Wellness Tips

ADHD Diagnosis: A Blessing to a Curse

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There is a lyric in the song If I Ever Lose My Faith In You by Sting that goes like this:

I never saw no miracle of science
That didn’t go from a blessing to a curse.

That line came to mind recently as I was reading an article written by Leon Eisenberg, MD in 2007. In it Dr. Eisenberg, a child psychiatrist who pioneered the first rigorous studies of autism and hyperkinetic syndrome (now ADHD), comments on the progression of the term ADHD and his growing discomfort in the rise in diagnoses and corresponding pharmacological treatments.

The article, entitled Commentary with a Historical Perspective by a Child Psychiatrist: When “ADHD” was “the Brain-Damaged Child” highlights Eisenberg’s early work and research into the then relatively uncharted waters of child psychology. He describes his influence in shifting the paradigm from psychogenesis that held a social/situational cause to one of biological/neurological origin. ( Please note that currently there is a lot of social media hype calling Eisenberg the “father of ADHD” and that he had a deathbed confession. That’s not what I am writing about. If you want to learn more about that hype, read this account on Snopes.com.)

In the late 1960′s, Eisenberg was the lead researcher in the efficacy of drugs like dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine, ProCentra, Dextrostat) and methylphenidate (Concerta, Daytrana, Ritalin, Methylin). Both of these drugs are central nervous system stimulants and have been known since 1937 to calm overactive children. But until Eisenberg’s research, the information was never subject to double-blind randomized testing. Still, Eisenberg missed a key point in his research which he recounts in his article:

“It is useful to recall, in this connection, Judith Rapoport’s studies in the late 1970s. Because hyperkinetic children became less active when they took what were by definition stimulant drugs, as though they were taking sedatives, their response was characterized as “paradoxical”. When Judy (alone of all of us with the insight and the courage to do it!) put the matter to empirical test by giving a single dose of dextroamphetamine to normal as well as hyperactive children and to normal college-aged men, all groups showed decreased motor activity, increased vigilance, and improved performance on a learning task. However, the adults reported euphoria, whereas the children reported feeling “tired” or simply “different” (Rapoport et al 1978; 1980). The “paradox” was age-related, not “disease”-related. That lesson continues to escape many today. A “therapeutic” response to stimulant drugs is taken as “confirmation” of the diagnosis of ADHD. Have we converted a dimensional spectrum that covers the entire population arbitrarily into a diagnosis by imprecise cut-off values? Have child psychiatrists and pediatricians become carpenters with hammers who see all problems as nails?”

The point is that all children responded the same way to the stimulant drugs, regardless of their hyperactivity. But Eisenberg’s work in reclassifying the hyperkinetic diagnosis from social to biological and his research showing the efficacy of a pharmacological solution had already set into motion a blessing that was unstoppable. Eisenberg:

“In many public school jurisdictions, the diagnosis led to additional services for such children because of the implication that their problems were “organic” or “endogenous” as opposed to psychological or psychogenic. For that very reason, parents welcomed it. Furthermore, the term “proved” they were not responsible for their child’s problems.”

“What none of us anticipated was the explosion in the diagnosis and treatment of what became ADHD (Morrow et al 1998; Batoosingh 1995; Zito et al 1999; Olfson et al 2003; CDC 2005). Methylphenidate consumption in “defined daily doses” rose from 60 million in 1987 to 360 million in 1999 and prescriptions for methylphenidate from 4 million to 11 million and for amphetamines from 1.3 million to about 6 million from 1991 to 1999 (Hearing 2000).”

In fact, research in North Carolina in 2000 and 2003 demonstrated an unequivocal presence of ADHD in 9 – 16 year old children of only 0.9%. Oddly, accross the United States almost 10% of school aged children are diagnosed with ADHD and take pharmaceutical medication. Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D., in her article published in Psychology Today entitled Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD, describes a cultural difference in how we view ADHD. According to Wedge, French psychiatrists still view ADHD as a social/situational condition and never adopted Eisenberg’s view that it was a biological/neurological condition. As a result, the percentage of children diagnosed and medicated for ADHD in France is less than 0.5%, much closer to the results of the North Carolina research.

But perhaps it is Eisenberg himself who reveals the underlying tide that has taken his scientific blessing to the curse that it is for many children today:

“Psychotropic drugs have become a multibillion dollar market. Sponsorship of research by drug companies is pervasive in academia (Studdert et al 2004). Systematic bias is apparent when companies sponsor research on their own products. Company sponsored studies are more than four times more likely to have outcomes favoring the sponsor than are studies with neutral sponsorship (Lexchin et al 2003; Als-Nielsen et al 2003).”

If we truly love our children, perhaps it is time to rethink how we view their behavior and our response when they misbehave.

Additional Resources:

New York Times: Dr. Leon Eisenberg, Pioneer in Autism Studies, Dies at 87

New York Times: Pills Tracked From Doctor to Patient to Aid Drug Marketing

New York Times: Drug Marketers Use Social Network Diagrams to Help Locate Influential Doctors

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

Paul Kulpinski is a licensed massage therapist, holistic wellness educator and co-founder of Mountain Waves Healing Arts in Flagstaff, Arizona. Information contained in this blog should not be taken as medical advice. Readers are advised to validate the information presented here with other sources including your personal physician for information specific to you.

Suffering from the Law of Attraction

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Toni, a woman at the peak of her vitality, was frustrated that she was unable to attract a man into her life. She did all of the things she was taught: to visualize having a man in her life, to imagine the feelings she might experience when she had a man in her life. She even went so far as to set a place for this future man at her dinner table with the honest intention of manifesting him once and for all. Yet, despite her desire, laser-like focus, and conviction in trying to attract this man, the chair remained empty and she became increasingly frustrated at her failure.

“I must be doing something wrong”, she said to her girlfriends.

“You have to use more positive affirmations.”

“You need to imagine him in more detail.”

“Your belief that he is truly just around the corner need to be stronger”, were some of their replies.

Toni was suffering from trying to use the Law of Attraction as it is commonly taught in our culture.

The law of attraction is a principle that is based on the idea that “like attracts like” and has been championed since the early 1900′s through the New Thought Movement. The concept was launched into the popular culture by the success of Napoleon Hill’s 1937 book entitled Think and Grow Rich. More recently, the popularity of the 2006 movie The Secret and its subsequent book ingrained the idea of the Law of Attraction into our present generation’s collective psyche.

Disclosure: I have personally placed a disproportionate amount of emphasis on the principle of like attracts like to varying success. I have even coached some of my clients on the principle. I am now spending some time refining what I have preached in an effort to reduce the suffering that the Law of Attraction can create. That is the reason for this post.

Having said that, let me state that I do believe in the principle of attraction and that like can attract like. However, it is not the only force that determines how reality is created. There are an infinite other variables at work in the creation of our personal experience. To put an undue emphasis on any one of these universal principles is problematic, yet this emphasis on the law of attraction is one of the ways we misunderstand it.

Let’s take a look at some other ways in which we mis-use this principle.

1. The law of attraction is built on the premise that the quality of our thinking is the most important determinant to manifesting our experience. The problem is that the last time I checked we live on a planet that requires action. Other planets may allow for pure thought to materialize directly into reality, but not Earth. We are human beings that do, not human doings that be.

2. We view this principle as a “law” which is immutable. Therefore it must always work and if it doesn’t there must be something wrong with us. This is the fundamental source of suffering related to this law. Let’s take an example from nature as to how this flaw is apparent. My front porch light attracts moths at night. How are these two things alike, if like always attracts like? The law doesn’t apply in this case, therefore we can’t apply it as a universal law.

3. The use of the law of attraction does not account for randomness and freedom of choice of other people. If my intention, desire, and will is focused on attracting you and having you fall deeply in love with me, at what point does my desire, will and intention overpower your desire, will and intention to run as far away from me as possible? It doesn’t. You always retain your free will to choose in opposition to my will which creates randomness. We co-create this reality through the combined variability of our individual choices each having an influence on the final outcome.

Would we really want the law of attraction to actually work the way we have been taught to believe? Take a whole community of terrorists who have an overwhelming desire, laser-like focus, clear intention, detailed plans for executing one act: the annihilation of you and your community. Would you really want the law of attraction to be the only thing necessary for them to accomplish their goal? I think not. Yet many followers of the law of attraction might say “but their intention is not for a good purpose, so of course it won’t come to manifest”. Well, just ask those same terrorists if they think their cause is good.

Even religion recognizes that there is an element of randomness to our experience. I’ve heard people of faith use phrases like “God willing” when expressing hope for an outcome, or “God must have a higher plan” for when they don’t get what they were praying for. Is it God’s will, or is it randomness?

Praying, visualizing, saying positive affirmations, are all some of the variables that can influence the eventual outcome that is our experience. Reality is way too complex to try and quantify our input through a single or even a handful of “universal truths”. When we do, we set ourselves up for the disappointment of not being good enough, strong enough, convicted enough, determined enough, clear enough, whatever enough. We’re just not enough, which can mean for some that we must be flawed and unworthy. This creates a thinking process that then truly attracts more negative thoughts which then leads to suffering.

Our opportunity is to simply do what we can with what we can, and let go of all the rest. This means we must first recognize the limit to our sphere of influence. What do we really have control over? Within that sphere of influence, examine our intention behind our choices and actions.

In the case of Toni, our frustrated single female, what we don’t know is that she is an accomplished violinist who has put away her bow and fiddle in deference to other activities while the local community orchestra is in need of more musicians. Toni could choose to re-kindle her love of the orchestra and introduce herself to the members there. If her intention is to expand her sphere of influence and share her joy for the violin with others who have a similar passion, she just might randomly find a single male musician with whom she finds a mutual attraction. Or not, but that does not mean she’s failed. She is finding joy in something she loves. That alone is worth it.

Do what you can, with clear and joyful intention, with the choices you have available to you within your sphere of influence. If you don’t like your available choices, then strive to expand your sphere of influence. Once you choose with heartfelt intention, let the law of attraction and all of the other infinite laws and variables do their work. Prepare to be surprised at what ever the outcome. Then, do what you can with what you can.

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

Motorcycles and Relationships

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I ride motorcycles, for fun and for practical transportation (I don’t currently own a car). In the “biker world” there’s a saying that loud pipes saves lives. While I don’t necessarily agree with this statement, it will help me to introduce my point for this post.

Whether you like the sound of a loud motorcycle engine or cover your ears as it passes by, you’ve undoubtedly heard the shift in pitch that occurs from high to low as the motorcycle approaches and then recedes from you. In physics this is called the Doppler shift. The Doppler effect is produced by the sound waves of the engine being compressed as the motorcycle moves toward you, creating a higher sounding pitch. As the motorcycle passes, the pitch dramatically lowers as the sound waves coming from the engine are elongated, creating a lower pitch.

As a bystander hearing the motorcycle pass, you never get to hear the actual pitch of the engine. Only the rider gets that privilege because they are constantly moving at the same speed as the motorcycle. This relates to relationships in the context of the idiom to truly know a man, walk a mile in his shoes. However, it is still you walking in their shoes, not you walking as them in their shoes. That’s impossible, and that’s the point of this post.

I once met a man named Larry who told me the story of an experience he had that changed his perspective on relationships forever. Larry described a time in his early forties when his life was at a high point. He was experiencing success in his real estate brokerage, his wife of twelve years was his best friend and was happily engaged in her career as a successful graphic designer. Everything was as he perceived it to be, except for the fact that his wife was an alcoholic and he didn’t know it.

Larry had been living under the perception that the pitch coming from his wife’s motorcycle was the actual sound she was hearing. In reality, her engine was screaming a different pitch that only she could hear, because she is the only rider on her motorcycle. During our lifetime, some people on their own motorcycles can ride close enough to hear a close approximation of the pitch of our engines, but they will never hear what we hear; because they are not riding our motorcycle.

The pitch of our motorcycle corresponds to our personal thoughts, reactions, emotions, and physical perception of the world around us. No one else can be in your “skin” but you. You may choose to share some of what you experience with others, but even still they will never see through your eyes. This is the problem that Larry discovered. He thought he knew his best friend. But she chose not to share, even with him, the pain she carried that lead to her alcohol abuse.

This can be a heart breaking experience for the one who discovers the side of another which has been hidden, either intentionally or unintentionally. It nearly ended Larry’s marriage until he changed an assumption he had been making. Up to that point, he believed that he was privileged to know everything about his wife. Just as it is impossible to know someone by “walking in their shoes”, it is impossible to know all of the thoughts, fears, dreams, and hurts of another. More importantly, we have no right to expect or demand it of another, regardless of how close we believe we are to them.

If our intention is to build a solid relationship, the only commitment we can make is to be honest with each other in each moment. In that way we can choose to show up for the other with authenticity. Sometimes the honest answer is I don’t want you that close to me when it comes to this issue. How we choose to respond to the other’s honesty reflects who we are in that moment. Larry chose to respect his wife’s choice to hide this part of her from him, but he also expressed his honesty by responding with I need to be closer to you to help you stop hurting.

This expression of honesty from both of them created the conditions from which they could co-create a new path that allowed for her healing and for a more realistic understanding of the vulnerabilities of being in relationship. But that’s a topic for a future blog post.

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

Natural Control for Diabetes

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Obesity is epidemic in the U.S. and one of its side effects is type 2 diabetes. 26 million Americans have diabetes and another 57 million are at risk of becoming diabetic, draining $132 billion annually from our pockets. Reducing obesity and the number of people suffering from diabetes will have a major impact on lowering health care costs for us all.

If obesity is the reason for the majority of diabetic diagnoses, major changes in diet and exercise habits are necessary for weight reduction in those experiencing obesity and overweight to impact the rise in diabetes. But for those who have developed a resistance to insulin (type 2 diabetes) there is no reversing it, even after significant weight loss and dietary improvement. Daily insulin management is a way of life for these people. That’s why prevention is so important for those 57 million people who are at risk.

There is mounting evidence for one natural plant that can help not only in the prevention of diabetes, but also in it’s management. That plant is flax and more specifically, flax seeds. Flax has been grown for its fiber for tens of thousands of years. Today it is grown mostly for the seeds and the oil that they produce. The oil, also know as linseed oil, is used in painting. However, it is also a nutritious and healthy food.

Listen to Paul’s radio broadcast.

Flax seeds are high in B vitamins, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, zinc and anti-oxidants. Two tablespoons have about 160 calories, 8 grams of fiber and 5.5 grams of protein. Those two tablespoons also have about 12 grams of fat, but it’s a good fat, mostly polyunsaturated with 150% of the RDA for omega-3 fatty acid. Flax seed really is a super-food.

We have known for decades that when flax seed is consumed with a meal, the normal spike in blood sugar from that meal is reduced. But tests measuring this effect has never been done on diabetics until recently. In the study, diabetic participants took one tablespoon of ground flax seed per day for a month. Compared to a control group, they experienced a significant drop in fasting blood sugar levels, triglycerides, and cholesterol.

In another study, researchers gave obese diabetics three tablespoons of either ground flax seed or wheat bran for twelve weeks and found a slight drop in their insulin resistance for the people using flax seed, while there was no change for the people using wheat bran. So while more research is needed, the benefits of including flax seed into your diet far exceed and unproven benefits to blood sugar levels.

Your best bet in buying flax seed is to buy the whole seed. When stored in a cool, dry, dark place like the refrigerator the seeds will stay fresh for up to one year. If you try to mix the whole seeds into your food, you’ll likely swallow most of the small seeds without them being broken up. Your digestive system is very ineffective in breaking through the tough outer layer of the seed. Your better off grinding up the quantity you need in a coffee grinder. Then sprinkle two tablespoons of ground seeds onto hot or cold cereal or steamed vegetables. You can also blend it into a protein shake or fruit/vegetable smoothie. You can also bake the ground seeds into muffins, breads, or other baked goods.

On word of caution. If you are diabetic and are already on medication intended to lower blood sugar levels, if you add flax seed into your diet you risk creating a condition where your blood sugar may become too low. Careful monitoring of your blood sugar is necessary as well as consulting your physician.

Other Resources:

Michael Greger, M.D. gives his take on these studies.

WebMD.com: Flaxseed

AmericanDiabetes.com: Flax Seed Nature’s Little Powerhouse

EveryDayHealth.com: Flax Seed and Diabetes

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

MBSR Class in May and June

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Nicolette Sachs, MSW, LCSW will be conducting her next Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Class (MBSR) starting this week.

There will be a free orientation session held on Wednesday, May 1st, 5:00-6:30pm. Please let Nicolette know if you intend to attend by calling her at (928) 526-1961.

The full course begins on Wednesday, May 8th, 5:00-7:00pm. The course will go for 8 consecutive weeks. The Day of Mindfulness is scheduled for Saturday, June 15th. The cost for the 8 weekly classes, including the day of mindfulness and course materials, is $250.00.

The orientation and course location is: Music Together, 2708 N. 4th St., Suite A-6 (located in the Knoles Village Square off 4th Street).

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a course designed to help students cultivate their own mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness is a way of waking up to your life, of learning to relate directly to whatever is happening in your life. It is a way of doing something for yourself that only you can do—consciously working with your own stress, pain, illness, and the challenges of daily life.

By enrolling in MBSR, you will have the opportunity to learn the following:

Practical methods for focusing your attention
Coping skills to improve your ability to handle stressful situations
To increase awareness of the interconnectedness of mind and body in health and illness
Gentle body-focused conditioning exercises to strengthen and release muscle tension
To cultivate greater balance in your life

The class schedule consists of 8 weekly classes of 2 hours each and one 5 hour day of mindfulness. There are over 20 total hours of instruction.

This course is modeled on MBSR developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. This program has been taught for over 30 years. Research shows efficacy in a range of areas of both physical and mental distress.

Nicolette Sachs, course instructor, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She has taught Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction to approximately 180 students during the past 10 years. Nicolette has sustained a private practice in Flagstaff for 17 years.

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

Rediscovering Art as Healing Medicine

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I love the fact that the name of our center is Mountain Waves Healing Arts. The name was created with the idea that the healing professions is truly an art expressing the science of the body and mind. Yet, it also alludes to a fundamental form of healing: art. Through out history, every culture has incorporated pictures, stories, dances, chants and many other symbolic expressions as healing rituals. In the past century, science has dominated the art/science balance in the healing arts almost to the exclusion of the former. Thankfully, in the past decade art is regaining some status to it’s healing power. Even some medical schools and hospitals are incorporating programs with titles like Arts in Medicine.

There is a lot of anecdotal information about the healing power of artistic expression and appreciation. There is also a growing body of solid research connecting the engagement of the creative arts and the positive benefits on our physiological and psychological states. The healing benefits of art come from both creating one’s own artistic expression, or through the appreciation of someone else’s expression. I recently took a vacation with just that intent: to experience some art and culture as a way to renew my spirit and sense of well being. I found it interesting that in the process of appreciating what I saw, there were times when I was inspired to capture my impressions with a photograph or a video. I was creating my own artistic expression from someone else’s artistic expression. Here are two examples from that trip.

Both creating and appreciating art creates changes in neural activity in the brain which reduces anxiety, lowers cortisol and other stress hormones, lowers heart and respiratory rates, improves the functioning of the immune system, increases our tolerance to pain, and simply improves our mood.

Numerous studies have measured the impact in both creating and appreciating music, visual art, movement and expressive writing. In all four types of artistic expression, all of these physiological and psychological benefits were demonstrated. Creating art, in particular had the added benefit of expressing emotion and experience in a symbolic way that gave voice to something that was otherwise unexpressible. Pain, fear, trauma are all able to find their way into symbolic expression through art in ways that are safe and accepted. This expression can often restore a person’s positive identity and sense of self worth, especially following traumatic injury.

The visual arts like painting, sculpture, and textiles can provide the most profound medium to give rise to healing expression, often before the creator is even aware of the need to express it. Studies of patients recovering from cancers and heart disease have shown ability for expression through visual art to reduce pain and place their illness in a context that is understandable for them so they may fully integrate their healing process. At the same time, simply appreciating visual art can provide solace if even for a short time.

Music is probably the most researched form of healing art with its demonstrated capacity to sooth and provide a mental refuge from pain. In studies with heart patients, music was found to reduce stress and anxiety and lower heart and respiratory rates. In studies with cancer patients, music therapy produced an increase in their sense of control, reduced pain, increased immunological response, and generally reduced both the physical and psychological symptoms of the cancer.

Movement therapies like Tai Chi, dance, theatre not only reduced stress and anxiety, but also improved patients sense of body image, quality of life, and physical mobility. Alzheimer’s patients also experienced improved cognitive functioning and other psychological measures of quality of life.

Patients using expressive writing and journaling experienced reductions in pain, fatigue, depression by those experiencing fibromyalgia. Patients with HIV experienced increased immune system responsiveness and increased lymphocyte counts.

How one creates or appreciates art doesn’t matter on its ability to positively impact your wellness. You don’t need to be an “artist” to express and create in this way. To me its about providing an outlet for the stuff in our lives that is being brushed aside or worse: repressed. In doing that, the only way for that repressed energy to express itself is within our body which creates a “dis-ease” in our cells and tissues. If left unchecked it can often lead to the chronic disease that permeates our culture. In the video below, a therapists suggests the idea of “painting a scream” and that no one knows what a scream looks like, let alone what your scream might look like. So paint your scream. Dance your pain. Sing your fear as often as you need to, so that you can live your joy.

References

American Journal of Public Health: The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health: A Review of Current Literature

BeBrainFit.com: The Health Benefits of Art Are for Everyone

The Saturday Evening Post: Art’s Healing Powers

Foundation for Art and Healing

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

Increase in violence linked to decrease in nutrition

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As I wrote in my last post, my experience with the Juice Plus+ Effect has increased my awareness on my own nutrition. It has also heightened my awareness of the degradation in nutritional quality of common foods in our diet. In that exploration, I have begun to wonder about a connection between this change in our nutrition and the increase of violent behavior in recent years. Last month I wrote about the impact of Niacin (vitamin B3) on mental health. In this post, I want to expand that into some more research linking behavior and nutrition.

The video below is from a lecture by Russell Blaylock, MD where he cites a series of intriguing studies that link poor nutrition with harmful behaviors, and how changes in the quality of nutrition have improved the behaviors of the same individuals. The research centers on children and adults with hyper-active conditions. Many of the studies were conducted with prison inmates who committed violent crimes.

Blaylock is a retired neurosurgeon, author, and lecturer. He is a former clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and is currently a visiting professor in the biology program at Belhaven College where this lecture was recorded in 2006.

References:

Russell Blaylock, MD

Wikipedia: Russell Blaylock

The Skeptic’s Dictionary: Russell Blaylock

American Nutrition Associaton: Hypoglycemia in Children’s Behavior Problems

PubMed.gov: The Emotional, Social, and Behavioral Implications of Insulin-Induced Hypoglycemia

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

The next best thing to fruits and vegetables

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I’ve been in practice for nearly fourteen years and for much of that time I have wanted to offer options to my clients who wish to enhance their nutrition above what they consume from their regular diet. Over the years I have looked at a variety of supplement products and investigated several multi-level marketing programs. Each time I declined to associate myself with them because those programs felt out of alignment with my values, core beliefs and most of all I didn’t trust that the products did what they said. I’ve worked hard to build a solid reputation with my clients and I don’t want to tarnish it by being associated with a product or marketing program that undermines that trust.

Last year I was introduced to Juice Plus+, and while I was again initially skeptical there were several things that appealed to me right off the bat. First, Juice Plus+ is based on the idea that your nutrition should first come from the food you eat. I whole heartedly agree with this premise and have written about it many times here on the Mountain Waves website. Secondly, while the product is distributed through independent “distributors” that work in an up-line fashion, they’ve been around for nearly 20 years and have a solid reputation. More important to me is that I didn’t have to stock inventory and keep “pushing it” in order to keep it fresh. Creating my own “distribution network” isn’t my goal in recommending Juice Plus+, so I don’t feel any pressure to push Juice Plus+ on anyone. Finally, Juice Plus+ is a very narrow line of products that is focused on whole food nutrition. They’re not trying to sell products outside of their core competency of nutrition. I like that.

So I decided to give it a try for myself and personally verify the effects of Juice Plus+ cited by the numerous research studies over the past decade. I also provided it to my children, family and close friends to see how they responded. Well, I have to tell you that in the first couple of month my skepticism vanished. It’s not like the hair on my head started to grow back or my face looked 20 years younger, but I did notice some significant improvements to my wellness that were more subtle.

Very soon after starting on Juice Plus+, I became more aware of the foods that I was buying and eating. While I’ve always eaten a variety of fruits and vegetables, my awareness of when my last serving is more top of mind. I began reaching for a piece of fruit or a vegetable as a snack rather than other foods that I chose in the past. In experimenting with the Juice Plus+ Complete protein powder, I began to blend up a variety of fresh fruit and/or vegetables with it as part of my breakfast each morning. This is a habit I’ve retained to this day. In doing so, I also found that my craving for sweets during the day is greatly diminished. If you know me at all you know my love of cookies, cakes and of course chocolate! With this breakfast routine, the sweets in my house now go uneaten. This is just one example of what is called the Juice Plus+ Effect, where lifestyle choices are altered through a changed in awareness indirectly created by taking Juice Plus+.

The Juice Plus+ Effect is also illustrated in this account from Liz, a good friend of mine. Liz has a precocious five year old daughter named Emma who stubbornly refuses to eat anything other than macaroni and cheese, go-gurt, chocolate milk, and occasionally apples. Liz started Emma on Juice Plus+ chewables. Emma enjoyed them from the beginning and even looked forward to eating them. Recently, after about four months on Juice Plus+, Emma out of the blue announced to Liz that “she now would like to eat broccoli, and how much she thought they looked like little trees”! Liz was dumbfounded and is now convinced of the Juice Plus+ Effect.

In addition to this my family and I have also experienced the following:

Fewer colds or at least a reduction in symptoms with a quicker recovery.
Improved skin condition with less acne and oil.
Improved mood and emotional balance, especially in relation to menstrual cycles.
Like eating Juice Plus+ and take it more consistently than in the past with vitamin supplements.

Juice Plus+ is conducting research to document changes like this through their Children’s Health Study going on right now. Through this study, children like Emma can receive their supply of Juice Plus+ for free for the next three years.

The video below does a great job of explaining how Juice Plus+ is made and it’s benefits, give it a viewing. For more information or to learn how to get some Juice Plus+ for you and your family, visit my website here or give me a call at (928) 526-1961.

Resources:

PaulLovesJuicePlus.com

Children’s Health Study

The Juice Plus+ Effect

Clinical Research on the Effects of Juice Plus+

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

Niacin deficiency and mental illness

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From time to time, I decide to re-balance my dietary nutritional balance and reduce or temporally eliminate some of the foods that I’ve over used. Recently for me, the offender that I have temporally eliminated is coffee. (I do like the taste, so it is only temporary.) If you ever want a demonstration of the direct impact food has on the brain, stop drinking coffee cold turkey after drinking an average of 6-10 cups a day. My symptoms included: headache, muscle ache, drowsiness, and even a bit of depression.

In my natural curiosity to explore this food-brain connection that I was directly experiencing from my caffeine withdraw, I stumbled on some fascinating research about niacin deficiency and schizophrenia. No my symptoms didn’t include hallucinations, but the mental fogginess I was feeling was close enough.

It turns out that as far back as 1952, research by Abram Hoffner, PhD, MD, had shown that the use of high doses of vitamin B-3 or niacin can eliminate the symptoms of schizophrenia. Additionally, research since then has not only confirmed the positive effects of niacin on mental illness, it has also demonstrated effectiveness in treating certain types of cancers, diabetes, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease and even some tantalizing results with HIV/AIDS.

Niacin is a water soluble B-complex vitamin which can be found in a variety of food, including yeast, meat, poultry, tuna, salmon, peanuts, and avocados but it can also be synthesized by the body from the amino acid tryptophan. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for niacin is about 20 mg per day. But most people don’t get enough niacin in their diet and supplementation is suggested for many people.

In general, niacin is important to the body in its role of metabolizing glucose, fats and alcohol. So when our diet consists of lots of processed foods that are high in sugar and fat, not only are you not receiving niacin from your diet, your body actually requires more niacin to metabolize the junk food that you’ve eaten. It’s a catch-22 that produces a downward spiral to niacin deficiency very quickly.

So it’s not surprising to me that with the rise in junk food consumption, we have also seen an increase in depression and ADHD diagnoses. According to Dr. Hoffner, niacin reduces the body’s production of a chemical called adrenochrome which is a form of adrenaline. Adrenocrhome is found in high quantity in patients suffering from schizophrenia, and this is an explanation for how niacin helps those suffering from this illness. However, when niacin is used as a therapeutic treatment, high doses in excess of 3000 mg per day are used in conjunction with an equivalent amount of vitamin-C.

But even in lower doses of around 500 – 1000 mg per day, the beneficial effects for people suffering from depression, anxiety and insomnia are well documented by Dr. Hoffner. However, he recommends that niacin (B-3) still needs to be taken in coordination with the other B-vitamins along with vitamin-C which helps absorption.

As for me, I discovered that while the coffee bean does contain some niacin, the caffeine in the coffee eliminates the body’s ability to use it and also flushes the body of existing niacin, among other nutrients. So, perhaps in the process of quitting coffee, I began to feel the depressive effects of a lack of niacin as one source of my withdraw symptoms, without the effect of the caffeine to mask this deficiency.

Either way, for me it’s all about achieving and maintaining balance. Strive to get as much of your nutrition from dietary sources and reduce or eliminate foods that deplete that nutrition, while supplementing in the anti-oxidant vitamins of C, E, folic acid (B-9), niacin (B-3), and the rest of the B-complex. Your brain will thank you.

References:

DoctorYourself.com: Review of Dr. Abram Hoffer’s “Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia”

DoctorYourself.com: Vitamin B-3: Niacin and Its Amide

DoctorYourself.com: How to Determine a Saturation Level of Niacin

DoctorYourself.com: B Informed About B Vitamins

Linus Pauling Institute of the Oregon State University: Niacin

Wikipedia: Niacin

Wikipedia: B Vitamins

Nutrition-Info.com: Nutrient Destroyers

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT

How a health food becomes harmful

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Farmer holding a bunch of corn Question: When is a good thing not a good thing?

Answer: When you desire too much of it.

When I think of too much of a good food, one of the thirteen virtues of Benjamin Franklin comes to mind: temperance. Of temperance, Franklin wrote, “ Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.” Now, you might be thinking that ol’ Ben is just a guy who doesn’t appreciate a good time. Well, Franklin’s social life might be a topic of a different post, but on the issue of how a health food becomes harmful, he is right on target. Here’s why. We live in a culture that embraces the pursuit of gratification for all our whims and urges, 24/7. This pursuit is typified in the mantra “if a little is good, then more is better.”

This thinking leads to a lack of temperance, which is fueled by marketing that promotes the idea that our life is incomplete with out the new and improved – “whatever”. Now let’s apply this thinking to health and wellness. The American culture has this insatiable desire to maintain youthfulness. My hope is that the intention driving this is to live to an old age with a youthful vitality for as long as possible. I have my doubts about that, but let’s not go there now. I do find that with our desire for youthfulness, anytime a particular food from anywhere on the planet is identified as having properties that enhances health, or reduces the risk for some malady, there follows an ensuing rush to get as much of that food into our diets as possible.

For example, let’s look at the craze over the açaí berry in the mid 2000′s. Açaí (pronounced ah-SAH’ee) is a berry from Brazil that has demonstrated benefits for digestion, healthy skin, and most importantly is high in cancer fighting anti-oxidants. For generations, it has been and remains a major source of nutrition for the traditional people of the Amazon region. By 2009, the demand for the berry from people in the United States created a strain on the supply of berries to the point that the local people, for whom açaí is a dietary staple, could not maintain a sufficient supply for themselves. The rage for açaí came and went despite the fact that the supply of blueberries grown locally in the U.S. was abundant and that blueberries contain the same degree of anti-oxidants as the açaí berry. The American desire for youthful vitality depleted the wellness of the Amazonian people. I hope the Amazonians are recovering.

Since then attention has focused on the high plateaus of Bolivia and Peru where an obscure plant flourishes. Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) thrives in the thin air of high altitude, low water and sandy soil, where other plants won’t even sprout. For millennia this native plant supplied the majority of nutrition in the diet of the Andean cultures and yet remained unknown to most of the rest of the world, until 1993.

In that year, while researching appropriate foods for long-duration human space flight, NASA identified quinoa as a super food and decided to include it in the dietary mix for astronauts. The reason that NASA, and since then a whole host of dietary conscious eaters, have become keen on quinoa is because it is low in fat, high in protein, gluten free, and is the only plant food that contains all 10 of the amino acids essential to the human diet. The United Nations has gone so far as to declare 2013 the International Year of Quinoa. Hurray for quinoa!

Not so fast! Here is how this super food becomes harmful. The price of quinoa has tripled since 2006, as rich nations like the United States and those in Europe and Asia are willing and able to pay a high price for youthful vitality from their food. This has produced a financial boon to the people of the Andes who are now enticed to sell all of their crop for cash and are no longer holding some back for their personal consumption. The result is that the local people are eating less and less of their traditional food and are beginning to suffer the effects of malnutrition, where there once was none. Ironically, the diet that has led to diminished health in the west, is now becoming the diet of the Andean people who can afford processed and non-native food.

But just like the Amazonians, the Andeans are making this choice for themselves, in the pursuit of gratification and the resulting loss of temperance. It’s a funny thing about money, as you gain more you want to abandon the traditions that sustained you, until you amass enough financial wealth to realize the folly of your pursuit, only to return to the traditions that you once abandoned. It reminds me of the story of the fisherman and the businessman, but that too is for another time.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to diminish the nutritional value of quinoa, or the açaí berry. I only wish to point out the instability of our practice of obtaining more and more food from beyond our local region. Quinoa and açaí are very good high nutritional foods for the people of those regions. I believe that we must do a better job of eating the food from the region in which we live, during the seasons when those foods are available. The growth of local farmer’s markets is encouraging to me. In these markets, not only do you buy locally grown foods, you get to meet the person who grew it! What a wonderful way to create a personal relationship with the food you eat.

To me, this locally grown food should be our main supply of nutrient, from which we can add foods from beyond our region from time to time, rather than the other way around. If you don’t believe me try this exercise. Assuming you live in the continental United States, when was the last time you ate a banana? Then ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a banana tree growing near your home? The truth is that banana likely traveled at least a thousand miles to get from the tree to your mouth. If you like bananas, perhaps you are better served by living where bananas are grown.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a long way to go toward fully adopting this change for myself, but you have to start somewhere. I invite you to start today. Care to join me?

Resources:

The Guardian: Quinoa brings riches to the Andes

The Guardian: Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa?

The Guardian: Eating quinoa may harm Bolivian farmers, but eating meat harms us all

Time: Quinoa: the dark side of an Andean superfood

Time: Slow food: can you eat well and save the world?

Dr. Andrew Weil: Acai: a better berry?

About Paul Kulpinski, LMT