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Escaping the Big One

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Growing up in earthquake territory, I was keenly aware that while no one knew when, everyone anticipated “the big one.” Earthquake drills in school, tremors, and even actual midnight earthquakes kept the apprehension…
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The Straight Truth

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
An antagonist is typically someone who is against us. Defined as an opposing, limiting, nullifying force, the antagonist does not carry a positive connotation. In the world of physiology though, a healthy balance of life…
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Metabolic Syndrome

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Various studies show that somewhere between about 25-35 percent of adults in America and 50 percent of those 60 years of age or older are estimated to have metabolic syndrome. These are staggering statistics. Potentially 3…
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Balanced Defense

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
For a while now we’ve been in the throes of the coronavirus. Most of us have never experienced empty grocery store shelves, social distancing, and unemployment due to a virus. Because COVID-19 is novel, one we’ve never…
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GLV

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
During the telegraph era, humans started to formulate abbreviations to communicate. Today, abbreviated texting lingo abounds. It is referred to as SMS language or textspeak. I am admittedly slow with cultural change, but I…
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Black-eyed Peas: The Unfailing Friend

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Black-eyed peas are not pizza or hamburgers. That’s for sure. Black-eyed peas are associated with soul comfort food. However, I don't think the amount of black-eyed peas consumed in the United States can even be compared…
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Wonder Berry

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Zingy, zesty, and bright. That's how some describe the taste of gooseberries. Others say they're like sour grapes. Scientific circles refer to them as Phyllanthus emblica or Emblica officinal. In Sanskrit…
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Insulin Resistance, Part 7

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Diabetes for Dummies I spend time with a woman every other month who uses words such as "dummy," "stupid," and "idiot" when describing herself. As she acknowledges what…
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Insulin Resistance, Part 6

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Shortly after finishing her master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University, Ana Montes was hired at the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). What the DIA didn’t know was that she already had been hired by the Cuban…
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Insulin Resistance, Part 5

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Growth doesn't occur without resistance of some kind. Sometimes the strongest resistance we face when pursuing change is from ourselves. How do you feel when you think of going back to school, joining the gym, losing weight,…
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Insulin Resistance, Part 4

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
These articles on insulin resistance are an attempt to provide reasons for resisting the typical approach to managing diabetes. I find that when the focus is primarily on blood sugar readings, we tend to forget the larger…
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Insulin Resistance, Part 3

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Removing the reason for resistance is the most effective remedy for the need to resist that I can think of. If you remove injustice, overcome hate, restore harmonious existence, you eliminate the need for war and resistance…
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Insulin Resistance, Part 2

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
As a freshman college student, Martin Luther King Jr., became “fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system” and fighting against it while holding to his Christian value of love.1 Jesus…
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Insulin Resistance, Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Resistance comes in many varieties and forms. Nancy Wake was a New Zealand born Australian who married a wealthy Frenchman and settled in Marseille in 1939, a year before Germany invaded France. Upon their invasion, she and…
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Whatever Helps You Sleep at Night

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Don’t mess with my sleep. That’s just a fair warning. In truth though, when you hear about the increased airplane accidents associated with exhausted pilots or medical errors from sleep-deprived physicians, a warning…
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Freedom from Bondage

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1).  I love that! He set you at liberty for the sake of freedom, no strings attached. It is God’s design that all of His creation thrive in the context of…
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Comfortable in Your Own Skin

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
What does it mean to be comfortable in your own skin? What does that look like? I recently asked these questions to my youth Sabbath school class. We briefly remembered…
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B Sure, Part 2

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
During a time of upheaval in our nation, Lou Gherig, America’s baseball iron horse, received a diagnosis that completely changed his life. In the face of his own uncertain future Lou Gherig stood before over 60,000 people…
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B Sure, Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
The early 1930s was a time of great uncertainty. Prior to President Roosevelt, our nation was uncertain of its leadership. Investment uncertainty existed after economic collapse. Among the working class there was uncertain…
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Protein Trivia

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Did you know that without the special protein albumin, your body would swell up with water like a balloon? Without the protein rhodopsin our eyes wouldn’t be able to see light. Without hemoglobin in our red blood cells,…
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The Purifier, Part 5: Deep Detox

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Medical residents regularly exposed to chronic stress were found to have elevated white blood cell counts. White blood cells are a crucial part of the body’s defense against invasion, sickness, and disease. They search out and destroy invading…
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The Purifier, Part 4

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
I was 19, ignorant, and trusting. A woman who lived near the college I was attending convinced me that I needed to go on a "seawater cleanse." It lasted about 10 days. I don’t remember the particulars of the program, except that I fasted for many…
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The Purifier, Part 3

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
In 1984, Michael Jordan received the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and an Olympic gold medal. It was a good year. He wore a pair of pinkish Converse tennis shoes at some point that year, supposedly even in the Los Angeles Olympic games. Decades…
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The Purifier, Part 2

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Air and water purifiers operate off the concept that invisible contaminants are lurking in the atmosphere around us, in our aquifers and watersheds. Transforming and removing these contaminants is how we purify indoor air and drinking water. Last…
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The Purifier, Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
The dictionary definition to purify is: 1. to make pure; free from anything that debases, pollutes, adulterates, or contaminates. 2. to free from foreign, extraneous, or objectionable elements. Detoxification is a modern word that represents this…
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AGE-less

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
As I turn 50 this month, I have to admit, the concept of being ageless is rather appealing. I would love to know how to age less. One way of minimizing the impact of aging is by decreasing AGEs. Rather than referring to the lapse of time, AGEs are…
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Sour Wine

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
In the year following her CHIP attendance, Angie lost over 100 pounds. Recently, Angie shared her story with the current CHIP class. Gasps were heard around the room as she told of her weight loss journey. She was flooded with questions like,…
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The CHIP Highway

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Carl had the typical cardio metabolic syndrome profile: diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and elevated cholesterol and triglycerides. He approached me after a week into the Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) that I was leading at the…
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Detoxing the Lifestyle

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
A 24-year-old male teacher began to have deviant thoughts of doing harm to his students. He sought professional help and complained of depression, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and anxiety along with the thoughts of inflicting harm. The…
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Energy

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Found within all human cells (with the exception of red blood cells) is the ability to produce energy—energy that enables action, maintenance, movement—and life in general. Microscopic structures called mitochondria are the key players in these…
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It’s the Oats

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Holidays are over. The time to excuse our excess is behind us. Now, with a few extra pounds and a sense of guilt, we are on to making enthusiastic compensatory resolutions. It's reported that the majority of resolutions pertain to weight and health.…
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Trumping Fear

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Grasping in the dark for my phone, my terrified mind sought to force my trembling fingers to dial 911. It took hours to calm my nerves even after the police arrived. Fear is not a foreign emotion. I have often felt fear in the form of butterflies…
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Skinny Fat: The Dangerous Oxymoron

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Pretty ugly, deafeningly quiet, make haste slowly, and vegetarian meatballs are great examples of oxymorons that make you smile when you think about what the words by themselves mean in contrast to what is conveyed by the phrase. There is one…
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Salt in Circulation

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
From dead seas to living ones, embedded in white veins in the depths of the earth to its surface, salt is one of the world’s most precious commodities. At one time, salt was traded ounce for ounce with gold. Salt coins were used as money. Salt was…
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An Effort of Nature

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Throughout much of the 20th century, atherosclerosis was thought of as a disease of the inside space of arteries, the lumen. Most of us considered this hardening and thickening of the arteries to be the result of excess lipids in the…
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Interconnected

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Suffering from pain, debility, loss of quality of life, destruction and/or malfunction of bodily processes and tissue characterizes disease. Medical science has devoted itself to the study of disease and in so doing has specialized in categorizing…
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Sweet Sleep

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Time is central to planet Earth. Every facet of this globe is regulated to some degree or other with time. Creation was based on time segments. Separate and unique accomplishments were designed in each sequential day. Heavenly bodies were assigned…
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To Strengthen Man’s Heart

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Reportedly there are 195,000 species of plants which produce edible parts that could be consumed by humans. How many of those 195,000 species do we consume? Approximately 17 plant species provide 90 percent of our food supply. Grains constitute the…
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The Migrating Motor Complex

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
The term migration, in the animal kingdom, refers to a phenomenon that portrays rhythmic cadence, routine, and structure. Whether of butterfly, bird, or fish, the intent of migration is typically to ansure healthy survival in response to…
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Spinach

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Spinach is an extremely nutrient-packed vegetable. Its tender leaves and mild flavor have made it a versatile food. Interestingly, the cooler the temperatures and the more stress the spinach experiences while growing, the denser the vitamins and…
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The Improbabilities of Probiotics

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
If we readily saw the microscopic organisms swimming in lake water the way Antonie van Leeuwenhoek did, we would probably never venture in again. If we could see what lives on our teeth as Leeuwenhoek observed, we might not be able to stomach a kiss…
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Authority

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
“Who of you respect authority?” questioned the professor to those of us sitting in her classroom. I immediately raised my hand. Awkwardly, I realized that mine was the only hand raised. I was surprised but unshaken in my response. I respect…
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Turmeric—One Who Is Victorious Over Disease

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Did you know that an estimated 80% of the world’s inhabitants rely on traditional therapies that have been used for thousands of years? Anciently, turmeric was used in places like China and India to aid digestion, improve liver function, treat…
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The Plantrician

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
You will not find this word in Webster’s dictionary, in a telephone book, or a listing of careers. The word plantrician was created to identify health care practitioners, such as physicians or clinicians, who are empowered with knowledge…
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Butyrate and the Bowel, Part 3

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Crosstalk is a term that can pertain to telecommunications, when distinguishable signals leak from one connection to another. In electronics, crosstalk is a phenomenon by which a signal on one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates an…
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Butyrate and the Bowel, Part 2

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Last month we began understanding one of the ways the community of microbes residing within impacts the health of its host organ, the colon, as well as other facets of human health. This community is composed of many members in various…
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Butyrate and the Bowel, Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Modern man has a problem with his colon, the large intestine, one’s bowels, the gut, the last processing plant in the digestive tract. Yep, whether it's diverticulosis, diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel…
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Overloaded

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Skeletal muscle has this amazing ability to adapt to being overloaded. When weight bearing loads are repeatedly placed upon them, muscle responds by increasing in size and strength. Exercise is the most powerful stimuli for inducing reorganization…
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Prostate Cancer—Caught in the Headlights

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
It’s nighttime. You are driving a country road when a deer leaps onto the pavement in front of you, stops in the middle of the road, seemingly looks straight at you and freezes. If the deer kept his eyes focused on the direction he was originally…
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In Contact with Others

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
We are a society that admires independence. The methodology of our educational system is established on this premise Parenting is conducted in such a way as to develop independence in our children.  We even construct our theology around ‘me,…
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Metabolic Syndrome

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Nearly 35% of adults in America and 50% of those 60 years of age or older are estimated to have metabolic syndrome, also called syndrome X and insulin resistance syndrome. These are staggering statistics. Potentially 3 of 10 adults in America are…
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Precious Seed

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
One of my favorite flowers possesses delicate blue petals that drop off before evening, only to open a new bouquet every morning. The flower is delicate, yet tenacious, resilient, and beautiful. Science has found that of even greater significance in…
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What Oil Should I Use?

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Do you remember what goals and aspirations you had for yourself when you were a senior in high school? Do you remember how challenging it was to answer the question on everyone’s lips, “So, what are you going to do with your life?”…
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Detox

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
It is estimated that the average American woman is exposed to some 200 chemicals before she even leaves her home in the morning. While men do not use the lotions and potions that women do, they are still exposed to potentially thousands of other…
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Fight

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Breaking news from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization (WHO), reports that processed meats are carcinogenic to humans. Processed meats such as bacon, sausage, hot dogs, salami, corned beef, beef…
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Insulin Insufficiency in the Brain

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
In Toronto, Canada, 1922, Leonard, a 14-year-old young man, weighing a mere 65 pounds, lay dying of type 1 diabetes in a hospital ward. At that time hospitals had dedicated wards where 50 children could be congregated, suffering the trauma and…
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Enlargement vs. Shrinkage

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Before the age of GPS or iPhone Maps, London taxi drivers relied on their memories. They developed what was coined “the knowledge.” Developed over centuries, the winding, crooked streets of London resemble a maze more than neat perpendicular…
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Diverticulosis

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Dr. Denis Burkitt, a well-known Irish missionary surgeon made an interesting observation of America. His comment was this: “America is a constipated nation…. If you pass small stools, you have to have large hospitals.”1…
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Splenda

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Splenda is the most popular sugar substitute on the market. It is easily identifiable in the large yellow box or little yellow packets filled with sweet white crystals. The key ingredient in Splenda is sucralose, a non-nutritive artificial…
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Vanishing Perplexities

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
In the hospital it is not uncommon to see doctor’s orders for C. diff testing in patient charts. C. diff is an abbreviation for Clostridium difficile. If C. diff + is charted it means the patient has Clostridium difficile infection (CDI).  C.…
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Adaptability

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change,” said Albert Einstein. Others of comparable IQ have defined intelligence similarly, as the ability to adapt to change. I find this an interesting way of looking at something we try so hard…
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Moldy Mary

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Mary Hunt worked for the Department of Agriculture’s Northern Regional Research Laboratory (NRRL) in Peoria, Illinois in the early 1940s. She had been assigned the task of grocery shopping for the lab with a shopping list that probably surprised…
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Stressed-out Kinds

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
It takes all kinds, or so the saying goes. While the it in this statement has the potential of referring to options too numerous to count, according to Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, the all kinds is limited to…
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Anti-Nutrients

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
If you are like me, you like to get the most bang for your buck, the best results from your effort, the greatest number of items on the to-do list accomplished for the time invested. When it comes to supplying the body with nutrition, we often hear…
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When You Don’t Have All the Facts

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Baby Sara was born into the Glick family in the summer of 1999. Having seven older brothers, she was the cherished little girl the family had hoped for. Samuel and Elizabeth Glick were Amish dairy farmers in rural Pennsylvania. Four months later…
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Foie Gras

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Foie gras is French for fatty liver. Though considered a delicacy of French cuisine, its production dates back to ancient Egypt. The Egyptians discovered that migratory geese overfed themselves in preparation for their long flights, which produced…
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All in your Head? Impossible! Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
When symptoms of disease and sickness are said to be all in one’s head, there is an implication made that questions the legitimacy of physical ailment. When we hear this description we understand that something is thought of as reality, but is…
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The Bowels, Part 2

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Linguistically, the term bowel has been used to express the inner workings, the depths of man emotionally as well as physically. It is where input is broken down, digested, absorbed, sorted, reacted to, and transformed into us. Interestingly…
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The Bowels, Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Physiologically, the bowel is synonymous with the gut, the gastrointestinal tract, including stomach and the intestines. In this context, the association made between the bowel and the brain in the following statements is quite intriguing. “The…
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It’s In The Blood

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
At the age of 45, the lifetime risk of heart disease is 60.3 percent for men and 55.6 percent for women. In other words, three out of five men without heart disease at age 45 will develop the condition at some point in their lives. Being a woman,…
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The Weapons of Our Warfare

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
It would be overly simplistic to say that one food or food component is capable of causing, preventing, or curing cancer. However, it would be completely ignorant to intimate that food and food components are not factors in the development of many…
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A Place at the Table—the Poverty-Obesity Paradox

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
When I think of hunger, I picture an emaciated man with defined ribs, and perhaps a slightly protruding, enlarged abdomen, signaling malnutrition. Associating the enlarged abdomen of an overweight person with hunger has never seriously entered my…
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The Semmelweis Reflex

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician who lived in the mid-1800s before the germ theory was born. Years after his death he was referred to as the “savior of mothers.” His new-fangled notion of washing hands between touching cadavers and…
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Hidden, Part 2

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
The heart has always been thought to be responsible for pumping some eight thousand liters of blood per day at rest and much more during activity. This has been compared to the lifting of approximately 100 pounds one mile high! Blood is five times…
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Hidden, Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
It was March 1, 1945, during his fourth term, that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt [FDR] delivered a speech to inform Congress and the American people via national radio of the decisions made at the recent Yalta Conference with British Prime…
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Harnessing the Brain: Nutritional Neuroscience, Part 2

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
The dental student examined her inflamed, bleeding gums and loose teeth. From all appearances it looked as though her teeth would have to be pulled. A supervising dentist with an experienced eye asked the woman what she ate. Her diet consisted…
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Harnessing the Brain: Nutritional Neuroscience, Part 1

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
One of the most exciting fields in nutrition is nutritional neuroscience. It is the study of how components of the diet impact the central nervous system, specifically cognitive function and mental health. The idea that food impacts brain function…
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True Cinnamon

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Cinnamon is one of those flavors and smells that can’t be substituted, especially around the holidays. I have cooked with coriander and cardamom and they can be quite good—but they are not cinnamon. I find it very interesting though (because I…
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2-Bites

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
There is evidence that, as far back as 5000 BC, the Egyptians were making tooth powder of ashes of ox hooves, myrrh, burnt eggshells, and pumice. The chewing sticks of 3500 BC Babylonia could be the origin of our modern toothbrush. Toothpicks were…
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In Control

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Duncan Ryan was only 42 and weighed 508 pounds. At five feet eleven inches, he was considered morbidly obese. At that weight it doesn’t matter how tall one is, more fat than anything else is being carried around. Duncan is not alone. One out of…
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Stored Energy, Part 2: Fat

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Have you ever noticed the invisible sentimental tags we have attached to certain foods? These tags do not read with typical scientific style: “high in vitamin C,” “beneficial to the heart,” “180 calories,” etc. We do not merely receive a…
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Stored Energy, Part 1: Glycogen

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
When building our home, I told the carpenter that I wanted a large walk-in pantry. He showed it to me sometime later and I commented that it seemed small. He assured me that I did not understand how things look before they are sheet rocked and that…
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For Strength

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Who would have watched food television programs 50 years ago? Would Americans have gravitated to Iron Chef America, watching Bobby Flay and Cat Cora hurriedly trounce around kitchens in an effort to out-impress gustatory judging? Would we have…
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The Hal

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
As a young college student I became quite attracted to the concept of health. Something clicked internally and I was into it. In class, I learned that the vast majority of what an individual might encounter in the hospital was lifestyle related. My…
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Overcooked and Rawed Out

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
In politics, are you Republican or Democrat? In terms of religion, are you liberal or conservative? When it comes to your personality, are you sanguine or melancholy? In diet, are you vegan or vegetarian? Are you for or against…, in or out,…
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Enzymes in the Raw

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
I despise sloths. The continuous ritardando of their existence is not to my liking. They sleep for 20 hours a day. When they are awake they barely move. They are so slow and sluggish that algae will actually grow on their fur! Can you imagine if…
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Creatures of Habit

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
Benjamin Franklin said, “Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” The implication is that habits control much of what life is made up of. We’ve heard the…
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Swimming Blind

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
For Michael Phelps, the morning was like many others. Though a race-day, he fell into a routine that had become automatic. He ate the same breakfast he always ate, did the same stretching routine he always did. He swam his typical sequence of…
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Roundup

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
You would think that a company who: came up with saccharin to produce diet Coca Cola; contributed to research on uranium which led to the atomic bomb; has been a leading manufacturer of plastics, PCBs and DDTs; sold Agent…
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Food Synergy

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
It was a strange turn of events that left researchers wondering. Proponents of the therapeutic value of food were sure that this study would be an arrow in their quiver. But it wasn’t. Instead the Alpha-Tocopherol,…
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Healing Leaves

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
James Cook was one of the greatest sea navigators in history. In the late 1700s, he sailed from England around South Africa, to Tahiti, Australia and beyond. His eyes saw what very few had in his time. He and his men were…
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The Straight Truth

by Risë Rafferty, RDN
An antagonist is typically someone who is against us. Defined as an opposing, limiting, nullifying force, the antagonist does not carry a positive connotation. In the world of physiology though, a healthy balance of life…
Read More