Here’s a New Term: Polypharmacy

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Polypharmacy is defined as the use of multiple or unnecessary medications.  One of the questions I often get goes something like “How do I get off all these medications my doctor has me on?” Another related question is “I don’t want to take medications—I want to do things the natural way.” These are valid goals, but it may not be easy.

Because of the nature of some conditions, there may be no other way. But when it comes to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension, there may be a lot you can do, and thereby hangs a tale.

Several years ago, an 82-year-old man had been living with several heart issues: coronary artery disease, elevated cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and persistent atrial fibrillation. With multiple medications to control symptoms and treat the conditions, he was a poster child for polypharmacy. He was admitted to a hospital while having a heart attack. The surgeon opened the artery, more medications were added, and he was released. On his follow-up, he was not feeling well, weak, and had periods of brain fog. He was referred for cardiac rehabilitation.

At some point, he decided that he wanted to reduce his medications. Together with a wellness center and under the supervision of his physicians, he changed his diet; on Saturday, I’ll tell you what happened over the next six months.

The Kids Top Health Issues webinar on January 26 still has openings. Every day, more scary headlines cast doubt on science and health practices. For example, will fluoride really impact a child’s IQ? Those questions and more will be covered in this webinar. Reserve your spot today.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: BMJ Case Rep 2018;11:e227059.2. Arch

Let’s Improve Kids’ Health

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I’m kicking off the New Year with a webinar about children, Kids’ Top Health Issues. Specifically, I’ll cover the top three questions that I get all the time about kids: digestive issues, especially constipation; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; and autism. If you have children who face these issues or even if, like a teacher or grandparent, you just want to better understand these conditions, sign up for this webinar today; space will be limited for the live event.

The webinar will cover the following:

            Defining each condition and giving some background information

            Examining the latest research on the potential causes

            Exploring the best dietary approach for each condition

            Reviewing some natural approaches that may help

The webinar will be presented so that people with no scientific background can understand each condition and what may help from a nutritional and exercise perspective. Whether you have a child with these conditions or not, you’ll learn something that will be helpful.

The Kids’ Top Health Issues webinar will be held on Sunday, January 26 at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. Admission is $14.95; if you can’t attend the live presentation, the replay of the webinar will be available. It is certainly appropriate for kids to watch if they want, and I will leave time to answer questions at the end of the live presentation.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

We’re Back for Another Year!

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I hope you had a happy holiday season and a great start to the New Year. I’ve got plenty of great things planned for 2025 designed to help you get and stay healthy, and I’m going to start by reinforcing the Memo I sent a week ago in a slightly different way.

About 60 years ago, a new wellness movement was just beginning. I read an article about it and was fascinated. It was written by the then director of the Department of Vital Statistics in 1959, and while the article is several pages long, it was summarized in a chart.

Here’s the main idea. Traditional wellness relies on people taking care of themselves through diet, exercise, stress management, etc., if the environment allows it. Traditional medicine relies on treating disease through medications and surgeries. They are not opposites; optimal health requires both approaches, not the exclusion of one over the other. The key is that they both must be based on science.

The Department of Vital Statistics is now part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Whoever becomes the head of that department must understand that the wellness of the nation depends on continuing health and medical research; there can be no pauses or time outs. That person must also understand that wellness includes both approaches; we need to know more about personal health and the necessary healthy habits, but we also need continued research in medical approaches to treat disease. They are both critical to the health of our nation.

For your part? Your wellness begins with making healthy diet, exercise, and supplementation a part of your healthy habits, in addition to seeing your medical professionals on schedule. It all begins with one question:

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Am J Public Health. 1959 Jun;49(6):786–792. doi: 10.2105/ajph.49.6.786

Happy New Year!

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The beginning of a new year! Even though calendars are man-made, the new year signals a time for new goals to be accomplished in the next 365 days. I’m sure that health goals are included in those goals. Getting fitter, getting leaner, adding muscle, improving balance and flexibility, and addressing digestive issues, but that’s not all. Lowering blood pressure and cholesterol and getting a solution for chronic joint pain. Addressing dental health to improve chewing­—so important for getting adequate nutrition. Don’t forget vision when glasses aren’t enough.

Some solutions can be found in diet, nutrition, exercise, and supplements, but they can’t solve every issue. Medications and surgery may also be required, because they can be a part of health as well. They are not competitors; they can complement one another.

As I see it, we all can do better on our end to optimize our health, and healthcare professionals certainly have room for improving how they treat patients. I’ll do my part by giving you the tried-and-true methods as well as the latest science so you can reach every health goal you set.

Happy New Year! Let’s make this the year you achieve your health goals. Together we can do it.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Merry Christmas!

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Paula, Riley, and I visited Meijer Gardens to see all the beautiful Christmas trees from around the world, but this giant poinsettia tree made the biggest impression.

We all hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

        Dr. Chet

You’ve Got Another Chance

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Did you assess your time spent investing in your health as I outlined in Tuesday’s Memo, counting up the time per day, week, or month you spend in the activities that will benefit your long-term health? How did you do? Did you think of more than the short list I provided? Did you come away disappointed with your efforts? I know that I did in some areas.

Life is giving you another chance—in fact, it’s giving you more than one. As long as you draw breath, you can always start. You don’t even have to wait until the new year; pick one thing and begin working on it today. Then, when that change becomes a habit, start on another one. You don’t have to begin everything all at once; in fact, it’s better if you try one change at a time and see how that works before adding more.

If you fail, start again. As Seth Godin said in a recent post, everyone needs more chances. But whether this is the time you actually lose the weight, lower your HbA1c, add that muscle, or whatever is important to your long-term health, taking that next chance is determined by only one thing:

What are you going to do with that chance this time?

It doesn’t matter what you haven’t done—you need to succeed only once at changing a poor health habit into a good one that you will maintain. Take that chance and do something with it this time. Next year, we all could be having completely different conversations. So, really:

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

How Much Time Did You Invest?

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As the new year approaches, it’s a good time for reflection. Regardless of your age, taking care of your body should always be a top priority, so let’s assess 2024. Here’s a series of questions—not a complete list by any means, just a place to begin. The overall question is this:

How much time do you spend each day taking care of your body?

How many minutes do you spend on aerobic exercise?

How much time in resistance exercise to maintain or gain muscle?

How much time stretching to maintain flexibility?

How much time massaging your aching muscles?

How much time do you spend cooking foods with natural nutrients?

How much time recording the foods that you eat?

How much time flossing and taking care of your teeth?

How much time caring for your skin?

How much sleep are you getting?

These are not just rhetorical questions. Spend some time thinking about it. Add other questions related to how you take care of your body or issues you’ve been having. Write down the minutes per day you spend in each one of those areas. Do it for the next three days, and you’ll see where you stand now and where you can improve.

You get out of your body what you put into it. You need to think and assess so you can identify what you need to work on in 2025.

This year’s final Insider Conference Call is tomorrow night. The main topic is going to be why research on science should never stop or slow down. This is the time to become an Insider to help you achieve your health goals in 2025. Join by 8 p.m. ET tomorrow night and you’ll be a part of the call.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Beef Tallow and Your Skin

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The first social media claim about cooking with beef tallow was easy to assess, but the use of beef tallow for skincare was something I’d never considered until I was asked about it several times. I used a scientific AI site and asked if beef tallow was beneficial for the skin. The answer was yes, but something seemed off: there were no scientific references in the answer. The information was taken from three websites that sell beef tallow for skincare—not exactly unbiased sources.

The Claims

I checked out the supporting research for the claims that beef tallow will moisturize your skin, convey vitamins and minerals into the skin, and may even help eczema and other skin conditions. I clicked on every link that said it supported the claim. It took me to another post on the website that talked about the claim, made more claims, but contained no scientific references to support the claim.

The science doesn’t have to be perfect. It can even be based on animal studies, but for me there must be some science to support the claims a company makes. But they had nothing. Nada.

The Science

Fortunately, a review study was published this year that examined, among other things, the potential benefits and adverse events associated with the use of beef tallow. You can read the paper yourself but I’ll save you the time: there’s no research on humans, and very limited research on animals, to support the use of beef tallow for skincare.

My Opinion

Fats and oils are the foundation of most skincare products such as moisturizers. It would not be surprising that people had better skin after regular use, especially if they hadn’t been moisturizing. Maybe there’s something magical about beef tallow, but no company has spent the money proving it yet.

When coconut oil first became popular, I was told that various cultures massage coconut oil onto babies and children from head to toe. They massage it into their skin on a regular basis. Not only is it a moisturizer, the massage also helps increase blood flow to the skin, which can also force toxins out. That may be what is happening with beef tallow.

The Bottom Line

I think beef tallow for skincare must be considered another internet fad until the research catches up to the claims. The three companies that offer it are making money by charging $30 to $36 for two ounces of the stuff. From grass fed beef or not, that’s a steep price. You can buy a good quality moisturizer for less, and it won’t leave you smelling like a butcher shop—but only dogs will know for sure.

It would be nice if the companies spent some of that income to prove that it does what it claims it can do, but until then, it’s a hard pass for me. Based on the limited animal research, it doesn’t appear to be harmful. Your body. Your choice.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Cureus. 2024 May 24;16(5):e60981.

Is Beef Tallow Good for You?

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Where’s the beef? Evidently, it’s making a comeback in the form of tallow. Beef tallow is processed fat from cows, but in reality it could be made from any type of animal fat. A number of health gurus have touted its benefit for skin care as well as a more natural form of fat for cooking than seed oils. Today we’ll take a look at consuming beef tallow and deal with skin care on Saturday.

There are no more health benefits than there have ever been from using beef tallow to cook. Beef tallow contains high amounts of saturated fat, the worst kind for your heart. That can impart better flavor in whatever is cooked or baked with it, but it’s still a saturated fat. That means it’s ideal for making cholesterol, especially LDL cholesterol in our bodies.

I’ve heard all the arguments about how carbohydrates were the real problem back when they decided to lower the fat intake in dietary guidelines back in the 1970s. That wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. If we don’t have saturated fat in our diet, and we substitute sugars and other simple carbohydrates, we’ll make our own saturated fat. Why? Because we are animals, and we will make our own fat.

Should you ever use beef tallow for cooking? It’s like any other type of fat—and that includes the seed oils everyone is saying are bad for you. Beef tallow makes a darn good french fry, and nothing works as well as lard (pig fat) in pie crusts, so use it if you want when it will really make a difference. The rest of the time, just focus on the mono- and polyunsaturated fats.

As I’ve said over and over again, it’s not the food that’s bad; it’s the mass quantities we eat. Saturday we’ll look at the pros and cons of smearing tallow on your skin.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: British Journal of Nutrition (2024), 132, 1039–1050.

Quick Updates

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I’ve been doing background research for several projects that will be introduced in early 2025 including the annual Super Bowl webinar. It’s a long process because one thing often leads to another in a different direction. Here are some of the things I’ve discovered.

Nutrigenomics

Nutrigenomics is the study of how foods interact with genes in positive and negative ways; that’s one of the benefits of the detoxification system in our body. While it seems media and marketing focus on the exotic, based on several papers I read, I don’t let the day end without eating a cruciferous vegetable. Broccoli? Yes, and many more. The nutrients in cruciferous vegetables such as sulforaphanes help with our detox systems and help with single-nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs for short. This should definitely be included in what you eat every day. This will be included with the Real-Life Detox revision.

The Folate Controversy

I’ve addressed the folate vs. folic acid issue several times. What may be better for people with specific types of SNPs is another form of folate called folinic acid. I’m going to update the ADHD and autism webinar and offer it in January. Using the results of the genetic test for the 5-methyl-tetrahydrofolate SNP may provide a more precise positive outcome with all forms of childhood and adult mental and cognitive challenges.

Aging with a Vengeance

There have been more publications on the benefits of vitamin K2. K1 is the vitamin that helps with blood clotting. K2 is beneficial for bone production, but recent research shows benefits for both brain and heart benefits. As you might expect, this year’s Super Bowl webinar on February 9 will continue the focus on living well as long as we can in Aging with a Vengeance.

That’s a recap of what I’ve researched so far, but the list of studies grows longer and longer. By the time the products are available, who knows what else I’ll find to help you attain the best health you can! Stay tuned.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. Clin Ter 2023; 174 Suppl. 2 (6):209-213
2. Int J Vitam Nutr Res (2022), 92 (3–4), 248–266