Making of a Healthy Man, Christopher Lepisto, ND (at Natural Grocers)

Last night a surprising number of people came out in very cold weather after a particularly big snowfall in Grand Junction to the Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers for their FREE seminar series.  Christopher Lepisto, the naturopathic doctor you see on Lumigrate.com as part of our complement from the Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado was presenting on The Making of a Healthy Man, which I believe was the first time.   While always well attended, the weather and topic left me wondering how many would be in attendance -- men, after ALL, are known to require quite a big of 'facilitation' related to health care.  SO, it was VERY impressive to see the turnout. 

This is a Colorado-based company begun by a visionary and progressive woman in west Denver in 1955 I believe. I have been fortunate to have a number of visionary women in my personal path, including my mother, and I also believe reading about women such as their founder serves all women related to the advancements we've attained in my lifetime.  I remembered reading an article years ago about the then new 'new age' spiritual movement and compared it to when Christianity came up thousands of years ago -- women were the initial followers and they brought the men into things.  I've often thought about that during seminars I'm attending about progressive health because over and over I hear the providers saying 'we treat the woman, then the man comes', whether it be in a family system or a work system. 

While we were finishing up recording our current website videos a year ago and pulling the website together last winter, 'Vitamin Cottage' came up over and over in the presentations so we launched in March with a link to allows our customers to be 'streamlined' to a 'valid' source for ordering products ('progressive) -- nothing that resulted in anything for us except people being efficiently escorted to a trusted source that WE utilize.  And while we always try to make things 'fun' at Lumigrate, we'll leave that for you to go investigate at their website should you chose to follow the link.  Their staff is always fun, their television ads as well, and they have wonderful resources online for information. "Ethical" is something I know personally their corporation exudes. Wes Sheader, DC, who just last week agreed to be adding into the Forum area here at Lumigrate had spoken last month and grew up not far from me and remembers going to their original store as a child in west Denver. 

I made a lot of notes from the seminar because it's 'it's what I have up next' in my mind.  I have the unique position of making it my business to go to the seminars around where I'm at (which last winter was Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers in their Green Mountain location in January) and finding the 'sweet spot' of what is 'the up and coming thing'.  Last year and this and next, that is fibromyalgia and chronic pain and chronic fatigue, and also heart health and that includes men's erectile dysfunction.  It is -- in a way -- what Dr. Lepisto was talking about last night -- fire dances for a rite of passage ceremony for one of our area youth.  Is that coming from the heart that his parents sought him out and that he agreed?  And when he talked about a friend's family memeber who is mid 80s and opted to not have a heart surgery because 'at that age, what is it going to accomplish, really?' -- is that not family and medical providers talking from the heart?  It touched MY heart, because I have lived that conversation in the past 12 months and to this day.  

It isn't that hard to figure out where the 'minds of America' might be -- just watch where the TV ad money is -- Lyrica and Viagra and Cialis (medications for fibromyalgia and erectile dysfunction).  Maybe there are some for toenail fungus and digestive problems in there as well.  But what should we shuffle to the top of the deck for importance?  Heart disease will kill you if untreated.  And when you look at the statistics for age and what's going on with the baby boomers 'blossoming into older age', this is serious stuff.  Think about it for each person on one hand and then as the accumulated cost on the other.  There is a recent blog about Dr. Rollins' seminar on men's hormones at the IMC recently -- which ALSO was well attended.  So, the guys are in the boat -- they're clearly showing us they want to learn -- it is our intention at Lumigrate to do our end of the bargain in providing that.  The other piece is that any guys wanting to learn need to 'belly up to the bar' of learning, and we certainly hope they continue to chose Natural Grocers, Dr. Lepisto and his clinic, and Lumigrate as well as other valid, progressive and effective sources. 

This is my snapshot of Dr. Lepisto's talk.  I've had the privilege of knowing Christopher since not too long after he moved back to Grand Junction and started his practice here -- the way Grand Junction works you inevitably know people from more than one 'direction' and that was the case with him for me.  I've gotten to be part of an 'integrative team' with him at the then-new IMC, which now is beyond toddlerhood and is a 'tween' or 'teen' I'd say -- for being less than two years since we all agreed to 'do it' and bring ourselves under one roof, they are thriving.  It has been a pleasure to watch him evolve -- and everyone and everything around him -- it's quite an experience.  I'm almost 50 and he's mid to late 30s I think -- he's the age now that I was when I was first an OT shopping at Vitamin Cottage in Denver.  I bet he'll smile when he reads these words -- last year I am sure he sensed me saying 'what is he thinking' many times, but a few months ago the 'old lady' finally figured it out.  He's been working at being a spiritual leader and sage to many today and I'm certain even more in the future.  It took young Abby who joined our team recently about oooh... one evening... to see that he's quite accomplished with his doctoring of people and of the content and subject matter involved and is onto being a leader in other regards.  He's been "be"-coming wise and he referred to in early on in his presentation last night.  

Our youth don't have mentors.  So many thought that Tiger Woods was someone to be idolized and this past week that all came out as a different reality, which is a humorously long list right now of similar stories.  Unless you're one of the real people involved or a parent OR a human being trying to figure out how to make the world a better place.  Reality seems to keep getting more twisted all the time.    Instead of looking to our televisions for role models for our youth we maybe should be looking to our own communities.  It is in our local news today about a woman employee of the VA here in Grand Junction who is in the running for an award for her inspirational ideas related to medications (to send people home with medications checked out to them rather than destroying them).  It's also in the local media that a local woman was sentenced for murdering her husband, and ironically when I was 'home' for Thanksgiving I met someone who is a family member of he deceased.  So compare THAT to what I started the post about -- an inspirational woman who was among MANY in my life who have influenced my world in a small or bigger part. 

Yesterday in the snowstorm it was very clear -- these older people surrounding us are 'troopers' and inspirations for all of us who might be paying attention.  I'm happy to say that my father has served as a teacher to me in the past year moreso than any other in his and my time together, and it was a privilege as always to spend a bit of time touching bases with Dr. Lepisto's last night as well.  Great men.  THEY (men AND women) were out shoveling snow yesterday and showing up to life -- it was a wonderful overlay of experiences yesterday with this seminar and the weather phenomenon here.  THEY were at the seminar by Dr. Lepisto.  The youngest of us there were -- um -- my age?  Once I found out the seminar was going to be 'on', I started letting the men I thought would benefit know -- ages 30 to 55 -- they had other priorities and to some extent to be fair, some were truly scattered and tired from the snow and all they had on their 'plates' yesterday.  But sometimes there are 'special ones', who have special parents (and if you know Dr. Lepisto's parent's they ARE special ones!), and we all can rest assured that there's a lot of brilliance brewing here in Grand Junction that is available for people to tie up to and benefit from.  It takes a team -- so join them, join us here for the continuing learning experience.  We MIGHT even have some cool 'fire' ceremonies to share I'd guess! 

I can't WAIT to see Dr. Lepisto address men's issues in the future, and maybe it's just ME, but I see it splitting into quite the 'naturopathic' information (which is medical) -- and the more 'philosophical' and 'spiritual'.  Last night we had quite an amalgamation of those two -- and as he said 'I felt like I was talking really fast'... well, he WAS, because he was trying to get a LOT of information he felt important into the time frame he had.  I'm guilty of the same. 

SO -- Here's his list of reading FOR YOUR HOLIDAY shopping and thought:

From Most Philosophical to More Medical (in my opinion) --

Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man, by Sam Keen (psychologist and Buddhist I learned last night)

Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression, by James S. Gordon, MD (I'm a FAN of the #7 thing, y'all may know....)

Fire in the Heart: A Spiritual Guide for Teens, by Deepak Chopra (who Dr. Lepisto has seen speak here in Junction... back before people 'are big' they come here to Grand Junction)

Dr Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proven to Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery, by Dean Ornish, MD (and I say AWARD WINNER for the LONGEST BOOK TITLE EVER????)

And more later about the 'nuts and bolts' of his presentation: (tee hee -- see why he felt he was talking so fast?)

Exercise, Smoking, Alcoholism, Obesity, Hypertension, Heart Disease, Cancer (Prostate Cancer, Colon Cancer, Breast Cancer), Accidents/ 'unintentional injuries', which includes Suicide, Genetics, Diet, Environment, Childhood (emotional modeling, sexual abuse history), Phalates (plastic softeners causing significant health side effects in men and women), Andropause (natural decline in testosterone between age 40-55), bio identical hormones, testosterone, pregnenolone, DHEA, Thyroid, naturopathic medicine, atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, triglycerides, myocardial infarction (heart attack), chlorine, refined sugar, fats ('good versus bad') -- fish oil, caffeine, homogenized milk, alcohol/ ETOH, Supplements (magnesium, Vitamin E, CoQ10, L-carnitine, L-arginine, selenium).  Herbs:  Garlic, Hawthorne Berry, Myrrh, Red Yeast Rice, blueberry, ginger and bromelain.  For cancer: lycopene, Beta-carotene, Vitamin D (get it from the sun (safely) FIRST), high dose antioxidants, selenium, mixed tocopherols (Vitamin E). 

OH, and lest we 'forget'... erectile dysfunction (aka E.D.).

The medications are nitric oxide potentiators and were found to be relaxing blood vessels at high altitude for 'what they were taken along for' and having positive effects on cognition.  Dr. Lepisto didn't say this last night but they were originally developed as heart medications and found to have a positive effect on erections, I believe I have heard.  I KNOW I have heard Dr. Rollins, partners at the IMC with Dr. Rollins, say that men with E.D. are having a favor because it is an indicator of the heart health so if you can take a lesson from the 'outside' obvious and learn from it, you can be preventing someone coming to the E.R. in the coming years with a heart attack.  Now THAT should give some people cause for concern and paying attention.  So if you read that -- please DO.  And let us know how else we can help you with information (Comment areas are below and you can sign in as someone with a completely incognito user name). 

Here's another big take home message from last night from Dr. Lepsito:  "Many with E.D. have adrenal fatigue".  Ironically, about a year ago I was at Natural Grocers here in Grand Junction and saw a book called 'Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome" by James L. Wilson, ND, DC, PhD' and I bought a copy.  I then went around town and bought all the copies I could find AND in January even shopped at a Natural Grocers off of US285 and Wadsworth in West Denver in order to get a copy into the hands of ALL the clinics and key providers with Lumigrate at the time.  It's been a pleasure to see the seepage of that book exude into the seminars of Dr. Rollins and presumably Dr. Lepisto (and I promised a copy to Dr. Sheader too last week!). 

In January -- at Natural Grocers I am looking FORWARD to Dr. Lepisto and Audrey Barrett (Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine practitioner I've referred to before -- the teammate over at the IMC) talking about foods.  Because THAT is 50% of it it seems.  If we all would just eat better.  We don't need to eat perfectly, just better.  And that is, as we might say, a fish to fry then (all pun intended).  In the mean time, let us know here what things you want more information in the blog posts related to this and I'll address that.  HUGE topic and ... just a garGANtuan fish to fry in one blog.  OR one seminar.  (Now, Dr. Lepisto -- do you see why you though you were talking so fast?  You covered a Whales-worth of information.  Okay, I know that's not a fish.... but you get the drift... 

Link to the Lumigrate Products page which has a link for 'Vitamin Cottage' (which is re branding to 'Natural Grocers' and I can write about that later if it's of interest) www.lumigrate.com/page/products [1]

Link to The Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado, where Dr. Lepisto, Dr Rollins, Audrey Barrett and many others are 'practicing' integrative medicine together (can you say 'synergy'?)  www.imcwc.com [2]

Link to the blog about the book and subject matter of 'Adrenal Fatigue':www.lumigrate.com/blog/tired-all-time-ever-heard-adrenal-fatigue [3] (which Dr. Rollins has utilized for many of his subsequent seminars so please also see blogs about 'fibromyalgia', for instance). 

Again PLEASE COMMENT below if you have feedback -- we like that!