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SEPTEMBER 2025 TABLEHOPPING
LETS GET A LITTLE SALTY!
Hypertension is no joke. It’s the most common medical condition in American adults. It’s becoming an increasing problem even amongst children today. Hypertension, as we doctors call it, high blood pressure , is probably the biggest contributor to heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. Throw diabetes in the mix , which many of you have, and you have the two biggest health issues in America today.
Well, we can’t even agree on the definition of hypertension. It used to be an acceptable number for the systolic to be 100 plus your age…so if you were 60 years old an acceptable BP would be 158/90. Nowadays the cutoff for normal is much lower …120/80 is the new standard according to the AHA and ACC. That often requires 2 or 3 medications. Critics say the new lower standards do not provide much additional improvement in life expectancy and there are real dangers to lowering the blood pressure too much.
So, you go to the doctor’s office and they check your blood pressure. If it’s up they start a pill. What they should do is repeat it after you have been resting a few minutes. If it’s still up then, you should be instructed to get some blood pressure readings at home. The machines are cheap, easy to use and reliable. Now, if your blood pressure is up at home then it’s time for action. Sure you can start a pill, that’s what everyone does but I am going to suggest you look at this a little differently. vast majority of people have hypertension because they are out of balance…maybe it’s too little nitric oxide, maybe it’s too little arginine, probably it’s too little magnesium and potassium but routine lab test for these latter two electrolytes reflect serum levels not the actual total levels of these critical electrolytes. If you get the potassium and magnesium levels checked and they are low….that’s a real sign of total body deficiency. But if the levels are “normal” you have no way of knowing your true reserves. Still, unless you have kidney disease or are already on medications that may affect potassium, if your blood pressure is low you should consider supplementing these two electrolytes and see if it lowers your blood pressure. Of course, you should try and get these in by eating a healthy diet but if your blood pressure is up you may need to supplement with capsules. It’s easy to have your health care provider check these labs anytime.
Your doctor will almost certainly tell you to reduce your salt. What he should say is cut down on processed foods. The literature I read says it’s not the sodium intake that’s important.. it’s the ratio of sodium intake and potassium intake that determines your blood pressure. You don’t have to measure your intake…you can measure your output which directly reflects your intake. Ask your doctor to do a 24 hour urine collection to assess the sodium and potassium ratio. The literature says if your urinary sodium is higher than your urinary potassium you will have high blood pressure and it’s a direct predictor of stroke likelihood. You can’t get a random urine sample …it has to be a 24 hour sample to be accurate. This is considered to be a “gold standard” test but we don’t order it often as it’s “inconvenient.” Well, before I commit to taking medication for the rest of my life I would be inconvenienced a little. If your ratio shows too much sodium to potassium …you decrease your sodium….(mostly from processed foods) and increase your potassium and your blood pressure should improve. Again, do this with your doctor so he can keep an eye on the labs but what do you have to lose. People don’t have heart attacks and strokes because their blood pressure is high for a day a week or months…it takes years of increased pressure to lead to ruin.
Of course, treating sleep apnea, de stressing, and getting exercise will all help your blood pressure. But today we are focusing on the electrolytes. The first thing you should do if the doctor says your blood pressure is up is to switch to low salt. Mortons sells salt…that’s sodium chloride. They also sell a low sodium version called Morton’s lite-salt. That’s roughly 50/50 sodium and potassium so you can still salt your food and be getting a good dose of potassium to offset the sodium. The taste is the same, at least to me.
Some references…Let’s start with an article from CIRCULATION
Association Between Urinary Sodium and Potassium Excretion and Blood Pressure Among Adults in the United States: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2014
Their conclusion? These cross-sectional results show a strong dose-response association between urinary sodium excretion and blood pressure, and an inverse association between urinary potassium excretion and blood pressure, in a nationally representative sample of US adults.
Directly from the NIH January 26, 2009 “The results, published in the January 12, 2009, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, showed a significant increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease with higher ratios of sodium to potassium. A high sodium/potassium ratio was a stronger indicator of increased risk among the participants in the study than levels of either sodium or potassium alone.”
In support of changing to potassium enriched salt is the Finnish Experience. Finland had one of the highest rates of stroke and heart attacks of any country in the world. They swapped out regular salt for the potassium enriched salt and strokes dropped by over 50 percent. Now there were other interventions etc etc but those are really dramatic reductions.
So here is your strategy. When you next go to the doctor say this…”I am interested in changing my salt shaker to one that has a 50-50 mix of potassium and sodium. Yes, I know I should keep my salt intake down but the 50-50 mix seems to make a difference. Do you see any problem with my trying that? I will keep track of my blood pressures and report back and have my labs checked in 2-3 months. “ You want to be scientific? Ask your doctor to order the 24 hour sodium and potassium urine collection and see for yourself what happens to your urine numbers and your blood pressure as you make changes. It’s a test that quest and labcorp easily do and it’s covered by your insurance. Just tell the doctor to write hypertension as the diagnosis and it’s off to the races…
Until next month…get well and stay well
JT BARRY MD
AUGUST 2025 TABLEHOPPING
Many people have asked my opinion on the work of Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. What prompted me to write this article was when a patient expressed concern that he would not be able to get a flu shot in the future. That one stopped me in my tracks as I wasn’t certain whether I should talk about the flu shot itself or whether the flu shot will be available. To begin with, the percentage of the population that’s gotten the flu shot has gone up from 15% to somewhere between 60 and 80%. and yet despite this massive adoption of the flu vaccine, hospitalizations and deaths have not gone down at all. If the shot is effective, why has it not affected the number of people dying or going to the hospital? Isn’t that really what we want the vaccine to do? Next is the study that shows if you get the flu shot and then get the flu, which is not uncommon as you well know, you are more likely to transmit the flu then a person who did not get the flu shot and then gets the flu. This is not really great from a public health standpoint. Thirdly, the military has done a study that showed that getting the flu shot increases your risk of getting Coronavirus that’s the covid. So, that’s three reasons why the flu shot isn’t the great panacea that’s advertised. I have shared the references in prior articles but by all means call my office and I can provide you with copies.
Now let’s turn to the question of what’s happening in Washington. RFK Jr is the United States Secretary for Health and Human Services. Let’s just say he’s created quite a stir in his first hundred days. Let’s look at some of the areas he is tackling and see where he stands.
Number one is the vaccines. He is not going to ban all vaccines. He is going to subject vaccines to scientific scrutiny, something which they have not been subjected to in quite some time. If you have faith in the CDC and the FDA it means that you haven’t read Dissolving Illusions, Turtles All the Way Down, the Virus and the Vaccine etc . Independent testing of vaccine safety and efficacy is a thing to be highly desired not mocked as anti-science.
Next, the secretary intends to look at the food stamp program now known as SNAP. I am completely sympathetic to the idea that there are those among us that are less fortunate and need assistance at every level including housing and nutrition. The poor will always be with us. However, giving them free access via food stamps to horrible junk like Doritos and Pepsi is in no way helping them. With modern technology it should be quite simple to use the current codes on every item of food in the shelves to see whether it qualifies for assistance or not. If it’s real vegetables, if it’s real protein, if it’s real food, then it should be covered. Cereals snacks ,soda and other processed foods should not be covered because they are unhealthy and are affecting the most vulnerable population. I have yet to come across a person that has a problem with this approach.
The Secretary is, as you well know, looking into food additives. Europeans on the whole are much healthier than Americans despite spending far less of their gross national product on healthcare. The same items on our shelves that now contain 12 or 15 synthetic ingredients; stabilizers, colorizers, “natural flavors” etc, years ago had fewer ingredients. The products in Europe also have fewer ingredients. Do you think the manufacturers of these products are adding these chemicals to our food supply because they’re good for you or because it’s good for their bottom line? Minimizing additives in our foods and subjecting them to the same rigors as they do in Europe seems again like a very straightforward improvement in our health.
The school lunch program needs reform. Don’t give kids what they want to eat because that’s sugar sugar sugar. Give kids what’s good for them. Let them see what real food looks and tastes like. I must be simple-minded but if the kids won’t eat real food they must not be real hungry. The food in school should be a role model for the food they should be eating at home. Protein and two sides. Again, how is this a bad thing? We’re already paying a tremendous amount for the school lunch program and what we’re getting is a generation of obese inactive kids.
Finally the secretary wants to restore faith and confidence to the agency. The only way to do that is to attract new people. RFK Jr recently discharged all the members of the Vaccine Advisory Council and that drew great ire from many people but if you have any insight or understanding into how incestuous the relationship is between these big pharmaceutical companies and the people on these panels you would understand completely why they all had to go. There is absolutely too much conflict of interest. No one is going to vote against their financial interests. Never ever happens. If ,as a member of this panel , you vote no to a new vaccine how likely is the company to hire you in the future. This isn’t a subtle thing. It’s egregious.
So, restoring confidence in an agency by insisting on independence and credible research sounds like a good goal. Improving children’s nutrition sounds like a good goal. Trying to minimize food additives seems a healthy goal. Independently investigating autism seems long overdue. People like my school administrator sister haughtily say that vaccines causing autism have been “thoroughly debunked” and of course my rejoinder is “debunked by the people that made the vaccine so how reliable is that?” Autism could have multiple causes obviously but the public health crisis of autism demands much more thorough investigation than we’re doing now. I think that’s what we’re going to get.
If we judge people by what they do, not what they say, I think Secretary Kennedy could be the most impactful Secretary of Health and Human Services in my lifetime. And yes, you will be able to get a flu vaccine this fall.
Until next month….Get well and stay well
JT BARRY MD
JULY 2025 TABLEHOPPING
CONDIMENTS REVISITED
Americans love their condiments. What does not go better with mayo, or ketchup? Who doesn’t like a good salad dressing ? Unfortunately , if you read the labels these condiments are full of terrible ingredients like vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup. Here you are trying to eat healthier and then you sabotage yourself with these processed , high calorie add ons. I have found some healthy alternatives for you to try and they come directly from one of Dr Steven Gundry’s recent podcasts. He interviewed award winning chef Jimmy Schmidt who whipped up some much healthier alternatives.
Beginning with Ketchup…the usual ketchup in the store has a teaspoon of sugar per tablespoon of ketchup. Worse, the sugar is in the form of high fructose corn syrup which is as inflammatory as you can get. Start with tomato paste, use some alulose which is a true sugar (initially found in figs) and a prebiotic, add garlic and onion and some vinegar. Add garlic and onion and a little paprika . Put this on the stove with a splash of water and heat it up for a few minutes to release more flavors. Simple and much healthier for you.
Now onto mayo….commercial mayonnaise is full of vegetable oil which is the work of the devil in terms of inflammation. Bad oils equal bad membranes equals bad health. Also on the ingredient list is sugar and other preservatives that you don’t need. 12 grams of bad oil per tablespoon. Mayo is the most popular condiment in the world according to Chef Schmidt. You can make a healthy mayo by starting with lemons or lemon juice….to the lemon juice you add two egg yolks and mix aggressively to form an emulsion. Throw in some mustard which works to help form the emulsion. Now you drizzle in the olive oil slowly so it emulsifies properly. The secret is to slowly add the olive oil to make the emulsion properly. Add salt to taste and you have a healthy homemade mayonnaise.
Finishing up with salad dressing. Almost all of the commercial salad dressings contain the omega 6 rich bad seed oils like canola or sunflower oil and sugars. Primal Kitchen, Skinny Girl and Braggs are usually made with real olive oil and those three are fine but the others are a mess and have tons of bad ingredients/preservatives.
Chef Schmidt recommends cherry wine vinegar because it’s chock full of polyphenols. But any vinegar is fine…use olive oil in a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio with the vinegar. Chop some shallots and mix in. A touch of mustard ( can be dry mustard). Throw in some salt to taste (and I only recommend “lite” salt which is half sodium and half potassium which is much much healthier for you).
JUNE 2025 TABLEHOPPING
I was lucky the other day to talk to Dr Howe the chiropractor and I asked him to give me another copy of an article he wrote many years ago that I read and enjoyed. I lost my copy and years went by until I thought to ask for another copy. I know many medical doctors look down on chiropractic doctors. After all, only medical doctors can write prescriptions for pharmacologics / drugs. So, medical doctors following “the guidelines “ recommend diets that are making you sick then prescribe medicines that control symptoms or numbers from the lab but have very little real effect on disease outcomes. Remember, Thomas Alva Edison said: “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” I quess the future is not here yet. The article I read over a few years ago was about how to develop Metabolic Syndrome. This was way before medical doctors paid any attention to the cause of your illness and just focused on what meds can ameliorate your symptoms. Never getting to the root cause. The article is more relevant today than ever. The title is “How does one develop Metabolic Syndrome”
It goes without saying ,but the earlier in life you start the earlier you can expect to develop Metabolic Syndrome. These habits will help though; eat haphazardly, always. plan nothing. consume lots of long shelf life, sugar laden, processed, center aisle, barcode, drive- through foods that were not here 100 years ago . Avoid family dinners around the table with real, whole food home cooked meals, prepared from scratch. drink soda, fruit juice, flavored coffees and the light. Avoid good clean simple pure water at all costs. If you “dislike the taste of water “ you’re on your way!
Consume modern day Franken-grain, hybridized amylopectin A, gliadin-laden, addictive, appetite stimulating, high glycemic load ” wheat “ .Bread is nothing like it was in the 50s and 60s. This is an easy step. It’s ubiquitous: cereal, bread , (yes, whole grain) pasta, pizza, crackers, pretzels, muffins,and bagels ….Chow down. Beer is liquid bread so make sure you regularly imbibe. Whatever you do, avoid pesticide free organically grown produce. in fact, avoid the produce section altogether.
Eat grain-fried beef. Remember: the same omega-6 grains that make livestock fat, sick, tired, depressed and diseased will help make us fat ,sick ,tired, depressed and diseased. Keep demanding your tired pancreas produce more insulin, more often. Eventually you’ll become insulin resistant. You’re almost there.
Remember, more insulin produces more fat storage. It’s the fat storing hormone. Once insulin resistant, your cells will become less responsive to insulin’s effect – and you’ll tend to be hungry. you’ll crave because your cells are becoming progressively under fueled. Because you’re storing more fat around the middle you’ve created an estrogen producing 24/7 / 365 inflammatory reservoir. Guys wonder where those man breasts come from? Wonder why you need viagra? Avoid physical activity at all costs. Exercise reduces insulin levels. We want hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance if Metabolic Syndrome is our goal.
Press on and, in time, you’ll develop even more inflammation. Don’t forget; many research studies tell us that Metabolic Syndrome and all of our modern day diseases of civilization are inflammatory conditions. This literature now tells us inflammation is the common denominator in all diseases. Remember: A constant high glycemic load drives glycosylation. Our bodies have to deal with glycosylation whether we’re aware of it or not. If you’re trying to develop Metabolic Syndrome we need glycosylation to run rampant. press on. It will.
What’s glycosylation? Simply put, it’s how elevated blood sugar levels gum up various proteins in your body. The inflammation is now cranking and you’re aging more rapidly if you’re diligently following these recommendations. Get this now: over time, if you have glycosylation in your eyes you’ll develop early cataracts . If you get glycosylation in your hips, knees, discs, and joints you’ll develop accelerated osteoarthritis , disc cartilage and joint destruction. if you glycosylated your skin you’ll develop wrinkles; if you get glycosylation in your coronary arteries you’ll develop heart disease: if you get glycosylation in your brain… well… you get the idea.
We’re likely got a nice belly going by now. But understand: if you don’t, this does not mean you’re free from Metabolic Syndrome and its complications.
So… your pancreas is tired if not flat out spent. Your body fat percentage is climbing, your BMI exceeds 30, and your blood pressure is too high, your lipids are up, and you’re on reflux medications and using a CPAP machine. You’re likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, senility etc any and all of it is increasing every day
Ask your doctor if medical advice from a television commercial is right for you Ignore diet, exercise, and lifestyle advice . Be sedentary. Suppress symptoms. Press On.
You’re not feeling well. You struggle through your day. You’re tired, brain fogged, bloated and overweight. You’re getting old…and for some odd reason you keep gaining weight on the low-fat diet your doctor recommends.
Keep it up.. weight gain helps the Metabolic Syndrome cause.
You visit your doctor and after a battery of tests your blood pressure is up, you’re pre-diabetic, your cholesterol level is too high, your body fat percentage and BMI is up into the well understood unhealthy range. Now the doctor sits you down and informs you you have Metabolic Syndrome. you wonder how that happened?
A very prescient article indeed and my thanks again to Dr Howe for permission to reprint this.
Now that you’ve screwed up your health by following the government guidelines and ignoring natural food, next month we’ll talk about how to reverse Metabolic syndrome. Until then…get well and stay well…..JT BARRY
MAY 2025 TABLEHOPPING
Last month I wrote about a test called the glycan-age that purportedly tells you how old you “really are” Your biological age versus your chronological age. The test I offer my patients is a version of the Levine Horvath clock but uses 7 common lab tests to give you some insight. Both require blood samples but the test I offer is much less expensive. The Glycan age test costs about $500 and the one I offer is just done at the price of an office call. Whatever you would pay to come in for a sore throat or headache. This doesn’t include the cost of the blood tests but they are usually covered by your insurance. You could go through your labs, input the values yourself into the calculator and skip the office visit to make it even cheaper…The nice thing about our calculator is that it shows you which of your blood tests is responsible for the estimation so you can see where to focus your efforts. But, and it’s a big But, is it accurate? That’s why I check out these more expensive tests especially before I could recommend any to my patients. So, last month I did the glycan-age test and this month I did one of the competitors offered by Gary Brecka who is well known as a prominent “biohacker”.
Mr Brecka ’s claim to fame is that he worked in the insurance business evaluating lab tests etc to determine life expectancy. He understood that certain blood tests and patterns can readily predict your mortality. He says there are 5 “actionable” genes which can be measured for the cost of again around $600. Now Mr Brecka is also a fan of energy mats, hydration, hydrogen water, supplementation,etc and has a whole program called 10X health system. He focuses on the fact that different genetic variations in methylation ( a very common metabolic process in every cell of the body) determine your health more than other factors. These methylation issues cause nutritional deficiencies that are the real cause for depression, chronic pain, digestive issues etc.
So, I will have three tests that are supposed to give me more information than the standard blood tests. I have been looking into NAD infusions and there is one company that measures NAD in blood samples so I can test my level…try some supplements or NAD directly and see how it affects my levels. This company too says they have other testing that measures inflammation so the odyssey continues.
Let’s see how these tests correlate with each other. I get plenty of exercise and my diet is much cleaner than most people but you don’t know what you don’t know. Is my hip achy due to overuse or inflammation from my diet? There is a growing body of literature that says inflammation in your mouth affects every part of your body. My gums are not the issue…I don’t have obviously rotten teeth but I have several root canals and my research says root canals always have pockets of infection ..little pockets that may be painless but a persistent source of inflammation. I strongly recommend against root canals now but I dread the thought that I have to have those dead teeth removed and have implants put in.
It’s May and that means getting back to walking with my patients at the Erie Canal Park at 5: 30 pm every Tuesday. We meet at the Reed Webster Park and head out for a walk. It’s usually about 2 miles but there are plenty of benches and we stop in the middle. Why not get out of the house and join us? If you want to walk and or talk this is a great opportunity. All of you who think I am wrong about fluoridation or immunization can come and have it out with me. I enjoy a lively debate and am happy to admit my errors and mistakes to everyone but my wife.
Until next month ….Get well and stay well
JT BARRY MD
APRIL 2025 TABLEHOPPING
HOW OLD ARE YOU ?
I get that question a lot from my wife. Usually it’s after I have done something she frowns on. Which is fairly often. But there is a place for this question in medicine as well. Your chronological age is easy…that’s the age on your driver’s license. Your biological age, what your cells tell us about your aging, is more important but harder to calculate. I have written previously about using different calculators to estimate your “true” age including the Levine Horvath Phenoage clock which I use in the office. There are epigenetic tests and telomere tests which can estimate your biological age but from personal experience I can tell you they vary a lot in a short period of time. Telomere age is a very accurate predictor of the health of a single cell but loses sensitivity and specificity when all the trillions of cells in the body are surveyed. You could send off blood samples at the chronological age of 50 and get results that vary by 10 years from samples taken the same day! Not so reliable. Not useful to assess whether the changes I am making in my lifestyle are making a difference in my “real” age.
But I am always looking to improve testing. Is there a better test for insulin sensitivity..Is there a better way to assess the health of the cell, the cell wall and cellular metabolism. Recently, I came across a podcast that presented a new way of looking at cellular aging. The test is called the glycan age. Glycans are sugar and protein compounds that attach themselves to circulating proteins in the body.
This company uses immune proteins that are already circulating…known as IG-G. This is a molecule that is directly involved in your immune system. There’s IG-G, IG-A, IG-M, IG-E and others. So this company uses the glycans that attach to the IG-G to assess how much inflammation the body perceives. Specific glycans are associated with specific degrees and types of inflammation. Using a tremendously large database the scientists at Glycanage.com have associated certain glycans with more or less inflammation and can translate that into numbers that reflect underlying inflammation and thus the “aging” of your body. The type of glycans attached to IgG are able to change the function of IgG from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory and vice versa.
From their website “Glycans are directly involved in the pathophysiology of every major disease… Additional knowledge from glycoscience will be needed to realize the goals of personalized medicine and to take advantage of the substantial investments in human genome and proteome research and its impact on human health.”
– US National Academies, 2012
What I like about this test is that you can establish a baseline…Say you are 60 but your glycan age is 70..you can change your lifestyle and remeasure your glycan age to get an independent, scientific , reliable assessment of whether the changes you made actually improve your health. This is precisely why I like to measure your insulin and your omega 3/6 ratio over time. It’s not just how you feel, it’s what your body tells us about you. Of course, I want you to feel well but it’s critical that your body is functioning well and this gives us one more way to measure that. You don’t need to try to convince your doctor to order the test for you, it’s something …like the prodrome scan, that you can order for yourself and continue to take charge of your own health and health care.
Until next month…get well and stay well
JT BARRY MD
MARCH 2025 TABLEHOPPING
AN APPETITE FOR APP
There is apparently an app for everything! There is an app that lets you swap faces with your friends in your photos. There is an app to tell you when the best point in a movie to go to the bathroom. There is an exploding kitty app.I know I am a techno-dino.I use my “phone” to primarily make photo calls. I do like the navigation device as well. I’m not much for texting and I need a bigger screen for my emails so my phone gets used mostly for calls. I watch bewildered as people a third of my age use their thumbs to fly across miniature screens, whipping out their phones at every free second to check something …anything.
I used to lament the small screen…its changing the way children interact with each other, doesn’t lend itself to contemplation or deep thought, kids have very short attention spans now etc..then I read an article in the New Yorker magazine that mentioned that Socrates bemoaned the fact that the new act of writing things down on tablets was going to ruin the mind. My history mentor Professor J Rufus Fears always said ….”Those that forget history are destined to repeat it … .Those that remember history repeat it anyways !”
So in the vein of looking for the good, let me recommend some health apps that might make a difference in your health. This is by no means an exhaustive list, it’s just a few that are popular or interesting.
First we start with the popular and obvious like myfitnesspal and noon. These are very popular and comprehensive apps that track your activities , your calories etc . Chronometer is also very detailed when it comes to tracking your macros…meaning carbs, fats, and protein. These are great apps that provide a lot of information but require you to input data as well. They are only as good as the data you enter. But they do act as personal coaches of sorts…helping you to be more accountable if only to yourself and the app. That’s a good thing.
For those of you who like it simpler I have two great apps for you. You are prowling the grocery store aisles …your head spins from all the stuff you should be avoiding, added sugars, seed oils, certain preservatives, additives etc. There are two apps I know of that make it very easy. The first is Bobby Approved. It’s an app by Bobby Flay , the Michelin chef, and you just scan the code on the bottle or item and Bobby will tell you if he approves of it. Let me tell you he doesnt approve much. It’s a super easy to use app even for a Boomer like myself. A very similar app is Yuka which also uses a scanner to read the barcode on the food and give it a health rating. I like both apps which are both easy to use and have slightly different ways of judging the foods. The Yuka app has a saturated fat rating on the foods but if you believe ( as the vast bulk of the literature actually shows) that saturated fats are not bad for you this is going to affect their rating needlessly.
That’s right, saturated fat is NOT bad for you. The most prestigious journal in cardiology is the Journal of the American College of Cardiology ..JACC…in 2020 they published this article.
Their conclusion :
The recommendation to limit dietary saturated fatty acid (SFA) intake has persisted despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Most recent meta-analyses of randomized trials and observational studies found no beneficial effects of reducing SFA intake on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and total mortality, and instead found protective effects against stroke. Although SFAs increase low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, in most individuals, this is not due to increasing levels of small, dense LDL particles, but rather larger LDL particles, which are much less strongly related to CVD risk. It is also apparent that the health effects of foods cannot be predicted by their content in any nutrient group without considering the overall macronutrient distribution. Whole-fat dairy, unprocessed meat, and dark chocolate are SFA-rich foods with a complex matrix that are not associated with increased risk of CVD. The totality of available evidence does not support further limiting the intake of such foods.
Remember this is from the cardiologist specialists themselves !!!
So, enough with the angry birds and sudoku apps…download something that can actually help you stay healthy. You carry your phone with you everywhere ..why not use it in the grocery store as well ? Until next month…get well and stay well.
JT BARRY MD
FEBRUARY 2025 TABLEHOPPING
MISTY WATERCOLOR MEMORIES
I keep coming back to dealing with dementia because it’s like autism… seemingly increasing and now found in every family at some point. The family suffering is magnitudes greater than with other common killers. Most in my profession still believe that it’s mostly genetic and there is nothing much you can do about it. That’s completely wrong. Not a little off the mark…. completely wrong.
Unfortunately with the state of medicine today to really deal with this issue you have to actively manage your visits with your provider. I’m going to give you a list of things that you should check for every serious memory loss. It’s partially based on the RECODE protocols of Doctor Dale Bredesen but you don’t need to participate in his program to benefit from this list.
First off, the two important references for patients working with memory loss issues are Dr Bredesen and his book The End Of Alzheimers and online you can find him at apollohealthco.com and Dr Dayan Goodenowe and his book Breaking Alzheimers… you can find him online at prodrome.com
Secondly you have to break down and check out the various ways the brain can go sideways…traumatic, infectious, vascular, toxic and inflammatory. For the significant majority of us it’s going to be inflammatory but you don’t know if you don’t check and it’s easy to check.
Thirdly you have to check the basic nutritional factors. Is the brain getting the fats and B vitamins it needs to function? Easy blood work to check and rarely checked as you’ll see when you bring your checklist to the doctor…specialist or otherwise.
Fourthly you need to attend to all the basics… diet, sleep, stress and exercise. Attention to all four is mandatory including a regular exercise program, both for the body and the brain…try BRAINHQ for the latter. In terms of improving brain health nutritionally it’s simple the less sugar the better for the brain. Low carb is the way to go if you want to preserve the brain matter.
Ok… now for the list
APOE ALLELE TEST….This is the most important genetic test.. Each of us has two alleles of the APO E gene. You can have 2 twos, 2 threes, or 2 fours or any combination of two. But Allele E4 is associated with increased risk of dementia and if you have one E4 your risk is increased. If you have two E4’s your wrist is really increased. Knowing these numbers tell you how aggressive you have to be.
SLEEP APNEA TEST…. You can say you sleep fine but get the test. I prefer the 3 night in-home test which is a very good start. Everyone with memory loss concerns should get this test as sleep apnea means less oxygen to the brain and more inflammation.
HEAVY METAL TESTING You never know unless you check
LYME DISEASE…. Again, is it likely? no.. but is it possible? Just check
INFLAMMATORY MARKERS, fasting insulin, c reactive protein, homocysteine, omega 3/6 ratio, sed rate, HA1C level all should be checked.
IMAGING STUDY…If you want to know about the heart you scan the heart… DItto the kidney etc… You should get an MRI. And if you can afford the extra 200 bucks have the different parts of the brain measured so you can assess your progress.
MEMORY TESTING… You need simple tests like the MMSE and the MOCA… which are cheap and easy and simple and repeatable.
SOON TO BE AVAILABLE… Will be a group of three tests Brainscan by Neurocode will offer three tests that Dr Bredesen says will measure brain inflammation, risk of alzheimers and more. Dr Goodenowe has a new blood test that will measure major components of your cell membrane . Membrane health is mitochondrial health is overall health. Too soon to tell if these are going to be the game changers I think they will be but stay tuned.
So, when it’s time for the doctor visit where you finally get down to addressing memory loss bring this list. The provider should be happy you have done some research and have actionable points. I see a lot of records but I rarely see all these tests being done including at the “specialist” office. You have to take charge and ask for these tests. You can maintain and improve your brain and your memory once you have addressed what you find on these tests. It’s worth the proactivity.
Until next month… Get well and Stay well.
JT BARRY MD
JANUARY 2025 TABLEHOPPING
GET AWAY!
I don’t know about you but there is something I dread about the winter. It’s not the cold, it’s not the snow, it’s the darkness. Driving to work in the dark and driving back from work in the dark again drains the spirit. At least it drains my spirit.. I shouldn’t speak for you. Yes, I have a lamp that shines bright on my face in the morning to stimulate my pineal gland but it’s not the same thing as getting real sun time.
That’s why I make a point of getting away every winter to someplace sunny and warm. It’s transformative. The minute the plane door opens and I feel the hot humid air I relax away the hunched shoulders of the sub zero climate and start happily sweating in my tropical print shirt. This is my advice to you…get away yourself during the winter. Maybe I should say get away from yourself during the winter but that’s probably too psychological for you. You don’t have to spend a lot of money and you don’t have to go for a month-long sojourn. Just get somewhere warm and soak it up.
My wife and I need 80 degrees and constant sunshine guaranteed so we go to Mexico or to the Dominican Republic in the wintertime but it gets reasonably warm in Florida so if the hassles of flying are too much for you , you can still get away. Puerto Rico is an Island option and you don’t even need a passport. They say that travel expands the mind but for many of us it expands the waistline. Just because you are in a foreign place doesn’t mean you have to forsake ALL your eating habits.
Some people are all getting up and going on a vacation…See this. Experience that. See every possible sight. I don’t mind those vacations and lord knows I need my mind expanded but those types of vacations wear me out ! Maybe I am getting old. My favorite vacations are ones where I can sit back , relax and read ! I read and watch and listen to medical stuff all the time but when I go on vacation I like to get deep into a book or a book series. It’s usually fiction or science fiction but I am getting more into spiritual reading as I mature. Being on vacation gives me time for the “Big Picture” thoughts and ideas. I know that admitting to still reading books makes me yet again a dinosaur but it is what it is. Whether it’s a Kindle type device or an actual book doesn’t matter to me but the act of prolonged time spent reading seems to be a vanishing activity.
One of the metrics I use to see how dependent people are on their electronics is to ask the question “How long in the morning after you wake up do you begin looking at your phone.” For most of my patients it’s less than a minute. I don’t look at my phone until it rings! How old and out of touch am I ?! My friends on the toilet bowl scrolling through his phone first thing upon arising in the morning and I guess that’s common but that’s not me. I keep threatening to swab his phone to see what germs are on it but he is convinced it’s what everyone does. I don’t suppose I can convince you into taking a holiday from your social media accounts but again getting away should mean doing something different and maybe that can include less phone time and more real people in person contact. My holiday wish is that people get a chance to get away and relax and restore themselves. Get away by yourself, reconnect with family and friends, but just get away!
Until next month……get well and stay well..
JT BARRY MD
DECEMBER 2024 TABLEHOPPING
It’s the holiday season and I hear all the time from my patients that they are taking a break from eating right and exercising “because it’s the Holidays”. Most people who gain weight every year do so at this time of year. It’s as if someone else were holding them down and stuffing sugarplums down their throat. The holiday cookies are just too tempting. And we all know it’s impossible to stop once you start. It’s as if the gyms were all closed and people were forbidden to exercise at home.
First off, when you get together with friends and family you don’t have to spend all your time on the couch in front of the TV. Why not go on a walk? Why not take in a show? There’s lots of Christmas shows every year and you know I love the Desantis Holiday Show which will be at the St Charles church this year on Sunday December 8th at 4 pm. Live local holiday music from a big band orchestra… what’s not to like? From horse drawn carriage rides at Highland Forest to ice skating downtown there are lots of outdoor activities that are relatively inexpensive that the whole family can try. Building memories and muscles at the same time.
Secondly, you know the advice about eating healthy at home before you go to any party and that’s good advice. Why not go the next step and actually bring something healthy to eat to the party?
Even if you indulge your baser instincts at the holidays there is no reason you can’t do healthy things as well, including intermittent fasting. How about eating during a 8 hour window during the week which will allow you to get a little cray cray during the weekend. Mitigate the damages so to speak.
Don’t forget the reason for the season. It’s great to be able to get together with friends and family but how about getting in touch with your spiritual side? Most of us are just going through the motions… the same activities, the same diet, the same routines. May I suggest that this time of year lends itself to reflection about your life, your choices, and where you are eventually going. Is this crazy world all there is? May I suggest the book Believing is Seeing by Michael Gullen PhD? This is a guy who graduated from Cornell with three degrees!! Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy and he explains how science shattered his atheism and revealed the necessity of faith.
Hopefully we will see you in the new year… healthier and happier Until then Get well and stay well……
JT BARRY MD