Health Advices and Longevity

Cows' milk is for calves, not humans. That is one dogma (or cowma?) that makes perfect sense to me in theory, but in practice, I am hooked on milk and dairy.

My ageing digestive system, though, is unable to take binge-eating clotted cream any longer. I only get to do that once every few years anyway, so I put up with the indigestion. On the other hand, cooking with large amounts of butter (friends called me the Cholesterol King) is something I gave up decades ago: it is just not necessary.

 

Bingo. I find that quite often people confuse hybridization and genetic modification. Hybridization breeds desired traits within the same species. For example, breeding a tomato that has great taste but is blight prone, with another tomato type that is highly blight resistant. Genetically modified crops are created in a lab where these "desirable" traits are often harvested from animal or insect DNA and they are blasted into the plant DNA via a .22 cal gene gun in hopes that the DNA combines. This new DNA is then patented. I'm not making this up.

This doesn't prove that all genetically modified food is bad, it's that we just don't know the long term effects.

True story... I've seen where cows or pigs on a farm have 2 piles of ground corn put in front of them. 1 pile is GMO and the other is Non-GMO. The animals will naturally go to the non-GMO first. They'll eat the GMO, but will choose it only when nothing else is available.

 

It is not for cats either. I actually apply the theory where my cats are concerned. Ignore all the old wives' tales, and do not give milk or cream to kittens. The never acquire a taste for it and never demand it.

(This does not work with things like tandori chicken: they demand that whether they have had it before or not!)

 

Ah, animals just go for whatever smells like they're used to, or whatever smells tasty.

We had Owls, and raised mice to feed them. It was hard switching them over from commercial dog dry food to bio rodent food, they never ate as much, and thus didn't grow as fat. This is important when you're raising them as bird food.

We had to use a mix in the end as on the proper food the shed wasn't big enough for all the cages we would have needed.

BTW, the dog food cause like a 4x higher incidence of visible tumours, but the mice didn't give a f**k cause the dog food was tasty.

Not a scientific study by any means, but when you're feeding 5 adult Bubo Bubo for years, your sample size is still thousands per year.

P. S. cats don't count, they're crazy. mine loves green string beans. We have no idea why. He'll eat them raw if he can.

 

Up front, already been to a doctor -- seeking some other suggestions/potential causes?

Been a pretty active guy most of my life, last ~5 years a lot less so. Family history of high LDL and higher triglycerides, both of which according to my bloodwork are high, especially given my age. Oddly no one in my immediate family has actually had cardiac issues or died from a heart attack. Potassium was low despite eating bananas nearly every damn day. Uric acid high, probably need to drink more water but who knows.

Anyways over the last year or two I've developed migraines (Mom gets them often). I live by the mountains and we get weird pressure changes, especially in the winter. I've also noticed this year while hiking, I get wicked migraines that evening, starting to manifest a little bit on the descent. IBU helps, as do electrolytes as I thought it was dehydration, but still takes a day to feel normal. Sucks because I love backpacking and hiking but now it's like a hike = feeling hungover x8.

Doc suggested taking IBU before the hike and more at the top before coming down, plenty of liquids and electrolytes. Also starting taking Magnesium Citrate before bed every day and that oddly seems to keep things on the positive side but isn't a huge contribution.

Anyone else with migraines or similar type of situation? Maybe I'm just out of shape more than I think (you'd never know it looking at me) and I'm breathing a lot more, loosing way more water and consistently dehydrated after hiking?

 

I was getting gout on a regular basis. I finally complained to my doctor and had my uric acid levels checked. The tests showed that my uric acid levels were twice what they should have been so the doctor prescribed Allopurinol (Zyloprim). After two months my gout symptoms went away. Not only did the joints normally affected by gout feel much better, the rest of joints felt better too. I have been on this Allopurinol regimen for almost 2 years and probably will need to take it the rest of my life.

Now, you may ask why I bring this all up. Well, those migraine headaches I had been getting for the last few years have gone away since I have been taking Allopurinol. I know that correlation does not imply causation, but.....

 

Migraine is a pain in the arse, I have it and also treat many patients with comorbidities. First thing you have to discover its if you have a classic migraine with aura, or a non classic type. they have different pathology. You already started to list the factors that improves and worse the diathesis. Some people are very sensitive to sleep variation, glycemic variation, light variation, water variation, mental stress, muscle contraction in the back of the head, smell variation...
Maybe you are getting hypoglicemic state after a long walk? could be that...
Another point: if you have 1 episode and don't treat it very well, that is a chance to stay with a sub clinical migraine for days. there are several better medications like naproxen, sumatriptans, naratriptan, ergotamine. I don't think ibuprofen its enough to treat a full migraine. Can you talk with a neurologist in your city? please Pm if you want to talk more.

 

This is some good advice for potassium:

 

Agree with some of your points. But seems like you need more proof that consuming pesticides might be harmful, you can google that.

Nowadays I will generally always take the no chemicals choice, even if more $. Not sure how prices are in your country, but for example potatoes are a hugely popular veg in the US and one of the highest pesticide doused veg as well. Buying organic at $3.99 a bag or $2.99 for chemical laden, I'll pay the 20 cents more per pound. Another good example, Monsanto laced oatmeal 49 cents a pound, no chemicals applied organic 79 cents per pound, or only pennies more per bowl.

Did I always choose organic, heck no, but chemical use has steadily increased over the last five decades of my life I am sure I have a fair amount of chem crap stored up, but will not add to it, when selecting fruits and veg that are in the top 10 or so list of chemical bombs.

 

@msommers Random connection, but I also get migraines from too much sunlight. Super bright exposure takes me out within a minute, but even when it's cloudy if I've been out all day without my sunglasses I'll get a migraine by evening.

Poor air quality/smoke/allergens can also knock me under.

 

Wait, I thought you were a doctor?

Migraine has progressed through my life from the whole works, as a teenager, with visual disturbance including pin-hole vision, severe headache, and vomiting bringing up the rear (there's that arse again), to the current situation where I just get the aura thing, and only for 20-30 minutes. It actually got less severe when I learned to take it as it comes: instead of signing off for the day, I'd just go out for a walk, and often be back at work after a while.

About triggers, though. The only thing I can associate with my current, infrequent, mild migraines is low fluid intake, which chimes with @msommers mentioning dehydration. But, heck, it can be anything. I knew someone who, having kept a food diary for some time, narrowed it to a combination of chocolate and orange. Which would render the poor woman useless for a week.

It was also a hint from a colleague back in those days, who suffered far worse attacks than me, to drink a lot of water when feeling the initial symptoms.

Actually, these days, I could almost enjoy the psychadelics. Although it can be a nuisance to have to tell people, sorry, I can't drive for a while, maybe half an hour.

 

@msommers - recall the smoke levels we experienced this last summer. Last year was bad too. Also, how've you been the last week or so? Weather is nice, but I suspect all the dust in the air from the record-pace harvesting is what's playing hell with my sinuses and making my head hurt.

 

I remember reading this (or a similar piece) and thinking it does a fair job explaining how different places foster different views on the same topic. As with most things on the internet, take with a grain of salt and suspect that the author is biased: https://www.devex.com/news/what-are-the-political-drivers-for-gmos-in-developing-countries-92091

TL;DR There are an assortment of arguments for and against organic produce, GMOs, the relative efficacy and effects on health of organic pesticides v. synthetic ones, as well as the economic ramifications of each. The sheer volume of confounding factors on either side of the debate stemming from vested interests make arriving at a definitive conclusion within this lifetime unlikely, but I'm inclined to think that the benefits of Organic^TM produce are exaggerated and have been largely appropriated by larger businesses to appeal to modern health-concerned sensitivities.

Not sure I did a decent job on the TL;DR so if anyone's bored the full "I should probably work on being more concise all over again" response is in the spoiler.

Spoiler

I'm gonna preface this by saying that the matter of organic v. GMO is one that in my experience can be just as polarising as political affiliations, with junk science on either side of the debate muddying the water badly enough that I could very well be talking out of the wrong end here.

While I'm in agreement that the best we can do as far as determining the long-term effects of consumption amounts to educated guesses (as far as I'm currently aware), I'm inclined to also think that it's more a matter of animals being strongly inclined to stick with what they know rather than new foodstuffs triggering some sort of averse reaction on account of its unnaturalness. No scientific backing here, just some experience with more pets than I thought I'd ever get

The effects of pesticides on the human system are well-documented, but to my knowledge the organic pesticides used in... organic farming (that's a very inelegant sentence, sorry) may be just as harmful to the human body as the synthetic sort often employed by large-scale operations. The main reason I'm inclined to avoid talk of GMOs and the like is that it's just one of those things that've been a needle in my side for years and unless I decide to corral my family and run my own experiments it's very likely that I'll never come to a satisfactory conclusion for myself within this lifetime.

As nice and homesy as the idea of purchasing vegetables at a farmer's market is (I live about ten minutes' walk from a place where many of the sort gather, which is convenient but can also be a dangerous sort of place), many of these people do employ more cost-effective farming strategies on account of it being easier to turn any sort of profit that way— in competitions with absurdly large operations that churn out unimaginable tonnes of waste due to asinine scales of production whereby they're capable of selling at low cost and making up for it in volume, they've not much choice in the matter if they want to stay in the black.

I was also surprised to learn that organic is a massive business, magnitudes of orders larger than I thought. Feel free to blame my that on my ignorance, but to hear that the revenues amount to billions of US dollars makes it much less surprising to read that many bits of produce on the grocery store aisles are actually produced in great quantity by larger corporations, only adhering to a different set of rules and restrictions on which pesticides and farming practises they're free to use to earn that "Organic" label. It's a different story altogether if one makes an effort to actively search out smaller farming operations and purchase produce directly from them, in which case I applaud the diligence of those who do so. A great deal of the cynicism I have for the Organic label is that it can be laughably easy to manipulate the system and is an excuse to grow more lax in some aspects of production.

Shorter shelf life of "non-GMO" crops is one of those cons that may turn out to be pros in the long term. If anything, it's a kick up the backseat for those who need to learn how to better budget their food purchases.

Does the idea of certain crops being modified to be toxic to certain pests terrify me? Kinda, but one need also consider that there are many things that are perfectly safe for human consumption that would be a death sentence for other animals; evil as Big Pharma/Big Crops etc may be I do think they'd be disinclined to decimating(*) their consumer base.

Unless of course they're in connivance with one another, making people just sick enough to warrant medical attention but not enough to kill them outright. I left my other hat at the dry cleaners though.

The family is planning to use the backyard to raise our own crops, prompted by a sudden and inexplicable increase in the cost of veg recently that sparked a bit of an outrage late last month/earlier this month. Stupid typhoons. Either way, I'm gonna be careful about the way we go about with pest control. It's a geographical thing but straight up avoiding pesticides would be unwise.

I'm also going to agree that paying slightly more for organic produce would make logical sense given the alleged benefits to be derived therefrom, but as far as I'm aware unless I'm willing to spend an entire day travelling to purchase produce the costs of traditionally-raised produce is a bit harder to swallow. Adding to that, the cost of gasoline nowadays borders on ludicrous.

Various odds and bits that may be of interest to the bored individual, both for and against my stance as well as miscellaneous bits:
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/price-hikes-crush-philippine-family-budgets
https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/pesticides.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...y-higher-than-ever-43-billion-2016/500129001/
https://digital.law.washington.edu/.../15PacRimLPolyJ569.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653512000276
https://www.debatingeurope.eu/focus/arguments-gmos/#.W857ifZoSUk
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984095/


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*I'm aware that this is an improper use of "decimating" because Lord knows reducing a population exactly by a tenth takes way too much math to check out, but I think it sounds cool here, haha.

 

@Lyer25

Whoa buddy, less words please. I might, or might not, agree with you but please distill your thoughts.

 

Whoops, sorry, forgot to check my word count again. Will work on a tl;dr.

 

@msommers
I'm not a medical professional at all, but... I'm looking over your symptoms again and my untrained gut feeling is saying you might have some buildup in your arteries restricting blood flow to your brain. Combine that with reduced activity level, potential dehydration, and environmental/pressure changes, those all can cause... vascular constriction? (I'm making up words) which could reduce blood flow even more and lead to migraines.

 

@msommers

Sounds weird, I'm a active guy too and love hiking and mtb'ing but I live mostly in the flatlands. Perhaps you could try a diet change just to mix things up? Personally I've had a lot of success with a high protein, low carb diet and it's made me feel a lot healthier overall. Doean't have to be all meat either, high-protein beans and eggs mixed with some greens go a long way. Just saying that mixing things up and trying new things might help.

Also, walking and hiking is a perfectly fine type of exercise. Just do whatever you enjoy is my motto.

 

Good suggestions guys, thanks.

I still go wall climbing at least once a week and go pretty hard, and never have migraines after. Maybe I don't go long enough to notice like I do with hiking which is over several hours vs. ~1.5 (I know some migraine suffers have issues with backpacks so maybe that's it). Generally speaking we eat pretty well, essentially no processed foods, plenty of fruits and veg...which is funny to say as I'm typing this because we randomly stopped for coffee this morning and got a cheese croissant (Lazy Loaf if you're ever in Calgary!).

@David De Lucena I think I will go back to my doctor and try to get a referral to a Neuro, or at least advocate for further testing. My Mom has had plenty of tests/scans with respect to her migraines and all came back negative. She does have migraine meds and I did take one, worked wonderfully (I'll gather a name if I can remember next time I see her). I have a tight neck often and wonder:

A) Is it the way that I sleep
B) Does stress cause me to tense up (essentially 'strugging' more than I should)

But I've tried to handle this by going to massage and also stretching my neck most mornings in the shower. Migraines are strange and interesting actually how they manifest. For me, I don't get auras but can feel my neck tensing and the pain shifting to the sides of my head (more temporal than parietal I think) and then situated itself in the prefrontal. An icepack and laying down helps a lot, and forcing lots of water down.

Strangely I've had dehydration symptoms once this summer. Had headache but felt incredibly nauseous, normally with my migraines I don't feel that at all. Some electrolytes and water and it was like a switch was turned. At this point it's hard to say exactly what the heck is going on...

 

Is that feeling of tightness in the back of the neck a cause, or an effect, of migraine? I think it is an early symptom. And (don't ask me how I know) I recall from all those decades ago, it is almost identical to what, for me, were the first consciously-felt symptoms of LSD. For what ever that's worth in the research pot.

 

I got migraines daily as a kid at age 10, witha sort of half-life tapering off to maybe 3-4 a year by the time I was 18. Now I only get them if I combine hard exercise (12km+ run at <5min/km) with sports drinks like Gatorade/Energade. It's like clockwork, about an hour or so after exercise they come on. I switched from sports dinks to water and the migraines wouldn't get triggered. Instead of sports drinks I'll eat a hot-cross bun before the run.

My migraines are classic with aura, and seem hereditary - most of the males on my father's side get them.