Over 80% of the population uses the mood-altering stimulant 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine. But let’s just call it by its common name: caffeine. So many rely on daily doses of this powder taken from plants in the tropical or subtropical regions of the world. The caffeine found in these plants contains a naturally occurring pesticide that is toxic to insects and a variety of other common pests. Regardless of your source, the caffeine you “may” depend on in the morning helps you wake up, stay alert, and push you through another day. This is because caffeine stimulates your feel good hormones to increase your “get up and go” feeling. When reviewing a patient’s medical history, I frequently see side effects of caffeine that result in unwanted health complaints that depend on your level of tolerance and sensitivity. Removing or reducing the amount of caffeine has resulted in a dramatic reduction on symptoms. Here are a few: Jitters: Too much caffeine can cause moderate to severe shaking. Insomnia: Consuming caffeine in late afternoon. Although in some patients this can be as “late” as drinking caffeine at 12:00 noon causing difficult sleeping. Addiction: Since caffeine can be addictive, withdrawal headaches are common High Blood Pressure: Caffeine releases stress hormones resulting in elevated blood pressure. Anxiety: Increase in nervousness or sense of heightened anxiety. Caffeine Doses: see chart below.. You may have heard of the term adrenal fatigue or adrenal burnout, this may also be a side effect of excess caffeine consumption. What is excess? It depends…..there are too many personal variables . You’ll have to determine this yourself if you are stuck on the caffeine habit.
A good adrenal complex support supplement will help recharge your system if you find yourself exhausted. If this doesn’t help, give us a call to look further into the root cause of your fatigue. TIP If you are trying to cut back on caffeine, do it slowly. Try to reduce your daily intake by 10% every 2 weeks. Remember, this article doesn’t address the added ingredients to your morning caffeine shot such as sugar, high fructose corn syrup HFCS (loaded with mercury) and other sweeteners. I know, you're saying to yourself……”one more thing I can't eat or drink.” Remember......if you are suffering from a health condition then you have to begin somewhere…Moderation is the key. Change The Way You Heal,
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Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Aristotle Economou.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Dr. Economou. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there. Nothing takes the place of personal experience. This is why as a doctor I understand the difficulties my patients face when dealing with a personal health challenge. Happy Holidays! The first step to slow the aging process is to clean up the accumulated “toxic stuff” sitting in our bodies for the past 12 months or more! Yes, I know you have your favorite anti-aging products but remember healing the skin is from the outside-in and inside-out! Unfortunately the toxins accelerate aging by increasing the oxidation (think rusting patio furniture) and inflammation. The result: stiff and painful joints, fatigue and low energy levels, difficult weight loss and aging skin! Some of us age faster than others and it shows….. in part due to the amount of toxins store in our bodies. There’s no better way for you to start an anti-aging program than detoxifying. At the end of this blog, I’ll share a new at home detox program that I love and that’s amazing for detoxing. Our patients are reporting stellar results. There are two primary causes for disease and accelerated aging: (1) nutrient levels go down (2) toxicity levels go up. Let's Talk Arsenic. It’s Not Just in Rice Arsenic contamination of ground and drinking water has become an almost silent global health catastrophe. It leads to liver cirrhosis, NASH (fatty liver, the #1 liver disease now), diabetes, kidney damage, heart attacks, as well as cancers of the skin, liver, bladder, kidney, and lung. But levels are high in those who eat a lot of chicken, since arsenic is a common insecticide powder used to kill body lice on fowl raised in close quarters. Aside from the recent discovery that arsenic can be a contaminant in rice, we rarely hear about it. That’s in part because it’s but one of thousands of unavoidable nasty environmental chemicals that erode our health. But worse, we don’t hear about it because there is no easy solution for it. So arsenic continues to be one of the myriad of unavoidable chemicals that drive our epidemic of chronic diseases. Yet like any chemical, it has multiple ways of damaging our genetics, energy producing mitochondria, and cell membranes needed for producing healing and anti-aging. Since arsenic is also a heavy metal, it does even more damage. For it can kick minerals out of enzymes and then bring the activity of those enzymes to a screeching halt. Fortunately, there are many ways to combat the dangers of this heavy metal and other toxins. Examples range from basic foods like pomegranate juice, green beans, brassica every day such as cabbage, arugula, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, radishes, collard greens and cauliflower! The goal is to make sure every day you have phyto-nutrients, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, and whole foods to balance out the destruction of ubiquitous yet unavoidable environmental toxins. In the meantime, here are my new favorite anti-aging 2-month detox kits and cleanse: This way you can get rid of even more stored disease-promoting chemicals especially as a new year cleanse, including heavy metals like arsenic. Health is merely a question of getting enough support to enable you to restore nutrient levels, lower toxin levels and start slowing the aging process in the new year! To order click on product: (while supply last) Change The Way You Heal, Sources • Naujokas MS, et al, The broad scope of health effects from chronic arsenic exposure: update on a worldwide public health problem, Envi- ron Health Persp 121; 3:295-302, 2013 • Rogers S. Total Wellness 12.2017 • El-Demerdash, FM, et al, Ameliorating effect of curcumin on so- dium arsenate-induced oxidative damage and lipid peroxidation in differ- ent rat organs, Food Chemical Toxicology 47:249-54, 2009 • Zhu YG, et al, Exposure to inorganic arsenic from rice: a global health issue, Environmental Pollution 154:169-71, 2008 • Gamble M the, et al., Folic acid supplementation lowers blood arse- nic, American Journal Clinical Nutrition 86; 4:1202-9, 2005 • Choudhury S, et al, Pomegranate protects against arsenic- induced p53-dependent ROS-mediated inflammation and apoptosis in liver cells, J Nutr Biochem 38:25-40, 2016 • Tennant J, Healing Is Electrons, 4 volumes and courses, tennantin- stitute.com Whether it's spiritual, mental, vocational, family, social, physical health or well being... Are you trying to make a decision with the unknown? The following is part 2 of an article written by Dr. Joe Dispenza. He was featured in the film: "What The Bleep." It is a must see movie. (Click here for part 1) When it comes to stepping into the unknown, intellectualizing a process or problem won’t cut it. In fact, I often find it’s the people who perform this kind of incessant analysis who feel the most fear and insecurity when confronted with the unknown. The reason is because they’re constantly analyzing themselves, their actions, and their place in the world within the emotions of fear, lack, insecurity, or unworthiness. If they instead understood that all these feelings are an emotional record of the past, they would understand that the very act of overanalyzing and overthinking means they’re looking for a solution within the emotional domain of the past. It means they’re thinking in the past rather than the possibilities of the future. If you’re trying to create a new future, thinking within the emotions of the past it’s not going to help—and it’s certainly not the place you want to be focusing your energy. Take this, for example. Let’s say you had an amazing, expansive morning meditation. It was so real that it seemed like you could see, smell, taste, hear, and touch your future creation. If how you think and how you feel broadcasts an electromagnetic signature, when all your mind and heart is engaged in that vision of the future, you are connected to the energy of that future. Why? Because you’re in a vibrational match with that electromagnetic potential that already exists as a possibility in the quantum field. But if when you came back to your senses you went right back into the fear or insecurity, the moment you recoil in fear of the unknown, you’re no longer connected to the energy of your future, or even seeing your future, because you’re looking at it through the lens of the past. Instead, you’re actually fulfilling your own prophecy because, by broadcasting the same energy, you are creating your past all over again. And that’s just where your energy is—in the familiar reality of your past. It’s only when you get beyond the emotion of fear and move into the unknown—despite the fear—that you turn your fear into passion and courage. Now all the sudden you can begin to see your future again…and you stop recreating your past. Overcoming Fear to Create the Future
The body is going to react to the fear. It’s going to recoil, shake, twist your heart, and upset your stomach in anxiety, but that’s just because it’s confronting the unknown. That’s our limited animal state driven by the hormones of stress. The people who stop and change fear into an elevated emotion, despite anxiety and the body’s resistance, will tell you they too were afraid about stepping into the unknown, but their passion for their vision was greater than their fear. They will also tell you the effort was worth the reward of what they found on the other side—liberation, freedom, wholeness, and more self-love. It makes sense that the emotions of your future dreams should be the emotions you’re living by when you are conscious in your everyday life, because the moment you disconnect from these emotions you’re back to feeling lack and separation from your future. But if you’re staying in that elevated emotional state of the future throughout your day, and your passion for your vision is greater than your fear of the unknown or fear of failure, then your body feels like that future event has already happened. This is how we transcend the emotion of fear, one day at a time. That’s why we’re training and doing all these meditations in the first place—to condition our brain and bodies out of the past and into the future until we think and feel in a more elevated way all the time. That’s a new state of being with a new energy—a new personality which is intimately connected to a new personal reality. When we feel like what we’re creating has already happened (because we are living by those elevated emotions throughout our day), we’re less likely to wonder if we’re doing something wrong, and less likely to analyze, intellectualize, or overthink why our future hasn’t yet happened. In fact, if we feel like our future has already happened, we will be less likely to try to force, predict, fight for, or control outcomes in our life. Why would you do that if you conditioned your body into feeling like that new future has already happened? If you truly and repeatedly conditioned your body to feel thankful, appreciative, empowered, free, and in love with life every day, then in time it makes sense that you would trust your future completely. And chances are likely that stepping into and trusting the unknown will create a whole bunch of new opportunities that you would have never seen coming—that you would have never known until you stepped out of your predictable life and into the unknown future. The bottom line is this: to create something new in our lives requires a series of daily steps into the unknown. So the questions is—are you ready to take that first step into the unknown—and stay there? The following is part 1 of an article written by Dr. Joe Dispenza. He was featured in the film: "What The Bleep." It is a must see movie. The Unknown Will Never Let You Down: Part I. Everywhere I teach in the world, many people tell me they want to experience the unknown, yet when push comes to shove they want it on their own terms. Here’s the catch—if something comes to you on your own terms, then it’s not an unknown. It’s a predictable known. So, what does it mean to step into the unknown? Everything we create begins with an internal idea, thought, concept, or image, whether it’s health, wealth, a relationship, buying a home, writing a book, composing a song, and so on. For some people, however, when external circumstances (such as serendipity, coincidences, and synchronicities) appear in their lives that are in alignment with that internal vision, they become paralyzed—paralyzed by the fear of failure, fear of success, fear of what other people will think, and a host of other reasons. Rather than continuing to follow the signposts and clues towards the next step, they stop just short of bringing their creation to fruition, when in fact, if they just continued to move deeper and trust in the unknown, they may have found themselves with a whole host of new possibilities opening up before them. Instead, they desperately look for more external validations rather than making the necessary choices that are in alignment with that future vision. Here’s the truth about these decisive moments of our lives: If you can’t trust the circumstances, things, or events that show up in your life, then you don’t trust the unknown; and if you don’t trust the unknown, then you don’t trust in your creation; and if you don’t trust in your creation, then you don’t trust in yourself; and if you don’t trust in yourself, then you don’t trust in possibility. (Click here for part 1)
Facing Off with the Unknown From the time we’re children, we’re conditioned into believing the unknown is a scary place, so the moment we step out of our comfort zone into the unknown, even if we feel insecure, at least insecurity feels safe because it feels familiar. Insecurity then is a daily baseline emotion, and because it’s so familiar we have no problem keeping it under control. Most of us operate in low levels of insecurity every day, but when we decide to put something on the line—when we take a risk, step out of the known and predictable, and declare that we want to be defined by a vision of the future instead of a memory of the past—it makes sense that this unknown future is going to feel uncomfortable. The fact that you’re no longer in familiar territory only serves to magnify that insecurity. Now, even though the voice of insecurity has always been there, it’s clinging to the known, and in its desperation, it becomes the loudest voice in our head. The truth is we’ll never grow unless we face the challenges the unknown presents. Brushing up against the unknown is a big deal for a lot of people and it’s something I witness all the time. Seeing people recoil in the face of it inspires me to do the opposite—to throw myself further headlong into the unknown. Why? The fact that so many people are afraid of it shows me I need to dive deeper into it. That’s the kind of effort that makes us feel more alive, and that’s the kind of effort that brings us into contact with an immaterial essence or resource within us—that part to us which is greater than the individual self. If all possibilities exist in the quantum or the unified field—that invisible field of intelligence that is organizing and unifying all the laws of nature (which we could call the mind of God or the very fabric of everything material)—when you stop trusting in possibility, then you not only stop trusting in yourself, but you’re no longer trusting in the divine. Then what? Then you’re back to your animal nature—trying, wishing, wanting, hoping, begging, fighting. You’re back to the same person trying to create something new on your own terms again—the same old personality trying to create a new personal reality. The bottom line is, if external circumstances are showing up that are in alignment with your internal vision, don’t overthink the decisions that lead you further into the unknown. Those synchronicities are simply the universe calling you to step into your new future. Instead, those events should be seen as signs pointing you towards that direction. So why not see it as proof that your outer reality is beginning to unfold equal to your inner vision? And why not take the energy of the elevated emotions these ‘coincidences’ create—like excitement and inspiration—and use that new energy to create the next opportunity? If you keep doing this repeatedly, you’ll discover you’re moving further away from familiar territory into even more possibilities. Then you will believe more in yourself, possibility, the unknown, and the divine that lives within you even more…and most importantly—that you are the creator of your life instead of the victim of it. In part II of The Unknown Will Never Let You Down, I’ll discuss how you can turn your fear into passion and courage, and how you can trust the future that has been calling you and waiting for you to answer. (Click here for part 2) It’s that time of year again. The stress of the holiday season is upon us and your New Year’s health goals are just around the corner. This is a reminder to make your concierge care or house call appointments soon. Our concierge program is for those who need more personalized care or have a busy schedule day or night. We understand the importance of your time.
You will experience customized care in the comfort of your residence, workplace or hotel without being stuck in traffic to make your doctor’s appointment. If your annual Nutrition & Heavy Metal Toxicity evaluation is due please remember it takes up to 21 days for results. Hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday!!! A new study reveals prenatal stress has a physical effect on babies. Researchers report prenatal maternal stress in late gestation leads to slower growth of the offspring both in utero and during infancy. Researchers from The Universities of New Mexico and Göttingen have now proposed a hypothesis that largely predicts why there are highly variable patterns in the growth rates of disadvantaged offspring across 719 studies on 21 mammal species. “The idea is that prenatal stress affects offspring in two different ways depending on the timing of the stressor during pregnancy—yielding different outcomes before birth, after birth, and after weaning” says Andreas Berghänel, evolutionary anthropologist at The University of New Mexico and lead author of the study.
For example, prenatal maternal stress late in gestation causes mothers to invest less energy in their offspring, which leads to slower grow in the womb and during infancy. Once the baby has reached nutritional independence, however, they are no longer affected directly by their mother’s provisioning, and consequently grow at the same rate as non-disadvantaged offspring. Thus, maternal stress late in gestation leads to slow growth during dependent phases, but doesn’t affect growth later. By contrast, prenatal maternal stress early in gestation can cause the fetus to be entirely reprogrammed to deal with a reduced life expectancy. To “make the best of a bad job,” the early challenged offspring switches to an accelerated pace of life and grows and matures faster than unchallenged offspring to ensure that it reproduces before it dies. Once set on the fast track, the offspring under early prenatal maternal stress remain on this trajectory even after weaning and therefore overshoot the usual body size for age throughout development. “We found that stress during late gestation reduces offspring growth during dependence, resulting in a reduced body size throughout development, whereas stress during early gestation results in largely unaffected growth rates during dependence but accelerated growth and increased size after weaning,” says Berghänel. Dr. Aristotle's Comment: 3 Examples of Stress Relief During Pregnancy 1. Restoring Pelvic Balance and Poor Posture Pregnant women often have issues with their pelvic balance and back pain due to the extra weight they must carry in the front of their body. Many women experience pelvic structural changes during their pregnancy. When the pelvis is not in balance, it can restrict the amount of room that the developing baby has. We address imbalances of the spine to lessen low back pain. 2. Reducing Pregnancy Symptoms Care helps reduce some of the uncomfortable symptoms associated with pregnancy. Regular care throughout pregnancy can help women maintain their health during pregnancy, relieve joint and neck pain and control the symptoms of nausea. 3. Reducing Labor and Delivery Time Since women who receive regular care are taking care of their nervous system, many have found their bodies are better prepared to handle the childbirth process. When the nervous system is working properly, the whole body is working as it should be. With this in mind, many women who receive chiropractic care during pregnancy have shorter labor and delivery times. The body undergoes a number of changes during pregnancy. This can leave any woman feeling uncomfortable as her body handles the physical and hormonal changes that pregnancy brings. Of course, many women are also worried about the health and safety of their baby during this important developmental time. In order to take the best care possible of both mom and baby, it is important to take care of your body with regular visits. Pregnant moms who take the time to keep their body in balance during pregnancy will find that their overall pregnancy can be more comfortable and enjoyable as they keep their bodies — and their babies — healthy. |
February 2021
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Dr. Aristotle EconomouDr. Aristotle understands the difficulties patients go through when dealing with a personal health challenge. In 2006, an event occurred that turned his life upside down and put his years of clinical experience in wellness healthcare to the ultimate test. Over a short period, the muscles in Aristotle’s body unexpectedly became paralyzed with only the ability to slightly move his hands at the wrists and blink his eyes.
Aristotle ended up in an intensive care unit (ICU), followed by a 72-day stay in a local hospital. He was told he may never walk again. Throughout the year, his healing journey continued while confined to an electric wheelchair and requiring around-the-clock care. With help and determination, Aristotle combined modalities from Functional Medicine, Eastern Medicine and unique techniques in Chiropractic and Tui Na. This resulted in the ability to rebuild his body mind and spirit, which was the foundation to his miraculous recovery including the ability to walk again.
Aristotle then wrote the book, Change the Way You Heal: 7 Steps To Highly Effective Healing. No matter how big or small your health problem, this inspirational book shows you how to maximize your healing abilities and resources using the same methods he implemented in his own recovery. |