Preventing Miscarriage

By E Douglas Kihn, OMD, LAc

Miscarriage, the common term for spontaneous abortion, is the unintentional termination of a pregnancy before the fetus is capable of independent life.  Spontaneous abortion may be contrasted with induced abortion, in which an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy is intentionally ended.

Surveys estimate that 25 percent of all human pregnancies abort spontaneously, with three out of four miscarriages occurring during the first three months of pregnancy. Some women have a tendency to miscarry, and recurrent miscarriage decreases the probability of subsequent successful childbirth.

The causes of miscarriage are varied and not clearly defined by Western medicine. The usual “causes” have little to do with understanding how to prevent miscarriage, an unfortunate situation all too common for emergency-oriented Western medicine.  In this essay, we will explore causes that lead to preventative measures, leaving aside obvious causes such as infectious diseases, chronic systemic diseases like nephritis or diabetes type 1, genetic malformations of the uterus, and trauma.

Curiously, the main causes of miscarriage for American women are similar to the causes of infertility.  Our Stone Age body/mind complex looks for situations in which pregnancy and the raising of a child will most likely be successful.  Internal and external environments with high stress or scarcity will prevent a smooth conception and a fruitful gestation.  For example, when a woman’s body fat percentage drops below 12% - more or less – due to anorexia, extreme athleticism, or starvation, the body/mind senses that there won’t be enough extra food to raise a child and either prevents egg fertilization or else aborts the embryo or fetus.

When a pregnant woman starts bleeding and/or experiencing abdominal cramps, she is usually ordered to stay in bed for most of the time.  The purpose is to create stability in the uterus.  This is an emergency measure.  The real preventative measures begin before conception.  In order to create a stable and healthy uterus, we must first create a stable and healthy woman.

Preventative measure #1:  Stop hurrying.

Speed and excessive activity create molecular friction.  Friction creates heat and instability.  When heat and instability lodge in the uterus, we have an unstable and unfriendly home for the fertilized egg.  The body mind assumes that the environment is not a relaxed one, but rather one of high stress with barely enough time and resources for survival – nothing left over for offspring.

Plenty of sleep and rest breaks every 24-hour period are critical to reducing heat.  Adopting a relaxed pace while talking, walking, driving, working, reading, thinking, and living will prevent the buildup of heat in a powerful way.  It is also important to avoid multi-tasking in order to stay cool and calm.  Move fast only when you really need to.

Other factors that create excessive heat, by the way, are smoking, overeating, excessive consumption of meat, an addiction to loud sounds and electronic media, and carrying around rage.

Preventative measure #2:  Stop worrying.

Worrying about the past or the future – which don’t really exist – creates muscular tightness.  Chronic fight-or-flight tightness will surround the uterine region and prevent proper circulation of nutrients and oxygen to the fetus.  A starving and suffocating fetus will become a dead fetus if not ejected first by the body/mind.  The unconscious assumption is that the environment offers too little support or safety to raise offspring.

Like hurrying, worrying is ingrained in American life.  Letting go of worry takes an enormous effort for most, practically a reinvention of one’s self.  Both cognitive and behavioral techniques must be used.  Cognitive techniques include things like understanding the big picture through philosophies such as Taoism or Zen Buddhism, practicing instant forgiveness, and investigating childhood hurts through talk therapy.  Behavioral techniques include the regular practice of meditative exercises such as hatha yoga, taiqi, and qigong, deep breathing, hypnosis, and visualization.

Preventative measure #3:  Get lean.

Body fat affords ample nutrition and stability for the fetus.  However, too much stability will choke and suffocate the fetus.  The body/mind is looking for an optimal situation, not one in which excessive pounds of body fat have been accumulated for the apparent purpose of avoiding a long, hard winter or an approaching famine.

Optimal leanness will also facilitate fertility.  Successful fertilization and gestation both require open spaces for movement of egg and sperm, as well as an absence of excess material such as fibroid tumors and cysts.  A fetus also needs room to grow and exercise.

Most advice to pregnant women in this country centers around what to eat, as well as “be sure to eat, eat, and eat some more!”  This is really sad, since the the body/mind is never wrong in these matters, and a pregnant woman will be most in tune with her eating instincts than anyone else in the world!  How could it be otherwise, since all species in the history of the world have been successfully bringing to term their babies without the help of modern “scientific” advice. 

Hunger is a healthy feeling that occurs only for people and animals who are not too fat and not starving either.  It is an empty sensation – not a sound, burning feeling, or tight feeling - in the upper abdomen that motivates all species to go to work, get food, and eat it.  When hungry, the body will tell us if there are any special nutrients needed, and for pregnant women, this is famously true.  Strawberry ice cream and a pickle at 3am might be just exactly what are needed to build an eyeball, for example.  But the food choice instinct only occurs in conjunction with the hunger feeling.  Therefore learn to wait for the hunger feeling before eating.

The human body, pregnant or not, will also declare when it has had enough food.  The signal for this is a comfortable feeling in place of the hunger feeling.  This is the message to stop eating.  Continuance will cause discomfort and the gaining of excessive pounds of unwanted fat, growths, cholesterol, and poisonous fecal matter.

Forget about “scientific” tables of weight gain and nutritional mumbo jumbo for pregnant women, and just go with your instincts instead.  They will never betray you, and instead will facilitate the cultivation of self-trust and self-love, two life-affirming factors that will eventually be adopted by your children.

Preventing Heart Attack

By E Douglas Kihn, OMD, LAc, CPT

Heart disease is a complicated subject because the heart is a complex organ. Imagine what it would take to keep a machine working smoothly for a hundred years without stopping once! Dozens of factors can intervene to cause problems. We’re going to examine those causes with the intention of developing habits that will prevent or postpone for as long as possible the heart attack.

Heart attack is the leading cause of death for both men and women worldwide and in the U.S. A heart attack is a sudden, serious, usually painful, and sometimes fatal interruption of the heart’s normal functioning. Any time the normal heart beat is disrupted for any reason, there is a possibility that insufficient blood will reach a section of heart muscle. The longer the interruption, the greater the danger. Without blood and oxygen, that part of the heart muscle suffocates and dies. When heart muscle dies, it is called an “infarction” – a myocardial (heart muscle) infarction.

In adult humans, dead heart muscle does not regenerate, and so this hundred-year blood pump will from then on be operating at less than 100% capacity. This means that any body tissue, including the heart itself, will probably suffer some degree of blood and oxygen deprivation. Obviously, preventing heart attack and myocardial infarction is far preferable to dealing with it after the fact.

Three Causes That Are Minimally Preventable

1. Pre-natal Jing Deficiency

This means physical abnormalities that are present at birth. Jing is that substance that influences growth, development, and reproduction. Part of jing is already determined before we are born. This part is called pre-natal.

Some pre-natal jing is inherited genetically. If a parent passes on genes that are defective, one possible result is a baby’s heart that doesn’t work properly. Another consequence could be a dangerously high concentration of cholesterol that congests the arteries around the heart (see below). Not much preventing is possible in these circumstances, without the intervention of genetic engineering sometime in the 2020s.

Other birth defects – including heart defects - are acquired by the fetus during pregnancy. These are preventable, but the subject of preventing birth defects is beyond the scope of this essay.

2. Heart Trauma

Diseases such as scarlet fever as well as physical injuries can damage the heart to the extent that its functioning can be interrupted and a heart attack ensues.

3. Heart Yin Deficiency

Yin is synonymous with material, while yang can be equated with energy or movement.

Starvation – the chronic lack of food – will eventually wear down all the material in the body, as the body cannibalizes itself for energy. This includes the material – yin – of the heart muscle itself. In the U.S., which leads the world in obesity, no one starves to death except those who embark on a conscious or unconscious suicide mission. The subject of preventing suicide will not be addressed here.

Four Causes That Are Mostly Preventable

1. Food Stagnation

This is by far the most common cause of heart attack in the U.S. Western medicine calls this situation “coronary heart disease.” The most common symptom of coronary heart disease is angina pectoris, a squeezing chest pain that may radiate to the neck, jaw, back, and left arm, and cause the lips, tongue, and fingernails to exhibit a blueish or purplish hue. Angina, also known as “heart blood stagnation,” may last for years, and usually worsens with movement and anxiety.

Simply put, coronary heart disease is a blockage in the arteries that supply blood and oxygen to the heart muscle itself. The blockage is the result of excess calories (a calorie is a measure of stored bio-energy) in the form of LDL cholesterol that clog the blood vessels feeding the heart. LDL stands for “low-density lipids.” “Lipids” is the medical term for fats, which furnish a whopping nine calories per gram, as compared to proteins and carbohydrates at a mere four calories per gram.

These excess lipid calories that stagnate in the blood vessels are primarily the result of excessive food intake. The body will store calories that it can’t immediately use. Most will be stored as body fat, but often the human body will store a portion of excess calories on the inside of blood vessels as cholesterol. This condition is known as “atherosclerosis,” or “hardening of the arteries.”

During a long and lean winter, the heart does not need to work hard, since a maximum conservation of energy is required for survival. And so the body does not anticipate a problem with temporarily depositing this valuable source of energy on the inside lining of the blood vessels. The problem is that obese and overweight Americans aren’t sleeping, lounging, and fasting in a cave for six months at a time, but rather are working, exercising, and eating every day, year after year. This state of affairs puts an unnatural strain on a cardiovascular system that just isn’t prepared for it.

Statistical evidence conclusively links excess body fat, atherosclerosis, and heart attack. There is also a connection, although somewhat less significant, between the consumption of animal fats, atherosclerosis, and heart attack. If one eats more calories than necessary for daily maintenance, and some of those calories come from animal fats, the body will more likely store those animal fats as dangerous blood cholesterol than it would most vegetable fats. The same is true of highly processed vegetable fats, such as margarine.

There is also a strong statistical connection between tobacco smoking and coronary heart disease. The nicotine in tobacco combines with carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke to damage the lining of blood vessels by making the blood stickier. Sticky blood will mix easily with low-density lipids that clog the arteries and lead to atherosclerosis. This is one important way in which tobacco smoking contributes to heart attack.

Preventative measures: 

• Eat less food. Wait for hunger, and stop when you are comfortable.
• Get lean. Five to seven percent body fat for men, seven to twelve percent for women.
• Moderate your intake of animal-derived food, especially red meat and eggs. Not every meal, and not every day.
• Do not smoke tobacco. Not daily or in a binge cycle.

2. Liver Qi Stagnation

  

Your Chinese liver is not the same thing as your Western liver. Your Chinese liver, also known as “gan,” is like a manager or a regulator, whose main task is to keep mental and physical energy (qi) flowing smoothly. When the flow of qi is uneven and stagnant, liver is unhappy and must be appeased.

Mental fixation on the past or future will stagnate the qi, since only the moment is real and flowing. The result is anxiety of various forms and a consequent tightening of muscles in preparation an emergency response. Chronic anxiety brings with it a chronic tightening of muscles, including the muscles surrounding the heart and the blood vessels themselves, which are, in essence, muscles.

  

A sedentary lifestyle does nothing to expand the blood vessels that supply oxygen to the heart or brain. Without exercise, they lose their elasticity and become narrowed. In addition, numerous studies show that regular exercise dramatically decreases anxiety and improves mental capacity and emotional well-being.

  

Narrowed coronary arteries will decrease oxygen flow to the heart, and can trigger a heart attack and myocardial infarction. This is especially true for someone who already has restricted blood flow to the heart as the result of food stagnation.

Preventative measures: 

• Calm the mind. Stop worrying. Increase awareness of the big picture by studying and practicing Taoism or other similar philosophies.
• Calm the body. Get plenty of sleep and rest. Practice hatha yoga, tai qi, qi gong, or meditation on a regular basis.
• Exercise vigorously on a daily basis. Aerobic conditioning is especially important, as it improves the ability of the heart to deliver blood and oxygen to the body and itself. Work with a trainer if you need to.

3. Excess Heart Heat

Of all organs, the heart is most susceptible to the danger of overheating. It’s like a nuclear reactor that must constantly be cooled. The continuous beating creates friction, and friction creates heat.

The danger is that the heat can get out of control, causing a heart attack (an interruption of the heart’s normal functioning). Any type of heart attack can deprive the heart muscle of blood and oxygen, causing myocardial infarction.

Excessive heat in the chest area can inflame the heart, speed up the heart beat (tachycardia), and upset the sinoatrial node, a small mass of specialized muscle fibers in the heart from which originate the regular electrical impulses that stimulate the heartbeat and keep it regular. When this node goes whacky, it causes fibrillation – a rapid chaotic beating of the heart muscle or individual muscle fibers of the heart.

The pandemonium that follows will prevent normal blood circulation and likely cause suffocation and death to some muscle fibers of the heart. The usual emergency procedure in the case of fibrillation is to apply an electric shock to the heart, resetting the sinoatrial node to its normal rhythm.

Preventative measures:

• Do not smoke. The regular inhalation of hot gas from any source will inflame the chest area, likely starting with the lungs. This bronchitis, if allowed to continue and worsen, can nudge the sinoatrial node into chaos.
• Do not make a habit of hurrying or overworking. Remember that movement creates friction, which gives rise to heat. Excessive and continuous movement leads to excess heat. Plenty of sleep and rest, and a relaxed pace in most activities will prevent a buildup of heat.
• Stay away from chemical stimulants such as caffeine, cocaine, and pharmaceutical “uppers.”

4. Poisoning

There are many toxic substances that will interrupt the normal functioning of the heart. Poisons will speed it up, slow it down, add to arterial clogging, or even paralyze the heart.

Nicotine for example will cause arteries to constrict, contributing to a reduction of blood flow. Nicotine also combines with the carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke to damage the lining of blood vessels and make the blood stickier. This same carbon dioxide deprives the body of oxygen, binding to red blood cells in place of the oxygen molecule and forcing the heart to work harder than it should.

Alcohol is “bottled damp heat.” Alcoholics tend to have high blood levels of the hormone epinephrine (used to be called “adrenalin”) and deficiencies of the mineral magnesium. This combination disturbs the sinoatrial node, producing heartbeat irregularities. The heat can speed up the pulse, while the “damp” can muffle and slow it down. This capriciousness can lead to a heart attack, and is a common cause of sudden death in heavy drinkers.

Preventative measures:

• Avoid addictions to smoking, alcohol, and other substances, be they prescribed, over-the-counter, or illicit. Work on improving your mental and physical health instead.
• Be careful about the mushrooms and curare-tipped darts!

Preventing Diabetes Mellitus Type 2

By E Douglas Kihn, OMD, LAc, CPT

What is diabetes?

The term “diabetes” means “sugar in the blood.”

There are several diseases that go by the name of “diabetes.” Diabetes mellitus type 1 is an inherited disorder in which the islet cells of the pancreas fail to manufacture enough insulin, a hormone that conducts nutrients in the blood through the cell membranes and into the cells. Diabetes mellitus type 2 is by far the most common. Of the nearly 21 million people in the United States with diabetes, 90 to 95 percent have type 2 diabetes.

In people with diabetes type 2, the cells of their bodies develop a resistance to insulin and the calories that come along with it. This resistance is the result of the following. After years of suffering from the suffocating effects of excessive nutrition, the diabetes genes in the cells eventually come alive and begin to reject the overfeeding. If the cells continue to reject insulin, they will slowly starve.

Researchers attribute most cases of type 2 diabetes to obesity because there is a strong statistical relationship between obesity and type 2 diabetes. About 80 percent of diabetics with this form of the disease are significantly overweight. Studies show that the risk for developing type 2 diabetes increases by 4 percent for every pound of excess weight a person carries. That is because excess body fat – stored calories – is converted into blood sugar by the liver, creating a constant 24-hour-a-day surplus of calories bombarding the cells. The cells follow their genetic instructions and start resisting the insulin and its calories.

The other 20 percent of type 2 sufferers are the “grazers.” These are the people who, also having the “diabetes genes,” and for one reason or the other, eat small amounts of food throughout their waking hours. They might not be eating past their physical comfort levels and so may appear lean on the outside. But on the inside and at the cellular level, they are constantly engorged with food. Slowly over the course of years, their cells give up from exhaustion, and start rejecting insulin.

Chinese medicine would explain it this way. A dry warm spleen (digestive system) is a happy spleen. A happy spleen uses food and drink to produce sufficient amounts of high quality qi (energy) and xue (blood). Excessive eating will overload the machinery, causing a damp spleen. This weak spleen will fail in its job of qi and xue production, which in turn damages the jing (genetic potential), and in some, will cause symptoms of diabetes (xiao ke). In addition, the excess damp can pile up in the tissues, causing stagnation that further hinders the body’s own processes.

Indications of diabetes

The following signals are indicative of diabetes type 2:

No hunger: In the case of diabetes type 2, the whole digestion/metabolism process is in crisis. The most consistent indicator I know of for a weak digestion and metabolism is the strength and frequency of the hunger feeling, which is an empty “pang” in the stomach region that is wonderfully satisfied by a meal-sized portion of food. For people who have diabetes type 2 or who are approaching diabetes type 2, true hunger is non-existent. Their bodies are rejecting food. Why would these same bodies “request” food at the same time?

Fatigue: The body’s cells are not getting enough fuel and their engines are sputtering. The damp spleen is producing an inferior quantity and quality of qi, and all movement becomes sluggish.

Frequent urination: The excess sugar in the blood draws water from the body into the blood. The kidneys remove the water and excrete it as urine.

Tingling and numbness in the hands and feet, blurred vision and blindness: Lack of nourishment and poor circulation begin to starve cells that need a lot of blood, like the eyes, or that require a lot of qi to reach, like the extremities. Lack of nourishment in the legs and arms can progress to tissue death, gangrene, and amputation.

Repeated infections or skin sores that heal slowly or not at all: When the skin does not receive proper nourishment, it turns funky and attracts unwelcome visitors. The immune system being weakened at the same time will fail to reach the skin in sufficient force to neutralize the invaders. In addition, the skin will often exude excess damp and toxic heat in specific areas, causing severe itching and pain.

Metabolic syndrome: A syndrome is a collection of indicators that point to a pattern, but not necessarily a particular disease. Over the last decade, the term "metabolic syndrome" has come into popular medical usage. Metabolic syndrome is seen as a precursor to diabetes 2 and heart disease. Anyone with metabolic syndrome should be taking preventative steps right away. According to the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, metabolic syndrome is present if you have three or more of the following signs:
• Blood pressure equal to or higher than 130/85 mmHg
• Fasting blood sugar (glucose) equal to or higher than 100 mg/dL
• Large waist circumference (length around the waist):
   o Men - 40 inches or more
   o Women - 35 inches or more
• Low HDL cholesterol:
   o Men - under 40 mg/dL
   o Women - under 50 mg/dL
• Triglycerides equal to or higher than 150 mg/dL

The conventional approach

Western medicine considers diabetes type 2 to be incurable and barely preventable. When someone is diagnosed with insulin intolerance (metabolic syndrome), the usual course of action is to prescribe drugs that interfere with the digestion of carbohydrates, control liver production of sugar, or make the cells more sensitive to insulin. These drugs come with potentially serious side effects. Patients also receive routine advice on “diet and exercise,” but without much conviction, since compliance is so poor.

Natural prevention

The first task in prevention is to stop adding to the problem. This means, above all, body fat reduction and calorie restriction. The overfed, pre-diabetic body does not want food – it wants nutrition but it doesn’t want food - and is in fact developing an “allergy” to insulin. Excuses for eating should be gradually eliminated, food portions limited, and new habits – like tea or coffee drinking for example – developed to replace the habit of mechanical eating. For ideas on eliminating mechanical eating, go to http://drkihn.com/Weight-Management.html and click on Hunger Awareness Training.

Now the job remains – how to introduce nutrients into the cells without the aid of insulin. And the answer is simple and widely known – exercise. Strenuous physical movement is the only known agency that will feed blood sugar to the cells without the aid of the pancreas and insulin. Pre-diabetics usually do not follow a regular exercise routine, and most likely avoid moving whenever possible. These people would do well to hire a professional fitness trainer to plan a balanced, daily workout schedule. Even 15 minutes of walking will reduce the amount of sugar in the blood. For people with disabilities, performing water exercises and swimming are excellent ways of bypassing insulin. Pre-diabetics who exercise regularly will notice immediately how much better they feel after a workout.

Pre-diabetics must learn to wait for hunger, and stop trying to prevent it. Without hunger, there is no “correct” food, only less harmful food.

A weak digestion that does not want more food (no hunger) will encounter the least problems on food that is the easiest to digest. This means reverting to a paleo diet, the range of foods that our Stone Age ancestors consumed for 100,000 years. It is this food, more than agricultural food or modern processed food, that our genes have designed us to digest and process. Plant-based foods are the staple of a paleo diet. When you lightly cook vegetables – stir fry, bake, steam, make into a soup - the fiber gets broken down enough to make them easily digestible, with a minimum of calories and insulin to bombard the body’s cells. Add a small amount of fish, meat, egg, nuts, berries, or fruit for variety and taste. A person who is pre-diabetic should stay away from processed food as much as possible. If an approximate equivalent for a food cannot be found in a wilderness situation, it will likely cause problems. For more information on the paleo diet, go to http://paleodietlifestyle.com/.

And lastly, there seems to be credible evidence that coffee drinking confers some degree of protection against the development of diabetes type 2. In the latest study, researchers from UCLA compared the medical histories and coffee-drinking habits of 359 women who had diabetes type 2 with those of 359 healthy women over 10 years. They used information from the Women’s Health Study, run by the National Institutes of Health. Women who drank four cups of caffeinated coffee a day were 56% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women who don’t drink coffee. And the more coffee consumed, the lower the risk of developing diabetes.

A 2006 study of 28,812 women in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine found that those who drank six cups of decaffeinated coffee a day had a 22% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who didn’t drink any coffee. Caffeinated coffee also had a protective effect in this study, but it wasn’t as strong. Another study in 2009 from the same journal showed that each daily cup of coffee or tea cut the risk of developing diabetes by 7%.

Scientists aren’t clear about how coffee and tea increase insulin sensitivity. From a Chinese medical point of view, the only explanation I can think of is that both coffee and tea, caffeinated and decaf, are bitter-tasting. Bitter substances dry and drain dampness, and a damp spleen is at the core of the problem of diabetes 2. Reducing the dampness clogging the body’s cells means they will want to begin receiving nutrients and insulin again.

Preventing Post-Diet Weight Gain

By E Douglas Kihn, OMD, LAc, CPT


We’ve all heard the stories, and many of us have experienced it ourselves: The dieter who restricts calories and increases exercise levels and consequently loses an impressive number of unwanted pounds, only to have the weight return later with a vengeance. This “yo-yo dieting” is a regular feature of American life, and leads to severe demoralization, self-blame, and a reluctance to do it all over again.

On November 30th of 2010, online Science News published the results of a mouse study titled, “Dieting may plant seeds of weight regain: Cutting calories may encourage binging years later.” Researchers found a molecular explanation for why fat mice who successfully dieted later gained the weight back. These molecular changes corresponded to a heightened sensitivity to stress.

When the lean ex-dieters were subjected to mildly stressful situations such as damp bedding, cage swaps or putting a marble in the cage (mice don’t like changes), they snarfed down far more high-calorie mouse chow than the non-dieters who experienced the same stressful situations. The ex-dieters had lower levels of “feel-good” chemicals and higher levels of hormones that prompt eating.

A lead researcher cautions, “Dieters need to be aware that stress could derail their progress, and take steps to manage stress.”

I am personally not fond of the word “stress.” It is all too often used as an avoidance of responsibility. “Stress” by itself does not cause health problems or weight gain.

Instead of blaming the outside world (stress) for weight gain, let us call the culprit by its proper name: Anxiety. Stress is a permanent and necessary feature of life. Stress stimulates growth.

Anxiety on the other hand is not necessary at all, and it is within our power to reduce it and eliminate it from our lives.

Before you start restricting calories, you should be aware of what you are giving up. Food breaks for one thing. Many Americans cannot give themselves or their employees permission to simply take a break from work. Instead, the supposed need for nutrition is used as a reason to take a mind-calming, body-calming rest.

Another sacrifice will be the very mind-calming effect of food itself. For omnivores like us, the digestion of a high-calorie meal takes energy away from the mind and muscles, and focuses that energy in the stomach and intestines. Decrease energy to the mind and the mind calms down. The next time you eat a meal, see if you are calmer and more relaxed after eating than before.

The third thing you will be giving up is an excess supply of estrogen. Fat cells secrete estriol, a form of the hormone estrogen. High levels of estrogen in the body have been connected to an increased incidence of cancer. However, estrogen also calms the mind in the following ways:

1. Estrogen is a vasodilator, and is particularly useful for dilating blood vessels in the brain and thus cooling heat in the brain. This is why ERT – estrogen replacement therapy – is so effective at controlling heat flashes in American women who are undergoing menopause.

2. Estrogen promotes the release of endorphins and enkephalins, the body’s own painkillers. These chemicals also produce a sense of euphoria in the brain.

3. Estrogen encourages the release of serotonin, a powerful neurotransmitter and calming agent. Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) assist serotonin in alleviating anxiety in various forms, such as depression and bipolar disorder.

There are some very good reasons why enlarged fat cells calm the mind. Shrunken fat cells, on the other hand, announce “Summer’s here!” when lean animals are hungry every day and must find food every day. And so they (and we) need lots of clear and accurate information, gleaned from the senses, memory, reasoning, and emotions.

Before you begin your calorie restriction (diet) plan, write down all the ways you can think of to increase mental and physical calmness. Some suggestions are lots of sleep and rest, Taoist or Zen Buddhist philosophy, meditation, Twelve Step Program, prayer, tai qi, yoga, qi gong, Hunger Awareness Training, vigorous daily exercise, and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Now, why don't you get started with whatever choices you've made.  Your success at losing fat and keeping it off will depend on how much you can improve your mental health.

Preventing the Common Cold

By E Douglas Kihn, OMD, LAc, CPT


Everyone it seems has their own ideas on how to prevent the common cold. I’d like to share with you my strategy, which works for me. In fact, I haven’t had a cold in years.

In Chinese medicine, avoiding colds revolves around keeping the wei qi strong and happy. The wei qi is your defensive energy – your immune system. The wei qi are your soldiers and guards.

The wei qi seeks out or chases down pathogenic invaders, kills them, and if possible, eats them. The wei qi guards all entry points into the interior of your body. This includes the mouth and throat, nose and sinuses, lungs and stomach, lower body orifices, especially the vagina and uterus, and the pores of the skin.

A strong and happy wei qi can only be overcome by the repeated or overwhelming attacks of a virulent pestilential invader such as cholera or bubonic plague.

Here’s my recipe for strengthening the wei qi.

Get calm

Mental and physical calmness allows the machinery of the body to produce plenty of high quality wei qi. It also permits the wei qi to detect problems and to congregate en masse at the problem site.

Many scientific studies have conclusively linked chronic high anxiety to the common cold and many lost work days. Chronic anxiety diverts resources from the construction of new wei qi. It also tightens muscles for fight-or-flight, thus restricting the movement of the wei qi.

Sufficient sleep and rest is a critical requirement for calmness. When muscles and brain are relaxing is when most digestive products are manufactured, including the wei qi.


Natural mental calmness will also prevent the regular reliance on pharmaceuticals, alcohol, tobacco, and whatever else to establish calm. Substance abuse will add an extra burden on the system, diverting immune resources away from the exterior and toward the elimination of poisons. Statistics connect substance abuse with a high incidence of common colds.

In addition, smoking will irritate the throat. A raw throat is an invitation for the cold virus and its bacterial friends to congregate in large numbers and gang up on the wei qi.


Get lean

A lean body is a streamlined, efficient body. This means that the digestive system is probably strong enough to produce high quality wei qi in sufficient quantity to fight invaders. Leanness also means that there will be less obstacles to get in the way of the wei qi as it rushes to the battlefield.

Obesity is a cause and a result of a weak digestion that underlies a weakened wei qi. In addition, the larger the fat cells, the greater the obstructions in the way of the emergency teams. The biological purpose of obesity is to facilitate hibernation during a long cold winter. Hibernation requires very little wei qi.

Get strong

Studies have shown that people who exercise vigorously have fewer colds.

Strong muscles, bones, and connective tissue are both a cause and a result of a strong digestion. A strong digestive system creates strong immune factors, which were necessary during the spring, summer, and fall months when our Stone Age ancestors were foraging and hunting daily and being exposed to exterior pathogens.

Trust thyself

The body usually knows when it’s about to be invaded by a cold pathogen, and will tell you. If you are outdoors and feel a chill, that is your body telling you to cover up or get inside right away. Shivering is your wei qi rushing to the surface to do battle.

Cold wind on the back of the neck feels bad. This pathogen is known as wind cold, and it enters from behind. On the other hand, warmth on the neck feels good.

Hot wind in the face also feels bad. This is where wind heat tries to enter the body. If it feels bad, avoid it. Conversely, the face seems to be quite resistant to cold temperature.

Chinese herbs

Once the pathogen has entered the exterior of the body – the pores and other orifices - the wei qi sets up barricades and concentrates forces at these barricade sites. At that point, our plan of action is to support our wei qi by helping it to neutralize the cold virus and its allies, and then helping the wei qi to expel the invaders.

One very famous and effective formula for defeating wind heat is known as yin qiao pian. This combination was developed several hundred years ago and is nowadays commonly used all over southern China. It successfully treats the kind of common cold encountered in warm climates, like Southern California.

As wind heat enters through the front, it will cause such unpleasantness as a sore throat, sinus swelling with sneezing, eye discomfort, and the beginning of a cough with yellow phlegm. There will be an aversion to wind and probably a slight fever or feverish feeling that predominates over chills.

When I feel the radial pulse on the wrist, I’m likely to encounter a rapid superficial pulse. The rapidity (over 72 beats per minute) indicates that heat is a factor, since heat speeds up movement. The superficial quality means that the wei qi has come to the surface of the body to do battle with the wind heat enemy.

Our herbal strategy for defeating this wind heat is to cool the heat and to help the wei qi expel the wind through diaphoresis. A diaphoretic is a substance that causes sweating. If we can neutralize the pathogenic heat while helping the wei qi sweat out the viruses, then the disease will not enter the lungs or stomach and will not cause any more problems. In other words, a successful herbal intervention will mean that the common cold will be completely prevented!

However, yin qiao must be taken at the first sign of wind heat, during the first few days. Once the wind has reached deep into the lungs or stomach, it is no longer on the surface. At this point, the herbs in the formula, whose pungent flavor will push the wind up and out, will merely spread the pathogen around, likely making the cough worse. Treating an internal disorder like lung heat requires a completely different herbal strategy, one of draining the pathogen down and out through the urine.

Because yin qiao causes sweating, it must not be taken before venturing outside, because sweating opens pores. Open pores invite in more wind. Therefore, it is recommended that it be taken before bedtime. If a person with a normal, uncompromised immune system takes this formula before sleep and sweats during the night, the problem will be gone by morning.

The classic yin qiao formula contains nine Chinese herbs, most of which are not recognizable to Westerners. Chinese formulas come in many different forms. The form I use is a tablet form, easily purchased in Chinatown and simple to take. Some brands are sugar-coated pills for children to take. I recommend the tablet form (pian) which is not coated. Four tablets before bedtime will usually do the trick. If you wake up in the middle of the night, take four more and go back to sleep.

Preventing Iatrogenic Injuries

By E Douglas Kihn, OMD, LAc, CPT
http://www.drkihn.com/

The term iatrogenic means “doctor-caused.” Iatrogenic deaths are the third leading cause of death in the US. According to a study published in the well known and highly prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, Vol..284, July 26, 2000), conventional Western medicine kills more Americans every year than any other cause except for heart disease and cancer. The rate for iatrogenic mortality is nearly twice that of the number four killer, cerebrovascular accidents (strokes). According to the report’s author, Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 250,000 Americans die yearly from iatrogenic causes.

Here’s the breakdown for the year 1999:
• 12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries that went wrong.
• 7,000 medication errors in hospitals.
• 20,000 other errors in hospitals.
• 80,000 infections acquired in hospitals.
• 106,000 non-error negative effects of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.

Starfield cautions that these numbers are derived from studies of hospital patient deaths only, and that they say nothing about the crippling, maiming, and other negative effects that doctors and staff inflict on their patients in and out of hospitals.

This is by no means the first report of its kind to indict the conventional medical profession, but it is the most authoritative. Another analysis, from the Boston Medical Journal, 2000, entitled “Epidemiology and Medical Error,” by Weingart et al, estimated that the US medical establishment profits yearly from 116 million unnecessary physician visits and 77 million unnecessary pharmaceutical prescriptions, adding up to $77 billion in extra costs in dollars at the turn of the millennium.

Despite a decade of promises, little has been done to fix the problem of preventable medical errors, according to a 2009 report by the Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine. "There is little evidence to suggest that the number of people dying from medical harm has dropped since the US Institute of Medicine first warned about these deadly mistakes a decade ago," Lisa McGiffert, a spokesperson for the Consumers Union, said in a statement. "That means a million lives and billions of dollars have been lost over the past 10 years because our health care system failed to adopt key reforms recommended by the IOM to protect patients."

The problem isn’t much better in the wealthy countries of the European Union. One in 10 patients are suffering extra adverse effects while being treated in European hospitals, the EU's health commissioner said in a 2008 report. The most common hospital-induced problems are healthcare associated infections, incorrect or delayed diagnoses, surgical errors and medication related errors, according to the European commissioner Androulla Vassiliou. Around one in 20 European patients catches an infection while in the hospital.

The first step in preventing these nightmares is to recognize the strengths and limitations of conventional Western medicine. The profession can be divided into two categories: Emergency Medicine and Unsafe Medicine.

Emergency Medicine

Emergency Medicine is essentially heroic medicine. Western medicine is designed to be heavy-handed. Its true purpose is to fight nature. When nature decrees that a person must very soon lose life, a limb, an organ, a tissue, a mind, or any other structure or function, this is intolerable to us. Fortunately for the world, we have highly trained people who can use drugs and surgery to save the situation and “reverse” nature.

Reversing nature usually elicits negative effects that result from the heavy-handed intervention, but in an emergency, the tradeoff is worth it.

This branch of medicine is also adept at performing tests that monitor health situations. Emergency Medicine even includes futuristic research like genetic engineering that will someday end all medical problems, including mandatory death.

Unsafe Medicine

The other branch of conventional Western medicine should be called “Unsafe Medicine.” This segment is responsible for a quarter million American deaths every year.

In addition, it specializes in disease care. Compared to the beginning of the twentieth century, the average modern American life span is much longer than it is today, but people are getting sick much earlier. This fact illustrates an important function of Unsafe Medicine, which is to help people feel better but stay sick for decades, thereby earning huge profits for pharmaceutical companies and their “dealers,” surgeons, hospitals, and medical equipment suppliers.

Doctors and staff who practice Unsafe Medicine are trained to fill you full of doom and gloom so you will become panicky and dependent. Typically they study only disease and know nothing about health, and are notoriously antagonistic toward most forms of Safe Medicine.

There are an increasing number of Medical Doctors who practice both Emergency Medicine and Unsafe Medicine, and as a result are internally conflicted and become disillusioned with medicine.

Safe Medicine

Safe Medicine includes anything that doesn’t cause more problems. Safe Medicine usually works with nature, gently encouraging the body/mind to heal itself. Most traditions and techniques that go by the names of alternative medicine and complementary medicine would be included in this category. When safe medical techniques are applied correctly, there should be either good results or no results. And they should be demonstrated to consistently perform beyond the placebo effect.

Diligent practitioners of Safe Medicine will establish a mutually respectful relationship with you and really listen to your needs. Their methods will generally take longer to work, but the effects will be lasting and not fraught with risks. A competent safe practitioner will also recognize that it’s actually the body/mind that heals itself. All we practitioners can do is assist that process. And so encouraging self-reliance is an essential part of the healing process.

Self-reliance includes the avoidance of doctors for small things. Fundamentally, you are your own best doctor. Good mental health (much neglected in our culture) means trusting that your body can heal a small thing like a stubbed toe or a cold virus invasion all on its own or with a little help from home remedies.

Avoiding Iatrogenic Complications

First, be ready to change everything in your life that is a likely cause of disease and injury. Get as healthy as you can and stay that way.

Second, learn the difference between true emergencies and non-emergencies.

Third, see if the non-emergency situation will respond to self-treatment and rest. If your own efforts do not resolve the situation, consult a practitioner of Safe Medicine. Following is a partial list of Safe Medicine techniques and disciplines commonly found in the US, in alphabetical order:
• Acupuncture
• Ayurvedic Medicine
• Biofeedback
• Chinese Medicine
• Chiropractic adjustment
• Dental hygiene
• Fitness training
• Folk medicine
• Herbology
• Homeopathy
• Hypnosis
• Life Coaching
• Meditation
• Mega-vitamin therapy
• Natural vision therapy
• Naturopathic Medicine
• Nutritional counseling
• Physical therapy
• Psychological counseling
• Qi gong
• Tai qi
• Therapeutic massage
• Yoga

Preventing Heart Attacks

By E Douglas Kihn, OMD, LAc, CPT

Heart attacks kill more Americans every year than any other cause. When a heart attack occurs, some heart muscle cells die from reduced or obstructed blood flow through the coronary arteries. The medical term for this is “myocardial infarction” (MI).

Many different situations can restrict the blood flow to the heart muscle and cause heart attacks, such as infectious diseases, starvation, a drug overdose, poison, and genetic abnormalities. The causes discussed here are those that are commonly encountered in the U.S. and that are mostly preventable. We will examine these factors from a Chinese medical perspective, which will give us clues about how to prevent heart attacks. Even those who carry heart disease anomalies in the genes can postpone problems for a very long time by making some important changes.

Yin excess

The heart is a pump that sends oxygen and nutrients throughout the body. When excess material – yin is material – accumulates in the bloodstream, the pump can fail. If the pump is unable to nourish itself, part of it can die.

Excessive yin can include enlarged fat cells, impacted fecal matter in the intestines, phlegm, watery discharge, fluid accumulation, and growths. Another kind of excessive yin accumulates in the inner lining of the blood vessels. In Western medicine, this excess yin is known as “atherosclerosis.” As this material builds up, it will wreak its own special kind of havoc.

When the passageways in the blood vessels become narrowed with cholesterol and other unwanted material, the back pressure on the heart will increase, causing hypertension. Eventually, the tiny arteries that feed the heart can become clogged with this debris, known as “plaque,” that has accumulated over a lifetime. Debris and clotted blood can also break off somewhere in the body and get lodged in the coronary arteries (embolism). When either event occurs, part of the heart can starve. A starved heart will stop working. An MI and possible death are the result.

Liver qi stagnation

Have you ever heard of someone who suffered a heart attack as the result of bad news or other psychological trauma? Chinese medicine explains this well with the concept of liver qi stagnation. Qi is that substance in the body (and the and everywhere else) that moves everything, including the organs, muscles, and blood. Your Chinese liver (not your Western liver) functions like the director of your movie. Liver (gan) keeps the work flowing smoothly and makes sure everyone on the set is happy and has everything they need. This includes the qi in the heart.

When the muscles that surround the heart suddenly clench, heart qi will stagnate and all work in the constricted heart could come to a halt. Blood will stagnate, part of the heart will starve and die, and the heart may stop altogether, causing an MI and death. A person who lives with chronic fear and anxiety likely suffers from liver qi stagnation. This means that an emergency fight-or-flight clenching of muscles constantly exists in the body, especially the rib cage, and often without the person being aware of it. Poor circulation of qi and blood in the chest area will make a person susceptible to this kind of heart attack.

Excess yin that blocks circulation will further contribute to stagnated liver qi and blood in the chest. Conversely, stagnated liver qi will interfere with the free circulation of yin fluids in the chest and elsewhere, increasing the incidence of plaque forming in the blood vessels.

Heart heat

Alone among all of the organs, the heart is the only one that is always working. Even when you hold your breath, your heart is still moving. This means that the heart picks up a lot of friction and thus generates heat continuously. Therefore the heart is susceptible to conditions of excess heat. A speedy heart rate – over 80 beats per minute – is one of many indications of excess heat. When we exercise, our bodies generate extra heat and so the heart rate increases. This kind of heat is normal and healthy.

However, when excessive heat enters the chest area, there exists a danger that it will cause an unhealthy and even dangerous condition that could even lead to a heart attack. This pathological heat most often enters the body as a result of the inhalation of hot gases, namely smoking. Too much smoking of any substance can speed up the heart rate so fast (“tachycardia”) that the heat can tip that tiny heart cell that governs rhythm (the sinoatrial node) into a frenzy. The result is called “ventricular fibrillation,” when the rhythm of the heartbeat is completely lost and any real pumping action ceases. With effective pumping stopped, heart cells begin to starve and die due to lack of oxygen.

Tachycardia can also be initiated by overwork compounded by the heat that results from stuck liver qi pounding against barriers in the tissues.

Prevention

Here are some steps we can all take to preserve or improve the health of the heart and avoid heart attacks for as long as possible.

• Get lean. Five to ten percent body fat for men and seven to twelve percent for women is optimally lean. Lean is clean. Excess yin originates from two sources: Food and drink. Excess liquid comes and goes easily, but excess calories from food stay around as enlarged fat cells, growths, impacted waste, and of course plaque in the blood vessels. The body is just as adept at cannibalizing plaque as body fat, tumors, and waste, if given the chance. This requires eating less calories than used until the desired leanness is reached. Herbal supplements such as Bojenmi Tea and black fungus that encourage the body to clean out plaque and cholesterol from the walls of the blood vessels can also be helpful.

• Minimize pollutants. Chemicals from food and smoke can accumulate in the blood, adding significantly to plaque buildup. Stop smoking or breathing other people’s smoke. Cook most of your own food, and buy mostly organic food.

• Get calm. Work hard to establish and maintain your piece of mind. Use calming techniques that work best for you that do not cause more problems, such as Asian philosophy, cognitive behavioral therapy, religion, meditation, yoga, taiqi, and regular exercise. Beware of using food, smoking, alcohol, and drugs/medications as a substitute for real change.

• Improve your posture. Hours spent hunched over a desk or computer screen will contract the chest muscles and decrease circulation in the heart area. Sitting and standing straight will open up the chest and help move liver/heart qi.

• Limit or quit smoking.

• Get plenty of sleep and rest. Do not overschedule or speed through your day so that you do not build up excess heat in the heart.