Having the proper nutrients can affect everything from your DNA to how happy you feel. Proper nutrition is an important factor in maintaining good emotional and physical health. Alcohol consumption and eating refined foods negatively exacerbates both your emotional and physical health.

Drinking alcoholic beverages requires your body to use nutrients more rapidly. When your liver begins to feel the strain brought on by alcohol, your bloodstream, organs, glands and skeletal system then become the source by supplying much needed nutrients to boost liver function needed to detoxify alcohol, and its toxic metabolites. As a result, there are several physical issues that often occur when people try to stop drinking alcohol such as muscle weakness, blood sugar imbalances, fatigue, and generally feeling “hungover”. More serious issues include tremors, “the shakes”, nervousness and tension, poor sleep and insomnia, appetite issues, and memory issues. In many cases these issues are the result of nutrient deficiencies and chemical imbalances.

Alcohol also perpetuates a cycle of dependency which stems from a person’s lack of ability to ‘feel relaxed’ in their body. Many people reach for an alcoholic beverage because they feel they cannot relax without it. This tension stems from overly toxic organs and glands, strained to their limits, which in turn can communicate with our muscles creating ‘muscle tension’, besides an overall feeling of unease and agitation. When this occurs, the body cannot produce the adequate levels of hormones, neurotransmitters, and chemicals needed to achieve relaxation, and a deep restful sleep with few interruptions. This also can prevent your muscles from relaxing.

After a stressful event
Following a stressful event, if your body is healthy, your muscles and your mind can calm and relax itself in a ‘normal’ period of time. As a chiropractor, when palpitating the backs of patients, I frequently find that they have overly tight (‘stiff as a board” as I call it) muscles that are rigidly locked in tension. This is a result of an overly toxic burden resulting from poor diet and reliance upon medications, and alcohol plays a role in this process. Alcohol merely numbs us from feeling this tension, but does nothing to address the cause of why we feel stressed. This perpetrates a continued cycle of reliance on alcohol.

How alcohol makes you gain weight, and makes you “fatter”
Many people are unaware that alcohol, in any form, makes you fatter. Any benefits to drinking “low carb” alcoholic beverages are an advertising gimmick to fool you into thinking that you won’t gain as much weight. Believing that you can avoid the carbs and not gain as much weight, and fat, if you drink more concentrated forms of alcohol such as vodka instead of beer, isn’t accurate.

Alcohol metabolism yields a highly toxic metabolite called Acetaldehyde, which is hugely damaging to liver and pancreas; both of these organs are required for sugar metabolism. Ingesting alcohol has shown to create large spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels in certain studies. Higher blood sugar and insulin levels not only perpetuate inflammation, but also fat accumulation! Alcohol increases Triglycerides, which is a type of fat made from sugar. Triglycerides elevate in our blood, which in turn can travel and deposit anywhere in the body, but especially around our belly, and can also transform our liver into a ‘fatty liver. Every patient who has quit or cut out alcohol, and moderately changed their diet to include more whole foods, all mention how easily the fat fell off their body, and many times this was without adding exercise.

Alcohol destroys critical vitamins you need for good health.
Vitamin B-complexes are easily destroyed by alcohol. These vitamins are essential to mental and emotional well-being. Strict vegetarians can also often have Vitamin B deficiencies. Vitamin B deficiencies can trigger depression and irritability can cause neurological and cardiac disorders among alcoholics, contribute to feeling anxious, depressed, fatigued, chronically stressed and depressed. Often these feelings trigger an alcoholic’s need to ‘self-medicate’ which leads to more alcohol consumption.

Vitamin B12 is also known as “the energy vitamin” because your body requires it for a number of vital functions. These functions include energy production, blood formation, DNA synthesis, and myelin formation. According to an article by Dr Mercola, MD, “Recent studies from the U.S. Framingham trial show one in four adults in the United States are deficient in this vitally important nutrient, and nearly half the population has suboptimal blood levels.”

Other nutrient deficiencies can cause chronic depression and fatigue (Vitamin C), confusion, apathy, loss of appetite, weakness and insomnia (Magnesium), apathy, lack of appetite and lethargy (Zinc), and so on. Calcium depletion affects the central nervous system as it is required for nerve impulses.

How we detect nutritional and health related issues
Even if you take the RDA (Recommended Daily Amount) of micro-nutrients, how can you be sure you are absorbing them? Drugs can also play a role in nutrient deficiencies, as they may interfere with the proper absorption of nutrients in your body http://fundamentalhealthsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/DrugNutrientDepletion.pdf. You may be eating the right foods and yet you may still be deficient in key health building and maintaining nutrients.

Our practice uses the TRIAD Blood Spot test. This is a simple test that our patients perform in the comfort of their home. It requires obtaining a blood spot/smear, and a urine collection, all contained within the kit performed by the individual and does not require a lab. This test, which is billable to insurance, collects a large amount of data, more than most lab tests used today, that tells us what nutrient deficiencies you are experiencing, how well your body is healing and repairing itself, neurotransmitter status required for optimal brain function, gut health, any hidden infections, food sensitivities which can hinder your energy and fatigue levels, energy production and maintenance. We continually hear from patients how amazed and appreciative they are from the results, which are printed in a neat, easy to read 10 page colored report, which also outlines your nutritional deficiencies.

This test can provide answers for many people who feel as if they are aging faster than they should, or for those who are approaching their senior years but who want to maintain an active and vital life.

Call or contact us now for more information on how we can help you feel good again, avoid the nutrient depletion “pull” to drink again, have more energy, and reduce aging related issues that can be reversed.

References:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/05/19/warning-potentially-life-threatening-vitamin-deficiency-affects-25-percent-of-adults.aspx

https://www.bouldermedicalcenter.com/articles/Alcohol_Nutrition.htm

When living tissue is shocked, or dies, it’s protein structure cracks open. Bacteria or enzymes contained in the food itself subsequently convert many of the protein fragments into polyamines, and is why they are found in high amounts in injured or traumatized patients. Polyamines are also found in foods that are have been permanently altered—shocked by rapid freezing, overly processed, canned, packaged, and radiated. Certain types of plant foods such as vegetables, fruits, beans and legumes also contain high concentration of polyamines.

Indicators of high polyamine levels
There is no convenient direct method to assess polyamine levels, although you can use several other indirect measures as barometers of polyamine levels:

• High or abnormal serum albumin: Polyamine synthesis has a positive effect on albumin levels.
• High urinary indican: Large amounts of indicans are a sign of high bacteria counts in the upper intestine. High indican levels are associated with liver, kidney, and gastrointestinal health problems.
• Halitosis (Bad breath): If you experience persistent bad breath, despite diligent brushing and flossing, you probably, then it’s likely your polyamine levels are too high.
• Frequent headaches from fermented foods- (red wine, raw sauerkraut) Polyamines enhance the effect of histamines, which are implicated in certain types of headaches. Histamines dilate blood vessels, including those in the brain, which can then transmit pain throughout the head.
• Certain Grains- when consumed by certain blood types, such as when type O’s consume wheat, will increase your production of polyamines which can lead to inflammation, joint problems, bowel difficulties and difficulty losing weight.
• Several other problems such as odiferous stools, mental agitation, carbohydrate intolerance, fatigue can also indicate improper balance of polyamines.

Eating for your Blood Type can have an important effect in reducing your exposure to weight gain related lectins. If you follow your specific blood type diet, you can balance the proper amount of polyamines along with minimizing your exposure to lectins that are incompatible with your body. Eating for your blood type can give you more energy, greater mental focus and clarity, reduces stress and helps you lose weight.  It is important to have a complete nutritional assessment which determines your blood type, secretor status, and genotype when it comes to choosing a diet that will create optimal health and wellness and allow us to age gracefully. Genotype refers to the genetic make up – this takes into account one’s genetic history. We perform this type of analysis in our office, which can help everyone, and help unravel some of the mysteries that some people of mixed race ancestry have also experienced when it comes to diet and their health.

SWAMI can help!
In our practice, we incorporate a detailed diet plan as an integral tool to optimize energy, decrease inflammation, and most importantly change the way your immune system expresses itself within the blood. We believe that each person has “biochemical individuality.” This means that we respond differently to foods and our environment. The food you eat can affect you negatively or positively, or be neutral. To build good health, you need to eat the foods that create positive effects for you.

To help patients turn their health issues and symptoms around by changing their diet and eating for their blood type, we develop a highly specific set of dietary guidelines complete with individualized recipes. This not only takes into account your blood type, but mitigates food allergies and sensitivities by helping you avoiding foods that are problematic for you. We do this with SWAMI GenoType software. This enables us to quickly tailor unique one-of-a kind diets, based on a person’s blood type, fingerprints, health history, biometric measurements and over ninety other variables.

SWAMI GenoType helps you to understand why certain diets that have been great for your friend’s ability to lose weight may have left you feeling less than well. It is a tool we use to help our patients select foods that work to build your immune system, blood, and entire body chemistry. You can read more about SWAMI on our website by clicking here:

What can be even more frustrating is following a calorie restriction diet.  It is very common for people to go on a diet that restricts the intake of calories – and then suffer with frequent hunger pangs.  Considering that most Americans eat 33% to 50% fewer calories than in the past, yet weigh almost twice as much, calorie counting is not the magic bullet to sustained weight loss and a healthy body that is nourished properly.

Low and poor quality caloric diets are credited with creating people described as “TOFI” – Thin Outside, Fat Inside.  This refers to women, in particular, who are visibly “thin” for their height and weight, yet have extremely inadequate muscle mass needed for burning fat.  TOFI people have disproportionately higher amounts of body fat when compared to muscle mass for their size.  They are “thin”, but soft, and flabby with poor muscle tone, as a result of eating poorly.

Others may lose weight by counting calories but hit a plateau and seem stuck there.  Others will decide that eliminating meat products is the way to go so they turn to vegan diet.  For some, the vegan diet can seem like the answer to their problems and the pounds peel off and they feel great.  For others, this switch to a seemingly healthy diet causes them to end up feeling worse than they were when they were eating meat.  How can this be?

Let’s look at soy.  Soy based products have long been an alternative protein source.  Is soy the wonder food?  It can be if your soy based products are good for you.  During a discussion with an alternative healer, some years ago, she commented that most of the people she had seen did not handle soy products that well over long periods of time, unless they were of Asian descent.  When you consider that most soy products are consumed as Tofu, a food based in Asian cultures,  people with Asian genetics have had some 2,000 years for their genetics to adapt and metabolize this food.  For many others, soy based products may actually present a different challenge.

In 1997, Dr. Peter D’Adamo, a Naturopathic Doctor, published a book called, “Eat Right 4 Your Type.”  Dr. Adamo had spent the past fifteen years researching the connections among blood type, food and diseases, and built upon the thirty years of research done by his father, to produce a book that helped countless people make sense of the curious inconsistent results regarding many popular diet plans.

Basically, Dr. A’damo states that your blood type reflects your internal chemistry:  it is the key that unlocks the mysteries of disease, longevity, fitness, and emotional strength.   In his book he explains how your Blood Type can determine your susceptibility to illness, the type of foods you should eat, and the ways to avoid many health problems.  Perhaps one of the most profound findings, which tie into our practice of Functional Medicine at our offices at Fundamental Health Solutions, is Dr A’damo’s findings on how to slow down the aging process by avoiding factors specific to your blood type that cause rapid cell deterioration.

Out of 6617 individuals who reported their results from following the Blood Type Diet for a period of one month or more, three out of four (71-78%) had significant improvement in a variety of health conditions. Weight loss was the effect most often observed, and not surprisingly, so were a number of reported improvements in digestive function, resistance to stress, overall energy and mental clarity. The percentages (71-78%) of patients reporting positive results are consistent across all the blood types.

Are You Eating Foods Correct For Your Blood Type and Genotype?
How does this work?  A single drop of blood contains the biological blueprint of who you are as an individual. Your blood type is the key that unlocks the door to the mysteries of health, illness, longevity, physical vitality and emotional strength. It determines what foods you should eat and how you should exercise. It determines your energy levels and the efficiency with which you “burn” calories.

Although there are four blood types-O, A, B and AB-it would be an oversimplification to suggest that there are only four types of people in the world. The reality is far more intricate and complex. Subtyping your blood type provides even greater specificity. An additional set of simple genetic tests further individualize your needs and formalize a final diet plan for you. The final product is a 38 page diet plan telling you the foods you CAN eat, with helpful recipes. No two diets are exactly the same. Additionally, we provide the types of exercises that will benefit you most to help you maintain good

For more information on adapting the D’Adamo dietary guidelines, and visiting our office for an in office consult and overview of your body’s current ability to absorb and metabolize what you are eating, please contact us at Fundamental Health Solutions.  We are located in Austin, TX and can offer some long distance consultation as well.  Click here to contact us

Research
1) Diet, Health and The ABO Blood Groups taken from The Mayo Clinic

Further Reading:
Bland, Jeffrey, Genetic Nutritioneering, Lincolnwood: NTC Contemporary Publishing Group, 1999  Dr Bland has stated that, “By selecting the right diet and lifestyle for our genotype—related in part to our bloodtype—we can turn off the expression of certain genetic messages that trigger ill-health and turn on the expression of messages that foster good health.”  Dr. Jeffrey Bland is the  Founder of Functional Medicine.