November's 2nd Tuesday Program
Making Friends with the
Cold & Flu Season

Years of study and yet we still have no cure for the common cold!  Lots of Mom's chicken soup, heavily promoted Vitamin C & echinacea, and the odd miracle cure that your next door neighbor swears by...and yet, each year, our best efforts fail and we find ourselves sniffling and coughing and aching through a week or two.  Discover a new way to look at your next cold or flu, maybe even through friendlier eyes.  And while we're at it, more chicken soup, home remedies and the odd miracle cure! 

What is wellness anyway?  Is it being healthy?  And what does being healthy mean?  Is health simply the absence of disease?  If we have no disease and are, therefore, healthy, are we also well?  How do we get and stay well?  These are big and important questions that impact the quality of our daily lives.  Look in any bookstore or at any talk show and you will find people telling and selling you the latest, greatest way to be, get, and stay well.  The trouble is that "wellness" means something different to each person, so there simply isn't a one-size-fits-all miracle program to make us well.  In addition, wellness isn't static -- we do not arrive at wellness as if it were a place and stay there.  I think of it more as a process that we continually engage in.  There are times when it receives more of our attention than others, times that cause us to redefine what wellness is for us, times we feel incredibly well and times we wonder if we'll ever be well again. 

While wellness is a very personal journey for each of us, there are some common factors that contribute to the process for each of us.  Many of these are discussed in The Wellness Workbook by John W. Travis, MD & Regina Sara Ryan.  I was first introduced to this book several years ago and found it to be a enlightening,inspiring and fun way to look at my own definition of wellness. 

Facilitated Group Session using The Wellness Workbook
      A new year so often begins with good intentions of making life improvements.  I would like to offer the opportunity to participate in a group, working through the book together and putting some real wellness goals into practice.  It certainly can be done on your own, but sometimes it's helpful to have others to bounce ideas off, gain different perspectives, share experiences and learn to appreciate our own individual place of being.  There are 12 chapters, plus an introduction and I'm considering combining a couple and holding a 12 week session beginning in January.  If you are interested, please email me and let me know if an evening or Saturday morning would work best through the winter.  I'll need at least 8 people to commit.  Cost would be $120 and include the book. 

Try as I might, I just could not get the liver out of my mind as I prepared for November's newsletter.  So I'm assuming that someone out there really needs some information about the liver and so it gets the spotlight as  "Organ of the Month."  I even thought I'd never find a picture of the liver & that would be an excuse to not write about it, but here it is -- that chocolate brown piece in the middle that is largest on the right side and spans over the center, narrowing on the left with the vertical line about at center of the body (that is, the body's right and left - you're looking at the front of this body!). 
     The liver is our biggest solid organ and serves many functions.  It weighs in at around 3 pounds, about 8 inches wide, 6.5 inches tall and 4.5 inches deep.  The vertical line you see in the picture above is the falciform or suspensory ligament.  This ligament attaches the liver to the diaphragm (above) and the anterior abdominal wall (in front) and separates the liver into 2 lobes - right and left.  It is mostly protected by the rib cage except right in the center of the body.
Filtration & Storage of Blood -- About 1350 ml (which is about 5.7 cups!) of blood flows into the liver each minute.  Much of this blood comes directly from the intestines.  Special cells here filter out bacteria & other foreign substances.  The liver normally holds about 450 ml of blood, but it can expand to hold up to 1 liter.
Metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, hormones & foreign chemicals -- The liver plays a critical role in maintaining normal blood glucose concentrations - it can store and release glycogen as well as actively produce glucose.  90% of our plasma proteins and many amino acids are made in the liver. Cholesterol & phospholipids are made by the liver, as is urea which is essential to remove ammonia from the blood. The liver also metabolizes many hormones and foreign substances (like chemicals & drugs), making them easier for the body to excrete.  This is done through the Cytochrome P450 system - a complex system of biochemical reactions.
Storage of Vitamins & Iron -- In normal conditions, the liver stores significant quantities of Vitamin A, D and B12.  It also stores iron.  It also is involved in conversions of Vitamin D.
Formation of Coagulation Factors -- The liver forms several substances that are required for blood clotting.
Formation & Secretion of Bile -- Bile is a critical component in the digestion and absorption of fat.  It also helps remove many important waste products from the blood - including excess cholesterol.