Author Archives: dianne rishikof

Grain-Free Tabouleh

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Parsley happens to be one of the healthiest foods. It helps our bodies get rid of all the toxins that are inevitably in our cells. Both internal metabolic by products as well as toxins from food and the environment are constantly being introduced into the body. Our body has the task of getting rid of them.

The challenge of including a significant amount of parsley in my diet, regularly, seemed a difficult one. Tabouleh came to mind but I am gluten-free so I can’t eat the couscous. Instead of substituting the couscous with some other grain, why not just make a vegetable-only tabouleh?? This keeps it very low calorie and practically carb-free and the proportion of parsley is all the higher.
2 bunches of parsley (washed and chopped)
1/2 of cucumber-diced into small pieces
1 large handful of grape tomatoes, diced into small pieces
2-3 scallions
salt (to taste)
lemon
garlic infused olive oil

(The vegetables can be altered to your preferences. For instance, you can use more or less cucumber or tomato, as well as adding yellow pepper or any other vegetable.)

Wash and chop all the veggies
Combine into a bowl and mix
Squeeze fresh lemon juice over the parsley mixture until all leaves are damp
Drizzle oil over mixture
And sprinkle salt.

Enjoy!

And if you are more interested in detoxing, Dr. Fitzgerald is running a very comprehensive yet accessible program in January. Check it out!

What You Need to Know About Functional Nutrition

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Human body with internal organs, composite by stomach, Great to be used in medicine works and health.

Conventional medicine is very effective if you have an acute problem, which needs immediate treatment. Despite all the advances in science and medicines, chronic diseases are on the rise. Most people suffer from some form of chronic problem (such as IBS, high cholesterol, Diabetes, insomnia, chronic fatigue, anxiety, ADHD, etc). Conventional medicine doesn’t seem to be able to treat these problems successfully. At best, conventional medicine doles out prescriptions to dampen the symptoms. That isn’t ‘treatment,’ and it certainly isn’t prevention. The problem? Neither the individual nor the root cause of the illness is treated.

Functional Medicine and Nutrition is an entirely different approach.

Functional Medicine Nutrition Therapy is a personalized method for getting to the root of your symptoms and restoring balance to your system. It is about promoting health, not just treating illness.

Personalized:

Everybody’s different. We each have different genes, different microbiomes (which influence everything), and different lifestyles. In Functional Nutrition, all information is taken into account: sleep, diet, stress level, activity level, energy level, mood, sunlight exposure, time in nature, and other data. Additionally, using tests that actually reveal what’s going on inside your body down to the cellular level and tests for genetic influences, diet and supplementation can be very targeted.

As the Institute of Functional Medicine explains: “The current healthcare system fails to take into account the unique genetic makeup of each individual and the ability of food, toxins and other environmental factors to influence gene expression.”

Treating the problem, not just the symptom:

If you throw drugs at a symptom, without addressing the root cause of the symptom, you are clearing the smoke but not putting out the fire. Left resolved, the cause will continue to persist, and therefore so with the symptoms. The drug will continue to be needed indefinitely (and possibly at greater and greater doses) to treat this symptom.

Chris Kresser articulates this: “In conventional medicine…they mostly focus on symptoms and diseases. If you go to a doctor and you have high cholesterol, you get a drug to lower your cholesterol…and there’s often little investigation into why your cholesterol is high in the first place. The intent is to just bring it down, and that’s generally the end of the story. In functional medicine… Symptoms are important in as much as they can give us clues as to what the underlying mechanisms might be that are contributing to the problem, but they’re not as important because when you focus on the underlying mechanisms and causes and you address those, the symptoms tend to resolve on their own, so you don’t have to worry about going after each and every symptom individually. You just address the root causes and the symptoms resolve.”

Dr. Mark Hyman, one of the leaders in Functional Medicine, articulates this point very well in the foreword he wrote for The Disease Delusion (a book written by Dr. Jeffery Bland, the father of Functional Medicine):     “Depression is not the cause of misery, it is merely the name we give to a constellation of symptoms. The actual cause of depression may vary greatly from patient to patient…knowing the name of a disease tells us nothing about its true cause; nor does it lead us to the right treatment”

Final thoughts:

Conventional medicine has its place. It has saved my life more than once. However, in other instances, it also left me disappointed. I know my clients have felt the same way before coming to see me.

Dr. Fitzgerald, another leader in the field, sums it up: “Simply, functional medicine is an individualized, systems-based, patient-centered approach to care. We look at the whole person, their environment, diet & lifestyle and genetics/epigenetics. An individual’s history is carefully mapped to a timeline, which we use to gather clues to the cause(s) and promoter(s) of disease/imbalance. Sensitive laboratory assessments help us “look under the metabolic hood” for contributing biochemical/genetic/microbial/nutrient/inflammatory/toxicity issues.”

For all these reasons, I am very excited about Functional Medical Nutrition Therapy. I am a Certified Integrative and Functional Nutrition Practitioner and have been practicing it with my clients (and on my own health) for several years.

Because patients are unique. Symptoms are not.

 

The Powers of Turmeric

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gorgeous setting with cooking spices and herbs (bay leaves, cumin, coriander, chili powder, cloves, cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, paprika, piri piri, salt, turmeric) on a wooden mat (shallow DOF)

Turmeric (that bright orange spice that turns your cutting boards and dishes yellow) is amazing.

Curcumin is one of the phytochemicals (natural healthful plant chemicals) that is in turmeric, and curcumin is thought to be the reason for turmeric’s healthful benefits (see below). But don’t get too bogged down in this; the benefits of turmeric, which contains 300 phytochemicals, come from all the phytochemicals working together synergistically. Not only that but curcumin is not very bioavailable and turmeric is. Another example of that a whole food is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

You can buy turmeric in its whole form (it looks a little like a ginger root and can be found in that same section of the store) and then cut it or grate it. Or you can save your fingers, cutting boards, graters and plates, and buy it as a spice in a container in the spice section. You can also get it as a supplement, in pill form. This last option is particularly good if you want to use turmeric for health reasons and need a higher amount than just a few sprinkles on your chicken.

Why is turmeric so great?

  • Research has showed that turmeric is beneficial in the prevention and management of over 600 health conditions.
    • And turmeric has no adverse side effects (at normal doses), like most drugs that treat conditions.
  •  Anti-inflammatory
    • Chronic inflammation is the reason for almost all disease states including heart disease, Diabetes, Crohn’s and Colitis, Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Inflammation is also what causes or contributes to those un-well diagnoses of IBS and Fibromyalgia.
  • Anti-oxidant
    • Seeking out cell-damaging free-radicals and neutralizing them, helps prevent or treat cell damage, fatigue, aging, Alzheimer’s Disease and Cancer.
  • Anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal

Not convinced? Give me a call and I’ll tell you more 🙂

Or check out this great article on the benefits of turmeric supplements.

 

Gluten Free Breakfast Ideas

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Homemade rye bread

 

Whenever I educate someone on going gluten free, I inevitably hear: “but what will I eat for breakfast??!!” Well I am here to tell you that breakfast doesn’t HAVE to be toast, muffins or pancakes. Here is a list of ideas

  • Fruit
  • Cream of Buckwheat
    • This hot cereal is delicious, especially with a splash of 100% maple syrup and fruit.
  • Granola (Udi’s)
    • Can be mixed with yogurt and fruit, or eaten in a bowl with cashew milk.
  • Precooked bacon (or chicken bacon)
    • Have a bacon, lettuce, tomato + avocado roll up with the lettuce as the bread.
  • Sausage
  • Eggs
    • endless possibilities here
  • Lox with a big slice of tomato as the ‘bagel’. Get creative with toppings (cream cheese, onions, capers)
  • Chia pudding
    • ½ cup chia seeds, 1 ½ cups coconut milk, ½ cup organic vanilla almond milk, 1 tablespoon 100% maple syrup. Mix and let sit
    • add fruit
  • Smoothies
  • Potatoes
    • Cut up and sauté with onions, sausage, other veggies
  • and if you absolutely need your ‘bread’ there are gluten free versions of bread-like breakfast foods:
    • Google: “gluten free breakfast” “gluten free muffins” “paleo breakfast” and you’ll get a million recipes and ideas

 

 

The Answer is within Your Cells

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phonto

Do you suffer from any of these symptoms: fatigue, brain fog, pain, anxiety, insomnia, and don’t know why?

Inside every cell in your body, a complicated seven-cycle chemical reaction takes place billions of times per second. You need 20 enzymes for each step of this reaction to occur. You need the right genes in order to make those 20 enzymes. You also need co-factors, namely: vitamins and minerals, in order to enable those enzymes.

There are genetic variants, routinely called SNPs (snips) that influence our genes. One variant is MTHFR (methylenetetrahydrofolate reducatase). About 50% of the population has this genetic variant or chromosomal mutation. This enzyme is needed for methylation. Like all 20 other enzymes, MTHFR is needed or those 7-cycles get clogged up.

Why is methylation important? It is an essential process for optimal functioning of your body and your mind. Some processes it is involved in:

  • cell regulation
  • detoxification
  • neurotransmitter formation
  • metabolizing hormones
  • DNA repair and synthesis
  • keeping inflammation in check
  • energy
  • nerve myelination

Some symptoms of impaired methylation include:

  • fatigue
  • brain fog
  • pain and inflammation
  • anxiety
  • depression
  • insomnia
  • infertility and miscarriage
  • intolerance to exercise

Unfortunately, the list of symptoms associated with poor methylation is somewhat nonspecific, in that the same list of symptoms could be explained by several other causes. In fact, most of those symptoms could be tied to one’s gut health!

But methylation and whether you have the MTHFR variant is a very important piece of the puzzle; one that is worth knowing, for there is no way to deal with this problem other than with proper specific supplementation. It is important to supplement yourself with proper guidance, because it is possible to overmethylate, which can lead to other problems.

And don’t forget about those co-factors, the vitamins and minerals. Different ones are needed for different cycles, and there is also a test to see if you are deficient in any vitamins and minerals.

There is a simple blood test, that I offer through Spectracell to find out if you have the MTHFR SNP. And there is a saliva mail-in test through 23andme to find out all your other SNPs.

For more information on MTHFR visit here, and here.

It is important to note that this is new science and while it is widely accepted in the functional medicine world, conventional medicine doctors are either unaware of MTHFR or skeptical of its importance. This area does indeed need more research. Hopefully that research will happen in time.

Fibromyalgia and the Gut

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Protected individual repelling bacteria and viruses show on tablet made in 3d software isolated on white

 

And yet another connection between the gut and a seemingly unrelated condition: Fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia describes a condition where a person experiences widespread musculoskeletal pain. Similar to IBS, a total work up is done, and if Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus or other diagnoses are ruled out, and there is nothing tangibly ‘wrong’, then a diagnosis of exclusion is given to explain the symptoms.  There are 18 tender points, and if 11 or more hurt for 3 months or more, that’s fibromyalgia. The symptoms of fibromyalgia don’t stop at musculoskeletal pain. They also include fatigue, brain fog, and memory issues. Fibromyalgia can begin suddenly after a trauma, surgery, infection or psychological stress, or it can come on slowly with no triggering event. There is usually a genetic predisposition.

Fibromyalgia seems to affect the way the brain processes pain. This is yet another similarity to IBS, where there are overactive pain signals, an overactive immune system and a hypersensitivity to pain.

But here is the third and most astonishing similarity: nearly all fibromyalgia patients have IBS and Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth! In the case of these patients, the bacteria release toxins that get into the blood stream (b/c of damage to the GI track) and this causes the pain and sensitivity to pain.

If you have fibromyalgia, get to the root of the problem: your gut.

The Great and Powerful Microbiome

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I have written about the microbiome before. Those trillions of bacteria, viruses and yeasts that live in and on us that are absolutely crucial to our health. If we have beneficial microbes, we have health. If we have harmful microbes, we are sick. But I am not talking about getting food poisoning and being sick for a few days. I am talking about having an imbalance of good to bad microbes in your gut that causes subtle but serious damage to your health. There is growing evidence (daily) that these bugs are the number one influence on your health (or lack of it).

Just to give you an idea, here is an incomplete list of what the microbiome has influence over:

Here is a partial list of disorders that have been linked to dysbiosis (having too many bad bacteria and not enough good):

I hope that you respect those little powerful bugs and appreciate the importance of acquiring and maintaining gut balance to promote health.

Tired of being tired?

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phonto

Feeling tired but doc says nothing is wrong? Might be adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is a diagnosis used in functional medicine.  Most conventional doctors only deal with adrenal problems if your adrenals are down to zero. But what if they are not at zero but are very depleted and you are not bouncing back? That’s a problem that deserves attention too.

Adrenal fatigue is caused by stress. Stress can be physical (infection, surgery), emotional (divorce, death), or environmental (poor diet, toxins). The adrenal glands respond to every kind of stress the same way.

Adrenal fatigue can be sudden, as in a terrible car accident or gradual, with smaller stresses that accumulate or come so close to one another that your body has no time to recover. I’m sure we can all imagine a time where a root canal, major job stress, family member major illness, and a month of binging on holiday candy and egg nog, all can happen at the same time.

Basically adrenal fatigue occurs when the amount of stress is more than the body’s adrenals can cope with.

A short (not complete) list of symptoms:
-Continuing fatigue not relieved by sleep
-Increased effort to do everyday tasks
-Craving for salty foods
-Increased time to recover from illness, injury or trauma
-Skipping a meal causes tons of problems such as worse fatigue and irritability

Conditions associated with adrenal fatigue:
-Chronic diseases
-Use of corticosteroids
-Chronic fatigue syndrome
-Fibromyalgia
-Hypoglycemia
-Respiratory infections

Eating habits are very important in treating adrenal fatigue. Some tips:
-Eat at frequent intervals. The adrenal hormone cortisol is responsible for keeping our blood sugar at normal levels. You need to eat to keep your blood sugar up because your body can’t do it on its own.
-Avoid caffeine, it depletes the adrenals too, making matters worse not better
-Eat breakfast.
-Snack between lunch and dinner and snack before bed.
-Eat good quality whole food.
-Go ahead and eat salt. You need it.

Food sensitivities also play a key role as the offending food causes histamine and other inflammatory substances to be released. It takes cortisol to reduce that inflammation.  That’s taxing on the already drained adrenals.

If you suspect you have adrenal fatigue you should get assessed by a functional doctor or nutritionist and get a personalized plan. You should also check out my eBook!

Happy Bugs?

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phonto

New research comes out every day showing the benefits of probiotics and beneficial microbes. I make it a point to keep up with this news, so I can better serve my clients and sharpen my expertise. I also INTEND to share these amazing research findings on this blog, but the research is coming out faster than I can post!

Two new studies that confirm what we already knew: that your gut microbes affect your emotional state.

One study (triple-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial) gave subjects probiotics (with multiple strands of bacteria) or placebo for 4 weeks. The subjects in the probiotic group experienced a significantly reduced overall cognitive reactivity to sad mood compared to the placebo group. The reduced overall cognitive reactivity was accompanied by less rumination and fewer aggressive thoughts.

Another study had three groups of participants. One received yogurt with active microbes and a placebo capsule, one received probiotics and yogurt without active bacteria and one received yogurt without active bacteria and a placebo cap. The two groups who actually got probiotics and bacteria experienced significant improvement in the general health questionnaire and depression anxiety and stress scale score.