No secret: people are sick more often with colds and flu during the winter. Possible reasons include loss of sunlight enriched vitamin D levels, exposure to cold and damp, indoor air quality, and greater indoor crowding. Most of these conditions are beyond individual control, but there are still things you can do for yourself to stay as healthy as possible during the winter.
The questioner continued: should I be concerned? Do I need to add back in some fiber, maybe some kind of bran?
When I suggest that someone consider a reduced carbohydrate diet, it obviously has to have some dietary component increased and that would be dietary fat. Many people report that eating more fat just isn’t possible, either from historical dietary training (“It’s not good for you!”) or just because they feel bloated and full, from the protein and/or the fat eaten in larger proportions when bread and pasta are off the plate.
“The d-mannose works when I get a bladder infection… but why did I get another one?”
Speaking with my patient last week reminded me how difficult it can be to break a string of bladder infections. She and I had spoken about a lot of things during our initial interview, and she was doing much better in general: her abdominal pain had completely resolved, on those days when she stuck with her gluten free diet, so the diarrhea wasn’t part of the problem.
“My daughter is heading off for 6 months of volunteer work and travel in Nepal and India. I have two questions: Is there any particular way she can “recover” from any ill effects of the required vaccinations for travel? And secondly: what are important items she should carry with her so that she can stay healthy while traveling?”Congratulations on your daughter’s upcoming adventure, what a way to broaden her horizons!
Good question that I’d love to talk about. Each individual’s dietary strategy is a response to their own unique metabolic or physiological need. I talk about low carb and Paleo the most because they apply to the broadest range of dietary needs, and frequently start people with a standard form of one or the other. After a few weeks on a general eating plan, we make individual adjustments according to that person’s response to the plan so far.
When I offer a patient my medical opinion that for whatever ails them they should eliminate grains, I often hear from the patient or the family, “But aren’t grains an important part of a balanced diet?”
Recently I’ve heard from two folks with a not uncommon complaint: while traveling they picked up some intestinal bug, took the locally available antibiotic, and their gut has never been the same. The process for proper healing from the combined assault of the parasite and the treatment requires a full understanding of all that can be affected and what needs to be resolved.
If you received last month’s newsletter, you might have noticed a tiny sentence, tucked at the top, suggesting that exercise is not particularly useful for weight loss, a statement that had many folks scratching their heads and wondering about the role of exercise in a healthy lifestyle.