Renewal

By Lise Alschuler, ND, FABNO
AANP Past-President (2008-2009)

Photo by Katherine via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.

October is the month of my birthday. As such, I have long experienced October as a unique flow of emotions and reflections. As my birthday approaches, I find myself awash in the incoming tide of anticipation and the receding tide of closure. As my current year runs itself out, a peaceful sense of finality spreads its way into my consciousness. I reflect on my prior year with feelings of gratitude and deep appreciation for all of my experiences. I find myself letting go of unresolved issues and troublesome questions. It is as if I am at a door looking back into a room that holds all the experiences of my past year. I see the way the room has been arranged; I note the piles and the empty spots; I see the shafts of sunlight streaming in here and there; I notice dust in a few places. I see all this with quiet, peaceful eyes, and then, I gently close the door behind me.

Ahead of me is my next year – a year I don’t know yet. I have no sense of it yet, but feel its eagerness. I feel the pull the future reaching out for me – stretching its fingers towards me, excitedly drawing me forward. I find myself reaching back, perhaps a bit tentatively at first. I feel curious and then anxious, impatient and then hesitant. All the while, as my new year looms ever closer, l find myself leaning further forward. There comes a moment when I will lean too far to stay in place and I fall forward into the outstretched arms of my future.

As a fall, I experience another kind of letting-go. I have no ability to right myself or change the course of my fall, so I accept my fate – utterly and completely. I recognize in that instant of acceptance, that wherever I land is perfect. I have no need to resist, but instead celebrate with joy as l free fall towards my future. In that moment, my birth-day happens. I experience a feeling of renewal that reverberates all the way into my very bones. I am born again and as I emerge into my new year, I do so with a prayer of thankfulness on my lips.

Fall Cleansing: Perfect Timing and Optimal Process

By Sara Thyr, ND

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.

Have you heard that spring and fall are ideal times to do a cleanse? In the spring, new buds signal a time of growth, and people are inspired to do spring cleaning. In the fall, as the growth season winds to a close, a cleanse is an ideal way to prepare for winter, the holidays and hibernation.

A biannual detox is a welcome addition to one’s healthcare regimen.

If you are living on this planet, even under the best of circumstances, you are exposed to toxins. They are present in many situations, and we easily absorb them into our bodies. Toxins are prevalent in pollution, and in average automobile exhaust. Just driving your car or walking down the street can add to your toxic burden. Everything from our food and medications to our homes and personal care products, such as lotions and aftershave, can add toxins to our bodies.

People come to do a detox for a variety of reasons: hormonal symptoms – such as PMS or perimenopause, skin issues, fatigue, headaches, infertility, autoimmune disorders, elevated cholesterol, and a variety of inflammatory disorders. Once people are aware of the many toxins in our environment, even those who eat organic and keep their cleaning products as clean as possible often want to detoxify a couple of times per year as a good preventive strategy.

Organs in our bodies that assist us in detoxification on a daily basis include the liver, lungs, kidneys, digestive tract and skin.

Many of the over-the-counter detoxification kits include intestinal cathartics – even natural ones like senna and cascara – which can induce explosive bowel action, cramping and discomfort in many people. Having optimal digestive function is critical for proper elimination and detoxification, but this type of abrasive action is not recommended. (If someone is continually constipated, then they likely need a detox more than most people, since their detoxification action in the digestive tract is limited. They may benefit from cathartics, but should use them only in the short term. Constipation can be resolved by treating underlying causes, not just depending on laxatives.)

While all of the organs of detoxification are important for optimal health, focusing on the liver and assuring excellent elimination makes the most sense. The liver is really the powerhouse of detoxification in the body. Most medications have to pass through the liver in order to be eliminated. Our liver function affects our hormones and our ability to clear other toxins to which we are exposed.

An ideal plan for detoxification includes diet changes, such as eliminating alcohol and caffeine, sugar, refined carbohydrates and any known food allergens.

Supplements that may be helpful will provide nutrients and herbs for liver support and a fiber source to improve elimination.

Saunas, steams and massage will also aid in the body’s detoxification process.

The type of cleanse that is best for an individual will depend on one's symptoms and personal goals. A licensed naturopathic physician can tailor a plan to their specific needs.

Red Leaves in Fall

By Jacob Schor, ND, FABNO

Photo by Mike Gifford via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.

We traveled to the east coast recently. Ostensibly we were going to a wedding and for Parents Weekend the following weekend at our daughter’s college, with the days between spent at the family cabin in Maine. In truth, we were going to see the leaves.

The leaves of deciduous trees change colors in autumn before they fall off the trees. Obviously this process gives name to the season. Less obviously, the Greek term for this leaf falling phenomenon is the etymologic base for the modern term ‘apoptosis,’ which describes the process of cellular suicide, an honorable and desirable decision when initiated in cancer cells. Why trees exhibit such a wide range of colors has been one of those unanswered questions for both the questioning mind and modern biologists.

A series of papers now provide an interesting answer to this question, and lead to an even greater appreciation of fall colors while forcing us toward some interesting ruminations.

Your basic, generic leaf is green. This is because chlorophyll is green and leaves contain lots of chlorophyll. Plants use chlorophyll to absorb energy from sunlight and convert it into sugars and starch, your basic elements of what we call food.

When leaves begin to die in the fall, the chlorophyll green fades away and no longer blocks out the underlying yellow pigments. Leaves turn yellow when they die. Yet some leaves turn brilliant red.

Red leaves are a different story. Chemicals called anthocyanins are responsible for this red color; they weren’t present in the leaves during the summer. Some trees actively make anthocyanins as their leaves start to die. Why would a tree go to the effort (expense) of filling leaves with anthocyanins just before they become ground litter? An even better question is, why are red leaves common in New England and rare in Western Europe?

Anthocyanins serve a number of functions in plants. The list gets longer every few years.

In 2003, William Hoch of Montana State University, reported that anthocyamins helped send nutrients to the plants roots.  Blocking anthocyanin production resulted in the plant sending fewer nutrients to the roots for winter storage.ⁱ

In 2007 Habineck reported that trees that grown in nitrogen-poor soils produced anthocyanins because the pigments protected the leaves and kept them alive a bit longer giving them the chance to store  more nutrients in their roots before winter set in. Thus the red hues in the fall are the sign of a stressed tree trying to squeeze out a few more days of photosynthesis, to make every last bit of food to survive..ⁱⁱ

Anthocyanins also protect leaves from freezing as the temperature gets colder in the fall and actually help the leaves absorb more warmth from sunlight postponing the inevitable.

Anthocyanin pigments also protect against damage caused by insects. This ‘insecticide action’ explains why autumn leaves are redder in the U.S. than in Western Europe.  Oddly enough this explanation comes from Simcha Lev-Yadun of the University of Haifa in Israel, a country not known for fall colors. While earlier theories focused on the red leaves serving as a warning to insects that ‘we don’t taste good,’ Lev-Yadun’s explanation focuses on the insecticidal properties of anthocyanins.  A carpet of anthocyanin rich leaves surrounding a tree through the winter decreases insect breeding and subsequent attack from insects the following year.

North America and Europe have underwent repeated eras of ice ages during which trees have evolved to become deciduous, adapting to fluctuating seasonal and climatic conditions. In adapting to both seasonal cold and dry periods, trees also learned to repel seasonal insect attacks. Many trees learned the value of seasonal anthocyanin production. (We should note that in the tropics, many plants produce anthocyanins year round.)

There is a key difference between the pressures put on trees in North America versus Europe. In North America, the challenge to trees during the ice ages was different; plants and insects could gradually migrate north and south as the ice fields waxed and waned. In Europe the trees were trapped, along with the insects that wanted to feast on them, between ice sheets that advanced from the north and from the Alps. According to Lev-Yadun’s thesis, these European insects largely died out: "The anti-herbivore component in red leaf coloration was relaxed, and northern Europe became dominated by trees with yellow autumn leaves." The European trees didn’t need to make anthocyanins, so they lost the habit. Thus European trees turn yellow with little red.ⁱⁱⁱ

Here in Colorado, our thoughts quickly turn to Aspen leaves, which evolving high in the Rockies with reliable cold winters also had less need for insect defenses than trees in our eastern hardwood forests.

While solving this basic question of why leaves change colors just before they fall provides some relief, Lev-Yadun’s theory reminds us of a bigger question.

NDs often promote consumption of foods and nutritional supplements because of their high anthocyanin content.

Plants with high anthocyanin levels include the Vaccinium species (blueberry, cranberry and bilberry), the Rubus berries (black raspberry, red raspberry, blackberry, and blackcurrant), and a number of other plants including cherry, grape, red cabbage, violet petal, eggplant peel, black rice and black soybean.

Many nutritional proponents include these foods on their lists of the most beneficial things to eat.

Anthocyanins are but one example of chemicals that plants make that have insecticidal properties. When we start looking at other plant chemicals considered good for us, we eventually discover that the plant made them to be poisonous.

The yellow alkaloids in berberine and curcumin, the isoflavonoids in soybeans, the isocyanides in cruciferous vegetables and so on were all meant to be poisonous to bacteria, fungus, insects or animals.

Why is it desirable for us to swallow a botanical hodgepodge of poisons?

If we want to really understand this, we need to go back to basics. We need to view this question against an understanding of the basic laws of nature.

The first law of thermodynamics is often called the conservation of energy and says that, “Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.”

The second law of thermodynamics tells us, “In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is also referred to as the law of entropy. The universe always moves towards states of greater entropy or disorder. (I also refer to this as the Law of Socks, as in “Fewer pairs of sock will emerge from the dryer than I wore last week.”)

Everything in the universe moves toward states of greater entropy, except of course for things that are alive. Life is the opposite of entropy, always striving toward levels of greater complexity and order.

Things that are alive have the capacity to use energy and resist entropy. Living things react and adapt to forces that would drive them toward entropy.

The second law of thermodynamics: “if no energy enters or leaves the system…”
Living things are able to resist entropy because they constantly bring more energy into the system: they eat! Food contains stored energy. Resisting entropy takes energy; creating states of greater order takes energy. To do either takes food. We eat in order to resist entropy.

Thus, in a primal sense, we might define life as the ability to utilize the energy in food in order adapt, maintain order and resist entropy.

The stored energy in food all comes from sun, which at some point is stored through photosynthesis in plants.

Without food, living things lose their ability to resist the forces of entropy; they lose the ability to adapt.

How do you know if something is alive? You poke it. If it’s alive it moves. Living things respond to the world, to stimuli.

‘Poke it, see if it is alive’
Living things adapt and respond in someway to external forces; they adapt to maintain order, either to get out of harm’s way or to move toward food or less entropic environments.

These basic definitions of the universe lead us to a biological term called “adaptive response.” In its simplest definition, adaptive response means “an appropriate reaction to an environmental demand” (Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier).

A fuller definition might read “The ability of a cell, tissue or organism to better resist stress damage because of prior exposure to a lesser amount of stress, observed in all organisms in response to a number of different cytotoxic agents.”

Adaptive response is now often applied to the ability to repair genetic damage and can be triggered by exposure to cytoxic exposure, to phytonutrients such as anthocyanins. Adaptive responses can also be triggered by whole organism stressors.

An example of whole body stressors is the Scandinavian habit of cold water swimming. Researchers there have done some interesting work on adaptive responses in individuals who enjoy this practice, which entails taking hot saunas and then leaping into holes cut into the winter ice of lakes for a swim.

One Finnish study tells us that this habit changes an individual’s response to cytokines: “These stresses appear to challenge both the neuro-endocrine and the immune systems and the results indicate that adaptive mechanisms occur in habitual winter swimmers.”^iv

As an aside, as we look at the many traditional practices of nature cure that were and are promoted by members of the naturopathic profession, we can see how many of them trigger adaptive responses.

Coming back to red leaves in autumn and anthocyanins, if we view anthocyanins as elements that will trigger various adaptive responses, such as triggering DNA repair and preparing our bodies to adapt to stressors, we can see how and why these chemicals can be both poisonous to insects and health-promoting to humans at the same time.

As we watch leaves turn red this autumn, perhaps we can also find some pleasure in the understanding of these complex relationships that give rise to these leaf colors that our minds simply perceive as a thing of beauty.

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ⁱHoch W, Singsaas E, McCown B. Resorption Protection. Anthocyanins Facilitate Nutrient Recovery in Autumn by Shielding Leaves from Potentially Damaging Light Levels Plant Physiology 133:1296-1305 (2003)
ⁱⁱHabineck, EM. Correlation of soil development and landscape position with fall leaf colors. Paper No. 81-15 2007 GSA Denver Annual Meeting (28–31 October 2007)
ⁱⁱⁱLev-Yadun S. The shared and separate roles of aposematic (warning) coloration and the co-evolution hypothesis in defending autumn leaves. Plant Signal Behav. 2010 Aug;5(8):937-9.
^ivDugué B, Leppänen E. Adaptation related to cytokines in man: effects of regular swimming in ice-cold water. Clin Physiol. 2000 Mar;20(2):114-21.