As promised last week, we are going to look at physical therapies and exercise that are an intrinsic part of a body makeover. So far we have focused on healing the gut and reducing systemic inflammation. Our head should be clearer and our gut happier. Now let's focus on the body at large, and that refers to the two largest organs we have: our skin and our muscles. We generally think of our skin as just a bag to keep all our squishy parts on the inside and our muscles as simply a way to move around. But like everything in the body, the story is much more complex.

Let's dive in and look at the skin. Yes, it is a bag that keeps our moist insides from drying out and falling out, but the skin also manufactures essential hormones for the body. When exposed to ultraviolet light, the skin produces vitamin D from cholesterol which is actually a hormone that does a large number of things in the body. For this reason, it is wise to make sure that your skin gets enough regular exposure to sunlight or UV light in the right dose. Natural sunlight is easy to get in the summer, but this time of the year the UV dose from sunlight is negligible. For myself, I keep a balanced dose of UV with 5 minutes of exposure to a UV light source three times a week. UV is tricky because too much exposure will burn your skin and increase photo-aging of the skin.

Your skin also provides the turf for hundreds of billions of healthy protective bacteria. This is one of our primary defense mechanisms against disease. I found it sad that our misinformed population is running around using hand sanitizer. Repeated studies have proven that the incidence of infection by bacteria and viruses goes way up when hand sanitizers are used. These studies were done in hospital wards and showed much greater post-surgery infections on floors that used hand sanitizers compared to floors that only used simple soap and water for cleaning the hands. This is because the sanitizer is killing your protective skin bacteria.

A great therapy for both the skin and the muscles just below the skin is red light therapy. I have written several articles on the value of red light therapy. One thing I may not have mentioned is that red light in the eyes early in the morning has been found to help prevent macular degeneration. I stare into the red light panel on the wall of my bedroom for 3 minutes every morning. In the evening, Ellen and I do 8 minutes of front and back full body light therapy.

The skin is also supported by various botanical extracts and oils applied directly onto the skin. This area is a huge multi-billion dollar business as everyone wants to look their best. A few years back I researched the most promising botanicals used by the very expensive brands of skin treatment and created my own blend of the best of the best. I had to create two products, a water-based product for the water-soluble herbs, and an oil-based product for the oil-soluble herbs. But if you are looking for the simplest skin treatment available, just use a bit of virgin olive oil on your skin. 

Okay, it's time to talk muscles. The primary message I want to get across about muscles is the need for variety. Just like the big message in parts one and two was the need for variety in food sources, eating schedules, and cyclic restrictions, your muscles need variety as well. We want to address four fundamental types of muscular activity:

Strength building

Endurance building

Flexibility

All of these need to be engaged on a regular basis in order to be healthy. The absence of any one of these will disable you to some degree.

The very first thing I test on new patients is their ability to balance on one foot with their eyes closed. If they are not able to balance for at least 2 seconds (the ideal is 15 seconds), they are a prime fall risk. The nerves for balance and coordination in the legs come and go with use or lack of use. Most of us depend upon our balance with our eyes telling us which way is up. But if we are not looking at the ground and our foot steps on something unlevel, we need those leg balance nerves to work to save us from a nasty fall. We train this by practicing balance on one foot with the eyes closed. Trying to balance on soft squishy surfaces or wobble boards is also good. Following a yoga program daily can also be a big help.

Flexibility – if you are so stiff that you can't even reach the floor or get easily out of bed, life can be miserable. What folks don't grasp is that every minute of every day your body is creating fibrous glue in all your muscles and joints. Your body is trying to glue everything together all the time. It is the movement of your joints through their full range of motion that breaks up this fibrous tissue and keeps the glue away. This glue is what ties injured joints together to prevent further injury. The biggest problems I encounter are patients who avoid movement in a joint because it hurts. This only makes things worse. With no movement, the glue goes everywhere. We need to move the hurt joint in every direction that does not hurt much in order to break up this glue (scar tissue). So stretch your joints in as many directions as you can every day. Stretch to the point that it just starts to hurt then hold there for a few seconds. Don't try to push through the pain as this will only create further injuries and inflammation. Stretching using a staff or long stick can really expand your flexibility.

Endurance training is about two things on a physiologic level: blood flow and fast twitch muscles. For most of us, endurance training means nice walks around the neighborhood. I do have a few patients that do Iron Man competitions which take endurance to a whole different level, but for our purposes what we are trying to do is build a good blood supply to the muscles and activate one of the different muscle types — the fast twitch muscles. Swimming does a wonderful job with endurance training, but the weather is getting a bit cold for that now. Fortunately for me, my work keeps me moving around all day, but on weekends house chores do the same thing.

If you want to get balance, coordination, flexibility, and endurance training all at once in the same activity, go for dancing, tennis, or martial arts. Over the years the youngest looking seniors I have had in my practice were all avid dancers. Right now the big thing seems to be pickleball which has similar moves to tennis, but patients tell me it is much more fun.

Strength training – building the beef. Although the goal of strength training is to build bigger stronger muscles, the reason it is important for health is not so we can look good in a swimsuit. The reason is to help avoid metabolic syndrome and diabetes. The muscles and liver are where the body stores sugar. Sometimes we need a burst of blood sugar to meet stress in our life. Other times we trigger a release of blood sugar as a response to stress even though we don't move into running away or fighting to use the sugar up. Managing this varying sugar load in the bloodstream requires us to have sufficient muscle mass to store the sugar. When we have little muscle mass, we are less able to handle the stress of life.

It is also good to have enough strength to be able to get up out of a chair when you want. This is one of the basic doctor tests for general health – we watch to see if you need to use your arms to help yourself get up from a seated position. If you currently find that you are helping yourself up from a seated position with your arms then that is the perfect place to start. Practice getting up without using your arms. If you can't then practice sitting down only part way then back up until you get strong enough. Move up to doing daily squats and maybe some wall or chair pushups. Picking things up using your arms works the back muscles to balance against the chest muscles engaged with the pushups. 

The big message is that your body wants to be physically stimulated in as many ways as possible in order to stay strong and healthy. Variety is the name of the game for health. We want to believe that the treadmill we got last year is all we need to stay healthy and that it is better than sitting on the couch, but the body wants a lot more to be happy. It wants you to mix it up and do a lot of different things. Feel in each moment what your body wants. When done well, all this variety will feel good to your body. The idea is to open up and expand how you participate with your body. Variety is health food for your body.

Take care,

David     

Ellen 

Ellen and I went out to Red Lobster to celebrate our 28th anniversary. She moved in with me just a week before I hosted Thanksgiving for 36 people in my little place. We had to move all the furniture out into the garage to fit everyone inside. She was quite the trouper helping me put on a dinner for so many family members, just as she has been a trouper for the last 28 years.