The Health Edge: translating the science of self-care

By Mark Pettus MD and John Bagnulo PhD, MPHMedicine Alternative Health Health & Fitness Nutrition

The Health Edge: translating the science of self-care episodes

April 27, 2021 NAFLD: Non-Alcohol Fatty Liver Disease
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In this episode of The Health Edge Mark and John review a paper demonstrating significant reductions in NAFLD with both 5:2 fasting mimicking or LCHF over just 12 weeks.

Article can be found at:
https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S258955592100032X?token=5364332DCA18EABB9179131EF7F061F8AE705EE83CE947284A96CC9749AC9AF4E4C9FDA2D11BF95A0800388E3C0F4F6D&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20210427224820
22 min
April 07, 2021 Chronology of Insulin Resistance, Obesity and Inflammation
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In this episode of The Health Edge mark and John review an important paper that suggests obesity to be more a consequence of higher insulin than a cause. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2749271
24 min
March 24, 2021 Glycemic Index, Glycemic Load, and Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality
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In this Health Edge podcast, John and Mark review a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine that links higher intake of high-glycemic foods and beverages with higher all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007123
32 min
March 20, 2021 YOUR ROADMAP TO OPTIMAL HEALTH WITH Dr. Mark Pettus
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Drew Pearlman Interview:

Dr. Mark Pettus is a triple-board certified Internist, Nephrologist, and Integrative Medicine physician practicing for over 25 years. He is also the author of two books, The Savvy Patient: The Ultimate Advocate for Quality Health Care and It’s All in Your Head: Change Your Mind, Change Your Health. He hosts The Health Edge Podcast along side John Bagnulo.
During the pandemic, humanity is dealing with a sustained level of stress. Mark explains that our “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous system is an important survival response when it is short lived; however, this prolonged stress can cause a disruption in our circadian rhythm, causing issues with sleep and mental health. This raises the question: how do we become more resilient to these stressors?
Mark tells us that when it comes to the virus, there is a real threat out there, but there is a lot you can do with food and lifestyle strategies to empower your health and the health of your loved ones.
For instance, Mark offers some key food interventions like avoiding processed and sugary foods while eating more healthy fats and vegetables. He shares some of the critical nutrients necessary to strengthen the immune system, such as fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, and K as well as water soluble vitamin C.
Mark also emphasizes the role of the gut in keeping our immune system defenses strong. For instance, it’s estimated that over 2/3 of the immune system is housed in the gut lining. “The gut is probably as much an immunologic organ as it is an organ of digestion.” This ecosystem of trillions of microbes dwelling in our gut – our microbiome – acts in partnership with our immune system.
A major problem with the way we are currently living is a result of “circadian disruption.” Most of us don’t get enough natural light during the morning and day hours, and we get too much artificial light from our electronic devices at night.
Another factor that interferes with our wake / sleep cycle is that we eat all day long and very often, late into the night. This late night feeding confuses the brain and is not a normal evolutionary biological pattern.
Mark tells us that when it comes to the virus, there is a real threat out there, but there is a lot you can do with food and lifestyle strategies to empower your health and the health of your loved ones.
For instance, Mark offers some key food interventions like avoiding processed and sugary foods while eating more healthy fats and vegetables. He shares some of the critical nutrients necessary to strengthen the immune system, such as fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, and K as well as water soluble vitamin C.
Mark also emphasizes the role of the gut in keeping our immune system defenses strong. For instance, it’s estimated that over 2/3 of the immune system is housed in the gut lining. “The gut is probably as much an immunologic organ as it is an organ of digestion.” This ecosystem of trillions of microbes dwelling in our gut – our microbiome – acts in partnership with our immune system.
A major problem with the way we are currently living is a result of “circadian disruption.” Most of us don’t get enough natural light during the morning and day hours, and we get too much artificial light from our electronic devices at night.
Another factor that interferes with our wake / sleep cycle is that we eat all day long and very often, late into the night. This late night feeding confuses the brain and is not a normal evolutionary biological pattern.
Mark talks about what the virus can teach us. He says “the pandemic has lifted the veil of the many inequities that exist in our culture. Those with less are hurt even more, those with more are hurt less.” During these challenging times, Mark says that we must come t
48 min
March 10, 2021 Integrative Strategies to Support Mind and Mood Health
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This is a recently recorded presentation for the 2021 Physicians for Ancestral Health Symposium.
1 hr 29 min
March 02, 2021 Microbiota Accessible Carbs and Health
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In this videocast of The Health Edge Mark and John review some research linking higher intake of microbiota associated carbs (MAC) with biome diversity and health outcomes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7143995/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4896489/

39 min
February 25, 2021 UVB Light: Why some xposure is so important for health
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In this Health Edge podcast, John and Mark review a paper that reviews the many effects of UVB light on the skin and systemic neuroendocrine and immune systems. They discuss the importance of photobiomodulation and the health implications. For mind, mood, pain, and inflammation, our sophisticated skin and retinal chromophores are quantum portals to health in the presence of sunlight.
36 min
February 16, 2021 Ancestral Health: Was the advent of agriculture really a "catastrophe"?
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In this Health Edge recording Mark and John review a paper by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jared Diamond PhD. In this paper, Dr. Diamond suggested, "The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered."
44 min
February 12, 2021 The Health Edge: Metabolic Flexibility
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n this videocast, Mark and John review the stunningly low prevalence of metabolic health in US adults and offer some reflections on how best to improve this critical dimension of health and longevity.
38 min
February 11, 2021 The Health Edge: Metabolic Health and Flexibility
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In this videocast, Mark and John review the stunningly low prevalence of metabolic health in US adults and offer some reflections on how best to improve this critical dimension of health and longevity.
38 min

About The Health Edge: translating the science of self-care

From the publisher's feed

“It’s not what we don’t know that gets us into trouble. It’s what we know that ain’t so”.

Will Rogers

We believe the explosion of life science research from many…

disciplines had catapulted ahead of our capacity to process, integrate, understand, and apply. We are interested in translating all that is out there as news to use. A fundamentally different understanding of human biology has emerged. The implications from the perspective of self-care are profound. We are rapidly moving away from the debate of nature versus nurture toward an understanding that life emerges from a dynamic landscape of nature via nurture.

We are passionate about the science. We are passionate about the implications. We believe in the capacity and possibility made possible by being alive here and now! We are beautifully designed to be on the African Savannah, living fully integrated with our planet, and in the context of social relationship. Our modern environment is not well designed to promote human health and the capacity to thrive. Many are struggling to maintain balance and traction in lives that often feel overwhelming and frightening.The challenge is to better leverage our superb ancestral adaptation for a different and radically challenging modern environment. Everything that touches us today has the potential be be very familiar or totally foreign. The less aware one is of the day to day distance between what we are biologically , as a species, “familiar with” and what we actually encounter, the fewer the possibilities for more effective alignment.

Leaving one’s health trajectory to chance in our modern environment is a very risky proposition. We are interested in holding the science to the light with an open and humbled mindset. Like you, We are intrepid explorers interested in how we emerge in the midst of our relationship with the environmental inputs of our lives…how we eat, how we move, how we sleep, how we navigate the mind fields of conflict in our lives, how socially connected we are, how we manage the burden of environmental toxins in our lives, how much meaning we cultivate in our work, love, play and how we interpret and respond to stress in our lives. We will drill deep, share all that my experiences has taught and do all that we can to create value for you as you seek to find your health edge. We always welcome your feedback.

Mark and John