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Most of the time, donating blood (or blood letting) is for the recipient. But for those with iron overload, whether that be caused by hemochromatosis or not, it can also be for the donor.
Donating blood is perhaps THE quickest, most effective and cheapest way to lower excess iron.
This post will detail my experience with liver flukes over the years and what I’m doing right now to be done with them for good. Stories of myrrh, apples, taurine, introspection and energetic healing to follow
The following is my story of using SARMs (RAD140 & MK677), peptides (BPC-157) and androgenic herbs (Pine Pollen, Deer Antler, Tongkat Ali, Shilajit & Ashwagandha) to exercise, put on muscle and maintain it, all with Lyme disease!
You’ve probably heard a little bit about insulin resistance and the myriad of issues that stem from it by now (if not, start here – link to IR – start here article) and you’ve decided to take some action to improve your insulin sensitivity and blood glucose. Perhaps you’re pre-diabetic, have a diabetic relative or just want to optimise as many aspects of yourself that you know how (I fall into the latter two categories).
Stress! Yet another potential saboteur on your quest to get your blood sugar under control. Now, stress isn’t always ‘bad,’ it’s a great stimulus for the body and mind in the right doses. In this article I’ll outline how stress impacts blood sugar metabolism and what we can do about it. And yes, I say we, because stress management is an area I tend to neglect as well (at least at the time of this article).
When you think of causes of high blood sugar what does your mind turn to?
Is it
A high processed carb, low fibre diet?
Stress?
Hanging on to a bit of extra weight?
All of these things can definitely contribute to high blood sugar. But what if I told you that so could excess iron? Are you shocked? Hopefully it didn’t shock you to the point of stress, because that would raise your blood sugar haha!
Ever wanted to know more about Naturopathy? Perhaps you’re considering working with one. Or of becoming one yourself. Maybe you’re going on a date with one tonight and want to impress them ;). Whatever the case, read on to learn some of the philosophy underpinning this fantastic healing modality. But first, a little story (if you’ve read the My Story section of the website skip on ahead).
Insulin resistance (IR) is hallmark of Type II diabetes. As of 2015 Diabetes affected an estimated 1.2 million Australians (based on self-reported data). Undiagnosed diabetics are expected to increase that number by 25%. If current trends continue, it is predicted that by 2050, 33% of US adults will have diabetes. That’s a lot of people!
Let’s get straight to the point here (I’m keeping it high intensity). Exercise is a great way to improve blood glucose. Pretty much any form of exercise will help. This article is for those who want to get the biggest bang for their buck.
There are many areas to address when trying to improve your blood sugar. Improving your cell’s sensitivity to insulin, improving the health of the pancreas to improve insulin production, reducing other contributors to insulin resistance such as stress and heavy metal toxicity, maintaining a healthy weight and repairing damage to any affected parts of the body. That’s quite a list and it doesn’t even cover everything!
Bitter melon juice improved the glucose tolerance in 73% of diabetics while another study showed diabetic men to have a 54% reduction in blood sugar in just 3 weeks.
Before a high carb meal, bitter melon reduced the blood sugar spike in 50% of the individuals. When compared to cucumber juice (move over medical medium), bitter melon juice was superior in lowering fasting blood sugar for prediabetics. The higher the blood sugar was to begin with, the bigger the drop! This was despite their being no effect on insulin levels.
Often we hear about how problematic iron deficiency is, but rarely do we hear about the negative effect of iron overload. Some of the symptoms of iron overload even match the symptoms of iron deficiency, like fatigue, depression and low libido.
It seems like everybody is meditating these days, all your favourite celebrities, your 10 year-old niece and maybe even your grandma. From reasons such as lowering stress, better brain function and more it’s not hard to see why you would want to join in.
Let’s face it, there is no shortage of information on practices that will improve your health. Some will help a little, some will help a lot, some may have no effect on you and some may even cause harm if you’re not ready for them.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve fallen into the trap of trying to do anything and everything to improve your health. Whenever I heard about something new, I would add it in, whether it be a new supplement, using a sauna, or grounding. I would do this until realizing that I had way too much on my plate, I was running out of time in the day to include all these practices and live my life. Sometimes I would even forget about the foundations at the expense of including in the latest practise.
You know what, sometimes its hard to figure out a root cause. And even once you’ve found it out, it can be hard to address it, sometimes taking years to fully resolve it. Do you have to suffer with your symptoms that whole time? Of course not. A great practitioner will tailor a health protocol to you, if you need more symptomatic help tell them.
In today’s world there is no shortage of things you could be doing. You might feel like you need to squeeze every last bit out of the hours in your day. So you decided, like me, that you’re going to use your time eating to get something else done. Maybe its responding to emails, finishing off a presentation or catching up on your favourite tv shows. Unfortunately, this is one of those instances where its best to do one thing at a time.
Ah yes, bone broth, another health trend that will soon be forgotten I hear you saying. Or maybe that’s not what you said, and it’s just my ears playing up again.
Bone broth is in fact nothing new, it has been used for quite some time, being a staple in traditional diets. The bones, joints, cartilage and anything else that couldn’t be chewed was boiled to get as much out of the animal as possible.
This has been one of my favourite winter recipes for a few years now. It’s super quick and easy (unless you have to make the bone broth, in which case it’ll take a long time). This is one of a myriad of ways to get your tonic herbs and gut-healing bone broth in. You can add in any tonic herb of your choice, but there are some that go better than others. Astragalus, codonopsis and the mushrooms tend to go really well here. Permission to get creative!
This article is the how to on preparing a bone broth. If you want to know the why to check this out. The base ingredients include: Bones (Ideally with cartilage and joints) – Enough to fill about 1/3 - 1/2 of the pot, Beef or Lamb (24-48 hours cooking time), Chicken (12-24 hours). Apple Cider Vinegar..
Like, most of the recipes I have up here, this is not something you have to follow strictly, feel free to get creative, add a bit more of this, a little less of that, whatever you like. For those who know me or have read a few of these articles, you’ll know I love my tonic herbs. They’re versatile, can be made to taste great, and have supported my body in profound ways.