COVID-19 is certainly still with us. Last week, the U.S. death toll crossed the one million mark. Suburban Evanston returned to the high-risk zone for COVID transmission, yet much of Illinois, especially downstate, remains woefully unvaccinated (only 37% are VAXed and boosted). I receive at least three or four emails a day, variations on “flu-like […]
Category: Integrative Medicine
Integrative medicine is an approach to healing and wellness that combines the practices and treatments of conventional medicine with those of alternative medicine.
LONGEVITY MEDICINE: LONG TERM EXPOSURE TO LEAD
Lead is always toxic in the human body. There are no “safe” levels of lead. An atom of lead enters your body, usually though your lungs or skin, then quickly displaces another atom you really need, like zinc for your immune system, or iron to build blood, or calcium for bones, or dozens of metabolic […]
Longevity Medicine: Here’s How Sugar Accelerates Aging
Look, I know there’s a good chance you may be addicted to sugar. Lots of us are. Human taste buds are far more sensitive to sweet tastes than they are to the subtleties of superstar chefs. Food manufacturers today throw sugar into everything, from chili to coleslaw, and the total amount of sugar we eat […]
Longevity Medicine: Chronic Anxiety Speeds Aging
A diagnosis of anxiety covers a lot of territory. Psychologists organize patients suffering symptoms of anxiety into groups that include: generalized anxiety disorder (with or without panic attacks), obsessive-compulsive disorders, social anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, and the various phobias (heights, snakes, germs, etc.). However, the symptoms are all pretty much the same. According to […]
Longevity Medicine: How Much Exercise Really Makes A Difference?
People being people, they are always on the lookout for the easiest route to anything fun and worthwhile and most would rather add years to their lives by doing something simple, like taking nutritional supplements. Add healthful eating, reducing alcohol, stopping tobacco altogether, and the road to longevity gets more challenging. Start recommending regular exercise […]
Longevity Medicine: First, Know Your Telomeres!
Most people figure they must be getting older based on how they feel and look. We wince at our first grey hair, deepening wrinkles, and shifting body fat. We huff and puff climbing the stairs, forget names, and occasionally leak fluids. We relate to the line from a Leonard Cohen song, “I ache in the […]
Longevity Medicine: How We Age
Gerontology is the scientific study of aging. It’s a relatively new field, pretty well dominated by research PhDs. Certainly it’s a science that was virtually nonexistent when I was in medical school, back when preventive medicine itself got little more than lip service. With the recent arrival of anti-aging medicine/longevity medicine, MDs started paying more […]
Longevity Medicine: The Earlier You Start, The Longer You’ll Live
Leading an orchestra in Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony is a real workout for any conductor. Tall and straight-backed, the very elegant Swedish Maestro Herbert Blomstedt stepped to the podium and led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the 66-minute piece. From memory, no score in front of him. He would repeat this performance for two more […]
Finally! Whole Health Chicago To Open A South Side Office
OK, OK, so it took 20 years, but it will be worth the wait. WholeHealth Chicago’s new location is in the Beverly neighborhood, at 3237 W, 111th Street. The location is actually in Mount Greenwood, but no one except those who live there knows where Mount Greenwood is. (There is also to my knowledge no […]
Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue, Part 15: Long Covid
Doctors who work with patients who have chronic fatigue, chronic Lyme, and fibromyalgia have remarked on the similarity between people with these conditions and those suffering the frequently disabling symptoms of long Covid. Like chronic Lyme, in which many patients don’t remember either a tick bite or Lyme disease, patients with all the features of […]
Wikipedia’s Disservice to Alternative Medicine
We’ll return to the Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue series next week, but today a change of pace. I feel I must write about this Wiki business because yet again a patient printed out some misinformation about alternative medicine and brought it in to me for review. “Oy vey!,” I thought. “If she only knew […]
You’re Only As Old As Your Arteries
I first heard this phrase in medical school, but physicians have been using the phrase “hardening of the arteries” to describe the slow decline and death of old people probably since they started dissecting bodies in Ancient Greece. If you’ve got a few spare hours and a yellow highlighter, you might want to print out […]
Anti-Aging Therapies: Carl Bogaard, Hormones, and Peptides
Before I get into today’s details about longevity medicine–lab tests, hormones, peptides, and the like—let’s pause and reflect on Carl Bogaard, who died August 7 at age 103. Mr. Bogaard was famous as a fitness buff, doing dozens of pushups daily, even at 102 years old. He seemed like a good guy who also took […]
Dear Dr Mercola: Please Stop
As some of you know, Dr. Joseph Mercola, multi-millionaire osteopath entrepreneur of mercola.com, began his practice in the Chicago area. Sometime in the early 1990s, he and I crossed paths at alternative medical meetings and I remember just one exchange. JM: “The future is on the internet.” Me: “What’s that?” JM: “Don’t you know what […]
Should You Try a Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting?
Just about half the patients we see in our office classify themselves as overweight and wish they weren’t. Not many are in the obese range, likely because when you come to a place called WholeHealth Chicago you’ve got a running start in being interested in health, well-being, and longevity. Still, weight is an issue for […]
Before I Forget: My Supplements for Memory
As we get older, many of us do worry about the health and well-being of our brains. No kid taking the SAT who forgets a vocabulary word she’d studied the night before is concerned that this is the first sign of dementia. But as the years pass, you ask yourself if forgetting someone’s name, wondering […]
What Supplements Do You Take, Dr E?
It’s a question I’m asked with some regularity. Last week, when I told you about our new WholeHealth Supplement Plans for personalized monthly supplement delivery (which we started offering yesterday), I ended that Health Tip by mentioning that I swallow 18 supplements twice a day. You might have thought it weird and/or nauseating. But, hey, […]
Introducing Our New WholeHealth Supplement Plans
If you’re a WholeHealth Chicago patient, you’ve likely noticed that we review your list of nutritional supplements during each appointment. Conventional doctors ask what prescription meds you’re taking (and of course we do too), but virtually never solicit a list of supplements. Since our area of expertise lies precisely there, it’s important for us to […]
Exciting News About Early Cancer Detection
When you cross over into your 50s and beyond, like it or not your risk for developing cancer increases. If you’re health-conscious, you try to schedule the recommended screening tests: mammogram, Pap smear, skin check, colonoscopy or Cologuard, and lung CT scan for smokers. More indirect cancer screenings include your physician noticing abrupt changes in […]
Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Covid-19 (Covid? RU Serious?)
Leslie, a teacher in her mid-30s, made her appointment with WholeHealth Chicago at the suggestion of her primary care physician, who knows we see a lot of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. He’d ordered myriad tests, including, of course, one for Covid antibodies. Leslie had begun feeling poorly in the middle of 2020, […]