.

This isn’t a lecture on not doing your make-up or texting while driving.  Those are obvious no-no’s but ironically I see people doing it.  After I thought about it for a bit, driving is an excellent example of health care.

We all drive almost everyday.  Nothing bad ever really happens, but there is always a potential for something to happen.  So what do we have… insurance, right.  You almost never need it, but if you do, you’re glad you have it.

I’ve hit 2 deer in my life.  One demolished my front windshield and almost killed me and the other was nothing more than a big bump in the road that just rocked the truck.  We kept going and nothing happened.  Both were instantaneous and unavoidable.  Boom…there it is.

Next time you hop in your car you can get a health lesson.

1.  The primary thing you probably think about when owning a car is how much fuel does it take, and you might even ponder what kind.  Over all thou, your choices are pretty limited.  If you put diesel fuel in an unleaded vehicle, you have problems.  Now, it is the wrong fuel.

Your body needs the right fuel.   Veggies, fruit, fats, meat.  Things like processed cereal, bread or many of the sugar items are the wrong fuel.  Would a Ferrari owner ever put bad fuel in their car?  You can’t expect your body to perform at a peak level running on processed food, soda, and anything nuked in a microwave.

One more fuel thought.  A year ago gas was $2.26, today it is $2.89.
Two years ago, it was $4.11, the highest recorded price in America.

Did you buy gas at $4/gallon?  I did.  My car needed the right fuel.  I wasn’t happy about it, but I did it, but I also used less.  You body needs the best fuel you can buy.  Did you know? There is more nutrients in organic food and no chemicals.  If you eat better quality food, your body will need less.  Processed food will taste great on the lips, but because the real nutrients have been stripped out of it, your body is constantly hungry for the missing nutrients.  Did you know?  Oreo’s are graded on 90 different characteristics, taste, texture, color, blah, blah, blah.  Manufacturers go to amazing lengths to hook you on their crappy food.

Fight back by buying from your local farmers, then organic food.  Put the best fuel in your body and start running like a Ferrari.

    2.  Oil changes... Why do you do that?  Prevention, right?  You want your car to keep running smoothly.  I like to think of prevention a little differently than  most doctors.  The only real recommendation you’ll hear is to get your early screenings.  To “prevent” bigger problems.  That’s not really prevention.

Does an oil change guarantee you’ll never breakdown…no.  Does eating organic food and exercising guarantee you’ll never get cancer…no.  Does getting an oil change hedge you bets that you’ll keep cruising down the road?  Sure, otherwise you wouldn’t do it.  Do I eat organic food because I believe it will help prevent problems in the future.  Absolutely!  The list of problems pesticides have been shown to cause is longer than I care to write today.  Eating pesticides is like driving every day.  You can do it for years and years, but some time those deer jump out in the middle of the night.  Stop taking a known risk with pesticides, go organic.   For the women, pesticides contribute to hormone problems.  This is one of the single largest health problems for women that is preventable.

  3.  Dash lights…most of the time they aren’t on.  But if a little light does pop on, it gets your attention right away.  These are early warning signs, like pain or any other symptom, for example:  can’t sleep, diabetes, heart disease, fatigue, acid indigestion, and over 600 other things.  I have this handy dandy little book listing all these early warning signs and how to potentially fix them with Standard Process supplements and herbs.  Take those warnings seriously and remember medications only put tape over your dash board lights.

4.  Fix the little stuff…if your car starts to smoke you don’t let it keep smoking.  Smoking leads to more serious problems, right.

5.  Ever leave your headlights on? …There is only so long that you can leave the lights on without the engine running.  If you do, your battery will be dead in the morning.  Ever have a hard time getting out of bed?  Your battery is dead.  It is a dead give-away that you are leaving the lights on and too stressed or working too hard or staying up too late or just plain have too many irons in the fire.   I’ve been there and speak from experience.  Take it seriously and change your lifestyle.   It is called adrenal fatigue.  It plays a significant role in heart health.  We’ll talk more about that later this summer.

6.  Use it…or lose it.   If you park your car and never use it, it will slowly become worthless.  It will rust or the gas will go bad or mice will make a nice home inside.  If you don’t exercise your body, you will lose it.  You know what I mean.  Cars need some highway time to clean out the gunk from city driving.  Your body needs the same.  A good sweat will go a long way.  If you are really out of shape don’t start doing a lot of exercise, ease into it.

7.   Insurance... You don’t dare drive without it.  To me health insurance isn’t from a company. Yeah, I have it in case a really bad accident happens, but health itself is determined by your habits.   Eating good organic food, getting sleep, taking Standard Process whole food supplements, exercise, chiropractic adjustments, thinking good, and not polluting  body with chemicals or even negative people.  God forbid something really bad happens, do you think you have better chance of survival if you are strong, energetic, and wildly healthy going in to it or tired, over-weight, crabby, and out-of-shape?  You need to work for health insurance, you can’t buy it.  You buy accident insurance.  Real health comes from within.

Women’s health week is coming to a close.  The governments site has some good info and reminders.

•     Eat well

•     Get your exercise

•     Get your sleep

•     Reduce your stress

•     Don’t smoke

•     Get some preventative screenings, just be careful with this one.  Read Bruce West.

That sounds a lot like my car story.  I’d like to add one more piece.  In my opinion, one of the single greatest health problems facing women today is hormone imbalances.  They are getting worse and harder to deal with.  That will take another whole article, watch for it soon.

-Dr. Altman

-To order Standard Process  Call 612-Be-Great or email docaltman [at] gmail [dot] com

-To order probiotics.  Now this is new!  You can set-up your own account using our office.  Just create a patient account here.  This is the 90 count probiotic that we order, Pro-flora concentrate  (PR123).  You also get a 5% discount doing it this way.  Any problems let me know.  Just put in Dr. David Altman and 507-359-3123 for the phone number.

Last night Dan Buettner was in New Ulm talking about his book the Blue Zones.  He was the keynote speaker for the kick-off of New Ulms Heart health project.  They are sure this is going to be followed nationally and possibly internationally.  They want New Ulm “to be a model for the world” -Lori Wightman

Here are the highlights of my notes in case you did not make it there.  I saw a few of you there.

…According to the CEO of Allina hospitals, the U.S. healthcare system costs 2.5 times more than any other country and we get to be #24 on the list of countries for longevity.

Basically our medical money is wasted.  The nice thing is he recognizes the problem and wants to do something.  They are looking to “focus upstream on wellness.”

According to the CEO, 60% of the resources are wasted in chronic diseases like heart disease.

And I thought this was shocking!

The hospitals don’t get any payments for wellness visits, only for E.R. visits.  Basically there is no financial incentive to promote wellness.  I have no idea how they intend to solve that one.

Wait, wait, wait they answered this question on KARE 11.  They are getting 40 million for the project.

The next speaker was Dr. Kevin Graham, Cardiologist and President, Minneapolis Heart Institute .

“1/3 of the people with a heart attack never make it to the E.R.”

“1/3 of the deaths in Brown County are from heart disease”

We could create a dramatic  reduction in risk if “everyone took an aspirin and 2 fish oil capsules a day”  I couldn’t believe that they would recommend something besides a drug.  I have to give them a lot of credit, that’s a big jump.  This time a year I will argue that cod liver oil would be a better choice, so if you aren’t taking any everyday, get down here and get some.

85 people died last year of Heart attacks in New Ulm.  They are trying to get that down to zero.  A very noble effort, but I think they have the wrong focus in HOW to do it.

Dr. Graham is looking to make heart disease a “medically treated disease”  He talked about this on KARE 11 last night.  They are looking for a magic drug to treat heart disease or to early detect people to get them on a drug cocktail that will hopefully prevent heart attacks.

One thing I found impressive was that Dr. Graham talked about calcification  (plaque) in the arteries as being a MORE important indicator of heart disease than cholesterol.  It “trumps” cholestrerol.  I loved it.  Maybe the great cholesterol myth will finally die.  Plus, Dr. Graham said that diabetes makes it all worse.

Well if diabetes makes it all worse, we can also focus on preventing diabetes.  Which is purely a nutritional issue.

Now, stay tuned to my emails because I am going to fill some gaps for you on plaque, on cholesterol, on heart attacks and ways to prevent them and ironically the next Bruce West newsletter (which you will see shortly) has a lot of these very issues in there.

PART 2 of New Ulm’s Heart health project was a lecture from Dan Buettner on the BlueZones.  Areas in the world that outlive the rest.  This is very similar to the work Dr. Weston Price did in the 1930’s.  There were more places back then that hadn’t had modern influences.

Here are some of my notes from the BlueZones.

The 4 BlueZones are Loma Linda, California;Okinawa, Japan; Saldinia, Italy; Northwest corner of Costa Rica.

In Sardinia, the cheeses were very high in omega-3 fatty acids (decreases inflammation and pain) compared to our cheese which is higher in omega-6 fatty acids (pain, inflammation).  Why?  Because their animals are still grass-fed.  Most of ours are grain fed.  Products from grass-fed animals are healthier for you.  They also drink wine regularly.

In Okinawa, they have a saying they say before every meal kind of like our Grace.  I couldn’t repeat the Japanese, but this was the rough translation.  “Stop eating when your stomach is 80% full”  they say that before each meal.  It takes 20 minutes before your stomach realizes what you have eaten, so the message here is eat slowly.  If you remember to stop at 80% you will consume about 400 calories less per day which = about 8lbs. a year.

Also, they have a social circle that is setup when they are 5 years old.   Basically given friends that they are expected to take care of for life.  Dan had slides of a group of ladies that had beengetting together regularly for 96 years.  They all were 101.

They also have an “ikigei”  .  The rough translation is “why I wake up in the morning?”  What is your purpose?

Off the cuff he said the longest lived people sleep 7 hours a day.

In Loma Linda, they were only the 7th day Adventists.  They took their diet from the bible.

Grains, seeds, nuts, green plants, no meat, and some fish.  They had regular routines they followed and they focused on keeping the sabbath.  They focused on God, family and going for nature walks together.

In Costa Rica, they had a special diet, very hard water, family focused, a light dinner, dry climate, strong social network, worked into older age and had a strong PURPOSE in life.

Dan Buettner summed up his findings for living to 100 and beyond in a few simple terms.

#1 Move naturally.  They didn’t run marathons or any other extreme.  They all lived inn walkable communities.

#2 They had the right outlook.  They had positive attitudes and lived a downshifted life.  They either prayed everyday, or napped, or meditated.

#3 They didn’t diet.  They eat wisely.  They ate a lot of plants.  They followed the 80% rule and ate slowly.  This may surprise some of you.  They had a few alcoholic drinks / night.  Mostly wine.

There has been a long association between alcohol and a decrease in heart disease.  2 drinks max.

#4 They put their family first.  All of them.  Grandparents on down.

#5 They had a strong sense of belonging.  All but 5 of them believed in God.  Being religious adds 4-7 extra years to your life.

#6 The hung out with the RIGHT people.  Positive people like them.  He noted that you are your peer group.  Smokers tend to be with smokers.  Overweight people cluster together or influence others in the group to gain weight.  BBC NEWS

For some fun 
Take their longevity test.  Here was mine.

Now realize that telling the future is impossible, but it is still a fun look at your lifestyle.  See how you are doing at bluezones.com

My Biological Age and life expectancy from the BlueZones.com

If you are looking at the above numbers and thought, “Dr. Altman could squeak out 2.2 more years.”  Well, I have a few nit-picks with their questions.  So I don’t think this is perfect but it has many admirable qualities.  They don’t differentiate between salts.  They just assume all salt is bad, and that isn’t true at all.  They also want people to regularly consume whole grain bread, and I don’t, and you shouldn’t either.  3-6 servings of grain a day is no way good for you.

#1 Grains have omega-6 fatty acids that contribute to inflammation and heart disease.

#2 Grains are considered simple carbs for all practical purposes.  The more carbs you eat the easier it is to gain weight.  Every extra 1lbs. of fat takes 100 miles of blood vessels to support that.  Simple math tells you that isn’t good for your heart.

So that is where I got docked some points for their scale.  But, I thought I’d share it with you
Have fun,