Back Clinic Functional Medicine Team. Functional medicine is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms.
Practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
By changing the disease-centered focus of medical practice to this patient-centered approach, our physicians are able to support the healing process by viewing health and illness as part of a cycle in which all components of the human biological system interact dynamically with the environment. This process helps to seek and identify genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors that may shift a person’s health from illness to well-being.
PODCAST: Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Marius Ruja discuss the importance of personalized medicine genetics and micronutrients for overall health and wellness. Following a proper diet and participating in exercise alone isn’t enough to make sure that the human body is functioning properly, especially in the case of athletes. Fortunately, there are a variety of tests available that can help people determine if they have any nutritional deficiencies that may be affecting their cells and tissues. Vitamin and mineral supplements can also ultimately help improve an individual’s overall health and wellness. While we may not be able to change certain aspects of our genes, Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Marius Ruja discuss that following a proper diet and participating in exercise while taking the proper supplements, can benefit our genes and promote well-being. – Podcast Insight
[00:00:00] Welcome, guys. We’re Dr. Marius Ruja and myself. We’re going to be discussing some really important topics for those athletes that want the advantage. We’re going to be discussing real important clinical technologies, as well as information technologies that can really make an athlete or even just the average person a little bit more aware of what’s actually happening in terms of their health. There’s a new word out there, and I just have to kind of give you a little heads up, where we’re calling. We’re actually coming from the PUSH fitness center, it’s this huge monster that actually people are still working out late at night tonight and after going to church. So they’re working out and they’re having a good time. So what we want to do is we want to bring in these topics. And today we’re gonna be talking about personalized medicine. Mario, you know, ever heard of that word, Mario? [00:01:04][63.8]
[00:01:05] Yeah, all the time, Alex. All the time. I dream about it? There you go. Mario. [00:01:13][8.3]
[00:01:14] So we’re going to be talking about is the personalized arena of what we have now. We’ve come to a state where a lot of people tell us, hey, hey, you know what? You should have some more proteins, fats, or they come up with some convoluted idea and you’ll end up with your eyes crossed and most of the time more confused than anything else. And you’re pretty much a lab rat to all these different techniques, whether it’s the Mediterranean, low fat, high fat, all these kind of things. So the question is, is that what is specific to it. And I think one of the frustrations that a lot of us have, Mario, is that we don’t know what to eat, what to take, and what’s good for me doesn’t mean that it’s good for my friend. You know, Mario, it’s different. We come from a whole different kind of genre. We live in a place and we’ve gone through things that are different from 200 years ago. What do people do? Well, we’re going to be able to figure this out nowadays in today’s DNA dynamics, though, we don’t treat with these. It just gives us information and it allows us to relate to the issues that are affecting us. Now, today, we’re gonna be talking about personalized medicine and DNA testing and micronutrient assessments. So we’re gonna see what it is that we. How are our genes, the actual predisposing issues, or they’re the ones that give us the workings of our engine? And then also, if it’s good for that, then we also want to know what our level of nutrients is. Right now, I know, Mario, you had a very dear and near question the other day with one of your I think was your daughter. Oh, yeah. What was she? What was her question? [00:02:51][96.9]
[00:02:51] Yeah. So Mia had an excellent question, you know, she was asking me about, you know, utilizing Keratin, which is very predominant in and, you know, athletes, you know, it’s the buzz word, you know. You know, use creatine to build more muscle and such. So the point that I talk to you about, Alex, is, you know, this is something so serious, so, so important that we cannot let in in terms of the sports environment, performance environment. It’s like taking a Bugatti and you’re going, well, you know what? Hey, what do you think about like just putting, like, you know, synthetic oil in? Well, is it the synthetic oil that is necessary or that Bugatti? Well, it’s good because it’s synthetic. Well, no. There are lots of different forms of synthetic. You know, it’s like five-thirty, five-fifteen, whatever it is, the viscosity level. It has to match. So same thing for athletes and especially for Mia, you know, the generality. Well, let them know who Mia is?� [00:04:06][75.0]
[00:04:07] What does she do? What kind of. Oh, yeah. [00:04:08][1.1]
[00:04:08] Mia, you know, Mia plays tennis. So her passion is tennis. And she’s nationally ranked and she plays internationally on the International Circuit ITF. And she’s right now in Austin with Karen and the rest of The Brady Bunch, as I call them, you know, she’s working hard and through all this COVID, you know, kind of disconnect. Now she’s getting back into, you know, the fitness mode. So she wants to optimize. She wants to really, you know, do her very best to catch up and move forward. And the question about nutrition, a question about what she needed. I needed a specific answer, not just general. Well, I think it’s good. You know, good is good and better is best. And the way that we look at it in that conversation of sports performance and also genetic nutritional conversation, functional medicine conversation. It’s like let’s get really functional. Let’s be on point instead of buckshot. [00:05:20][71.3]
[00:05:21] You know, it’s like you can go in and say, you know, it generalities. But in terms of this, there’s not a lot of information that is out there for athletes. And that’s where the conversation linking the genetic and linking the micronutrients. That is phenomenal because as you mentioned, Alex, when we look at the markers, genetic markers, we see the strengths, the weaknesses, we see what’s at risk and what is not. Is the body adaptive or is the body weak? So then we have to address the micronutrients to support. Remember we…� [00:06:00][39.3]
[00:06:00] Talked about that, to support that weakness in that DNA, that genetic pattern with something that we can strengthen. [00:06:11][10.7]
[00:06:12] I mean, you can’t go and change your genetics, but you surely can increase and be specific with your micronutrients to really change that platform and strengthen it and decrease the risk factors. [00:06:23][11.4]
[00:06:24] It’s fair to say now that the technology is such Mario that we can actually find the… I wouldn’t say weaknesses, but the variables that allow us to improve an athlete. At the genetic level. Now, we can’t alter the genes. That’s not what we’re saying, is that there’s a world of what they call SNP or single nucleic polymorphisms where we can actually figure out there’s a certain set of genes that we can’t change like eye color. We can’t do those. Those are very coded in. Right. But there are genes that we can influence through nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics. So when I say nutrigenomics, this is nutrition, altering and affecting the genome right. To a more adaptive or more opportunistic dynamics. Now, wouldn’t you like to know what genes you have that are vulnerable? Wouldn’t she like to know where her vulnerability is? [00:07:18][53.8]
[00:07:18] What do we all want to know? [00:07:19][0.8]
[00:07:19] Whether you’re a high-level athlete or you’re a high-level CEO or you’re just a high-level mom and dad, that’s running around too, from tournament to tournament. [00:07:30][11.0]
[00:07:31] And you cannot afford to have low energy that, you know, when we talked about the markers, you know, that methylation within the body, we want to know, are we processing or how are we doing in terms of the oxidative pattern within ourselves? Do we need that extra boost? Do we need to, you know, increase that green intake, that detoxified pattern, or are we doing well? And this is where when we look at the patterns of genetic markers, we can see that we are well-prepared or we are not well-prepared. Therefore, we have to look at the micronutrients again, those markers to say, are we meeting our needs? Yes or no or are we just generalizing? And I would say 90 percent of athletes and people out there, they’re generalizing. They’re saying, well, you know, taking vitamin C is good and taking vitamin D is good and selenium, you know, that’s good. But again, are you on point? Are we just guessing, right, Alex? [00:08:36][65.4]
[00:08:36] Exactly. That’s the thing. When we’re in that store and there’s a lot of great nutritional centers, Mario, that are out there. And we’re looking at a wall of a thousand products. Right. Crazy, we don’t know where we have holes. We don’t know where we need them. That, you know, there are certain deficiencies. You got bleeding gums. Most likely you’ve got some sort of scurvy or, you know, some sort of issue there that you’re meeting especially. But let’s assume we look at things like scurvy. Right. Well, we know that gums start bleeding well, and it’s sometimes not that obvious, right. That that we need certain things. There are hundreds and thousands of nutrients out there. One of the things that we call them, we call them cofactors, a CO factor is a thing that allows an enzyme to work. Right. So we are a machine of enzymes. And what codes those enzymes? Well, the DNA structure, right. Because it produces the proteins that code those enzymes. Right. So but those enzymes, they have cofactors like minerals, like magnesium, iron, potassium, selenium, as you mentioned, and all different components. As we look at this, this hole that we’re facing a wall. We would love to know exactly where our holes are because, Bob, you’re my best friend says, you know, you should take protein, take whey protein, you should take iron, you should take this. Maybe so. And we’re hit or miss. Right. So today’s technology is allowing us to see exactly what it is, where we have the holes and this point that you mentioned about the holes. [00:10:03][86.7]
[00:10:04] Again, the majority of the factors are not that extreme, like. Like scurvy, you know, bleeding gums. We’re not. I mean, we live in a society where gosh. I mean, Alex, we have all the food that we need. As a matter of fact, we got too many foods. It’s crazy. I mean, again, the issues that we talk about is overeating, not starving. OK. Or we’re overeating and still starving because the nutritional pattern is very low. So that’s a real factor there. But overall, we are really looking and addressing the component of what. [00:10:35][31.4]
[00:10:37] Subclinical issues. You know, we don’t have the symptoms. We don’t really have those big marker symptoms, you know, but we do have low energy, but we do have a low recovery pattern. But we do have that problem with sleep, that quality of sleep. So those, again, are not things that are huge, but those are subclinical, that erode our health and performance little by little. For example, with athletes, they can not be just good. They need to be tip of the spear top. They need to recover so quickly because, in their performance pattern, they do not have time to guess. [00:11:19][41.9]
[00:11:19] And I see that they don’t. You know, as you mentioned, that I mean, most of these athletes, when they want to assess their bodies. They want to know where every weakness is, they’re like scientists or laboratory rats for themselves. They’re pushing their bodies to the extreme from mental to physical to psychosocial. Everything is affecting them, put it in at full throttle. But they want to know. They want to know where that extra edge is. You know what? If I could make you a little bit better. If there was a little hole. What would that amount to? A two more second drop in over a period of time, a microsecond drop? Well, the point is that the technology is there and we have the ability to do these things for people. And the information is coming faster than we can even imagine. [00:12:04][44.8]
[00:12:05] We have doctors around the world, scientists around the world looking at the human genome, and seeing these issues specifically at SNPs, these single nuclear polymorphisms that can be changed or that can be altered or can be assisted in the dietary ways. [00:12:19][14.5]
[00:12:20] Go ahead. I’ll give you one, the InBody. [00:12:23][2.6]
[00:12:24] How about that? Yeah, that’s a tool right there. That is critical for a conversation with an athlete. The InBody is body composition. Yeah. BMI. Yes. You know, you’re looking at it in terms of your hydration pattern. [00:12:37][13.2]
[00:12:38] You’re looking at in terms of like. Yes. Body fat, that whole conversation, everyone wants to know. You know, I’m overweight, my belly fat. Again, we’re talking about how we had conversations on metabolic syndrome. We had conversations on risk factors, you know, high triglycerides, very low… [00:12:53][15.9]
[00:12:54] HDL. High LDL. I mean, those are risk factors that put you in a pattern in that line towards diabetes and that line towards, you know, cardiovascular disease in that line of dementia. But when you’re talking about an athlete, you’re not worried about diabetes. They’re worried about am I ready for the next tournament? And I want to make the cut. [00:13:15][21.0]
[00:13:15] I’m going to the Olympics. That’s yes. [00:13:16][1.1]
[00:13:17] That’s I mean, they’re not, that’s what they want to do and that InBody and the micronutrient that combination of genome nutrition, that genomic nutrition conversation on point allows them to honor their work. Because I’m telling you, Alex, and, you know this, I mean, everyone’s listening to us, you know, if you again. The conversation I share with people is this. Why are you training like a pro when you don’t want to be one? Why are you trained like a pro when you are not eating and have the data to support that pro-level workout? What you’re doing, if you don’t do that, you are destroying your body. So, again, if you’re working like a pro, that means you’re grinding. I mean, you’re pushing your body to limits, neuromuscular. Again, we’re chiropractors. We deal with inflammatory issues. If you’re doing that, you’re redlining that. But you are not turning around to recover through micro nutrition-specific chiropractic work. Then you’re going to damn it, you’re not going to make it. [00:14:25][68.4]
[00:14:26] We’re going to show that we’ve been able to see in a lot of times cities come together for certain sports, such as wrestling. Right. Wrestling is one of those notorious sports that puts the body through massive, massive emotional and physical stresses. But a lot of times what happens is individuals have to lose weight. You’ve got to have guys hundred sixty pounds. He’s got to drop down 130 pounds. Right. So what the city has done in order to avoid these things is to use specific bodies, specific weight, and they determine actually what’s the molecular weight of the urine. Right. So they can actually tell you are you too concentrated. Right. So what they do is that they have all these kids line up all the way to UTEP. Right. And they do a specific gravity test to determine if they’re able to lose any more weight or what’s the weight that they’re allowed to lose. So someone who’s about 220 says, you know what? You can drop up to about, you know, X, Y, Z pounds. Right. [00:15:19][53.4]
[00:15:20] Based on this test and if you violate this, then you do that. But that’s not good enough. We want to know what’s going to happen because what happens is when the kids in a load and he’s fighting another person that isn’t just as good of an athlete. And he’s pushing his body. That’s when the body. Collapses, the body can handle the load. But maybe the supplementation that the person has had, maybe their calcium has been so depleted that all of a sudden you’ve got this kid who’s 100 injuries, pops say it again, injuries, the elbow snaps he has dislocated. That’s what we see. And we wonder, how did he snap his elbow because his body has been depleted from these supplements. [00:15:58][38.0]
[00:15:59] And, Alex, on the same level, you’re talking about one on one, like that pugilistic, that intense three minutes of your life on the other level when it comes to tennis. That’s a three-hour conversation. Exactly. There are no subs, there is no coaching, no subs. You are in that gladiator arena. I mean, when I see Mia playing, okay. I mean, it is intense. I mean, every ball that’s coming to you, it’s coming to you with power. It’s coming in like, can you take this? It’s like someone like fighting across a net and looking at it. Are you going to quit? Are you going to chase this ball? Are you going to let it go? And that is where that definitive. The factor of…� [00:16:46][46.6]
[00:16:47] Optimal, optimal micronutrition connected with the conversation of what exactly do you need in terms of genomic conversation, will allow someone to scale up with a decrease risk factor of injuries where they know they can push themselves more and they have the confidence. [00:17:09][21.4]
[00:17:09] Alex. Alex, I’m telling you, this is not just nutrition. This is about the conference to know I got what I need and I can redline this thing. And it’s going to hold. [00:17:21][11.2]
[00:17:21] It’s not going to buckle. You know, that said, you know, I got a little Bobby. He wants to wrestle and he wants to be in. And the biggest nightmares, the moms, because you know what? They’re the ones that want Bobby to thump the other Bobby. Right, Bob or Billy. Right. And when their kids are getting thumped on, they want to provide them. And moms are the best cooks. They’re the ones they take care of. Right. They’re the ones that make sure. And you can see it that the pressure on the child is immense when parents are watching. And sometimes it’s just incredible to watch. But what can we give moms? What can we do for the parents to give them a better understanding of what’s going on? I’ve got to tell you, today’s with DNA tests, you know, all you have to do is kind of get the kid in the morning, open his mouth, you know, do a swab, drag that stuff off the side of his cheek, put it in a little done, done within a couple of days. What we actually can tell if Bobby’s got strong ligaments, if Bobby’s micronutrient levels are different in order to provide the parent with a better kind of, um, kind of a roadmap or a dashboard to be able to understand the information that’s affecting Bobby, so to speak. Right. [00:18:26][65.3]
[00:18:27] Because and this is what we’ve come to a long way. This is 2020 guys, 2020. This is not 19. You know, 75. No. [00:18:37][10.2]
[00:18:37] You know where Gatorade. Come on. Let’s talk about that Gatorade. I got my tub. I got my tub. And he’s got a lot of things on the side of it. I’m going to have everything. You look like Buddha. By the time you become diabetic with so much sugar, you’re eating. What is your thinking about this? [00:18:52][14.8]
[00:18:52] We have come to a long way, but we cannot just go in and go, oh, you need to hydrate here, you know, drink these electrolytes, Pedialyte and all that. That’s not good enough. I mean, that’s good. But it’s 2020, baby. You got to scale up and level up and we can’t use old data and old, you know, instrumentation and diagnostics because the kids now they’re starting at three years old, Alex. Yeah. Three years old. And I’m telling you right now at three, it is unbelievable. By the time they’re five and six, I mean. [00:19:29][36.8]
[00:19:30] I mean, I’m telling you the kids that I see they’re already in select teams, six years old and the select team is the thing. You know what, the thing that determines if a child is ready is attention span. Yeah. I got to tell you, you can watch this. You got to see a kid who’s at three years and six months and he ain’t paying attention three years and eight months. All of a sudden, he can focus more in front of the coach. Right. Yes. And you can tell because they wander and they’re not ready. [00:19:57][27.4]
[00:19:57] So we’re bringing the kids and we’re exposing them to loads, experiences. Then what we need to do is to give moms and dads the ability to understand and as well as athletes of NCAA. How can I see what’s actually happening in my bloodstream? Not a CBC, because the CBC is for basic stuff. You basically, you know, basic you know, a red blood cell, a white blood cell. We can do things. Metabolic panel tells us a generic thing, but now we know deeper, deeper information. Mario, we can go into the susceptibility of the gene markers and actually see this on tests. And these reports tell us exactly what it is and how it pertains. [00:20:35][37.5]
[00:20:35] And progression. So this is where I love. This is where I love, everything in the world of performance is pre and post. So, you know, when you’re a sprinter, they time you. [00:20:49][13.7]
[00:20:50] It’s electronic time. When you’re a wrestler, they look at you. You know, what’s your winning ratio? What’s your percentage? Anything. It’s all data. It’s data-driven. As a tennis player, as a soccer player, they will actually track you. Computers will actually track how strong, how fast is your serve? Is it 100 miles an hour? I mean, it is crazy. So now if you have that data. Alex, why is it that we do not have the same data for the most critical component, which is that biochemistry, that micronutritional, the foundation of performance is what happens inside of us, not what happens outside. And this is where people get confused. They think, well, you know, my kid works, you know, four hours a day and he has a private trainer, everything. My question is that is really good. But you’re putting that kid at risk if you are not supplementing on point, just as specifically when it comes to the special needs of that child or of that athlete, because if we don’t do that, Alex, we are not honoring the journey and the battle, that warrior, we’re not, we’re putting them at risk. And then all of a sudden, you know what, two, three months before a tournament, pulled a hamstring. Oh, you know what? You know, they got fatigued or all of a sudden they had to pull out of a tournament. You know, I see tennis players doing all of that. And why? Oh, they’re dehydrated. Well, you should never have that problem. You should already know before you go in exactly where you are, what you’re doing. [00:22:29][99.3]
[00:22:29] And I love the combination and a platform that we have for all of our patients, because within two, three months, we can show pre and post, can’t we? We can show, yes. Lists and body composition to the InBody systems and the systems that we use are incredible. These Dexas, we can actually do a bodyweight fat analysis. We can do a lot of things. But when it comes down to predispositions and what’s unique to individuals, go down to the molecular level. We can go down into the genes level and understand what the susceptibilities are. We can go on once we have the genes. We can also understand what the micronutrient level is on each individual. [00:23:09][39.4]
[00:23:09] So what’s pertaining to me? I may have more magnesium than you and the other child may have totally depleted magnesium or calcium or selenium and/or his proteins or its amino acids are shot. Maybe he’s got a digestive issue. Maybe he’s got lactose intolerance. We need to be able to figure out these things that affect them and we can’t guess. [00:23:29][20.0]
[00:23:30] And we know. The bottom line is there’s no need. [00:23:32][1.6]
[00:23:32] Everyone has that wonderful conversation, Alex, about, oh, you know what? I feel okay. When I hear that I cringe, I go, I feel okay. So you mean to tell me that you are putting your health, the most precious thing you have, and your performance based on a feeling like, wow, that means that your neuroreceptors in terms of pain tolerance are dictating your health. That’s dangerous. That is completely dangerous. And also subclinically, you’re not able to feel your deficiency in terms of vitamin D, your deficiency in terms of selenium, your deficiency in terms of vitamin A, E, I mean, all of these markers, you’re not, you can’t feel it. [00:24:21][49.2]
[00:24:22] You know, we need to start presenting to the people out there the information that’s out there, because what we want to let people know is that we’re going deep. We’re going down to this gene susceptibilities, that gene understanding as it is today. [00:24:34][12.5]
[00:24:35] What we have learned is so powerful that it allows parents to understand a whole lot more of the issues pertaining to an athlete. Not only that, but the parents want to know what are my susceptibility? Do I have a risk of bone arthritis? Do we have issues of oxidative stress? Why do I always inflame all the time? Right. Well, believe it or not, if you’ve got the genes for let’s say you’ve got the gene that makes you eat a lot, well, it’s likely that you’re going to gain weight. You can raise 10000 people’s hands who have that same gene marker and you’re going to notice that they’re BIA’s and BMIs are way out of there because it’s the susceptibility to that. Now, can they change it? Absolutely. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about understanding the ability to adapt and to change our lifestyle for the predispositions that we may have. [00:25:26][50.9]
[00:25:26] Yeah, and this is wonderful. And I see this quite frequently in terms of the conversation about losing weight, you know, and they go, oh, I did this program and it works great. And then you have 20 other people doing the same program and it’s shot. It doesn’t even work. And it’s almost like hit or miss. So people are becoming disillusioned. They’re putting their bodies through this incredible roller coaster ride, which is like the worst thing you could do. You know, they’re doing these extreme things and but they can not sustain it because why? At the end of the day, it’s not who you are. [00:26:02][35.8]
[00:26:02] It wasn’t for, it’s not who you are. You may need a different type of diet. Yes. [00:26:06][3.6]
[00:26:07] And so we. And again, our conversation today is very general. And we’re kind of starting this platform together because we have to educate our community and we have to share the latest in technology and science that addresses the needs. [00:26:26][19.1]
[00:26:28] Personalized health, personalized fitness. We understand that. We don’t have to guess if a diet is better for us, such as a low calorie, a high-fat diet or a Mediterranean style food or a high protein diet. We won’t be able to see that from the information that we’re continuously gathering, these scientists are putting information together and it’s compiled and it’s here and it’s a swab away or blood work away. It’s crazy. You know what? And this information, of course, you need to. And let me be mindful. Before this started, my little disclaimer comes in. This is not for treatment. Do not take anything. We’re taking this for treatment or for diagnosis. You got to talk to your doctors and your doctors have to tell you exactly what’s up there and what’s appropriate for every individual. We integrate. [00:27:17][48.9]
[00:27:18] The point is this. We integrate with all of the health care professionals, all the physicians, we are here to support and champion the functional wellness. Okay. And as you mentioned, we’re not here to treat these diseases. We’re not, we’re here to optimize again when athletes come in and they want to be better. They want to get healthier and help the recovery rate. [00:27:46][27.2]
[00:27:46] You know, the bottom line is the tester there. We can actually see Billy has not been eating well, OK? Billy has not been eating well. I can tell you well, he eats everything no, but he hasn’t had this level of proteins. Look at his protein depletion. So we’re going the present to you some of these studies out here, because it’s information, though, it’s a little complex, but we want to make it really, really simple. And one of the things that we were talking about here is the micronutrient test that we were actually providing here. Now I’m going to present it to you so you can see it a little bit here. And what we are using is some in our office when a person comes in and says, I want to learn about my body. We present this micronutrient assessment where we can actually figure out what’s going on. Now, this was one that was, let’s say, just it was in a sample for me, but it kind of tells you where the individual is. We want to be able to level the antioxidant level. [00:28:33][47.0]
[00:28:34] Now, everyone knows that if that. Well, not everyone. But now we understand that if our genes are optimal and our food is optimal, but we live in an oxidative stress state. Exactly. Our genes will not function. So it’s important to understand what the, it’s rust. [00:28:50][16.3]
[00:28:51] It’s I mean when you’re looking at this and I see two markers, I see the one for oxidative and then the other one is the immune system. Yes. Right. Yeah. So again, they correlate together. But they are different. So the oxidative I talk about it about rusting. Like your system is rusting out. Yes. Yeah. That’s oxidation. You see apples turning brown. You see metals rusting. So inside you want to absolutely be at your best, which is in the green. And that’s 75 to 100 percent exact functional rate. Exactly. That means you can handle the craziness of the world. Mario, you know? Stress. Yes. [00:29:31][40.8]
[00:29:32] So we can yes, we can look at the stress of the human body. Mario, we can see, is actually what’s going on. So as I continue with this kind of presentation here, we can kind of see what this individual is and what is his actual immune function age. So people want to know this stuff. I mean, I want to know where I lie in terms of the dynamics of the body. Right. So when I look at that, I can actually see exactly where I lie. And my age is 52. OK, in this particular situation. OK. Now, as we look down, we want to know at. Hold on. Hold on. Let’s get real. [00:30:03][31.6]
[00:30:04] So you mean to tell me that through this incredible system that we can actually get younger? Is that what you’re telling me? [00:30:14][9.5]
[00:30:14] Well, it tells you if you’re aging quicker. How’s that sound, Mario? So if you can slow down, if you’re in that top 100, the green, you’re going to be looking like a 47-year-old man when you’re 55. Right. So, from the structure, from the immune function, from the oxidative stresses in the body, what’s gonna happen is, is that we’re going to be able to see exactly where we are in terms of our body. [00:30:37][23.4]
[00:30:37] So that is correct. Yes. So we could be, our birth certificate could say 65, but our metabolic functional markers can say you’re 50. [00:30:50][12.4]
[00:30:51] Yes. Let me make it real simple. Yeah. People sometimes understand that oxidative stress is. It is. We hear about antioxidants. Yes. And reactive oxygen species. Let me make it simple. We’re a cell, you and I. We’re having a family meal right, we’re enjoying ourselves. We are normal cells. We’re happen. We’re functioning where everything is properly. All of a sudden, there’s a wild-looking lady got blades and knives and she’s greasy and she’s slimy. And she comes on. She hits the table, boom. And she kind of walks away. You know, it’s gonna unsettle us. Right? It’s going to be… Let’s call her an oxidant. OK. She’s an oxidant. She’s called a reactive oxygen species. Now, if we got two of those walking around the restaurant, we kind of keep an eye on her. Right. All of a sudden, a football player comes and takes her out. Boom. Knocks her out. Right in that situation, this greasy, slimy weapon looking lady. Right. That’s kind of scary. That was an antioxidant. That was a vitamin C. It just wiped her out, right? There’s a balance between oxidants and antioxidants in the body. They have different purposes, right? We have to have antioxidants and we have to have oxidants in order for us to body to function. [00:31:58][67.2]
[00:31:59] But if all of a sudden you got eight hundred of those ladies, walking around like zombies, I can just see that. Zombies man. [00:32:08][8.9]
[00:32:08] You know what you’re going to want. We’re football players. We’re the antioxidants. Right. Take them out. Take them out. Football players come in. But there are just too many of them, right. Anything that you and I do in a conversation, we could be healthy cells. And we’re having this conversation at the dinner table. Right. We’re disrupted totally. We cannot function in an oxidative stress environment. No. [00:32:31][22.9]
[00:32:31] So basically, we may have all the supplements and we may have all the nutrients and we may have the proper genetics. But if we’re in an oxidative state. Right. An elevated level, we are not going to be aged. It is not going to be a comfortable night. And we will not recover. We will be at a higher risk factor for injuries. Exactly. And the other thing is, we also have the risk factor where we will age faster than we should. [00:33:04][32.5]
[00:33:04] That night would be really rough. If there’s like one hundred of those people. [00:33:07][2.8]
[00:33:07] The balance in life, in the antioxidants, we have A, E, C, and all the foods that are antioxidants. We need to know the state. That is what this test does. It actually shows you the level of antioxidants. Hey. [00:33:19][11.8]
[00:33:20] Hey, let me ask you this, Alex. Everyone loves to work out. When you work out. Does that increase or decrease your oxidative stress? [00:33:28][8.8]
[00:33:29] Please tell me. It increases your oxidative stress. You’re right. No, no, no. Stop it. No, it doesn’t. No, because you’re breaking the body down. However, the body responds. And if you are, if we are healthy, Mario, if we are healthy. Right. Our body first has to break down and it has to repair. Okay. In that process, we want to have antioxidants because it helps us go through the process. Part of healing and part of inflammation is oxidative balance. So in essence, when you’re working out too hard or you’re running hard, you can overburn the bar, there you go. And those are the things that you and I have to kind of look at. And when people, and this is the balance. Now, this is a balance that is like the paradox. [00:34:10][41.5]
[00:34:11] Right. You know what? If you overwork, you’re gonna look awesome. But you know what? You’re actually breaking down. And if you don’t work out, there goes your cardio. There goes. I mean, other risk factors. Yeah. Right. So this is where it is so critical that we need to balance and know specifically what each person needs to be at their best. And they. And we can’t guess. No. You can’t take the same supplements as, I can’t take the same supplements as you. We can. [00:34:41][30.1]
[00:34:42] We can. But it may not be. It may be a lot of waste of money. We may just be missing the whole process. Exact. So in this whole dynamics, you’re just losing this test, Mario. Just using it at this particular assessment. We want to be able to see also what our cofactors on. We talked about proteins, we talked about genetics. We talked about things that make these enzymes work, our body functions, and pure enzymes. [00:35:02][20.9]
[00:35:03] In this particular one, you’re actually seeing what the cofactors are and what the metabolites are. Well, you see amino acids. There are levels where they are in your body. If you’re an extreme athlete, you want to know that those things are. [00:35:14][11.0]
[00:35:14] Oh, yeah. I mean, look at that. Those aminos. Those are critical. I mean, you know, I’m sorry, Mario, you think. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s like every athlete I know, they’re like, hey, I got to take my aminos. My question is, are you taking the right ones at the right level and or do you even know? And they’re guessing, you know, 90 percent of the people are guessing. You’re looking at antioxidants. Look at that. That’s the beast right there, glutathione. That’s like the granddaddy of antioxidants right there. Exactly. And you want to know is that football players, that linebacker gonna, like, crush those zombies, you know? And again, vitamin E, I mean, CoQ10. Everyone talks about CoQ10. What? Heart health. Right. Coenzyme Q10. Yes. Right. Exactly. Yeah. [00:36:02][47.6]
[00:36:02] A lot of people taking cardiac medication specifically to lower the cholesterol. [00:36:07][4.7]
[00:36:08] Well, they’ve pulled the beta-blockers. What does it do to CoQ10?. Don’t get me started. I want to get started, man. As you know what? [00:36:15][7.6]
[00:36:16] Documentation came out early on when they did a lot of these medications. They knew they had to end and put Coenzyme Q in it. They did. They knew. And they patented it because they knew that they had it. Because if you don’t give coenzyme Q Right. What happens is you have them having inflammatory states. People have issues that are just, they’re starting to understand now. That’s why you see all the commercials with the coenzyme. But the point is here is this. We need to know where our present state is at. Right. So when we understand those things, we can take a look at tests as these and we can actually look at the dynamics of it, wouldn’t you like to know which of these antioxidants, it’s so clear? [00:36:52][35.5]
[00:36:52] I love that. Exactly. Look at that. You know what? It’s red. Green, black. I mean, that’s it. I mean, you can see it right away. This is your board. This is your command center. You know, I love the command center. I say everything’s there. [00:37:09][16.7]
[00:37:10] I know. Mario, you know, with those athletes, they want to be at the top level. Yes. It looks like this person’s kind of floating somewhere. [00:37:15][5.7]
[00:37:16] But they want to top in at one 100 percent. Alex, they’re on a bench, they’re on a bench, baby. Yeah. [00:37:23][6.6]
[00:37:24] And when they’re under a lot of stress, who knows what they are. Now, these tests are really simple to do. They’re not complex to go in. Take a lab test, sometimes… [00:37:30][6.3]
[00:37:30] These are urine tests. We can do those in our offices in a matter of minutes. [00:37:35][5.0]
[00:37:36] Exactly. In a matter of minutes. Crazy. That’s crazy. This is why it’s so simple. [00:37:41][4.9]
[00:37:42] It’s like my question is what color is the red bus? [00:37:45][3.5]
[00:37:47] I don’t know. No, it’s a trick question. [00:37:49][2.2]
[00:37:50] Well, going back into what our topic was today was personalized medicine and personalized wellness. Personalized fitness. Doctors around the country are starting to understand that they can not just say, OK, you’re pregnant. Here’s a folic acid bill. OK, here are some nutrients, though every doctor has to be taking care of their own clients. They’re the ones that are doing this. But people have the ability to understand, where are the other holes? [00:38:15][24.8]
[00:38:15] Wouldn’t you want to make sure you have the right selenium before you have symptoms? That’s the thing before. And this is why we are not treating issues, diagnosed issues. We’re not. We’re saying, what are you doing to optimize and decrease your risk factors? [00:38:35][19.3]
[00:38:36] There’s the issue of longevity, too. Because, I mean, the issue of longevity is if you’re providing your body with the right such substrates, the right cofactors, the right nutrition, your body has a chance to make it to a hundred years plus. Plus. Exactly right. And actually function. And if you have a depleted life, well, you’re burning the engine. So the body starts having issues, you know, so as we look at those kind of things. [00:38:59][23.3]
[00:38:59] If you go back, can you go back to our two markers, the immune. [00:39:04][4.4]
[00:39:06] Yeah, antioxidants. Look at that. ImmunoDex. [00:39:10][3.8]
[00:39:11] ImmunoDex. There’s a reason why they stop here at 100, because that’s the whole idea. The whole idea is to get you to live 100, centennial. Right. So we if we can do this, if you’re a person who is, let’s say, 38 years old and you’re in the midst of your life and let’s say you’re a business person and you’re a junkie for business, you’re a junkie for entrepreneurship. Right. You want to throttle, you against the world. You do not want a kind of Nicholas the worm weakness, so to speak, taking you out of your football run in life. Right. Because otherwise, you can trip up on things. And what we want to be able to do is provide people through nutritionists, through registered dietitians to doctors through the information out there to better supplement your lives. And it’s not just about little Bobby. It’s about me. It’s about you. It’s about our patients. It’s about every single one of them who wants to live a better quality of life. Because if there’s a depletion in certain things, it’s not now. But in the future, you may have a susceptibility that will bring out diseases. And that’s where those susceptibilities. We can take it to the next level because we can actually see what’s actually going on in terms of this. I’m going to go ahead and bring this back up here so you can to see what we’re looking at. You can actually see the B complexes. Now, we have a lot of B complexes. [00:40:33][81.2]
[00:40:34] And we basically oh, we got people texting all over the place here. [00:40:38][4.1]
[00:40:38] And I’m getting zapped with messages. Your oxidative stress is going up, Alex. [00:40:44][6.0]
[00:40:45] Well, it’s crazy that we’ve been here an hour, so we want to be able to bring information out for you guys as time goes on. I want to go through this and talk about the individual antioxidants. Now, individuals, your football players, man, she was taking those people out right, really making your whole life a lot better. Right. Mario, this is the kind of stuff that we look at. You know, your glutathione and your coenzyme. [00:41:06][21.0]
[00:41:06] Selenium, your vitamin E, carbohydrate metabolism. Look at that. I mean, glucose and insulin interaction that is called energy, baby. [00:41:16][9.6]
[00:41:17] And I know that’s called turbo. Last time I checked, you know. Listen, we got a lot of good doctors. We do. We got like Dr. Castro out there. We got all great doctors out there that really understand. We’re running over.� [00:41:29][12.6]
[00:41:30] I mean, this is like we’re going to get in trouble. Facebook is going to knock us out. [00:41:37][7.6]
[00:41:38] Facebook is going to put a time limit on this. I think it’s actually about an hour. But the bottom line is, we really start to work on, this can’t cover everything this time. Hey, Mario, when I went to school, we were terrorized by this machine called Krebs Cycle. For those of you, how many ATPs, Alex, tell me how many. Thirty-two is it glycolysis or anaerobic. Right. [00:42:06][27.5]
[00:42:06] So when we start looking at that, we start seeing how those coenzymes and those vitamins play a role in our energy metabolism. Right. So in this individual, there were certain depletions. You can see where the yellow comes in. It affects them, the whole metabolic process, the energy production. So the person is always tired. Well, we kind of understand the dynamics of what’s going on. So this is critical information, as you and I kind of look at this. Right. We can say, what is it that we can offer? We can offer information to better, dynamically change the way the body works. Right. So this is a crazy right. So in terms of it, we can go on and on, guys. So what we’re going to be doing is we’re probably going to be coming back because this is just fun. You think so? Yeah, I think we’re going to come back. We’ve got to change the way that all El Paso is and not only for our community but for the people that that those moms, those moms that want to know what is the best for their family members. What can we offer? The technology is not, we’re not going to allow ourselves in El Paso to be ever called the fattest, sweatiest town in the United States. We do have unbelievable talent out here that really can teach us about what’s going on. So I know that you’ve seen that, correct? Yeah, absolutely. [00:43:18][72.2]
[00:43:19] And what I can say is this, Alex. It’s about peak performance and peak ability and also getting the right specific. Customized. Genomic nutrition pattern free for each individual. And that is the game-changer. That’s the game-changer all the way from longevity, all the way to performance and just being happy and living the life that you were meant to live. [00:43:50][31.0]
[00:43:51] Mario, I can just say that when we look at this stuff, we get really excited about, as you can tell. But it affects all our patients. People come in all depleted, tired, in pain, inflamed, and sometimes we just, you know, we need to go find out what it is. And we in our scope, we are mandated to be responsible and to figure out where this lies in our patient’s problems, because what we’re doing, if we help their structure, the musculoskeletal neurological system, their mind system through a proper diet and through understanding, through exercise, we can change people’s lives. And they want to be able to fulfill their lives and enjoy their lives the way it should be. So there’s a lot to be said. So we’re gonna come back in probably sometime next week or this week, and we’re gonna continue this topic on personalized medicine and personalized wellness and personalized fitness because working with many doctors through integrative wellness and integrative medicine allows us to be a part of a team. Well, we have G.I. doctors, you know, cardiologists. There’s a reason we work as teams together because we all bring a different level of science. There’s you know, no team is complete without a nephrologist. And that dude is gonna figure out exactly the implications of all the things we do. So that cat is very important in the dynamics of integrative wellness. So in order for us to be able to be the best kind of providers, we have to expose and tell people about what’s out there, because a lot of people don’t know. And what we need to do is we need to bring it to them and let the cards lie and teach them that they have to tell their doctors, hey, doc, I need you to talk to me about my health and sit down, explain to me my labs. And if they don’t, well, you know what? Say you need to do that. And if you don’t, well, time to find a new doctor. OK. It’s that simple because today’s information technology is such that our doctors can not neglect nutrition. They can not neglect wellness. They can not neglect the integration of all the sciences putting together to make people healthy. This is one of the most important things that we got to do. It’s a mandate. It’s our responsibility. And we’re going to do it. And we’re gonna knock it off the ballpark. So, Mario, it’s been a blessing today and we’ll continue to do this in the next couple of days and we’ll keep on hammering and given people the insights as to what they can do in terms of their science. This is a health voice 360 channel. So we’re going to talk about a lot of different things and bring a lot of different talents. Thanks, guys. And you got anything else, Mario? [00:46:10][138.8]
[00:46:11] I’m all in. All right, brother. Talk to you soon. Love you, man. Bye. [00:46:11][0.0]
PODCAST: Ryan Welage and Alexander Jimenez, both medical students at the National University of Health Sciences, discuss the several new approaches that they developed in order to help people continue to engage and participate in exercise from the comfort of their own homes. Using their advanced understanding of functional medicine, biomechanics, and nutrition, they undertake explaining simple methods and techniques for complex movement protocols. Moreover, Alexander Jimenez and Ryan Welage discuss how diet can be an essential element in overall health and wellness. Dr. Alex Jimenez offers additional guidelines with the Functional Fitness Fellas, among further advice. – Podcast Insight
[00:00:11] So we are live, so at this point right now, we’re discussing exactly how we’re gonna go with the approach. Guys, can you hear me OK? Yeah. Yep. OK. Hey, Ryan. Alex, how are you guys doing? [00:00:23][11.5]
[00:00:24] Pretty good, not too bad. [00:00:25][0.8]
[00:00:26] Hey, listen. Very well, hey, well, today we’re gonna discuss a little bit about what you’re doing. Specifically, we’re gonna be talking about functional fitness. And the idea is that these two young men have been performing. Now, Ryan Welage and Alexander Jimenez are medical students out there at the National University of Health. And we are going to talk about specifically functional fitness and the things that they’re doing out there. So we’re bringing us to the community and we’re going to broadcast and we’re gonna see how it’s actually going live. So right now, I do see that we’re on Facebook live and it is propagating to quite a few people. So a little bit about what functional fitness is and what you guys decided to do now. Functional means that we find the proper way of movements and dynamics. But I’d like to know a little bit about what you guys did when you guys developed this new organization called the Functional Fitness Fellows. What are the functional fitness fellows? Either one of you guys can answer so. Hey, Alex, why don’t you go ahead, knock it out and tell us what you’ve done. [00:01:30][64.0]
[00:01:32] So when we first decided to do the idea, it was more out of necessity. We came up with the idea. So during this whole epidemic in a quarantine situation, we kind of were forced to find new ways to work out. And Ryan and I came to the realization that. You know, bodyweight stuff usually wasn’t going to cut it. So what can we do to really start implementing some sort of resistance and him and I started taking a look at…� [00:01:59][27.2]
[00:02:00] Kind of weight sets and where to order them and they were overly priced, kind of supply and demand took hold and weights, they were weights that are normally 200 dollars were now a thousand dollars and vise versa. It started to get way too expensive for someone who is either in college or are on a limited budget to be able to afford it. [00:02:21][20.2]
[00:02:21] Plus, we had to lug these weights from the second floor out into the parking lot every day, which is gonna be a hassle. So we looked into the second-best option and it turned out to be resistance bands. And I had already started using resistance bands either in the gym or in the CrossFit stuff as I was growing up, but I never really implemented a way to really focus exercising and hitting each muscle group, and I kind of just hit Ryan up and I told him, hey man, why don’t we try these resistance bands and try to see how they work and we ended up really, really liking them. And then we started coming up with a protocol and then that’s where the idea flourished that we could provide the public with this information on how to do these exercises from anywhere. I mean, from the playground to a door to an anchor that’s stable in the house or outside, you can really just implement these. [00:03:07][46.3]
[00:03:08] And that’s kind of where it sprung to life from. The types of exercise you came up with. They’re really amazing. I got to see what you and Ryan were doing. Tell me a little bit before we go into that, Ryan, what is your background and tell us a little bit about? Because I did introduce you guys early on, but I didn’t tell them your background. And I know that Alex and Ryan have an NC double A background history where they are champions in their own right. Ryan, you’ve done a lot of, you know, national championship in basketball. Tell us a little bit about what you’ve done in terms of your fitness and in the sports you’ve been involved with. [00:03:45][37.9]
[00:03:46] Yeah. So I grew up, I was an athlete from a very young age. [00:03:51][4.1]
[00:03:52] I’ve been a lifelong basketball player. And in high school, I got to be a part of a really good high school team. I actually won back to back state championships. I had finished my high school career with a record that’s about one hundred and seven. I think I’m like second all-time in state history in school and in percentage I own the record for our school, most points in a season in our school history. So I got the opportunity to go play Division one basketball. And so I did three years at San Jose State University, which is in a very good conference in the Mountain West. And I had a good career there. My junior year. I started all three years. In my junior year, I averaged over eighteen points a game, shot really well from the field. I was a very efficient player. And so I actually graduated in three years with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, which I think is really served me well with what Alex and I are doing. And with chiropractic, you know, I took a lot of biomechanics classes, a lot of anatomy and so on. But sport wise, I graduated in three years with that. And then I got to kind of transfer up and do my senior year Xavier, which is a nationally renowned basketball school, very good school. And so I got to play my senior year there and pursue my master’s degree. And so after my senior year, I actually had some options to play professionally but I ended up turning that down just because even though I loved basketball and athletics, it’s always been a big part of my life. I ended up turning a couple of overseas offers and a couple of the NBA Developmental League offers down to go to the National University of Health Sciences and pursue my dual chiropractic-naturopathic doctorate degrees like Alex’s. You know, with that kind of background…� [00:05:42][110.4]
[00:05:44] You probably experienced a lot of exercise protocols that you learned in kinesiology and that probably came into effect while you were actually doing this particular protocol with Alex. Alex, tell us a little about you and what you’ve done in the past in terms of your fitness experiences and your dynamic sports. [00:06:02][18.3]
[00:06:03] So when I was younger, it was mainly football, which we kind of got introduced into wrestling. And as I wrestled throughout the years, I mean, we went to a bunch of national tournaments, did it pretty decently, won a state tournament in high school, got offered and wrestled at St. Cloud State University for a little bit. And really, I mean, we were exposed to a lot. I mean, I got to work with Danny, who pretty much invented the ideas of CrossFit before CrossFit was CrossFit. And a lot of it was a lot of resistance training and a lot of weird dynamic movements that he was preparing me for, whether it was hand-eye coordination, neurological stimulation, or other kinds of forward-thinking methods that he applied in our training methods. [00:06:47][44.0]
[00:06:48] And so I got the CrossFit background and did a lot of martial arts growing up, and wrestling. So between the flexibility and agility and strength training with bodybuilding and kind of getting the whole dynamic movement through the connective tissue and development with CrossFit, kind of got the ability to hit all these angles from different points and not only training but understanding the physiological effects on the body with different training methods. So with either wrestling and stuff like that, we got exposed, not only myself, Ryan as well, to a bunch of different training methods that not a lot of people have seen or have only done one type of those methods. [00:07:27][38.9]
[00:07:28] You know, when you look at both of you guys, you can see that there’s an enormous amount of experience and a lot of life experiences that made a big difference in terms of your fitness awareness and dynamics. [00:07:38][9.9]
[00:07:40] How’d you guys meet and what did you guys do in terms of forging this new relationship with the functional fitness fellow? How did the genesis of that begin? [00:07:49][9.3]
[00:07:51] Well, I guess in terms of our meeting, it was kind of our buddy, Pete. We just sat in the front and we had this really talkative dude that wouldn’t shut up the first day of classes and we’ve come to love him. But it was really funny because actually Pete brought us together and we kind of just ended up studying and we always sat in the front row. And Ryan was always really good with the muscles and anatomy. And I was always good with the biochemistry. I always geek out in the front. And Ryan knows I love biochemistry, huh? [00:08:21][29.8]
[00:08:22] So you guys have some biochemistry experience, right? Yeah. [00:08:24][2.3]
[00:08:25] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. [00:08:26][1.1]
[00:08:28] Alex is a big help in biochemistry classes. He’s helped me learn so much. [00:08:32][4.1]
[00:08:33] Well, I got to tell you. You know, one of the things that you guys bring together, you bring together a new world of awareness in terms of biochemistry, biomechanics, and putting it all together. [00:08:42][9.2]
[00:08:43] You guys are the new wave of understanding. I’d like you guys to tell me a little bit about and you guys can, because I’m learning about what you guys are up to. Tell me a little bit about what you guys do in functional fitness. What is it you guys do and how is it teach you guys, progress the process and go through the protocols? Because I know you got some videos because people want to know what this is about and understand what they can do in this new world order of being know enclosed. And they want to have ideas as to what they could do that actually bring about great fitness. So why don’t you go out and take it from there, guys? [00:09:15][32.2]
[00:09:18] Ryan, I know you like to talk about…exactly what the purposes of functional fitness and the guys. [00:09:24][6.2]
[00:09:25] Well, so we know there’s a lot of well-meaning fitness influencers out there, but we really wanted to bring a more scientific approach to it, a more evidence-based approach, because we felt that there really was a lack of solid movements, a solid exercise out there, especially the social media sphere. I mean, I know a lot of the stuff that, you know, we might even take for granted would really be revolutionary if, you know, the average personal social media was to hear it. So we really just wanted to bring our knowledge. And we both have really unique backgrounds. We’ve seen a lot, we’re well educated in the sciences and anatomy biomechanics as well as we’ve both gotten to work with a lot of really elite strength and conditioning coaches. So we really just wanted to bring that knowledge as well as our own unique touch to it and share it with people because we really think we have a lot to offer. [00:10:18][53.4]
[00:10:20] That is awesome. Let me ask you this. The rubber band idea. How did that meet? How did you guys begin with using rubber bands and dynamic movement poles? This new apparatus that really doesn’t cost much money, you can actually, could, you know, from what I’m seeing here, what I’ve been able to understand. You can actually convert your whole house into a fitness center with minimal expense. [00:10:39][19.9]
[00:10:40] Is that correct? Oh, yeah. I mean, the way they kind of blossomed was really…� [00:10:45][5.0]
[00:10:48] I just spent maybe about eight or nine hours sitting through YouTube videos, and it really dawned on me what Ryan and I could provide the public with. [00:10:57][8.9]
[00:10:57] When I sent him the video of this guy who has 10 million subscribers and he looks at the camera and says, the hamstrings originate at the iliac crest and then goes back to explain why we should be doing deadlifts because it originates at the iliac crest for those of you who don’t…� [00:11:15][17.9]
[00:11:15] It originates at the iliac tuberosity and I’m sorry, the ischial tuberosity. [00:11:21][5.3]
[00:11:21] And that’s like a totally different ballgame of the mechanics and movement. To those of you who understand anatomy, to those who don’t. It’s about like 10, 15 inches away from the right spot. So I looked at him and I was like dude, we could honestly take this to a whole different ballgame. I mean, this guy’s not even a licensed therapist and he’s providing millions and millions of people with the wrong information, not only of where things attach and function, but as well as the movement of certain things. I mean, I got blessed to have a father who at 40 years of bodybuilding experience. I mean, I got to work with coaches who had 30, 40 years even more if you compound the knowledge that they have for wrestling. I got to work with trainers who worked in the functional movement since the 70s and 80s when this resistance band was a thing. And I was like, you know what? Let’s give it a try. You know what? I’m the type of person that will try everything at least once. You know, if I don’t have any experience, that I’ll give it a shot. And when I got these bands and Ryan and I started working out, it was more of a, we had like a two week period where we’re like, OK, this works, this doesn’t work. This is complete B.S. This is legit. And then all of a sudden we started making up our own movements that were extremely similar to those in the gym and no one had come up with those types of movements. It was just different angles of application. And all of a sudden we started getting better and better at it. I always have my own 48-hour rule that once you spend 48 hours in something, you start getting comfortable with it. And I think that’s after around 20 or 30 workouts, we started getting really comfortable, Ryan and I, with these movements and we had solidified a set of movements that we really liked. I mean, Ryan knows, I mean, every day we’d come up with a new movement and we’d say, OK, this is what we should be doing. [00:13:10][108.5]
[00:13:10] OK, this work, this works perfectly. This doesn’t work at all. Let’s skip that. [00:13:14][3.4]
[00:13:14] So, you know, when we look at this, this is very revolutionary. And the dynamics of it, coming from people, individuals that have done high-performance training. Has this type of fitness actually kept up the part and actually made you…� [00:13:29][14.9]
[00:13:31] Is it as intense as like training, let’s say basketball or even wrestling, is it? Does it do that kind of, does it get you as hyped up and energy expending as those other exercises would do? [00:13:45][13.5]
[00:13:46] You know, I was telling Alex, I think I’m actually in better shape and I’m actually getting a little stronger now that we’ve actually been in quarantine. And it’s really interesting. And Alex actually found a few studies that were done by some physical therapists that strength training with bands, actually recruits more muscle fibers because it’s active by activating the stabilizers. And so you can feel it. I mean, me and Alex actually kind of went through a learning curve. I think anybody that goes with bands that’s only been lifting with dumbbells or barbells especially, you’re going to feel it’s going to work it a little differently. [00:14:23][37.3]
[00:14:24] It’s going to, you’re going to feel a little differently and you’re really gonna have to actively stabilize. [00:14:28][3.4]
[00:14:29] And so I think and like Alex is saying, you can really do almost everything that you would normally do in the weight room just with bands. And so you can increase and decrease the tension, but you’re adding in that stabilizer effect. And I know the word core and activating your core is kind of, gets thrown around a lot out there. But using bands really does make you stabilize your core even more. [00:14:55][26.8]
[00:14:56] And so I absolutely believe I’m in just as good a shape, if not even better, I actually just weighed myself a few days ago. And Alex has a scale at school that we were able to weigh in, I’ve actually gained I’ve actually gained a couple of pounds since quarantine. So I think so. I absolutely think that it’s not just something that you can use to just maintain. You can use it to get better. [00:15:17][20.9]
[00:15:17] And we actually, you know, get better during quarantine, just stronger. [00:15:20][2.8]
[00:15:21] You know what? One of the things I did notice when I started watching these exercises is that YouTube has totally juxtaposed body shapes, you’re an ectomorph, which is a really tall individual, tall for even tall people. How tall are you? 6′ 9″, OK. And Alex, you’re about what? How tall are you? I’m 5’8. So we got about a foot difference. And we’re gonna be watching the videos and we’re gonna see how the dynamics work on that. I don’t know, which one of you guys has the videos cued up. [00:15:49][28.4]
[00:15:50] I am right here. I can screen share those really quickly. [00:15:52][1.8]
[00:15:53] Do me a favor. Go ahead and screen share those. And talk to me as you’re doing this stuff, because I really want to understand exactly what type of procedures you’re actually doing. As you can see that you got Ryan there. I see Ryan. I see Alex in the background. You’re going to fuzz it in. But now we’re gonna go ahead and get those. Tell us a little bit about what’s actually going on. You take it from there. [00:16:12][19.2]
[00:16:12] But so here, let me download that. So kind of what’s going on here? And we’re doing just some regular rows here and we have Ryan kind of working out. [00:16:19][6.7]
[00:16:21] And we can see that we have kind of like an anchor. This was originally intended to be a dog anchor, but we use it on our own little method here. So as you can see, he’s doing the regular types of rows that he would be doing in the gym instead of a linear movement. He’s actually stabilizing not only his core or he’s using his quads to stabilize. He’s making sure that his erectors are keeping him propped up and proper so that way he can work those rhomboids in the upper parts of the trap and the posterior dealt correctly. [00:16:51][30.0]
[00:16:53] And it’s just a whole stabilization mechanism. I mean. They always say that the king of lifting is a squat and the squat is the king of lifting because it forces you to stabilize not only your legs but your core as well as your upper body. And with these banded exercises, you’re getting the same effect and stabilization in all points of movement, not only just in the muscles being worked as well as the accessory muscles. [00:17:18][24.1]
[00:17:19] Ryan, you were doing this particular exercise and you’ve done, obviously, you know, back rows. How is this different in terms of what you’re doing? Because you look like you’re locked in space and you’re holding a whole lot of muscles engaged that typically you would never even think of using when you would be doing the regular, let’s say, a pulley row. What’s going on here? Tell me a little about what you were feeling. [00:17:39][20.6]
[00:17:41] Absolutely. That this exercise is a full-body exercise. I mean, as Alex said, you can see my thighs and hamstrings are absolutely engaged. [00:17:50][9.7]
[00:17:51] And your core has to be engaged. I mean, you have to be able to stabilize and hold yourself in place. As an aside from that, the bands, they provide so much tension on the way back down that again, it forces you to recruit all the stabilizers and then also to recruit your legs, to actually support you, to keep you from being drawn back in. So that exercise right there, aside from obviously just being a regular row on which, you know, you could get on a rowing machine. But the difference is this is truly a full-body exercise. And so it really is more functional in that way. That’s a full-body exercise. It’s a natural range of motion. So this is actually one of my favorite exercises that we were able to come up with. [00:18:32][41.0]
[00:18:32] Two things I’ve noticed here. You know, when you, when we work on fitness and we require people to do a certain exercise, we always tell them that you’ve got to start from the core. It looks and it appears that you got your core engaged in this entire movement through all ranges of motion. Is that what you’re feeling? [00:18:47][14.7]
[00:18:48] Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if you let go for a second. I mean, I would fall forward. You absolutely have to be clearly engaged. Again. Yeah. That’s something that there probably will be a learning curve for people that have just been barbell training. They probably haven’t been used to actually having to keep their core engaged with a whole range of movement. [00:19:10][21.7]
[00:19:10] But I think that they are training and even this particular exercise especially can really help them with the…You know, the level of neuromuscular reeducation. [00:19:19][8.3]
[00:19:19] I mean, that’s occurring in the body. It’s adapting, many of us when we started lifting weights for the first time. We ran into a, the first time we had neuromuscular reeducation on the squat. When you pull the squat bar off the very first time, if people can remember when they do squats, they were all over the place. It took about three or four days of learning how to grab a barbell and actually bringing both your legs together. [00:19:42][22.8]
[00:19:43] It’s the same thing that’s happening here because you’re actually training the brain to engage the entire body at the same time. Alex, what is it you’re doing here on this particular one? [00:19:52][9.0]
[00:19:53] So here we have just a different variation of shoulder press. The cool part that I really liked about these is that not only are you forcing the concentric reaction, which would be all the way up, but the eccentric has to be controlled. [00:20:08][15.1]
[00:20:09] And not only did I realize that my delts were working a lot harder, but it was really interesting because on the eccentric, on the way down my lats were actually having to engage a lot more. So I was not only working in those, but I was also having to work my lower back to keep me forward to stabilize my core towards the front that way I wouldn’t fall forward and I had to really stabilize almost every part of my body, become almost like a contraction, just to be able to do the exercise there. [00:20:33][24.1]
[00:20:34] You know what I’ve noticed, too, as you’re doing this, it seems like the rubber bands are giving a forgiving range of motion. In other words, it allows the joint to follow its normal glide. In other words, it’s not going to force you in a position that is abnormal for the joint because it appears that it gives. Is that what it’s given here, too? [00:20:55][20.9]
[00:20:56] Oh, yeah. The cool part about these is that I mean, on the bottom here, it felt maybe like. Hundred pounds or shoulder press and towards the top with all-around one eighty-five. So it’s following the natural strength curve of not only the joint but as well as the muscle. So as you go up higher, it gets heavier. As you come down lower, it gets lighter. So allowing there to be less stress on the joint and more focus on the muscle. [00:21:22][25.6]
[00:21:23] This is absolutely an amazing experience when you see this. This is not a normal range of motion. This is actually a normal rep. It is amazing, it’s progressively changing as the distance changes and it seems logical. But if you can notice, there’s only one rubber band here. Is that correct or is that two? [00:21:40][17.5]
[00:21:41] That’s what well, the cool part about this is that this is a 40-pound rubber band. So in a linear-pull, the rubber band pulls 40, but if you bend that rubber band in half, you’re actually getting 40 on each side. This is a total of 80 pounds here. [00:21:56][15.0]
[00:21:57] Wow, and by the time it was in the top, you felt the load. [00:22:00][2.1]
[00:22:00] And yeah, so around here it’s around 80 pounds. Let’s say here, felt around one hundred. This is just an obscure measuring method and we need to solidify these numbers. But it did feel around one eighty-five toward the top there. [00:22:10][9.9]
[00:22:11] Now we’ll take a look at someone, let’s say, with different body mechanics. Let me see. Here we go. [00:22:16][5.8]
[00:22:19] And we can download this. Is that, by the way, just out of curiosity, was that the same cable? Was that the same rubber band? [00:22:24][5.4]
[00:22:25] This is a 30-pound rubber band. So we could see that Ryan is a lot taller. So the farther he is away from that point of contact, the more it’s going to cause a higher load there. [00:22:36][11.0]
[00:22:37] Ryan. How did you feel about this one? Tell me a little bit about what you were experiencing on this one. [00:22:39][3.0]
[00:22:40] Yeah. So like Alex was saying, it does fall natural strength because, at the top of the movement, which is where you’re strongest, it’s actually heaviest. But where you’re weakest, which is a lot of people, you know, they get caught as they go down. They can’t get back up. But it falls a natural strength curve and actually allows you to do more weight where you’re strongest, which is something that you can’t do, obviously, with a bar bill. So as for this specific movement. Alex and I were really working on kind of the incline bench, which I think a lot of people would think of. You know that the weight room is closed like there’s no way I can do an incline bench with this, but all you need is something that you can put in the ground. And Alex and I had this thing at school here. But we also, Alex and I looked into something that we can actually buy to help tell people what to put in the ground. And so we actually found a shed tool that we can talk about at some point that we were able to link into the ground that has a hook like that so that we can hook it in the ground and then put that cable through and be able to do this exercise. [00:23:45][64.8]
[00:23:46] Now, I notice that you’re doing this outside and you used it. You show different areas. Now, I do notice that on some of these times when you do have some videos, I have some videos here of you doing things like show, actually, Ryan. [00:24:00][13.9]
[00:24:00] I have a video here. I’m going to go ahead and show my screen just a second here. [00:24:03][2.7]
[00:24:04] And what we have is Ryan doing a specific type of procedure. Show us your screen, here it goes. We’re gonna go in there and there we go. We’re going to share and we’re going to share right now. Now, this particular one, you can actually see that you’re doing this in an area that’s just any anchor. Is that correct? [00:24:24][19.4]
[00:24:25] Yeah, yeah. And the cool thing about that is that that jungle gym had a lot of different anchors. But again, we found a way that you can do this inside your home if you just have any door that you can actually put a slip through. [00:24:39][14.1]
[00:24:40] It’s got a little ball on the other side. Keep it in place. And so you can actually young hook the bands to that. And so any door you can do this. So we’ve really found a way to just do this anywhere. [00:24:49][9.6]
[00:24:50] But obviously, we wanted to train outside when we could. In this particular one right here, I actually have Alex and you’re showing and you’re talking about the bulb actually holds around the door, correct? Alex? [00:25:01][11.1]
[00:25:01] Yep. What is it, what’s going on here? [00:25:04][2.2]
[00:25:04] What are you doing here? So we’re doing pullovers, the same thing that you would do to get that serratus anterior to prevent any scapular protraction. A lot of problems with that is that some people really don’t work that serratus anterior. So they have problems with those scapulars protruding outwards and it causes a little bit of an effect to be able to be put in a range of motion that is not stable and causing scapular whinging. So by strengthening those? You can prevent that. [00:25:31][27.3]
[00:25:32] Ryan, you were doing some other exercise. I’m gonna take you to this one, this particular one. I’ve noticed that when I’ve always lifted weights, I’ve always known that there’s always the best exercise for a motion. And one of the most common ones is the incline bicep bilateral curl. When you lean back and you actually do curls. This looks very similar to it, though. You’re leaning forward. You’re actually getting a good pull on the bicep. What is it you’re doing here in terms of this one? This is not a bicep exercise. This is a what is this one? [00:26:03][30.5]
[00:26:04] So we were hitting lower. We were in the lower pecs with this exercise. So we were yeah, we were actually keeping our arms straight and got it. Makes sense. Yeah. So we weren’t hitting the bicep. We had a lower pec there. [00:26:16][12.5]
[00:26:17] So the lower pec on this one is the one that you’re doing this not for biceps I can tell you didn’t curl the arm that much. So straight. So how did that feel? [00:26:24][7.1]
[00:26:26] I mean, again, that is a great hit on the lower pectoral muscle. Yeah, I mean, those again, that’s something I never really felt before I hit bands actually isolating that lower pectorals muscle cells. Yeah, that was another great exercise. [00:26:41][15.6]
[00:26:42] This particular one I’ve noticed here. Alex, tell me a little bit about what you were doing out here. [00:26:46][3.2]
[00:26:46] Let me, if you want. Let me share my screen. Go ahead. You got it. [00:26:50][4.0]
[00:26:55] These are amazing exercises. Guys, you guys are really up to something really amazing here. [00:26:58][3.4]
[00:27:00] Here we have kind of just more of a regular chest press. So the cool part about this is that my upper torso probably weighs, let’s say, around 100 pounds roughly. And this band right here is actually a one hundred and fifty-pound resistance band. So on the bottom part, it’s around one hundred pounds and towards the top, it’s around a three hundred pound chest press. So kind of going into the movement. It actually feels like a pretty heavy. Push up. Really? And let’s say that you’re stronger than this, right? Just add another band. If you’re still stronger, just add another band. And I don’t think anyone’s gonna be doing a 500-pound push jump anytime soon. So you’re getting a pretty good amount of resistance in the proper mechanics of it all towards the top. It is heavier and towards the bottom, it is lighter. Allowing your pec to get that full range of motion while preventing possible areas of injury. [00:27:53][53.8]
[00:27:56] Wow. All right, so you got some cool. What other stuff do you got in there that you were looking at? I saw that you had a lot of others. Oh, yeah, we got tons of videos here and let me see because I think everybody wants to see what’s going on here. I’m really interested in this. And if you could tell me a little bit what you’re doing now in terms of that one. Amazing. Look at that. [00:28:16][20.1]
[00:28:19] So here we’re doing a kind of an almost like a squat press here. And we’re kind of just playing around with the ideas. But it turned out to be a really good mechanism. I mean, before Ryan had gone home, we were doing resistance bands, squats, and we’re getting around the same. I mean, probably had about 10, 15 bands on this thing while we’re doing squats, but it was still around a three to four hundred pound squat while you’re doing it right. [00:28:42][22.9]
[00:28:43] What are you feeling here? What do you feel like? That’s just amazing. I’ve never, I’ve worked out for years, I’ve come from the 80s and I have never done a squat where you’re actually doing a shoulder press. The only thing that would become close to this is a snatch or a cleaning jerk. And those kinds of things would actually bring. This is an Olympic lift. [00:28:58][15.9]
[00:29:00] Yeah, yeah. There’s another great one we came up with. [00:29:02][2.5]
[00:29:03] So we were able to load the squat more in later sessions or for this one it was a little light. It’s a little light on the squat part, but it really loads the press over the shoulders heavy because again at the top is where you get the most tension. So it’s really a great overhead shoulder exercise. And again, just the way that the band moves, it’s so much safer for the shoulders. I told Alex that my joints are actually because I was using mainly dumbbells with some barbells as well before. And so my joints actually, they really feel better than they have in a long time from using these bands just because they allow such a natural range of motion. [00:29:44][40.5]
[00:29:46] Look at this man. You guys went out there and it looks like it’s a little bit cold out there, too, huh? [00:29:50][3.8]
[00:29:52] Little bit. Brian says it’s a beauty day outside. It’s 30 degrees outside. [00:29:56][4.5]
[00:29:58] I did like to train outside. [00:29:59][0.8]
[00:30:00] You know what? That’s the beautiful thing about it. You got, this is just, it’s amazing. [00:30:03][3.4]
[00:30:04] What’s going on here? We have a variety of wrist curls to strengthen the flexors of the forms. [00:30:09][5.4]
[00:30:11] And actually, it’s pretty heavy there. I mean, even though it’s a 40-pound band, we’ve kind of not only bent the band in half but bent it almost into three different quadrants. So by the time you bring it up to the proper stabilization, it’s definitely around 50, 60 pounds of a wrist curl. [00:30:24][13.6]
[00:30:26] That is amazing. [00:30:26][0.3]
[00:30:30] And again, yes, there’s no way to do this without engaging the core. There’s no way. [00:30:34][4.0]
[00:30:37] What’s going on here with these tricep pushes, right? Yep, so tricep extensions here. Here’s another variation of it. [00:30:43][6.3]
[00:30:58] Ryan, you’re going to have another career in photography. [00:31:00][1.9]
[00:31:00] I can tell you now. Alex taught me quite a bit about photography. He had a camera but yeah I was just trying to get a good angle. [00:31:12][11.7]
[00:31:12] And we spent a lot of time filming each other, you know, trying to make these videos for people. I think I really improved. Oh, my goodness. Going to show. Alex. [00:31:23][10.3]
[00:31:23] What are you feeling here in terms of the triceps? Because you can see the angle pull changes dramatically as your body’s putting it in the, what is it? [00:31:31][7.6]
[00:31:31] So if we pause it here and take the triceps out for the movement. Let’s talk about what needs to be stabilized in order to be able to even do the movements. So not only do we have the core stabilization, the rectus abdominus from stopping you for being pulled up, but you will also have the serratus anterior and the posterior muscles preventing you from coming up, as well as preventing any movement in the shoulder area. So by locking in the shoulder, you’re forcing all these muscles in the upper body to stabilize as well as the… [00:32:03][32.0]
[00:32:06] The lateral side of the pec. I’m sorry, but be able just to do a tricep extension so you can see as I’m getting tired here. [00:32:12][6.7]
[00:32:13] You see, I’m kind of starting to come up a little bit more than I was originally keeping that stabilization form there. [00:32:18][5.6]
[00:32:23] What kind of pumps do you guys get? You know do you guys feel the same swole, I guess that you would feel if you’re lifting weights, or is it something that’s a little bit different? What do you feel like after? You’re mentioning, Ryan, that you felt really, really sore? How did you feel when you were doing these things? How does the muscle feel different? [00:32:40][16.9]
[00:32:43] Yeah, I mean, again, I feel just as good as a pump from using bands as I had ever felt from using barbells. I mean, I think it’s… [00:32:51][8.5]
[00:32:52] The way we’ve been able to assess some of these exercises up and down, again, you’re talking about recruiting the stabilizers, you’re actually recruiting more muscle fibers which need more blood flow. So you’re gonna get a great pump using bands. There’s no doubt about that. [00:33:07][14.3]
[00:33:08] Alex, you mentioned to me after you started doing this kind of workout, you noticed your body changing in a different way. What did you notice? [00:33:13][4.9]
[00:33:14] I noticed that I had more stability. That’s a good word as well as I had less body fat built onto me, too. I usually aim for about 15 to 20 reps on every exercise that we do here. The important part of these is to explode on the way down, but control on the way up. [00:33:33][18.8]
[00:33:35] And forcing that eccentric stabilization is a big key factor in a lot of these exercises. I’d say it is not in most of these exercises and you really get more of a burn with these type of things too. I noticed it, the main way that I noticed it was, let me see if…�[00:33:50][15.5]
[00:33:51] I can find the video here. Ryan, in this particular one that you’re doing, the tricep. [00:33:56][5.0]
[00:33:56] Does the lockout happen when you lockout, is there a lockout or is it under a constant load that prevents the lockout or is the lockout real difficult to attain in terms of the extension of the arm? [00:34:06][9.9]
[00:34:07] Yeah, it is very difficult to obtain because, yeah, as you said with the bands, there is constant tension and there’s a constant need to stabilize. It forces you to stabilize at all times. So we were a little all over the place when we first started using bands. And I think a lot of people when they first do it, too. They’ll kind of be a little all over the place while almost shaking a little bit faster than they do something exercise. But again, it’s amazing how fast you can adapt. And it really teaches you to contract in a new way. [00:34:38][31.0]
[00:34:39] Alex, this particular, this is the one I thought Ryan was going to do the other time. How did this feel in your biceps? [00:34:44][4.6]
[00:34:45] I felt really, really good. It’s honestly probably biceps have benefited the most from these types of workouts because it’s under a constant load and it gets heavier as it comes sorts of the top. You and I, we used to train. We always used to force a negative on everything. This is just negative in itself with everything you’re doing. It’s getting heavier on the way up and getting lighter on the way down to really allow that muscle to work in different mechanisms. [00:35:09][24.2]
[00:35:10] There really is the ability to go into the muscle and to really benefit from the concentric and the eccentric in a way that has never been done. It’s always been known. And when you lift weights, the concentric was the idea. [00:35:22][12.2]
[00:35:23] But as fitness became much more science, they found so much in the eccentric motion that was part of the training that actually developed the muscle that this is actually pulling. And this is maintaining the load on the absolutely eccentric and being kind to it on the way down, which is typically where most people get hurt on the eccentric, not on the concentric. They get hurt on the eccentric on the extension or the opening of the muscle. This actually it actually prevents a load that would reach maximal pull and actually may hurt the tissue. So this is really, really amazing in terms of its structure when you actually study it. What are you doing here? [00:36:03][40.5]
[00:36:03] You’re going to concentrations or something similar? Concentration curls here. And it’s actually really, really good for the bicep there. As you know, I tore part of my bicep when I dislocated my right arm and to be able to work in such a manner and actually break up that scar tissue and work through it. It’s really, really good. [00:36:22][19.1]
[00:36:23] Truly great. You guys, you’re offering a huge amount of diversity in this presentation just because you’re dealing with different body types and you’re watching the body adapt to it. Which ones are you doing here? These ones are flies or these are? [00:36:35][11.8]
[00:36:35] Yep. These should be flies here. [00:36:37][1.2]
[00:36:44] Nice stabilization, you’re forced to stabilize really nicely, right? [00:36:47][2.9]
[00:36:48] Yep. And you can almost see I kind of wobble a little bit at first because it caught me off guard again. It really takes a bit of getting used to because you’ve really never been forced to stabilize like that. I mean, if you just go to a machine, the you know, the cable machine at your local gym. They’re not going to force you to stabilize in the same way that these bands are going to the way we’re doing it. So is it ever really a completely different feel. And when people get a chance to do this, they’re going to be able to tell what we’re talking about. [00:37:20][31.7]
[00:37:22] What else you got in there, Alex. Some cool stuff, you know. Yeah, let me close this here and let me see. [00:37:28][5.6]
[00:37:38] I say this is probably a good one here. [00:37:40][2.5]
[00:37:41] Ryan hates these, but they’re good. Yeah, wrist extensions. [00:37:44][2.9]
[00:37:47] So I started looking into, the reason I started trying to do a lot of wrist work was I got lateral epicondylitis, otherwise known as tennis elbow. And it’s actually a weakness in the extensor carpi radialis brevis. And by being able to strengthen these you actually allow the forearm to get a really good pump. And not only that, but it pretty much works really well. The abductor pollicis longest as well as the brevis to some extent. But yeah, these are really great for wrist extensions. I really love these, I’ve fallen in love with them and I probably won’t go a day without doing some sort of wrist exercise. [00:38:22][35.1]
[00:38:23] Oh, guys, I got to tell you, this has been a very much of a learning experience for myself watching what you guys are doing from a physiological state, just from what we do with patients here at our office. [00:38:35][11.9]
[00:38:36] We’ve done a lot of exercises and rubber bands it’s really a new addition over the last I’d say last decade or so, but it’s gone from just a simple level of exercise work to very complex science. And I think that you guys are forging this new, fundamental physiology motion or kinesiology motion. And we’re learning a lot here. What do you guys take from this? And I like to hear from both of you guys because I want to understand what it is you guys are doing and what we have to look forward to with the functional fitness fellas and what you guys are going to do with this new protocol and program in the future. [00:39:16][40.1]
[00:39:18] We’re gonna do a lot of different things, I mean, Ryan has an extensive background in how to be an NC double A athlete while being vegan. I personally don’t do well with carbs, just my genetic genotype, but whether it’s from diet to exercise to, let’s say, a book of the week to discuss different contents. Gonna be going into different things. And the cool part about these bands is that I’m sure, you know, it was learning about the X and Y access as well as the Z-axis in terms of rotation and anatomy. And the cool part about these bands is that it forces muscles on every plane to be working to stabilize the movement of that one isometric contraction of that muscle. So we’re getting a lot of different movements and a lot of different implementations, a lot of different ideologies that are being worked. And once the weight room opens up again, we’re gonna be doing videos on how to use bands in the weight room, how to implement them on free weights. There are different mechanisms, different ways to tie the hands up and not only from them, but the world’s best powerlifters use resistance bands to get those heavier weights. If you can do a three hundred and fifty pound squat with two bands that equate to 250 pounds in each of them, you’re gonna be able to squat 800 pounds like it’s almost nothing. [00:40:30][71.2]
[00:40:31] Ryan I was watching some videos where you were actually doing some, you know, kind of like a hack squad. [00:40:35][4.7]
[00:40:36] I think it was a hack squad or some sort of leg press where rubber bands were attached to the machine. So this is like a hybridization process where you not only are you using standard machinery, but you’re amping it up with rubber bands and getting the double the benefit because now you get the rubber band constant eccentric load along with the concentric blast of a machine. What is it you guys were doing there in the gym? Because I don’t have that particular video, but I do remember I got that video. Let me share that to you. [00:41:04][28.3]
[00:41:06] Yeah. So we had hooked up a band on to each side. [00:41:11][4.9]
[00:41:11] And again, I think that’s part of what we can do once we come back to the gym is we’re actually going to integrate the bands with, you know, some of the barbell and dumbbell machine and some of the other stuff. But again, I really like how it tests you where you’re strongest, but it allows you to do more reps because with more weight, according to your natural strength or because it’s heaviest when it’s at the top. But it’s lightest at the bottom, which is where you’re the weakest. So that’s one of the things I really love about bands I think a lot of people can take advantage of. [00:41:46][34.2]
[00:41:46] You don’t even have to change the weights that much you actually just keep the same weight on if you want to go if you want to do more you can do more. But this is amazing how much that load increases during that period of time. Wow. Well, I’ll tell you what, I look forward to hearing from you guys and seeing exactly what’s going on, learning about the nutritional components and the things that you’re gonna do with the diverse presentations that you guys are going to have. So let me ask you this. What are we looking forward to in the next one? Because I know we’ve got one scheduled, I think, within a week. I look forward to it and we’ll go and start broadcasting that one. But I want to be able to learn different concepts and ideas from this. And I can see that the people that are watching this, they’re obviously gonna see that, you know, with a bag, with a bunch of rubber bands in it. Is it expensive to get into this? A hundred bucks. [00:42:29][42.6]
[00:42:30] Everything we bought. A hundred bucks and you just basically amped up your gym, huh? Exactly. I mean, the problem with right now is that everyone bought resistance bands so they’re a little bit out of stock for a lot of these and a lot of people are charging absurd prices. So what we’ll do is we’ll try to find you guys some credible sources to buy these resistance that we’re also gonna be putting and launching on our website within the next week or two, putting all the videos up, their description in each of these videos, a little bit about us, background and everything. Ryan is gonna be taking the vegan supplemental thing to a whole new level. I’ve learned a lot of things from him in terms of types of foods that would favor your microbiome as well as help your gut function better through him. We’ll be doing shakes, we’ll be doing books. We’re gonna hit it all. So there is no single topic, we’re gonna hit it all from a functional perspective. That’s why we are the functional fitness fellows and we’re going to be kicking ass and taking names showing you what works and what doesn’t. [00:43:25][55.0]
[00:43:26] The biochemistry, because you guys are really I mean, I’ve seen the work you guys have done in the biochemistry. Ryan, I was looking at your website. You got some good biochemical reactions and studies that are on your website. So I look forward to understanding a lot about the vegan mechanisms as a way to deal with your diet and along with your workouts. It just in a short just a little synopsis of that. What kind of things do you do, particularly what is your philosophy in terms of vegan approaches with little level of athleticism? Because it really is rare to have this level of diet. And I’m not too sure you met many people in your sport that were vegan. But tell me a little bit about your awareness of vegan and how it began. [00:44:11][44.5]
[00:44:12] Yeah. So you’re right. There are not too many high-level athletes that are vegan, although it is a growing movement. But so I really. Let me quickly tell the story of how I went into it. So my junior year of college, while I was at San Jose State, you know, I was playing almost the whole game, every game. So I had a high workload. But so I had really bad shin splints. And I obviously I was in the kinesiology program, I was researching information and all this stuff and I was looking into the biomechanics and I thought my biomechanics were pretty sound. So I’m like, OK, that’s not it. And I’m looking at the nutrition and what I was finding that some of these animal products, especially the ones that aren’t grass-fed, you know, they have a lot of hormones. All this stuff and dairy particularly, they have the potential to be more inflammatory, as I can’t talk about on my website. Part of the reason is that because they have a higher omega 6 to omega 3 ratio, and so that omega 6s, they become arachidonic…� [00:45:12][60.4]
[00:45:13] Acid on the biochemical pathway and then they become this molecule called p.g 2, which is 100 times more inflammatory than the p.g 3, which is the byproduct of omega 3s. So these omega 6s are causing a lot of inflammation. And so once I actually went to a fully plant-based diet, I found that I was having terrible shin splints and I kid you not that my shins completely went away in three or four days. It was really, it was profound. There was a profound difference. [00:45:43][30.4]
[00:45:44] And I kind of went on to learn that I wasn’t the only one that had had this type of experience and a lot of people had benefited from a plant-based diet. And I was obviously interested in nutrition and continue to study it. But that was kind of how I started, I personally tested it and I had amazing results. And, you know, I’ve found that it speeded up my recovery actually I wear a trackable one. I found that my resting heart rate actually dropped by three beats per minute when I made the switch, which I thought was pretty incredible. My heart rate variability went up. So I saw some profound physiological changes. So I just never went back. [00:46:20][36.2]
[00:46:21] I got to tell you, this is what I want to hear about that. Maybe we can do that on the next one that we talk about, specifically the vegan approach to your training. And this is an amazing thing because I know, Alex, you were doing something you were sharing with me about the days you eat, the higher proteins and eliminate the proteins or the high meats or those chickens or just the animal-based proteins. And on days that you don’t train as hard, you changed your diet plan. So I want to learn a lot about this because I think that it’s so important that people understand what you guys who are actually on the front lines of learning medicine today are doing. So I look forward to having you guys. I want to thank you guys today for taking this time. And it’s been a little bit intense, but it really has given people an insight as to what’s going on. And I hope that the individuals watching this really have learned something and can take it to another level. This is a really amazing time. It’s a time where we’ve been quarantined, so to speak, and we’ve come up with some creative ideas. Any words or thoughts from you guys before we leave guys? [00:47:24][63.2]
[00:47:27] We’re ready�for the information. [00:47:27][0.5]
[00:47:29] I appreciate you for having me on. Oh, no. We’re gonna be doing this. So you guys are scheduled for the next, it’s already broadcasted. I think it’s next week and I’ll hook up with you guys and it was a blessing. [00:47:38][9.3]
[00:47:38] I’ll have the recordings out to you guys. You guys have a great night. And thank you for sharing your time. I really appreciate you, Ryan. Alex, for taking the time to teach us these things because I want to know and I know every one of my patients want to know what’s going on here. So thank you for bringing it to us, guys. I appreciate it. Hey, have a good one, guys. Blessings, okay? Bye Bye. [00:47:38][0.0]
The Neurotransmitter Assessment Form (NTAF) shown above can be filled out and presented to Dr. Alex Jimenez. The next symptoms that are listed on this form are not intended to be utilized as a diagnosis of any type of condition, disease, or syndrome, as well as any other type of health issue and complication.
Crohn�s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBDs are health issues that affect the digestive tract by causing inflammation that lasts longer than an average upset stomach or mild infection. Most people think that the digestive tract only consists of the stomach, which stores and breaks down food, as well as the small and large intestines, which take the waste out of our systems through urine and feces. But it�s more than just that. The mouth and esophagus are also part of the digestive tract and problems within can make things difficult and painful down the line. While researchers have been researching Crohn�s disease for several decades, they have no undisputed answer on the cause of this disease. This article will take you on a journey through the history, causes, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of Crohn�s disease as well as what the future holds. According to the Crohn�s and Colitis Foundation of America, as many as 700,000 people in the United States suffer from Crohn�s disease while 3 million total have some sort of IBD. That is equivalent to the number of people living in Washington D.C.
Understanding Crohn’s Disease
Crohn�s disease was first described by Dr. Burrill B. Crohn in 1932 with the assistance of Dr. Leon Ginzburg and Dr. Gordon D. Oppenheimer. Crohn was born in 1884 in New York City as one of 12 children. He became a doctor because of the sympathy he had for his father who suffered terrible digestion problems. Crohn was part of an enormous group of doctors who joined many reputable medical schools at the beginning of the 20th century, graduating from Columbia University�s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1907. At the university, he earned an M.A., Ph.D., and an MD� for his research on an intra-abdominal hemorrhage. He could not pay the high cost ($35) for the former two degrees because he did not want to ask his father for the money. He spent 2.5 years as an intern at the illustrious Mount Sinai Hospital, one of only 8 interns selected from 120 candidates. He found humor in his chosen profession which he quoted in his biography saying, �It has been my misfortune (or perhaps my fortune) to spend most of my professional life as a student of constipation and diarrhea. Sometimes I could wish to have chosen the ear, nose, and throat as a specialty rather than the tail end of the human anatomy.�
Most gastroenterologists of the time were surgeons, but Crohn�s research was such that he joined the American Gastroenterological Association in 1917, having been mentored by Dr. William J. Mayo whose clinic remains one of the foremost bodies of American medical knowledge more than 100 years later. Although he was married with two children, Crohn was consumed with his work and his patients, with daily and nightly house calls. Perhaps even more important was his work on �Affections of the Stomach� which he published in 1928. He worked with Dr. Jesse Shaprio at Mount Sinai who suffered from IBD himself. Crohn found that many Jews had the condition and, since Mount Sinai admitted many of them, he found plenty of patients to study. He ended up as the first head of Mount Sinai�s Gastroenterology Clinic and was associated with the hospital for 60 years. He joined the efforts of surgeon Dr. A. A. Berg along with Ginzburg and Oppenheimer to start a project dedicated to bowel tumors and strictures. Their combined research allowed Crohn to present a paper to the American Gastroenterological Association in May 1932 in Atlantic City called �Non-specific Granuloma of the Intestine� followed by a second called �Terminal Ileitis: A new clinical entity�. Crohn preferred the term regional ileitis because he believed it only existed in the distal part of the small intestine and was worried people would assume it was fatal when they saw the word �terminal�. Soon after, the term Crohn�s disease became the catch-all for any terminal or regional enteritis. Crohn did not want the �honor� but his colleagues insisted.
The history of the disease is recorded as far back as 850 AD, affecting England�s King Alfred. The populace believed that he was being punished for his sins, but the presence of fistulas and pain from eating speaks otherwise. About 150 years before Crohn�s disease got its name, an Italian physician named Giovanni Battista Morgagni described the disease in 1761. Crohn officially retired in 1948 but continued practicing medicine well into his mid-90s. He passed away on July 29, 1983, 11 months short of his 100th birthday. In his final year, his friends, family, and colleagues began the creation of the Burrill B. Crohn Research Foundation at Mount Sinai Hospital.
What Causes Crohn’s Disease?
Crohn�s disease has troubled doctors and researchers for decades because an exact cause can’t be found, which limits their ability to fully treat it. Poor diet habits together with high levels of stress were the original leading cause for the health issue, but over the years those have come to be thought of as factors that aggravate the condition, not cause it. Two factors that stand out in today�s research are heredity and a malfunctioning immune system.� Like many major diseases, if someone in your family has suffered from Crohn�s disease, there is a much higher chance that you will too. Anytime you go to a new doctor, this should be one of the first things you inform them of when filling out a family history chart. That way if any of these symptoms do manifest, your doctor will have a knowledge base from which to proceed. Despite believing that genetics plays a fundamental part, currently, doctors can’t predict who will get Crohn�s disease based on family history.
Another leading theory is that an invalid response by the body�s immune system can cause Crohn�s disease to develop. The theory suggests that some bacteria or viruses can trigger Crohn�s disease by causing an abnormal immune system response when the body is fighting it off. The response causes the immune system to attack its own cells in the digestive tract, leading to the inflammation. Crohn�s disease attacks people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities, however, these characteristics are thought of as leading to a greater chance of getting the condition.
Geography:�People who live in urban/industrialized areas are more likely to develop Crohn�s disease than those living in rural areas. This suggests that diets full of refined foods or heavy in fat are more likely to trigger Crohn�s disease, while people eating diets that are more fresh and free from additional chemicals are more likely to avoid it.
Family History:�Although plenty of people get Crohn�s disease without a single relative suffering the same, as many as 1 in 5 people with Crohn�s disease (20%) have a relative who also has it.� Between 1.5% and 28% of people with IBD have a first-degree relative (parent, sibling, child) that have an IDB as well.
Smoking:�Like many other diseases, smoking augments the severity of Crohn�s disease and is the single most controllable risk for developing it. No one can make you stop smoking, but if you are experiencing the initial signs of Crohn�s disease, it is the best thing you can do for yourself.
Ethnicity: One of the most frustrating parts of Crohn�s disease is the randomness it seems to possess in who it strikes. Caucasians are the highest risk group, particularly those of Eastern European Jewish descent. However, African-Americans and people of African descent that live in the United Kingdom have seen their numbers consistently rise over the past decades when it comes to developing Crohn�s disease.
Age:�Another rarity. Anyone at any age can Crohn�s disease, but it is usually diagnosed before the age of 30, suggesting it is tied to growth and maturity. It is among the rare diseases where your chance of developing it lessens as you get older.
Ingesting anti-inflammatory medications: Nonsteroidal medicines that include ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, diclofenac, etc., can lead to inflammation of the bowels, which worsens Crohn�s disease. If you have the symptoms of Crohn�s disease, do your best to avoid the likes of Aleve, Advil, Voltaren, Motrin IB, etc.
What are the Symptoms of Crohn’s Disease?
As Crohn�s disease begins to take hold of a person�s body, they will experience abdominal pain, fatigue, weight loss, malnutrition, and severe diarrhea. It does not follow a set pattern as Crohn�s disease can affect different parts of the digestive tract for different people. While there are many similarities, it is rare for two cases to be exactly alike. Crohn�s disease causes inflammation in the digestive tract that spreads deeper and deeper in the bowel tissue of the affected areas. Normal medicines can lessen the intensity of the pain, but the infection runs too deep for them to be able to do much more. These symptoms can be extremely painful, embarrassing for those who suffer from fatigue or severe diarrhea, and debilitating, making the sufferer miss days, weeks, or even months of work or school while seeking treatment and learning how to cope. The most commonly affected parts of the body for someone suffering from Crohn�s disease are the small intestine and the colon. The biggest problem with diagnosing Crohn�s disease early on and starting treatment for it is that many of its symptoms are similar to a host of other maladies, including:
Cases of diarrhea
Fever
Abdominal pain/cramping
Appearance of blood in the stool
Fatigue
Loss of appetite
Unexplained weight loss
Mouth sores
Fistulas around the anus causing pain or drainage
In most cases, the appearance of one or even a few of these symptoms could be attributed to any number of infections or viruses. A good doctor will rule out those first, often with a simple medication plan. If progress is not made, then the potential of Crohn�s disease heightens. The surefire symptoms that demand a trip to the doctor include: blood in your stool, multiple episodes of diarrhea that don�t stop with the application of over-the-counter medications; a fever that lasts more than two days without an explanation; losing weight without meaning to or without a proper explanation (food poisoning, a stomach bug, etc.) Loss of appetite, undereating, and fatigue are all signs of malnutrition. When your body isn�t getting the right nutrients from the food you eat, it is difficult for it to fight off illnesses and infections. Left untreated, the symptoms of Crohn�s disease become extremely serious, including:
Inflammation of the liver and/or bile ducts
Inflammation of joints
Inflammation of eyes
Inflammation of skin
In children, delayed growth and/or sexual development
What is the Diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease?
When one or more of the symptoms persist and your physician has ruled out more pedestrian causes, attention must focus on the possibility of Crohn�s disease as the cause. Different symptoms can mean different types of Crohn�s or even a different type of IBD. Types of Crohn�s disease include:
Ileocolitis:�This is the most common form of Crohn�s disease. It affects both intestines � the end of the small intestine, which is also known as the terminal ileum. Common symptoms include diarrhea, cramping, pain in the middle and lower-right abdomen, and significant weight loss.
Ileitis:�This type of Crohn�s disease only affects the ileum. Its symptoms are generally the same as ileocolitis. In severe cases, fistulas and inflammatory abscesses can appear in the lower right part of the abdomen.
Gastroduodenal Crohn�s Disease:�Affects the stomach and the beginning of the small intestine which is known as the duodenum. Symptoms can include weight loss, loss of appetite, frequent vomiting, frequent fits of nausea.
Jejunoileitis:�This type of Crohn�s disease affects the jejunum, which is the upper half of the small intestine. Patchy areas of inflammation in the upper half of the jejunum are typical of this type of Crohn�s disease. Symptoms are not as severe in this form, but no less important to have diagnosed. They include mild-to-intensive pain or cramps following meals in your stomach or abdomen; bouts of diarrhea; fistulas forming long term in severe cases or if the inflammation goes a long time without being treated.
Crohn�s Granulomatous Colitis: This type affects only the colon. Typical symptoms are diarrhea, rectal bleeding, conditions around the anus that include ulcers, fistulas, and abscess, and joint pain, or skin lesions.
No single test confirms a diagnosis of Crohn�s disease. Other conditions have the same symptoms, including bacterial infections, so it might take some time to actually get the diagnosis despite days, weeks, or months of the symptoms.
What Can You Expect From Your Doctor?
The first thing a doctor will do is to do a standard physical exam of your entire body including questions on your family history, daily routine as well as diet and nutrition. Answering all of these completely and honestly will allow your physician to rule out or narrow in on certain maladies a lot quicker. Diagnostic tests will come in the form of blood draws and stool samples. These can eliminate the presence of a lot of diseases and focus in on what might be the case. If those are inconclusive, most doctors will likely perform X-rays on your upper and lower GI tract, looking for things like inflammation and ulcers. A contrast test might also be ordered to see the clear difference between what should be there and what should not. Remember to bring a friend or family member with you to these appointments, as it can be overwhelming to go through all the possibilities and potential diagnosis of Crohn�s disease. As the tests progress, it is a good idea to contact your insurance company and let them know what is going on so they can give you information on what tests are covered and which might not be. Make sure to write down as much information as you can with your doctor and ask questions that you don�t understand.
If the initial X-rays are not successful in narrowing down the issue, your doctor might recommend an endoscopy. This is a procedure done by putting a tiny camera mounted with a light to look at your GI tract and intestines. They are much more invasive than chest X-rays, but many technological advancements have made it much more tolerable. A GI doctor can use a bit of local anesthesia and a small camera to deaden your throat and disable your gag reflex. This allows the GI to view your mouth, esophagus, stomach, and the first part of your small intestine, known as the duodenum, looking for tell-tale signs of inflammation or ulcers.
A second endoscopy is a bit more of a chore. Also known as a colonoscopy, it requires the total evacuation of your GI tract before doctors can take a look. This means you�ll take medicine to clear it out, which will induce quite a few trips to the bathroom and be none too pleasant. This procedure usually requires drinking a liquid that acts as a fairly extreme form of laxative and will require you to take time off from work or school for at least a day while its effects take place. Once you get to the medical facility, you will be given anesthesia to knock you out, which is a good thing as the camera will enter through your rectum and move up to look at your colon. If there are any unusual structures present in either endoscopy, doctors might want to collect a biopsy of your colon or another area. This is done by using a tool to remove a small bit of tissue from inside the intestine or inside some other part of your GI tract for analysis. There is zero pain associated with a biopsy.
During the colonoscopy, the doctor might want to do another procedure known as a chromoendoscopy. In this procedure, a blue liquid is sprayed into the colon. It reveals slight changes in the lining of your intestine which can be polyps or other changes that are believed to be precancerous. This means they might be precursors to changes to your body that can become cancer cells. If polyps are discovered, they can be removed and a biopsy is taken to determine if they are benign or malignant. If the blue liquid is used, bowel movements will have a definitive blue tinge to them for the next few days.
There are some parts of your small intestine that cannot be seen during either colonoscopy or endoscopy. This requires small intestine imaging which works using an oral contrast � something you drink � in conjunction with computer tomography (CT) scan or a magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI). As radical as it sounds, this can involve swallowing a camera that size and shape of a bill which then takes pictures of your small intestine and bowel as it moves through your GI tract. It is harmlessly expelled during a future bowel movement. If parts of the intestine are too hard to reach, a balloon endoscopy can be used. It�s not a real balloon, but the concept is the same. The displacement of the structure with an air-filled object creates space for the camera to get in close and record.
What is Crohn�s Disease Activity Index (CDAI)?
The Crohn�s Disease Activity Index (CDAI) is a research tool that allows researchers, doctors, and patients to quantify how painful symptoms of Crohn�s disease are at any given time. It was first developed by W.R. Best and his colleagues at Illinois�s Midwest Regional Health Center in 1976. The index has eight factors that it considers, each weighted and then added together to reveal a final score. The CDAI helps major studies diagnose how well the medicine is effective for people suffering from Crohn�s disease. It is excellent for determining the quality of life for Crohn�s disease sufferers to give doctors a good grasp on how much pain a person can endure before their quality of life really begins to suffer. The eight variables involved in the CDAI are:
Percentage deviation from standard weight
Hematocrit of <0.47 (men) and 0.42 (women)
Presence of abdominal mass (0 if none, 2 if questionable, 5 if definite)
Is the patient taking Lomotil or opiates to reduce bouts of diarrhea?
How is the patient feeling in general on a scale from 0 (well) to 4 (terrible). This is accounted for every day for seven days straight.
Presence of complications
Abdominal pain graded from 0 (none) to 3 (severe) for seven days straight.
A recording of the number of liquid or soft stools for seven straight days.
These eight factors are all assigned different weights, with the presence of complications and taking of Lomotil or opiates getting the highest weights (x30 and x20). Points are also added for things like joint pain, inflammation of the irus, anal fistulas, and fissures, a fever, etc. When all of this information is tallied a number, usually three digits are presented. If a person has a score of more than 450, they are considered to have severe Crohn�s disease and actions are taken accordingly. If the CDAI is less than 150, a person is considered to be in remission. If a person�s CDAI score drops 70 or more points be responding to treatment. A working version of the CDAI scale can be found here. Although it is very helpful, the CDAI has also been met with some criticism. The fact that it does not consider the typical quality of life, fatigue, endoscopic factors, protein loss, or other systemic features.
What are the Complications of Crohn’s Disease?
Similar to many other severe diseases, the lack of treatment of Crohn�s disease or the worsening of it despite treatment can lead to several other complicated illnesses, some of them life-threatening. They include:
Bowel obstruction: When Crohn�s disease inflames the digestive tract it can thicken the intestinal wall, which causes parts of the bowel to develop scar tissue and begin to narrow, making for irregular bowel movements. If the passage becomes too narrow it will actually block the flow of your digestive system, causing its contents to become stuck and form a barrier of their own. This will start as constipation but will eventually become obvious that something more severe is going on as treatments are applied. Surgery, usually done quickly after the diagnosis is made, will be required to remove the part of your bowel that has become scarred. If the bowel obstruction is complete, it requires emergency surgery. This sort of surgery is done under general anesthesia, meaning you are asleep for the procedure and will not feel any pain as it is performed. A surgeon makes a cut into the belly to see the intestines. Sometimes this is done laparoscopically to minimize how much cutting has to be done. From there, the surgeon will find the part of your intestines that is blocked and unblock it. This is not the extent of the procedure, however. If any part of the bowel is damaged, it must either be removed or replaced. This is known as bowel resection. If it is removed, the healthy �ends� on either side of the removed section are connected together, using either staples or stitches, which can either dissolve or be removed with another procedure, this one much more likely to involve laparoscopy. There are some incidences where the ends cannot be connected because such a large part of the intestine has to be removed. When this happens, the surgeon brings out one end through an opening in the abdominal wall via a colostomy or ileostomy. The key is to perform the surgery before blood flow in the bowel is affected. The surgery has many risks including more scar tissue forming, damage to nearby organs, and more bowel obstructions.
Ulcers:�When parts of the body are chronically inflamed, they lead to open sores that do not heal like normal. These are called ulcers and can be found almost anywhere in your body, inside or out. For people suffering from Crohn�s disease, they can be found in the mouth, the anus, the stomach, or in the genital area. Ulcers along the GI tract are often the first sign of the disease, although since they are undetectable except in the mouth, for most people, they are often missed until other symptoms form. Ulcers can also form in your duodenum, appendix, small intestine, and colon. A similar condition, known as ulcerative colitis, only forms in the colon and is not as serious as Crohn�s disease. If an ulcer breaks through the intestinal wall it can form a fistula, a connection between the intestine and the skin or different parts of the intestine. This is a very dangerous condition that may lead to food bypassing your bowels or even bowels draining onto your skin. If they develop into abscesses they can be life-threatening. Ulcers can also cause a person to become anemic if there is more than one of them in the small intestine or the colon. This can cause frequent loss of blood and can require surgery.
Anal Fissure: This is a small tear in the tissue of your anus or the skin around it that can become infected. It results in painful bowel movements. It can heal naturally, but left untreated threatens to come to a perianal fistula.
Malnutrition: Anyone suffering from diarrhea, abdominal pain, and cramping is likely to not be getting enough nutrients into their body for proper function. Common results are anemia from not intaking enough iron or enough B-12. If the small intestine is inflamed, it can cause problems with digesting food and absorbing nutrients. If the problem is in the large intestine, including the rectum and the colon, the problems include the body�s inability to absorb water and electrolytes. What causes malnutrition? There are several ways that it can form. One that most people have experienced over the course of their lifetimes is severe diarrhea. Have you ever had food poisoning that resulted in multiple incidents of bad diarrhea or vomiting? The next time you step on a scale you might be astonished to see that you have lost several pounds in a single day, maybe even as many as 10 or 12! When your body detects something in your GI tract, it makes every effort to evacuate it one way or another. This results in the body using fluids to transport the foreign elements out of the system and can lead to dehydration as fluids, nutrients, and electrolytes such as zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, and sodium get ejected along with it. � Other causes of malnutrition include abdominal pain and nausea. If you�re a woman who has ever been pregnant and dealt with morning sickness, you know how these feel, and when they strike, eating is the last thing on your mind. However, it also makes it tough for your body to gather sufficient nutrients and the correct number of calories, which makes it weaken over time. Rectal bleeding, both painful and embarrassing, also causes malnutrition because the ulcers in your intestines are leading to deficiencies. Frequent trips to the bathroom can also cause malnutrition because people will seek to cut down on this habit by eating less to avoid embarrassment. But cutting back on your body�s calorie intake can lead to malnutrition and weight loss. An even tougher pill to swallow is that certain IDB medicine damages your ability to say nourished. Prednisone, which is a common corticosteroid, can cause a decrease in healthy muscle mass over long-term use. Other treatments, like sulfasalazine and methotrexate, can interfere with the absorption of folic acid, which is crucial in healthy cell growth.
Colon cancer:�The �Big C� rears its ugly head in association with Crohn�s disease, unfortunately. Having Crohn�s disease increases your risk of colon cancer. People without a family history of Crohn�s disease or colon cancer are advised to get a colonoscopy every 10 years beginning at age 50 to check. If you have a family history, ask a doctor about having it done sooner and more frequently. Colon cancer starts in the colon or rectum when cells grow abnormally. Most starts as a growth called a polyp on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. There are two types of polyps: Adenomatous and Hyperplastic/Inflammatory. The latter are generally not cancerous and are more common. The former sometimes change into cancer. If they are larger than 1 cm, this is more often the case, or if more than two are found. A condition called dysplasia also is a warning sign of cancer. This means that after the polyp is removed, there are areas in the polyp or in the lining that don�t look normal, suggesting they are cancerous in origin.
Other health problems:�Any number of maladies can befall someone stricken by Crohn�s disease. How it affects the rest of the body is different from person to person. Common problems can include anemia, skin disorders, arthritis, liver disease, and gallbladder disease.
Malabsorption:�A complication of malnutrition, it makes it difficult for vital nutrients such as fats, sugars, vitamins, minerals, and proteins to make it through the small intestine. Inflammation of the intestines, a symptom of� Crohn�s disease, can also make this possible.
Decreased Bone Strength:�A complication of malnutrition, it increases your risk of bone fractures. If your body is not getting enough Vitamin D, is not absorbing enough calcium, or you have long-term inflammation, this is more likely to happen.
Growth Delays:�A dangerous complication for kids suffering from� Crohn�s disease is a lack of growth due to IBD. About one-third of kids with� Crohn�s disease and 1/10th of those with ulcerative colitis in the US will be shorter than expected. Children with either of these diseases should have a dietitian consulted by their parents.
What is the Treatment for Crohn’s Disease?
Hearing that there is no known cure for Crohn�s disease can be a debilitating blow to people suffering from it. However, developments in therapy allow for the ability to greatly reduce it symptoms and even invoke long-term remission in some patients. Given proper treatment and with a commitment by the sufferer, people afflicted with Crohn�s disease can function well and lead a long, healthy life. The good news is that if one treatment option does not work well, there are others to try. It�s a balancing act for most people, and the need to titrate that balance between medicine, changes to their diet and nutrition routines, and sometimes surgical procedures is the best way forward to getting on track and healthy.
Medication: Medication is what most people think about when they get sick, and such is the case here. Medicine for Crohn�s disease is designed to suppress the response of your immune system to the inflamed parts of your GI tract. Suppressing that inflammation can go a long way to reducing the pain from fever, pain, and diarrhea. It also gives your body time to heal up. The medication can help you avoid flare-ups (see below) and extended periods of remission to great and greater lengths of time. We�ll talk about remission later in this book.
Combination Therapy:�Combination therapy is exactly what it sounds like; using more than one source of treatment to get Crohn�s disease under control. This sort of treatment can also up the risk of side effects or even toxicity, so your doctor needs to analyze both you and the treatment plan to see what makes the most sense.
Diet & Nutrition:�The amount of diseases that get dramatically better when one starts to make drastic changes in their diet and nutrition habits is truly astounding. Good nutrition via eating the right kinds of foods for your specific form of Crohn�s disease can really lessen the painful symptoms of the disease and prevent flare-ups. Understanding your body�s needs in terms of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, water, vitamins, and minerals can give you a great education on why you�re developing certain side effects and how to lessen their effect. Much like when you get food poisoning or an upset stomach, reverting to a bland diet � the universally known Bananas, Apple Sauce, Rice, Toast (BRAT) method is a great way to lessen the discomfort that may occur when eating spicy foods or those that cause flare-ups.
Surgery:�No one wants to have a surgery especially in an area as sensitive as your GI tract. However, statistics say that as many as 66%-75% of people with Crohn�s disease will require surgery at some point. That number is daunting, but since most people don�t understand or can identify that they have Crohn�s disease until they have suffered inflammation of the intestines. Surgery is necessary when medications are not working or if the inflammation has turned into an obstruction, fissure, or fistula, that is not allowing your intestines or anus to work correctly. As mentioned earlier, these surgeries include removing a diseased portion of the bowel, known as resection, and taking the remaining healthy portions and moving them together (anastomosis). Although this sort of surgery can make a huge difference and send someone suffering from Crohn�s disease into remission, it is not a cure. Post-surgery statistics show that 30% of patients that have surgery related to Crohn�s disease have a return of symptoms within three years, and as many as 60% have a return of symptoms within 10 years.
How Can You Avoid and Contain Crohn’s Disease Flare-ups?
Flare-ups are an unfortunate but expected part of suffering from Crohn�s disease. Very rare are the patients who are diagnosed with Crohn�s disease, get treatment, and they are in remission for the rest of their lives. Eventually, a flare-up will come to any Crohn�s disease sufferer. Being prepared and understanding the causes is very important to keep a flare-up from becoming a longer-term suffering session. When a flare-up does happen, sufferers of Crohn�s disease must be on their guard to take care of themselves but also to identify possible causes of the flare-up. Doing so will make it much easier to avoid them in the future.
The first thing to check on when you have a flare-up is your recent diet. Lots of foods can exacerbate your GI tract and cause inflammation anywhere along the tract, from your mouth to your intestines. Foods that contain spices like garlic, chili powder, onions, paprika, and so on are among the types of food that can easily agitate the digestive tract and cause inflammation that can cause severe pain and severe diarrhea. A great way to pinpoint what foods might be causing the flare-up is to keep a food diary in which you record everything you eat. This way you can really target foods that when consumed are followed by a flare-up. It might not even be food but an actual ingredient that causes the flare-up. Knowing what foods cause these symptoms in you makes it easy to avoid them. If you are struggling to define what foods are safe for you and which ones trigger your Crohn�s disease, ask a doctor about the possibility of consulting a dietician about the matter.
If you�ve ruled food out as a probable cause of a flare-up, your next best bet is to analyze your patterns for taking medicine. Skipping a dose, taking the wrong dosage, or even taking pills at different times than normal can trigger a reaction or lessen the potency of the drug�s effectiveness at quelling your Crohn�s disease symptoms. If you are an adult or a teenager, the only person who can make you take your pills on time and in the correct dosage is you. If you are a parent of a child with Crohn�s disease, you must ensure they are taking the exact dosage at the exact time each day. If you are finding your current dose to not be taking good enough care of your symptoms, you must contact your doctor, explain what is going on, and work with them to find a solution or possibly change the medication itself, how often you take it, when you take it, or the dosage you are taking. Doctors want to help you find that healthy medium between being too drugged up and being in too much pain.
If it�s not your Crohn�s disease medication bothering you, it might be another form of medication, particularly nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). Despite that tongue-twister of a name, these are some of the most well-known drugs in the world with more common names like aspirin and ibuprofen. Unfortunately for sufferers of Crohn�s disease, these analgesics also have painful side effects that can irritate the bowel and kick up inflammation quickly. If you suffer from frequent fevers, headaches, or other body pain, ask your doctor if it is safe for you to take acetaminophen (commonly found in Tylenol) to avoid the NSAIDs.
Another medicine that can cause flare-ups are antibiotics, frequently prescribed to treat bacterial infections. If you�ve ever been prescribed antibiotics, you�ll know that the doctor, the nurse, and the pharmacist will all insist you take them with food to lessen the chance of an upset stomach. This still happens in even the healthiest of people because it changes the balance of the bacteria in your intestines. That can cause diarrhea, and when diarrhea appears in the tract of someone suffering from Crohn�s disease, it can spell trouble.
If your diet is good and you are avoiding medicines that are known to cause flare-ups, there are still two more places to look among the likeliest causes. The first is if you are a smoker. Look, we all know that smoking is bad for you for any number of reasons, increasing your risk for stroke, heart attack, and lung cancer among others. That same risk holds true for patients suffering from Crohn�s disease. Introducing smoke and tobacco to your digestive system is one of the worst ideas you can have. If you are tempted to smoke while going through Crohn�s disease, be aware that you are much more likely to need surgery because of it. One other cause of flare-ups is increased stress. Stress was originally thought of as one of the causes of Crohn�s disease, but in fact, it is more commonly believed to be an agitator of the disease. If you are struggling with stress and can feel it spilling over into you Crohn�s disease, consult a doctor on how to incorporate stress-management techniques. If your need is immediate, things like taking a warm bath or a long shower can help relax your muscles. Other ideas are to exercise or simply take a walk to pull out the strain from muscles you did not even know you were clinching. You can also try yoga or meditation, for which there are thousands of online resources to get you started.
What Can You Do When You Have a Crohn’s Disease Flare-Up?
It�s hard not to feel stress and/or panic when you have a flare-up of your Crohn�s disease. Some last a day, some for a week, and some a month as it really depends on the person, the circumstances, and how well they are able to handle it. Although it has no true healing powers, a positive frame of mind that this condition is temporary and that you will improve can greatly affect the mindset of a person suffering a flare-up.
Maintain a healthy diet:�It could very well be something you ate that is driving you into a flare-up, but that does not mean you should stop eating or try some radical purge diet. Proper nutrition is the essential foundation of dealing with Crohn�s disease on a day-in, day-out basis. If you have bouts of diarrhea that drain your body of fluid, adjust accordingly by increasing your fluid intake and eating bland foods that are much less likely to have spicy ingredients or high concentrations of fat that can lead to more inflammation.
Stay regular with your diagnostic tests:�When you are first diagnosed with Crohn�s disease and your doctor provides you with prescriptions and treatment plans, part of that plan should be regular scheduled diagnostic tests to see how your body is faring. If you have a flare-up, call your doctor and let them know about it, as well as any guesses on your part on what could have caused it. The doctor might want to move up a diagnostic test to see what sort of side effects are occurring and why you had the flare-up, this can allow the doctor to analyze what is causing it and how to prevent it from happening again.
Set up a support system:�No one should have to go through any disease along, particularly one like Crohn�s disease that has so many miserable side effects. No matter your age, your marital status, or what you do for a living, you�ll need a network of friends and family you can rely on for emotional and physical support when you suffer a flare-up. This will involve an initial period where you let them know what you are suffering from and give them transparency and knowledge about what Crohn�s disease is and what it does to people. While it can be very embarrassing, the more open and honest you are with the people who care about you, the easier it will be to reach out when you need help. This can be anything as simple as driving to the doctor or as serious as picking your kids up at school because you have to go to the emergency room. Other times, it�s just someone who can lend an ear and talk when you are frustrated by the flare-up in particular or what the future might bring. Make sure at least one member of your support network works or lives close-by in case of an emergency.
Maintain a great relationship with your doctor: We all get how busy most people are. You find a doctor, get your prescriptions filled, and see them again in 6-12 months. That�s not how things work when you�re battling against Crohn�s disease. Having a doctor you know, trust, and feel confident about in his or her ability to accurately and honestly get you on the right path from the get-go. This extends past your primary care physician as well. Getting on good terms with his or her office staff front desk, nurses, any other physicians, such as a dietician or a counselor can have enormous benefits down the line.
Respect your prescribed treatment: Too many people get into their heads that they know the best overtime on how their treatment should go. These are the types that end up altering their dosage, not taking medicine at the right time, or not taking it altogether. Doctors aren�t just diagnosing you to hear themselves think. They are using all the tools at their disposal to make you feel better and let your body heal. Consider that the next time you don�t feel like taking a pill.
Try Corticosteroids:�This medication is often prescribed to treat flare-ups for the short term. They are not recommended over a long period of time as patients can either get addicted to them or become resistant to them.
Get better sleep:� Research has shown that patients with Crohn�s disease are more likely to have relapses if they do not get enough sleep at night. The poor sleeping in a study of 3,173 adult patients with IBD found that many 60% of patients suffering from flare-ups reported poor sleep, linking it to the likes of depression, tobacco use, and use of corticosteroids.
What is Remission Like with Crohn’s Disease?
Remission is the stage of Crohn�s disease where the symptoms go dormant. The inflammation which infects your digestive tract goes away and the damage to your bowel, colon, and other parts of the GI tract ceases. Your immune system stops attacking your own body and returns to its normal functioning. During this time, you will notice fatigue and pain diminishing and you will cease having bouts of severe diarrhea. Diagnostic blood tests by your doctor will likely show your inflammation levels have returned to normal and lesions found in your bowel, colon, stomach, anus, esophagus, and mouth will close and start to heal. No one can say what causes remission or how long it lasts, but it clearly is a cycle. After the first flare that triggers the diagnosis of Crohn�s disease, about 10%-20% of patients report long-term remission. This statistic is on the uptrend thanks to advance studies and research that better prepare doctors and patients to deal with Crohn�s disease more rapidly and effectively. There are several types of remission associated with Crohn�s disease, with accompanying characteristics. They are:
Clinical remission: This means you have zero symptoms associated with Crohn�s disease at the time. This can happen naturally or it can be the result of the diligent taking of medicine. Note that if your remission is a result of taking corticosteroids, it�s not really considered remission, mostly because these drugs are meant only for short-term use as they can become addictive or the body can become resistant to them.
Endoscopic remission:�This means your doctor does not find any sign of disease when he checks your colon during an endoscopy. If there is no inflammation and no lesions or polyps are present. This can also be termed as deep healing or mucosal healing. It does not really guarantee remission however, as there is a lot more to Crohn�s disease than simply what is going on in the colon. Inflammation can occur anywhere on the GI tract, but the colon is a major part of this.. Nevertheless, the colon is a major player in the disease and is one of the most painful parts of the process, so a clean bill of health there is worth celebrating.
Histologic remission: This term refers to the condition where cells are removed from your colon during endoscopy and tested as normal under a microscope. This indicates there is no presence of cancer nor inflammation commonly associated with Crohn�s disease. This remission is discovered when a follow-up to a surgical procedure is done and a lack of disease activity is found, especially is the procedure involved an ileocolonic resection, which is the most common surgery associated with Crohn�s disease. In this procedure, the area where the small and large intestines meet each other, known as the terminal ileum, is removed.
Biochemical remission:�Blood and excrement do not contain substances that signal the presence of inflammation. This is proven by blood tests and stool samples.
The path to remission is different for every Crohn�s disease patient, which can make it all the more vexing when you have a much harder time than someone else in achieving it. Doctors will try lots of different medications to get you going, while others will try more aggressive routes. Here are some of the routes that your doctor might take in his or her pursuit of remission for you.
Medications
Medicine is the obvious first choice for any sufferer of Crohn�s disease. Drugs have been tested for years before gaining approval from the Federal Drug Association (FDA) and most side effects are known. Since there is no real known cause for Crohn�s disease, patients are more than likely to be put on more than one drug at a time in order to titrate a cocktail that works for you. The goals in taking medications for Crohn�s disease include reducing chronic symptoms like pain and diarrhea, helping intestines heal from the damage that the inflammation has caused, and ease the inflammation itself. The following drugs are all used to fight Crohn�s disease:
Steroids
Prednisone:�Also used to treat arthritis, blood disorders, severe allergies, breathing problems, eye problems, and cancer, it is the most well-known corticosteroids. It decreases the immune system�s response time. Is addictive, and the body can also start to resist its effects if taken for too long.
Drugs to Slow Down Your Immune System
Vigilant immune systems are a big cause of Crohn�s disease, although no one has been able to figure out why. Slowing the reaction and response time of the immune system can limit the inflammation damage it does on your GI tract. These drugs include:
Azathioprine: Commonly used to prevent organ rejection in people that have had a kidney transplant. Also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. It�s an immunosuppressant that weakens the immune system. It can be taken by injection or by mouth.
Cyclosporine:�Used to prevent organ rejection for people who have had a liver, kidney, or heart transplant. Is taken orally once per day.
Mercaptopurine:�This drug is a cancer medication that interferes with the growth of cancer cells, slowing their growth and spread across the body. It is largely used to take on leukemia. It has rough side effects that are fairly similar to Crohn�s disease, including nausea, diarrhea, and loss of appetite, as well as temporary hair loss, mouth sores or pain, and symptoms of liver disease.
Methotrexate:�It is classified as an antimetabolite that works by slowing or stopping the growth of cancer cells and suppressing the immune system. It is often used to stop juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and comes in tablet form. It is a strong medication that requires lots of water consumption to get it out of the kidneys.
TNF Inhibitors
TNF Inhibitors are drugs that help stop inflammation. In addition to Crohn�s disease, they are useful for fighting rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, plaque psoriasis, and ulcerative colitis. The three most frequently used with Crohn�s disease are:
Adalimumab:�Used to reduce pain and spelling in arthritis, it also is used in certain skin conditions. It works by blocking a protein found in the immune system that causes joint swelling and red, scaly patches.
Certolizumab:�Also used to kill tumors, it can defeat a certain type of spine condition in addition to treating Crohn�s to a degree and battling arthritis.
Infliximab:�A champion for chronic plaque psoriasis, it also treats Crohn�s disease and arthritis. It works by blocking the tumor necrosis factor-alpha in the body. It also decreases swelling while weakening the immune system.
Doctors typically start with mild drugs and then move into more strong ones to try and get you into remission. If your Crohn�s disease is atypically severe when you are first diagnosed, the opposite might be true and treatment will start with stronger drugs, drifting toward milder ones once you are in remission.
Surgery
If drugs or steroids aren�t working for you, or if your Crohn�s disease is particularly severe by the time it is first diagnosed, doctors might skip the drug regiment altogether and head straight for surgery. Up to 50% of all people diagnosed with Crohn�s disease will need surgery at some time in their life. The most common surgery will see a doctor remove parts of your intestine where there is too much damage for it to function properly. They then use staples or stitches to reconnect the healthy areas. After this kind of procedure, you will be out of commission for a while, and it might take several months before you feel completely normal again.
After the surgery, you will be fed through a feeding tube with liquid food or even have it injected into your veins to give your bowel the chance to both heal and rest. Once the intestines are determined to be rested and ready to return to active duty, you will be encouraged to eat a low-fiber diet in order to make your body conducive to smaller stools that reduce the risk of bowel blockage. Within a month to four months, you should start seeing the real results of such a procedure.
Understanding Crohn�s Disease in Children
Parents fear any type of health issue for their children, but being diagnosed with a problem, particularly one with no known cure can open up a lot of feelings of panic for both children and their parents. Since most people diagnosed with Crohn�s disease are 30 years old or younger, it stands to reason that it affects many children. And because it can cause malnutrition and other problems that affect growth and development, learning about Crohn�s disease can’t be understated for parents. The best way to talk to your child about having Crohn�s disease is to tell them in a language they can understand that involves the whole family, their doctors, their school, etc. Having a prepared, informed child will make what is to come much easier on them and reduce a lot of their fears of the unknown. If your child is a teenager and more responsible for the food they eat, guiding them in diet and nutrition is a big deal. Honesty is always the best answer for older children on how to manage Crohn�s disease. This is not a temporary condition that has an attainable cure right now. Helping them understand that controlling it will be their responsibility as adults are something that must come into play as well. Clearly, younger children will need more of a hands-on approach. But don�t do everything for them. Unless they are very young, this is a great chance to teach them a gradual taking of responsibility. For younger kids, there are going to be several new events happening that will be either scary or unfamiliar that you can help them transition into. These include:
Taking Medication
For younger children, being sick usually means taking a cough syrup or something similar for a few days and then feeling better. For children with Crohn�s disease, this can elevate to taking pills, getting injections, or sitting during lengthy intravenous transfusions. Taking medication over a long period of time is a new thing for most children. Many will fear it, even something as simple as swallowing pills. Start by introducing them to the medicine � what it looks like, how to take it without chewing it, and explain what the medicine. Let them know that the medicine is the bridge between them feeling bad and having to stay home feeling sick and them feeling good and being able to get out and enjoy some of their favorite pastimes.
It�s also important to remember that children don�t have as good as memories as we do, especially when it comes to remembering what days certain things are taking place. Well into elementary school plenty of kids don�t always know the day of the week or the time of the day without consulting a grownup. That�s why a family calendar with dates marked for medications is a great way to keep everyone on the same page. Make a big deal out of each pill swallowed and appointment completed. Praise is important. When your child feels they are doing the right thing to battle their illness, they will feel better about themselves.
Also, be aware that different medicines do different things and have different side effects. Make your child know that their feelings are important and valid. Ask them how the medicine is making them feel. Better or the same? Explain to them what side effects are and let them know that there are no wrong answers here. If the medicine is making them feel bad, they need to let you know, so you can let the doctor know. Medicine not working is not a sign of defeat, it just means that it�s not the right medicine for them.
Emotional Support
Emotional support is the best medicine for kids diagnosed with Crohn�s disease. It�s not a one-time conversation you have and then move forward with treatment and never talk about it again. Your child is going to have questions as they get older that manifest in many different ways. They will want and need someone to share their thoughts, their fears, and their hopes for the future. The question of �Why me?� is probably going to come up a lot, particularly for children who believe heavily in a particular faith. Some will wonder if the religious figure they worship is punishing them for some wrong they�ve committed. If someone else in the family also suffers from Crohn�s disease, the child might lash out at this relative and blame them for the illness. It is extremely difficult for a child to be different from their peers because of a physical condition, especially when it is one that deals with an already sensitive subject and one that can be rife for bullying at pretty much any age.
If it is too much for your child to take or if you are seeing trouble arise with their schoolwork, friends, or other previously healthy relationships, consider consulting a mental health professional, particularly one who specializes in childhood diseases and how to cope with them. Therapy, medication, or counseling (or some combination of the three) could be just what your child needs to get back on track and learn the process of coping with their illness. Older children and teenagers might need a completely different remedy � space and time alone to rationalize their feelings and decide how best to deal with it. This can include time talking to the doctor alone, without parental involvement. This should not be construed as a panic sign, but a positive that your child is taking charge of his or her own care and wants to discuss with a doctor how to cope with certain conditions. Don�t think you as the parent is in charge of every decision being made. Your child is the one with Crohn�s disease, and that will last a lifetime.
What is a 504 Accommodation Plan?
A 504 accommodation plan, also known as a 504 plan, is a government-approved legally binding document that requires a school to give your child special accommodations due to their disability. It is your job to inform your child�s school of the disability and you�ll be required to give proof of it � a simple doctor�s note will do. The plan covers your child having an unexpected flare-up of Crohn�s disease at school or if they are hospitalized and miss time. Accommodations will vary from child to child, but you must advocate for their rights at all times to ensure the school staff knows exactly what procedures must be followed, particularly in the event of a flare-up. Flare-ups can make anyone feel extremely uncomfortable as it can cause diarrhea or irregular bowel movements. In a school setting, this can be scary, humiliating, and embarrassing for a child, so all precautions must be in place, such as your child having the right to visit the bathroom at any time during the school day without being questioned, or bringing another pair of clothes to school in case of an accident. The school nurse in particular should be made aware of the situation, as she will usually be the most knowledgeable of Crohn�s disease and the best suited to help your child should they have an accident or need help during the day. If your child misses a lot of school for doctor�s appointments or hospital stays, the 504 plan should include provisions to allow them extra time to do assignments or things like take-home tests to give them the time and atmosphere to perform their best.
How Can You Handle Your Job When Your Child Has Crohn�s Disease?
Most jobs these days make all sorts of allowances for employees when it comes to paid time off (PTO) in the form of sick days and personal days. Having a child with Crohn�s disease can seem like a very personal issue and one that you don�t necessarily want to share with a lot of people, but it is necessary to inform your job, especially our human resources (HR) representative of the situation so you can best handle your responsibilities at work while also being there for your child. Your job will most likely be sympathetic to your child�s needs and do its best to accommodate you when you need to stay home with him or her or if you need to take them to the hospital. However, try and let your job know about planned hospital visits or procedures as far in advance as possible to give them the best chance to schedule someone to do your assigned tasks. If your job allows you to work remotely, try and see if you can make the accommodation for days that you might need to stay home with your child. Do everything possible to do your work, even if it is not at the precise date and time as everyone else in the office. Share your child�s schedule for surgery, blood draws, imaging, or any other scheduled appointment with your supervisor and your HR representative so they can appropriately deduct the time missed from your PTO, sick days, or family leave days, however, your company works it out. The more information that you can give your job about your schedule, the more likely they are to work with you. A company cannot legally fire you for a child�s illness, but if you do not communicate with them on the amount of time you take off, or if you are only informing them of time you need off with very little or no notice, you could find yourself getting dismissed for being unable to perform your duties and an unwillingness to keep an open dialogue.
Children�s Health Insurance and Crohn�s Disease
Your child is covered by either you or your spouse�s health insurance, but you�ll need more information than that to make sure that your child gets the best care possible. Once a diagnosis has been made by your child�s doctor, set aside some time to call your insurance company, explain the situation, and get all of your questions answered. Your insurance plan will have operating procedures based on the coverage plan you have preselected. These will include a deductible that you will likely have to meet before all expenses are paid for, co-pays for your child�s visits to the doctor, and possibly a number of treatments that are covered as part of the plan. During this meeting, you should also ask questions about prescription medications as well as which brands and drugs are covered under your plan. If certain drugs are too expensive, you can contact drug companies or look for discounts and coupons online. For health issues like Crohn�s disease, manufacturers and discount organizations often work hard to make otherwise unattainable drugs more affordable for suffering patients.
Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease or IBD. Although healthcare professionals today still don’t know the true cause of this health issue, several doctors and researchers believe that factors like poor diet and stress can aggravate the symptoms associated with this health issue. Common symptoms associated with Crohn’s disease can include pain and inflammation. Proper diagnosis and treatment for this health issue are essential because it can lead to a variety of complications, including joint pain and arthritis, among other health issues, if left untreated. Diet and lifestyle modifications, stress management, medication, and surgery, can ultimately help improve Crohn’s disease. For people following several of the previously mentioned treatment options, chiropractic care and physical therapy can also help relieve joint pain and arthritis, among other health issues, associated with inflammation. – Dr. Alex Jimenez D.C., C.C.S.T. Insight
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, physical medicines, wellness, and sensitive health issues and/or functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our posts, topics, subjects, and insights cover clinical matters, issues, and topics that relate and support directly or indirectly our clinical scope of practice.* Our office has made a reasonable attempt to provide supportive citations and has identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We also make copies of supporting research studies available to the board and or the public upon request. We understand that we cover matters that require an additional explanation as to how it may assist in a particular care plan or treatment protocol; therefore, to further discuss the subject matter above, please feel free to ask Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900. The provider(s) Licensed in Texas*& New Mexico*�
Our brain is constantly working to help us make decisions, speak, read, and perform many other important functions. It’s also responsible for several involuntary processes, including breathing, regulating body temperature, and secreting hormones. The brain needs a consistent supply of energy in order to perform these essential functions. It mainly uses glucose as fuel for energy, however, does the brain really need glucose from carbohydrates to function properly?
What Happens When You Don’t Eat Carbohydrates?
According to healthcare professionals, the brain needs between 110 to 145 grams of glucose per day to function properly. Most people who follow a high-carb diet provide their brains with an abundant supply of glucose. However, what happens when you eat less than 110 grams of carbohydrates per day or even no carbs at all? Does your brain starve? Absolutely not! Our muscles and liver store glucose in the form of glycogen, a polysaccharide of glucose.
When you don’t eat carbs, glycogen in the liver is broken down into glucose and released into the bloodstream to prevent low blood glucose levels. While more glycogen is stored in the muscles than in the liver, it stays in the muscles to meet their demand for energy and it can’t be broken down and released into the bloodstream to prevent low blood glucose levels. After about 24 to 48 hours without eating carbohydrates, glycogen in the liver is depleted and insulin decreases.
The liver will then produce ketones, water-soluble compounds produced by the breakdown of fatty acids. Ketones are produced from the fats you eat or the movement of stored body fat. Ketones can penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and enter the bloodstream in order to reach the brain and provide additional energy. This ultimately means that ketones can also be used as fuel for energy when our body is running low on glucose from carbohydrates.
Can Your Brain Use Ketones Alone for Energy?
Our brain always needs some glucose for energy. However, healthcare professionals have shown that for several people following a ketogenic diet, ketones can be used to meet up to 70 percent of the brain�s energy needs. As for the rest of the brain�s energy needs, your liver can produce the glucose it needs through a process known as gluconeogenesis. Thus, the liver can meet the brain’s energy needs through stored glucose, the production of ketones, or gluconeogenesis.
Glucose Alone vs Glucose and Ketones for Energy
If you follow a moderate-carb to a high-carb diet, your brain may not be properly adapted to use ketones as fuel for energy. Therefore, glucose will be the main source of energy for your brain. However, when your body has adapted to following a low-carb or carb-free diet, the brain can easily use ketones to meet the brain’s energy needs and the liver can make as much glucose as it needs to meet the rest of the brain’s energy needs in order to function properly.
What are the Low-Carb and Ketogenic Diet?
While there is a lot of similarities between the low-carb and ketogenic diet, there are also several important differences. The differences between the low-carb and the ketogenic diet may include but are not limited to the following:
Ketogenic Diet
Carbohydrates are limited to 50 grams or less per day.
Protein is generally limited or restricted.
The main goal is to increase the production of ketones.
Low-Carb Diet
Carbohydrates can vary from 25 to 150 grams per day.
Protein is typically not limited or restricted.
Production of etones may or may not increase.
In conclusion, eating carbohydrates to use as fuel for the brain’s energy needs is an option, not a requirement. It�s true that the brain can�t depend on ketones alone as it always needs some glucose as well. It’s important to understand that your brain isn�t in any danger if you follow a low-carb or a ketogenic diet. However, before following any particular diet, always make sure to talk to a healthcare professional to determine if these nutritional guidelines are right for you.
For information regarding the effects of carbohydrates on the brain, please review the following article:
Our brain is constantly working to perform many important functions. The brain needs a consistent supply of energy in order to perform these essential functions and while it mainly uses glucose as fuel for energy,� the brain doesn’t really need glucose from carbohydrates to function properly. Glycogen in the liver is broken down into glucose. The liver will then produce ketones, water-soluble compounds produced by the breakdown of fatty acids. Ketones are produced from the fats you eat or the movement of stored body fat. Ketones can penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and provide additional energy for the brain. However, our brain always needs some glucose for energy. Your liver can also produce the glucose it needs through a process known as gluconeogenesis. Thus, the liver can meet the brain’s energy needs through stored glucose, the production of ketones, or gluconeogenesis. A low-carb or a ketogenic diet can provide a variety of benefits. Always make sure to talk to a healthcare professional to determine if these nutritional guidelines are right for you.�- Dr. Alex Jimenez D.C., C.C.S.T. Insight
Zesty Beet Juice
Servings: 1 Cook time: 5-10 minutes
� 1 grapefruit, peeled and sliced
� 1 apple, washed and sliced
� 1 whole beet, and leaves if you have them, washed and sliced
� 1-inch knob of ginger, rinsed, peeled and chopped
Juice all ingredients in a high-quality juicer. Best served immediately.
Just one carrot gives you all of your daily vitamin A intake
Yes, eating just one boiled 80g (2�oz) carrot gives you enough beta carotene for your body to produce 1,480 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin A (necessary for skin cell renewal). That’s more than the recommended daily intake of vitamin A in the United States, which is about 900mcg. It’s best to eat carrots cooked, as this softens the cell walls allowing more beta carotene to be absorbed. Adding healthier foods into your diet is a great way to improve your overall health.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, physical medicines, wellness, and sensitive health issues and/or functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our posts, topics, subjects, and insights cover clinical matters, issues, and topics that relate and support directly or indirectly our clinical scope of practice.* Our office has made a reasonable attempt to provide supportive citations and has identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We also make copies of supporting research studies available to the board and or the public upon request. We understand that we cover matters that require an additional explanation as to how it may assist in a particular care plan or treatment protocol; therefore, to further discuss the subject matter above, please feel free to ask Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900. The provider(s) Licensed in Texas*& New Mexico*�
Curated by Dr. Alex Jimenez D.C., C.C.S.T.
References:
Spritzler, Franziska. �Food for Thought: Does the Brain Need Carbs?� Diet Doctor, Diet Doctor Media, 17 Jan. 2019, www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/does-the-brain-need-carbs.
Spritzler, Franziska. �How Low-Carb and Ketogenic Diets Boost Brain Health.� Healthline, Healthline Media, 26 Mar. 2016, www.healthline.com/nutrition/low-carb-ketogenic-diet-brain#section1.
Dowden, Angela. �Coffee Is a Fruit and Other Unbelievably True Food Facts.� MSN Lifestyle, 4 June 2020, www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/did-you-know/coffee-is-a-fruit-and-other-unbelievably-true-food-facts/ss-BB152Q5q?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout#image=24.
Folate is a B vitamin naturally found in a variety of foods. The body can’t produce folate, that’s why it’s important to get it from folate-rich foods. Folate is naturally found in various plant and animal foods, including citrus fruits, avocado, spinach, kale, broccoli, eggs, and beef liver. Folate is also added to foods, such as bread, flours, and cereals, in the form of folic acid or the synthetic, water-soluble version of folate. Folate and folic acid have different effects on the body.
Our body utilizes folate for a variety of essential functions, including cell division, development of red blood cells, conversion of homocysteine to methionine, an amino acid used for protein synthesis, production of SAMe, and DNA methylation. Folic acid is also important for various metabolic processes. Folate deficiency has ultimately been associated with a variety of health issues, such as the increased risk of heart disease, birth defects, megaloblastic anemia, and cancer.
Daily Intake of Folate and Folic Acid
Our body stores between 10 to 30 mg of folate, most of which is stored in your liver while the remaining amount is stored in your blood and tissues. Normal blood folate levels range from 5 to 15 ng/mL. The main form of folate in the bloodstream is known as 5-methyltetrahydrofolate. Daily intake of this essential nutrient is different for people of different ages. The recommended daily allowance of folate for infants, children, teens, adults, and pregnant women are as follows:
0 to 6 months: 65 mcg
7 to 12 months: 80 mcg
1 to 3 years: 150 mcg
4 to 8 years: 200 mcg
9 to 13 years: 300 mcg
over 14 years: 400 mcg
during pregnancy: 600 mcg
during lactation: 500 mcg
Folic acid supplements play an important role in making sure that people who are in greater need of folate are getting enough of their daily intake. Increasing the daily intake of folate-rich foods is also important because these foods generally offer plenty of other nutrients that all act together to support overall health. Recommended folate daily intake increases during pregnancy and breastfeeding to promote rapid growth and help prevent neural tube defects in the fetus.
Folic acid is available in dietary supplements and fortified foods, including bread, flours, cereals, and several types of grains. It is also added to B-complex vitamins. Folate is also naturally found in a variety of foods, including:
oranges
orange juice
grapefruit
bananas
cantaloupe
papaya
canned tomato juice
avocado
boiled spinach
mustard greens
lettuce
asparagus
Brussels sprouts
broccoli
green peas
black-eyed peas
dry-roasted peanuts
kidney beans
eggs
Dungeness crab
beef liver
Uses of Folate and Folic Acid
Both folate and folic acid are frequently utilized for a variety of reasons. Although folate and folic acid supplements are generally used to treat similar health issues, they do offer different effects in the body and, therefore, it may affect our overall health in different ways. Moreover, getting the proper daily intake of folate and folic acid can improve overall health. The following are several of the most common uses of folate and folic acid supplements, including:
folate deficiency
inflammation
diabetes
brain health
heart disease
kidney disease
mental health issues
fertility problems
birth defects and pregnancy complications
For information regarding the importance of folate and folic acid, please review the following article:
Folate is a B vitamin that is naturally found in many different types of food. Because we can’t produce folate, it’s important to get it from foods that are high in folate. Various folate-rich foods include citrus fruits, avocado, spinach, kale, broccoli, eggs, and beef liver. Folate is also added to foods like bread, flours, and cereals, in the form of folic acid, the synthetic version of this essential nutrient. Folate and folic acid have different effects on the body. Our body uses folate for many important functions, including cell division, development of red blood cells, conversion of homocysteine to methionine, an amino acid used for protein synthesis, production of SAMe, and DNA methylation. Folic acid is also essential for many metabolic processes. Folate deficiency has ultimately been associated with a variety of health issues, such as heart disease, birth defects, megaloblastic anemia, and even cancer. Daily intake of this essential nutrient is different for people of different ages. Furthermore, folate is also naturally found in a variety of foods, such as bananas, avocado, boiled spinach, and eggs. Both folate and folic acid supplements have a variety of uses and they can help improve various health issues, including inflammation, diabetes, heart disease, birth defects, and pregnancy complications. Adding healthy foods to a smoothie is a fast and easy way to get your daily intake of folate. – Dr. Alex Jimenez D.C., C.C.S.T. Insight
Ginger Greens Juice
Servings: 1 Cook time: 5-10 minutes
� 1 cup pineapple cubes
� 1 apples, sliced
� 1-inch knob of ginger, rinsed, peeled, and chopped
� 3 cups kale, rinsed, and roughly chopped or ripped
� 5 cups Swiss chard, rinsed, and roughly chopped or ripped
Juice all ingredients in a high-quality juicer. Best served immediately.
Eating cholesterol-rich foods doesn�t increase your cholesterol
According to research studies, eating foods with HDL cholesterol or “good” cholesterol doesn’t increase your overall blood cholesterol levels. When you eat healthy cholesterol-rich foods, such as prawns and eggs, your blood cholesterol levels decrease, so your blood cholesterol levels stay balanced, or they’re only raised minimally. It’s actually saturated fats that you have to look out for when it comes to high blood cholesterol levels. Simply choose healthier food options.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, physical medicines, wellness, and sensitive health issues and/or functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our posts, topics, subjects, and insights cover clinical matters, issues, and topics that relate and support directly or indirectly our clinical scope of practice.* Our office has made a reasonable attempt to provide supportive citations and has identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We also make copies of supporting research studies available to the board and or the public upon request. We understand that we cover matters that require an additional explanation as to how it may assist in a particular care plan or treatment protocol; therefore, to further discuss the subject matter above, please feel free to ask Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900. The provider(s) Licensed in Texas*& New Mexico*�
Curated by Dr. Alex Jimenez D.C., C.C.S.T.
References:
Kubala, Jillian. �Folic Acid: Everything You Need to Know.� Healthline, Healthline Media, 18 May 2020, www.healthline.com/nutrition/folic-acid#What-is-folic-acid?
Ware, Megan. �Folate: Health Benefits and Recommended Intake.� Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 26 June 2018, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/287677#recommended-intake.
Felman, Adam. �Folic Acid: Importance, Deficiencies, and Side Effects.� Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 11 Mar. 2020, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/219853#natural-sources.
Berg, M J. �The Importance of Folic Acid.� The Journal of Gender-Specific Medicine: JGSM: the Official Journal of the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia, U.S. National Library of Medicine, June 1999, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11252849/.
Dowden, Angela. �Coffee Is a Fruit and Other Unbelievably True Food Facts.� MSN Lifestyle, 4 June 2020, www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/did-you-know/coffee-is-a-fruit-and-other-unbelievably-true-food-facts/ss-BB152Q5q?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout#image=23.
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