Tonight for some reason I decided to consider a few random problems that I have to see if anyone has contrived any solutions for them and it seems that things are hopeful.
Keratosis Pilaris
Keratosis pilaris is a skin problem that has to do with some overproduction of keratin I believe. It seems that supplementing vitamin A can reduce and possibly even eliminate this problem. Apparently, vitamin A is implicated in skin health so it makes sense that it would have an effect. In most of the cases I encountered it seemed that cod liver oil was the preferred method of supplementation as it was more bioavailable than the vitamin A in plant sources. So we’ll see what happens when I try this out in the future. I am already taking some vitamin A but it’s in pill form as retinol palmitate which seems to be less effective, however, my KP is not all that bad so maybe it is helping out some.
Pectus Excavatum
Pectus excavatum basically means hollowed out chest and refers to a chest dent that happens from a sunken in sternum. It seems that people do not know what causes it so they default to genetics. It seems, however, that this problem often develops during adolescence when there is some growth happening in that area so I am starting to believe that though genetics may play a role, posture is probably the main factor in its occurrence. After all, in many hunter-gatherer groups, this deformity does not seem to exist at all and they have much better posture than we in the West do. Anyway, it seems that this problem can also be reduced to the point of insignificance for many who have a mild case (like me) by simply improving posture and doing sufficient strength training to add some muscle mass to the chest. I have already begun improving my posture and am finding that the muscolo-skeletal chest pain I used to have has been significantly reduced and that my sternum is cracking less. That is already a good enough reason but if I can also eliminate the appearance of my pectus excavatum that’ll be good as well so we shall see where this goes. Since the start of the year I have also been doing some basic weight training so hopefully that shall also yield some results in time. For those of you with this problem consider this path instead of surgery. If you do a google image search you can see that the difference can be significant indeed.
Filed under: CLO, Getting ripped, Keratosis Pilaris, Pectus Excavatum, Strength training, Vitamin A
An Upbuilding Discourse 