Friday, December 9, 2016

Newly discovered bacteria-binding protein in the intestine

Deficiency in a certain protein in the gastrointestinal tract has been shown to lead to both inflammation and abdominal fat accumulation in mice. The discovery provides yet another piece of the puzzle of how humans are affected -- or not -- by the large quantities of intestinal bacteria we carry with us.
In the study from Sahlgrenska Academy, researchers have addressed the key role of the bacteria-binding protein ZG16 in protecting the body from intestinal bacteria.
"The hope is that eventually, we'll be able to administer this protein to improve protection against bacteria in patients with a defective barrier," says Joakim Bergström, postdoctoral researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy.
Joakim Bergström is in Professor Gunnar C. Hansson's research group, which, eight years ago, was first to discover that there is a protective mucus layer in the intestine that separates intestinal bacteria from the intestinal surface.
Clumping bacteria together
The thick mucus layer prevents the large quantities of bacteria people typically have in the gastrointestinal tract, one to two kilos, from reaching the body's tissues and causing inflammation or other harm.
Structurally, this protective barrier is made of proteins (mucins) that are formed and secreted by the goblet cells of the gastrointestinal tract.
The discovery has led to a brand new area of research and has been followed by numerous findings about how the mucus layer is created, is maintained, moves, and is damaged.
The new research shows that the protein ZG16 binds and clumps bacteria together and thus works with the protective mucus layer in the intestine to keep bacteria at a safe distance from the intestinal mucosa.
Mice that lack the protein develop a mucus layer that is more permeable to bacteria, allowing more bacteria to cross the intestinal mucosa into the body. The increased quantity of bacteria that reach the body's various tissues cause low-grade inflammation.
Improved understanding
The bacteria that slip through from the intestine also led to increased abdominal fat accumulation in the mice that had a defective mucus barrier due to the lack of the protein.
The research group has previously shown that the mucus layer is permeable to bacteria in patients with the gastrointestinal disorder ulcerative colitis and in mouse models of inflammatory bowel disease. The finding of a specific protein that helps prevent bacteria from entering the body is important for the understanding of inflammatory bowel diseases and of the origins of more general diseases such as obesity and inflammation.
"It's becoming very clear now that a significant amount of bacteria leaks through the intestine into the body, which plays a role in inflammatory diseases, and even obesity, at least in mice. This indicates a principle that is probably quite universally applicable," says Gunnar C. Hansson.

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Materials provided by University of GothenburgNote: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
  1. Joakim H. Bergström, George M. H. Birchenough, Gergely Katona, Bjoern O. Schroeder, André Schütte, Anna Ermund, Malin E. V. Johansson, Gunnar C. Hansson. Gram-positive bacteria are held at a distance in the colon mucus by the lectin-like protein ZG16Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016; 113 (48): 13833 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1611400113

Role of protein in pancreatic secretion suggests potential method for treating diabetes

Movement of secretory molecules, such as hormones and digestive enzymes, out of the cell is known as exocytosis. This process is guided by SNARE proteins, which help the fusion of secretory vesicles with the plasma membrane. Thirty-eight human SNARE proteins have been identified, each with its own tissue expression and intracellular localization. One such SNARE, SNAP25, is particularly well characterized, being involved in the release of neurotransmitters as well as insulin secretion from pancreatic b cells. The closely related SNAP23 protein promotes vesicle fusion in many nonneuronal cells, including pancreatic cells, although its exact role depends on the cell type. The pancreas has both exocrine (digestive enzyme secretion through ducts) and endocrine (hormone secretion into the blood) functions, and SNAP23 was known to participate in the endocrine function of pancreatic b cells and the exocrine function of acinar cells in the laboratory. However, the in vivo function of SNAP23 was unknown.
To investigate this, a team of researchers led by Masataka Kunii, Akihiro Harada at Osaka University together with collaborators across Japan developed two mouse models with the Snap23 gene specifically knocked out in either b cells or acinar cells. The study was reported in The Journal of Cell Biology.
Loss of SNAP23 in acinar cells produced mice with reduced exocytosis of inactive digestive enzymes and lower secretion levels of the enzyme amylase. Conversely, loss of SNAP23 in b cells increased the frequency with which insulin vesicles fused with the plasma membrane, enhancing their secretion. These findings suggested opposite roles for SNAP23 in the endocrine and exocrine pancreas.
Because of the similarity between SNAP23 and SNAP25, the two SNAREs compete with each other for binding to other proteins. However, complexes containing SNAP23 are less stable than those with SNAP25, and less efficient at promoting vesicle fusion with the membrane. The researchers exploited this to show the disruption of SNAP23 enabled more SNAP25-containing complexes to form which enhanced processes, such as hormone secretion, that are reliant on vesicle-membrane fusion.
Extrapolating from this, the team predicted that SNAP23 inhibitors could be used as a novel treatment for diabetes by increasing insulin secretion. They screened a library of compounds and identified one, MF286, which bound specifically to SNAP23 but not SNAP25. MF286 was shown to increase insulin secretion both in vitro and in vivo and to improve glucose tolerance by blocking formation of the SNAP23-containing SNARE complex. It also reduced amylase secretion from pancreatic acinar cells, suggesting that it could be used to treat both pancreatitis and diabetes.

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Materials provided by Osaka UniversityNote: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
  1. Masataka Kunii, Akihiro Harada, et al. Opposing roles for SNAP23 in secretion in exocrine and endocrine pancreatic cellsThe Journal of Cell Biology, 2016 DOI: 10.1038/jcb.201604030

Key regulator of bone development identified

Loss of a key protein leads to defects in skeletal development including reduced bone density and a shortening of the fingers and toes -- a condition known as brachydactyly. The discovery was made by researchers at Penn State University who knocked out the Speckle-type POZ Protein (Spop) in the mouse and characterized the impact on bone development. The research, which appears online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on December 5, 2016, redefines the role of Spop during bone development and provides a new potential target for the diagnosis and treatment of bone diseases such as osteoporosis.
"The Spop protein is involved in Hedgehog signaling -- a well-studied cell-to-cell communication pathway that plays multiple roles during development," said Aimin Liu, associate professor of biology at Penn State and the corresponding author of the study. "Previous studies done in cell culture suggested that Spop negatively regulates or 'turns down' Hedgehog signaling. However, in our study, we show that Spop positively regulates the pathway downstream of a member of the Hedgehog family, a protein called Indian Hedgehog, during bone development. This new understanding adds to our knowledge of the genetic basis of bone development and could open new avenues to study bone disease."
Indian Hedgehog (Ihh) plays an essential role in bone development. It is near the top of a hierarchical cascade of genes that program cells to produce cartilage and bone. Ihh controls gene expression by regulating the activity of the transcription factors -- proteins that control the expression of other genes -- Gli2 and Gli3. Gli2 acts mainly as an activator of gene expression and Gli3 acts mainly to repress gene expression. The Spop protein tags the Gli proteins to be degraded in the cell.
"Previous studies led to a hypothesis that a loss of Spop function would increase Hedgehog signaling because the Gli activators were no longer being degraded," said Hongchen Cai, a graduate student at Penn State and an author of the paper. "We were surprised to see in our study the repressor of gene expression, Gli3, built up in developing bone, but not the activator of gene expression, Gli2. This imbalance led to an overall decrease in Hedgehog signaling."
In order to study the role of Spop in bone development more closely, the researchers knocked the gene out specifically in the limb. Limbs that lacked Spop had less dense bone, mimicking osteopenia -- a human condition characterized by low bone density, but not as severe as osteoporosis. The limbs also had shorter than normal fingers and toes. The researchers also showed that the effects of losing Spop could be mitigated by simultaneously reducing the amount of Gli3 in the limbs.

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Materials provided by Penn StateNote: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
  1. Hongchen Cai, Aimin Liu. Spop promotes skeletal development and homeostasis by positively regulating Ihh signalingProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016; 201612520 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1612520114

New tool to help predict dementia risk in older people

A machine learning method analyzing large amounts of health information has potential in assessing the risk of cognitively healthy older people for later dementia, according to research published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. The new risk assessment tool also presents the individual risk profile in a quickly interpretable visual form.
Preventing dementia is a major public health priority worldwide, and intense work is being conducted to formulate effective preventive strategies. Healthy lifestyle changes may help prevent cognitive decline and dementia, but the challenge is to detect early on those who are most at risk and to choose the most relevant preventive measures.
Recent developments in dementia prevention research include large online Brain Health Registries, multinational data discovery and sharing platforms, and internet-based prevention trials. Dealing with large amounts of health information -- "big data"- is a challenging consequence of these developments. Machine learning represents a type of artificial intelligence where a group of methods is used to teach computers to make and improve predictions based on large datasets. These methods are just starting to be used in the context of dementia prevention.
A team of medical doctors and engineers from Finland and Sweden addressed these challenges using a novel machine learning approach. They developed a dementia risk index -- a tool for assessing people's risk of dementia and for indicating the most relevant target areas for preventive measures. An added advantage of the tool is the ability to show detailed individual dementia risk profiles in a visual format that is easy to interpret.
Risk index predicted dementia ten years before onset.
The research team used data from the Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) study conducted in Eastern Finland. Study participants were cognitively normal individuals aged 65-79 years from the general Finnish population who underwent detailed health-related assessments, including memory and other cognitive tests. The dementia risk index performed well in identifying comprehensive profiles for predicting dementia development up to 10 years later. The main included predictors were cognition, vascular factors, age, subjective memory complaints and apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype.
The researchers conclude that the risk index could be useful for identifying older individuals who are most at risk, and who may also benefit most from preventive interventions. They emphasize that the risk index is not meant for dementia diagnosis, but as a tool to help with making decisions about dementia prevention strategies, i.e. to whom these should be targeted, and what risk factors should be specifically addressed based on the visual risk profile.
"The results of our study are very promising, as it is the first time this machine learning approach was used for estimating dementia risk in a cognitively normal general population," says the lead researcher, Alina Solomon, MD, PhD, from the University of Eastern Finland.
"The risk index was designed to support clinical decision making, and we are very keen on exploring its potential practical use. However, we still need to validate this risk index in other populations outside Finland. We also need to investigate if it works in people older than 80 years, and if it can monitor changes in dementia risk over time, for example as a response to lifestyle interventions. These are some of the next steps we are planning now,"Dr Solomon adds.
"Large health information databases contain a lot of valuable information which is still partly hidden and under-exploited. Modern machine learning methods can be used to extract patterns of data that may be difficult to observe just by looking at the data by eye. Our objective has been to detect patterns that predict whether a person is more likely to get dementia in the future. Another area of interest has been how to present all these complex data in a simple form to make these modern technologies useful for clinicians and general public interested in dementia prevention," says Jyrki Lötjönen, PhD, one of the co-authors in the study and chief scientific officer at Combinostics Ltd.

Story Source:
Materials provided by IOS PressNote: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
  1. Timo Pekkala, Anette Hall, Jyrki Lötjönen, Jussi Mattila, Hilkka Soininen, Tiia Ngandu, Tiina Laatikainen, Miia Kivipelto, Alina Solomon. Development of a Late-Life Dementia Prediction Index with Supervised Machine Learning in the Population-Based CAIDE StudyJournal of Alzheimer's Disease, 2016; 1 DOI

6 Ways to Recover Better

Your postworkout recovery is just as important as your training.

With time in short supply, it’s easy to overlook recovery. It makes sense that if you’re going to dedicate part of your limited free time to fitness, you want to make every minute count toward your end goal. Sitting in a cold tub, on a massage table or in compression boots hardly feels like work. It’s a lesson many learn the hard way: If you aren’t resting well or actively recovering from your training, you will be injured sooner or later.
Recovery is like stretching and is the overlooked third component of fitness. While cardio burns calories and makes you faster and strength training makes you stronger and more defined, stretching isn’t necessarily going to give you ripped abs or a faster run time. But stretching will help you recover, and you must recover well in order to train hard.
When we train hard, we deplete glycogen. When those stores aren’t replenished, our performance suffers. Furthermore, skeletal muscle damage impairs the ability for blood glucose to aid in repair. Therefore, it’s essential that you look at recovery as preparing your body for battle.
Think of recovery as active rest — part injury prevention, part inflammation response and tissue repair, and part peace of mind. The bottom line is that rest, recovery and maintenance are pillars to your training foundation in the same way that sets, reps and proper equipment are.
Here are six ways to ramp up your recovery:

Sleep

It’s widely touted that poor sleep contributes to poor health and chronic disease, but science corroborates that sleep also directly correlates to performance. Again, balance is critical. While not getting enough sleep is bad, getting more than nine hours of sleep also contributes to poor health and will leave you feeling groggy for your workouts.

Eat and Hydrate

Besides the work you put in, the most important variable in your training and performance is nutrition and proper hydration. The same goes with your recovery.
Water helps with reduction of delayed onset muscle soreness. Eggs and nuts are good sources of protein that aid in tissue repair. Dark-colored fruits (berries) also accelerate the elimination of waste products.

Meditation

One of the integral components to your athletic and fitness-related performance is to mitigate stress. The realms of sport and fitness can be fraught with physical and emotional stress, and finding ways to eliminate stress will help you move forward more quickly.
Meditation practice not only can reduce stress but also can aid you in coping with pain, strengthening your immune system and helping you focus. Meditating is even shown to help you sleep better. Try 10 to 20 minutes every day.

Tissue Repair

Your city may have a recovery lounge that offers many therapeutic modalities (hot and cold tubs, compression, e-stim and laser therapy) to help you repair your musculature. Whether you’re a professional athlete, weekend warrior or fitness geek, regular treatment at a recovery studio will help you perform better. Even one hour a week can help immensely.

Kinesiology Tape

While studies vary on the effectiveness of kinesiology tape, you can’t watch an athletic performance these days without seeing plenty of taped-up bodies. Whether the effect is placebo or scientific is debatable, but one thing is certain, athletes feel better using kinesiology tape. When it comes to mobility, range of motion and simply how you feel, kinesiology tape is a worthwhile tool in aiding recovery.

Periodization

Periodize your regularly scheduled maintenance. To best prepare for each and every season and fitness goal, you must periodize your programming. Changing your routine into specific periods should include proper and regularly scheduled maintenance.
As your workload increases, so should your scheduled maintenance. Having the right maintenance practitioner can help you assess your needs and recover properly. A skilled practitioner (chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, reiki master, etc.) might just be the missing ingredient in your training.

Short Circuiting Your Conditioning

Get back to your training roots with these DIY circuits that build muscle, burn fat and improve conditioning.

For many a first-time gym-goer, the journey to a stronger, fitter body began at some rudimentary circuit — some neatly sequestered, dated set of machines that provided a safe, controlled introduction to the wide world of resistance training. And after training a few movement patterns, it was time to take that newfound strength to the free-weight area. From this point, most people never look back — circuit training is forever associated with newbie status and is therefore mothballed.
But circuits still hold as much utility as they ever did. You just have to be willing to think beyond the innocuous confines of that initial bank of machines. With a little creativity, you can rekindle your relationship with circuits, adding heaps of new muscle and stripping your body of unwanted fat in less time.

Why Circuits?

Your initial foray into circuit training wasn’t just some willy-nilly, haphazard way to get you training, even if it was recommended to you by some pushy salesman in a red polo. There’s a method to the madness. Although circuit newbs are welcome to take the exercises at their own pace, the near-universal recommendation is to complete a certain amount of reps — generally 10 — then move as quickly as possible to the next station. This process is repeated until the entire circuit is completed. A circuit usually comprises eight to 10 exercises, one for each muscle group.
By keeping your resistance and rep counts in known hypertrophy ranges and pairing that with relatively short rest periods (about 30 seconds), you could see improvements in strength, muscle size and stamina. The best of most worlds.
It is worth noting that although dedicated circuit trainers will never win a deadlift competition or the CrossFit Games, they will experience appreciable improvements across multiple domains of fitness. One of the greatest benefits? A welcome departure from the usual lift-things-up-and-put-them-down approach that can be so painfully repetitive.

Circuits 2.0

While circuits are great, machine training has plenty of limitations, chief among them being that machines work in a preset range of motion — one that neglects your body’s natural movement. With free weights, movement usually occurs in subtle arcs; very few movements occur in straight lines. This means that with machines you’re missing out biomechanically, leaving you vulnerable to strength gaps and imbalances, and impeding your ability to move athletically in multiple dimensions.
Another big drawback? Doing the same 10 exercises three times a week is the lifter’s equivalent to filling out those TPS reports for Bill Lumbergh — just agonizingly boring. In order to progress, you have to incrementally introduce new challenges to your body. That means new movements, shorter rest periods, advanced techniques, new exercise pairings, different equipment and other variables that can rejuvenate an ailing gym life and stoke new and exciting changes in the mirror. Revisiting circuit training can help you do that.
But as a more experienced lifter, you are likely proficient with multiple forms of exercise and equipment and your own bodyweight. This opens up a whole new world in the training variety department. However, when trying to circuit train away from your gym’s “machine row” — especially during the facility’s rush hour — you have to be wary of equipment usage (yours and others’). You don’t want to hog the 30-pound dumbbells for a half-hour while you’re whizzing through your eighth or ninth round. That’s why it pays to break up your circuit work into several smaller-but-strategic circuits that take equipment use into account, keeping you in the good graces of those you share the floor with.

Rewiring Your Circuitry

These four short circuits can be done individually as add-ons at the end of a workout or they can be strung together — as many or as few as you’d like — to create a supercircuit of epic, sweat-soaked magnitude.
Perform each circuit three or four times through. Rest no longer than 30 seconds between circuits.
The venerable kettlebell is one of the most valuable (and fun) workout tools to come into wide use in recent memory. In this circuit, you’ll start out with a simple two-hand kettlebell swing. The explosive nature of this hip hinge calls for a high degree of energy, which is why it comes first. This exercise targets your glute-ham tie-in while strengthening the whole of your posterior chain musculature. The upright positioning of the body during the goblet squat emphasizes your quads while also taxing the deep stabilizing muscles of your core, which is what makes it a good second move. The half Turkish get-up we’re recommending isn’t textbook — this variation is essentially a single-sided, weighted crunch, calling for you to flex your midsection to lift your shoulder blades off the ground as high as possible. This imbalance places a high (and unfamiliar) demand on your obliques.
In the interest of furthering the global arms race, we’re offering up this circuit-based arm routine for an out-of-this-world shock to lagging biceps. The supine dumbbell curl places you in a position similar to the preacher curl but without the stabilizing comfort of the bench. With your elbows hanging freely below the level of the bench, you are forced to stabilize your arms in place, thereby necessitating more deliberate, controlled reps. This move, which is akin to a Scott curl, places greater emphasis on the inner head of the biceps. The familiar seated dumbbell curl, which is the strongest move for many avid curlers, is a bit more of a challenge as the second move in this circuit. Finally, the two-arm row — which is obviously targeting your back — requires additional elbow flexion, only now in concert with other pulling muscles. It’s the perfect finish for a small-but-mighty biceps circuit.
Exercise
Supine Dumbbell Curl 10 
Seated Dumbbell Curl 10 
Two-Arm Dumbbell Row 10
The barbell is the undisputed king of strength and size development when it comes to gym equipment. Here, we’ll call for the judicious use of three key exercises that hit your body from head to toe. Leading off, of course, is the barbell squat. This staple mass builder requires a great deal of energy because of how much musculature is involved. With an emphasis on the large muscles of the hips, quads and low back, the squat should be done with a weight that you can handle for 15 to 20 total reps. This should put you within range of a good overhead pressing weight — if it doesn’t, make a quick adjustment down or have another fixed barbell at the ready. Standing overhead presses aren’t just about bigger delts — the standing position requires laser-like focus and a rock-solid core in order to complete your reps cleanly and without catastrophic injury, even at moderate weight loads. The good morning finishes off your now-tender lower back and reinforces the hinging movement that you’ve been practicing with kettlebell swings.
Bodyweight is your best friend. After rolling through your weight work, you can confidently abandon all equipment (not including a pull-up bar) for this circuit. The pull-up, which should be worked on year-round regardless of goals, comes first. Perform 10 clean pull-ups using any grip that you’d like, then move immediately into 10 plyo push-ups. On each push-up, it is vital to transfer as much force as possible through the floor in order to maximize height and fast-twitch muscle recruitment. You’ll finish with 10 big jump squats before resting 30 seconds and repeating the circuit.
The venerable kettlebell is one of the most valuable (and fun) workout tools to come into wide use in recent memory. In this circuit, you’ll start with a simple two-hand kettlebell swing. The explosive nature of this hip hinge calls for a high degree of energy, which is why it comes first. This exercise targets your glute-ham tie-in while strengthening the whole of your posterior chain musculature. The upright positioning of the body during the goblet squat emphasizes your quads while also taxing the deep stabilizing muscles of your core, which is what makes it a good second move. The half Turkish get-up we’re recommending isn’t textbook — this variation is essentially a single-sided, weighted crunch, calling for you to flex your midsection to lift your shoulder blades off the ground as high as possible. This imbalance places a high (and unfamiliar) demand on your obliques.
Exercise
Kettlebell Swing 10
Goblet Squat 10 
Half Turkish Get-Up 10 (each side)

Common Pull-Up Mistakes

Here are some simple and easy solutions to widespread pull-up technique errors.

The Flaw: Kipping
The Fix: Here’s the deal — if you’re doing CrossFit, pumping out high reps of pull-ups and you’re experienced with the technique, go ahead and kip. But if your goal is to build maximal upper-body pulling strength and lat size, stick to strict pull-ups with no momentum created by the lower body. Heck, even CrossFit gyms prescribe strict pull-ups on a regular basis these days.
The Flaw: Stopping short at the bottom
The Fix: Pull-ups are tough, so it’s tempting to stop at the bottom of each rep when the arms are still bent 20–30 degrees. Don’t do it. Go down all the way, until the elbows are fully extended. It may decrease your rep counts, but you’ll be bigger and stronger in the long run.
The Flaw: Sticking to one grip
The Fix: As with any major movement, grip variety is highly recommended with pull-ups to increase strength from all angles and arm positions. Don’t just use the grip you’re best at. Mix in at least three different hand placements on a regular basis — wide (at least shoulder width) and overhand, narrow and underhand (aka chin-ups), and neutral (palms facing each other if the pull-up station you’re using has parallel bars). Use a different grip every workout or even every set.

Friday, December 2, 2016

Why Can’t I Lose Weight Check List

If you’re struggling to lose weight perhaps you’re missing something! Below I’ve listed 8 tips that you need to check and ensure you implement for maximum weight loss. Below, perhaps is the key to why your results are slow or non existent. Check the list if you’re not losing weight!
Weight Loss Check List
1. Cleanse your body and remove toxins. Toxin build up will suppress your immune system and slow metabolism. Slow metabolism equals slow fat loss.
2. Visit the bathroom regularly at least 2-3 times a day. If you’re not regular you’re constipated and have a slow metabolism; you could benefit from a colon cleanse, colonics or a juice fast.
3. Eat 5-6 small meals every day, every 3-3 ½ hours. Meals should consist of a lean protein, starchy carb and a fibrous carb. Each group should be about the size of a fist.
4. First meal of the day should be the largest and at least 30 minutes from waking.
5. Last meal of the day should be the smallest and at least 2-3 hours before bedtime.
6. Exercise with resistance at least 3 times a week. Perform cardiovascular exercise at least 5 times a week.
7. Use breathing exercises to increase oxygen consumption and boost metabolism. A simple breathing exercise is to breath in (inhale) for 8-10 seconds filling up both upper and lower lungs, now hold for 8-10 seconds then exhale and fully empty the lungs for 8-10 seconds. Do this every day for at least 2 minutes. The goal is to increase the oxygen intake and hold times.
8. Identify how you see yourself. I identify the image you hold in your mind when you think of yourself. You will never change or outperform the image you hold of yourself in your mind. If you see yourself as fat or overweight you will constantly sabotage your efforts to maintain the image of the fat or overweight person you hold in your mind.
Conclusion
Put these tips to use right now for weight loss success! Be sure to check off each item and implement it today for immediate success!

Friday, November 18, 2016

Injury prevention: How to stretch properly

Stretching is commonly misconstrued as using a certain muscle group often or a quick tug on the muscle. Many of my patients state that they are surprised their muscles are tight since they “remain active,” “run often,” or “stretch a lot.” When I ask them to demonstrate their stretches, they generally show a poor form hamstring stretch held briefly and maybe show one or two other ineffective stretch positions.
Preventing athletic injuries and keeping your body fit must include stretching—the right way. As we play sports and participate in regular workouts and athletics, some muscle groups continue to strengthen and, thus, shorten. We must be aware of this change so we can incorporate an effective stretching routine to prevent muscle imbalances from developing and causing injuries.
It is also important to consider postures we typically hold ourselves in while working 40 hours per week. Commonly, we sit in the car to get to work, sit a computer for several hours, sit for meals and relaxation, all contributing to common patterns of muscle tightness.
Once you identify which of your muscles are tight, you can begin putting together a daily stretching program to target these muscles. Commonly tight muscles I see are hip flexors (upper front of thighs), quadriceps (front thigh to knee), hamstrings (back of thighs to knee), neck and chest muscles. If you need help identifying your specific tight muscle groups, your local Physical Therapist can assist you and provide specifics on proper form to effectively stretch these areas.
All stretches should be held at moderate intensity (approximately 6-7/10 intensity) for at least 30 seconds. Bring the muscle into the stretched position and hold steady (no bouncing) while deep breathing. After 30 seconds, remove pressure for a few seconds and then repeat the stretch at least three times. Our muscles have elastic properties that respond quickly to steady, consistent stretching. You will notice the intensity of the stretch reduces during the hold, allowing you to stretch a little further with time and subsequent repetitions.
Stretching should not be confused with “warming up.” While warming up is critical to prevent injuries as well, it does not involve stretching the muscles as I have described above. Rather, an effective warm up is a lighter version of the activity in which you are about to engage. For example, walking briskly or light jogging before a run. Usually 10-15 minutes of this light activity is an effective way to bring blood flow and "warmth" to the muscles required for the higher level activity. I recommend the actual stretching to be completed after the warm up or after your workout when the muscles are their loosest.
Your stretching routine can be completed in less than 10 minutes at the end of your workout. Another great method of exercise that focuses on stretching and complements all athletes' workouts is yoga. Completing this on a weekly basis is an effective way to stretch and maintain lengthened, balanced muscles. Neither requires a lot of time to add to your current workout routines when you consider the pay off of preventing an avoidable muscle strain injury, tendinitis, bursitis or even a complete muscle tear requiring surgical repair.

4 Gut Problems That Trigger Inflammation (Even If You Eat Healthy)

by Dr. Will Cole
Ditching processed junk for real, whole foods can do amazing things for our health. I’ve seen countless cases of lives being improved by the power of food medicine.
But what happens when, after adopting a clean, plant-based lifestyle, you hit a plateau? What happens when your symptoms flare up when you start eating better? I have seen many patients who eat very clean but still have health issues.
There are many possible reasons why eating healthy alone is not enough. But one of the most common underlying issues I often see is found in the microbiome.
Your microbiome is the trillions of bacteria and yeast that live in your gut and on your skin. The microbiome is home to around 80 percent of your immune system and 95 percent of your “happy” neurotransmitter serotonin. Often called your “second brain,” it helps control your moodweighthormones, and even your genetic expression.
Thousands of years ago, Hippocrates, the father of medicine said, “All disease begins in the gut.” Now, science is catching up with antiquity. Because your gut is foundational to almost every other system of your body, if you have a chronic or autoimmune condition, chances are it has at least a microbiome component to it – even if you aren’t experiencing digestion symptoms.
If you’re eating clean but are still experiencing health issues, there are four underlying gut problems to look for:
1. Leaky gut syndrome
When your intestinal lining is damaged, undigested food particles and bacterial endotoxins called lipopolysaccharides (LPS) can pass through the gut lining, leading to systemic inflammation throughout your body.
In functional medicine, leaky gut syndrome is seen as an almost precondition for autoimmune diseases and many other health problems.
What to do: Eating a clean diet takes out most of the immunoreactive and inflammatory foods like gluten, sugar, and bad fats, which is a great start. There is a chance though, that years of eating poorly in the past, medications, or just living in a modern toxic world could have caused chronic food intolerances.
When the gut is chronically damaged and an inflammatory-immune response has been triggered, your immune system can react to the healthiest of foods. I have seen bone broth, kale, and just about every other nutrient-dense food be a source of inflammation in some people.
In addition to getting functional medicine labs, an elimination diet is the first step to uncovering food intolerances and healing your gut.
2. Bacterial imbalances
The delicate balance of your gut garden is essential for health. Conditions like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and other bacterial dysbioses are linked to numerous health problems.
Anxiety and depression have been linked to lower levels of Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum, and weight gain was linked to higher amounts of Firmicutes.
When someone with dysbiosis or SIBO starts to eat healthier and increases their vegetable intake, it can cause more gut problems, like constipation and bloating. But it is the underlying microbiome issue, not the vegetables, that is the root problem.
What to do: In addition to getting labs done to assess your microbiome levels, you should also consider a FODMAP intolerance. Foods like onions and garlic are just two of the healthy foods that will flare up digestive problems and inflammation in someone with FODMAP intolerance.
Natural antibiotics such as oregano oil, garlic, and uva ursi are some tools I use to help address bacterial overgrowths.
Probiotic combinations of Bifidobacteria, Enterococcus and Lactobacillus have also been shown to have a positive effect on SIBO.
3. Histamine Intolerance
One specific intolerance that I often find in people with leaky gut syndrome and bacterial overgrowths is histamine intolerance.
Histamine intolerance occurs when there is a dysfunction or deficiency of the enzymes that break histamines – chemicals produced during an allergic reaction – down. Without the enzymes to effectively get rid of excess histamine, the overflow can cause a lot of problems. There are also foods that naturally contain histamine, or trigger the release of histamine in the body.
What to do: Histamine intolerance can easily be found in people who eat healthfully, because many whole foods are high in histamine.
Fermented foods (kefir, kimchee, sauerkraut, and yogurt, for example), bone broth, and legumes (like chickpeas, beans, soybeans, peanuts) are all foods that are higher in histamine and can trigger inflammation for people with histamine intolerance.
Even with healthy foods, what works for one person may not be right for you.
4. Yeast overgrowth
We all have some yeast in our gut microbiome, but overgrowths of yeast such as Candida albicans can cause chronic low-grade inflammation and immune stress. People with an already weakened immune system or autoimmune problem can find a candida overgrowth to be a trigger for more health problems.
What to do: Fermented foods are generally good for us, but they don’t work for everyone. If you have candida or another yeast overgrowth, foods like sauerkraut and kimchee can feed the yeast. Certain probiotic supplements that contain prebiotics can also feed overgrowths.
I generally suggest waiting until after the die-off phase of candida removal before adding these foods back in. This can take anywhere from weeks to months, depending on the severity of the case. For a full list of my tips to fight off candida overgrowth, read my article.
What now? How to achieve optimal gut health:
Do you remember when you started living a healthy lifestyle and it was a little overwhelming? Dealing with microbiome issues might cause the same feelings of “Where do I even start?”
If you feel like you may have one of these gut problems, here are three simple action steps to point you in the direction of health:
Step 1: Consider functional medicine labs.
The first step to the functional medicine approach is finding out the root dysfunctions that give rise to chronic and autoimmune health problems.
Blood and stool labs can give you a detailed look at your microbiome, the levels of your specific bacteria and yeast, rule out leaky gut syndrome, give insight to food intolerances, and measure your autoimmune reactivity.
Step 2: Look at stress levels.
Even if you’re eating clean, being chronically stressed can sabotage your body’s ability to heal. Chronic stress has been shown to suppress the immune system, decrease blood and oxygen flow to the intestines, and increase gut lining permeability.
Finding ways to regularly de-stress like mindfulness meditation, tai chi, yoga, or just spending time in nature can be a piece to your healing puzzle.
Step 3: Consider personalized functional medicine.
We are all different, and there is no “one size fits all” to regaining your health. If you’ve cleaned up your diet but still have health problems, I recommend working with a qualified functional medicine practitioner.
Keep in mind that we are all on health journeys. We are all learning what works for our body and what doesn’t. Give this journey, and yourself, grace and patience.
If you want to learn more about your own health case please check out our free health evaluation. We offer in person as well as phone and webcam consultations for people across the country and around the world