Optimizing Metabolism

by Ingrid Kohlstadt, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACN

Looking to Stay Healthy? ‘Apply Here’

Introduction

As a medical doctor specializing in nutrition and optimizing metabolism, I was trained in using therapies that are ingested – medications and food. This training is given the name “internal medicine.” Yet in my medical practice, consultations, and research, I dispense as many recommendations that could be called external medicine. Examples include safe sun and sunlamp exposure to promote vitamin D production, incorporating plant oils into skin care, and using air filters and propolis diffusers to reduce indoor allergens. In this Townsend Letter column, those looking to stay healthy may “apply here.”

From Submarines to Kitchen Cabinets

How to clean the air handling system of a submarine – now there’s a tough one. But it’s the type of question that led parent company Indoor Air Professionals to innovate a tea tree oil spray and gel now sold to consumers under the brand Kanberra.

Tea tree oil has a distinctive aroma, so it is sometimes considered an air freshener to mask cooking odors, pet odors, cigarette smoke, and dankness. It’s more. Along with neem, thyme, and rosemary oils, tea tree is organic pest control for plants. Tea tree oil applied to kitchen cabinets stops the growth of mildew.

Natural oils offer triple action – furniture oil, mold and mildew control, and organic pest control. Apply pine or juniper oils to unfinished wood cabinetry. For cedar closets, hand-rub the dried wood with cedar oil.

When to Bag It and When to Bag It, So to Speak

When it comes to bagging groceries, eco-friendly living and public health are sometimes at cross purposes. Medical personnel call grocery bags by the ominous-sounding name fomite. That’s a surface that can spread germs from person to person or to someone’s food. Enterovirus D68, norovirus, and drug-resistant salmonella are three among many good reasons to clean reusable grocery bags between uses … but how?

Most grocery bags are not easy to wash. They hold water, interfering with the wash cycle. The handles get hung up in the washer apparatus or knot the dryer load like a cat with a ball of knitting yarn. Some bags disintegrate. At one time, I decided to use all-cotton bags with short handles so that I could wash them. However I overlooked the dark blue handles on an otherwise white linen bag, and my favorite white pillow case emerged from the washer looking like the Greek flag.

My more recent system for public health plus environment is reusing bags with surfaces that can be wiped between uses. I field-tested many products: Some stain, some stink, some harm the environment, some are alcohol-based, and some don’t do the job. Now I wipe the grocery bags and the children’s reusable vinyl lunch boxes with an all purpose spray made by Sun & Earth. There are several other eco-friendly brands.

For most kitchen cleaning tasks, you don’t need a brand. For example, for cleaning most kitchen surfaces, simply use a 50:50 mixture of vinegar and filtered water with a few drops of liquid soap. For washing most fruits and vegetables, I add baking soda and lemon juice to the water.

Shawl I Tell You More?

For a long time, Townsend Letter contributors have cautioned about electromagnetic fields (EMFs) as a health disruptor. Population data are supporting a connection with thyroid dysfunction, relating the rise in EMF exposure to the rise in use of levothyroxine, one of the nation’s 10 most prescribed medications. A Swedish study published in Pathophysiology October 2014 showed a dose relationship between mobile/cordless phone use and glioma. Medscape, a leading Web resource for health professionals, featured the article suggesting that as the data grow, the concern and hopefully preventive actions as well will be mainstreamed.

For most of us, a little bit of prevention at a desk or work station can reduce EMF exposure. Some patients have EMF-related symptoms. Don’t let them shrug off tingling fingers following keyboard use as muscle aches or mild carpal tunnel syndrome, before considering EMF exposure. Such symptoms add urgency to prevention:

• If you use a notebook computer with its built-in keyboard, your fingers are but a few inches from the antenna. Distance yourself by using a detachable keyboard.

• Consider wearing an EMF-blocking shawl or neck gaiter during computer work. The EMF protective materials can be purchased online, as can the fabric itself, which can then be cut to size. Consider draping the material over the multiplug surge protector often place very close to the computer user’s feet.

• When choosing office furniture, select wood instead of metal. Wooden chairs and desks don’t conduct EMFs the way that metal does.

• Avoid using metal hairclips or jewelry, which can act as an antenna and possibly worsening the effects of the EMFs.

Rethinking the Salt Mines?

Few job assignments today are literally in the salt mines. But most of us would benefit from ending our day at the salt mines. If your workday ambushes you with electrosmog or leads to muscle strain, consider giving your body what it needs in return – minerals. Epsom salt baths have been promoted for a century for their ability to replete the body’s magnesium and sulfur. Salts from famous spas around the world contain trace minerals that often confer the distinct colors for which the salts are known. Pink Himalayan salts have become popular. I interest children in my retelling of the story “Stone Soup,” reminding them that there really is a rock which we eat – salt! Salts combined with plant oils reinforce the skin’s protective barriers.

Combine external medicine with that delicious form of adrenal support – dark chocolate with sea salt. Adding sea salt makes dark chocolate more flavorful with less sugar. The sea salt adds to the energy boost by supporting weary adrenal glands’ production of mineralocorticoids.

Conclusion

“Apply here” to boost your metabolism from the outside in.

• Apply tea tree oil spray to prevent mycotoxins, especially under the kitchen sink.

• Cut your risk of foodborne infection by spraying reusable grocery bags.

• Wear a fashionable scarf as an EMF shield during compute use and take other preventive actions to reduce workplace EMFs.

• End your day in the salt mines, otherwise known as mineral baths and salted chocolate.

Ingrid Kohlstadt, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACN

Faculty Associate, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Executive Director, NutriBee National Nutrition Competition Inc.

Editor, Advancing Medicine with Food and Nutrients (CRC Press; 2013)