Foods with probiotics can help you de-stress
Probiotic protein found in fruit, veggies and nuts can reverse stress-response damage
Alist of movies rumoured currently to be in preproduction sounds like a formula for disaster: “Black Hole,” “Rampage,” “Uncharted,” “Monster”! But a list of prebiotics — well, that’s a setup for feeling calm and sleeping well, according to the latest lab study published in the BMJ’s Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Researchers in Spain and Scotland tested the ability of a prebiotic protein, lactoferrin, to reverse stress-response damage to your gut biome and to see if it could help restore normal sleep patterns, which can be disrupted by stressful events. It seems that cranked-up levels of stress hormones and other stress-related physiological responses, affecting everything from blood flow to the innate immune system, can make it hard for healthy gut bacteria to thrive.
Their discovery: Although you get most of your prebiotics from non-digestible fibre found in veggies, cereals like steel-cut oats and beans, both lactoferrin and nondigestible fibre nurture beneficial gut bacteria and protect you and your gut bugs from stress-induced disruptions. That helps explain just how soothing mother’s milk can be to an infant (breast milk is packed with lactoferrin; cow’s milk ranks No. 2) and why prebiotics are essential for overall good health and a good night’s sleep throughout your life.
So here’s a preview of the prebiotics that’ll help you sleep well and keep your stress response in check.
• Veggies: Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, onions, leeks, asparagus, beets, fennel, green peas, Savoy cabbage, legumes.
• Fruits: nectarines, white peaches, persimmon, watermelon, grapefruit, pomegranate.
• Nuts and seeds: cashews, pistachios.
Hip-spine pain syndrome: What’s the cause and solution?
When AfricanAmerican songwriter James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and (perhaps) his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, penned the spiritual “Dem Bones,” they wrote: “The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone/Hip bone’s connected to the back bone.” True enough! Just ask folks with what’s called complex hipspine syndrome. They have lower-back and hip pain with no clear source of their discomfort.
Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City suggest a checklist for determining whether low-back pain that radiates to the butt, groin, thigh and even knees starts with problems in the hip or the spine. They recommend doctors take a detailed medical history, assess a person’s gait and range of motion through the back and hips. Then look at posture, lower limb and spine alignment, check for limb length discrepancy, previous surgery scars and use scans to get more info.
We say: If you’re suffering from lower-back pain that lasts more than six weeks (most lower-back pain is due to muscle strain that affects the nerves and goes away within six weeks), discuss those diagnostic steps with your doc!
The causes of hip-spine syndrome include arthritis in the hip, a blockage of blood flow in the hip, a stress fracture or a tear in cartilage around that joint. If the spine is the trigger, it may be from a herniated disc, pinched nerve, narrowed spinal canal or joint problems in the sacroiliac. Fortunately, there are effective treatments for hip and spine pain, including acupuncture, physical therapy, medications and surgery.
Great grains
In the 2008 animated movie “Bolt,” the main character is an eponymously named dog, who’s a Hollywood star. When Bolt comes across two pigeons who admire his work, Blake and Tom (and their assistant, Billy, who is embarrassingly fanatic), Blake sends Billy on an errand, saying, “Why don’t you make yourself useful and go get me some breadcrumbs? Whole grain! Go!”
A pigeon with nutritional know-how? That may be more of a stretch than a movie-star dog (although there was Rin Tin Tin). But he got it right: Going with the grain can help your health take wings.
We’ve known that whole grains boost heart health, and now a tightly controlled study shows that they can help fortify good gut bacteria, strengthen your immune system, reduce inflammation and help you burn more calories.
In the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, each participant ate the same meals, except one group’s food was made with refined grains while the other’s food used whole grains. After two weeks, people on the whole-grain diet had more diverse gut bacteria; T cells with stronger memories, increasing protection against infection; and were burning more calories while at rest. The grain’s dietary fibre made other calories more digestible.
Do your own experiment, and try these whole grains: amaranth, barley, buckwheat, bulgur wheat, corn, farro, Kamut (a branded form of ancient wheat), millet, oats, brown rice, rye, sorghum, teff, triticale (hybrid of durum wheat and rye) and, of course, whole wheat. You’ll likely feel the difference, and we predict you’ll become a grain fanatic.
New immunization guidelines for kids and teens
The first known reference to malaria is in a Chinese medical text penned around 2700 B.C. Since then, no commercially available vaccine has been developed (one is scheduled for Africa next year, and others may be on the horizon). Upward of 430,000 people — mostly children — die annually from the disease.
Fortunately, there are effective vaccines against many other diseases (smallpox was declared eradicated in 1979), and in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues an annual update to help people use them most effectively. The 2017 advisory for kids and teens is out, and we recommend all the inoculations. (Your chance of having a problem versus preventing a life-threatening disease is one in 40,000.)
1. For the Hepatitis B vaccine: The birth dose of HepB should be administered within 24 hours of birth.
2. For human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine: Children 9-10 years old may be vaccinated (even in the absence of a highrisk condition). And the HPV vaccine has been updated to include the new two-dose schedule for persons initiating the HPV vaccination series before age 15. The bivalent HPV vaccine has been removed from the schedule.
3. For the flu vaccine: Live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) has been removed from the schedule. Hiberix has been added to the list of vaccines that may be used for the primary vaccination series.
4. For the meningococcal vaccine: The CDC stresses the need for a meningococcal conjugate vaccine booster at age 16.
For an unabridged list of changes, go to and search for “2017 Immunization Schedules.”
Cleansing the cleanse: better safe than sorry
This just in from the almosttoo-stupid-to-be-true department: Researchers at the University of Colorado investigating 10 years of toxicology records found that some folks in “alternative medicine circles” believe that drinking a solution of high-test, concentrated peroxide can be used for internal cleansing. That’s even though folks get sick and some have died ... because it’s poison!
Even the world’s most famous peroxide blonde, Marilyn Monroe, knew that peroxide goes on the outside, not the inside. (Irony of ironies, even though Ms. Monroe was the stereotypic image of a dumb blonde, she was actually a very sharp cookie who banked millions of dollars. Just one more reminder that you shouldn’t judge women on their outward appearance!)
Now, hydrogen peroxide, a very dilute form of peroxide, is useful for everything from keeping your kitchen clean to removing earwax (check out “8 Household Uses for Hydrogen Peroxide” at
But aside from gargling and spitting out a diluted form of hydrogen peroxide to treat gum disease — with your dentist’s permission, of course — it’s NEVER taken internally. Some surgeons use hydrogen peroxide to disinfect large open wounds and infected sores, but even those benefits haven’t been proven.
Interested in a safe cleanse? Try Dr. Oz’s Five-Day Summer Cleanse or a 48-hour weekend cleanse. But don’t go overboard. Stick with whole, organic foods and juices, and monitor how you are feeling. By the way, Dr. Mike doesn’t believe cleansing makes sense unless you’re going to change your nutritional behaviour and make healthy food choices every day for the rest of your life.