The blurb about women’s health was tucked into a corner of The Guardian and required some tracking on my part to locate the source. It was a report (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) in Lancet Public Health, that I fear will largely be ignored, that is a general call-to-action jumpstart for worldwide […]
Category: M
Menopause Hot Flashes: They’re Getting Worse but Some Good News, Too!
A large study from Sweden was reported in The Washington Post that menopause symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats are coming earlier, lasting longer and more severe. 24% of women born between 1918 and 1930 had symptoms compared with 35% born between 1954 and 1960. Lots of data were collected and questions asked. Were […]
Quell The Fire of Menopause Hell With Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)
When it’s time, you can expect to transition through menopause in one of three ways. If you’re unlucky enough to land in Menopause Hell, give some serious thought to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). Some women experience Menopause Heaven, in which your periods start changing and then stop without drama. A year goes by without […]
Menopause Hell? Quell The Fire With Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)
When it’s time, you can expect to transition through menopause in one of three ways. If you’re unlucky enough to land in Menopause Hell, give some serious thought to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). Some women experience Menopause Heaven, in which your periods start changing and then stop without drama. A year goes by without […]
My Favorite Supplement: Magnesium
Along with most things relating to good nutrition, I wasn’t taught much of anything about supplemental magnesium either in medical school or during my internal medicine residency. It was a professional clinical nutritionist I met during a long-ago meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association who first told me, “You’ll never go wrong if you […]
Major Breakthrough: A Highly Accurate Blood Test For Fibromyalgia
Although I’ve taken care of well over 2,000 fibromyalgia patients since first opening WholeHealth Chicago in 1995 (and also written a successful book on the subject), I was always troubled by two questions. First, exactly what is fibromyalgia? How can there be a condition that’s severe enough to be disabling, manifesting as widespread muscle pain, […]
Michelle Obama: Thanks for Reminding Us We’re Not Alone
You probably read last week that Michelle Obama acknowledged she’d been experiencing what she described as low-grade depression. You may have wondered aloud, as I did, how anyone who sees what’s going on in the world could avoid it. Many of us are feeling hopeless or anxious, ruminating about where this is all going, eating […]
Mold Toxicity: A Telemedicine Consultation
Most people who are ultimately diagnosed with chronic inflammation triggered by black mold have heard somewhere “mold can make you sick.” However, only a few make the connection between their years of ill health and the water damage in their basement or attic, behind their kitchen sink, in their car, or around the upstairs neighbor’s […]
“My Breath Smells Like Poop!”
Usually by the time someone comes to us at WholeHealth Chicago with this complaint, they’ve already taken the obvious route. Ralph, a healthy looking guy in his 30s and recently married despite his halitosis, had already seen: –His primary care physician, who wasn’t sure he noticed anything odd about Ralph’s breath at all, but suggested […]
Issues with Endocrinologists: Thyroid Approaches and Big Pharma
My beefs with endocrinologists pretty much center on how they manage thyroid gland concerns, though they rarely win prizes for managing adrenal issues either. I don’t know any endocrinologists personally and rarely refer my patients to them. Occasionally, a patient with newly diagnosed hypothyroidism (low thyroid) will want to confirm the diagnosis with an endocrinologist. […]
Male Menopause: Is It Real?
Short answer: Yes, but don’t hope for any quick fixes—that’s pharmaceutical industry-think. Another way to view male menopause: Sure, a ball will bounce, just not as high over time. I get asked about male menopause all the time, almost always by women (who, admittedly, represent the majority of my patients) and only rarely by my […]
My Sad-Happy Health Tip
Just about a year ago my business partner of 20 years, chiropractic physician Paul Rubin, began our private Monday morning meeting (This Week at WholeHealth Chicago) with an ominous “I think I should tell you something important.” Naturally, I froze. He’d never use that tone if it were simply a broken heating system or phones […]
The Must-Have Digestive Tests of Functional Medicine
I hope you’ve been intrigued by the Health Tips on Functional Medicine we’ve written in the past month. It’s especially provocative that a growing number of physicians, as well as the Cleveland Clinic, are using functional medicine tests when challenged by a patient with longstanding, unexplained chronic symptoms whose conventional test results have been negative. […]
My Integrative Medicine Comeuppance
About six weeks ago, I was in the Loop just leaving the international Lyme disease conference, briefcase in one hand, shopping bag filled with I-don’t-remember-what in the other, when my foot caught an irregular sidewalk crack and down I went, hard, landing full force on my left shoulder. (Permission to cringe.) I was immediately helped […]
Making Sense of “Controversial” Diagnoses
I’m warning you in advance. You’re entering a minefield here, with explosive views among seemingly conservative health care professionals. At least wear a helmet. Protective eyewear wouldn’t hurt either. You wouldn’t think a slew of conditions you’ve heard about (including chronic Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic Epstein-Barr, toxic mold syndrome, food sensitivities, intestinal […]
Medical Flip-Flopping
I don’t know how you all keep from going slightly bonkers over the endless reversal of opinion from the “experts” in the world of medicine. Over the last few years, medical journals/websites (and the newspapers nobody subscribes to anymore) have reported policy changes on issues that I personally was just beginning to wrap my head […]
Meet Our New Naturopathic Doctor: Caley Scott, ND
It wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t know much about naturopathy. There aren’t many naturopaths in the US and the 5,000 or so we do have are mostly located along the east and west coasts, seriously outnumbered by 800,000 MDs and 100,000 DOs (osteopaths). Just to remind you: these are difficult days for health care […]
Moving and Eating To Protect Your Heart
One of the great pleasures of Chicago is summer. We’re outdoors and moving around, whether jogging, swimming, biking, walking the dog, slamming a volleyball, or tossing a Frisbee. And because we’re all wearing fewer clothes, we can tell in a single furtive glance if we’re happy with our weight. “Oh, well,” you think, “I might […]
My Doctor Is A Chiropractic Physician
I’m not setting out to intentionally antagonize my fellow MDs and DOs who read these Health Tips. No acrimonious outrage, please, before I explain. Then feel free to splutter. I’m not writing this for the medical profession. This is for the rest of you, living in a country that spends 17% of its GNP on […]
Making It Easier To Say No To Statins
Patients and doctors alike are understandably nervous about taking/prescribing any of the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins. You as a patient especially don’t want to hear “You’ll be on this pill for the rest of your life.” And if you’ve followed some of the recent articles on statins, you’ve likely felt annoyance at the mixed […]