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Gut Bacteria and Weight Loss

There’s a lot of great information pouring in regarding gut bacteria and weight loss. It is said we have 100 Trillion bacteria living in and on our bodies. That’s 10x the amount of our body cells!! So, we really are only 10% human.
Here at tonicquest, we’ve learned some interesting things so far about these bugs in our gut. Here’s a list that we will report on as we learn more. Start to research how the bacteria in your gut are creating the youthful tonics you need for everlasting health, youth and beauty:

Gut bacteria are broken into to main types: Fat people have one and skinny people generally have the other.

In lab experiments, if you transplant the fat bacteria into skinny mice, they get fat. If you put the skinny bacteria in fat mice, they get skinny.

The fat bacteria love sugar and carbs.

In order to continue to thrive, the fat bacteria will make you crave carbs and fat. Isn’t that crazy? However, it makes sense. If you have 10x more bacteria on and in your body than human cells, the bacteria are controlling you!!

The bacteria are controlling how you think, how you feel, what you crave and what you do!!

They do this because they want to survive and they want you to do what they want to ensure their health and the health and longevity of their species and offspring.

That’s crazy!!!!!!!!! But true, according to the latest research.

Fat bacteria create more calories out of the fiber and fats in your diet. Read that again, the bacteria in your gut are creating more calories from the food you eat than the skinny bacteria. The reason is that these bacteria are fermenting the fiber in your intestines. The fat bacteria do a more thorough job of these and are releasing more calories in your system!

These fat bacteria also create an inflammation cascade causing all kinds of aches and pains and diseases.

If you are obese or know someone who is obese, it’s not your fault or their fault! The bacteria they have inside them is a huge huge huge reason for the extra fat and fluids in their abdomens and body.

Fortunately, there is a way to influence which bacteria you have inside you.

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Beat Winter Blues with Curcumin

Feeling down? You can beat winter blues with curcumin. There are many studies like this that show curcumin or turmeric are effective anti-depressants.

Curcumin, the principal curcuminoid derived from the spice turmeric, influences several biological mechanisms associated with major depression, namely those associated with monoaminergic activity, immune-inflammatory and oxidative and nitrosative stress pathways, hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity and neuroprogression. We hypothesised that curcumin would be effective for the treatment of depressive symptoms in individuals with major depressive disorder.

Seems like every bad thing is caused by inflammation. A great anti-inflammatory like curcumin is a good thing to add to your diet and your personal regimen.

You can get a great supplement for this here:

Or if you want a powerful pure powder try this:

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Ibuprofen Extends Life Span?

There’s evidence that ibuprofen could extend lifespan and health for humans up to 15%!
You can read about it here.
According to the article at Sciencedaily,

Regular doses of ibuprofen extended the lifespan of multiple species, according to research published in the journal Public Library of Science, Genetics.
“We first used baker’s yeast, which is an established aging model, and noticed that the yeast treated with ibuprofen lived longer,” said Dr. Michael Polymenis, an AgriLife Research biochemist in College Station. “Then we tried the same process with worms and flies and saw the same extended lifespan. Plus, these organisms not only lived longer, but also appeared healthy.”
He said the treatment, given at doses comparable to the recommended human dose, added about 15 percent more to the species lives. In humans, that would be equivalent to another dozen or so years of healthy living.

No real theories yet on why this could be, but it’s very interesting. Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatories could cause stomach ulcers and other side effects due to interfering with prostaglandins. There is also evidence it is correlated (not necessarily causing) erectile dysfunction somewhere down the line after extended use.

We’ll have to keep watching new developments on this one!

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Beat Inflammation with Four Great Supplements

Yesterday I wrote about alpha lipoic acid (ALA) and Propionyl l-carnitine (PLC) for beating nerve pain, especially sciatic nerve pain associated with a herniated lumbar disc.
Today I want to talk about 4 other great supplements to eliminate pain and inflammation with links to buy the ones I use.
#1
Curcumin with Ginger. Formulated with BCM-95, this highly absorbable curcumin supplement is fast and effective for relieving muscle, joint and nerve pain. I find it to be very effective and there are great reviews on amazon. This is the one I buy:

#2 Highly potent boswelia extract:
I stumbled across a frankincense supplement and found it to be an effective pain reliever. I researched the herb and was fascinated by it’s effect and my positive experiences with it. It’s a very effective TNF Alpha inhibitor. TNF alpha inhibition not only quenches inflammation and pain, it enhances men’s erections! I found a great version of the herb from Life Extension that is extremely effective:

#3 Cats Claw
From the Peruvian rainforest, this 10:1 extract is potent and effective. This is the one I use:

#4 Bioperine
Bioperine is an extract of black pepper. You can read about it on this blog, but the short story is that it helps you absorb nutrients more. I take this bioperine with my supplements to increase absorption. This is the one I use:

Try these and let us know how you’re doing!

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How To Deal With Nerve Pain

I will write a few posts on how I addressed sciatic nerve pain after a microdiscectomy procedure on my L5 S1 lumbar disk. I was severely debilitated early this year with a serious disc herniation. After physical therapy and steroid injections in my spine, I had to undergo the surgical procedure. The procedure got me walking again, but I had a long recovery to regain strength,health and to make the sciatic pain completely disappear. Soon after surgery, you are often put on powerful anti-inflammatory medication. However, eventually the prescriptions will run out and you’ll be on your own to deal when the pain returns after a long day or over doing physical activity.
Fortunately, I found some great supplements that removed any lingering pains immediately.
The first combo of supplements I want to talk about is alpha lipoic acid (ALA) and propionyl L- Carnitine (PLC).
After taking 600 mg of ALA and about 2 grams of PLC, the lingering pains were dulled almost immediately. I was able to step up my exercising with renewed confidence and have been doing well since.
There were some other supplements that I cycle on and off with PLC/ALA, however, PLC/ALA was the first combo that I tried that had a measurable and immediate effect.
You can get ALA and it’s stronger (more expensive) version RLA at this link:

PLC is really hard to find. I found a chinese factory on Alibaba that was able to ship me a kilo of the supplement at a very reasonable price. Contact me for details if you are interested in contacting them.

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Microdiscectomy Recovery

Microdiscectomy recovery.
As you may have read in earlier posts, I suffered a pretty serious disc herniation in my lumbar spine. Conservative treatments didn’t provide relief. I tried physical therapy, chiropractic, TENS, ultrasound, therapeutic lasers, heat, icing, waiting, massage and finally epidural steroid injections. Nothing could help the debilitating pain going down the leg. Conventional pain killers don’t seem to help nerve pain. When something is pressing on that sciatic nerve, there is nothing that will relieve the pain. There is no way to convey what the pain is like. I could use words to describe the pain, but nothing can translate the non-stop crippling pain. This type of pain affects your whole system–spiritual, emotional and physical. Think of people you know that are in this kind of pain. They can’t concentrate, they are emotional and vulnerable. Think about attending a really loud concert and then it never ending..in fact going on for months and you can’t get relief from the loud sound. Maybe that describes it.
In either case, I opted for the microdiscectomy. Immediate relief from that crazy pain. I wondered what surgery pain was going to be like. It’s nothing compared to crippling sciatic pain. For those who are about to have the procedure and are worried about the surgery pain like I was, you will be given some pain killer to make it through the first few days. Just take the pain killer. You’ll just feel a little sore. But it’s a totally manageable pain with specific boundaries. You’ll be stiff for a couple weeks but everyday..I mean every day brings measurable relief.
There will be some aches and pains here and there that resemble the sciatic pain–mostly in the evening when you’re tired, but it goes away quickly. Any doctor will tell you it could take weeks if not months for the nerve to heal from the trauma of being pressed on for so long and then getting freed up during surgery. Don’t worry about it. It will take weeks to get back to normal. No bending, lifting or twisting for 6 weeks and restrictions on how much you can lift etc. Every doctor will have a different recommendation or approach, but it’s best to take it really slow and just walk for the first few weeks.
Recovery will take time and you will need help. The worse part is having patience because you won’t be able to do things for awhile and battling feelings of loneliness and helplessness. Just keep thinking about when you’ll be up and running better than ever!

Here’s what I’ve been taking to speed up healing based on research and some common sense:
Collagen powder mixed with frozen fruit 1 to 2 times per day
Zinc
Vitamin A
Vitamin D3
Vitamin K
Emergen C (has vitamins and minerals besides vitamin C)
Vitamin C
Lysine
Proline
Glycine
Hyaluronic acid
Glucosamine/Chondroitin Sulfate/MSM combo
Theanine (to help with mood)
Ginger
Turmeric
Bone Broth
Liver
Grapeseed extract with CoQ10
B complex vitamin
Digestive Enzymes
Probiotics
Colostrum
Grass Fed dairy
Cod Liver and Cod Liver Oil

Now obviously I can’t have all of this everyday, but I’m taking as much as possible.

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Disc Herniation Lessons Learned

My heart goes out to those who have had to suffer through the pain of a disc herniation. Many times people will have a disc bulge or a disc herniation and experience no real symptoms. However, sometimes the herniation presses on a nerve and it can cause unrelenting and debilitating pain.
Many of us read stories about acute and chronic pain and don’t really understand what it means. For people who do experience it, it’s almost like a private members only club. The pain from a disc herniation can be unrelenting and it’s not really helped with prescription pain killers. Especially when the pain radiates to other parts of the body like the legs and arms, it’s crippling. Imagine being in searing pain constantly and being unable to move for months.
It happened to me. In a panic, I had to call an ambulance to take me to the emergency room. They injected me and filled me up with pain killers and I was still unable to walk. It’s been a couple months and I’m still dealing with it. Things we take for granted like getting in and out of bed or a car are almost impossible. Getting into the car is so painful, it’s like being asked which finger you want broken before you go out for the day.
Here are some random things I learned that I hope can save someone time and help heal faster.
First, you need an MRI to diagnose a disc herniation. At the emergency room, they took an x-ray and a CAT scan and told me i was pretty much ok, maybe just some soft tissue injury. It would have been nice to know that based on my symptoms, a visit to an orthopedist and an MRI would be helpful. I spent about three weeks afterwards being treated by a well meaning physical therapist for piriformis syndrome. The stretching and exercises made things worse!! Lesson 1..if you throw your back out or feel pain radiating to your sacrum, butt, legs, toes, shoulders, elbows, hands..get an MRI. Be careful with chiropractors, physical therapists and massage therapists. Xrays and Cat only rule out obvious things like fractures.
Second, your diet affects your pain levels. I noticed I had an uptick in pain after every meal. I very soon made the connection between carbohydrates and other inflammatory foods and pain immediately after eating. I was able to drop my pain levels considerably by adopting a low carb diet. I eat grass fed meats and seafood and it helps immediately. I’ve tested it several times. Something interesting I found was that grass fed yogurt made me feel a lot less pain then regular yogurt. That was very interesting. But the best thing I did was cut out dairy and grains (carbs) and I don’t feel any pain after I eat. This was a big discovery for me and is helping a lot.
Third, you can reduce your pain levels by eating a lot of ginger. I put a tablespoon of powdered ginger in my black coffee in the morning. The coffee is inflammatory and hurts, but the ginger overrides it. I was able to reduce my reliance on ibuprofen by getting raw ginger in smoothies and adding powdered ginger to my coffee.
I use the magic bullet to make smoothies. The magic bullet was the best 90 bucks I ever spent in my life. I use it daily and it gets me my vegetables and other supplements very easily.
The pain from something like a disc herniation is unbearable. It also takes a really long time to heal. This long healing time takes a toll on family and friends. Someone suffering from this pain feels isolated, stranded and very lonely. The emotional toll on someone feeling chronic pain is never really talked about but is very serious. It can literally destroy a person’s life.