D., author of
Better Bones, Better Body,
at least 20 nutrients are needed to build healthy bone. Most of the spotlight falls on calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D, but an Israeli study reported increases in bone mass from 250 to 750 mg of magnesium taken daily for two years. The group taking magnesium had increases of 1 to 8 percent in bone mass compared to the control group, who lost between 1 and 3 percent of bone mass. Other nutrients needed for proper bone formation include fluoride, silica, zinc, manganese, copper, boron, potassium, strontium, vitamin K, and virtually all other vitamins. Getting enough protein is also essential. You can read about these needs and more at Dr. Brown’s website,
http://www.betterbones.com/bonenutrition20keybonenutrients.aspx
.

It has been widely reported that people with celiac disease have a higher prevalence of osteoporosis. A recent study done in Manitoba reports on women with celiac disease who had had bone density testing done within six months before they were
diagnosed with celiac. A recent study done in Manitoba reported that of women who had bone density testing within six months prior to being diagnosed with celiac disease, 67.6 percent had osteoporosis compared with 44.8 percent of the controls.

In 2004, the National Institutes of Health stated that osteoporosis was associated with the nutritional deficiencies caused by untreated celiac disease. The NIH consensus statement and subsequent research state that there isn’t an increased rate of celiac disease in people with osteoporosis. However, Legroux-Gerot and colleagues report that 8 percent of 140 people with osteoporosis had elevated IgG antigliaden antibodies and 11 percent had elevated IgA antigliaden antibodies. This suggests gluten intolerance.

It has long been thought that the only mechanism linking osteoporosis and the digestive system was malnutrition due to celiac disease. Now another mechanism has been discovered that seems even more compelling.

Ninety-five percent of the serotonin in the body is produced in the gut in the enterochromaffin cells in the small intestine and duodenum. The other 5 percent is produced in the brain. It’s been known for a long time that serotonin modulates peristalsis. Newer research indicates that high levels of serotonin in the gut lower bone density by lowering formation of new bone (osteoblasts) and increasing destruction of old bone (osteoclasts). This is regulated by various genes: Wnt, Lrp5, and Tph1. The Wnt genes regulate how we develop bone, muscle, and nervous system tissues. Genetic research has discovered that there are variations in the Wnt gene that predispose us to having either really strong bones, medium bone density, or bones that are weak from early on in life (causing an early onset of osteoporosis called osteoporosis pseudoglioma).