Everyone has been affected by cancer. In 1900, only 3 out of 100 deaths were attributed to cancer. Breast cancer was unheard of in the first 50 years of the 20th century. Across the board, cancer was so rare that it wasn’t listed as a cause of death in the government statistics. So what’s happened since 1950 to send the incidents of cancer through the roof? In 2012, for breast cancer alone, 290,000 women were diagnosed and of those diagnosed, 45,000 will die. WHAT IS GOING ON?! Oncologists tout the meme that cancer is a genetic disease … but if it’s genetic disease, why wasn’t anyone getting cancer at the turn of the century a hundred years ago? Cancer is an epi-genetic disease that is triggered primarily by environment mismatches. If you use modern technology or eat a standard American diet, you are at risk of getting cancer. Cancer is a disease of altered cellular signaling caused by inflammation. In this webinar, we’re going to discuss: – The dietary deficiencies that contribute to the epi-genetic phenomenon – The chemo prevention of breast cancer using nutra-genomics – Genetics and epi-genetics, and all the things that affect whether your genetic profileContinue Reading
Cancer Q&A Teleseminar
Buy Q&A Call Cancer & Breast Cancer Q&A Call Only! See related products below for the Cancer Webinar Everyone has been affected by cancer. In 1900, only 3 out of 100 deaths were attributed to cancer. Breast cancer was unheard of in the first 50 years of the 20th century. Across the board, cancer was so rare that it wasn’t listed as a cause of death in the government statistics. So what’s happened since 1950 to send the incidents of cancer through the roof? In 2012, for breast cancer alone, 290,000 women were diagnosed and of those diagnosed, 45,000 will die. WHAT IS GOING ON?! Oncologists tout the meme that cancer is a genetic disease … but if it’s genetic disease, why wasn’t anyone getting cancer at the turn of the century a hundred years ago? Cancer is an epi-genetic disease that is triggered primarily by environment mismatches. If you use modern technology or eat a standard American diet, you are at risk of getting cancer. Cancer is a disease of altered cellular signaling caused by inflammation. The October Q&A webinar is a monthly forum for members to ask questions of Dr. Kruse. There are no “rules” for the Q&As,Continue Reading
Breast Cancer Webinar and Q&A
Access the live Q&A Call on: Title: October Webinar/ Q&A – Cancer and Breast Cancer- Healing & Prevention Date: October 31, 2012 Time: 7:00pm CDT You will be emailed the details. Please check your junk folder and whitelist the support@jackkruse.com email address to avoid missing important emails. Buy Webinar
PERI-OPERATIVE OPTIMAL SURGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
READERS SUMMARY: What might you consider pre and post op before your surgery? These all need to be cleared with your surgeon before starting! In an ideal situation, patients undergoing surgery will have adequate time before the operation to prepare themselves emotionally and physically. This preparation will likely include dietary supplementation, as well as mental and emotional preparation. The healthier patients are when they go into surgery, the healthier they are likely to be during the postoperative phase. If they are a progressive patient suggest some brain training pre op with biofeedback or transcendental meditation. It has an amazing effect of decreasing the need for post op narcotic pain meds for pain control. The less pain meds one takes, the less complications one will face too. I also recommend that patients with poor glucose control discuss intensive insulin therapy with the surgeon before surgery. Specifically adding 500 mgs of reservatrol for 2 weeks prior to and after the surgery can cut insulin needs as well. Studies indicate that surgery-induced insulin resistance, leading to elevated glucose levels during surgery, raises the risk of complications and death. Intensive insulin therapy, a procedure in which glucose levels are closely monitored during surgery, canContinue Reading
PRIMAL CPC #2: EATING DISORDER ETIOLOGY
PRIMAL CPC #2: EATING DISORDER ETIOLOGY READERS SUMMARY: 1. WHAT IS ANOREXIA, BULEMIA, PURGING DISORDER, AND HYPOTHALMIC AMENORRHEA AND ARE THEY RELATED? 2. ARE THE DISEASE OF IMPROPER SIGNALING BROUGHT ON BY HIGH CORTISOL AND INFLAMMATION? 3. WHAT ARE THE COMMON TIES IN THESE DISEASES? 4. HOW DOES GASTRIC BYPASS HELP US UNDERSTAND THESE DISEASES? 5. WHAT IS THE CIRCADIAN BIOLOGY OF THESE DISORDERS? If a person has a compulsion to eat, or not to eat – a compulsion that has a negative effect on his/her mental and physical health, he/she probably has an eating disorder. The two most common types of eating disorders are Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Some estimates say that approximately 5-7% of American females suffer from either disorder at some time during their lives. AN is associated with the following: weighs much less than he/she should – 15% or more below their ideal weight normally has a BMI of 17.5 or less has missed three consecutive menstrual periods has a preoccupation with body shape and weight has a severe fear of putting on any weight Bulemia is a different ED. It is harder to find because it may occur with normal or overweight patients. Since there is an association with high cortisol levels, anxiety,Continue Reading
PRIMAL CPC 1: TOURETTE SYNDROME MEETS EVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE
READERS SUMMARY: 1. WHAT IS TOURETTE’S SYNDROME? 2. HOW MIGHT IT BE LINKED TO A LEAKY GUT, GRAINS, AND TIE TO OTHER DISEASE’S WE KNOW NADA ABOUT? 3. HOW DOES OUR HARDWIRING GIVE US NEW INSIGHTS? 4. HOW MIGHT NEUROSURGERY HELP CHRIS JOHNSON? 5. HOW MIGHT SOME PIONEERING DENTISTS TIED A NICE BOW ON THERAPY FOR CHRONIC TS PATIENTS? Tourette’s syndrome (TS) is defined as an inherited neurological disorder that is a chronic idiopathic syndrome that neurosurgeons consider in the family of movement disorders. Today’s blog is called a CPC. That is known as a clinico-pathologic conference for my readers. Every so often I am going to post about a disease process and how evolutionary medicine may look at something that modern medicine is vexed by. We generally do not treat these patients but neurologist however do. In my town we have a very famous running back who is a superstar that has a variant of this condition. The disease is characterized by the presence of multiple muscle tics and occasionally vocal tics that have their beginning before adulthood. It usually occurs with an onset in childhood between ages 5-8. A diagnosis of TS was almost three times as likely for boys as girls, twice as likely for personsContinue Reading
HEY LYME DISEASE, MEET LEPTIN!
READERS SUMMARY: 1. WHY IS LYME MISUNDERSTOOD? 2. IS LYME CONNECTED TO FIBROMYALGIA, MOLD, CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME? 3. HOW DO WE TEST FOR IT AND HOW MIGHT WE TREAT IT? 4. HOW DOES LEPTIN TIE INTO THIS STORY? I do not believe there is a more misunderstood disease by conventional medicine than Lyme disease and Fibromyalgia. Many healthcare providers do not even think FM exists to the determent of millions of people. It is estimated that ten million people suffer from these diseases today. 75% of them are women. The reason for that is because leptin is involved, and as you all know it is a sexually dimorphic hormone. These are diseases that affect the fat cells in all parts of our body. They also cause issues with adiponectin, which is also sexually dimorphic. Many women will be glad to know that fact. Understanding Lyme disease actually helps you understand FM very well. Both diseases cause abnormal activation of an immune mediated pathway that takes over cytokine production in the fat cells that line our GI tracts, respiratory tracts, sinuses, and many other organs. Most know that Lyme is most commonly associated with a tick bite, and the host getsContinue Reading
OSTEOPOROSIS THREE: RELATED DRUGS AND DISEASES
READERS SUMMARY: 1. WHAT MEDICAL CONDITIONS PREDISPOSE TO BAD BONE? 2. WHAT DRUGS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH BAD BONE? 3. WHAT COMMONLY USED DRUGS MAY NEED TO BE DISCUSSED IF BONE LOSS IS PRESENT? What are some of the medical conditions that are associated with osteopenia or osteoporosis? 1. Excessive alcohol intake- greater than two drinks a day consistently will do it. 2. Tobacco use- This causes a 100 fold increase in bone loss. Oral tobacco is worse than inhaled smoke 3. Stress- any cause be it emotional, physical, mental, psychic all raise cortisol chronically and kill bone 4. Lack of physical activity increases obesity risk, which increases cortisol from leptin resistance 5. Low calcium intake or absorption from gastrectomy or low acid production from any reason 6. Reduced strength and activity due to a chronic illness or a sedentary life (checked with a grip test) 7. Small build or leanness naturally – correlates with BMI below 19 for women and men. 8. Asian women have a particular propensity to osteopenia genetically and from their diet. 9. Drug therapy, for example, long-term use of corticosteroids such as prednisone-used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, celiac disease, autoimmune diseases, Crohn’s disease, IBD, andContinue Reading
OSTEOPOROSIS TWO: THE VITAMIN K2 STORY
READERS SUMMARY: 1. HOW DOES THE HUMAN BODY HANDLE VITAMIN K2? 2. IS THE GALLBLADDER IMPORTANT IN THE VITAMIN K2 CYCLE? 3. WHY DOES OSTEOPOROSIS WALK HAND AND HAND WITH ARTERIAL DISEASE? 4. HOW IS VITAMIN K2 LINKED TO OUR LIPID PROFILE CLINICALLY? 5. HOW DOES COUMADIN CAUSE IATROGENIC OSTEOPOROSIS? In the first blog on osteoporosis, we focused in on how to stimulate bone mass accrual via our diet. This is by far the best way to fight osteoporosis and least used way, but it is not the only way to treat it. Eating a diet that is plentiful in proteins and saturated fats are smart moves to stave off bone loss as one ages. Eating a diet laden in carbohydrates or filled with a lot of fowl like turkey and chicken is not going to help your bone mass in the long run. The last blog demonstrated that vitamin K2 supplementation (for just 4 weeks) will not only increase your insulin sensitivity, but raise your sex steroid hormones as well to support your bone metabolism. Both mechanisms seem to be related to increased amounts of serum carboxylated osteocalcin (cOC), is made rather than just modulating inflammation in our body.Continue Reading
THE "TEETH" IN DISEASE?
READERS SUMMARY: 1. HOW SCIENCE PRESENTS A CURVEBALL YOU DID NOT SEE COMING? 2. HOW YOUR MOUTH MIGHT BE THE KEY TO DIABETES, OBESITY AND INFLAMMATION? 3. IS THERE A HYPOTHALAMIC PAROTID AXIS? 4. IS THE PAROTID GLAND THE MOUTH’S PANCREAS? Most of you may not know that before I was a neurosurgeon, I was a dentist and oral and maxillofacial surgeon. Many people know that Weston A. Price was a dentist too, who was ostracized from organized dentistry for many political reasons. Much of his accomplishments have been largely under appreciated ,because he was painted as an “renegade” by the American Dental Association and by organized dentistry. Most dental students never learn a thing about him or his work as a result. The paleo community knows about Weston A. Price largely, because of his foundation and people like Sally Fallon and the newer generation of young bucks, like future PHd, Chris Masterjohn. When I went to dental school at UCONN, my classmates and I never learned a thing about Weston A Price. We never were told about his work or his books. In the last 25 years, my education has evolved from dentistry to oral surgery, then toContinue Reading
THE "NOT SO HARD" TRUTH ABOUT HAIR LOSS
READERS SUMMARY: WHY EARLY HAIR LOSS MIGHT BE A GLUTEN/GLIADIN PROBLEM? WHY YOU SHOULD NOT USE A NUCLEAR WEAPON TO TREAT A MOLEHILL? WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF PLAYING A BIOCHEMIST ROLE IN THIS PATHWAY? WHEN TREATMENTS ARE WORSE THAN THE ORIGINAL CLINICAL PROBLEM? WHAT SHOULD I DO WHEN I HAVE HAIR LOSS BEFORE STARTING DRUGS? Every so often, I have decided to post a blog about an interesting clinical picture that I think may help our community out. Today we are going to cover a clinical topic that came up a while back on Paleohacks about a young male patient about his recent hair loss. I think this topic is timely because of the recent literature that is now coming out about the drugs that disturb the distal androgen pathways, and how they can wreck the Hypothalamic Pituitary axis on a permanent basis. I have heard many doctors on public radio shows (Sirius Doctor Radio to be exact on their dermatology show recently) and in blogs say that these hair sparing drugs do not cause any long term problems with a males fecundity or libido. In a nut shell, I am calling bullshit on that. This statementContinue Reading
CONCUSSION/CTE PRESCRIPTION
READERS SUMMARY: WHAT REALLY IS A CONCUSSION? HOW DO I TREAT A CONCUSSION IF IT HAPPENS? WHAT THE MILITARY,NFL, NHL,MLB, NBA and NCAA SHOULD DO NOW? WHAT EVERY PARENT NEEDS TO KNOW NOW? Today marks the fourth blog in this series. Today also marked another early death in the NFL community. This time Orlando “Zeus” Brown was found dead in Baltimore. He was a mammoth offensive tackle who played in the NFL from 1994 to 2005. After hearing about it today I decided to post this blog tonight. I think this information is critical and needs to be considered by everyone at risk right now. Concussion is a trauma-induced alteration in mental status that may or may not involve loss of consciousness. Headache, confusion and amnesia are the hallmarks of concussion. The confusional episode and amnesia may occur immediately after the blow to the head or several minutes later. I have also seen symptoms appear several days later from concussions especially in the younger patient and in the multiply concussed patient. Sources of Concussion: Blasts Vehicle crashes Projectiles Falls Sports injuries Symptoms of concussion: · Headaches or neck pain that do not go away; · Slowness in thinking, speaking, acting,Continue Reading
WHERE CTE, DIET, and NEURODEGENERATION MEET.
READERS SUMMARY: 1. HOW DOES CONCUSSION, MSG, AND NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASE ALL FIT TOGETHER? 2. WHO IS AT RISK? DOES AGE MATTER? DO I KNOW ANYONE WHO HAS HAD THIS? 3. IS ANCEL KEYS A PLAYER IN THE MSG NIGHTMARE TOO? 4. HOW IS ALS TIED TO CONCUSSIONS AND TO EXOGENOUS and ENDOGENOUS EXCITOTOXINS? 5. ARE CONCUSSIONS, AD, ALS and MSG BASICALLY THE SAME DISEASE? In the first two blogs (1) (2) in this series we looked at the fundamental neurobiology of how excitatory neurotransmitters and exogenous food additives can cause human disease. We discussed that the mechanism of disease progression is affected by age, species, and the energy status of the neuron at the time of exposure or injury. Today we are going to explore how acute neurologic aspects of cranial trauma relates to progression to long term neurodegenerative disease. We also must remember that these athletes, soldiers, and high school students are simultaneously ingesting huge amounts of MSG and aspartate in a standard American diet. I would hope that every person reading this would avoid exogenous sources of excitotoxins going forward. This is especially true if you have sustained a traumatic brain injury or a concussion in your lifetime.Continue Reading
MSG your GUT and your BRAIN post trauma.
READERS SUMMARY: 1. How does MSG and aspartame affect you and your brain and your fat loss? 2. What do artificial sweeteners do to a human? 3. How does neuronal injury from diet, trauma, and energy depletion all tie together? 4. What about young humans? 5. What about young humans with injured brains? In part 2 of this series, we will explore how excitatory amino acids in foods and introduced to our GI tract could cause us some problems with normal functioning causing weight plateaus. We will discuss how MSG and aspartame (Nutrasweet), could wreak havoc with the human brain. This is especially true if that brain already has been concussed many times or is afflicted with some neurodegenerative disorder or is connected to an already leaky gut (low HDL level). Many people don’t seem to understand how MSG and artificial sweeteners cause damage to neurons. The experimental data on this area is documented quite well by Dr. John Olney. His work began in 1969. He studied the endocrine effects of MSG on the hypothalamus. Most of my blog readers know that leptin signaling in the hypothalamus is critical for developing obesity and controlling weight among other things. You mightContinue Reading
CELLULAR DEPLETIONS….WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
READERS SUMMARY: 1. How do we tie the squabble at AHS to Neolithic disease generation? 2. How does a cell react to acute stress and what results? 3. How does this stress get measured by labs and my doctor? 4. What happens when this stress lasts too long? 5. Why cholesterol is always good for us, but why the surrounding terroir dictates the disease we get? Lets continue talking about cellular stress and depletions of things in a cell. We got on that topic because of the macronutrient squabble from AHS. But after following some twitter feeds (@DigiSurg if you want to follow me) about supplement regimes I thought I might try to tie some cellular mineral depletions together with how it causes the cell stress and causes it to affect its cellular terroir and our resultant hormone status. I think this story will help you understand just how important following the trial of biochemistry is. Any type of cellular stress lowers our stores of ATP and of Magnesium (Mg) because they are coupled together by our ATPase enzyme as we saw in this post. This is classically seen in diabetes development as we mentioned there. Another interesting thing alsoContinue Reading
WHAT IS PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY?
READERS SUMMARY: 1. WHAT IS NEUROPATHY? 2. WHAT IS NEUROPATHY ASSOCIATED WITH? 3. HOW IS THIS CONDITION DIAGNOSED? 4. HOW MIGHT ONE CONSIDER TREATING THIS CONDITION? 5. WHAT ARE THE CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL TREATMENTS? DO THEY EVEN WORK? NERVE PAIN/NEUROPATHY “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?” ~ Lance Armstrong I think Mr. Armstrong’s perspective is interesting because it allows him to cope when he is racing and feeling pain but when it comes to chronic peripheral neuropathy that I see most commonly he is dead wrong. I don’t think there is anything that slowly destroys a human being more than chronic pain. I see quite a bit of chronic pain in my daily job and decided to write a quick blog about it because of the shear number of emails I have received to speak on this topic. Neuropathy is a malfunctioning of aContinue Reading
WHERE AUTOIMMUNITY, CANCER and DISEASE COLLIDE
READERS SUMMARY: 1. What ties Levee 5, 6, and 16 all together in the QUILT? 2. Why is Vitamin D and Selenium the key to the gut? 3. How does Vitamin K play a role? 4. Why is autoimmune disease, cancer and neolithic disease more common today than ever before? I believe heart disease and inflammatory bowel diseases are precancerous states. I also believe autoimmunity is a precancerous state. I believe autoimmunity and cancer are just steps apart. Epidemiological studies link all these disease to inflammation generation. Most people and doctors already know this. But what is less talked about is how this all fits biologically. Today we are going to tackle this. I think two critical co-variables need to be looked at in detail and are found in our immune system physiology. Those two critical factors are Vitamin D status and Selenium status. I have already shared with you how a leaky gut is tied to autoimmunity in some detail in my recent blog. Today we are going to tie three levees together, oncogenesis, immunity, and the brain gut axis. In the June 2010 American Journal of Pathology published a study that caught my eye. It reviewed at theContinue Reading
WHY LEAKY GUTS LEAD TO MS?
READERS SUMMARY: 1. What determines our ultimate health fate? 2. What exactly is epigenetics? 3. How does an autoimmune disease begin? 4. Is multiple sclerosis tied to gut inflammation? 5. What is an inflammasome and why is hypomethylation so critical? My first post on epigenetics seems to have stimulated a lot of talk based upon the emails I received. I think we need to dig a bit deeper into this area because it is now clear scientifically that epigenetics really determines our ultimate health outcomes. In fact, it is the easiest way to alter our genomes by modifying our dietary choices. To begin let’s simply define what epigenetics is in 2011. Epigenetics is any mechanism that affects genes without chaining the nucleotide sequence of the DNA. The two major ways epigenetic modification occurs via our diet is via methylation of our DNA or of acetylation of our histone proteins. The amount of methyl and acetyl groups come from our diets. For example, when we have low methylation in our diet, our DNA becomes hypomethylated. Lower levels of methylation correlates with development of higher rates of cancer and with autoimmune conditions. Obviously, none of us wants to get cancer or autoimmuneContinue Reading
CAN'T REMEMBER? IS YOUR PROTEIN BENT?
READERS SUMMARY: 1. AD revisited for those of you who think this is an elderly problem. Its not! 2. Why is the incidence and prevalence growing for AD? 3. What is a proteopathy doc? 4. Why is protein folding so critical to so many disease? 5. What kind of nutrition guidelines do I follow to avoid AD doc? Many of you had questions after my first Alzheimer’s Disease post (AD) but few seem to want me to call the cause of it. The truth is no one is willing to make the leap of faith just yet, but the data that we have found over the last ten years has given us a pretty good idea of what causes it to occur. I am not going to be so kind. AD is the major neolithic disease coming for People 0-40 years old today. No neolithic disease we have seen be born in the last 125 years will have the impact on our society that AD will have. Humans evolved from other hominids because of their brain and how they rely on social learning. AD completely destroys that beautiful adaptation. Many younger people think that AD is a disease of theContinue Reading
WHAT IS BIOLOGIC CONCRETE?
READERS SUMMARY: 1. What is glycation? Why should I care about it? 2. What are the signs I can see if I am doing this to myself without my doctor? 3. What are the steps in glycation and where will it lead me? 4. What are the consequences if I ignore this biologic process? We established in the Quilt what glycation is. Today we are going to talk about the clinical manifestions of glycation so that you can begin to assess yourself for the signs and symptoms. If they are present then we can give a strategy to stop the progressive damage so you can avoid the ravages of neolithic disease progression that Americans currently face. First we have to get you to write some answers down to some questions. Get a pen and paper. Read on and write the answers as you go to see how much biologic concrete you may have collected so far. The first sign to look for are found in the mirror. Take a good look at your skin. Does it look like it did when you were in third grade? If not, you likely have a problem. Do you have acne? Do you haveContinue Reading
