Therapeutic Nutrition & Lifestyle (TNL™)

Observing the fundamentals established by the Creator.

TNL™ is based upon the science governing the physiological principals of the body and how the body can respond to nutrition and lifestyle for good health and longevity.

Science documents how the body responds to our contemporary diet and associated lifestyle by producing inflammatory prostaglandins that cascade throughout the body. Simply said; these practices, so very common in our contemporary world, produce inflammatory markers. We can use these normal bodily reactions as evidence of the causes for these adverse practices in our lifestyle. These practices, left unaddressed, result in wide-ranging, serious disease and bodily dysfunction. Diet and lifestyle are a prime cause of many health problems. . We can measure and thus document these reactions by testing and observing these basic physiological responses of the body.

The science employed is to use the body’s normal physiological responses to help the body heal and maybe purge the offending causes from the bodily systems. Whether we can reverse some serious established problem like HIV/AIDES is doubtful, but the right diet with the right medication regime should improve the outcomes.

Make no mistake; the major measure required to treat the broad range of conditions specified below is the use of Therapeutic Nutrition (TN™). Later you will see “steps” used in treatment. These associated steps, in combination with diet (TN™), make up the whole treatment paradigm termed TNL™. The associated steps by themselves will not by themselves achieve success. While they can improve the body’s response and their absence can hinder the dietary measures; the diet is the most important intervention.

Convincing evidence, accepted by mainstream reliable science, documents that the following conditions are caused by or significantly exacerbated by the effects from our contemporary diet and lifestyle. In most cases when the body is displaying any of the symptoms listed below it is evidence of a pathological reaction. The whole concept of TNL™ is the physiological properties inherent in the body to identify and also to treat any of the conditions listed below. We can stimulate and assist the body in its normal process of combating the offending encounter in the process.

Conditions signaling need for TN™ treatment [1]

·         Obesity [2] Requiring weight reduction

o   Can include eating disorders

·         Diabetes 2

o   Metabolic Syndrome

·         Heart Disease

o   Inflammatory related heart disease problems

o   CHF

·         Cancer

o   “Inflammation has long been associated with the development of cancer”[3]

·         Arthritis

o   Osteoarthritis

o   Rheumatoid Arthritis

·         Psychiatric Disorders

o   Depression

o   Anxiety

o   Bi-Polar

o   Compulsive behavior disorders

·         Epilepsy

·         Migraine headaches

·         Chronic musculoskeletal disorders

o   Fibromyalgia

o   Others

§  Carpal tunnel syndrome

§  Would include overuse and repetitive injury problems

§  Other ill defined musculoskeletal problems

·         HIV/AIDS

·         Inflammatory female conditions

o   Endometrial

o   Peritoneal

o   Cervix

o   Breast

o   Ovarian epithelium

o   Polycystic Ovary syndrome (PCOS) [4]

·         Prostrate inflammation and hyperplasia

·         Periodontal disease

·         Dementia

o   Alzheimer’s Disease

o   Associated CNS dementia disorders

·         Auto immune disorders

·         Atherosclerosis

·         Asthma

·         Sleep apnea

·         Eye disease

o   Macular degeneration

o   Cataracts

o   Glaucoma

·         GI disorders

o   Crohn’s Disease

o   Celiac Disease

o   IBS

o   Many other non specific diagnoses

·         To be investigated

o   Smoking cessation

o   Substance abuse

§  Alcohol

§  Drugs

If one encounters any of the conditions above it is pretty certain evidence their body is reacting to some adverse event by producing these conditions. A universal cause, well documented, is the diet. In many cases the incidence of the cause is long standing and advanced. Some of the earliest signs are detected in lab results that most of us do not have advantage of seeing and in those early vague symptoms such as our “little aches and pains”. These early symptoms are mainly too minimal to be considered important, but might be an early harbinger of more to come as a result of our lifestyle and diet.

So what do you do? Begin making changes in your diet and lifestyle that stimulates the body to actually produce a therapeutic environment. We want to assist and stimulate the body to purge itself of the offending symptoms.

Steps

1)      TN™ diet

a)      Supplements

b)      Intermittent fasting

2)      Proper sleep patterns

3)      Relaxation

4)      Minimal to moderate kinetic exercise

Quick Start

TN™ Diet

One must understand that there are many gray areas and marginal foods so that a list can be quibbled with endlessly. There is constant debate how some foods fall into the categories and that in itself is a problem. The categories are arbitrarily established by us when the definitive list is determined by the body’s response to each food. In addition some foods can be more acceptable in combination (recipe preparation) with other foods. We could get lost in the weeds here and indeed if you become a serious student of this healthy practice, you will delve continuously into this aspect of what, when and how to eat. Notice, I said nothing about amount you eat. If successful you will find that the old, many times failed, strategies stressing calories in Vs Calories out has never worked except for the short term and then fails soon thereafter. The net result is failure almost without exception in every group analyzed with scientific principles.

As a gross guide, the recommendations for beginning a diet that will assist the body to combat the symptoms listed above are as follows. There are many borderline foods that can or cannot be ingested depending on what else you eat during that period or meal. We could spend a book just debating these many variables.

What not to eat? Let’s get out the bad news first.

·         Dairy

·         Grains

·         Potatoes (does not include sweet potatoes)

·         Corn

·         Sugar

·         Most simple carbohydrates

·         Diet drinks

·         Most fruit juices

·         Most chicken and turkey

What to eat?

·         Fish and other high Omega-3 fatty acid foods.

·         Complex carbohydrates

·         Some cuts of beef and pork

·         Skinless boneless white meat chicken

·         Many vegetables- they mostly fall into our classification as complex carbohydrates

o   Spinach (most leafy greens)

o   Broccoli

o   Sweet Potatoes

o   Onions

o   Cauliflower

o   Brussels Sprouts

o   Carrots

o   Green beans (watch the fatter, larger beans)

o   Cabbage

o   Most salad ingredients

§  Tomatoes

§  Lettuce

§  Cucumbers

§  Radishes

·         Fresh oranges, grapefruit, strawberries and raspberries.

·         Nuts (with possible exception of walnuts)

·         Peanuts (a legume)- includes peanut butter, but watch salt and sugar added

·         Vegetable juices- watch the salt

·         Fats and oils

o   Olive oil

o   Canola oil (LEAR)

o   Duck and Goose fat

o   Sources (animal) of Omega-3 fatty acids

o    Sources of Omega-6 fatty acids as long as the ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 does not exceed 4 to 1.

o   There are other oils and fats that could be included in this brief list.

A rule of thumb.

·         Avoid as much as possible any processed foods or products. Cook and eat. Staying out of the frozen food section at the grocery and the drive through of all the fast food establishments is pretty sage advice.

o   Processed food exceptions are notable:

§  Some of the butters and dairy products.

§  Meat products like hot dogs, sausages, etc. (watch the salt and nitrates)

Quick Reference list

You need a quick reference list to look up foods. The best and easiest are the two references that follow. There is more to this than the inflammatory properties of food, but that one aspect will get you further in deciding what to eat than any other single property of food. So look up the Inflammation Factor (IF) of foods..

1.      www.nutritiondata.com

Great web site. It has over 1600 foods rated and much more.

2.      The Inflammation-Free Diet Plan, Monica Reinagel, McGraw Hill, 2006,

It can be found at Amazon.com or most major book stores.  It has a list of over 1500 foods rated. I have minor problems with part of the philosophy of combing foods, but it’s the best out there at the moment. It is a major contribution to the knowledge of food and its properties. It quantifies the inflammatory properties of a wide range of foods through its IF rating that was developed by the author.

Incidence[5] of overweight and obese

                                                                               National                                  Georgia [6]

Overweight and obesity in adults                          >67%

·         Obese adults-BMI > 30.0                          34.3%                                      30% [7]

·         Extremely obese adults-BMI > 40.0          5.9%

Overweight and obese under 20 years of age        >35% [8]

One can see the data is extremely confusing and in places seems more politically generated than pure data. The data does document an extremely high incidence of overweight and obese people in every age, gender, ethnic and socio economic groups.