Category: Articles

Understanding Your Hormones in a Post-40 World

Posted on | by The StoneTree Team | Leave a Comment on Understanding Your Hormones in a Post-40 World

Valentines Day is approaching, and it brings to mind thoughts of beautiful flowers, delicious chocolates and LOVE.

For many of our patients in their 40’s and beyond, however, this time of year leaves them wondering just where their thoughts of love have gone. Or, if the thoughts are there, what happened to the get up and go to act on them?

For the Boys

Andropause can be a scary time for men. It is described medically as the end of male virility.  Gasp. What dude wants to hear that?

What’s really going on? The brain is making less of the hormone that stimulates the testes to make testosterone, so production goes down. Sex hormone binding globulin, or SHBG, increases as well, which binds testosterone and makes blood levels even lower.

To add to that, loss in lean body mass and increase in fat mass causes an increase in estrogen secretion, which inhibits testosterone further. In other words–you’re trading one bulge for another.

For the Girls

Menopause can be an irritating time for women. It is described medically as the “end of the female’s productive life”, but the symptoms that can show up make it feel less like the end of your period’s life, and more like the end of life, period.

What’s really going on? As the ovaries age there are fewer eggs around to mature. The brain keeps trying to stimulate the ovaries to make an egg but it either doesn’t happen, or it takes a really long time. Progesterone, which is made by the mature egg, starts to fall and estrogen, which is one of the hormones required to mature the egg, just keeps climbing. This results in heavy periods, breast tenderness, hot flashes, major mood swings (AKA Keep-the-Knives-Locked-Up), and insomnia.

Once it’s all over the body should find its new balance, but sometimes it doesn’t, perpetuating the old symptoms, or creating new problems like lack of libido and vaginal dryness.

How do you figure out what’s going on?

Most hormones in the blood are bound to proteins, which serve the purpose of ferrying them around to the various cells. Bound hormones don’t have any effect – only unbound ones do.

You can test blood levels, but they only show bound, or non-active hormone levels.

Saliva tests can reveal unbound levels. This is the active form of the hormone, so we get a better look at what is going on. (Remember with andropause, for example, one of the things that happens is the binding protein increases, so that even if there is enough testosterone around, it isn’t active.)

What to do about it?

Twenty year-olds can find their mojo regardless of how much they sleep, run or eat. It’s the biological imperative, and all us 40-somethings can remember it clearly. Now that we’re making our way into middle life, however, what we do or don’t do matters a great deal.

  • Exercise. Losing muscle mass and gaining fat mass takes a huge toll on testosterone levels and jacks up estrogen, both of which make for more sitting on your butt and less getting it on. Regular exercise not only battles the bulge, but it maintains the lean tissues. It also increases circulation in the extremities – and blood flow is always an important part of an intimate encounter!
  • Diet. Foods that put on the pounds increase our fat stores and then increase estrogen in the body. This perpetuates the estrogen dominance in women making menopausal symptoms worse, and makes testosterone fall even further in men. Eat foods that nature makes. Lot of veggies, fruits, lean proteins, legumes and nut and seeds.
  • Avoid xeno-estrogens. Plastics, pesticides, non-organic dairy – all are full of xeno-estrogens that can make the problem worse.
  • Hormone Balancing. This can be done with herbs and supplements, or bioidentical hormones, and Naturopathic Doctors are trained and to help you do just that.

You can’t avoid aging altogether, but you can definitely change its pace and impact. How about for this Valentine’s Day, you give yourself the gift of getting your mojo back!

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Is Sitting the New Smoking?

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on Is Sitting the New Smoking?

Dr. James Levine, director of the Mayo Clinic-Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative and inventor of the treadmill desk, is credited with coining the phrase, “Sitting is the new smoking.”

Levine has studied the impact of sedentary lifestyle for years. Here’s his take, summed up in two sentences:

“Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”1

While Levine makes a dramatic case, what caught my interest most about this is the completely different way of looking at the problem of the lack of physical activity. It’s not just that we exercise too little. It’s that we are sitting entirely too much.

“But I Go to the Gym”

New research, reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, indicates that excessive sitting is linked to increase risk of death due to all causes, even if you engage in “regular exercise”. 2

This is mind-blowing! In the health care world we have been spouting off for years that so long as you get your 30-60 minutes a day of exercise in, you’re fine–what happens in the rest of the day is not important.

It looks like we might be wrong.

Just like regular physical activity will not negate the negative effects of smoking on your body, so too won’t it erase hours of sitting in front of Netflix or trolling on Facebook.

Maybe instead of a Fitbit to track our activity, we need a “sit bit” to track our inactivity? It’s an interesting idea. If you reduce your inactivity, then by default you’d be increasing your activity.

But what do you replace inactivity with? Is this a call to spend seven hours a working out? Not at all.

Ambient Activity

What’s missing isn’t more time at the gym. It’s more ambient activity. It’s the background, low-intensity movement that has been slowly erased from our lives by remote controls, lawn mowers, clothes dryers, restaurants, and the multitude of other conveniences that allow us to be sedentary.

Want to be more active? Sure, take a walk or workout. But try taking the stairs, hanging our laundry, washing your own dishes, and cooking real food at home. Stop trying to make everything so physically easy. And for those hours at your desk? Make sure you take a few short breaks during long work sessions. Or maybe even try a stand-up desk!

Too easy? You could try giving up sitting altogether for a month like this guy.

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Shingles and IV Vitamin C

Posted on | by The StoneTree Team | Leave a Comment on Shingles and IV Vitamin C

Every year many Canadian suffer from a painful case of the shingles.

Shingles is a re-activation of an old chicken pox virus (the herpes zoster, or HZ)  that is hiding in the dorsal root ganglion, a little sack where our nerves leaves our spinal column to go out to our body.

When our immune system is healthy and strong, this dormant virus stays right where it is and causes no trouble. If our immune system is weakened–sometimes by chronic stress, poor diet, or toxic exposures–the virus can leave its hiding place to create the characteristic red, raised lesions that show up, usually on the torso. These lesions can be very painful and difficult to treat.

Most shingles infections are self-limiting and will resolve in two to four weeks, but for the unlucky, symptoms can take months to resolve and some can be left with post-herpetic neuralgia. Either way, it’s a painful condition.

But while it’s usually a condition reserved for older folks, shingles can affect any adult and the incidence seems to be on the rise. What to do?

Conventional treatment

The conventional for shingles usually involves anti-virals, steroids and pain-killers, all of which have limited success, making it a very challenging thing to treat.

Naturopathic Approaches

Prevention, is of course, ideal. Stay healthy. Eat well, sleep, get outside every day.

But if you do get shingles, supplements like lysine and B12/folic acid are often used. Avoiding foods high in Arginine, like nuts and chocolate, is also recommended.

But the treatment we have the most success with? High dose IV vitamin C.

This great article by Dr. Levy MD, shows the evidence supporting the use of IV vitamin C for shingles pain.

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Dr. Tara, cold but happy in January!

Beating the Winter Blues

Posted on | by The StoneTree Team | Leave a Comment on Beating the Winter Blues

Unless you are one of those “love to ski” types, winter can be a long, cold, boring, cold, dark, cold season. For many of us it’s hard to be happy. For others, the winter season is more then just a little difficult–they suffer from seasonal affective disorder or become clinically depressed.

There are many symptoms associated with depression other then sadness. Sleep troubles, change in appetite, slow thinking, fatigue, irritability, restlessness, and difficultly making decisions are all possible signs of depression. Even physical symptoms like back pain and headaches can be signs that your mood is out of balance.

Conventional medicine relies on the use of anti-depressants to treat the problem, and when the depression is severe, these tools can be literally life saving. However, there are some downsides associated with the use of antidepressants that have many patients looking for alternatives.

How Naturopathic Doctors See Your Depression

Because the body generally does an excellent job of healing itself, naturopaths see depression, like most symptoms, as a sign of an imbalance in your body that could be creating your current symptoms. Here are a few:

  • A hormone imbalance – low estrogen and/or high progesterone can be a culprit here. Also, thyroid and adrenal imbalances can lead to very low moods.
  • A nutrient deficiency might be in play – low levels of omega-3 fats, iron, B vitamins or vitamin D can be the cause of imbalanced mood.
  • Too much inflammation as is often caused by the standard North American diet and/or food intolerances, resolution of that inflammation with a diet change can greatly affect mood.
  • Mental-emotional imbalances. Unresolved grief, post traumatic stress – these are all real causes of sadness and depression. Also, a feeling of hopelessness, depression or overwhelm are all signals that it is time to sit down and re-evaluate what is most important in your world. Put those things that are front and center and act to change them.

What to Do?

The first rule of depression is to not go it alone. Serious depression requires serious help. Don’t be afraid to ask for it.

If you’re trying to beat the “winter blues,” though, there’s a growing body of research that says that exercise works as well or better than anti-depressants, and with none of the side effects.

The trick, of course, is that if there’s ever a time when you feel less like exercising, it’s when you’re depressed. With that in mind, here are a few suggestions:

  • Start small. Don’t make a big deal out of this. You’re better off getting a few minutes of exercise outside than nothing at all. Really–take a two-minute walk. Everyone has two minutes. It’s getting started that matters.
  • Walking counts. You don’t need to throw weights around, get sweaty, or go to Pilates. A simple walk will help.
  • Get outside. There are numerous benefits to being outdoors, particularly in winter. You’ll get more bang for your buck by getting out of the house.
  • Rely on friends and family. Getting out in winter is hard enough on your own. Find someone to join you, and hold you accountable.

Wondering if your hormones or nutrient status are affecting your mood? Just contact the clinic at 705-444-5331 to learn how you can find out.

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The Health Care Number We SHOULD Care About

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on The Health Care Number We SHOULD Care About

We often hear in the media of the “health care crisis”.  People are getting older, and sicker and our system is at risk of collapsing with the strain of taking care of everyone. And there are any number of scary statistics to support the idea in articles like this one, for example:

  • The supply of physicians will need to increase by at least 46 per cent over the next 25 years just to keep up with increased demand for services by the aged population.
  • We’ll need severe cutbacks to other already neglected sectors (such as the arts, public transportation, infrastructure, education, social welfare, etc.) and put in force abrupt tax increases to cover health care costs

Of course, “solutions” abound to solve the problem: User fees. Delisting services. Private clinics. Privatized insurance. Reforming the prescription drug system.

What’s amazing is that no one seems to truly care about one simple number: 75% of health care costs are spent on chronic disease.

Okay…here’s the thing: Chronic diseases are preventable. And sometimes reversible. They’re lifestyle diseases. They’re caused by what you do, and what you don’t do. When you change those things, you get better. Period.

It’s not rocket science. You eat better, move more, drink less booze, don’t smoke, go outside, have friends and have a great reason to get out of bed. That’s it. Do that consistently all the time and you’ll be healthier. A lot healthier. The evidence is all out there. According to the World Health Organization, at least 80% of premature heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, and 40% of cancer can be prevented through healthy diet, regular physical activity and avoidance of tobacco products.

Simple? Yes.

Easy? Hell, no.

If prevention and lifestyle change were easy, we’d all be healthy and doctors and researchers would be focusing their time—and your tax dollars—on acute care, true genetic issues, and other non-lifestyle-related challenges. But they’re not, because this simple stuff is hard.

Instead of accepting that it’s hard and figuring it out, though, what do we do? We use hard as an argument to avoid dealing with it. “People can’t do it, so we just won’t bother trying. We’ll invent a drug instead.”

That’s wrong. It’s as wrong as giving up on changing attitudes towards cigarettes, or race and gender issues. If we gave up every time something was hard, half of adults wouldn’t be able to vote and we’d still be smoking like rock stars.

So where do we start? I think the solution starts with changing who has the power.

Presently, the center of power is the doctor. The doctor has access to all the training, all the tests, all the info and all treatments. The doctor does the tests, makes the diagnosis and gives the treatment plan. It is a system that has worked this way for generations, and as we perceive the number of “scary diseases that can kill you” rising, patients become more and more willing to give up control to the “expert”.

Want to avoid a health care crisis? Start seeing patients as experts. Put the power in the hands of the people who know themselves best, and help them focus on the 75% we can actually change.

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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Freedom from Itchy, Watery, Sneezy…

Posted on | by The StoneTree Team | Leave a Comment on Freedom from Itchy, Watery, Sneezy…

For many of our patients, seasonal allergies are such a predictable condition that they don’t even complain much—they just accept it as the price they pay for nice weather.

But do we have to put up with it? Can we “fix” seasonal allergies? In many cases, yes—especially for allergies that appear later in life, or worsen over time.

A Case of Mistaken Identity
Our immune system is meant to be intolerant to many things in our environment—it’s a protective mechanism that’s evolved over millions of years. A properly functioning immune system reacts to serious threats like viruses and bacteria, and that reaction keeps us healthy.

In some cases, though, the system learns the wrong thing, and begins to make bad decisions. Instead of ignoring harmless things like pollen or ragweed, it reacts to them too.

The result is what we call allergies—your body reacting adversely to something it should (or used to) tolerate.

A Gut Feeling
When a harmless substance like pollen turns into enemy number one, though, naturopathic doctors don’t just see an “allergy”, we see a sign that your immune system is out of balance.

A normally functioning immune system relies heavily on the beneficial bacteria that inhabit your gut. Simply put, those bacteria “package” a harmless substance like pollen to tell your immune system, “Don’t worry about this. It’s okay.”

It’s a system that works great until something interferes with the balance of these beneficial bacteria. That compromises our “packaging” ability, and we become more reactive to things we should be able to tolerate.

Happy Gut = Fewer Allergies
Things like antibiotic use, exposure to chemicals and environmental pollutants can compromise your bacteria. So can your diet—eating too much processed food, too many foods you are intolerant to, or not eating enough fermented food can also throw off the system.

When we work with people to avoid their food intolerances, detoxify their bodies, improve their diets and heal their gut flora, it is never shocking to us when they come back and report they have had the best allergy season ever!

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What Giving Up Coffee Taught Me

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | 3 Comments on What Giving Up Coffee Taught Me

I love coffee. I simply love it. If you were to ask my daughter which I love more, her or coffee, she’d actually have to take some time to think about it before answering.

Needless to say, my 30-day challenge to give up coffee was not an easy decision. And boy, was the outcome illuminating.

First off, I was unaware of how much I depended on that morning cuppa for my mental function and mood. In week one I couldn’t remember people’s names, and I kept forgetting what I was doing. I had to double- and triple-check everything.

I was tired and cranky and head-achy in the first week. But even after those symptoms faded, I was still just plain sad in weeks two and three.

The hardest part was that I knew the solution was easy. All I needed to do was go downstairs and give the nice lady $2 and that cup of black magic would take all my pain away. Thank goodness, I had told EVERYONE of my 30 day goal. If I hadn’t, I would have folded like a dirty shirt.

The strength of that drive to have a coffee was huge, I can’t imagine someone trying to break a serious narcotic addiction.

In the fourth week, though, things started to change. My mood stabilized, my energy was no longer in the toilet and many of the little symptoms that I had while drinking my daily java had gone–things like heartburn and headaches. It took almost the whole 30 days, but I had finally escaped the pull of coffee.

What’s Next?

So my 30 days are up. What am I doing now, you ask?

Drinking coffee of course! 🙂  But…in a totally different way. There are numerous health benefits to coffee, and I love the focus and attention I gain from a well-placed cup. But I don’t enjoy needing it to function.

So here is my new plan: No more waking up to coffee. I now start my day with 2 big glasses of water and 2 cups of refreshing herbal tea, instead of the 2 cups of coffee with milk I used to have.

The result? I’m hydrated and hungry in the morning. I eat my breakfast, go for my morning walk and then have my one and only cup of coffee on my drive into the office. No more heartburn, and mid-day headache because of dehydration, and my patients get the benefit of a focused and energized mind the whole day long.

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Vaccination: What to Do?

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on Vaccination: What to Do?

With the recent report of measles in the Collingwood area, we’ve been fielding many questions from local parents. Is my kid at risk of measles if they are vaccinated? What about the kids who aren’t vaccinated?  Are they at risk? Are they increasing the risk of infection for my child?

There is much emotion in the media, with arguments on both sides.  The “Pro-Vaxers” blame the “Anti-Vaxers” for the current outbreak, and the Anti-Vaxers point fingers at the profit motive for big pharma to not publish the real risks of vaccines.

Vaccines are risk management tools. There are no zero-risk vaccines. There are no zero-risk diseases. And there’s no right answer. The risk profile for every disease and every vaccine is different. What we know for each ranges from decades of testing and research, to very little. You have to decide on the risks and benefits yourself.

The parents we work with at StoneTree are neither purely anti- or pro-vaccine. What they are is pro-informed choice.  They want to have all the information they can get to manage the risk of both the disease AND the vaccine for their children.

There is no absolute right answer that fits everyone. Getting the best, most unbiased information is the only way to come up with the right answer for you and your kids.

Here are the resources that we most often recommend to our patients.

  • Site: Dr. Katia Bailetti, ND – Dr. Bailetti ND, is a naturopathic doctor who had to make the decision for her own child and went into an intensive investigation of the data. She has written two books on the subject and offers parents consultations and seminars on this issue. Her site has a number of vaccination resources.

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What Are You Addicted To?

Posted on | by The StoneTree Team | 3 Comments on What Are You Addicted To?

12861374_sTis the season for spring-cleaning, and it is not uncommon for the StoneTree naturopaths to start recommending a good spring detox.

Some of our patients tackle a change-of-season cleanse with great enthusiasm, but for many of us the thought of giving up booze, coffee, sugar, or gluten–just to name a few–seems a little more daunting.

We hear a lot of:

  • “But I only have one glass of wine a night”
  • “I’m just too busy to go gluten-free”
  • “I can’t wake up without a cup of coffee and it’s ONLY one, maybe two”
  • “But I heard chocolate is actually good for you”.

The great Wikipedia defines addiction as “the continued repetition of a behavior despite adverse consequences”, and these things would seem to fit the definition in many cases. Despite the fact that intake of these daily substances is causing weight gain, trouble sleeping, digestive complaints, or mood imbalances, we tend to stick with them.

Doctor, Heal Thyself: What Are The StoneTree Docs Addicted To?

As doctors, it’s so easy to see where our patients are getting in their own way. But what about us? During one recent case conference we focused the magnifying glass back on ourselves. Were any of us engaging in any repetitive behaviors despite adverse consequences? I think you can guess what the answer was. 🙂

Dr. Tara, a life-long coffee lover, has been having sleep issues. This is a brand new thing for the girl who could sleep in the middle of a raging house party. After months of telling her patients with insomnia to eliminate caffeine, it was time to face the facts. Could it be that her beloved morning coffee was actually the cause? Could it be that “one, maybe two cups in the morning” had gradually been creeping up and the odd post-lunch caffeine hit was becoming far too common?

One sure way to find out: Ditch the caffeine for 30 days and see what happens to the sleep.

Her strategy:

  1. Commit to it and tell everyone she is doing it. Her family knows (and they are scared), her friends know, her patients know, the hamster knows. For Tara this helps her stayed committed because she wants to keep her word.
  2. Find a substitute. The morning ritual of sharing a hot cup of coffee with her best guy is not something she was willing to give up. So she found a coffee substitute–Dandy Blend (available at Pure vegan restaurant).
  3. Monitor her original symptoms. Giving up something you are biochemically dependent on can lead to symptoms of withdrawal–in this case headaches, brain fog, and morning fatigue. Don’t forget to focus on the reason you are doing it in the first place–better sleep and decreased anxiety.
  4. Ask for support. The StoneTree team is a great support for getting the job done. The challenge was taken up by others on the team and we are all helping each other through it. It also helps that her hubby has stopped the coffee at home too….no early morning temptation…

Good luck with your spring cleaning!

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What’s Wrong With Gluten?

Posted on | by The StoneTree Team | Leave a Comment on What’s Wrong With Gluten?

12871809_sGoing gluten-free is very sexy at the moment. We’re getting rid of our “Wheat Belly“, cleaning up our “Grain Brain”, and—as any naturopathic doctor worth their salt already knows—patient after patient reports that ditching wheat is making them feel better.

But what is actually wrong with gluten? Most of us grew up eating cereal and pasta. Haven’t we been eating bread through the ages without worries?

The truth is the grains we eat now are not the same ones our ancestors ate. Things have changed. Here are a few of the reasons why those pesky little gluten proteins are causing big problems.

Gluten Content is Up
Gluten is a protein in grains that can be very irritating to the immune system in our guts–more of it around means you are more likely to react. Modern hybrid grains have more gluten. A lot more. Fifty years ago, wheat contained 1 % gluten–now it’s over 50%.

“Pre-Digestion” is Down
The yeast used in traditional breads would start the process of breaking down gluten before it was eaten. Modern bread-baking techniques, however, use commercial yeasts that make for quick rising and bread that looks and tastes the same every time. Those commercial yeasts don’t do a very good job of starting the breakdown of gluten.

We’re Eating “Food” Instead of Food
Most of the foods containing gluten that we eat are highly processed. White flour itself is bleached with chemicals. Commercial cookies and crackers are filled with preservatives and pesticide residues. Plastics from the bags they are stored in leech into the product. These chemicals are immune-disruptors, and make our immune systems more reactive then they should be.

Add these factors to a host of other new modern lifestyle conditions, and you’ve got a recipe for a massive range of conditions that gluten causes or complicates.

How serious is it? How do you make change when you’re in love with toast and pasta? How can you be gluten-free without being fun-free? You can join the amazing Dr. Shelby next Tuesday night here at the clinic in Collingwood to find out. Space is limited, and the event is free and open to the public. Call 705-444-5331 to reserve a spot, or email us!

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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