Category: Health tips

Dear 40 & 50-year-olds,

It’s me. Your future self. We’re over 70 now. (Can you believe it? Where did the time go?)

I was going to ask you if you wanted the good news first, or the bad, but I decided that you can’t be trusted with the choice, so I’m making it for you.

Here’s the Good News: We’re still alive! We survived the accidental-death teen years, the middle aged heart-disease-roulette, and we’re actually past most of the worst cancer period as well. Yes! 

Even better, all those things we worried about in middle-age, like money and jobs and petty disagreements with your sister and whether or not the leather seat option on the new car we didn’t need was worth it? It turned out that none of it mattered. Everything turned out fine. 

Who knew?

Here’s the Bad News: We’re a complete wreck, physically. 

It’s not good. We’ve finally reached that point we talked about, where we would “slow down and enjoy life” and guess what? It turns out it’s kinda hard when you can’t climb the stairs without getting winded, you’re too stiff to get down on the floor and play with the grandkids (yes, we’re grandparents), and half your friends are dead from doing the same stupid stuff we did for too long.

Oh boy. Where to begin. A lot’s happened since I was you.

Did you know that right now, we’re on three different medications for conditions we could fix with a little exercise? Of course, we don’t actually fix them. I mean, let’s just say it: we’re fat. Even walking is tough. 

We’re financially comfortable, sure. But physically, we ache like a bad country song. Sleeping is tough. Our memory is shot to hell, and every trip to the bathroom is some weird combination of winning the lottery and being water-boarded.

And our libido? It’s in the basement. Right next to that stupid elliptical trainer we never used.

By now you must be wondering why I’m writing to you. (How am I’m doing it, you ask? Writing to you through time? Hey – it’s 20+ years in the future. There have been some changes. But, I digress.)

Here’s the thing: This was all avoidable. 

Our lousy health right now is your fault. Which means it’s our fault, but let’s not split hairs, okay? There are so few remaining.

You see, you’re choosing what our life at 70 is like right now. Everything you put into your body – all the booze, extra calories and crappy food. Everything you do with your body, like watching TV, pretending one game of soccer or hockey a week is exercise, commuting for hours on end. Everything you think–I hate my spouse, I hate my job. All of these choices you are making today are laying the foundation for what life is going to be like when you’re a 70-something. They are creating my reality right now. 

Well, thanks for nothing. In just a few minutes a day you could have changed our future, but you didn’t. 

I am sympathetic, though. After all, I was you. Am you. Whatever. The point is that if I could go back and do it differently I would. But I can’t (we have time-travel correspondence, but no wormholes), so the best I can do is warn you: You need to take this stuff seriously.

• No consistent cardio exercise now? It’s a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen.
• No consistent weight bearing exercise now? Osteoporosis and poor sexual function.
• Too much booze? Alzhemier’s and mood disorders.
• Too much lousy food? Increased weight and diabetes. 

I know 20 wasn’t that long ago, and in those magical years you could put on 10 pounds and take it off by skipping dessert for a week. You could have a hangover that didn’t last for days, and try a new sport with only a couple of bruises instead of a torn Achilles tendon. 

That ship has sailed my dear friend. This is a final you can’t pull an all-nighter for. Cramming for health exams just doesn’t work.
 
I know you still feel 20 in your mind….and believe me, so do I sometimes. There are days when I feel like I can reach out and touch that time like it was yesterday. But I can’t. It’s gone. And it isn’t coming back. 

But you do get to choose for the days ahead. You get to choose how to spend the time now, and as a result, how your future days will be filled, and how they’ll feel.

They say life is short, but don’t believe it. Life is long, it turns out. The days never stop stretching out ahead, they just look a little less inviting all the time when you don’t take care of yourself. 

I know it’s hard. I know you’re busy. But please: just try. Harder. For us.
 
Love,

Your 70-Something Cranky Self

This is something our patients lament all the time. Should I be gluten-free, sugar-free, salt-free? Paleo, no GMO? Low-carb or low-fat?  What about organic vs non-organic? Shouldn’t we just eat local? What about the new superfood from Peru that cures everything from rickets to cancer?

Nutrition can be a crazy and confusing world.

We hear mixed messages every day about almost every food we put into our bodies and it feels like no matter how hard we try it is impossible to get it right.  Part of our job at StoneTree is to make it easy for you. Here are some simple tips.

Eat Real Food
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Eat food that nature makes. If nature grew it, eat it. If Kraft or Nestle put it together in one of their food product manufacturing facilities, then don’t. This is the one essential rule you need to eat well. Everything that follows builds on that.

Choosing Organic vs Non-Organic
Here’s how we triage when it comes to choosing organics: If it’s local and organic, it’s a winner. Organic means no chemicals and local means very little carbon foot print to deliver it to you. Not to mention the food is picked riper and has more nutrition, not losing any vitamins on it’s long trip from California, Mexico or Florida.

But what about if it’s local and not organic? If it’s not on the dirty dozen list eat local when possible. That supports local farmers and decreases the carbon footprint. And don’t forget to ask your local farmers when they will have an organic option—they need to know it’s important.

The bottom line? If it’s on the dirty dozen list, or it’s dairy, go organic if you possibly can.

Avoid GMO
GMO stands for genetically modified organism–an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering, and used to create genetically modified foods. Those foods are the subject of a lot of controversy.

Why avoid them? To make a food genetically modified, food scientists use a virus to put a desirable gene from another species into the one they are modifying. Don’t want cabbage to freeze? Insert a gene from arctic fish so you don’t have to worry about early low temperatures. Unfortunately, we know very little about what that does to that food, and more importantly what it does to us when we eat it. It’s a big experiment…with viruses. With that in mind, our advice is that avoiding those foods is a wise choice.

Sadly, in Canada GMO is not labeled. However, if a product is certified organic, then one of the criteria for certification is it cannot be GMO. So organic is always the way to go to avoid these foods. The biggest GMO foods are soy, corn and canola.

Finding Local Food
Fortunately, with summer arriving, our local farmers’ markets are open and ready for business. Visit Collingwood and Creemore markets on Saturday mornings, and Stayner on Thursday evening.  Wasaga Beach farmers’ market will start July 2 and will be on Tuesdsay evenings, and Meaford Farmers’ market is Friday evenings. And don’t forget all our wonderful local farm stands!

One of Dr. Tara’s family members was recently the recipient of a double lung and liver transplant. The miracle of him breathing with someone else’s lungs only five days after receiving them could not have happened without research, drugs and technology. Truly amazing.

One of the things we’re complimented on here at StoneTree is that we’re not anti-conventional medicine, and tend to be very analytical in our approach to assessment and diagnosis. Medical research has made enormous leaps, and we would never want to go back to a time when antibiotics were not available to deal with serious infections, or to a time when the medicine responsible for saving you from a heart attack did not exist.

There is the other side to the research coin though, when it comes to the drug management of chronic diseases, particularly those that are attributed to poor diet, sedentary lifestyle and chronic stress. These research studies, or at least how they are reported, may not what they seem.

Dr. Ben Goldacre MD, delivers a TEDtalk on the topic that is absolutely worth a listen:

How Can You Use This as a Patient?

1.  Be a skeptic and ask lots of questions. You are the expert on your own body.  If something doesn’t make sense to you keep asking questions until it does. You’re entitled to answers that you understand, and that make sense.

2.  Get to the root cause of your chronic disease. Eat real food, exercise, drink clean water, sleep and deal with your stress. The vast majority of chronic diseases, like Type II Diabetes, are lifestyle based. If you can change your lifestyle, you can avoid the use of the drugs in the first place. Then the evidence no longer matters.

I had a great question from a patient this month who was traveling south and wanted to know if the antibiotic she had which expired in 2011 was still good. Many of us have a medicine cabinet full of the medications that have gone past their expiry date. What to do with them. Are they safe? Are they effective? Should we pitch them and buy new replacements?

The US military had the same question but with much bigger stakes. The military stockpiles vast amounts of drugs for obvious reasons, and the expiry dates on the bottles forced them to face the option of throwing out an expensive pile of meds every few years. To figure out the best course, they commissioned a study to determine the safety and efficacy of expired drugs.

According to the study results, up to 90% of the 100 different medications they looked at were stable, safe and effective for up to 15 years after the expiry date. Drugs that didn’t have the shelf life? Nitroglycerin, insulin and liquid antibiotics.

What about our naturopathic products like supplements and herbal medicines? There has been no study like the one above, but it makes sense that much of the same would apply. Storing them properly in a cool, dark and dry place should help them keep their potency for many months past the date on the bottle. However, heat, light and moisture can absolutely affect the quality of vitamins–especially anti-oxidants–rendering them inactive.

And as for that bottle of antibiotics? It’s probably okay, but remember that your storage probably doesn’t meet military spec. If it’s an medication you’re counting on, you might need to replace it.