Heart rate variability - A valuable tool to track well-being

A healthy heart does not beat like a metronome, but actually changes its rhythm with each heart beat. The constant variation between each beat is called your heart rate variability (HRV). This is something I have been speaking about to several of my patients recently, as more people have smart watches and other health tracker apps that can measure this.

What affects HRV?

There are certain situations that result in a higher HRV and other situations resulting in a lower HRV, reflecting your hearts ability to respond to different situations. This ultimately reflects how your nervous system is responding. HRV can react to stress and/or illness before resting heart rate, which makes it one of your body’s most powerful signals—providing useful insights into your stress levels, recovery status, and general well-being.

Generally a lower HRV is associated with your “flight or flight” response, stress or illness. A higher HRV is associated with your “rest and digest” response, general fitness and good recovery. It is amazing how we can track how just a 5 minutes meditation exercise can improve your HRV.

There are some things we cannot control that affect HRV such as age, hormone cycles, illness and amount of stress we have. However, to improve HRV there are things we can control such as sleep routine, alcohol and caffeine intake, how we manage stress and fitness level.

Tracking HRV

A high or low HRV is relative to each person. It is therefore best to track your own HRV over time and generally aim for a higher level, or track what improves it and decrease it, instead of comparing to others. It can range from 20 to above 150 depending on the tracker. Also, sometimes it is ok to see a lower levels for a short period of time, eg. during a strenuous activity where our nervous system is working hard to increase our heart rate. It is then how we recover that matters.

HRV fluctuates often throughout the day so is is helpful to track it in a controlled setting like sleep. However, some trackers, like the smart watch may limit this if you don’t want to wear it at night.

I see a lot of digestive issues, fatigue, insomnia etc in my practice and it almost always has a component that connects back to the nervous system. If we can help manage our stress response and improve HRV, that can help us tremendously over time. Ultimately, you don’t NEED to track HRV to check in with how you are doing overall. However there are some pretty neat tools out there now that can track things like HRV that we can use to our advantage.

Thoughts? Check in with me if you have questions.

Dr. Karen

Food Friday: Easy Turkey Chili

Photo credit: www.ambitiouskitchen.com

As much as we would like the warmer temperatures to come to Nova Scotia, the winter cold just keeps coming. Fingers crossed spring temperatures come knocking on our door very soon!

Since it is still cold outside, you may still be craving warming hearty food and this Turkey Chili doesn’t disappoint. The hubby has claimed it his favourite chili. It is very easy to make and filled with delicious and healthy ingredients. The recipe is adapted from “Ambitious Kitchen”, one of my favourite food bloggers (and a fellow pregnant women! - I am looking forward to browsing her postpartum food prep meals). This meal is great with different topping choices. The hubby likes shredded cheese on top. I prefer a little dollop of plain yogurt, cilantro and sliced avocado. Also with a side of gluten free cornbread of course (Jaime Oliver’s is my favourite). Plenty of options!

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp olive oil

• 1 yellow onion, chopped

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• 1.5 bell peppers (any colour), chopped

• 1 jalapeño, diced

• 1lb ground turkey

• 4 tbsp chili powder

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

• 1/2 tspn salt, plus more to taste

• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes (you can use diced tomatoes as well if you like)

• 1 1/4 cups chicken or vegetable broth (I use the Better Than Bouillon paste from Costco)

• 1 (19 oz) can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

• 1 cup frozen corn, rinsed and drained

Directions:

1. Place oil in a large pot and place over medium high heat. Add in onion, garlic, bell pepper and jalapeño and saute for 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently. 

1. Add in ground turkey and break up the meat; cooking until no longer pink. Next add in chili powder, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper and salt; stir for about 30 seconds.

2. Next add in tomatoes, chicken broth, kidney beans and corn. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until chili thickens and flavours combine. Taste and adjust seasonings and salt as necessary. 

3. Top with your favourite toppings. Makes around 5-6 servings.

Enjoy!

Do you have a favourite chili recipe?

In health & happiness,

Dr. Karen

Anemia: A commonly missed caused of fatigue

Did you know...

That iron deficiency is a commonly overlooked cause of fatigue? 😫

There are many reasons for fatigue including poor sleep, poor diet, stress, sometimes hypothyroidism. However anemia (low ferritin levels) is one that is sometimes missed and can cause similar fatigue symptoms.

Anemia symptoms can include mental fatigue, such as confusion and brain fog, physical fatigue, hair loss and even restless leg syndrome.

Low iron intake in your diet is a common cause but some other causes to consider include celiac disease, SIBO, IBD, and heavy periods.

This is even more important to screen for in pregnancy but not often checked outside this time period.

If you are vegetarian you should be checked for anemia and B12 deficiency as these nutrients are harder to get in your diet.

Ferritin levels range from 5-272ng/ml however optimal levels are 50-150ng/ml. I have seen this number at below 10 and now be flagged!! 🚩

Another important note: If you struggle with constipation while taking your iron supplement you may want to try a different form, eg. iron bisglyincate vs. elemental iron (Feramax) as each has a different absorption rate in your digestion.

Always tired? When is the last time you had your ferritin checked?✔️

Do I have a Food Sensitivity? Is it an issue and how to test.

Since I see a lot of digestive issues in my practice I find that food sensitivities are something worth exploring in many. They are quite common and can lead to a variety of different health concerns from digestive complaints, to skin issues such as eczema or psoriasis, to fatigue and joint pain. They are different from severe food allergies, such as an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts that occurs immediately, as they are a more delayed reaction. Food sensitivity symptoms can take up to 72 hours to appear after eating, so a low-grade food sensitivity can be hard to spot. The more severe a sensitivity the quicker and/or more severe you notice the symptom.

What causes food sensitivities?

When we eat foods we are sensitive to it causes the digestive track lining to become inflamed and small “breaks” in the lining occur allowing partially digested food particles to “leak” into your bloodstream, where your immune system sees them as invaders. Your body then produces antibodies (IgG antibodies) which circulate and attach to the food particle. When your body cannot eliminate the antigen-antibody complexes quickly, your immune system mounts a larger response leading to symptoms of chronic inflammation. The more of this food you eat, a higher level of inflammation can occur. So not only can you suffer from local digestive symptoms, it can then cause systemic inflammation.

Damage to the intestinal lining (aka leaky gut) can be caused by several things other than a main food sensitivity, such as gluten. This could be medications including PPIs, antibiotics which disrupt the normal flora in the intestine, overgrowth of other bacteria such as yeast or Candida, other invading bacteria, and high stress causing lower levels of digestive enzymes and blood circulation to the gut.

How do you test for food sensitivities?

The gold standard for food sensitivity testing is an elimination diet. Meaning, you eliminate all the common foods sensitivities such as gluten, eggs, dairy, sugar etc, for 3-4 weeks then reintroduce these foods back in one at a time to investigate what, if any, reaction you have to that individual food. It may be different for different foods, for example, cramping and diarrhea from dairy and bloating and fatigue from gluten.

Another way to test food sensitivities that I do often in my practice is a blood IgG test, testing 96 common food sensitivities with a simple blood prick test. The test is measuring the amount of IgG antigen-antibody complexes produced when your blood is exposed to that food. The higher the level, the worse the sensitivity. I have seen big improvements in patients health when they identify and eliminate their food sensitivities.

Do you have to eliminate foods forever?

Now my goal is never to limit someones diet even more longterm, so I interpret a test result a couple ways.

There may be 1-5 foods that are high on the list and these are generally the true sensitivities, ie - contribute to the leaky gut picture. These foods would be eliminated either longterm or for several months while we heal the gut and address any other contributing factors.

If many foods sensitivities come up, some in moderate levels, it proves there is a leaky gut and systematic inflammation. I advise to limit these foods for the time being and stress the importance of gut healing using probiotics and soothing and healing herbs for the gut. We also may need to explore stress levels, and other systemic bacterial overgrowth contributing to inflammation.

Once we complete a gut healing protocol it is easier to introduce certain foods back into your diet.

Do you have symptoms of a food sensitivity?

If you are struggling with digestive concerns, skin issues, fatigue, joint pain, depression even, and haven’t explored triggers from your diet, I would suggest reaching out to an ND like myself to explore this possibility. As I mentioned above, there may be more to the story that just a food trigger but it commonly has a component in someone health concerns.

Note - If you are noticing digestive concerns triggered by higher fibre foods or the lowFODMAP diet has been suggested and is helpful to you, that may be a different issue all together that we can definitely explore as well.

In health & happiness,

Dr. Karen