What Do GERD and Osteoporosis have in Common?

            Alice was the receptionist at the senior centre where I volunteered weekly.  She had an engaging sense of humour and a young fresh attitude toward life, though her 70 year old body was stooped with a pretty prominent dowager hump.   Her head was positioned forward and downward so it was difficult for her to look up.  In the afternoons her grandchildren would show up at the centre so she could watch them after school while she worked.  Her duties at the centre also included mopping the floor which was painful on her neck.

 Alice was not a complainer by any means but since she had been put on Fosomax for osteoporosis “prevention” she had begun suffering from stomach pains which was wearing down her energy and causing too many sick days.  She became worried about her job and her future security and that’s when she showed up in my office.  Maybe there was something she could do about her diet. It seemed like she was becoming intolerant to more and more foods and losing her appetite. 

Alice had a long history of indigestion, gas and reflux which she had handled over the years with antacids.  Taking antacids for many years for GERD or indigestion is a fast track to osteoporosis.  The reduced stomach acid will prevent your body from digesting and utilizing the very nutrition your skeleton needs to stay strong. 

Most people with GERD and heartburn are actually suffering from INsufficient stomach acid.  Instead of taking acid soppers and stoppers, they need supplemental digestive acid and enzymes. When treating the symptom and not the cause of the GERD, it’s a case of painting the ceiling to fix the leak.    

The real cause of the problem actually begins with eating inferior processed and artificial foods too quickly and in large quantities such that the digestive system is overwhelmed and cannot produce enough stomach acid and enzymes to handle the burden.  The undigested “food” begins to irritate the lining of the gastro intestinal tract.    So the body does not get the nutrients it needs to repair the damaged tissue as well as nourishing all the organs and joints of the body.  

 This person often develops arthritis and osteoporosis.  They then begin long term treatment with bisphosphonate drugs such as Fosomax, Boniva, and Actonel, which in turn  carry a litany of further side effects, including erosion of the esophagus, long term weakening of the skeleton and potential for spontaneous hip fractures.  Now it’s time for narcotics and pain killers and behold the depressing picture of invalidism, pain and decline as evidenced in our nursing homes of today.

Can we reverse this downward spiral of health?

  In Alice’s case we completely changed her diet to very simple, uncombined, high quality meals with gently steamed vegetables, fats, simple proteins, no breads or processed foods.  We used enzymes and healing supplements such as Okra Pepsin which coats the lining of the digestive tract while providing some enzyme support.  She needed a special source of minerals from bone marrow, a calcium supplement derived from vegetables, (not crushed rock) Vitamin C (not ascorbic acid) cod liver oil (super source of Vitamin D and other fat soluble vitamins).  And she began a very gentle exercise program (Bones for Life) designed to realign the posture and create the correct impact to stimulate bone building.  She gained 2 inches in height!
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Submitted as a public service by Cathy Lidster, GCFP, ACNRT.  She teaches “Bones for Life” Movement classes and helps clients regain their health with diet and lifestyle changes.   For more information on Bones For Life®, Nutrition Response® Testing, or next free health seminar contact  cathylidster@gmail.com, visit www.cathylidster.com or call 250-819-9041.

Make No Bones About It - Part 2

 

Bone Health is a growing concern.  The statistics are staggering!  In the over 50 age group, one in every 2 women and every 8th man will experience a fracture due to weakened bones.  Why is this happening?  Bone tissue is meant to be strong, resilient and long-lasting.  Ask any archeologist.  Bones tell the story of how we have lived our lives long after we have left our bodies…  So why this rampant and prolific problem of poor bone health nowadays?

The most extreme example of osteoporosis I can think of is the historical story of scurvy.  In the days of the pirate ships, when men became severely ill due to malnourishment and dehydration, the captain would have their bodies shaken – If their bones rattled it meant they were riddled with fractures and beyond saving.  They were tossed overboard for fish bait.  The happy part of this story is that when given limes to eat (thus the term “limey” for the British seamen) this problem was prevented.  What can we learn from this story?

Bone health is a dynamic process just like all body processes.  As bone cells die, new ones are grown. Just how much growth is determined by the principle of supply and demand?  So generally, people who place more demand on their bones through regular activity will generate new bone production provided they have the raw materials to handle the construction chore. 

That’s where nutrition comes in.  Your body wants needs and thrives on “WHOLE FOODS”.  Anything else creates metabolic stress, imbalance and a tendency for the body to pull out stored minerals from the bones.  You’ll notice that the British used a whole food to solve their scurvy problem, not one single nutrient such as ascorbic acid, calcium or even true Vitamin C. 

Many people think that taking calcium supplements is the answer.  It is definitely not the whole answer and can even be harmful.  Your bones need a whole array of minerals and other nutrients to stay healthy.  To transport and utilize the calcium properly you need essential fatty acids, natural Vitamin D (from sunshine, eggs, fish and plants)  along with the synergistic minerals such as phosphorus (not phosphoric acid which is found in carbonated pop), magnesium and others. True Vitamin C (NOT ascorbic acid or calcium ascorbate), iron, zinc, copper, Vitamin K, boron, manganese, chromium, and the Vitamin B-Complex all play important roles in bone and collagen formation.  Fortunately all these ingredients can be found in whole foods provided especially for us by Nature. 

Unfortunately with commercial foods as our diet, we need balanced supplementation.  Click here for the best Bone Health support.

Calcium and other minerals need the body’s naturally occurring acid enzymes in order to be digested properly.  Since hydrochloric acid (HCL) production diminishes with aging, more elderly are prone to incomplete mineral digestion and therefore prone to osteoporosis.  Antacids rob your stomach of the very hydrochloric acid needed to break down calcium.  A misconception of HCL is that it causes heart burn.  In fact, your body’s own naturally occurring acid enzymes DO NOT damage stomach lining.  Rather, in the absence of HCL, undigested food sits and ferments (rots) which causes the release of acids that burn and cause gas.  Stomach medications such as Prilosec, Nexium, Zantac and similar meds contribute to osteoporosis by inhibiting proper digestion.  A simple solution is to take a supplement called Betaine Hydrochloride which is the plant derived natural enzyme needed to properly digest calcium.

The current medical approach to osteoporosis is to try to maintain a certain level of bone density.  And since it is difficult to improve bone growth without good nutrition, doctors turn to preventing bone loss.  Thus many of the common medications (Fosomax, Evista, Actonel, etc.) for someone diagnosed with osteopenia (low bone density) or osteoporosis are taken to halt the die off of old bone cells.  The danger of this is that it simply makes the bones brittle – like fossils, and without the die off there is no incentive for the body to grow new resilient and flexible bone.   And do these drugs prevent fractures?  Statistics say no. 

My favorite experience with improving bone density was a school teacher, age 50 who came in because she had been diagnosed pre-diabetic and had high cholesterol. She forgot to mention that she was also osteopenic (low bone density).  With testing we found wheat intolerance and that she needed a tiny amount of Betaine HCL(hydrochloric acid which helps digest minerals) and some whole food mineral supplements. Within weeks of dietary change (no sugar or wheat, and only whole foods) she went off her statin drugs, passed her blood sugar test and lost her excess fat.    But the biggest surprise to me came 9 months later when she came dancing in the door waving her improved bone density test results!  Not supposed to happen, but it did!

Make No Bones About It.  Osteoporosis has been made into a complicated and fast growing problem but what if there is another possibility?    

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Cathy Lidster, GCFP, NRC, has been a hands-on Health Practitioner since 1980 and now helps clients in both Canada and the U.S.  She teaches “Bones for Life” workshops as well as providing nutritional testing and support.  For more info visit:  www.cathylidster.com  email cathylidster@gmail.com, or call 250-819-9041

Make No Bones About It - Part 1

Health – Can You Feel It In Your Bones?

 Scientist say if you are fair skinned, small boned, with a family history of bone disease or are of European or Asian descent, especially female gender, you may have a predisposition for osteoporosis.

                There goes the neighborhood.  These risk factors are as omnipresent as Tim Horton franchises in B.C.  It's enough to make one think “I knew I should have picked a better family.”               Statistics can be discouraging when you can't change the risk factors.  However just knowing your risks might be of help in the choices you make for your life, just as if you knew there was a high risk of a cold winter coming you could take steps to prepare for it.

                Actually there are more than 80 warning signs for this “supposedly silent” condition, according to Pamela Levin, R.N., author of the book Perfect Bones.   Included are such things as  sudden insomnia, soft teeth, nightly leg cramps, dowager's hump, back pain, being a smoker (no surprise), morning stiffness...to name a few.  Any one of these things, says Levin, is significant to signal the risk of osteoporosis.

                I don't know about you, but 80 wake-up calls seem to me like being hit over the head with a hammer.  How could we not get the message?

                Bone weakness and loss is just another indicator of long term malnutrition and sedentary lifestyle.  Many people think osteoporosis is an adult-only disease when in fact it really begins in early childhood with one’s food and activity choices.   When did you start to drink pop and sugary snacks and omit raw vegetables and whole foods from your diet?   When did your definition of food include over cooked, irradiated, genetically modified, and refined “products” passed off to the unaware consumer as “food”?   When did your body begin to have to draw minerals and nutrients out of your bones in order to fulfill the need for balanced raw materials not present in our daily diet?  When did you choose to ride instead of walk to a destination of only a couple of blocks or take the elevator up one floor?

                Osteoporosis is responsible for more than 1.5 million fractures annually, 700,000 of them in the vertebrae of the spine and 300,000 in hips, at an estimated cost of more than $14 billion each year. Other common fractures occur in wrists, forearms, feet and toes.   And of course, the rate of occurrence is growing fast with the increase in the average age of our population.  Early detection and accurate and immediate intervention is very important to the physical and financial health of our nation.

                Many physicians are using bone mineral density testing (BMD) to detect an early reason to medicate.  Yet there are other factors besides bone density that determine bone strength and resilience, and some studies actually refute the idea that an increase in bone density will reduce fracture rates.  In Gambia, Africa, for example, elderly women have lower bone mineral content by 10-24 per cent compared to Canadians, yet their fracture rate is very low (less than 1 percent).

                                Clearly there are lifestyle factors at work here.  No manner of research on medications or high tech methods of early detection will find an answer that does not include a high nutrient diet and appropriate weight bearing activities as the two crucial preventive means of keeping our bones strong.  Our bones can and should be strong right through old age and beyond.

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Submitted as a public service by Cathy Lidster, GCFP, ACNRT.  She teaches “Bones for Life” Movement classes and helps clients regain their health with diet and lifestyle changes.   For more information on Bones For Life®, Nutrition Response® Testing, or next free health seminar in Spokane, Kamloops or on line contact  cathylidster@gmail.com, visit www.cathylidster.com

 or call 250-819-9041 (Canada), 250-610-5756  (U.S).

Irritable Bowel Syndrome - What Else is Possible?

For too many people, the post-holiday season is not a happy time for their tummies.  All the excessive holiday eating brings on increased suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), a common chronic gastrointestinal disorder.

Symptoms of IBS include abdominal pain, bloating and an irregular bowel pattern alternating between constipation and diarrhea.  Living with IBS can be devastating, debilitating, frustrating and embarrassing.  What many people do not realize is that it is not necessary to live with this diagnosis for the rest of one’s life.  In most cases it is quite simply solvable – if you are willing to make some adjustments in your diet.

Here is the story of how one woman with IBS transformed years of a restrictive lifestyle to one of ease and freedom in a matter of days:

Trish (name changed for confidentiality) is mother and grandmother of a large and close knit family and very involved in her community.  Only her family and her doctors knew of her suffering with what was diagnosed as Irritable Bowel Syndrome.   She made multiple trips to her bathroom for severe bouts of diarrhea every morning until about noon.  This had been going on for many years!  Not a pleasant way to live.  Trish had gone through all the medical tests and conventional prescriptions and even some naturopathic remedies but nothing seemed to work.  She had given up on treatment and resigned to live with it.  But then, her husband suffered a heart attack and that stress took her down even further.  Her husband’s wakeup call and her subsequent sudden weight loss scared her family to the point of stepping in to help and they brought her in to my office.

In Trish’s case, not only was her gut flora in a state of imbalance, but her liver, kidneys, pancreas, gall bladder and adrenal glands and even her brain, were all in various states of stress.   The body behaves like a loving family.  When one organ is compromised, the others try to take up the slack. If there is too much burden and not enough replenishment of supplies and resources, the other organs will tire, and eventually falter as well.  So it is not enough to address one symptom or one organ.  And, especially, if an organ is suppressed or inhibited by a non-nutritive, non-natural, chemical prescription in order to alleviate a symptom, there can be more hell to pay in the end, so to speak.

Elimination is the body’s way of getting rid of wastes, and it is very good at it under normal circumstances. Trish’s body was attempting to dump toxins and metabolic wastes as quickly as possible but it was overwhelmed and under resourced for the load.   Wouldn’t you be irritable in that situation?

  There were two ways we could help this body do better at what it was trying to accomplish:  

 1) Reduce the burdens:   Trish began an individual purification diet which consisted of totally eliminating coffee, sugar, alcohol, dairy, corn, wheat and processed non food substances like breads, pastas, packaged cereals etc., and eating only nutrient-rich foods i.e. mostly raw or lightly steamed vegetables, fruits, and gentle grains like rice and quinoa, and some good oils and fats.  Her family fully supported her in this project and Trish found that as long as she ate lots of the good stuff, eliminating sugar and coffee was easier than she anticipated. 

2) Provide more support and resources: This means to provide the body with the raw materials it needs to create energy for her life and bodily functions.  In Trish’s case we used some specific cleansing herbs and whole food supplements providing minerals and antioxidants.  (See Standard Process Purification Program)

Within just a few days she was feeling so much better she could hardly believe it, and by the tenth day she was having normal active mornings, delighting in the fact she could go out and garden in comfort.  At this point we added some healthy fish and free range chicken to her diet and she continued to improve. 

Trish’s story is not unique or even that unusual.  Many people are realizing that it is time to step up and take care of their bodies as nature intended.  It’s never too late to start. A little nature, a little nurture and a little nourishment goes a long way to keeping your body healthy and living  a vital, joyful life.

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Cathy Lidster, GCFP, NRC, has been a hands-on Health Practitioner since 1980 helping clients experience What Else Is Possible?.   For more information about whole food nutrition and Nutrition Response Testing, visit www.cathylidster.com  email cathylidster@gmail.com, or call 250-819-9041, 208-610-5756

 Find my article and others in Interior Wellness Magazine