New Year’s Day signifies a new beginning. But is it genuinely new? To make a clean break from the cycle of broken resolutions, why not try something more meaningful this year? Instead of tricks and patchwork resolutions, why not establish a health strategy? Better yet, set up a life plan that is compatible with your beliefs and goals.
Every day, doctors use laboratory tests for cholesterol and LDL levels, along with hundreds of other makers, to diagnosis disease and evaluate risk for illness. Why not measure telomeres as markers for aging?
Two of my patients were fraternal twins in their mid-forties. Not surprisingly, they shared a cluster of ailments including chronic fatigue and hypothyroidism. Yet, they also had other symptoms that they didn’t share. I found that they both had one thing in common. When they took the amino acid, taurine, both felt better.
For my patients, getting tested for C-Reactive Protein (CRP) is as necessary to disease prevention as flossing your teeth or getting your LDL cholesterol level checked. Knowing if your CRP level is high and how to lower it could save your life.
In 1998, I pitched my literary agent a book idea that I thought had bestseller written all over it. The title, The ProActive Patient, was meant as a call for Americans to take more responsibility for their own health care. By enlisting physicians as partners in health care, my idea encompassed healthy diet, nutritional supplements, exercise – truly preventative lifestyle – and transparency of medical records.
A healthy way to prepare for springtime is with a liver cleanse and gallbladder flush. The best time of year to detoxify your liver is in the springtime. But, before you start a liver-cleanse program, consider flushing bile and stones from your gallbladder.
The sooner we heal from difficulties, the better we fare in life, and the happier and healthier we are. Timothy D. Wilson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, wrote in Redirect: Changing the Stories We Live By (Wilson 2015) that the more we understand the negative events that take over our lives, including “breakups, failures, and medical problems, the faster we recover from them.”
These tough viruses have nasty symptoms and no effective pharmaceutical cure. Yet, one promising natural treatment is simple and readily available in the tropics. In the fall of 2016, I was in the Yucatan chasing viruses. I heard that an entire Mayan village had contracted chikungunya, and I wanted to learn more.
Let’s look at the root science to find out if fresh turmeric shots are actually valuable for your health. With an impressive nutritional profile, turmeric has long been used for its benefits. Often called the “golden nutraceutical,” turmeric is the latest superfood to make headlines as Manhattan supermodels and Hollywood celebrities are heralding the benefits of starting their days drinking shots of the bright yellow spice mixed with water.