Your spine ages with time, just as your hair gets gray and your skin wrinkles. An impressive study followed the spine MRIs of 2,000 patients of different ages having no back pain. Changes showed disc degeneration, disc protrusion, and/or disc bulge began as early as 20 years old, worsened steadily over the years, reaching 90% by their […]
Author: wholehealthchicago
YOUR CHRONIC SYMPTOMS ARE LIKELY DEEP IN YOUR BIOGRAPHY
Decades ago, when I was first piecing together what has now become WholeHealth Chicago, I listened to a talk by Carolyn Myss, Ph.D. author of, “Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can.” From her, I heard “your biography determines your biology.” Later, I read the works of Dr. John Sarno, a specialist in physical […]
WHY ARE THERE ARROGANT DOCTORS?
I’ve been curious for some time about the arrogance and rudeness in my profession. When a new patient starts to relate her health history to me and interrupts herself with a comment like, “The so-and-so doctor was awful” (or really unpleasant or disrespectful), I inquire, “Oh? What happened?” And she’s truly glad to tell someone, especially a […]
IS EVERYTHING INFLAMMATION?
The cover of the New York Times Magazine August 6, 2026, was bright red. The title, ” Is Everything Inflammation?” pretty dramatic. “Hmmm,” I muttered, “That sounds familiar,” checking my WholeHealth Chicago files. Yep, there it was, September 22, 2013, “The Evidence is in: Inflammation Shortens Your Life.” Scooped the NYT again! So, this Health […]
HORMONE MYTHS DISPELLED AND AN RX FOR YOUR FACE
You’d never know how many millions of women were affected by one single very flawed medical report released in July 2002 called the “Women’s Health Initiative (WHI).” It stated, loud, clear, and wrongly that hormone replacement was very dangerous; the breast cancer and heart attacks risks were too high. DOCTORS: “Do not prescribe hormones.” What […]
UNDERSTANDING GLP-1 MICRODOSING
You’re tired of being overweight, and you’ve been a victim of the tyranny of the last ten, twenty pounds or much more as long as you can remember. You’ve tried everything. You’ve been dieting and nothing happens that ever lasts except hunger. You exercise to exhaustion, lose some pounds and gain them back. No matter […]
LYME DISEASE MAKES FRONT PAGE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES!
Well, times have changed! Twenty years ago, when I first began writing about Lyme Disease, the Centers for Disease Control had dismissed it with a “no big deal” attitude, estimating 30,000 cases annually, mainly in New England. By 2025, we’re up to 475,000 cases a year, and had some knowledge about the so-called “co-infections,” Bartonella, […]
SECRETARY KENNEDY AND ANTIDEPRESSANTS
I recently read that 16% of Americans (approximately 54 million of us) are taking antidepressants. This got Secretary Kennedy’s knickers all in a twist. He announced that the U.S. faces a “dependency crisis” because we’re overmedicated and should begin “deprescribing” of antidepressants by supervised tapering. Depressed and anxious patients need to be offered alternatives like […]
SIGNING UP FOR INFERTILITY EVALUATION? READ THIS FIRST
From what I’ve been told by the 10-15% of WholeHealth Chicago patients who are (or have been on) on the conveyor belt of hormone injection/surgical procedure stops on each of the highly competitive Fertility Centers, it must be an emotionally draining experience. You arrive feeling <fill in some emotion, like anxiety, hope>. She is <worried? […]
How I Exercise
With a title like that, I fully understand if you have an urge to hit the delete key. You endured a Health Tip a few years ago about my colonic, and I do applaud your strength for that. But now, having read in American Medical News that the U.S. is the 17th unhealthiest among 17 wealthiest nations […]
TV and Me
*This Health Tip was originally posted in 2018. More than 30 years ago, I read a book that managed to influence my entire life. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (go ahead and click on it—it’s still available at Amazon and a surprising number of reviews are from recent years) was a best-seller in its day […]
CYTOKINES MAY EXPLAIN WHY YOU HURT
It’s good for you to know a little something about ‘cytokines.’ ‘Cyto’ is Greek for ‘cell,’ ‘kine’ for movement, like ‘kinetic.’ ‘Cytokines’ are molecules released by cells during episodes of ‘stress,’ like an injury, an infection, or fighting a cancer. Some cytokines increase inflammation, imaginatively called pro-inflammatory cytokines, others decrease it: anti-inflammatory cytokines. They cause […]
THE HAMBURGER OF DEATH
Unexplained sudden deaths give me the willies but also pique my medical curiosity. Maybe you caught the story in last week’s New York Times which took doctors a year to solve. A healthy 47 y/o airline pilot was grilling burgers with his family in his backyard, became suddenly ill after eating his, then quickly unconscious […]
VITAMIN B-12: OUR MOST POTENT VITAMIN
Over the years of writing Health Tips, I was surprised to discover that one I’d written a few years ago about Vitamin B 12 Deficiency had received the most comments and questions from readers. Since there have been some interesting developments in both the diagnosis and treatment of B12 deficiency, and since B12 deficiency remains […]
TOXIC METALS, HEART DISEASE, AND CHELATION THERAPY
Toxic (a/k/a “heavy”) metals in our environment, mainly lead, mercury, cadmium, aluminum, and arsenic have always been a serious health risk but with recent rollbacks of the Environmental Protection Agency by the Trump Administration, we can expect trouble ahead. Statisticians predict an astonishing 160,000 unnecessary deaths over the next decade from the air and water […]
Case Study: Melanie’s PMS Hell
A smart woman in her mid-forties, Melanie had written “Bad PMS” neatly on our patient intake form, and then gone on to trace the word “Bad” several times with her pen and underlined it. Until about ten years ago, the odds were stacked against women like Melanie, trying to get help from their doctors for […]
A CASE IN WHICH I SHAKE MY HEAD IN DISBELIEF
You’d think that knowing the well-established fact that: correctly taken prescriptions is now the fifth leading cause of death, that physicians would step up to the plate and prescribe fewer drugs. But this has just not entered the groupthink of the medical profession. Big Pharma advertising controls both the doctor brain and yours with endless […]
COULD “SKINNY SHOTS” CURE FIBROMYALGIA?
The most well-known, so-called ‘skinny shots’ are semaglutide and tirzepatide. the GLP-1 inhibitors may be better known by their heavily advertised brand names Ozempic (semaglutide), Mounjaro (tirzepatide), and Zepbound (also tirzepatide). If it seems like ‘everybody’s on them,’ you’re right. Currently 18% of the U.S. population report having used a GLP-1 inhibitor at some time […]
CANCER AND THE CHEMICAL SWILL ACCUMULATING IN YOUR BODY
I’m sure you’re aware, just about every roadblock to corporate pollution initiated during the Biden administration (there were more than 100 of them) has now been reversed by Trump in favor of the polluters. Really disheartening how his EPA lackeys finalized a rule that specifically states that before any reversal of an environmental hazard can […]
ADVANCES IN ROSACEA AND THE LITTLE FELLOW IN YOUR GUT
I wrote an article on Rosacea some years ago and afterward we’ve treated dozens of patients with both Rosacea, the Demodex skin mite, and small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). Trying to stay abreast of everything we treat here at WholeHealth Chicago, from chronic Lyme to chronic fatigue, from fibromyalgia to complementary cancer therapies is a […]