Physiology of the Human Heart
Educational Content Disclaimer: This article provides educational information only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The content discusses general health topics and should not replace consultation with your licensed healthcare provider. Always consult with your doctor before making changes to your diet, supplements, or medications. Dr. JJ Gregor is a Doctor of Chiropractic licensed in Texas and practices within the scope of chiropractic care.
The human heart, both physically and spiritually, is one of the most amazing creations in the universe.
As such, it's sad to me that the heart is also the leading cause of so many deaths in this country. Of the 2 million or so deaths every year, about 750,000 of them will have something to do with your cardiovascular system.
From the time we are in our mother's womb until we take our last breath, our heart—our most important muscle—tirelessly pumps.
Let's talk about how this incredible organ works, what it n...
Heart Attack Symptoms
Educational Content Disclaimer: This article provides educational information only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The content discusses general health topics and should not replace consultation with your licensed healthcare provider. Always consult with your doctor before making changes to your diet, supplements, or medications. Dr. JJ Gregor is a Doctor of Chiropractic licensed in Texas and practices within the scope of chiropractic care.
Your doctor tells you to lower your cholesterol or you'll have a heart attack.
You take the statin. Your cholesterol drops. You feel terrible.
Then you have a heart attack anyway.
Why? Because cholesterol doesn't cause heart attacks. Half of all heart attack victims have normal or low cholesterol.
Here's what you actually need to know: how to recognize a heart attack when it's happening, what really causes them, and how to prevent them without medication.
Heart Attack Symptoms: Know Them, Don't Ignore Them...
A to Z Guide to the Foods that Contain Your Food Allergies
Got it! This is a reference guide post with lots of tables. Here's the rewrite:
A to Z Guide to the Foods that Contain Your Food Allergies
You've identified your food sensitivities. You're avoiding wheat, corn, dairy, soy, or eggs.
Then symptoms return, and you have no idea why.
The problem: these ingredients hide in packaged foods under different names. Modified food starch. Maltodextrin. Lecithin. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein. Natural flavoring.
You're eating your allergens without realizing it.
Here's a comprehensive reference guide to every place your trigger foods show up—including the hidden names manufacturers use to obscure their presence.
Why This Matters
Food manufacturers don't make allergen avoidance easy. The same product from two different brands can contain completely different ingredients derived from entirely different sources.
"Natural flavoring" might mean corn derivatives in one product and soy in another. "Modified food starch" could be wheat, corn, or p...
The Science Behind the Adrenal Gland
The Science Behind the Adrenal Gland
Your adrenal glands are walnut-sized organs that sit on top of your kidneys. They're small, but they control nearly every aspect of your stress response, energy production, immune function, and metabolic health.
When your adrenals function properly, you handle stress efficiently. When they're exhausted, everything breaks down—fatigue, inflammation, hormone imbalances, blood sugar crashes, immune dysfunction.
Understanding how your adrenal glands work helps you recognize when they're failing and what to do about it.
Here's the science behind adrenal function, the three major stress hormones, and why chronic stress wrecks your health.
The Three Major Adrenal Hormones
Your adrenal glands produce dozens of hormones, but three dominate your stress response:
1. Epinephrine (Adrenaline)
Epinephrine is your immediate "fight or flight" hormone.
Example: You're driving. The car in front of you slams on its brakes. You swerve into the next lane, barel...
You Might Be More Stressed Than You Think
You Might Be More Stressed Than You Think
Do any of these sound familiar?
Low energy and chronic fatigue. Dizziness when you stand up quickly. Asthma and allergies. Sunlight sensitivity (bright lights hurt your eyes, you constantly wear sunglasses). Muscle and joint pain. Anxiety, panic attacks, and blood sugar crashes. Insomnia. Low sex drive. Digestive issues. Heart palpitations. Thyroid problems.
These symptoms seem random and unconnected.
They're not.
There's one common link: stress and adrenal dysfunction.
Here's why stress affects every system in your body, how to recognize when you've exceeded your adaptive capacity, and what to do about it.
The Problem With How Medicine Views Stress
Most conventional doctors don't recognize the gray zone between "healthy" and "diseased."
In orthodox medicine, you're either pathologically sick (Addison's disease, Cushing's syndrome) or you're fine. There's no middle ground.
But pathology doesn't appear overnight. You don't wake up one ...
Food Allergy 101
Food Allergy 101: Understanding Food Reactions
Constant fatigue. Waking up exhausted even after a full night's sleep. Brain fog that won't lift. Digestive issues that come and go without any obvious pattern. Skin problems that don't respond to treatment. Anxiety or depression that seems to appear from nowhere.
These symptoms don't seem related to food. But they often are.
Food allergies and sensitivities are one of the most underdiagnosed contributors to chronic health problems. Not because they're rare. Quite the opposite. Because they're so common and so varied in their symptoms that most people and most doctors miss them entirely.
Understanding how food reactions work is essential for understanding why you feel the way you do and what you can do about it.
Two Types of Food Reactions
Food reactions fall into two fundamentally different categories, and understanding this distinction is critical.
Type 1: Immediate Reactions (True Allergies)
These are what most people think of w...
What Causes a Food Allergy
What Causes Food Allergies? It All Starts in Your Gut
Food allergies (or more accurately, food sensitivities) are everywhere these days. One person can't handle dairy, another gets brain fog from wheat, someone else's skin breaks out from eggs. Reactions range from mildly annoying to life-threatening anaphylaxis.
Here's what most people don't understand: food allergies aren't caused by the food itself.
Your body isn't supposed to react to salmon or almonds or tomatoes. These are perfectly good foods that humans have eaten for millennia. The real problem is what's happening in your digestive system when these foods arrive.
About 80% of your immune system lives in your gut. When that system starts treating food like an invader, something has gone wrong with the barrier between your intestinal contents and your bloodstream.
That "something" is called leaky gut. And understanding how it works is the key to understanding why you suddenly can't eat foods you've been eating your whole li...
Relief for Springtime Allergies
What are allergies?
By J. J. Gregor DC, DIBAK, DCCN
It's allergy season again here in North Texas. I’ve been told since I moved here 14 years ago that there are two types of people here: those who have allergies and those who will get allergies.  Â
Growing up in West Virginia, I experienced horrible sniffling, sneezing, sinus headaches, you name it, for a week every spring and every fall. What's crazy is that when I moved to Dallas, all my allergies 'went away'. So, why when I moved to one of the worst allergy prone places in the US, I suddenly felt my best?Â
Allergies are an immune response or reaction to specific substances. Allergens are all around us and are particularly problematic in the spring with trees budding out, flowers blooming, grass being cut and tons of pollen flying through the air. And in Fall, it's the budding of other seasonal plants and the sap moving in trees.Â
Conservatively 10 to 20% of the population of the U.S. suffer from some seasonal allergy at var...
The Safe and Effective Way to Exercise
Educational Content Disclaimer: This article provides educational information only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The content discusses general health topics and should not replace consultation with your licensed healthcare provider. Always consult with your doctor before starting any new exercise program. Dr. JJ Gregor is a Doctor of Chiropractic licensed in Texas and practices within the scope of chiropractic care.
You Were Built to Be an Exceptional Athlete
Not Olympic-level exceptional. Hunter-gatherer exceptional.
Your ancestors tracked game for hours—sometimes days—at a conversational pace. Eight to twelve miles daily. Low heart rate. Fat-burning metabolism. Sustainable forever.
That movement pattern built your cardiovascular system, your metabolism, your mitochondria, and your stress response. That's what human physiology evolved for.
Modern fitness inverted this. We sit all day, then do chronic moderate cardio that's too hard to build a...
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