Many people with chronic health challenges, such as thyroid conditions, irritable bowel and autoimmunity, frequently ask me what they can do to start healing. Based on actions you can take from the comfort of home, I want to share with you my top 5 strategies to decrease inflammation. 

In my practice I see so many people suffering with mysterious symptoms such as brain fog, low libido, low energy, and painful bloating.

What you may not know is that the common driver of all these complaints is chronic inflammation.

Today I’m going to share with you my top 5 strategies to decrease inflammation and finally start healing.

My first strategy is a whole foods diet.

This means avoiding packaged and processed foods and decreasing sugar. This includes fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, good quality proteins, and healthy fats.

My second strategy to decrease inflammation is to get outside.

Enjoying some fresh air and exercise as well as getting some vitamin D can dramatically decrease inflammation in the body.

One person’s medicine is another person’s poison. What worked for one person may not work for you. Each of us are unique and this is why a one-size fits all diet almost never works!

We need to have metabolic flexibility. We should be able to eat different types of food in different combinations and feel good.

Have you been eating the same way for a long time? Do you have lack of energy, indigestion, low energy and mood dysregulation? It’s possible that you’re eating the wrong diet for what you personally need.

These are the diets I commonly see in my office and why these one-size fits all diets almost never work.

Let’s talk about ketogenic or high fat low carb diets.

These diets consist of 70 to 75% of caloric intake from fats, 20 to 25% from proteins and 5% from carbohydrates.

This type of approach works well for dementia, cognitive decline and brain injuries as well as for people suffering from cancer and other chronic illnesses.

First, one reason why a one-size fits all keto diet almost never works. The ketogenic diet is not recommended for anyone with a genetic predisposition that inhibits them from breaking down saturated fats and using them properly. In this case, keto could increase your cholesterol markers and lead to heart disease.

Second, if you have a gallbladder dysfunction or don’t have a gallbladder, eating a high fat diet will not be good for you personally. This means you have a decreased ability to break down fats. Fats that aren’t broken down can cause inflammation in the body. If you’ve been following me, inflammation is at the root of all chronic health conditions.

If you’re feeling moody, irritable or have a lack of clarity and brain fog, these are signs that you have been keto for too long. This generally happens for women. In this case, you might want to cycle in and out of keto. This means adding some nice complex carbohydrates to your diet  from time to time to avoid getting stuck with these symptoms.

There is free health testing you can do, daily that will give you important insight when assessing your health.

Regardless if you’re dealing with a chronic health condition or trying to optimize your health. This free health testing is looking at your stool. For those of you who don’t know what stool is, it’s your poop.

Many people know that checking your stool is vital to understanding your digestive health. For those of us who are familiar with gut health, we know to check the consistency shape and size of stool.

For those of you who don’t know, the Bristol stool chart is a tool used to compare the shapes and sizes of stools. You can look at the Bristol stool chart to see where you lie and begin to optimize your health from there. We always aim for snake like stools. I always tell my patients “if you’re not looking at your poops everyday, start today.”

If your stools are little pellets or  liquid, there’s a problem with your digestion. This may lead to a long term problem with your health. If you’re not familiar with the Bristol stool chart, we’ll attach a link HERE. Aside from the Bristol stool chart, there are other ‘free home testing’ indicators that can give you deeper gut health insight.

The first way to delve deeper into assessing your gut health is to look at the colour of your stool.

What colour should your stool be? Between brown, yellow and green is considered normal. If you see that you have clay or light colour stools, this is an indication that digestion is off. Oftentimes, it’s an indicator of gallbladder dysfunction and/or digestive enzyme problems.

When you see red or dark colour stools, this could be a serious problem. Certain foods cause red stool. Eating beets or licorice could be the reason that your stool is red. This only applies if you have eaten these foods in the last day or two. Otherwise, this could be an indicator of bleeding somewhere in the gastrointestinal tract. It needs to be checked out by your doctor as soon as possible.

Other free health testing that you can do to assess your gut health, is to look for undigested particles in your stool.

If there are green leafy pieces or chunks of food, one of two things could be happening.

The first reason is because you’re not chewing enough. Chewing is so vitally important. If you’re racing through your meals without chewing, you will most likely see undigested pieces of food in your stool.

The second reason is because you may not have enough enzymes, or sufficient stomach acid to turn those enzymes on, to help break down your food. This is incredibly important to know. You could be eating the most beautiful, healthy, organic whole foods that are plant-based, without absorbing any nutrients. All because your body doesn’t have the ability to produce the enzymes. If this is the case, you should seek the help of a professional to figure out why you’re not digesting your food.

Have you or someone you love recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease?

If so, you’ve probably been told that there’s nothing that you can do.

Luckily, there are promising new therapies for Alzheimer’s that work and they’re free! Today I’m going to be sharing three of those with you.

Let’s talk about sleep therapy for Alzheimer’s.

Everybody knows that getting a good night’s sleep is important. For people with Alzheimer’s disease that have a buildup of beta amyloid plaques in the brain, it’s even more important.

Sleep deprivation increases the body’s production of these toxic plaques. This impairs brain function.

The most common place for these toxic plaques to form are in the areas of the brain that help with sleep cycles. Therefore, it becomes a vicious cycle. There is a buildup of plaques from sleep deprivation, those plaques in turn affect quality of sleep, and hence goes the vicious cycle.

The other way that sleep deprivation increases this toxic buildup is because we detoxify when we sleep. The brain shrinks 20% to 30%, while you’re sleeping. As it shrinks, it cleans itself out with the glymphatic system. This system is the garbagemen of the brain. They come and clear out all the beta amyloid plaque, dead cells and pollution.

When you’re not getting good quality sleep, you’re missing this crucial step in brain health.

My top three suggestions for improving sleep are:

1. To get off screens two hours before you go to bed.
2. Make yourself a cup of common tea like chamomile or nettle.
3. Make sure to get yourself to sleep by 10 o’clock

We often link an Alzheimer’s diagnosis with genetic predisposition. However, a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is more than genetics!

Most people believe you have a high likelihood of Alzheimer’s disease if it runs in your family.

Now, we know that there are six separate classifications of Alzheimer’s disease. This disease doesn’t have one homogeneous root cause.

Understanding the root causes of Alzheimer’s gives us some clues about how to treat it. Genetic predisposition plays a role but Alzheimer’s is more than genetics.

Understanding the root cause of Alzheimer’s is important when creating a care plan. This vital information can help put your symptoms into remission and even reverse some of those symptoms.

Functional medicine practitioner’s are always looking for the root cause of dysfunction and disease. Knowing the type of Alzheimer’s readily points to treatment plans that are personalized to the specific type of dysfunction. 

Type one Alzheimer’s is called inflammatory or hot Alzheimer’s.

This type of Alzheimer’s is driven by inflammation. The major cell for inflammation in the body is called NF-kappa B. Increased production in NF-kappa B increases amyloid production and deposition in the brain. Why is this a direct link to Alzheimer’s disease? These amyloid plaques are what we see in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Decreasing this inflammation helps to stop the production of amyloid plaques. 

The second type of Alzheimer’s is called cold or a trophic Alzheimer’s.

This type of Alzheimer’s is driven by inadequate amount of nutrients, hormones and trophic factors. Trophic factors are the helper molecules that help develop neurons. These molecules also help maintain the connections between its neighbours.

The body needs vitamins and minerals, adequate amounts of hormones like estrogen, testosterone and progesterone as well as other trophic factors to maintain the 5 trillion connections between cells. All of these are supremely important in the growth, development and maintenance of brain cells. Therefore, not having enough of these nutrients, hormones or trophic factors, causes decreased brain function.

The third type of Alzheimer’s disease, type 1.5 is called glycolytic or sweet Alzheimer’s.

This type is driven by glucose and is caused by insulin sensitivity issues or high fasting glucose. Type 1.5 combines factors of type one and type two Alzheimer’s disease. The insulin resistance that doesn’t allow sugar to be put into the cells is similar to type one Alzheimers. In addition, it binds to certain proteins in the brain and this creates inflammation. 

It’s very much like the trophic type two Alzheimer’s because we’re not getting the nutrients to feed the cells. The glucose that our brain cells need to be fed and nourished, as well as to function, doesn’t get into the cells.

Firstly, when we talk about brain injuries, we look at ways to heal the brain to fix the problem.

However, when you have a brain injury, it directly and immediately affects the gut!

As that gut function continues to be disrupted and deteriorates, it affects how much healing can happen in the brain. As a result we get a vicious cycle of brain and gut dysfunction. These gut functions affect how the brain works.

Getting treated for brain injury, often times includes physiotherapy and visual therapy. There is less computer time, less screen time and a lot of quiet time. This is meant to help the decrease inflammation in the brain. But if we don’t directly heal the gut dysfunction that has been caused by that brain injury and heal it, we’re never going to get better. That brain injury will be a long term problem.

Have you have been noticing that your gut symptoms are getting worse and worse? Maybe it is constipation? Maybe you have irritable bowel and you have a history of a previous brain injury, even a mild one? If so, this is important information for you.

intestinal permeability is one of the first things that happen in the vast majority of people with a brain injury.

After a brain injury, the tight junctions between the cells of your gut start to act dysfunctional and they open up.

This allows unwanted food particles, pathogens, other things that usually are kept inside the gut lumen into your bloodstream. Those particles then flow through your blood. They can also create a lot of issues. One of these issues being brain inflammation. This will impact your ability to heal the brain.

One of the biggest triggers of autoimmune disease is increased intestinal permeability. This is also known as leaky gut. Many research articles have come out showing that autoimmune diseases like Hashimotos (autoimmune disease of the thyroid) and multiple sclerosis, are linked to increased intestinal permeability. If autoimmunity runs in your family, you have a history of a brain injury and you’re starting to notice gut symptoms, it’s time to start working with a functional medicine expert to help you heal.

Do you secretly fear that your forgetfulness and brain fog is linked to cognitive decline?

Many patients come into my office complaining of not being able to remember words, forgetting dates or misplacing their keys. These symptoms can happen 20 years before being diagnosed with cognitive decline.

Have you gone to your doctor and they’ve told you you’re just getting older? It is true. However, it is also possible that you are in the early stages of cognitive decline.

The first way to slow cognitive decline  and clear brain fog is with regulating blood sugar through intermittent fasting.

Making new brain cells is known as neurogenesis. The process of neurogenesis is insulin dependent. When blood sugar is balanced there is an adequate amount of insulin to make new brain cells. In other words, people with cognitive decline and brain fog have impaired neurogenesis.

A great way to regulate blood sugar is by intermittent fasting. You can start with a 12 hour fasting window. This looks like fasting at 8pm and eating again at 8am. If this feels good for you slowly work your way up to a 16 hour fasting window, one hour at a time. Patients often feel brain clarity when intermittent fasting and their brain fog goes away. If you need support implementing intermittent fasting, work with your healthcare provider.

The second way to slow cognitive decline and clear brain fog is brain fitness.

I’m talking about physical exercise. Exercise improves brain function by increasing mitogenesis. Mitochondria are small cells within each cell that produce energy and mitogenesis is the process of creating new mitochondria.

For instance, different kinds of exercise can produce mitochondria. Therefore, the more mitochondria you have, the more energy you have in your brain cells for all of these cognitive functions.

Exercises that improve brain health are high intensity training (for 10 to 15 minutes), explosive interval training and weight training. In addition, Tai Chi, Yoga and meditation have been linked to mitogenesis. Remember, physical exercise increases your mitochondria (your energy production cells), and your brain is full of them!

The third way to slow cognitive decline and clear brain fog is through a whole foods diet with healthy fats

Consuming a whole foods diet is vital for providing the vitamins and minerals needed for brain function.

The best healthy fats for brain health are Omega-3’s. These fats decrease inflammation and help with healing. In fact, your brain structure is partly made up of Omega-3’s. In other words, you require Omega-3’s to build your brain. Good sources of Omega-3’s include olives, olive oil, coconut, avocado, grass-fed beef and salmon. These are all wonderful foods that we can eat to help increase our brain function.

Let’s talk about the diets I typically encounter that negatively impact brain health. Those of us who are a little bit older were told that fats are inflammatory, they’re bad for you and can cause heart disease. However, a low fat diet is basically starving your brain. Getting the right amount of fats is vital to nourish and grow your brain.

The other thing I see is what I call ‘dirty keto’ diets. These are diets that are based on high fats but the wrong kinds of fats. This diet is mostly high in Omega-6 fats. Not only do these fats not help build a brain, they cause massive inflammation in the brain. This inflammation definitively contributes to cognitive decline, brain fog and poor brain function.

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