Ancestry needs graphic design assistance ...

All things Ancestry (Ancestral Health Society, Ancestral Health Symposium, et al.) exist and persist via a hobbyist volunteerism model. Collectively, many talented and passionate volunteers connecting around the central idea that we can learn things about health and lifestyle choices by studying and respecting our diverse heritages as human beings can produce amazing results in serendipitous ways.

At least that's the working hypothesis.

Right now, Ancestry needs some graphic design assistance volunteerism. If you or someone you know wants to help out with creating and formulating the graphics theme, please e-mail Brian Geremia or me and let us know.

Much appreciated, as always.

To good health,

Brent

Ancestral Health Symposium

(Above: My ancestral birthday cake from last year. I had FAGE with a few blueberries this year.)

Brian Geremia, Seth Roberts, Aaron Blaisdell, Michal Naisteter, and I were lucky enough to be on Jimmy Moore's podcast show yesterday, which ended up being a nice 27th birthday present for me.

Thanks to Jimmy for helping support the Ancestral Health Symposium!

Spread the good word.

To good health,

Brent

Two Mantras Hybridized: Cura Personalis & Epoche Collide

Two Mantras Hybridized: Cura Personalis & Epoche Collide

Two mantras hybridized;
Cura Personalis and Epoche collide.

The former is a Latin phrase.
The latter is a Greek term.
Together they cross-pollinate
To produce the spirit I hope to captivate.

Cura Personalis means caring for the whole person.
Epoche translates as suspending judgment.

The former requires the latter.
Because listening takes some limiting;
Limiting how much you impose your own filters
On others whom you hope to experience.

Experience their stories,
And all their diversities.

Suspend judgment temporarily,
And be ready to perceive something unexpectedly.
Because when Cura Personalis and Epoche collide,
They hybridize to produce an epistemocrat;

Even if, only momentarily.


To good health,

Brent

The Gut: The Inner Tube of Life by Dr. LePine

The Gut-Brain Connection: An Inside Look at Depression

(See notes here)

I recently wrote a poem ("Where's My Brain?") about the gut-brain, the heart-brain, and the head-brain, among other things.

I concluded, tentatively, that it's all brain.

So here's a nice presentation on the gut-brain (thanks to Dr. BG).

Intestinal Dysbiosis is rising to the surface as one of the most important aspects of human health and disease.

It'll be fascinating to see where all this leads.

Hopefully, it leads to health; that is, to freedom from chronic inflammation and disease.

Microbiomics. Epimicrobiomics. Nutrimicrobiomics.

Genomics. Epigenetics. Nutrigenomics.

Parallels. Symphonies. Symbiosis.

It seems.

To good health,

Brent

What I've Learned from Playing Sports

Stuart Appleby, one of my favorite golfers (I try to mimic his swing), shot 59 today to win.

His historic performance emerged unexpectedly; he hasn't played up to his vast potential these past few years. Enter serendipity.

But that's how athletic performance seems to go; that is, it ebbs and it flows.

Playing sports taught me that lesson many times over, as well as the following:

Uno: Decision making under uncertainty requires practice. Sports provide environments for people to practice making decisions with imperfect information, under pressure, amidst all the emotions and intangibles that accompany trying to achieve a goal. For instance, in his recent article analyzing end-of-life care in medicine, "Letting Go" (thanks to Dave Lull), Dr. Atul Gawande focuses on how decisions actually get made when it comes to balancing the challenge of moving a patient to hospice care versus continuing to try new treatment options. The net result from his inquiry is that much can be learned from real-world practice and experience if these data points are captured, analyzed, and perceived in the right way. Similarly, as an athlete, when you want to improve performance, you have to get out and do the sport, immerse yourself in those challenging moments, and learn from these experiences critical nuances that cannot be simulated in sterile environments or through thought experiments. Whatever field you encounter, a running theme to learn from sports is that learning by doing tends to produce the most effective outcomes.

Dos: You have to hang in there; you have to be patient. Sports challenge participants constantly. For instance, if you were Stuart Appleby about a month ago, your patience would be challenged tremendously after a few years of dismal performance, despite practicing diligently. But, as Stuart demonstrated today, there is always hope that with a little more patience things just might turn out even better than imagined, pushing you into performance domains that you had not experienced previously. Who knows: Stuart may go on to play the best golf of his life over the coming years as a result of this breakthrough show? Regardless, many activities in life require perseverance and persistence: "Hang in there," is what sports have to say; and, "Tomorrow just might be your day," is what I say.

Tres: You are going to tell yourself a story. In many fields, self-talk (narrating) rises to the surface as a common process that occurs while trying to perform a task. Playing sports can provide a safe yet demanding context to hash out approaches to self-talk empirically. Whether you were a surgeon trying to master your craft or were Stuart Appleby trying to hone your game, you would engage in self-talk (read: m=1 my-thologizing) continuously in hopes of making decisions sharply, and then you would test this self-talk against reality to see how it relates to cause-and-effect relationships with goal achievement. This is the domain of cognitive psychology that seems to permeate so many aspects of life. James Joyce thinkered with it as 'stream of consciousness' in his novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Beyond that, there are many other valuable lessons about teamwork that sports teach, such as how people with different talents, personalities, and abilities can combine and synergize to achieve amazing things, but I am more curious to know what other aspects of sports folks have enjoyed and valued the most?

To good health,

Brent

Erik Cisler's Meta-Rule for Canines

Meta-Rule: Avoid foods that produce negative effects in metabolically similar pets.

I'd been feeding my dog pet food mixes from Whole Foods (the butcher grinds up beef, liver, and heart nearing their expiration dates and then sells this mix for $1.50 a pound as dog food), and I suddenly noticed a distinct "doggy" odor. You know the smell, I'm sure. Most dogs have it, but mine never did. I began noticing an unmistakable stench whenever he was around. Pretty distressing.

Turns out the WF beef is corn-finished. It's raised on pasture (like most cows) early on, then onto grain for fattening. This is high quality stuff by most conventional measures, but it's still grain-fed.

For the last four days I've removed the pet food mix from his diet, going back to whole turkey legs and grass-fed ground lamb and grass-fed beef organs from the farmer's market. Odor is totally gone. He's back to normal.

From my research, doggy odor accompanies an allergic reaction to food. I'm thinking that most canine allergies to "beef" are actually allergies to conventional, grain-finished beef products, with the grain lectins persisting through the multiple guts of cows and appearing in the flesh/fat. I believe WF beef is free of hormones and antibiotics, so I don't think it's an adverse reaction to those adulterants.

Humans can obviously munch on CAFO-meat and feel fine on it, but is that evidence of absence of toxicity? My dog, raised on a raw, clean diet without corn and soy kibble, had an acutely negative reaction to a week of grain-fed beef. Dogs have fairly similar (omnivorous, leaning carnivorous) metabolisms to humans, except they run faster (shorter lifespan, dog years, etc.), so I think it's reasonable to assume that grain-finished meat will have similarly negative consequences on our bodies, only more gradual and less acute (and less immediately noticeable).

That is, as they say, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

I wonder how we can measure these nutritional effects for ourselves?

To good health,

Brent

Ancestry: My 'Hero of Three Faces' in Medicine

Here are three 'myth-as-mentor' components of my m=1/n=1 Ancestry.

Primo: Decades ago, Dr. Francis M. Pottenger, MD, served as the President of the American College of Physicians and wrote a fascinating book, Tuberculosis and How to Combat It - A Book for the Patient. Here is a notable quote:

"No two physicians can deal with their patients exactly alike, yet each one may obtain satisfactory results. It is necessary for a man to deal according to his own individuality, consequently, there is no place for dogmatism in outlining rules for caring for the patient, any more than in conducting a case at law."

Pottenger's tuberculosis treatment program, as outlined and explained in his book, includes natural sun and fresh air, cold water exposure, whole foods nutritional remedies, and many other insightful modalities that are still applicable today.

Segundo: Then, shortly thereafter, Dr. Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., MD (Francis M. Pottenger's son), authored Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition, headed the Los Angeles County Medical Association (*see picture above), and warned about the negative health effects of smog, even nudging folks to consider electric cars. Quite progressive for the 1950s.

Tercero: And then, shortly after that, Dr. Lawrence A. Pottenger, MD, PhD, served as an Associate Professor of Surgery and Pathology at the University of Chicago and advanced the art and science of medicine in his own unique way, particularly in orthopedics. Here is one of his notable quotes about patient care; he communicates the concept of epoche (suspending judgment) beautifully:

"When there is no real treatment for the disease, he discovered, you provide treatment for the patient. 'You begin to be a healer when you start to feel what patients are feeling,' he advised colleagues. 'Listen to their stories. Let yourself be lost in their stories. Do not judge them or try to fit their stories into your system of values. Do not try to analyze their stories, just experience them. There will be plenty of time for analysis later.'"

Hybridizing these pieces of my heritage produces a Joseph Campbell-eque 'Hero of Three Faces' that will continue to mentor me as I progress along in my journey.

Each of us descends from our own Ancestry.

I suspect that's something to respect.

To respect by listening.

Listening closely.

Listening openly.

To good health,

Brent