Dr. Mark and Dr. Chip's Healthy Blogs

Salt is good for you?! Perhaps you’ve heard some of the buzz in the health blog world about salt. Perhaps you are asking yourself, salt is good for me? Yep, it is! The idea is contrary to the pretty blatant lies told to us by the American Heart Association… and thank goodness, because salt makes food taste amazing. There is no need to suffer through bland, unsalted meals in the sake of health.   Here are  12 reasons why salt is good for you : 1. The premise that salt leads to hypertension has never been scientifically supported. On the contrary, studies show that a reduced-sodium diet leads to health issues.  In one study, subjects consuming less than 2300 mg. (the recommended daily allowance) of sodium per day had significantly higher mortality rates  (meaning a higher risk of death) than the subjects consuming 2300 mg. or more sodium per day. 2.  Salt aids blood sugar control by improving insulin sensitivity . A low-salt diet  increases ...

With the holiday coming up and people traveling to different events, I thought this might help Healthy Tips for Eating Out 1.      Probably the most important thing is to just choose food items that are mostly protein and/or vegetables. Most restaurants and servers will allow you to pick and choose certain items or sides with your entrée but realize there may be an up charge. 2.      You don’t have to take the bread. Many restaurants bring bread before the meal and you can ask them to not do that. Yes it taste good but you don’t need the cards. 3.      Stay away from the deep-fried items as the oil that they used to fry the food is probably hydrogenated and then reused many times. This would include french fries and many of the fried appetizers. 4.      Always have a salad. Most of the better restaurants have a salad with the entrée or have good salad choices as the entrée. This is a great ...

What is normal Blood Pressure?             For all the years of my professional career, the normal blood pressure number that we’ve known about is 120/80. To be clear, this number was meant to be the average of the population. This means that some people’s normal blood pressure could be 150/90, and some people’s normal blood pressure could be 100/60. The thing to remember about blood pressure is that it is meant to be taken in a resting state. This means that you can’t rush into your doctor’s office after waiting for 2 hours in the waiting room, and being upset, have your blood pressure taken and it’s higher than 120/80, and then being told you have high blood pressure. A person needs to be in a resting position for at least 10 minutes without any stimulating stressors on the body, like coffee or caffeinated drinks or watching the news, and then have the blood pressure taken in both arms and see what the number is. Then do the...

How to lower Cholesterol?             To learn how to lower your cholesterol, we first must have a discussion about what cholesterol is and does. Cholesterol is in all the cell membranes in your body, your brain is 60 to 80% cholesterol by weight, but in your bloodstream it is a transfer molecule moving triglycerides from the liver to the fat cells for storage, or from the fat cells to the liver to be used for energy production. Only about 5% of the cholesterol that gets into your body comes from the diet, the rest is all made by the liver for the purposes mentioned above. The problem with cholesterol comes when the body uses it to repair the damage in the arteries that comes from the use of refined sugar. The increased sugar consumption causes insulin spikes and the resulting inflammation deteriorates the lining of the arteries. With more inflammation, the body uses more cholesterol to patch it up and this causes the plaque, ...

15 Powerful Ways To Fight A Sugar Addiction   1.      Eliminate processed foods -Sugars are added to processed foods to enhance their flavor. Even the ones that you wouldn’t expect to be a sugar snack are often loaded with it. Make sure to read the labels and try to eliminate all processed and junk food from your diet.   2.      Eat regularly -If you wait too long in between meals your blood sugar drops and you are more likely to binge on sugary, fatty foods to satisfy your hunger. Opt for 3 healthy meals and 2 snacks or 5 smaller meals at regular time intervals. Choose fresh, whole foods high in protein and fiber like whole grains, seeds, nuts, fruit, and veggies.   3.      Fruit and Veggie Detox -When you feel up for it, do a whole food fruit and veggie detox. Eliminating all sugars for 5 to 10 days often decreases the need for sugar and will stop sugar cravings.   4. ...

Why am I so tired?             Tiredness can be interpreted many ways and is a symptom of the bodies underlying problems of energy production, or lack thereof.   In the natural healing world, we look to find the cause of that particular person’s tiredness or fatigue. There can be many causes and we work with the principal that anything can cause anything. It is so important to find the underlying cause as just using products to force the body to have more energy can actually cause more problems and deepen the condition and lead to worse disease processes.   We are always going to look at diet and lifestyle and try to improve those to reduce the stress that the body is under which gives the body more energy far living well. Several common causes of tiredness and fatigue that we see in our office would include an underactive thyroid, heavy metal toxicity, underlying infectious processes that the body can’t comple...

How long does the flu last?             Although the average may be listed around 5 days, this would depend entirely on the person’s immune system and what kind of stresses their under. It may also depend on the strain of flu the person has been exposed to as well. This is a good example of why it is important to keep your immune system in good shape through good diet and exercise and a lifestyle that is as low as possible in stress. If your immune system is in good shape, flu symptoms from exposure can last a couple hours but if your immune system is in not so good a shape or your exposure through injection, which bypasses major parts of the immune system, symptoms can last for days, or weeks or longer. In a natural health world, we are more concerned with keeping the immune system in good shape rather than worrying about the bugs as the bugs are always out there and unless you want to live in a bubble, you will be exposed. A...

Quick Cleanse Program             At Natural Health, all of our nutrition patients are on a detox program that’s meant to work slowly over a longer timeframe to keep from having any unwanted symptoms or side effects that are uncomfortable for the patient. This is important for those who work all day and have plenty of other stresses in their lives and need no more. Normally if the patient is doing the normal diet recommendations we give, ie – a salad a day and as much vegetables as they can get, and not eating refined carbs, they will detox completely and easily. This hand out is for those folks that have “fallen off the wagon” for some reason, perhaps a bad weekend or a vacation, or just feeling blah, and want to clean the tube out and restart our dietary recommendations more closely.             Standard Process has a 21 day program called the Purification Program th...