Weather forecasting has always been an inexact science. Even with decades of continual improvement, actual weather sometimes mocks the predictions. A tiny rainstorm pops up on your weather app which just told you an hour before that you’d have a sunny day. Then that tiny rainstorm with a 40% chance of light rain dumps a couple of inches on you and you are now getting flood warnings on your app. You listen to the news, which gives a very different forecast than your app. To be fair, the forecasts aren’t wrong most of the time, but weather is just too complex to predict with 100% accuracy.
The atmosphere, land masses, and water masses are huge, with lots of interaction at all times. The climate is never satisfied, because sunlight continually changes where and how much it is heating an area at any point in time, causing temperature imbalances which then attempt to equalize. Hot areas try to mix with cooler areas, and when they have done so, new imbalance occurs. “Climate change” is always happening, because the climate is always in a state of imbalance trying to balance.
Your body is like the climate. It has a multitude of factors that combine to create your current level of health, and those factors are constantly being challenged and rebalanced. Hormones constantly circulate your body, regulating various aspects of your metabolism, and hormone levels can change quickly when your situation changes. Oxygen, nutrient levels, hydration, mineral balances, and cell-to-cell signals change moment by moment. Predicting how healthy you will be tomorrow cannot be done perfectly because there are so many factors involved.
But, like weather forecasting, we can get a good, even excellent, prediction of your health based on your lifestyle. That’s because we do know that certain actions have predictable reactions. We can predict that animal products have an acidification effect on the body, while raw vegetables have an alkalinizing effect. We know that any exercise that does not cause injury will make you stronger in the long run. Just like in weather prediction, when radar shows a large front moving at a certain speed towards your location, you know that you are in for some rough weather. We can make such predictions with a high level of certainty.
Nothing brings into sharp focus the need for accuracy in predicting your health than cancer. While many degenerative diseases creep up gradually, a cancer diagnosis can turn your world upside down in an instant. The desire to avoid cancer, or conquer it if you have it, is perhaps the most effective single reason you have for pursuing a good healthy lifestyle. You know that lifestyle affects your health and your cancer risk, but believe that an ideal lifestyle is too much work. Well, here is something that is an easy addition to any diet, and we can predict that it will positively impact your health.
Clearly there are many foods that you should avoid if you want to avoid disease. Animal meat, if you must have it, should be minimized. Likewise for animal fats. Everybody knows that sweet confections and sugar drinks are big storms on the health radar. So what good things can you readily add to your diet while you are cutting out all the bad stuff?
There are many great answers to that question. Generally, raw leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds are what you add. There is plenty of research out there if you want to add the best types of food to your diet. One comprehensive food review article, published in the American Journal of Cancer Research, cites these “functional foods” as particularly effective in cancer prevention: ?-Carotene, ?-Carotene, lycopene, lutein, ?-Cryptoxanthin, astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, fucoxanthin, isothiocyanates, flavanoids, probiotics, phyto-estrogens, fiber, and omega-3. That’s quite a list! Most of these come primarily from plant sources. The few that do not still have good plant alternatives, and plant sources don’t carry the toxic baggage that animal products bring. The last item on the list, omega-3, is thought by many to only be available in fish, but there is a plant substitute for that as well, which has many other benefits. This is one food you don’t want to ignore!
Just give me the flax…
Flax seeds, like many dietary seeds, are fantastic sources of nutrients. That alone makes them valuable anti-cancer agents. They are also a good source of thiamine, molybdenum, magnesium, and phosphorus. Like other seeds, they are a source of phytonutrients that only come from plants. They are very high in fiber, as 95% of its carbs are undigestible fiber. This is particularly important because your gut flora (microbiota) are fed by undigestible fiber, so the fiber that you can’t digest is just what they need, and when you support good gut flora, that comes right back to you in health. Good gut flora release other food nutrients, reduce gut inflammation, and helps close the “leaky gut” holes in your intestines.
Like the weather app, we can predict “fair weather” for you when you add flax to your diet. It’s easy to predict. But weather can be complicated, and so can diet. Flax helps you in subtle ways — even more subtle than helping your health through fiber. Flax also contain what are called “lignans” — these are polyphenolic compounds, where poly just means “many”, and phenols are vital antioxidants. So right away the flax seed provides important nutritional value. To be more accurate, flax seeds contain lignan precursors — they need gut flora to activate them. Lignan precursors may be converted to the enterolignans (entero means intestine) enterodiol and enterolactone, which can act as estrogen in that they can bind to estrogen receptors, which then affects gene transcription.
This is where things get complicated. Estrogen is an important hormone, even in men: it is vital to bone density, muscle mass processing, and a stable nervous and emotional system. But too much estrogen leads to many problems, and is a significant promoter of breast cancer. Many cancers are hormone responsive, as are 80% of breast cancers — they need estrogen or progesterone to grow. If flax provides phytoestrogen (plant estrogen), then doesn’t this make the problem worse? Actually, phytoestrogens act as estrogen stabilizers, causing the body to produce less active forms of estrogen. Phytoestrogens also bind in place of bodily estrogen, but they have a weaker hormonal effect, so by taking the place of the more active form produced by the body, they soften the hormonal impact. If, on the other hand, someone has low estrogen, the empty estrogen receptors are getting some estrogen effect where they would have otherwise had none. Either way, phytoestrogens are helpful, but especially in reducing harmful estrogen effects.
This is still oversimplified, but it’s common knowledge that too much estrogen is a big problem with breast cancer. The problems go down to the genetic level, and with breast cancer, involves the expression of mammary gland microRNAs (miRNAs). As published in Microbiology Spectrum, researchers studied the relationship of lignans, gut flora, and breast cancer. They noted: “Genes involved in the enrichment of the PI3K-Akt-mTOR pathway included Runx2 and Skp2, which are involved in mammary gland development and breast cancer.” Runx2 is a genetic transcription factor that can aid cancer development, and Skp2 improves cancer cell resistance to PI3k which is a cancer growth factor — both of these are down regulated with flax seed consumption according to the study. The PI3K-Akt-mTOR pathway promotes growth of cancer, and you certainly don’t want overexpression of PI3k.Thus the chain reaction of consuming flax seed regulates abhorrent genetic expression which the researchers note can reduce cancer risk years into the future.
Oh, one more benefit of flax seeds: omega-3. Flax seeds happen to be one of the top sources of omega-3 fatty acids. One tablespoon contains 2,350 mg of omega-3 in the form of alpha linolenic acid (ALA). Partly because of this, flax seed has been shown to reduce hypertension (high blood pressure). In a study published in Hypertension, 110 patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) were split, half getting flax seed and the other half being the control group. After 6 months, only the patients receiving the flax seed in their diet showed blood pressure reductions (15 mm HG for the systolic blood pressure, and 7 mm HG for diastolic on average).
Maybe the weather forecasters have an easier task than medical researchers. The factors that affect our health, now and for many years from now, are very complex. But we are learning through research that the intricate design throughout nature makes our health forecasting job fairly simple: just stick to a plant-based diet as you would eat without all the modern conveniences and processing that changes eating into an artificial process. Seeds are underestimated powerhouses, and flax seed is at the top of the seed class in its health-promoting characteristics. No other food source provides the lignan concentration that flax seed provides, but you have to release it so your body can get its full value.
Whole flax, fresh ground, and goo
“This coffee must be bad — it tastes like dirt.” Response: “I can’t imagine why, it was fresh ground this morning.” OK, old joke. But breaking food down into smaller elements makes it more digestible, and grinding seeds is valuable in releasing nutrients from the protection of the hard seed shell.
First, you want to start with raw flax seed, which is how it is usually sold — you don’t want it heated and killed. Even whole flax seed makes a good laxative, but in that form it will pass through your gut without releasing much of its value. Grinding it up through factory processing does not preserve its full value, some of which will leech out over time, so it’s best freshly ground — that will release its powerful effects on your gut flora. Finally, if you soak flax seed for a few hours, you get a sticky gelled substance called mucilage, which is very calming to your digestive system, but it also is an effective prebiotic. You probably haven’t heard of mucilage, and are probably not asking, “can I have more mucilage with my dinner?” That might not be a bad idea though.
This has also been researched. Published in Nutrients is a review article which outlines the underrated benefits of mucilage. “Thus, their intake can have a laxative effect, regulate satiety, counteract hyperlipidaemia and hyperglycaemia, and reduce obesity….The antioxidant and immunomodulatory effects of mucilages have also been proven. Seed mucilages may reduce the risk of colon cancer and rectal cancer, and could help protect against coronary heart diseases.”
When you see your weather app next time, think about how you can change your prediction for your health. Flax, other seeds and nuts, and green leafy vegetables all change the variables in your favor. Flax seed is like a warm and sunny day for your body.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
Just use common sense when it comes to diet and health. All longevity studies point to a plant-based diet to increase your quality and quantity of life. There are certain plant foods that stand out above all others because of their extreme health benefits:
These include green leafy vegetables, fresh herbs, raw garlic and onions, hot peppers, and select fresh spices.
In most of these categories, the key component in boosting health is phytochemicals. These are plant-produced chemicals to boost health and immune function. Phyto means plant and these health boosting properties can only be found in plants, not animals.
Another one in this group with high health-promoting value is seeds: raw uncooked, unprocessed seeds — of this category the highest are flaxseeds. This is not only because they have the highest percentage of omega-3 fatty acids, which are not only anti-inflammatory but necessary to build healthy cell membranes and healthy brain tissue itself, but there is another component in flax that makes it shine as a top health promoting food: these are the phytoestrogens inherent in the flaxseed. These plant-produced estrogen-type molecules have some amazing benefits in your overall health.
The key that locks the door
Phytoestrogens have a natural attraction for the estrogen receptors of your cells, which is the reason why flaxseed phytoestrogens are antiproliferative and anticarcinogenic in both male and female cancers. The normal estrogen molecule acts as a growth hormone in the body and stimulates prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. The flaxseed phytoestrogens inhibit prostate cancer and both ER-positive and ER-negative breast cancer cells.
What happens when flaxseed phytoestrogens bind to the estrogen receptor sites?
They protect the body from too much estrogen stimulation because they have approximately 1000 times less power of the estrogen molecule itself.
When such a mild phytoestrogen attaches to estrogen receptors, it will protect one from too much stimulation by the actual estrogen molecule itself.
This is the main reason why flaxseed phytoestrogens protect against male and female produced cancers.
Flaxseeds have been a component of our core dietary program at Revolution New Medicine for over 40 years. It is very important to make sure the flaxseeds remain alive by never exposing them to any processing that produces heat.
Just one simple seed of truth planted into a pure heart will bring 100-fold harvest in life.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Revolution New Medicine but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Revolution New Medicine along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
