Rob Wolff eloquently and entertainingly outlines the reasons he, and a growing number of health experts, believe we should be consuming the same kind of diet our ancestors would have followed 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

His argument hinges on the anthropological claim that the single most important event in all of human history was the agricultural revolution. Whether this bold conjecture is true or not, the fact is that our diets have changed dramatically since the advent of farming techniques around 10,000 years ago. The inclusion of foods such as wheat, rice, corn, and dairy to name a few, became the staple food stuff of our ancestors. Whilst civilisations have been founded on our predecessor’s ability to settle and grow crops around them, Wolff asserts that it is actually our hunter gatherer’s diet and lifestyle that we are genetically geared to thrive upon. The argument? If we imagined human history as a 100 metre walk, it is only in the last ½ metre that grains, dairy, legumes and all forms of processed foods have begun to be consumed. Our diets have changed drastically but our genes, and therefore our unique biology, have not. We can tolerate this type of nourishment but we don’t necessarily flourish upon it.

What follows is a thorough insight into what happens to our bodies when we metabolise foods that our Palaeolithic ancestors would never have eaten. Packed with science, research and humour, this book will challenge how you think about our modern diets and lifestyle and give you the tools to live more in line with our genetic legacy. If you feel you could be optimising your health and wellbeing, this is a great place to start your journey.

Hi all, I’ve just returned from a thought provoking seminar about the metabolic syndrome. This is another way of saying lifestyle diseases eg diabetes, hypertension, heart disease. There was wonderful information and great tips about how to how assist people that have signs of lifestyle disease. Assistance through first line therapy (diet, exercise, relaxation) and supplementation seems far more attractive than taking pharmaceuticals and continuing with the same decisions that led to the problems in the first place.

One particularly interesting point regards cholesterol levels. Whilst it is the norm to have cholesterol tests via a GP that give overall cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglyceride readings, there seems to be another level of testing that is not the norm that is worth investigating.

The size of the LDL particles has been shown to be a greater predictor of coronary artery disease than the overall level of LDL. For instance if someone had LDL readings of 2.5 mmol it would be natural to assume that they are in the “safe zone” however if further blood tests reveal that the particle number is very high then they are at a much higher risk. The flip side also applies in that a seemingly high LDL reading might not be as dangerous as initially thought if the number of particles making up the high reading is relatively small.

A further consideration is that the use of statins to lower LDL level is a very common medical intervention. Perhaps many people taking statins don’t really need to be. This is a huge consideration as some of the more common effects of statins are – muscle pain – difficulty in concentrating – moodiness – low libido – Alzheimer’s

If you want more information on how to access the extra tests please get in contact with me and I will arrange that with you.

Yours in health
Dr Michael Bloom, Chiropractor.

“The highly qualified team of chiropractors at Putney Chiropractic Centre including Dr Craig McLean, have been helping me to perform as best I can through regular adjustments since early 2006. Chiropractic uses safe and gentle techniques that remove interference to and optimise the function of the nervous system and spine, allowing the body to heal itself and restore balance to health and life.”

Tweet from @timbrabants 29th June 2011 “@DrCraigChiro tune up this morning, flying on the water this afternoon. Brilliant!”

• Read an update from early 2008, the Beijing Olympics year and the year after (2007) he was crowned world champion in the K1 1000m
• Emails received from Tim during and after the Beijing Olympics and a photo of Tim with his medals when back in London
  
• Read an update from 2010 – the year Tim won a silver medal at the World Championships

Watch a typical chiropractic session with Tim at Putney as filmed by one of his London 2012 sponsors – Cisco.

Drs Craig, Edwina and Michael headed out to provide a chiropractic experience for all attending. We were working from our favourite office in the world, under blue skies, on the snow in the Alps at the bottom of a World Cup GS course. The best thing about having a chiropractor in the finishing paddock was it proved that once money, time, geography and effort have been removed from the equation everyone wanted a chiropractic adjustment because inherently everyone knows its good for their health. It was like once all the barriers of a busy London life were removed the question was ‘why wouldn’t you want to go to the chiropractor??’

‘Highlights included random chat with Heston Blumenthal (a little surreal – pictured with Dr Michael below), dancing in the apres mosh pit with Graham Bell, fencing at the racing start gate with Graham Bell (also BBC Olympic commentator for the fencing), hugs with Colin Jackson, racing behind an Olympic downhill gold medalist (Antoine Deneriaz), borrowing Warren Smith’s world cup GS skis that weighed a tonne and were more ski than I could handle and dressing up for the dual slalom in the blue morphe suits (pictures below). Under the photo gallery below is the video from my helmet cam of a run down the GS course (including my little wipeout) and the video made by the BBC for the city ski weekend.’ Cheers Dr Craig

The full report from the official City Ski Championships:
The City Ski Championships, the highlight of the inaugural Momentum Ski Festival, took place in the elite Swiss resort of Crans Montana over the weekend. After 12 years in Courmayeur in Italy, Amin Momen made the key decision to relocate the event and widen its appeal with cutting edge comedy and live music. The Snowjet flight from Stansted to Sion – with a 35-minute transfer to the resort – was a popular addition for city slickers who travelled out after work on Thursday.

Saturday Morning: The Big Giant Slalom Race
On Saturday morning, over 200 people lined up on the Piste Nationale for the showcase giant slalom race. The FIS course, where Didier Cuche and Lindsey Vonn won recently, proved seriously testing for amateur skiers from financial institutions and a range of sponsors that included Zai Skis, Putney Chiropractic, Cavendish Ware and the Financial Times.

Antoine Deneriaz – France’s downhill gold medallist at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics and an ambassador for Zai Skis – made it look easy, as did his nearest rival Chris Oliveira from Lloyd’s of London. Chris is a regular at the Championships but a rare early night on Friday set him up for an exceptional performance in the professional FIS class. He was also a member of the winning Lloyd’s Masters team, along with Anthony Barrow, and Filippo and Alessandro Guerrini Maraldi, a quartet that had already shown form with a narrow victory in the Accenture Dual Slalom the afternoon before.

In the individual competitions, the top prizes went to Till Hufnagel from Goldman Sachs in the men’s category and Alex Hendy from Peel Hunt in the women’s. Other racers fared less well, providing the BBC’s Matt Chilton with plenty of ammunition for his witty commentary. With wine flowing freely in the Savill’s Alpine Homes paddock area at the finish, the cheering for spills and thrills increased as the race progressed. See the full results for yourself on the results page.

Comedy Thrills & Debating Skills
When the lifts closed on Friday and Saturday, the crowds gathered in Zero-Dix at the base of the mountain to listen and dance in the open air to The Feeling and 29 Fingers. The more cerebrally-minded attended the Financial Times Alpine Business Forum, a first for 2012. Caroline Daniel, editor of FT Weekend, hosted the Friday seminar, triggering lively debate between her panelists – BBC Security correspondent, Frank Gardner, comedian Marcus Brigstocke and Israeli financier, Edouard Cukierman.

After a Swiss raclette dinner at the Hotel Etrier, Brigstocke returned to the stage with fellow stand ups Rufus Hound and Nick Doody, for Comedy Club – another hugely enjoyable innovation. Graham Bell, Ski Sunday presenter and ex-Olympic downhill racer, graciously submitted to a sustained attack from Hound that had the large crowd in stitches.

See You Next Year?
We’re looking forward to being there next year to keep everyone in tip top shape for their race, and to join in the thrills and spills with new and old friends. Can’t wait!

We have great selection of photographs in an album on Facebook plus the gallery below:

Dr Craig’s helmet cam video

The official video from Momentum ski

Vanessa has been getting regular adjustments at Putney Chiro since August 2011 when her myotherapist, Chris Ball and coach John Roberts (of Matt Roberts Gyms) contacted us for assistance in helping her during training and racing. An injury had plagued her since a fall of her bicycle in 2010 and she needed an expert team to get her back to her best. So Chris looks after the muscles and bike fitting, Doc Craig looks after her spine and nervous system and John looks after the gym and training program. As you can see with her recent great results, Vanessa has kicked her injury problems and is now able to train and race hard and recover quickly with the help of her support team.

Good luck Vanessa in 2012 and find more news from her great website. Thanks to Vanessa’s agent, Luke Lloyd Davies from Sir Elton John’s Rocket Sports Management for the images and help with the article.

I had not heard of BRCA gene mutation then within the space of 2 weeks, I met 2 women who had undergone surgery as a result of carrying that gene. One woman had a hysterectomy and the other had a hysterectomy and a bilateral mastectomy. Wow, that is some serious surgery.

Most people can look at their ancestory and come to a conclusion about their genetic makeup and what health scenarios run in their bloodline. Personally, I know that heart disease is in my bloodline. Heart disease is the biggest killer in our society and as opposed to carriers of the BRCA gene, it doesn’t really work that you have surgery to remove your heart to avoid heart disease-That was meant to be a joke!

Hence recently there has been great emphasis placed on epi-genetics. What is this?

Epigenetics is still genetics, but rather than thinking that your life is a foregone conclusion based purely on what genes you were given, it is slightly different.

EPI-genetics……..EPI means upon or above, hence epi-genetics means upon or above your genetics. Loosely translated that means that whatever we do that effects our genes, plays a huge role in determining our genetic destiny.

So rather than giving up if there is a certain predisposition to illness within your bloodline, I want you to take heart and realise that decisions you make regarding your lifestyle eg what you eat, how much you move, how you deal with stressful situations play a major EPI role on your genes.

Finally some of what we have known for many years is reaching the newspapers. Especially interesting is the final paragraph, by 2025 we could save 674 million dollars if more attention is centred on prevention and leading a healthy lifestyle prior to developing diseases.

Surely there are better things to do with 674 million than trying to put out a burning fire. Prevention and a healthy lifestyle is akin to doing the back burning and paddock preparation before bushfire season. This is much more successful than trying to fight a preventable fire!

Read about the above mentioned article in the Australian newspaper ‘The Age’.

All the best with your EPI activities.

Regards

Michael Bloom

Avoiding heart disease through nutrition is the radical yet science-based idea that Dr. Sanjay Gupta addressed in his special, “The Last Heart Attack,” which aired last night on CNN. Gupta interviewed a number of pioneering doctors to discuss the idea that conditions like heart disease can be reversed by implementing preventive measures — namely, changing the way we eat.

“Virtually eliminating heart disease -– it can be done, and truth is, we have known for a very long time how to do it,” Gupta wrote on CNN.com. He continued:

I will admit, while I had trained my whole life to treat disease after it developed, I wasn’t medically trained in nutrition to be able to help prevent some of these diseases in the first place. Most of what I have learned has been on my own, since leaving medical school, and I think that is true for many doctors of my generation.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States, with more than 600,000 people dying from the disease a year. And each year, nearly 800,000 Americans have their first heart attack, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 470,000 of those people will go on to have another heart attack.

“One of the best kept secrets in the country in medicine is that doctors who are practicing aggressive prevention are really seeing heart attacks and strokes disappear from their practices. It’s doable,” cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston, author of “The South Beach Diet” books, told Gupta during the special.

Pushing the issue more and more into the mainstream is former President Bill Clinton’s decision to adopt a plant-based, and then vegan, diet after undergoing a quadruple bypass in 2004 for blocked arteries.

Clinton was advised on the new diet by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., a Director at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Center and long-time advocate for pure plant-based eating, and Dr. Dean Ornish, Founder and President of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Medical Editor at The Huffington Post.

Dr. Ornish told ABC News:

Moderate changes weren’t enough for him to reverse or prevent heart disease. In our studies we show that [a plant-based diet] could actually reverse the progression of heart disease. Within a month we found that the blood flow to your heart can improve.

Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald, Founder and Medical Director of the Santa Monica Wellness Center and Huffington Post Wellness Editor, has been following Dr. Ornish’s work for more than a decade.

His research shows that that comprehensive lifestyle changes may play an important role in the reversal of heart disease, she told HuffPost. “While whole foods plant-based nutrition is an important part of his program, Dr. Ornish also emphasizes other important aspects to a healthy lifestyle: exercise, loving relationships and group support, as well as stress management and meditation.”

Preventive Medicine Gains Popularity

Former President Clinton isn’t the only high-power politician touting the importance of prevention. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has been working to spread the word that good health starts with preventive measures.

Prevention is vital in preventing disease, Sebelius wrote on Medscape.

Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are responsible for 75% of the nation’s healthcare spending and 7 out every of 10 deaths in America each year. Yet, as you know, they are often preventable. By working together to address tobacco use, poor diet, lack of exercise, and alcohol abuse, we can cut down on the incidence of these conditions.

That’s why people have to start making lifestyle changes at home, in order to combat diseases like heart attack and stroke, wrote former U.S. assistant surgeon general Dr. Susan Blumenthal on The Huffington Post earlier this year.

The biggest lifestyle changes a person can make to combat these diseases include quitting smoking, not being obese, being physically active and lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, Blumenthal wrote.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a heart-healthy diet is one that is low in saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol. Eating this sort of diet — high in fruits, veggies and whole grains — can help to keep weight, blood pressure and cholesterol down and under control, thereby fighting against heart disease.

A plant-based diet has also been shown in past research to help people with diabetes better control their glucose levels. And a 2008 study showed that eating this kind of diet can increase the enzyme telomerase, which lengthens telomeres. Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes that are indicative of our lifespan, so the research shows that eating a plant-based diet could actually alter our genes for a longer life

Vitamin D has been receiving some press recently, notably, in New Scientist magazine and the newspapers. They are reiterating the importance of vitamin D to our bodies, as there is a resurgence of rickets and osteomalacia in the population. Ok – so most of us don’t have rickets, but are we getting enough vitamin D to be healthy? When it is cold outside and we are rugged up from head to toe to keep warm, we aren’t getting a lot of unfiltered sunlight on bare skin. We might be feeling tired and sluggish, irritable, our immune system not what it should be, sore neck or back, and brittle nails…sound familiar?

If we don’t have the right building blocks for health (that’s the correct amount of vitamins, minerals, proteins and fat !) then we may be doing our exercises, seeing our chiropractor and avoiding sugary foods, but still not feeling our best. Vitamin D is found in essential fatty acids, so a good omega-3 supplement (I like Eskimo-3 fish oils) can work wonders. Naturally, omega-3 can be found in fish such as tuna, salmon, and mackerel, so eating these two to three times a week can help also.

However, nothing beats sunshine for naturally producing the optimal levels of vitamin D in our bodies! So ditch the gym, and get outside and start exercising – even in winter this will help to increase your vitamin D levels. It can also be a great break from the cycle of being at work on your PC, to going to the gym and watching the news whilst running on the treadmill, and then home to watch tv.

I love exercising on the Putney Embankment, it is a great way to clear the head as well as getting the sunshine that I need.

Stay healthy, people!

Edwina

Chiropractic is based on the scientific fact that your body is a self-regulating, self-healing organism. These important functions are controlled by the brain, spinal cord, and all the nerves of the body.

The skull protects the delicate tissues of the brain. The moving bones of the spine protect the vulnerable communication pathways of the spinal cord and nerve roots. If the nervous system is impaired in any way, it can cause malfunction of the tissue and organs throughout the body.

Chiropractic doctors call this the Vertebral Subluxation Complex. Vertebral; meaning the bones of the spine. Subluxation; meaning the less than a total dislocation. Complex; meaning consisting of more than one part.

Chiropractic is the science of locating dysfunctional spinal segments, the art of reducing their impact to the nervous system, and a philosophy of natural health care based on your inborn potential to be healthy.

Chiropractors seek to remove irritation to the nerves within and surrounding the central nervous system.

There are four fundamental premises that chiropractors work with:

1.     The body is a self healing and self regulating mechanism.

2.     The nerve system is the master controlling and organising system in the body.

3.     Anything that interferes with normal nerve function is bad. These interferences are known as subluxations.

4.     Anything that reduces disturbances in the nerve system is beneficial.

This is why you and many others get adjusted; to eliminate these subluxations and restore healthy nerve function to your body. This way your body functions at its highest ability and you can be healthier and happier!