Botanical Bliss: Wear Organic, Eat Organic

Today I sit with the question: If we are all so clear about eating organic, why are we not wearing organic clothing? Our conventional clothes contain toxic fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides/insecticides, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, teratogens (causes birth defects) and carcinogens. The question lingers from a blissful day yesterday spent at a "Native Dye" workshop with my friends and colleague, eco-artist Rebecca Burgess, at the California School of Herbal Studies (CSHS) in Forestville, CA (County of Sonoma). 

Rebecca was very kind to let me crash the workshop, which she has taught twice before at CSHS, and to speak to the students on the topic of "Toxic Endpoints of Conventional Clothing: Endocrine Disruption, Heavy Metal Exposure & Cancer." My unofficial title: "These Jeans Are Killing Me."

A friend texted me, after hearing the title of my talk, "Look at you going all NRDC on us."

Good point.

After driving at high speed the 72 miles from Oakland to Forestville and dragging my 5-year-old daughter behind me (she was off school for Sukkot) at 7am, I turned onto the long liminal driveway to CSHS.

"Donkeys!" shrieked Maya, my youngest kid, her impatience with the drive a distant memory.

"Yes, Donkeys!" I affirmed. "Or Burros?" I'm not so good at distinguishing the two. Too rounded to be horses. Not llamas. Woah, I'm noticing animals again. We entered sacred space. Hassles of leaving the house so early and traffic on the 101 receded as we both took in the landscape: luscious herbs and flowers, silence, farm animals, brilliants smells and sights of Indian summer in Sonoma.

We parked and walked into the red building ("The Barn") that you see above. I'm a conventionally-trained doctor and never take my kids with me to work. When I did in the past, I get people who look at my young kid, then me, then the kid, then quickly away with a withering sigh.

I walk into CSHS and a group of twenty-something women, all beaming warm and inviting energy at us with shining eyes, greet and welcome us. Estrogen and oxytocin (the hormone of love and bonding) boils over the pot in this place. My daughter grins ear-to-ear and settles right in, ready to make new friends.

I set up our Powerpoint and look for tea - my stainless steel commuter mug needs a refill. There's a big hot water urn in the corner that I spy, but... uh, where's the tea? There's a conspicuous lack of tea bag options next to the hot water. Oh, I get it. All these women were nursing Mason jars filled with steeping flowers and plant bits. Hello, they are Herbalism Students! These peeps are way beyond tea bags.

Rebecca and I finished setting up her steaming vats of natural dye: indigo (naturally fermented) black walnut, coffeeberry, California sage, Madrone, Eucalyptus. Powerpoint begins. Rebecca flashes her slide that is the segue to my brief presentation - how conventional dye causes all kinds of health problems (short list that I've augmented: lymphoma, bladder cancer, asthma, contact dermatitis, hypothyroidism, estrogen dominance), and naturally-dyed clothing actually has healing properties (again, Rebecca's work to which I've added my own thoughts), such as: 

• Pokeberry (see photo below) acts as a lymphatic cleanser
• Woad - contains 20 times as much glucobrassica as brocolli and I hypothesize may improve estrogen dominance similar to DIM (di-indole methane)
• Horsetail - decreases bone loss in women

Radical idea of clothes that heal, not hurt.

Here's Rebecca preparing a pokeberry dye vat for us:

Those pretty berries above got smooshed and made into this gorgeous dye vat - remember this cleanses your lymphatics to work with these berries and wear them.

And here is an organic cotton food/snack bag I dyed with the pokeberry. Take it to the farmer's market next time you're gathering apples or persimmons.

This feels like prayer. My kind of prayer.

Now why bother, you might ask. Great question. Part of my presentation was to take a common toxic clothing item - your beloved jeans and tell the back story of how they were made. In the US, women on average own 8 pair of jeans. I'm no exception and happen to love my Sevens for All Mankind, my Dolces and my Luckies. 

I know there are heavy metals used in getting that pretty denim color, and pesticides and fertilizer used in growing the cotton. Do conventional pesticides and fertilizer act as endocrine disruptors and slow my thyroid and stimulate my estrogen receptors in my boobs? Um, yes. I never really put it together as I did while preparing yesterday's presentation - and to state very directly: my beloved jeans are hurting my health. Here's a few soundbites:

• 2/3 pounds of toxic pesticides and fertilizer are used to make one pair of jeans
• water from conventional denim textile companies is full of heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, chrome, copper, zinc, antimony
• 7 million pounds of toxic chemicals are used annually for cotton in California alone

If this sounds outrageous, that's because it is. If you need a visual of what you're putting on your skin every time you dress in conventional jeans, try this one. This is from a CNN story published in April, 2010, on the "Blue Jean Capital of the World" -- Xintang, Guangzhou. This textile village produces 200+ million jeans per year. Check out the black nasty water coming out of this village and emptying into China's Pearl River (how sad and ironic that this black stuff is entering a river named for pearls?). I'm not a water pollution person, but as an integrative doctor, I can say that the black muck of heavy metals, carcinogens and endocrine disruptors on your jeans cannot be good for your body.

As the local Chief Medical Officer in Guarngzhou, Dr. Tony Lu, states, this black muck is full of chemicals that may be: "neurotoxic, carcinogenic, they disrupt the endocrine system. They cause cancer of different organs."

People, we have alternatives. We are on board with organic food, but let's take the next step and get mindful about what we put against our skin, and especially the skin of the most vulnerable among us, fetuses in utero, babies, children. 

Here are a few more pics of the brilliant Rebecca Burgess, spreading the good word. 

Let's find some foxy organic cotton jeans, colored with natural dyes. My Seven jeans now hold less appeal, Now, I'm eye-ing my Lululemon brightly-colored yogawear in a whole new way. 

If you're worried the alternative is not pretty, check out some of the samples from our workshop yesterday.

While it's true that I'm a relative beginner at changing out my wardrobe, Rebecca is much farther along of the path. She writes a gorgeous blog, and walks the talk - she now wears for the next year clothing that is sourced and dyed with local resources within a 150-mile radius. The experiment is called "fibershed" and I can't wait to check her heavy metals before and after. So much fun for this integrative gynecologist!

Transdermal Thyroid Treatment? Huh?

I love to write about the Wiley Protocol because it is so wildly controversial. Perhaps best known for mimicking the estrogen and progesterone levels of a 20-something, with peak estradiol on day 12, and peak progesterone on day 21 given in a rhythmic fashion, did you know that you can get the Wiley Protocol for your thyroid?

T. S. or Susie Wiley is the creatrix of the Wiley Protocol. She is a medical theorist with a background in molecular biology. That'll become more relevant in a moment. But know that she is not a medical doctor.

Susie has been an avant garde thought leader in the realm of hormones for years. Her main contribution? That of RHYTHM – meaning that specific patterns of hormone levels are needed for harmony between sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone), thyroid and adrenal hormones. There is a rhythm to our light/dark cycle, our food supply, families, plants, hypothalamus, pituitary, ovaries, thyroid and adrenals -- why not, as Wiley fan and oncologist Julie Taguchi, MD suggests -- mimic the buzzing and humming of our glands which send signals to grow, bloom, seed, hibernate or die? She has applied the concept of rhythm to the dose and timing of externally-applied transdermal hormones.

Say more.

Susie believes that we have to really understand each hormone in a woman’s body and how it acts both alone and as part of the symphony, rather than simply whether you are getting too much or too little Synthroid.

It makes sense theoretically: we know that there’s a see-saw relationship between thyroid hormone and estrogen levels, so when estrogen is up, thyroid is down. So in the Wiley Protocol, the idea is that you adjust your thyroid dosage with where you are in your menstrual cycle (in Wiley Land, that concept applies equally to pre- and post-menopausal women, with and without a uterus). In other words, static dosing of thyroid medication (same dose daily) deranges both estrogen and progesterone receptors.

Let me describe it another way: when you are cycle day 1-5, your estrogen is really low. On the standard Wiley Protocol Thyroid, that means you take 6 lines  (0.6mL as measured on their handy syringes) of T4 (21.8 mcg/line) + T3 (7.4mcg/line). The reason? T3 provokes an estrogen receptor, so you will improve estrogen turnover and make more estrogen receptors on target tissues. You then adjust down to a nadir of 1 line on peak estradiol day 12, and spike back up to 6 lines day s 14-16. And so on.

What positive things can I say about the Wiley Protocol Thryoid? I like the transdermal approach. As you know, absorption of your thyroid pills through your gut… well, it sucks. That’s why you are told to wait 20-60 minutes to eat or drink anything after you take your morning pills. So it makes sense that a transdermal approach is more convenient, and perhaps absorbed better.

I also like the adjustment with the menstrual cycle, especially for my patients who are exquisitely sensitive to the steady up/down of their estrogen (estradiol). Many of my patients find that they bloat like crazy at ovulation and just before/during their menses. Sometimes more thyroid hormone is the fix (but you must see your doc on this one – I do not recommend reckless experimentation in the service of bloat prevention).

Final positive are these: apoptosis and receptor turnover.

What the heck is apoptosis, you might ask.

Apoptosis is “Programmed Cell Death.” Now, before your eyes glaze over, let me point out why this is cool, important and relevant. Apoptosis is good – it’s designed to keep you young and vibrant. It’s a way of getting rid of the debris in your body without damaging you – it gets rid of receptors you no longer need, for instance. It confers advantages and is completely different from necrosis, which is cell death as a result of traumatic injury or cancer. In your body today, 50-70 billions will die as a result of apoptosis.

Receptor turnover is another important aspect of your glandular goodness. As an example, when women are given PremPro (estrogen from PREgnant MARe urINe and synthetic progesterone, proven to cause heart disease and breast cancer in women aged 50-79), the same dose every day makes your progesterone receptors stagnate. According to Susie and the data she cites, this results in inadequate cell apoptosis and a higher chance of disease such as breast cancer. In other words, chronic, same-dose-daily leads to down-regulation of progesterone receptors, and tissue badness downstream.

If you take the WP Thyroid Transdermal Restoration for Women, you check your thyroid function tests on day 13 or 14 because that is when your endogenous thyroid levels are at their maximum.

Negative feedback? There’s the absolute lack of randomized clinical trials, the gold standard for deciding if something is safe or even just a good idea. Recall all the trouble we got into with prescribing estrogen (1950-1999: take it! 1999-2002: never take it! Dangerous & risky! 2002-now: take it if you really need it, however you best define that! Confusing)? That was because we based our recommendations for estrogen on biased data (observational studies or worse quality), and randomized, controlled trials have the least bias.

Truth be told, I tried WPT for a few months. Actually, I try almost everything before considering it for my patients. I didn’t notice much difference in my bloating or hypothyroid symptoms (the usual: fatigue, easy weight gain – such as looking at a muffin, constipation).

Problem is this: we’ve got limited options as we augment or completely replace the function of our thyroid. I welcome new kids on the block. I find that selecting the right thyroid treatment is a lot like shoe shopping – it can often take nearly forever to find the right fit. So keep the faith and know there’s choices available. Check it out if you must, but buyer beware: no (unbiased) data, no data, no data.

Days of Awe: Your Optimal Health

It's officially the Jewish High Holidays. In fact, today is Day 5.  

For me, there is nothing quite as fruitful and nourishing as the deep scouring on the agenda during the Days of Awe for Jews, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. It just thrills me, and it's NOT just for Jews. Here's why.

A little background: after being raised Catholic (including parochial school for most of my lower school years with Mass twice/week), I converted to Judaism at age 33.  Along the way, I've studied Yoga, Mindfulness, Buddhism, Non-dualism, 12-Step and many other traditions. I'm a yoga teacher. My spiritual practice is rather similar to those of my neighbors here in Berkeley -- I take what really works for me and opens my channel grace.

Teshuvah is our main job during the 10 Days of Awe from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur. My fave translation of this Hebrew term? Returning to your True Self. Reflecting on ways in which we've missed the mark of serving our Highest Self, our Highest Purpose, our alignment or congruence with the quiet voice internally that knows the next right action.

This is not about religion; I'm actually interested today in taking this concept and applying it to your health. Teshuvah your health, my friends. I’m talking about deeply relevant issues such as your daily energy, your alignment daily with your higher purpose, how you nourish yourself with food as medicine. Can you inventory the ways over the past year that you've perhaps missed the mark and hurt your body, metabolism, spirit, emotional balance?

Another way to look at this (and break out of the Judeo-Christian form) is to ask: what if I were in charge of the Buddha's physical health? Or HHH The Dalai Lama? Meryl Streep? Any enlightened being would do. Say you're to provide the dosage of thyroid medication each morning - what would that look like? What would I prepare for him or her for dinner today? If I were in charge of the best exercise and stress management for optimal aging, what would I schedule today for the Enlightened One?

Me? If I were HHH's thyroid boss, I would never miss a dose (BTW, I missed my Armour thyroid pill yesterday - can you tell?). I'd have HHH meditate while the Armour took it's sweet time to absorb fully for 60 minutes before any food or drink. Meanwhile, I'd cook HHH a lovely organic meal that didn't harm the planet or animals. Brown rice, kale from my garden and soaked nuts for breakfast? And I'd mindfully prepare the oolong tea or yerba mate as a sadhana (spirital practice or ritual).

My morning now doesn't resemble this idealized version even remotely. Armour in, guzzle oolong tea, breakfast for the fam - check, lunches for the kids - check, nag kids to hurry up and brush their teeth - checkety check check. Race out door, hustling kids, pulse and blood pressure rising in response to my kids' slower and movements, their "Buddha nature." Oy. There's so much that's wrong with this picture.

For the Days of Awe, here's your homework: what is YOUR PART in the harm you've done to your body? Not the part contributed by your partner or boss or kids or parents but your part? What can you do differently with nourishing food, mindfully eaten, with movement, with your connection to Higher Self, with supplements, with assessing why your energy is lousy? How about sleep - if it sucks, are you on it, seeking help and have an attitude that invites change? Are you devoting your full energy to your healing and optimal health?

If you're interested in more resources and guiding questions, here's a favorite.

Shanah Tovah (Happy New Year in the Jewish Calendar). Time for a fresh start to your most vibrant year ever, but we all know measurement begets change. Start measuring, my friends.

Vacation: Rejuvenation Station

In my work as a hormone guide, I find the adrenals are the hardest to nurture and tonify. Our lives are so hectic, particularly in the Bay Area. But nothing nurtures and tonifies as much as a fabulous vacation.

In Ayurveda, they say that illness develops when you move to fast, when your body cannot catch up with your Being. This happens with trips that require airplanes or long car-rides. Solution? Bolinas!

I'm blessed to own my integrative medicine practice and to set up at the outset that I will be unavailable (the doctor is "out") for the month of August and for a month mid-December to mid-January. My adrenals demand it. It allows me to connect to my true Self, to reconnect to what is important, and to develop new ideas about to help you even more deeply and efficiently.

Here are some highlights of what was particularly helpful and healing on my August vacation.

First, one word: Bolinas. Ah, I just love to say it: Bolinas, Bolinas, Bolinas. We stayed in the house above for three days. It was so deeply relaxing, it felt like three weeks. Why? Soulful space.

We, as a family, did yoga daily, meditated, ate amazing local food from the Bolinas' People's Co-op, drank tea, had Big Thoughts, Big Conversations, Lingering Dialogues.

And then there was the Japanese soaking tub. OMG. Fantastic. I'm sitting there, chillin', or perhaps more accurately, sweatin', and in hops a little frog.

Hello, Sweet Frog. He hopped away before I could kiss him.

Darling Husband, David Gottfried, loved Bolinas because we were off the grid. He loves that in a vacation destination.

I just love getting re-energized about my path. Spent the month thinking about how aligned I am with my dharma or purpose. How can I make adrenal buoyancy more a daily part of my life for both me and my patients. Ideas? I'm reviewing Ayurveda and the wisdom it offers to us householders and forest dwellers. Stay tuned! Vacation ends Monday, August 30.

Input > Output

A funny thing happened on the way to my massage therapist: I met a mystic and received a transformative massage. Stan Barrett is a brilliant healer and the wisdom he shared during my time on the table was nothing short of miraculous.

I arrive this morning a few minutes late, jogging the last few blocks on Piedmont Ave to limit the damage to our first impression. I'm out of breath, sweaty and my monkey mind is at full throttle.

Stan is calmly seated in the waiting room. I take a deep breath. I'm so not zen. He is. He's got lovely energy. He shakes my hand, introduces himself and genuinely reassures me with "no worries" on my late arrival.

I'm liking things so far. I'm a week into my supposed August vacation, and I'm failing miserably at the vacation aspect. I'm checking email too much. I'm texting my assistant obsessively. I'm guzzling oolong tea. You could argue that I'm overexercising. I'm freshly back from a trip to Point Reyes that was supposed to be two weeks on the Inverness Ridge, but our rental was on a highway and peaceful it was not. I'm nuts. I'm acutely aware that I'm obstructing the expansion of my consciousness with busyness and overinvolvement with work. My output is unsustainable. I've been looking forward to this vacation all year and I'm hopelessly squandering the opportunity.

I also know a therapeutic opportunity and a fellow seeker when I see one. This man is the Real Deal.

I ask: "How do you find balance?" Stan's response was exactly what I needed to hear, especially since I'm mildly burned out and struggling significantly to get into my August-vacation-state-of-mind.

"Low output!" says Stan. He is vigilant about how he books sessions, sees only three to four 90-minute clients per day, four times per week, and takes a 30-minute break in between so he can clear the space and not rush, uses a great online scheduling system that keeps no-shows to a minimum.

I rush from one patient to the next and often lack the time to pee in between. Not Stan:  "I schedule 30 minutes at the end of each massage session, which gives you time to collect yourself unrushed, for us to chat and bring closure to the intimate connection, and for you to have my time and attention exclusively without the baton being passed to my next client with you standing right there in lane 5.  That simple step allows me to remain more grounded throughout the day.  It looks different for each of us."

How sane is that? I left Kaiser four years ago but I still stack up the patients like Mother Kaiser is my employer. Hello? I'm self-employed. Like Stan, I run the schedule and set the flow but I'm running the schedule as if I were drill sargent and not a sentient being.

He claims Tuesday mornings for fun mountain bike rides: "I often go alone, but I have a couple friends who join me every so often.  I find it's important to carve out time for things that feed my soul and make me scream Yahooooo!  I first had to figure out what that was, and I'm still working on it."

Process work: therapy, mending his connection with his father. It's usually either your mom or your dad that's bringing you down, depleting your energy, limiting your output, he tells me. Time to get conscious, People.

He adds: "I'm a fan of psychotherapy, but currently not sitting/talking with anyone.  I've been in the clear for a few years now and in a 'productive' stage.  Meaning the barriers that held me back regarding family are no longer in my path.  It's nice to have a light heart and strong arms from having put down all that baggage.  Also, I find the more I'm enmeshed with my partner and my clients, the less I'm able to be present for myself and for the moment.  Maintaining the space where I end and you begin is a learned skill, I find."

Light heart and strong arms from putting down the baggage? Sign me up!

Then there's Stan's self-care or INPUT: 7+ hours of sleep regularly. Pilates weekly one-on-one with a woman who works out of her home. Chiro semi-weekly, alternated semi-weekly with massage. He expounds on this input thing: "It helps create the foundation on which to build other things.  I know myself well enough that my first appt. is never before 11am.  Many people look forward to evening massages post-work, so a full day takes me until 8pm.  I always take an hour for lunch. For brain chemistry, it's fish oil, B and C."
 
Stan contrasts his measured output with that of his much-revered Pilates instructor who is, in his words, "Agro." I request a translation. "She's got more on her plate than anyone I know."

OMG, I think I'm agro.

"My incredible Pilates instructor has big output." Stan continues. "She's got 3 kids and her belief is that more fun fills the cup. You know? Fun with the kids: trapeze arts - things like that."
 
I want to channel Pilates Mom and Stan. But can I do both?

I ask for more details about Pilates Mom Who Has Fun With Her Kids. I have fun with my kids sometimes, maybe 20%, but a lot of the time I’m nagging them to get dressed, eat their broccoli, brush their teeth and floss, do their homework, get their tushies out the door because we're late again, buckle their seat belts, or I'm bribing them.

He continues, "She's is an advocate of the fun factor.  No matter what commitments we have on our plate (and she has the most of anyone I know), so long as we fill our cup with hilarious fun no matter the flavor, our energy will go further.  She loves looking at hats and Adidas shoes for example.  Sometimes she buys them, most often she just tries them on and smiles, gives them back to the salesperson and goes home.  Sometimes she and her youngest kid go to Sports Authority and play with all the toys in there.  Again, not necessarily buying anything.  And her girl time is essential.  Once a week she leaves the man and kids at home for a night in the city with her CRAZY girlfriends.  A little tequila... you're a doctor, you know these things.”

I ask his permission to blog about him.

"What is a blog really? An online journal?" he asks.

Clearly, low connectivity is another crucial part of managing output that I've failed to master, but meanwhile he agrees to let me blog about him.

I ask if he'll hand me my iPhone so I can record his genius commentary, because I'm 43 and my memory is more shot than my adrenals.

"Dude, you'll remember what you need," he replies.

He refuses to hand me the iPhone. He adds: "Besides, I won't look at it, so it doesn't matter whether you get the quotes right."

"I find it's best to offer up my own experience and let people ask questions of themselves.  But here's a loving nudge for you... what does your self-care and input look like? Feel like?  Would carving out some you time, time with your girlfriends over a beer, or whatever it takes to help push the reset button - would that do the trick?  Regular date night with your man?  Make a list of all the crazy ideas you wish you could do and work towards one of them.  Running is the you time?  Workshops - giving back and connecting with your community in a leader role - awesome.  You know all this stuff, Woman!"

"I usually talk with my hands, so you threw me a good curve, got me gabbing, and wanted to record it!  So funny!  Enjoy yourself."

Wow. I got a massage from an enlightened being. I feel transcendent; the massage was phenomenal. He's a gifted, intuitive and strong body worker. I give him my highest endorsement. For those of you women who won't go to guy for a massage, you're missing out on something special. Stan is a powerful hybrid of sacred masculine and feminine, and he's got the energy flow of input and output down like nobody's business. Thank you, Stan!

Stan Barrett

Massage Therapist
4315 Piedmont Avenue
Suite # 203
Oakland, California 94611
510-907-0285

How to Raise Your Good Cholesterol

If your doctor is still ordering the standard cholesterol test of total, LDL, HDL and triglycerides, you are in the dark ages. See, the problem is that 75% of the folks who have a heart attach have a normal LDL and HDL. Get your doc to order the most current tests: a VAP cholesterol or a Berkeley Heart Lab test so that you can check your subfractions; that is, check your good vs bad subfractions of LDL and good vs bad subfractions of HDL. And in women in particular, your Lipo(a) is crucial to know. We also like to measure the level of inflammation with both the cardio (or high-sensitivity) c-reactive protein (hscRP) and homocysteine.

Seventeen years ago I did a fellowship with the American Heart Association while at Harvard Medical School. To this day, one of my favorite aspects of preventive medicine, or as I call it aggressive preventive medicine, is to help my patients understand the importance of their markers of heart disease, particularly since this remains the most common cause of death among men and women. After menopause, women catch up to men by age 60 in terms of their risk of heart disease.

Cardiology has advanced hugely in the past 30 years, mostly because heart disease is the leading killer of productive white corporate men. Lots of research dollars = lots of research achievement and progress.

For women, it's all about the triglycerides (I recommend TRG < 100) and HDL > 50 (your "good cholesterol."

Here's the short version....

These lipid subfractions are all good: HDL2, HDL1, LDL2, LDL1, Large-HDL, Large-LDL

These lipid subfractions are all bad: sdLDL (small dense LDL), HDL3, Small-HDL, LDL3, Small-LDL

What lowers HDL2?

• American Heart Association Low-Fat/Step 2 Diet - makes your particles dense
• Lack of lean muscle tissue
• High insulin (fasting insulin > 6)
• Lack of exercise or overtraining 
• Belly fat
• Adrenal dysregulation
• Too many carbs
• Sugar, processed foods
• Inadequate fish oil (omega 3s)
• Smoking
• Too much alcohol (Per day: 2-3 or more drinks for men; 2 or more for women)

What raises HDL2?

• Paleo Diet
• Estrogen
  
• Andogens (taking DHEA, testosterone)
• Niacin (see below)  
• Vitamin D (Note that you need a higher dose if you have a problem with your vitamin D receptor)
• Intermittent fasting  
• Generation of ketone bodies (low carb, mod-high prot/fat)  
• Exercise (avoid excessive endurance training)  
• Strength/resistance training  
• Reduction in belly/visceral fat  
• Reduction in insulin (eliminating wheat, reducing carbs)  
• Tobacco cessation  
• Elimination/moderation of alcohol 
• Eating protein, esp Leucine, Taurine, etc 
• Carotenoids (astaxanthin, krill oil, seafood, grassfed meat, etc)  
• Fish oil/EPA+DHA: supplemention, grassfed meat/dairy; fatty fish, mackerel, tuna, herring, hamachi, trout, cod liver oil, mollusks, krill, crustaceans, etc  
• If high inflammatory state: Ultra high dose 8-10 g/day EPA DHA fish oil for 6-18mos (Goal: fatty acid profile test, omega-6 to omega-3 ratio = 1.5)]  
• ALA, monounsat fats: flaxseed oil, olive oil, nuts/seeds, etc  
• Plant sterols, grass-fed ghee  
• Eating some saturated fats (not TRANSFATS which are toxic to HDL2)  
• Eating some CHOLESTEROL (via omega-3 eggs, seafood, grassfed meat/dairy, etc)

Niacin & HDL2

Niacin raises HDL2 by 200-300% in 18-36 months.

Fish Oil Studies in Greater Detail

• Take 4.5 g/d x 6wks EPA + DHA resulted inHDL2 increase of 74% with a concomitant 19% decrease of HDL3-C (Metabolism, 1991).

Toxins Muckin' with My Thyroid

A kind gesture from my dentist today - she graciously offers plastic bottles of water in her waiting room - turns out to be a disaster for your thyroid. My daughter eagerly grabbed a bottle and started drinking. I love my dentist, but those bottle contain bis-phenol A (BPA) and they slow down our thyroid receptors. My TSH may not reveal the injury, but my weight does, as does my sluggish morning energy.

You’ve heard the dire news on environmental pollution. I used to pitch it into the file of “things I can’t worry about right now,” but then I realized that I too was affected. Turns out my lazy thyroid was rooted in mercury toxicity and too much BPA. What I thought 5 years ago was a healthy lunch once/week of brown rice/tuna sushi rolls from Whole Foods was slowly poisoning my system as mercury mounted and shut down my thyroid hormone production. My hair fell out, I gained weight despite an aggressive exercise campaign and I was tired most of the time.

Second-hand smoke has also been shown to impair your thyroid, particularly in younger kids and infants.

If your bod can’t keep up with the steady diet of toxins that we encounter, your liver metabolism takes a hit. Leptin rises. You become cranky, irritable and tired. You develop dark circles under your eyes. The main organ tasked with detoxification is your liver, and toxic backlog is a common diagnosis in my integrative medical practice. This is well-summarized by integrative nutritionist Byron Richards:

“It is like pouring sand into the gas tank of a car, It does not matter whether the car is old or new, when the engine gets clogged, it will not run correctly. The liver must be clear all such chemicals.”

There is a definite correlation between the severity of hypothyroid symptoms and toxic exposure. Being overweight is especially complex, because toxins are stored in fat. Toxic folks have tremendous difficulty losing weight, and here’s the worst part: when you manage to lose a few pounds of fat, you get re-exposed to the toxins stored in the fat you’re burning. So unfair!

What’s a thyroidista to do?

1.    Reduce exposure – you know that it’s best to drink from glass or stainless steel containers. Use them exclusively. Read Time Magazine’s recent review of what toxins do to your endocrine system and how to limit your risk. Recent data also shows that probiotics limit your absorption of BPA. Cracks in your metal dental fillings are another source of mercury – if you have metal amalgams, consider replacement with your dentist. http://tinyurl.com/GCtoxins

2.    Cleanse your liver – I recommend to my patients a 30-day cleanse every 6 months. Check out our website for more information. http://gottfriedcenter.com/

3.    See if you have mercury toxicity – there are many tests available commercially. I recommend a provoked test with a chelator such as DMPS. Testing is available for $79-100. Contact my staff for more info and to order your test at 510.893.3907.

For more info, check out the NRDC's excellent article on BPA-free water containers.

 Reposted from DearThyroid.org