Leslie Escalante's blog

Ho Ho Ho….. Oh, the holiday season. It’s good spending time with family and friends but all of the festivities and wonderful food can make healthy eating a challenge. We tend to put on half of our annual weight gain between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  In fact, the average American typically gains between one and five pounds during these months. Though it’s only a few pounds, if it happens year after year, it can add up. The holidays are a time for spending much needed fellowship with our friends and family and It often happens that when hosting a holiday get together that you spend more time getting the feast on the table and cleaning up than actually spending  with your loved ones. Isn’t this the whole reason you hosted Christmas anyway, right?

As stress and symptoms of depression rise in this day and age, having a time for regular outings and vacations can give you some solutions to maintaining a healthy condition.  Many people plan a vacation wherein fast paced activities are planned everyday of the week. Therefore, the vacation often ends up being as demanding as the job that you left behind. A lot of people evoke the feeling of being crushed by the time they return from their holiday, and this is the point. In order to get the wonderful health benefits of a vacation, it is important for you to do as little as possible and set aside the time to relax your mind and soul that you need to replenish so you can return home feeling rejuvenated.

Meaningful sexuality in a sexually immature culture is becoming increasingly harder and harder to achieve. Promoting intimacy and other-centered sexuality can be difficult when navigating the communication barriers between men and women. Men and women have different communications styles and attitudes. The result is often that neither partner tells the other their true feelings. Then they complain because they don't know, and expect the other to understand what they did not say. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this very thing in my practice. Trying to explain to couples that communication is one of the most important things that they can work on is often fallen on deaf ears.

It is believed by many that men tend to deal with problems in a logical, reasonable manner and that women tend to think in terms of emotions and feelings. For the most part, this has been proven to be true. However, both genders are sometimes not very good at communicating well with their partners at all. Some women want to infer or hint rather than come out and say it like it is. Then there are women who resort to demanding sexual satisfaction, which they often don't get from their partner, and are learning to be more outspoken. The opposite of this is when women hide their true feelings and become resentful of being unfulfilled. The same can be true for men. This simply shows the differences between how some men and women think. We are so used to this that if someone switches roles it can also be a problem. A man who breaks out into tears is very confusing or is considered feminine or needy. A woman who becomes logical and analytical in her dealings with men may be seen as cold and hard. Because we expect these roles, we play them, we don't even realize we're playing them, and we consciously don't understand them, because they've been part of us for so long. We aren't seeing them directly and they can affect how we communicate our need for intimacy.

Andropause is a hormone-related condition of low-testosterone. It usually occurs in males aged 40 and onwards. Have him take this test and find out if he has the symptoms of andropause.

A D A M Androgen Deficiency in the Aging Male Screening Questionnaire

1.     Does he have a decrease in libido (sex drive)?

2.     Does he have a lack of energy? 

3.     Does he have a decrease in strength and/or endurance?

4.     Has he lost height?

5.     Has he noticed a decrease in “enjoyment of life”? 

6.     Is he sad and/or grumpy?

7.     Are his erections less strong? 

8.     Has he noted a recent deterioration in his ability to play sports? 

9.     Is he falling asleep after dinner? 

10.   Has there been a recent deterioration in his work performance?

ADAM Interpretation:   ADAM Positive if you answered YES to question #1 or #7 OR YES to any 3 questions.

Most people who use Complimentary or Alternative Medicine (CAM) don’t choose it instead of conventional medicine, they choose it in addition to conventional medicine in what has come to be known as integrative medicine. Some define integrative medicine as: “A healthy balance between conventional and alternative medicine.” That means if you have an infection, you might receive an antibiotic along with a probiotic to replace the good bacteria the antibiotic wipes out, and herbs or a prescription for yoga to strengthen your immune system. If you break your leg, you get surgery, but you may also receive acupuncture, as well as a prescription for bone-building minerals and vitamins like calcium, magnesium and vitamin D. 

Although a relatively new concept, integrative medicine is catching on. Today, the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, devoted to training medical students, residents and physicians in CAM and integrative medicine, boasts around 38 members and counting, including such prestigious schools as Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Columbia University in New York, Harvard Medical School, Yale Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. All also offer integrative medicine programs for patients. Many integrate CAM with oncology and see many women with metastatic breast cancer. They don’t try to take the place of the women’s oncologists; instead, they recommend therapies to strengthen their breast cancer patients’ immune systems and help combat the fatigue and other side effects of chemotherapy, as well as reduce risk factors that could stimulate the growth of cancer cells. 

A connection to family provides a certain type of comfort and support that you can’t get from other people. Provided they aren’t severely emotionally toxic, we can generally depend on our families in times of crisis for emotional and practical support, and sometimes even financial support when we’re desperately in need, though we should try to avoid this at all cost (Neither a borrower nor lender be). Our families carry our history with them, and they generally share our future as well. Who better than siblings, parents, and other close relatives to reminisce with us about our childhoods, or remember pieces of ourselves we’ve forgotten? This connection to fond memories, support in times of need, and near unconditional love is a unique way that family brings us happiness as well as relief from stress. Unfortunately, with the complexity of these relationships, they're not always easy. 

Dealing with difficult people is never easy. But while it may be better for your stress level and even improve your health to eliminate strained relationships from your life, it's not always a simple undertaking when the difficult people are relatives, co-workers, or people you otherwise must have in your life.

 Social support is a great stress reliever, but relationships can also be a major source of stress. As conflict is virtually inevitable in any relationship, here are ten important tips on managing conflict in a respectful way that yields positive results, rather than damaging your connection and causing additional stress.

Cholesterol in fact is the most powerful antioxidant for brain cell membranes.  Important?  Cholesterol’s irregular shape helps prevent crystallization of our cell membranes in all our cells and helps to maintain membrane fluidity. This improved fluidity allows nutrition to enter into our cells more easily and helps facilitate waste product removal. Eighty percent of our cholesterol is made in our own liver and twenty percent comes from our diet.  If our body is elevating our cholesterol it does not do so for without reason. Cholesterol helps the body defend itself against external toxins. In fact, elevated cholesterol can be a sign of toxicity. It is well known that a liver detox or a colon cleanse program will lower cholesterol levels. It has also been demonstrated that removing heavy metals from the body will lower cholesterol.  Approximately eighty percent of our cholesterol is made in our liver. Most is turned into bile but the enzymes that convert cholesterol into bile are shut off by high insulin levels. When this happens cholesterol is not turned into bile and gets dumped into the intestinal tract as cholesterol where it is promptly reabsorbed into the bloodstream.  Some low carbohydrate diets that tend to lower insulin levels also tends to lower cholesterol levels about 50 points. Cholesterol is made into our hormones including, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol and DHEA. Without these hormones not only would life be absent of fun but we would cease to live.

Recognizing our biological past and treating disease with the body’s own chemistry is an emerging concept that has been around for years. Dr. Lane Sebring, founder and Medical Director of Sebring Clinic, is a Board Examiner for the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and is a graduate of the University of Texas Medical Branch with a Board Certification in Family Practice Medicine. Dr. Sebring practices Anti-Aging, Integrative, Holistic, Alternative, Functional and Traditional Medicine bridging the gap between allopathic and naturopathic medicine. 

His ideas regarding the use of orthomolecular (meaning same molecules) medicine, whereby doctors would treat disease using the body’s own chemistry by providing it with more of what it uses to repair itself and to treat disease is not a new concept. A group of scientists in the 1950’s, among them the Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, Linus Pauling, developed this concept. 

 When you have a bone mineral density test, it compares your bone density to a “young normal” healthy 30-year-old adult with peak bone density (also called peak bone mass). Peak bone density is the point at which a person has the greatest amount of bone that she or he will ever have.

You will get the result of your BMD test in a special number called a T-score. It stands for “standard deviations” or “SD.” It indicates how much your bone density is above or below normal. Healthcare providers use the T-score to diagnose osteoporosis. If more than one bone is tested, they use the lowest T-score to make a diagnosis of osteoporosis. The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined the T-scores and what they mean. What your T-score means:

• A T-score between +1 and -1 is normal bone density. Examples are 0.8, 0.2 and -0.5.

• A T-score between -1 and -2.5 indicates low bone density or osteopenia. Examples are T-scores of -1.2,-1.6 and -2.1.

• A T-score of -2.5 or lower is a diagnosis of osteoporosis. Examples are T-scores of -2.8, -3.3 and -3.9.

It's hot out there ya'll !!  Here are a few tips to help you determine the difference between just being plain hot and a medical emergency and what happens when you get too hot and how to cool down.   

Heat exhaustion: This condition often occurs when people exercise (work or play) in a hot, humid place and body fluids are lost through sweating, causing the body to overheat. The person's temperature may be elevated, but not above 104°F. Heat exhaustion is typically caused when people who are not well adjusted to heat exercise in a hot, humid environment.

• At high temperatures, the body cools itself largely through evaporation of sweat.
• When it is very humid, this mechanism does not work properly.
• The body loses a combination of fluids and salts (electrolytes).
• When this is accompanied by an inadequate replacement of fluids, disturbances in the circulation may result that are similar to a mild form of shock.

Heat exhaustion symptoms

• Often pale with cool, moist skin
• Sweating profusely
• Muscle cramps or pains
• Feels faint or dizzy
• May complain of headache, weakness, thirst, and nausea
• Core (rectal) temperature elevated-usually more than 100°F-and the pulse rate increased