Dear Steve,

DID YOU KNOW 70% of Americans believe that disinformation, mainly from news and social media, has a negative effect on society and well-being? It has gotten to the point these same Americans cite family and friends as their most trusted sources of information.

As many long-time clients know, we stick to the research. And we only get political when government officials get in the way of the health and wellbeing of our clients.

For over 20 years, our eNewsletter has been an oasis from the torrid pace of health disinformation spewed daily.

Following is an example of what paid members read Mondays and Wednesdays. Wellness topics may include diet, sleep, physical activity, supplements, stress management, new food and beverages brands, recipes, medical advances, and much more, including 24-hour access to our 48 title Action Plan library.

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DID YOU KNOW how far ahead of the game we were when it came to linking diet with inflammation and eventually autoimmune disease? Read this excerpt from the journal Nature's News Feature:

"In April, the New England Journal of Medicine launched a series of review articles on nutrition, immunity and disease, and in January, the US Department of Health and Human Services held its first-ever Food is Medicine summit in Washington DC, which explored links between diet and chronic diseases.

Some researchers argue that modern diets, especially those of the Western world, have skewed our immune responses in ways that have undermined immune resilience. More optimistically, others say that diet could also help to treat a range of health problems, such as cancers and chronic immune disorders such as lupus.

It’s early days, but many scientists in the field are hopeful. 'We are learning a lot more about how you can modulate your immune system with single components or combinations of food components,' says immunologist Francesco Siracusa at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany. As a potential therapy, he says, 'the blooming of the personalized nutrition field over the last five to six years is very exciting'."

Ahem, diet could treat a long range of health problems? It's early days? It's actually late days when it comes to this office and connecting personalized nutrition with chronic disease :)

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Our dietary supplement line for dogs and cats, ThorneVet, has an impeccable reputation among veterinarians. Carolyn Martinelli "Coach Care" can answer your questions about ThorneVet pet supplements at nutroconpet@gmail.com. Please leave detailed contact information as well as the name, age, sex, breed, and/or health issue(s) and med(s) of your pet so Carolyn can respond accordingly. To order from our wellness shop, please visit here (for prices, enter the Guest Area password: discount2018).

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• Paid Member Content
• WC Feature: Inflammation Starts in the Gut
• Menu Savvy: Inflammatory Diet and Morbidity
• Mythbuster: Can Short Workouts Really Help?
• Brand Buzz: Rapid Inflammation Relief
• Recipe du Jour: 1-Day Anti-Inflammatory Menu
• Mental Minute: Inflammation and Mental Health
• Wild Card: Acupuncture for Arthritis
• eInspire: Abraham Maslow
• Action Plan of the Month: Superfoods for a Super You

• Free Member Content
• Did You Know?
• Sitting and Inflammation
• December & November 20% OFF Sale
• Pure Genomics
• Watch: Exercise Snacking
• Loyalty Program
• Well Connect Member Benefits

Steve: As your gut becomes inflamed, so does the rest of your body. We know that the raw materials you present to your digestive system, that being food and beverage, warrant how much or how little inflammation occurs. The idea is to be preventive and proactive by eschewing inflammatory foods and beverages. But how do we ascertain the level of gut inflammation once it has leaked into other organ systems and cannot be turned off so easily? Here are several ways we discern the level of gut inflammation.

Standard Blood Test - C-reactive Protein, Sedimentation Rate, and Eosinophil % are the three main markers we look at to ascertain gut inflammation.

Food Intolerance Testing - This is commonly performed, but because those with inflammation exhibit numerous false positives because they are so inflamed that they will react to even non-reactive foods, this testing is best served when someone is less inflamed but may still be reacting mildly.

Stool Analysis Testing - Healing the gut is the best way to ameliorate inflammation. Healing the gut allows other organs to heal. Moreover, the reactivity to many foods drops dramatically when the gut is healed. Having the right type of test performed, which analyzes pathogenic activity and overgrowth, commensal (beneficial) bacteria, and numerous levels of inflammation is critical. For more information, you can always email me at nutrocon@yahoo.com.

Steve: Aside from diet, one of the most influential ways you can prevent inflammation is with movement, or more specifically, not sitting for too long. This goes for all age groups.

A new study from BMJ Open of more than 1,000 adults, average age 33, found that meeting recommended physical activity guidelines isn't enough to counteract the 60-plus hours per week they spend sitting. To reduce inflammation, they need to sit less.

Researchers in another BMJ Open study showed that reducing daily sitting prevented back pain and in those who already had back pain, prevented it from worsening over six months. The result strengthens the current understanding of the link between movement and back pain as well as the mechanisms related to back pain.

I tell my clients as a general rule to never sit longer than 30-45 minutes if possible. Even if you get up for 10 seconds and sit right back down, it is something that breaks up the cumulative inflammatory effect of sitting for hours.

Steve: According to the authors of a The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study, a proinflammatory diet has been associated with a risk of individual chronic diseases, however, evidence on the association between inflammatory dietary patterns and the trajectory of chronic disease multimorbidity is sparse. They investigated the associations of a low-inflammatory diet with the multimorbidity trajectory.

Adherence to a low-inflammatory diet was associated with decreased multimorbidity risk and a slower multimorbidity accumulation compared with a high-inflammatory diet, especially in participants aged 60 years or older. Moreover, a low-inflammatory prolonged chronic disease-free survival time.

Steve: Even short bursts of activity for 30 seconds to five minutes can be immeasurably helpful for inflammation reduction. We call them exercise snacks.

Whether you do push ups, pull ups, march, run in place, do jumping jacks, doing short bursts of activity gets the blood flowing, smoothes out synovial fluid in your joints, improves circulation and mood, all things that contribute to inflammation reduction.

It's also a great way to break up the monotony of the day for those who must be in an office or in front of a computer for hours on end.

Bonnie: If you're looking for the perfect anti-inflammatory menu for one day, voilà!

BREAKFAST -one Yerba Mate Teabag in boiled filtered water with 1/4 cup Unsweetened fortified Milkadamia substitute milk (optional) with a dash of organic monkfruit extract (optional)

-2 hard boiled eggs with a dash of iodized sea salt

-2 T. mashed avocado on one Absolutely Gluten-Free brand flatbread

LUNCH

-Mountain Valley Springs flat filtered water

-6 oz. wild canned tuna (mashed and mixed with garlic/onion powder, dash of organic unsweetened olive oil mayonnaise), diced celery, and one tablespoon finely chopped pineapple

-Salad with organic red leaf lettuce, finely grated kale/arugula with 1/2 T. Olive oil with 1/2 T. Olive oil for dressing

-2 T. shelled organic pumpkin seeds for salad topping

AFTERNOON SNACK

-medium pear

-1/4 cup raw/dry roasted cashews

DINNER

-2 cups decaf organic green tea

-STIR-FRIED CHICKEN QUINOA

(in a wok, stir-fry 1/4 lb. diced raw chicken with 1/4 cup chopped scallions, dash of white pepper, 1 T. Diced fresh ginger, and 1/4 T. San-J tamari in 1 T. grapeseed oil with dash of sesame oil)

-1/2 cup cooked broccoli florets

-3/4 cup cooked (precooked frozen organic quinoa)

Mix chicken, broccoli, and quinoa together for a one dish meal.

Steve: According to a study from Frontiers in Nutrition, there is a bidirectional link between metabolic aberrations and a diverse array of neuropsychiatric disorders. Approximately one in three individuals with a chronic health condition are affected by co-occurring neuropsychiatric condition. Not surprisingly, the neuropsychiatric conditions most affected by dietary factors, anxiety and depression, are also those most prevalent in the general population.

Depression continues to be one of the world’s most debilitating illnesses. World estimates have estimated the lifetime prevalence between 30 and 40%. Depression is comorbid with other neuropsychiatric illnesses (i.e., anxiety, cognitive impairment, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders) and chronic physical disorders (i.e., arthritis, asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain, chronic respiratory disorders, diabetes, hypertension, obesity). Those with these comorbid outcomes tend to have worse outcomes.

The authors state that diet-related therapeutic targets must begin with inflammation reduction, which balances brain-gut-microbiota, lowers oxidative stress, fixes mitochondrial dysfunction, harmonizes epigenetics, improves the HPA axis, and optimizes neurotransmitter metabolism, which address many of neural circuits implicated in depression.

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Pure Insight (formerly Genomics) harnesses the science of nutrigenomics so you can understand the relationship between your genes, nutrition, and wellness at the deepest level. Covering 72 genes in 11 trait categories, we've used Pure Insight since 2015 to help clients live longer with better quality of life.

How to Get Started

1. Order a genetic kit directly from 23andMe.com or Ancestry.com and send back your saliva specimen.
2. When your results are ready, request that we set up a Pure Insight account for you. We just need your full name, email address, and date of birth.
3. You will receive an email invitation from Pure Insight with a link to set up your account and instructions for how to upload 23andMe or Ancestry data.
4. You will receive a confirmation from Pure Insight when your report is ready and we can then set up an appointment to go over your results.

Steve: Acute gouty arthritis severely affects the quality of life of patients due to its persistent, recurrent, and debilitating characteristics. Acupuncture holds a pivotal role as a classical alternative therapy in managing gouty arthritis.

A Medrxiv study assessed the clinical effectiveness of various acupuncture methods used in conjunction with conventional medications for treating acute gouty arthritis.

Fire acupuncture demonstrated the highest effectiveness in improving cure rates. Acupuncture combined with conventional medication was found to be the most effective for reducing pain scores. Additionally, Acupuncture combined with conventional medication proved most effective in lowering uric acid levels.

"All the evidence that we have indicates that it is reasonable to assume in practically every human being, and certainly in almost every newborn baby, that there is an active will toward health, an impulse towards growth, or towards the actualization."

-Abraham Maslow

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Bonnie, Steve, Lilo, Lori, Sharron, Cindy, Diana, Marisa and Carolyn

Nutritional Concepts Inc.

1535 Lake Cook Road, Suite 204

Northbrook, IL 60062

Phone 847-498-3422

Text 847-497-0902