Posted 04/22/2012 If you’re wearing a watch with a sweep-second hand, pause now and watch it click away 23 seconds. Researchers using hidden cameras and tape recorders in a number of primary care doctor’s offices demonstrated that this is the amount of time an average patient was allowed to describe her symptoms before she was […]
Hospitals, Health Spas, and Feeling Great
Posted 04/16/2012 Here’s a good general rule for the rest of your life: all things considered, you’re better off avoiding hospitals and instead, every year or so, checking yourself into a resort/health spa for a few days. Personally, I don’t care much for hospitals. Whenever one of my patients ends up in one (fortunately a […]
Chinese Medicine Tackles Your Weight Concerns
Despite all the hoopla about the “best” way to determine if we’re overweight–getting on a scale, BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, pants won’t button, body fat percentage–we ultimately rely on our intuition to let us know we feel fat. In other words, if you think you’re overweight or obese you probably are. Two-thirds of Americans are one […]
Can I Be Tested for Nutritional Deficiencies?
This is a fairly common question in our office and the short answer is yes. It’s easy to understand the curiosity. You’ve cleaned up your eating habits, buying all those fruits and veggies. Whole grains, even. And more fish (oh, those omegas!) than you ever dreamed of eating when you were a kid. On your […]
Good News…And The Bad
Posted 03/26/2012 I recently saw a documentary about comedienne Joan Rivers. At one point, she shows viewers her “joke room,” which contains an entire wall filled with her joke files. Among them is a drawer packed with good news/bad news jokes. Most of us feel anxiety when someone says, “I’ve got good news and bad […]
Canada’s Medicine Explained
Several years ago, I happened to be in Toronto when the results of a national survey asking Canadians to select the one Canadian they most admired were announced. By universal acclimation–beating out both Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky–they selected Thomas Clement “Tommy” Douglas. “Who is Tommy Douglas?” I wondered. Every Canadian knows the story […]
The Chemistry of Stress
Understanding the chemistry of stress begins with an appreciation of molecules in our bodies called neurotransmitters. Dubbed “molecules of emotion” by the scientist who first discovered their existence, Dr. Candace Pert, these are produced throughout our bodies, most notably in the brain and along the gastrointestinal tract. One of the neurotransmitters, serotonin, seems to have […]
Temperature Test for Hypothyroidism
RATIONALE: There is considerable evidence that blood tests fail to detect many causes of hypothyroidism (under-active thyroid). It appears that many individuals have ‘tissue resistance’ to thyroid hormone. Therefore, their body may need more thyroid hormone, even though the amount in their blood is normal or even on the high side of normal. A low […]
Younger Than 45? You May Press Delete Now
Ours being a youth-oriented culture is a cliché. Yet at a certain point in our lives we may neither know nor care who the Grammy winners were, be indifferent to the screen resolution of the latest iPad, and in the mirror realize those pricey anti-aging supplements aren’t working as magically as advertised. All this is […]
Yet Another Mystery Rash
These mysterious rashes that patients want help with are a real diagnostic challenge. Usually the visit begins with “I’ve been to dermatologists about this and all I get are steroids. Once I’m done taking them the rash comes right back.” In previous health tips, we reported on a young man who developed a very real […]
For Better Brain + Memory, Remember This
When our patients make a wish list of what they’d like most for their health, maintaining an active, creative, and well-functioning brain always scores near the top. By the time we hit our 30s, we accept that we may not be the smartest people on the planet. There will always be someone else who grasps […]
Antibiotics: Maximize Benefits, Minimize Intestinal Backlash
Posted 02/20/2012 Patients seem to be divided equally in their attitude toward antibiotics. Either they love ‘em, remembering relief from a painful bladder infection, a nagging cough, or clogged sinuses, or they hate ‘em, recalling minimal relief along with lots of diarrhea and/or an industrial-strength vaginal yeast infection. That first group often progresses to what […]
Death By Cupcake
Happy Valentine’s Day! People who know me will say today’s health tip on the dangers of sugar is just typical, badgering innocent people on a holiday dedicated to love, romance, and dessert. Before we get started, let me pull out my two favorite passive-aggressive chestnuts: “I’m just looking out for your best interests” and “I […]
Universal Healthcare, German Style
Likely because German-Americans have been so completely absorbed into American culture, we’re often surprised to learn that more Americans (17% plus, in fact) trace their family origins to Germany than to any other country. The huge wave of German immigration occurred in the 19th century, when eight million arrived in New York, virtually all passing […]
Dentist Anxieties? Fear of Flying?
Posted 01/23/2012 One of my favorite books has always been the 1964 classic The Myth of Mental Illness, by Thomas Szasz, MD. A psychiatrist and still writing at the ripe age of 91, Szasz castigated his fellow professionals for labeling too many people with relatively mild emotional symptoms “mentally ill,” especially when it came to […]
The Anxiety in Your Gut
Posted 01/17/2012 “That gut feeling.” We’ve all experienced it, but we may have difficulty describing the sensation. We sense or “know” something internally, feeling butterflies in our stomach, almost as if our entire intestinal tract were a second brain, low on reflective skills but high on intuitive ones. During the past decade an incredible amount […]
WholeHealth Chicago and Kids?
Posted 1/09/2012 The short answer is “We welcome kids”. The longer answer is we’re here if your child has a problem and you want to see if an integrative approach will help. None of us is a pediatrician and we really would prefer that your child have a primary care pediatrician or family practitioner for […]
Bowen Technique
What Is It? An extremely gentle form of bodywork, the Bowen Technique was developed in Geelong, Australia, soon after World War II by Tom Bowen (1916-1982), a self-taught masseur. Over the course of many years, Bowen developed a precise sequence of delicate moves across muscles, tendons, and connective tissues, which are performed with great precision […]
Prostate Cancer Screening: The New PSA Controversy
Posted 1/2/2012 Nobody wants to deal with cancer, but unfortunately as we all get older we enter the realm of increased cancer risk. Around age 30, when we finally shed the delusion that we’re not immortal, we start taking better care of ourselves. We stop smoking, eat healthier, exercise a bit, abandon skydiving as a […]
Important News About Hormone Therapy
It was almost 20 years ago that I first learned about bioidentical hormone therapy from a talk given by Christiane Northrup, MD, (author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause) at the first meeting I ever attended of the American Holistic Medical Association. By the way, the line-up of speakers included not […]