Breastfeeding Versus Formula Science versus Opinion

May 29, 2023

Breastfeeding Versus Formula

Science versus Opinion

I read with somewhat of a frustrated feeling a recent article in Scientific American entitled: It's Okay Not to Breastfeed by Kavin Senapathy.

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Literature Review

May 22, 2023

Reading a weekly newsletter can often be a study in frustration regarding that which we learn about that is either against what we wish to do or just annoying to know about. This weeks literature review is one of these. This week we see a lot of frustrating science and policy reality that goes against our health and is controlled at the government level. Whether it is masking children, legalizing marijuana and or increasing potency legally, finding plastics in our bodies and so much more.

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Mental Health and Sleep for teens and college students

May 15, 2023 

This week,I had a blast being on a podcast that my son, Thomas, hosted for a college course at Elon. The topic was:

Mental Health and Sleep for teens and college students

Here are some highlights: Teenagers are sleep deprived and have been for decades.

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Literature Review

May 8, 2023

Literature Review

1) Plastics in the blood - what is the story? In the journal Nanomaterials: "Humans are continuously exposed to polymeric materials such as in textiles, car tires and packaging. Unfortunately, their break down products pollute our environment, leading to

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Section I - An Uncivilized Journey Part II (Being Vulnerable part II)

May 1, 2023

Section I - An Uncivilized Journey Part II

(Being Vulnerable part II)

I continued my wandering journey of self discovery this year. Finding myself back in rural Austin, Texas, there would be no

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Literature Review

April 24, 2023

1) "By nearly every metric, student mental health is worsening. During the 2020–2021 school year, more than 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem, according to the Healthy Minds Study, which collects data from 373 campuses nationwide (Lipson, S. K., et al., Journal of Affective Disorders, Vol. 306, 2022).

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Section I - An Uncivilized Journey

April 17, 2023

 

Last year, I wrote about an Uncivilized Journey that was very eye opening and transformative. This year, I went on a second journey deep in the fields of rural Austin, Texas where horses, turkeys and deer were living in peace. It was deeper and more moving than the first which is saying something. I am going to rerun last year's piece as it encapsulated the experiences well. Then I will tackle journey II in other weeks.

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Literature Review

April 10, 2023

1) Autism is linked to heart disease! From the JAMA Pediatrics study, "In this systematic review and meta-analysis of 34 studies that included 276,173 participants with autism and 7,733,306 participants without autism, individuals with autism had a higher associated risk of developing diabetes, dyslipidemia, and heart disease, but not hypertension or stroke. The associated risks of developing diabetes and hypertension were even higher among children with autism."(Dhanasekara et. al. 2023) The relative risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus was 2.5 and dyslipidemia was 1.6. Thus, individuals diagnosed with autism have a 1.6 fold increased risk of abnormal apolipoprotein B levels leading to CVD events over time. My take on this data is clear.

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Cholesterol Lipid Hypothesis Part VII

 

April 3, 2023

Cholesterol VII- Follow up

It is imperative that all readers know that any time you go against conventional wisdom, you run the risk of negative reactions from providers of care that disagree or do not know about this depth of hypothetical disease etiology. This set of lipid and cardiology articles was meant to stimulate the reader to think beyond the simple answer that "statin medications" and cholesterol lowering are the primary or only answers to coronary artery heart disease. 

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Cholesterol Lipid Hypothesis Part VI

March 27, 2023

 

High Density Lipoprotein - We are going to take a deep look at this very complex biological topic. Bear with me as in the end it will all make more sense as to why "good cholesterol" is not inherently good or bad as much as it just is. Our lifestyle decisions are in effect making a biological process good or bad. That is my scientific understanding at this time.

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Cholesterol Lipid Hypothesis Part V

March 20, 2023

 

Cholesterol Part V - What to do?

 

I hope that over the last four weeks I have sufficiently laid the case for heart disease as a complex disorder that is far from just a cholesterol/lipoprotein issue. It is vastly more complex than this especially with the new emerging data on the actions of high density lipoproteins, HDL, in reverse cholesterol and other molecule removal from circulation. In the next weeks newsletter, we will look at HDL.

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Cholesterol Lipid Hypothesis Part IV Endothelial Dysfunction  

March 13th, 2023

 

How does an artery clog?

Let us recap a little at this time.
1) Cholesterol and lipoproteins are significant and necessary for pathology to develop but not the only player in heart disease and atherosclerosis. I believe that inflammation is the root cause of the problem driving the lipid imbalance and plaque formation.
2) Lipoproteins are produced and recycled every day in order to deliver energy to tissues around the body via triglycerides and are a part of the ancient innate immune system. They are primed and ready to fight all systemic pathogens that are trying to hurt us.
3) Your genetic makeup may dictate whether you produce and/or recycle more cholesterol/lipoproteins than are advantageous in our current environment.

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Coronavirus Update On Hold For Now

March 13th, 2023

Omicron US strains: as of March 11th data - variants make up: BQ.1 is 2%, BQ1.1 is 5%, XBB1.5 is 90% and XBB is 2%

Omicron XBB.1.5 is now the only major player in the Covid space. We are many weeks into this stable run of this variant. We are in a very steady state with disease risk and morbidity.

North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services notes a flatline of Covid associated hospital ICU use for almost 1 calendar year now. Volumes are not changing despite the variant shifts.

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Calming the Gut On Fire

March 6th, 2023

Robert Roundtree MD

In a lecture hall last week, I listened to an impassioned speech on the upstream risks and necessary treatments of inflammatory Bowel Disease, IBD. Here is a snapshot of what to do to prevent Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

Damage to the intestinal microbiome from ultra processed dietary choices, exposure to recurrent levels of antibiotics and chemicals damage the gut flora to a point that the intestinal lining gets disrupted leading to auto reactivity to self tissue and auto inflammation of local tissue activating the innate and adaptive immune system to attack us.

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Cholesterol Lipid Hypothesis Part III

March 6th, 2023

So far, I have put forth some hypotheses that are controversial and raise questions about the American College of Cardiology guidelines. This is fine with me because this is about stimulating a conversation about disease etiology and treatment. Readers are never encouraged to go against their physician's recommendations. The choice to change a current therapeutic regimen is solely between the patient and their provider and frankly is likely predicated on how much damage has occurred over one's current lifetime coupled with genetic risk and the ability to alter lifestyle risk factors effectively.

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Science Literature Quick Hits

February 27th, 2023

1) Does male chronic alcohol consumption affect fertility in relationship? From the study: "Mechanistically, we found that preconception paternal alcohol exposure disrupts embryonic gene expression, including Fgf4 and Egfr, two critical regulators of trophectoderm stem cell growth and placental patterning, with lasting impacts on the histological organization of the late-term placenta. The changes in placental histoarchitecture were accompanied by altered regulation of pathways controlling mitochondrial function, oxidative phosphorylation and some imprinted genes. Our studies indicate that male alcohol

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Cholesterol Lipid Hypothesis Part II

 

February 27th, 2023

The hypothesis: cholesterol and lipoproteins like LDL are inherently good and necessary unless they become unbalanced either through genetics and most definitely lifestyle choices.

From last week: It turns out that the carrier lipoproteins like LDL and HDL cholesterol are an ancient part of our innate immune system that have an important function in fighting infection. We have always used these lipoproteins to clear infectious material before they can do damage.

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Coronavirus Update February, 2023

 February 27th, 2023

We continue to have a highly infectious Omicron endemic national state with new strains XBB/.1.5 with absolutely no signs of worsening disease severity or morbidity. Having had a previous Omicron natural infection is beneficial towards preventing moderate to severe disease from current circulating Omicron strains, but not helping against getting mild infection at all.

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Neurological Issues

February 20th, 2023

Some people may have seen the new press regarding autism. In a new study from Nature Molecular Psychiatry, we have some more data looking at the use of Lamotrigine, an anticonvulsant medicine, in the treatment of autism spectrum disorder. This could be exciting new news. Key word could.

Moritz Mall, lead scientist, noted that the MYT1L protein is associated with ASD type neuronal symptoms. The MYT1L protein is a transcription factor that helps determine which genes in a cell are turned on or off. This protein helps cells maintain a differentiated path to become a nerve cell.

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Men's Work

Men's Work

February 20th, 2023

Men: Do you ever ask yourself why some incredible women prefer the mysterious or somewhat bad guy over the put together nice guy? Well, this weeks conversation between Traver Boehm and Connor Beaton goes deep into the psyche and choices of men and women that lead to connection in relationship.

I found this conversation super stimulating as to why and how men can and need to look at how they show up energetically leading to attraction and safety for their partner or partner to be. Are they strong but safe to their partner, children, co workers, etc...? Are they toxic when frustrated?

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