Basic Mayonnaise and more

A top priority in starting a healthy eating program is eliminating inflammatory foods, and one of the foods that is most hazardous and most common is vegetable oil. Even “healthy” canola oil belongs in the “not-so-fast” category with cottonseed, safflower, and soy oil. Easily contaminated with GMO or non-organic, their main drawback is that they are high in omega-6 polyunsaturated oils, an inflammatory food that we’ve already had more than our share of!

Sticking With Exercise

Sad truth about most exercise resolutions: they’re temporary. The most important choice about an exercise program is finding one that gives enough reward to make it stick, which usually means finding one that is actually enjoyable.

Are you forgetting something?

Most of us past the age of 50 notice that we are forgetting things from time to time, sometimes quite alarmingly. Out walking with a good friend, we encounter another and start to introduce our friends to each other… and we forget our close friend’s name! It comes right back in a flash, but we start to worry. Then we’re describing a recent problem with our car engine and forget the name of the part we had to replace.

Once again, it’s all related

My jaw dropped as I queried, “What did your doctor say?” One of our most beloved local gastroenterologists actually said to more than one of my patients something along the lines of “You can stay on these proton pump inhibitors for the rest of your life if need be.

“Oops we were wrong”

That apology is what should be coming out of the US Department of Agriculture in concert with the US Department of Health and Human Services. Turns out 40 years of telling people to restrict dietary fat and put a strict limit on dietary cholesterol were ill-founded and resulted in more, not less, cardiovascular disease.

Conquer diabetes and sarcopenia, they’re related!

Let’s talk about moving weight. How much weight can you lift? carry? Think about how much weight you move around when you climb stairs. You need strong muscles to keep moving yourself around with agility and ease. As I have talked about elsewhere on this site, we all tend to lose muscle strength and muscle size as we get older, and that process is called sarcopenia.

Really, how are YOU?

For someone who practices individualized medicine, it may be surprising that there are two tests I think almost everyone should have. Oh yes, you should check your blood pressure, and know the general parameters of the broadly available tests: blood counts, chemistry panels, and probably even lipid profiles. But be careful with those lipid profiles: most physicians interpret them with a lot of fear and less understanding.

News About Gluten

I should always clarify what KIND of news I’m including in this space. There is actual news: a new study, or a new observation, something that adds to the general body of information on which we all rely to keep fine-tuning our health to the best of our abilities. The second kind of “news” is when I write that the media version of some health-related news needs some serious taking apart. 

Aging and Vanity News

If you’re over 50, you certainly have had the experience of looking in the mirror and being shocked: wait, I thought I still looked the same as when I was younger… I still FEEL the same person inside! The mirror tells us otherwise: we develop facial wrinkles, brown spots from the sun, and thinning, gray hair. I’m not ready to look like my grandmother… yet.

Finding Low Mercury Fish

Thanks to Aldo Baker and the other folks at Fix.com for this wonderful infographic on finding low mercury fish!
The only way to know whether your current mercury levels is to be tested. I use urine tests in my practice, and recommend cilantro in various forms as a good detoxifying food.