Now it’s the baby boomers turn, as that vast generation starts to come to grips with the uncomfortable possibility of growing old and actually dying. Evidence of a surge of interest in anti-aging is everywhere: in the numerous “anti-aging” book titles; in the physicians (unhappy with the HMO grind) who’ve become “specialists” in “Anti-Aging Medicine”; in the emergence of cosmetic surgery as a standard big-ticket household expense.
In a previous health tip, I discussed what I considered to be the pointlessness of spending your hard-earned money seeing a specialist in anti-aging medicine. This tip is for those curious about anti-aging supplements. But first, a quick list of the current theories about why our bodies age: Genetic Genes are probably overrated, but if […]
Click here for the Health Tip link. Most people know that calcium supplements are recommended for healthy bones. If you’re really up on the latest data, you’re also adding a good dose of vitamin D3 and magnesium to the mix. However, bones are living tissue and require many other nutrients as well to maintain a […]
Click here for the Health Tip link. It comes with being a doctor, I suppose. I just can’t keep myself from reading about illnesses of the rich and famous. So when I saw Oprah’s name linked with the words “depressed,” “overweight,” and “thyroid,” I had to explore further. You can read about her major health […]
We continue this month with our series on why your brain might not be functioning the way you feel it should.
Hypothyroidism, or an underfunctioning thyroid gland (commonly called low thyroid), is often overlooked by doctors as a cause of poor memory. It’s neglected because many physicians rely solely on a not-very-good blood test to confirm or reject a diagnosis of low thyroid.
Click here for the original post. A surprising number of so-called alternative therapies actually have their roots in conventional medicine. For example, reflexology, originally called Zone Therapy, was first discovered by an ear, nose, and throat specialist who used pressure from rubber bands applied to the fingers and toes for surgical anesthesia. “Bach” of Bach […]
Q: I’m wondering if you could summarize all the ways I might go about increasing my energy level. I’ve had a lot of fatigue recently. Would you list supplements that could help, along with food and anything else? Thank you so much.
Q: In a recent newsletter you discussed new findings in nutritional medicine. I’ve never heard of nutritional medicine. Would you define it?
You yourself can balance your sex hormones–estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone–by making some key lifestyle choices.
Taking these steps will also help you look and feel spectacular (exercise, good foods, and supplements really do work):
First let’s discuss a strategy to get your health insurance to pay for as much of this testing as your policy allows. Good hormone testing is pricey.
(Those $30 kits that test all your hormones are only moderately accurate, especially when it comes to estrogen and progesterone. If you’re having periods, levels of these hormones change virtually every day, and trying to get an accurate picture with a single day’s result is a waste of your money.)
There are two ways to find out if your symptoms are being caused by an imbalance in your sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone).
That’s the single most common sentence I hear from my patients.
It can come from a 25-year-old with irregular periods and industrial-strength PMS whose energy has gone down the tubes. Or from a 45-year-old (on the threshold of pre-menopause) who continues to gain weight even though she’s eating less and exercising more, and who adds that her brain feels like mush and her sex drive is a distant memory.
One real downside of medical research is that too many important studies get published in obscure medical journals that few doctors read. Plus, the information often slips under the media’s radar.
Q. What exactly is the Triple Whammy?
A. It’s the cause of chronic ill health for tens of millions of women and involves the interaction of three factors:
In my last health tip we discussed the damaging effects of all the sugar we’re eating. I urged you to boost your intake of whole foods–real fruits and vegetables that are so readily available now in the farmers markets of our northern hemisphere.
Regular readers know I’m not a big fan of diets. In a recent Journal of the American Medical Association article, researchers from Stanford University Medical School worked with about 300 overweight women, ages 27-50, who hadn’t gone through menopause to see what diet worked best. They divided the women into four groups, according to diet.
Just about everyone using the pill knows there are health risks involved, especially for women who smoke. Risks include migraine, blood clots, heart attack, and even stroke. Now some research has uncovered why this may occur. A recent report showed that women on the pill have much lower levels of two vital antioxidants, Vitamin E […]