• SuTab bowel prep (sulfate, magnesium sulfate, and potassium chloride) - take 12 (yes 12 - an entire bottle) pills. SuTab has the following side effects:

  • Effectively wipes out both good and bad bacteria, temporarily reducing microbiome diversity.

  • Temporary gut irritation – Some people experience bloating, cramping, or mild inflammation in the intestines afterward.

  • Possible increased permeability ("Leaky Gut")

• Ondansetron - is an anti-nausea medication commonly prescribed for chemotherapy. SuTab will make you nauseous so this is to mitigate that. Possible side effects:

  • Slows gut motility – Ondansetron reduces peristalsis (gut contractions), which is why constipation is a major side effect. Seems strange to take a laxative and then something that gives you constipation.

  • Disrupts natural serotonin function in the gut – The gut produces 90% of the body's serotonin, which regulates digestion. Blocking 5-HT3 receptors may temporarily interfere with normal gut function.

  • May alter gut microbiome – While not directly proven, slowing digestion and changing gut serotonin signaling could affect microbial balance over time.
    

Is there a Better Way?

Since I did not want to wreck my gut I did some research online and with the help of Chat GPT came up with this as a simple, gut friendly alternative:

• Take two doses of magnesium citrate instead of SubTab and Ondansetron. I chose TopCare Magnesium Citrate Laxative Oral Solution. The key ingredients are 2900mg of magnesium and 10mg of sodium. Other ingredients (unfortunately) include benzoic acid, citric acid, disodium EDTA, flavor, sucralose, water. The benzoic acid, citric acid and disodium EDTA have very minimal impact on the gut.

I sent the alternative suggestion to the doctor and he approved it and said it would work fine (and it did). I wonder why they don’t prescribe this in the first place?

What I Will Do Different Next Time

Thankfully I had no issues so my next colonoscopy will be 10 years from now. Here is what I am going to do differently:

• I am simply going to take the key active ingredients:

  • 2900 of Magnesium Glycinate. Bulk Supplements make good product and is available on Amazon.

  • 10mg of Sodium - again I would go with Bulk Supplements available on Amazon.

This solution has no artificial sweeteners, preservatives or flavor enhancers -just the ingredients necessary to clean out your colon. Your gut will thank you!

Obviously, run any alternative prep by your physician.

Prior to implementing his suggestions, I had the following issues that I could not seem to fix:

• I was always sore. I chalked it up to paying hockey 2-3 days a week and getting older.

• For close to a decade I had difficulty turning my head to the left. Again, I attributed this to playing contact sports for most of my life.

• I had severe golfer’s elbow in both of my arms and it made it very painful to grab tools and I often had shooting pain in my elbows.

All of those issues literally disappeared within the first week and it was dramatic - I remember waking up one morning and I was not sore. A couple of days later I could move my neck and my golfers elbow was gone (and it never returned).

And its not just me. A good friend quit gluten about a year ago and texted me this lab result showing a huge drop in his hsCRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein - a biomarker used to measure inflammation in the body.). Needless to say, he is feeling much better.

Cliff Notes:

Dr. William Davis argues that modern wheat consumption is a major driver of various health issues, including obesity, diabetes, and chronic diseases. He believes that wheat has adverse effects on human health.

Dr. Davis’s Dietary Recommendations:

Dr. Davis advocates for a diet that eliminates all forms of wheat, including whole wheat, and focuses on whole, unprocessed foods.

He promotes low-carb, high-fat eating with an emphasis on vegetables, nuts, seeds, meats, eggs, and healthy fats. His recommendation is to have less than 15 grams of carbs each meal. Personally I loosely follow this and average about 90g-11g/carbs per day. Once you eliminate all grains you will see that meeting these numbers is pretty easy.

The book discourages consumption of sugar, refined carbs, and many processed foods marketed as "gluten-free," which can also be high in carbohydrates and unhealthy additives.

Challenges:

I will never go back to eating grains for the simple reason that I feel significantly better. That being said, there have been challenges including:

• Weight loss. I lost 8 lbs in the first week. One thing I had to do was start to eat a lot more just to maintain my healthy weight.

• Gluten is in a lot more than just bread and pasta. This does drastically cut down the number of food options, particularly when eating out.

• A lot of people will think you are nuts.

MTHFR

The MTHFR gene variant is relatively common in the United States population (About 30-50% of the U.S. population carries at least one copy of the C677T variant and around 20-40% carries at least one copy of the A1298C variant). In 1996 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated folic acid fortification of enriched grain products which can lead to a double whammy for those with a MTHFR mutation.

Gluten can exacerbate inflammation and gut issues. If someone with MTHFR variants also has a gluten sensitivity, they might experience more pronounced negative effects because their body may already struggle with managing inflammation.

People with MTHFR variants already have impaired ability to metabolize folate into its active form (L-methylfolate). If gluten-related gut issues limit nutrient absorption, it could compound the effects of the MTHFR variant, leading to a greater risk of deficiencies.

MTHFR variants can lead to elevated homocysteine levels, which are linked to cardiovascular and neurological risks. Chronic inflammation caused by gluten sensitivity might indirectly worsen homocysteine levels by placing additional strain on methylation pathways.

If you want to see if you have a MTHFR mutation, see my post on How to use 23andMe to see if you have a MTHFR mutation. I do have this mutation and this maybe one of the reasons I saw such dramatic results.

What about "Heart Healthy Grains”?

As you are probably aware, our government recommends eating a lot of grains. This and other advice on the www.myplate.gov website like eating low fat dairy (never do that) and soy (never do that either) is really completely misguided and has contributed to the health crisis we now face.

Dr. Davis directly challenges the conventional notion that "heart-healthy whole grains" benefit cardiovascular health. He argues that modern wheat and other grains contribute to heart disease through several mechanisms (See his article on why wheat causes heart disease):

• Elevated Blood Sugar Levels:

  The carbohydrate amylopectin A in wheat rapidly raises blood glucose levels, leading to increased insulin production and promoting fat storage. This process can result in insulin resistance, a precursor to type 2 diabetes and a risk factor for heart disease. .

• Formation of Harmful Lipoproteins:

  High blood sugar from grain consumption leads to the creation of small, dense LDL particles. These particles are more prone to oxidation and can penetrate arterial walls, contributing to plaque formation and increasing the risk of coronary artery disease.

• Triggering Inflammation:

  Wheat contains gliadin, a protein that can increase intestinal permeability, allowing foreign substances to enter the bloodstream and trigger systemic inflammation—a key factor in the development of atherosclerosis.

• Nutrient Malabsorption:

  Compounds like phytates in wheat bind essential minerals such as iron, zinc, magnesium, and calcium, reducing their absorption and potentially leading to deficiencies that affect heart health.

Try It!

I would highly recommend reading the book and giving it a try (at least two weeks) - perhaps it will change your life as well. You have nothing to loose but pain, inflammation and weight.

Here are four great ways to leverage this tool for your health:

1 - Gobbledygook to sensical: ChatGTP is awesome for translating medical term laden test results into something a layperson can easily understand.

I recently had an MRI on my shoulder after a hockey injury. MyChart, the electronic medical records system my health plan uses, sent me the findings a week before my follow-up appointment.

This is what MyChart said:

FINDINGS:

Full-thickness minimally retracted tear at the insertion of the supraspinatus, with retraction of approximately 8 mm, superimposed on moderate to severe tendinopathy.

Moderate tendinopathy, with insertional full-thickness partial tear of the most anterior fibers and evidence of interstitial tearing to the myotendinous junction.

The teres minor tendon is intact.

Mild subscapularis tendinopathy.

The long head of the biceps tendon is intact.

No fatty atrophy is appreciated involving the rotator cuff muscles.

There is degeneration of the anterior and superior labrum, with degenerative tearing appreciated at the anterosuperior and anteroinferior labrum. Tiny anteroinferior paralabral cyst also seen.

There is thinning and fraying of the glenohumeral cartilage.

Moderate AC joint arthrosis seen, with impression on the subacromial space.

Bone marrow signal is age-appropriate. Multiple subcortical cysts are seen at the greater tuberosity. No acute osseous abnormalities noted.

Small joint effusion. Mild to moderate fluid in the subacromial/subdeltoid bursae.

There is nonspecific thickening of the inferior glenohumeral ligament. Other included ligamentous structures appear intact.

I cut and pasted that into ChatGTP and asked it to “Explain this to me in one paragraph like I am 10 years old”. Here is what it returned:

You have a tear in one of the shoulder muscles (supraspinatus) that's pulled back a little, along with some damage to the surrounding tendon. Another part of the same tendon has some partial tears, but a nearby muscle (teres minor) is still fine. There’s some mild damage to another shoulder muscle (subscapularis), but your biceps tendon is okay. The cartilage in your shoulder is starting to wear out and tear, and there’s a small cyst next to it. You also have some arthritis in one of your shoulder joints (AC joint), some extra fluid, and thickening of a ligament, but your bones and most ligaments are still in good shape.

Much better!

2—Shorten long research articles. I don’t know about you, but I really just want the low-down and conclusions from an article instead of reams of minutia. Take this long-winded article from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on how cutting saturated fats doesn't significantly reduce the risk of heart disease or death.

I instructed ChatGTP to

“Summarize this article in layman's terms in one paragraph: https://www.jacc.org/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jacc.2020.05.077”

The article reassesses the long-standing recommendation to reduce saturated fat intake for heart health. Recent studies show that cutting saturated fats doesn't significantly reduce the risk of heart disease or death, and might even protect against stroke. While saturated fats can raise LDL cholesterol, this often involves larger, less harmful particles. Foods like whole-fat dairy, unprocessed meat, eggs, and dark chocolate, which are rich in saturated fats, don't appear to increase cardiovascular risk when considered as part of an overall balanced diet.

3 - Build a meal plan for the week. Eating healthy can be a challenge but AI can be a huge help. Try this in ChatGTP:

I won’t bore you with the details but here is a screenshot of the first part of the results:

Now for bonus points - ask Chat GTP to build you a shopping list for that. In seconds your shopping list will be completed:

4 - Build workout plans/workouts. Need to quickly plan a workout or workout plan for the week - ChatGTP can easily do that:

Chatgtp is a great health tool - try it out and let me know what you think!

Oh - one more thing - Chat GTP makes great graphics as well:

A friend of mine suggested the Yuka app and I have been using it for the past two months. I use it primarily to scan products and I found out rather quickly that most of what I was putting on my body was very poor and in some cases dangerous. The two most egregious examples were Tom’s of Maine ‘Natural’ Toothpaste and CeraVe lotion. Both were rated poor.

I then went through the other products that my wife an I use and just about every one was poor. Dawn purchases her hair care products from a very high end salon and they were particularly poor which was a huge shock.

If you want a real shock, take the app to your supermarket (I took it to our local Wegmans) and try to find a clean product that Yuka rates high. I probably scanned 20 different deodorants and only 1 had a decent score.

Why I like this app

1. Yuka goes beyond the basics, providing insights into the ingredients used in each product. From artificial additives to allergens, you'll gain a deeper understanding of what you're consuming.

2. Yuka makes it easy to find safe/safer alternatives.

3. Good interface / easy to use.

Biggest limitation

My only complaint is that, when used for food, Yuka is very against high fat products and really does not like saturated fat. I eat a very high fat diet and a lot of saturated fat (I do not believe fat is an issue - I’ll explain more in a future post). So I use Yuka to to look for bad chemicals in food but I discount the score if it is bad because of the product being high in fat.

Get the app today:

iOS/Apple

Google/Android

60% of our population has a chronic disease, and for the first time in our history, life expectancy has actually decreased. What happened? If I were to sum it up in a nutshell, I would say that humans have not changed, but everything else around us has and we are ill-equipped to handle the change.

A huge part of the problem is that our food system is a mess. I came across the article below, which is the best explanation of what went wrong. Justin Mares does a great job of boiling it down. Let me know your thoughts in a the comments.

The Next

The Great American Poisoning

Look at this orangutan. A few things are apparent: That animal is not having a great hair day. That animal is much heavier than a normal orangutan. That animal must be in a zoo. Why — just from looking at a photo — can one conclude that this orangutan lives in captivity…

Read more

2 years ago · 151 likes · 43 comments · Justin Mares

The MTHFR gene has several variations, the most common being the C677T and A1298C mutations.

If you have had 23andMe sequence your genome (something I urge everyone to get), you can quickly see if you have one or more of these mutations.

The two most common MTHFR-specific SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), a variation in a single nucleotide (a building block of DNA) you want to search for are:

1. For the C677T mutation: search for rs1801133 (on 23andMe: G/G is normal, A/G is heterozygous mutation, and A/A is homozygous mutation)

2. For the A1298C mutation: search for rs1801131 (on 23andMe: T/T is normal, T/G is heterozygous mutation, and G/G is homozygous mutation)

I made this video to show how to find these SNP’s:

I have a homozygous mutation for C677T and am normal for A1298C.

Why Is This Mutation Bad?

Before I go any further, it should be noted that these mutations are relatively common (about 40% of the world’s population) and that there is some disagreement on what the exact downstream consequences of this mutation may actually be.

In a nutshell, having this mutation can predispose you to certain health conditions and diseases, including:

• Depression

• Dementia

• Cardiovascular diseases include coronary heart disease, blood clots, stroke, and heart attack.

What to Do If You Have This Mutation

1. Avoid Grains/Gluten. Most grains in the US contain folic acid, a synthetic form of folate (believe it or not, the US began requiring the fortification of cereal grain products with folic acid in 1998). Folic acid needs to be converted to its active form, methylfolate, for use by the body. However, individuals with reduced MTHFR enzyme activity may have difficulty efficiently converting folic acid to its active form, leading to a potential buildup of unmetabolized folic acid.

   This buildup may interfere with the body's natural folate metabolism and methylation processes, potentially exacerbating symptoms associated with MTHFR gene variations, such as elevated homocysteine levels, inflammation, and impaired detoxification.
   
   One of the biggest game-changers for me in terms of health was quitting gluten. I noticed an immediate cessation of soreness in my joints and muscles. I actually had severe tendon pain in both elbows for years and had unsuccessfully tried various treatments with no success. After four days of eliminating gluten, the pain literally disappeared, and it has not returned (it’s been over two years now). Reading the Wheat Belly book by Dr. William Davis prompted me to eliminate gluten, and I highly recommend it.

   

   
   

2. Supplement With Methylfolate. Every member of my family has the MTHFR mutation, and we all use a Methylfolate supplement to help ensure that the body has an adequate supply of this essential nutrient for DNA synthesis, repair, and methylation processes, which are crucial for various bodily functions. Look for supplements that contain the bioavailable and active form of folate (L-5-MTHF). There are a lot of options - we use Jarrow Formulas Methyfolate 400mcg.
   

As always, consult with your physician before making any changes.

I recently listened to the Dr. Garrielle Lyon podcast featuring Darren Candown, Ph.D., professor, and director of the Aging Muscle and Bone Health Laboratory at the University of Regina. I learned several things that I did not know regarding creatine, including:

1. Synergistic Benefits of Combining Creatine with Protein: Combining creatine with protein, such as whey-based protein like milk or dairy, has increased muscle mass and strength more than taking creatine or protein alone. The synergistic effect of creatine and protein stimulates insulin, leading to various health benefits from protein consumption. This combination is particularly beneficial for muscle growth in both younger individuals and older adults.

2. Larger Doses May Be Beneficial: While 3-5 grams is sufficient for muscle benefits, higher doses could be beneficial for brain and bone health, with studies showing accumulation of creatine in the brain with doses up to 30 grams. Individuals with high metabolic stress or sleep deprivation might benefit more from creatine supplementation, especially in cognitive function and during long-haul flights. Research is also exploring the potential benefits of creatine in Alzheimer's disease.

3. Dosage Size, Frequency and Timing: Taking a smaller dose of creatine may increase absorption, especially for older adults. Breaking down the dosage into smaller amounts with food can reduce gastrointestinal irritation and water retention. The timing of creatine intake seems irrelevant, but consuming it close to exercise can enhance its delivery to muscle tissues and absorption efficiency. It is recommended to take creatine before, during, or after exercise to leverage enhanced blood flow kinetics for improved muscle uptake.

4. Creatine Differences in Males and Females: Females typically have 70 to 80% lower endogenous creatine stores compared to males, which may be due to differences in dietary creatine intake or uptake ability. Research indicates that females, especially vegans and vegetarians, show a significant response to creatine supplementation, with studies showing nearly unbelievable muscle response in females compared to males.

Debunking Creatine Myths.

The doctor discussed the myriad of Creatine myths, including:

1. There is a common myth associating creatine consumption with causing baldness, alongside the belief that an increase in DHT levels due to creatine intake results in hair loss or thinning. However, research has shown that although creatine can elevate DHT levels within normal ranges, it has not been proven to cause baldness.

2. Creatine causes issues with kidney and liver function. In fact, there are no adverse effects. This applies to high doses, moderate doses, low dosescompared to placebo in a variety of rndimized control trials.

What Form of Creatine Should I Take?

Creatine monohydrate is considered the best form of creatine due to its similarity to what the liver and brain produce, making it safe and effective. While various market forms of creatine are available, research indicates that monohydrate is the safest and most efficient form, with nearly 100% bioavailability.

How Does Creatine Work?

Creatine plays a key role in maintaining cells' energy currency by supporting the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It bypasses the stomach's acidic environment, entering the bloodstream intact. By enhancing energy levels, creatine allows individuals to sustain higher-intensity activities, making it popular among athletes. Recent research suggests that creatine not only boosts energy but also offers additional benefits.

What I Am Changing After Listening To This Podcast

1. Increased my daily dose to 10g. When feasible, I will divide it into separate 5g servings.

2. When stressed, jet-lagged, or facing a heavy cognitive load, I will increase my daily dose to 15g.

3. I will combine creatine with protein (I previously had it alone in the morning).

4. Will time taking creatine near exercise.

I use Nutricost Creatine Monohydrate and like it. It mixes well and has a good price.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is one of the top researchers in performance and longevity. I highly recommend her latest book, Forever Strong, which offers readers a roadmap to enhancing physical performance, preventing age-related decline, and living with vitality at any stage of life.

We should note that we do not have any health or medical degrees, we are not doctors, and we highly recommend that you consult with your physician before making any major changes.