Gene Expressions of the Aged: Part III (Plus hs-CRP)
The "Why Can't I Eat This Anymore" Gene: This unfriendly gene can express itself at anytime from age 40 on up. You have been able to eat anything all of your life... until now. Suddenly, a meatball sandwich with the rich red sauce on the squishy white roll from Salveggio's isn't going down the way it should. It sounded great in your head and looked good on the plate and was wonderful in the execution - chewing and swallowing - but after that, things went from yummy great (immediately after wiping mouth on napkin after finishing meat ball sandwich) to bad (first meatball burp) to worse (feels like bowling ball in stomach and icky stuff is backing up into your throat) to worst (OMG, what is going on) to "Help!"(Am I going to throw up?).
Then there is alcohol: You have had a glass of wine (or four) with dinner ever since you can remember. It's a nice reward after a hard day and it relaxes you. You have also read that it is good for you and you like the whole oenophile thing, too. Gradually, though, you find yourself feeling more and more whacked after your glasses of wine, even after you have cut back your consumption by half. You find that you need to go to bed earlier and you wake up at 3 am. Perhaps, instead of falling into bed at 8:30, you decide - valiantly - to stay up for a Seinfeld rerun but instead fall asleep in front of the television set. You do this sad little dance for a year or two, saying to yourself every night "What is going on? Why do I feel so bad? Why can't I have my wine before/with/after dinner?"
Then the migraines kick in. Maybe one morning you wake up with a pounding headache, after your teeny-tiny glass of red wine. So you switch to organic white wine thinking it might be the histamines and the impurities in your usual, cheaper jug red. The organic white wine does a bit of good, but no cigar. This really isn't fair, so you continue to drink your wine before/with/after dinner because that's just what you do. You are stubborn and tenacious about this habit, and there is no end to hoping that maybe, one day, this won't happen. It obsesses you. (Can you say "addiction?") But, you may, in fact, drink wine until you go toes up electing to feel horrible for the last 30 years of your life. The smarter ones stop torturing themselves, admit their inability to drink like they did when they were 30 and just give the damn stuff up.
Or, maybe you could eat wheat in your 30's, now you can't. It upsets your stomach and makes you anxious. Or, when you were younger, you could drink all kinds of milk, eat your Caramel Cone ice cream and your little cartons of yogurt and your cheeses. In fact, you fancied yourself to be quite the connoisseur of great artisanal cheeses up until about a year ago. You would serve your special cheeses on your special cheese plate the really cool one from Williams-Sonoma, made out of slate so you can chalk-in the names of your fancy cheeses. Accompanying this would be your fine cabernet from the Silver Oak Winery in the Napa Valley. Now you can't have either. Gone. Gone. All gone. It's very sad. Wine is no longer your friend, you are now stuck with GF bread and those iffy GF noodles, and you find that dairy constipates you and gives you acne. I can give you some supplements for all of this, like digestive enzymes, probiotics and the like, but regrettably, there is no real cure when this ruthless gene expresses itself, except... abstinence.
Lowering hs-CRP. The "hs" stands for "high sensitivity" and the "CRP" stands for "C-Reactive Protein. The numerical result of this blood work is a huge indicator of inflammation in the body and in the heart and arteries. The lab result number should be about 1 or under; anything higher than that, even a 2 or a 3 will put you at moderate to high risk for heart disease. I have seen a CRP at 15 which is a phenomenally high number and a scary one to boot. But before I scare you to death - if, with wide-eyes and trembling hands you check your last labs and find that your CRP is over 2 or 3 console yourself with the fact that CRP is just ONE indicator for heart disease. There are many others including homocysteine, fibrinogen and ferritin levels just to name a few.
The really high aforementioned CRP level of 15? We lowered it to a 2 over the course of 6-9 months by doing most of the following: First of all, you must go on an anti-inflammatory diet which is basically the Mediterranean Diet AKA the "Salmon-Salad Diet." Cut out ALL sugar and alcohol as both sugar and alcohol are very acid and are inflammatory. You will need to lose those extra pounds as fat is inflammatory, but, not to worry, you will automatically lose weight if you cut out sugar, alcohol and empty carbs.
Then you must start exercising either at the gym, free weights, walking, hiking, bicycling. Whatever. I personally like outdoor exercise as it feeds my soul. But, just commit to moving your body 5 or 6 days a week even if the weather looks grim as you peer hopefully out your bedroom window to see if maybe you can take a day off. Make the bed and grab those sneakers.
Stress is acid and is therefore inflammatory, so another excellent addition for you would be some form of meditation, or perhaps just sitting quietly for 20 minutes per day. I don't care what you think about or if you repeat a mantra - this is not important, but the sitting quietly is.
There are some bugs (bacteria, fungus, virus, parasites, etc.) that can sometimes cause an elevated hs-CRP level. I can check for those at an office visit. If I find "bugs" I will want to get rid of them because with the bugs still altering your gut ecology all your hard work and changes in lifestyle won't be nearly as effective.
Then there are some important supplements. I will just list them for you and because of space issues you will have to simply trust me that their efficacy is backed by research. Curcumin is excellent and backed by lots of research. I recommend 500 mg. of Thorne's Meriva-SR twice daily. Vitamin C: 2 grams daily. Krill oil at 300 mgs or Super EPA (Thorne) at 1,000 mgs per day. Flavonoids such as quercitin are good. CoQ 10 at 100 mgs twice daily. Magnesium (I like Perque's brand) to bowel tolerance or maybe 500 mgs per day in divided doses. And lastly, one you will like: Treat yourself to a couple squares of 70% chocolate every night after your salmon and salad.
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