Ahwatukee StrengthLab Personal Training 480-612-7726

The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace

Book Description:

http://www.amazon.com/Combat-Psychology-Physiology-Deadly-Conflict/dp/0964920549/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385487989&sr=8-1&keywords=on+combat

The majority of people, the world over, confuse confidence for competence in others, and especially in themselves. It’s rather easy to instill confidence, but there’s a price to pay for competence and most aren’t willing to pay it.

NBC News

An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but if you want to live longer, a handful of nuts may be a better bet, researchers reported Wednesday.

The biggest study yet into whether nuts can add years to your life shows that people who ate nuts every day were 20 percent less likely to die from heart disease, cancer or any other cause over 30 years than people who didn’t eat them.

And not only that, nuts seem to help keep the pounds off, the team at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Harvard School of Public Health found.

“The most obvious benefit was a reduction of 29 percent in deaths from heart disease — the major killer of people in America,” said Dr. Charles Fuchs of Dana-Farber, who led the team. “But we also saw a significant reduction — 11 percent — in the risk of dying from cancer.”

Even peanuts, which technically aren’t nuts but legumes, helped. “We don’t see any difference in the benefits between peanuts and tree nuts,” Fuchs said.

The study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, is a follow-up to many different, smaller studies that have found all sorts of benefits from eating nuts. In 2003, on the basis of those findings, the Food and Drug Administration concluded that for most nuts, eating 43 grams a day, or about 1.5 ounces, as part of a low-fat diet, may reduce the risk of heart disease, Fuchs and colleagues wrote.

Studies have found that people who eat nuts have all sorts of biological benefits: less inflammation, which is linked to heart disease and cancer; less fat packed around the internal organs; better blood sugar levels; lower blood pressure — and even fewer gallstones.

In May, researchers reported that people already eating a healthy diet who added nuts or olive oil to their diets were less likely to suffer memory loss and in February scientists reported that they cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes by 30 percent.

Both reports were based on a randomized study, in which people were assigned to eat extra nuts and olive oil. These “randomized” studies are considered more powerful, because people don’t choose which diet to adopt, so other outside factors don’t interfere with the results. For instance, people who choose to eat nuts might also dislike meat, or they might like sweets, or they might exercise more or less than people who don’t think much about eating nuts.

But no large study has looked at whether these benefits translate to a longer life.

So Fuchs’ team looked at two big studies — the 120,000-person Nurses’ Health Study, which has been watching volunteers since 1976, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, involving more than 50,000 men and dating back to 1986.

They’re so-called observational studies — they cannot prove cause and effect. But they also were done in real-time — people were interviewed over the years, so they’re more likely to really show what was happening.

People were asked every few years how often they had eaten a serving of nuts: never or almost never, one to three times a month, once a week, two to four times a week, five or six times a week, once a day, two or three times a day, four to six times a day, or more than six times a day.

They threw out smokers and the obese and took into account weight, other aspects of diet and salt intake.

People who ate nuts seven or more times per week had a 20 percent lower death rate, the researchers found.

“In all these analyses, the more nuts people ate, the less likely they were to die over the 30-year follow-up period,” said Dr. Ying Bao of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  Just eating nuts every once in a while lowered the death rate by 7 percent over 30 years. Eating nuts once a week lowered the death rate 11 percent, while people who ate nuts five to six times a week had a 15 percent lower death rate.

“As compared with participants who consumed nuts less frequently, those who consumed nuts more frequently were leaner, less likely to smoke, more likely to exercise, and more likely to use multivitamin supplements; they also consumed more fruits and vegetables and drank more alcohol,” Fuchs and colleagues wrote.

It’s not clear what it is about the nuts that helps, says Fuchs. “We are really looking to understand what are the bioactive compounds in nuts,” he says. It might be that nuts replace unhealthy snacks in the diet, but he thinks something more is going on — perhaps an effect on inflammation or metabolism.

And people who ate nuts gained less weight over time than people who didn’t.

“Eating nuts and gaining weight don’t always go together. It’s a matter of portion control and moderation,” said NBC News  Health and Diet Editor Madelyn Fernstrom.

“As a good source of protein, heart-healthy fat, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and several antioxidants nuts are one of nature’s nutrient-rich foods,” Fernstrom said. “But stick to a handful. More than that daily might pack on the pounds.”

The study was paid for by the National Institutes of Health and the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation, but the Council had no say in how the study was done or how its results were eventually reported.

Fuchs says he’s changed his eating habits because of the findings. “As a matter of fact, I went to a movie theater last month and my wife got popcorn and I got almonds,” he says. “She asked me, ‘Did you do that because of the study?’ and I said, ‘Yes.'”

In nearly every example of client I have worked with in the last twenty years, the majority believe their body is where the improvement needs to take place; this is generally flat wrong.

It’s our minds that require improvement and the body will follow.

The goal is to remove all medications from our lives whenever possible; I have found many of us rely on medications believing them to be necessary when they are not.

It’s not the doctor or the medical establishment that does the healing in many cases when things go south within our bodies. In fact, we frequently recover from illnesses without any clear understanding or indication as to how or why; our bodies have their own internal wisdom at work here. We simply provide the tools: sound nutrition from clean water, fresh vegetables, fruit, lean proteins and whole grains; progressive, consistent exercise; adequate, uninterrupted sleep, as well as intermittent mental relaxation and the body will work its convoluted magic for us.

In survey after survey, the primary reason cited for not exercising, is lack of free of time – there’s simply not enough of it. However, surveys consistently find that those who do exercise regularly are just as busy as those who don’t. So, it’s really not a question of free time at all, that’s just an another excuse. It’s really a question of priority… we either take the time to exercise or we don’t.

The dietary fiber that we consume, and frequently too little of, is exclusively found in plant-based food and it’s typically undigestable; although it can be added to low-quality, processed foods to give the appearance of healthfulness. Fiber comes in countless variations within the cell-walls of plants (and the fruits and vegetables) it may bear. Dietary fiber should not be consumed through man-made purchased supplements, rather through whole foods designed by nature. Human engineering can’t rival the quality or the complexity of fiber found in it’s most natural state or it’s perfect delivery system. Moreover, whole foods (vegetables, fruits and grains) containing dietary fiber include numerous components that work to keep us healthy and their fiber create a sense of fullness that comes on us quicker and lasts longer compared to processed foods. Lastly, fiber works to clean the digestive system as it winds its way through the process, as well as absorbs unwanted products found within our digestive system as it speeds the process of digestion along.

This book stands alone as an introduction to the context of self-defense. There are seven elements that must be addressed to bring self-defense training to something approaching ‘complete.’ Any training that dismisses any of these areas leaves you vulnerable.

1. Legal and ethical implications. A student learning self-defense must learn force law. Otherwise it is possible to train to go to prison. Side by side with the legal rules, every student must explore his or her own ethical limitations. Most do not really know where this ethical line lies within them.

2. Violence dynamics. Self-defense must teach how attacks happen. Students must be able to recognize an attack before it happens and know what kind they are facing.

3. Avoidance. Students need to learn and practice not fighting. Learning includes escape and evasion, verbal de-escalation, and also pure-not-be there avoidance.

4. Counter-ambush. If the student didn’t see the precursors or couldn’t successfully avoid the encounter he or she will need a handful of actions trained to reflex level for a sudden violent attack.

5. Breaking the freeze. Freezing is almost universal in a sudden attack. Students must learn to recognize a freeze and break out of one.

6. The fight itself. Most martial arts and self-defense instructors concentrate their time right here. What is taught just needs to be in line with how violence happens in the world.

7. The aftermath. There are potential legal, psychological, and medical effects of engaging in violence no matter how justified. Advanced preparation is critical.

Any teacher or student of self-defense, anyone interested in self-defense, and any person who desires a deeper understanding of violence needs to read this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Facing-Violence-Unexpected-Rory-Miller/dp/1594392137

“The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realties, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.” Niccolo Machiavell

The Economist Sep 14th 2013

How the bacteria in your gut may be shaping your waistline

A CALORIE is a calorie. Eat too many and spend too few, and you will become obese and sickly. This is the conventional wisdom. But increasingly, it looks too simplistic. All calories do not seem to be created equal, and the way the body processes the same calories may vary dramatically from one person to the next.

This is the intriguing suggestion from the latest research into metabolic syndrome, the nasty clique that includes high blood pressure, high blood sugar, unbalanced cholesterol and, of course, obesity. This uniquely modern scourge has swept across America, where obesity rates are notoriously high. But it is also doing damage from Mexico to South Africa and India, raising levels of disease and pushing up health costs.

Metabolic syndrome can still be blamed on eating too much and exercising too little. But it is crucial to understand why some foods are particularly harmful and why some people gain more weight than others. Thankfully, researchers are beginning to offer explanations in a series of recent papers.

One debate concerns the villainy of glucose, which is found in starches, and fructose, found in fruits, table sugar and, not surprisingly, high-fructose corn syrup. Diets with a high “glycaemic index”, raising glucose levels in the blood, seem to promote metabolic problems. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital has shown that those on a diet with a low glycaemic index experience metabolic changes that help them keep weight off, compared with those fed a low-fat diet. This challenges the notion that a calorie is a calorie. Others, however, blame fructose, which seems to promote obesity and insulin resistance. Now a study published in Nature Communications by Richard Johnson, of the University of Colorado, explains that glucose may do its harm, in part, through its conversion to fructose.

Dr Johnson and his colleagues administered a diet of water and glucose to three types of mice. One group acted as a control and two others lacked enzymes that help the body process fructose. The normal mice developed a fatty liver and became resistant to insulin. The others were protected. The body’s conversion of glucose to fructose, therefore, seems to help spur metabolic woes.

You are what you eat, maybe

Even more intriguing is the notion that the same diet may be treated differently by different people. Four recent papers explored this theme. In one, published in Science in July, Joseph Majzoub, also of Boston Children’s Hospital, deleted in mice a gene called Mrap2. Dr Majzoub and his colleagues showed that this helps to control appetite. Surprisingly, however, even when the mutant critters ate the same as normal mice, they still gained more weight. Why that is remains unclear, but it may be through Mrap2’s effect on another gene, called Mc4r, which is known to be involved in weight gain.

The second and third papers, published as a pair in Nature in August, looked at another way that different bodies metabolise the same diet. Both studies were overseen by Dusko Ehrlich of the National Institute of Agricultural Research in France. One examined bacteria in nearly 300 Danish participants and found those with more diverse microbiota in their gut showed fewer signs of metabolic syndrome, including obesity and insulin resistance. The other study put 49 overweight participants on a high-fibre diet. Those who began with fewer bacterial species saw an increase in bacterial diversity and an improvement in metabolic indicators. This was not the case for those who already had a diverse microbiome, even when fed the same diet.

Jeffrey Gordon, of Washington University in St Louis, says these two studies point to the importance of what he calls “job vacancies” in the microbiota of the obese. Fed the proper diet, a person with more vacancies may see the jobs filled by helpful bacteria. In the fourth paper, by Dr Gordon and recently published in Science, he explores this in mice. To control for the effects of genetics, Dr Gordon found four pairs of human twins, with one twin obese and the other lean. He collected their stool, then transferred the twins’ bacteria to sets of mice. Fed an identical diet, the mice with bacteria from an obese twin became obese, whereas mice with bacteria from a thin twin remained lean.

Dr Gordon then tested what would happen when mice with different bacteria were housed together—mouse droppings help to transfer bacteria. Bacteria from the lean mice made their way to the mice with the obese twin’s bacteria, preventing those mice from gaining weight and developing other metabolic abnormalities. But the phenomenon did not work in reverse, probably due to Dr Gordon’s theory on the microbiota’s job vacancies. Interestingly, the invasion did not occur, and obesity was not prevented, when the mice ate a diet high in fat and low in fruits and vegetables. The transfer of helpful bacteria therefore seems to depend on diet.

Dr Gordon hopes to be able to identify specific bacteria that might, eventually, be isolated and used as a treatment for obesity. For now, however, he and other researchers are exposing a complex interplay of factors.

One type of calorie may be metabolised differently than another. But the effect of a particular diet depends on a person’s genes and bacteria. And that person’s bacteria are determined in part by his diet. Metabolic syndrome, it seems, hinges on an intricate relationship between food, bacteria and genetics. Understand it, and researchers will illuminate one of modernity’s most common ailments.

People suffering from depression may be aging  faster than other people, according to a new study from the Netherlands.

In the study of about 1,900 people who had major depressive disorders at  some point during their lives, along with 500 people who had not had depression,  researchers measured the length of cell structures called telomeres, which are  “caps” at the end of chromosomes that protect the DNA during cell division.  Normally, telomeres shorten slightly each time cells divide, and their length is  thought to be an index of a cell’s  aging.

The researchers found telomeres were shorter in people who  had experienced depression compared with people in the control group. This  suggests cellular aging in people with depression is accelerated by several  years, the researchers said.

The severity of a person’s depression,  as well as a longer duration of symptoms were linked with shorter telomere  length, and the results held after controlling for weight, smoking, drinking and  several other factors that may contribute to aging, according to the study  published today in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

“Psychological distress, as experienced by depressed persons, has a  large, detrimental impact on the ‘wear and tear’ of a person’s body, resulting  in accelerated biological aging,” said study author Josine Verhoeven, a  researcher at the Free University in Amsterdam.

NBC News Health 11-12-13

“The findings might  help explain the variety of health complaints often experienced by people with  major depression,” Verhoeven said.

Studies have shown that people with depression  are at increased risk for diseases that tend to come with aging — for example,  dementia, cancer and type 2 diabetes — even when health and lifestyle factors  are taken into account. This has raised the question whether depression  accelerates aging.

The length  of telomeres is measured in terms of their number of DNA building blocks,  called base pairs (bp). In the study, the telomeres in healthy people were about  5,540 bp long on average, whereas people with depression had telomeres about  5,460 bp long.

The study participants ranged in age from 18 to 65. In  line with previous studies, the researchers found that with each year of age,  telomeres shortened by 14 bp, on average.

The researchers showed an  association, but not a cause-and-effect relationship between depression and  shorter telomeres. It is possible that some other factor, such as a genetic  vulnerability, underlies both, the researchers said.

It is also possible  that telomere shortening is a consequence of impairment in the body’s stress  system.

“An important question remains whether this aging process can be  reversed,” the researchers said in their study. An enzyme called telomerase  elongates telomeres by adding nucleotides to the end of chromosomes, and its  possible that lifestyle changes could increase  the activity of telomerase, thereby lengthening telomeres, Verhoeven said.

“A healthy lifestyle, such as enough physical exercise, not smoking and  a healthy diet, might be of even greater importance in depressed individuals  than it is in the non-depressed,” she said.

Melissa Dahl NBC Today Health:

Myth 1: If you’re allergic to cats or dogs, it’s best to stick with hypoallergenic breeds.

Actually, there is no such thing as a hypoallergenic pet, Stukus says, because “every single pet will secrete allergens.” And it doesn’t make much of a difference if the pet has short or long hair, because the dander that people are allergic to doesn’t come from the fur – it comes from the animal’s saliva, sweat glands and urine. Even expensive, genetically engineered pets still secrete minor allergens, Stukus said.

OK, but what if you’re an animal lover who also happens to be allergic to pet dander? Stukus often gets that question. “The best response to that is even people with pet allergies, they may be fine around certain breeds and not around others,” Stukus says. The only way to figure that out, though, is to hang around different breeds and note how your body reacts. (Stukus tells his patients to “literally rub your face on the animal.”)

Myth 2: No bread for me; I’m allergic to gluten!

Two words these days that make any allergist sigh: gluten allergy.

“Gluten has been blamed for all that ails humanity,” Stukus says. But there are only three disorders you can attribute to gluten on a scientific basis, he says: celiac disease, wheat allergies and non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

“Then there’s this claim about ‘gluten allergy,’ which really doesn’t exist,” Stukus says. “It’s not really a recognized allergy. Wheat is a recognized allergy — but a lot of people will misinterpret that as gluten.”

Myth 3: Black mold can cause some truly terrifying diseases.

Google “black mold” and you’ll find websites linking it to some frightening maladies – things like seizures, fibromyalgia, bipolar disorder, cancer.

“This has been attributed to cause all kinds of ailments,” Stukus says. “But there is absolutely no scientific link of a causal disorder to black mold to any of these disorders.”

But the most black mold can do to you is cause allergic rhinitis and asthma symptoms — if, that is, you’re allergic to mold in the first place.

Myth 4: If you have an egg allergy, you should never get a flu shot.

This is a hot topic right now, Stukus says, as it is every flu season. Allergists understand the confusion: Egg embryos from chickens are indeed used to grow viruses in the production of several vaccines, like influenza, rabies, yellow fever and MMR. So these vaccines may indeed include tiny bits of egg protein, which sounds worrisome to someone with an egg allergy (or the parent of a kid with an egg allergy).

But unless people have a history of a severe reaction called anaphylaxis in response to eating eggs, flu shots are safe for people with egg allergies. Even in people who have severe allergic reactions to egg, the vaccine is still likely to be safe, but a referral to an allergist is recommended before getting a flu shot. (An egg-free vaccine, called Flublok, is also now available.)

As for the other major vaccinations — MMR is safe for anyone with a history of egg allergy, but rabies and yellow fever are not.

Myth 5: For little ones, the rules are these: No milk until age 1, no eggs until age 2, and no nuts until age 3.

Food allergies are a scary topic these days, especially for parents, says Dr. Stanley Fineman, who is an allergist at the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic and is past president of the ACAAI. But there is some old information that is still hanging around and causing confusion: In 2000, guidelines suggested restricting foods like milk, eggs and nuts in very early childhood.

Today, that recommendation has flipped around. There is no evidence to support avoidance of these highly allergenic foods past 4 to 6 months of age, Stukus writes in his presentation.

“In the allergy community, the stance has sort of reversed 180 degrees,” he says. “We used to think avoidance reduced allergies; now, we think early introduction leads to tolerance.”

The takeaway from all of this: Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

“Use the Internet for guidance, but don’t rely on it as your sole source of health information,” Stukus says. “It’s a great place to formulate questions that you can take to physicians.”

Testosterone therapy may boost serious risks in men with heart trouble

Watch any football game or a news program, and you’re almost sure to see one of those commercials about how a-little-dab’ll-do-ya of testosterone can banish the “low-T” blues and put spark back into your life.

The ads work. Almost 3 percent of American men aged 40 and older have been prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. According to figures compiled by BloombergBusinessweek, sales of testosterone drugs could reach $5 billion by 2017.

But a study released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association is sure to raise questions about the wisdom behind the testosterone rush. It finds that among men with previous heart troubles and low testosterone levels, the use of ‘low-T’ therapy boosted the risk of serious problems including heart attack, stroke — and death.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas reviewed records from more than 8,700 men with low-T levels who underwent coronary angiography — a procedure that uses dye and X-rays to peer into heart arteries — in the Veterans Affairs system between 2005 and 2011.

Of nearly 7,500 guys who did not get extra T, about 1 in 5 had bad cardiovascular outcomes, including stroke, heart attack or death. In the more than 1,200 men who got testosterone, nearly 1 in 4 had those terrible problems, an increased risk of nearly 30 percent.

The researchers concluded that taking testosterone came with an increased risk of an adverse outcome.

That’s not the whole story, though. Dr. Anne Cappola of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania wrote in an accompanying editorial: “The most important question is the generalizability of the results of this study to the broader population of men taking testosterone ….”

That’s a very big caveat: By definition, all the men in the study were older than 60 and all had heart problems. It’s still not clear whether those same risks apply to younger, healthier guys.

“These were sick, older veterans,” Dr. Michael Ho, a cardiologist with the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System who helped direct the study, said in an interview. Many were obese, had diabetes, and other ailments, he said.

Dr. Bradley Anawalt, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington, agreed — but only to a point.

“This is a modestly cautionary study about giving testosterone to men over 60 with multiple” health problems, he said in an interview.

Some men might do just fine with a little extra T, experts say.

Just ask writer Andrew Sullivan, who helped popularize testosterone therapy. Fifteen years ago he was lethargic, depressed, and suffering from drug-induced nausea brought on by anti-HIV medications. He was 35 years old, but his testosterone levels “were below those of most 80-year-olds. I was tested at the time and my doc was shocked by the low levels,” he told NBCNews.com in an email.

Sullivan began taking testosterone injections and was transformed. He wrote a widely read and influential essay for The New York Times magazine called “The He Hormone” that extolled the drug’s benefits. Today, Sullivan, 50, still takes testosterone via four-month implants.

“I have energy, am leaner, have more muscle mass, am motivated to work out and can sustain the kind of focus that a blog like mine demands,” he said.

Those are all reasons why many men beg their doctors for the supplement. Ho said this new study should inform doctor-patient discussion by helping to put testosterone use in better perspective.

Sullivan is far from alone, said Anawalt.

“I have men coming into my clinic who want to take it,” he said. “Maybe they are a little low but not truly hypogonadal. I can say, ‘Here’s a study that raises concerns.’ So I think it’s helpful from that perspective. But if these guys are 30, 40, 50 and don’t have heart disease, well, the study doesn’t relate to them, so if they read it carefully, they can call my bluff.”

Like all so-called observational studies, this one has several limitations. For example, it’s not known how many of the men taking testosterone were properly diagnosed and tested for levels before being given a prescription. Morning blood sampling is the preferred way to test for testosterone, and most endocrinologists prefer two separate tests. Levels below 300 nanograms per deciliter of blood is considered low.

If you’re shrugging and wondering what to make of it all, you’re like many experts. Almost all agree there are many unknowns about testosterone supplementation. That’s why, Anawalt explained, medicine has swung back and forth over the past two decades.

At first, many physicians worried giving men any extra testosterone could lead to prostate cancer, something Sullivan said his doctor discussed with him 15 years ago. As anxiety over that issue moderated, doctors realized that a large group of men had low T levels, Anawalt said, and that “there were now lots of options to treat.”

Sullivan started with injections, which cause testosterone spikes, a problem avoided by newer implants and gels.

“T may have positive effects for bone, sex life, muscle, moods. So it’s gone from something of a boutique area of medicine to mainstream,” Anawalt said.

But there’s been no huge, comprehensive study akin to the famous Women’s Health Initiative that tracked hormone replacement outcomes in post-menopausal women. Nor is there likely to be given the enormous costs and complicated logistics.

That leaves doctors looking at a mixed bag of study results.

For example, the current study was partly inspired by a 2010 publication in the New England Journal of Medicine that examined older men with an average age of 74. These men also had a high burden of chronic disease. The men who were taking testosterone had more cardiovascular events such as heart attacks.

But last year, a larger study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism showed that among male veterans over 40, those taking testosterone had lower rates of death than those who were not.

To further confuse matters, recent research pointed out that testosterone does not work alone. Men also need estrogen.

For men with drastically low testosterone, like Sullivan, the drug has been a boon. Other than slightly smaller testicles, he said, there have been “no downsides at all from my perspective.”

But experts like Anawalt worry that many men now see testosterone as an elixir. If nothing else, the current study should give them pause. “Rational people should be thinking about this. Like, ‘Wait a minute. Do I really want to take this?’”