Last week I had the pleasure of hearing from several leading doctors, health practitioners and thought leaders as I attended the online Future of Nutrition Conference, which was presented by The Institute for the Psychology of Eating. I wish I had enough time to hear every speaker but unfortunately my schedule only allowed me to listen to a few people each day. The ideas presented were both progressive and insightful and I thought it would be nice to share some notes from most of the presenters that I did listen to. I’ve linked to the websites of these experts (just hover over their names to see the link) so you can discover some new resources for information on the important topics of nutrition and nutrigenomics. There were plenty of overlaps and I learned a lot.
It’s possible to purchase the entire conference, which includes all 50+ interviews in video, audio and transcript format for just $149 if you purchase by 11:59pm (EST) Monday, Feb 3! The price goes up to $249 after that. In the meantime, you can listen to some encore presentations for FREE until 5pm today here.
Donna Gates
Digestive Health into the Future
- Inflammation underlies every health condition.
- Candida can be systemic. It’s very dangerous but can be brought under control. It produces acetaldehyde, which is a chemical compound usually produced when a person drinks alcohol.
- Toxins and being sick can cause us to be bloated and look puffy.
- For healthy digestion, recommends:
- Fermented foods: fermented vegetables, fermented foods you make on your own, Coco Kefir, Inner Eco, fermented coconut oil for newborns
- Enzymes: most of us don’t have enough hydrochloric acid (HCL); sugar destroys good bacteria and feeds pathogens
- Wrong kinds of fats destroy good bacteria and cause inflammation
- Need to de-stress
- Gut infection = brain infection (vagus nerve)
Sara Gottfried, MD
Hormones, Health and More
- For women, the most important hormone balance for managing weight is cortisol-thyroid/estrogen/insulin-leptin; for men it’s cortisol/testosterone/thyroid
- Insulin needs to be perfectly balanced; if you’re struggling, get your hormones checked
- Nutritional gaps are leading to “thyro-pause”
- The first things that need to be corrected are:
- Cortisol (too high or low)
- Not enough copper, zinc and selenium
- Not enough vitamin D
- Bioidentical hormones are a last resort
- Women have way more thyroid problems than men do and women are less resilient to inflammation
David Katz, MD
A Physician’s Wisdom on Nutrition and Health
- There is “stealth sugar” in food products like pasta sauce, salad dressing, bread, crackers, pretzels, chips and cereal.
- There’s nothing wrong with human physiology, the problem is with our environment.
- When enough of us vote at the cash register that we’re only eating the good stuff, food companies will stop buying it.
Jared Koch
Clean Eating, Clean Living
Has a wonderful concept in Clean Plates – helps you find healthy, sustainable restaurants in New York, Los Angeles and Austin.
Chris Kresser
Great Ideas in Paleo, Personal Health and Integrative Medicine
- Saturated fat consumption, on average, doesn’t increase cholesterol
- Pregnant women and people with chronic infections may want to eat less protein
- Paleo diet great for fertility
Liz Lipski, PhD
A Holistic Understanding of Digestion and Health
- Food is information and nutrients can turn gene signaling on and off
- Folate is very important
- Important tests: C-reactive protein, vitamin D, MTHFR, heavy metals (QUESI free online)
- Work with a good nutritionist or integrative doctor
- If men stop drinking when they are trying to get pregnant with their partners, babies have higher birthweights and IQs
Andrea Nakayama
Wise Advice from a Functional Nutritionist
- Functional medicine gets to the root cause of any illness
- Recommends keeping a “food-mood-poop” journal to help you pay attention and make connections
David Perlmutter, MD
Nutrition and the Brain: The Latest Research
- Low fat diets aren’t good for you – we need fat
- Referred to latest research showing that higher fat means less dementia
- Statin drugs aren’t good for us
- Carbohydrates can be really destructive
Cate Shanahan, MD
Nutrition, Epigenetics and New Clinical Insights
“Four Pillars”:
- Fresh food
- Fermented and sprouted foods
- Beef on the bone
- Organ meats
Mary Shomon
A Holistic Approach to Thyroid Health
- Thyroid testing is not part of your annual doctor’s visit and exam
- People have to be proactive and their own advocates
- A proper thyroid exam should include:
- The doctor should feel your thyroid to look for enlargement or irregularities
- Reflexes – very quick or very slow is bad
- Puffiness under eyes or swelling of hands/feet
- Ask about your hair and skin
- Blood pressure
- Look for thinning at outer edge of eyebrows
- Family history
- Talk about your symptoms, diet and exercise
- Labs: TSH, Free T4, Free T3, thyroid antibody panel, Reverse T3
JJ Virgin
Powerful Insights from One of America’s Favorite Nutritionists
- Food sensitivities and allergies are huge
- Gluten, dairy and sugar are highly addictive
- Swaps: yogurt for a vegan smoothie, milk for almond milk or cashew milk, tortillas for coconut wraps, pasta for quinoa pasta
- Recommended Arcana chocolate – no sugar
Helayne Waldman, Ed. D
Women, Nutrition and Breast Health
Also at: http://www.turning-the-tables.com/
- Most patients undergoing traditional cancer treatment are missing out on the nutritional and lifestyle practices that are essential to their recovery. Have their treatment and then are told nothing, see you in six months for your next scan, when there are numerous and extremely important things that they could be doing in the meantime to prevent reoccurrence.
- Selenium is very helpful
- Blood sugar and inflammation are the big risk factors; millions of people have metabolic syndrome, which creates an environment that is hospitable for cancer
- Insulin is a growth hormone – helps tumors grow
- Bitter melon is great for down-regulating key markers
- Curcumin is a potent anti-inflammatory
- Whole food based diet:
- Low sugar and low in inflammatory fat
- High in pure grass-fed meat and wild fish
- Fairly low-carbohydrate
- For prevention of breast cancer, doctors should measure and monitor:
- C-reactive protein
- Hemoglobin A1C
- Fasting insulin
- Recommends the book, Toxic Beauty by Samuel Epstein about highly dangerous chemicals in our personal care products
- Important nutritional deficiencies many people suffer from that are key:
- Vitamin D – steroid hormone and if you take it you have to also take vitamin K2 because it mobilizes calcium and tells the calcium where to go; otherwise it can end up in places like breast tissue or arteries
- Vitamin E – can inhibit cancer blood vessels and help induce apoptosis; need to have all the different forms of vitamin E, not just one form (there is a family of vitamin E forms)
- Magnesium – responsible for catalyzing (activating) 700 different metabolic processes in the body
- Protects cells from heavy metals
- Essential for cell survival
- We can’t get enough from our food
- Stress depletes it quickly, so especially important when you have cancer
- Likes magnesium chloride transdermal or lotion (Ancient Minerals)
- Zinc
- Cellular function in breast is compromised when deficient
- Improves progesterone
- Iodine
- Bromide, fluoride, chlorine and other chemicals compete with iodine
- Fibrocystic breasts are a dead giveaway that you have iodine deficiency
- Can do an iodine loading test
Remember, you can purchase the entire conference, which includes all 50+ interviews in video, audio and transcript format for just $149 if you purchase by 11:59pm (EST) Monday, Feb 3! The price goes up to $249 after that. In the meantime, you can listen to some encore presentations for FREE until 5pm today here. The Institute for the Psychology of Eating also has other great offerings, including their Eating Psychology Coach Certification Training and a breakthrough public program, Transform Your Relationship with Food.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating and will receive a small commission from the proceeds of any sale made via the institute’s links in this post. Be assured that any income goes to maintaining the free information I provide on this website.
