sci-fi author, beatmaker

Tag: H. Pylori

No More Fish Oil (Inflammation, Asthma, and Gastritis)

Update: I didn’t notice any benefits from discontinuing fish oil, and I feel better on my regular supplemental dose (about 3g/day). My latest thinking is that fish oil may calm down an overactivated immune system via increasing IL-10, and that this may be helpful not only for asthma but for any number of conditions where tissues can get “stuck” in an inflammatory state.

Fish oil has been good to me. It was the first supplement that I noticed reduced my asthma symptoms, over fifteen years ago. Along with dietary changes, supplemental vitamin D, and evening primrose oil, I used 2-4 grams of fish oil per day, and for the most part stayed asthma free.

Gastritis Healing Tips

For the past few months I’ve been dealing with gastritis and gastric pain, which has put a real dent in my mood, productivity, and general quality of life. I’m recovering, slowly, but this is one of the tougher health challenges I’ve faced.

My gastritis started after a “tummy bug” … some kind of viral or bacterial infection. The more acute symptoms resolved after a few weeks, but despite dietary changes (giving up coffee, booze, and spicy food), I was left with nagging gastric pain. The pain was rarely severe, but it was constant enough to be distracting. My mood worsened, my anxiety increased, and my sleep was often interrupted by burning or even stabbing sensations in my stomach. I tried a number of natural remedies (including turmeric and black seed, both of which have traditionally been used to treat gastritis and ulcers), but nothing was helping much. I’d had similar bouts of stomach pain after a stomach bug in the past, but they’d resolved on their own within a couple weeks, and the pain hadn’t kept me up at night. Time to see the doc’.

Death Will Eat Itself (The Enormous Benefits of Autophagy, or Why You Should Stop Eating Once in Awhile)

Martin Berkhan destroys body fat for a living.

About a year ago I became interested in the benefits of intermittent fasting after reading a number of articles on Martin Berkhan’s Leangains site. Martin is a Swedish nutritional consultant/personal trainer/writer. His recommendations run contrary to conventional wisdom among personal trainers, but his ideas are well-researched and accompanied by numerous examples (pictures) of his own physique and the physiques of his clients, who are all very muscular and impressively lean. Martin’s writing style is bombastic, confrontational, and entertaining, but also thorough, persuasive, and rich in citations.

Martin’s main idea is that intermittent fasting can assist with fat loss and muscle growth simultaneously. Most weight-lifters would tell you that both “growth phases” (where muscle and fat are added simultaneously) and “cutting phases” (where calories are restricted and fat is lost) are required. Martin calls B.S. on that idea, and provides ample evidence that restricting eating to an 8-hour daily “window” (only eating between 2pm and 10pm, for example), combined with simple, consistent workouts can allow a person to get leaner and stronger at the same time.

My Own Experience

At this point in my life I’m not looking for a radical change in my physique, but Martin’s posts piqued my curiosity enough to give intermittent fasting a try. I decided I would “dip a toe in” and try not eating until 2pm, one day a week.

I found it to be easier than expected. On my partial fast days, I only drink water and black coffee until 2pm. I rarely experience any hunger pangs (though I do look forward to my first meal more than I would otherwise). Here are a few other subjective observations:

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