TOPIC: Great news from Jennifer

I love hearing back from clients good or bad, but I especially like hearing back when things go as well as it did for Jennifer:

Hi Debra,
Just checking in to let you know how good I'm feeling!! I've been doing this diet now for about two months and I don't want to jinx it, but I've seen improvements in skin health, headaches, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression!! Pretty awesome! I am dairy free, gluten free, and following the diet as closely as possible (though I have had my slips). Plus I'm taking the calcium/mag/D, fish oil, and multivitamin. I have concurrently been doing physical therapy for neck and shoulder pain, so I could attribute some of the benefits to that. But I think the diet and supplements are definitely a big part of the picture.

After about 2 weeks dairy free I noticed that my skin on the backs of my upper arms and upper thighs is so smooth it's like a baby's skin! My whole life, I've struggled with Keratosis Pilaris (red bumps that look like chicken skin) in those areas and never was able to totally get rid of it. Now that I'm dairy free, it's gone! Pretty good indicator to me that dairy is not my friend.

Also, what do you think of black currant seed oil? Do you think it's OK to take? now that I've seen such improvements in how I'm feeling physically and emotionally, I'd like to do some things to address the hair loss I've been experiencing for the past few years. I read about a study that found the combination of fish oil and black currant seed oil can help with hair loss in women. Do you have any opinion about black currant seed oil and/or any other suggestions for thinning hair?

Thank you so much for your research, diet, and assistance.

Best,
Jen

To answer Jen's question, black current seed oil is basically a Gamma linolenic acid or GLA omega-6 fatty acid. Omega 3's and 6's are essential, meaning you must get them from your diet. The body cannot produce omega 3's or 6's. Omega 6's or GLA are very healthy oils, if in balance with omega 3's, ideally a ratio of 4:1. However, "Excess omega?6 fatty acids from vegetable oils interfere with the health benefits of omega?3 fats, in part because they compete for the same rate-limiting enzymes. A high proportion of omega?6 to omega?3 fat in the diet shifts the physiological state in the tissues toward the pathogenesis of many diseases: prothrombotic, proinflammatory and proconstrictive." (Wikipedia) Some women with fat malabsorption may be especially short on these fatty acids due to inflammation inside the GI tract. My suggestion in that case would be to make sure you're getting enough omega 3's, especially DHA FIRST- through cold water fish or supplement and then consider taking either primrose oil or black current seed oil. Okay, here's a short abstract for those of you who might be interested in reading more about the biology of essential fatty acids: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17892040

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