Posts Tagged ‘vitamins’

Surfing is Life

Monday, June 28th, 2010
It doesn't get any better than this!

It doesn't get any better than this!

Legend has it that surfing began in the Hawaiian Islands hundreds of years ago. In the late 1800’s, it was introduced to the U.S. mainland by way of southern California. Duke Kahanamoku, an Olympic star in swimming from Hawaii, helped popularize the sport by traveling internationally and demonstrating his surfing style. He is credited with surfing the longest wave ever in 1917, at a break called Outside Castles in Waikiki. The 1000 meter long wave that he surfed is a record that has yet to be broken.

Surfing became known in the Santa Cruz area, at the northern edge of Monterey Bay, began in the early 1930’s, 30 years before the epic surfing movie “Endless Summer” was released. Even today, Santa Cruz is known throughout the world as a mecca for peeling point breaks, and is certainly one of the best surf spots in California.

I love surfing Santa Cruz waters. To me, it is really the pinnacle of pristine California coastal beaches, a place where you can still hear the driving surf guitar of Dick Dale and feel the relaxed atmosphere of surf living. Pelicans, sea otters and often dolphins join you as you play in the water. Just magic.

I surfed Pleasure Point this weekend with an old friend on two windless days. Warm, waist- to head-high surf launched from a southern swell beginning in New Zealand and entering Monterey bay in perfectly peeling corduroy sets. Poetry.

In my other life as a surgeon, a craft like many others, I have learned to appreciate and enjoy the smallest details in life. For details matter in surgery, let this be clear. But they are not the ends, only the means, to a much larger whole that they constitute. Witness the healing and restoration of patients after complex microsurgery.

Surfing is also rich with details. The size, pitch and break of the swell, the aura of the murmuring ocean and breaking tide. The contour, rail, and rocker of the hand shaped board, and the trim of the body on board as it silently cuts through water.  Like surgery, surfing reaches an almost spiritual realm not only through the sensations conveyed by innumerable associated details, but also through the sublime and intoxicating feeling that, at least for a moment, one is in control of life.

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Baby Making Tips

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
The most fun he ever had without laughing

The most fun he ever had without laughing

You might have “practiced” the art of baby making for quite a while. But have you actually tried to make a real baby? What does it mean when a couple says they’re “trying”, besides jettisoning the condoms, scheduling free time, and practicing your “sore throat” voice for calling in sick to work. No one teaches you the nitty gritty of baby making in sixth grade sex ed classes. So, here are some of the finer points.

First of all, your chances of conceiving decrease if the two of you are under stress. Frequent travelling, major life changes, a long sickness, being vetted for the Supreme Court, running a start up with a gazillion hours weekly, are terrible for getting one “in the mood.” If the body is under stress, it’s in the primitive “fight or flight” response, and it’s not exactly in the mood to reproduce. So to improve your chances, decrease your stress level by eating well, sleeping well, staying healthy and relaxed, and treating your body right. If you are chronically overworked, you may consider decreasing or delegating your responsibilities. If this isn’t possible, force your body to relax with exercise, yoga, massage or acupuncture. Also, quit smoking, drink no more than two glasses of alcohol daily and avoid hot tubs and hot baths (showers are fine).

Like many things in life, timing is everything. Eighty percent of pregnancies occur when sex takes place before or during ovulation, which is the time when a woman’s ovary releases an egg for fertilization. But how to tell when ovulation is occurring? The most accurate way would be with an “ovulation predictor kit” purchased at any drugstore. Like a pregnancy test, it uses urine to determine if ovulation is about to occur. The old-fashioned method, which also works well, would be to pay attention to her basal body temperature. To do this, she should take her temperature first thing in the morning, for a string of consecutive days during the middle of her monthly cycle. There should be a dip in her temperature, followed by a rise. This indicates ovulation.

Once you know that the egg is on its way, intercourse is best performed every other day. Men need time between ejaculations to “reload”, and daily intercourse may not give a man enough time to do so (sorry guys). As for the act itself, studies have shown that no particular position is best. Research is suggesting that the two of you can bend yourselves into pretzels, if desired, with no effect on your chances of conceiving or on the gender of the child.

Baby making is a special experience. And, it’s fun! As Woody Allen said in the movie Annie Hall, ”…sex is the most fun I ever had without laughing.” If you think about it, what I am suggesting is that you and your partner make it a habit to take the best care of yourselves, just as you are going to take the best care of your child. Set the example for the new family and enjoy the ride!

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Breakfast: The Best Fuel For the Engine

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Run clean, run hard, run fast...with breakfast

Run clean, run hard, run fast...with breakfast

Most Americans wake up, rub the sleep out of their eyes, clean up and rush out the door. Breakfast is an afterthought. But soon after that, stomachs start to growl for some food energy. But by now it’s gotten a bit too late, and no oatmeal or egg will suffice. It’s time for doughnuts, or candy at the receptionist’s desk, or the potato chips in the vending machine.

There’s a good reason for this behavior. It’s called blood sugar. And blood sugar is at its lowest upon waking. Hypoglycemia is associated with slowness, dullness, sleepiness, crankiness, and it sparks feelings of hunger. For sugar. And once we have it, we feel sated and comfortable again, not to mention more awake, because sugar gives us a burst of adrenaline. Tasks are done with a flourish. Until about 10 o’clock in the morning. Then there’s another crash.

The high levels of sugar in our blood cause the pancreas to secrete insulin. With the help of insulin, sugar moves from the blood stream into the body’s cells to do work. This lowers blood sugar levels again, and the body goes back to feeling irritable and hungry. And so we make a midmorning beeline for the Jelly Bellies to receive another jolt, another spike in our blood sugar, and the vicious cycle continues. In the end, this cycle causes weight gain and fatigue, and affects overall and sexual health.

One thing can help with this, and that’s something called “breakfast.” Statistic after statistic tells us how important breakfast is, especially one that contains whole grains and protein. The Imperial College of London found that people who ate breakfast were far less likely to give in to fatty foods later in the day. Another study showed that drinking fat-free milk at breakfast helped people to feel fuller, more satisfied and to eat fewer calories at lunch. Yet another study reported that people who ate two eggs for breakfast lost 65% more weight and felt more energetic than people who ate bagels for breakfast. And the list goes on. Suffice it to say, starting the day with a good breakfast should help you to actually lose weight and improve your overall health and sex life. It is by far the most important meal of the day.

Eating a proper breakfast, before you get too hungry, makes it easier to resist sugar cravings and helps you make healthier choices at lunch and dinner. Stick to whole foods and grains as much as possible, and include protein in your breakfast. A well designed breakfast takes longer to digest and will cause less of a spike in your blood sugar. Apples or bananas paired with almond or peanut butter, for instance, could pass for breakfast. Whole grain toast with nut butter; yogurt and fruit with a handful of nuts; even a protein shake can make the grade. Opt out of the French toast and go for the scrambled eggs. Another trick is to make breakfast more convenient than a trip to Starbucks. Get it into your system before a croissant does. Trust me, the rest of the day will be a cakewalk.

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You Are The Pill That You Eat

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Amber waves of grain, the stuff of our Neolithic ancestors

Amber waves of grain, the stuff of our Neolithic ancestors

At some point as we evolved, well after the Neolithic period, we started thinking that there must be a better way to get nutrients, something faster and more efficient, than through the food we have eaten for tens of thousands of years. Our fantasy of the future was encapsulated with TV shows like The Jetsons and Star Trek, where roast chickens and earl grey tea were produced by the touch of a button. Nowadays, grocery stores offer fruit smoothies, breakfast bars, energy drinks and microwave pizzas, so we can fuel up quickly and efficiently. Why sit down when you can eat while running? We take vitamins with the idea that we can rectify any potential deficiencies and even prevent illness, with the swallow of a pill. How simple, how easy, how efficient.

As a society, we are in love with “nutriceutical” supplements. About half of all adults take a multivitamin everyday and it is estimated that $75 billion worldwide is spent annually on nutriceuticals. And nonvitamin and nonmineral natural product use is so prevalent in the U.S. (40% of Americans) that the National Institutes of Health has even commissioned a new branch devoted entirely to the pursuit of complementary and alternative medicine research. This effort will undoubtedly unleash the true potential of alternative medicine. But let’s drill down on vitamins for a minute. What does the evidence really show? Well, it appears that taking vitamin supplements may not as beneficial as previously thought. Several major studies have now shown that vitamin supplements do little to prevent cancer and heart disease, while other studies report that vitamins and antioxidant supplements may actually increase cancer rates. One study concluded that folic acid supplements actually increased rates of precancerous colon polyps, and another study linked beta-carotene to higher lung cancer rates. Are vitamins then, failing us as supplements?

No one discounts the necessity of vitamins for our body’s function. Indeed, many diseases are associated with a deficiency in one or another vitamin. But we do place rather high expectations on vitamins. It’s rather narrow-minded of us to tout only a few particular nutrients in food and assign them letters of the alphabet, when many others may be just as essential to our primitive bodies, yet are unfamiliar to us intellectually. Vitamins do not exist in a void, but are part of a complex mixture of substances called food that is the real stuff of life. If anything, the fact that vitamins are getting an F in cancer prevention suggests that the way that they are absorbed in a pill is not the same as the way we extract them from whole foods that we eat.

My patients frequently ask me what supplements they should take to enhance their sexual health or fertility. The truth is that because sexual health is so thoroughly intertwined with overall health, I emphasize a whole-body approach. I don’t recommend a specific course of supplements, but antioxidants may have some value. If they wish to take a supplement, they may, but the important thing is that they get all nutrients necessary for their bodies to function optimally. The real solution to this is a well-balanced diet low in fat and sugar, emphasizing whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. That said, I do realize how resistant many people can be to changing their diet. If a patient feels they must take a supplement to compensate for poor eating habits, I steer them towards whole food supplements that contain a larger and more complex spectrum of nutrients than that found in traditional multivitamins. In all honesty however, I firmly believe in carrots from the earth and apples from trees, just like our Neolithic ancestors did.

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