Is Iodine Deficiency a Bigger Problem Than We Think?
Iodine is important for thyroid health, fetal growth, mental health, and more. However, iodine intake is decreasing, especially in certain populations. Read on to learn the impacts of low iodine intake, who is at risk, and how to treat iodine deficiency.
Does Iron Overload Cause Diabetes and Heart Disease?
Iron plays an essential role in many physiological processes, including oxygen transport and mitochondrial energy production. However, more iron is not necessarily better! The overaccumulation of iron in the body, a condition referred to as iron overload, has been implicated in the development of several chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease. Read on to learn why iron overload promotes the development of diabetes and heart disease and how iron reduction strategies can be used to beneficially alter the course of these diseases.
The Gut–Heart Connection
As the prevalence of heart disease continues to rise, researchers are hard at work trying to discover the mechanisms at play. One factor to emerge in recent years is the gut and its associated microbes. Read on to learn how gut ecology can influence heart health and heart disease.
Antibiotics: Risks and Alternatives
Antibiotics are one of the cornerstones of modern medicine. But this once lifesaving medication has been overused, with catastrophic results—including antibiotic-resistant bacteria, disrupted gut microbiomes, and associated chronic health problems. Read on to learn about the perils of abusing antibiotics and what alternatives medical professionals can consider.
How Environmental Toxins Harm the Thyroid
The prevalence of thyroid disease has skyrocketed within the past few decades. According to the American Thyroid Association, an estimated 20 million Americans have some form of thyroid disease. This alarming trend begs the question—what is responsible for the epidemic of thyroid dysfunction? A growing body of research indicates that exposure to environmental toxins is a key piece of the thyroid disease puzzle. Read on to learn about the types of toxins that are harmful to the thyroid and how you can help your patients minimize their toxic exposures and protect their thyroid health.
A Functional Approach to Eczema
Do patients come to you with eczema that conventional therapy fails to treat? While eczema is a multifactorial disease, addressing the underlying causes offers great potential for achieving remission. Read on to learn how to treat eczema with a functional approach.
How the Healthcare System Undermines a Doctor’s Ability to Heal
According to a 2012 survey, nearly eight out of 10 physicians are “somewhat pessimistic or very pessimistic” about the future of the medical profession. (1) Shuttled from one short appointment to the next, physicians are struggling to keep up with paperwork, worried about malpractice lawsuits, and merely alleviating symptoms instead of curing disease. Focus on the patient has undoubtedly shifted elsewhere. In this article, we’ll look at reasons why the conventional medicine model prevents doctors from healing.
How to Critically Read a Research Study
As clinicians, it’s vital that we stay current with the literature. Countless scholarly articles are published every day, and it’s important that we are able to critically analyze and integrate relevant new information into practice. Read on to learn two different approaches to reading a scientific paper.
Do Fitness Trackers Have a Place in a Clinical Setting?
Fitbit, Apple Watch, and other wearable fitness trackers are increasingly popular worldwide. As medical practitioners, we of course want to encourage more physical activity in our patients. Do fitness trackers have a place in the clinical setting? Read on to learn more about the relationship between physical activity and health and to discover if fitness trackers are effective at getting patients moving.
RHR: Resolving the Underlying Causes of ADHD and Autism
Both attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have seen a dramatic increase in recent years. What’s causing this rise? It’s not just genetics or bad luck. Environmental factors, like diet, do play a role—despite what conventional medicine might say. Today we’ll discuss what the latest research says about the underlying causes of both ADHD and ASD and what areas to investigate.
The Gut Flora-Food Allergies Connection
The prevalence of food allergies and intolerances has risen exponentially within the past decade. Emerging research indicates that alterations in the intestinal flora may play an important role in the development of these disorders. Read on to learn how a disrupted gut microbiome predisposes to food allergies and intolerances and how restoration of the microbiome may be beneficial in the treatment of these conditions.
Environmental Toxins, Drug Metabolism, and the Microbiome
Environmental toxins are ubiquitous in our modern world, and high levels of exposure are associated with several chronic diseases. While we typically think of the liver as the primary site of detoxification, the gut and its associated microbes play an incredibly important role in determining the toxicity of compounds. Read on to learn how the gut influences toxin and drug absorption, metabolism, and more.
RHR: The Ketogenic Diet and Cancer
The conventional view of cancer is that it is caused by DNA mutations in the cell nuclei. However, the metabolic theory of cancer proposes that some cancers are caused by a dysfunction of cellular respiration and that the restriction of glucose in the diet may prevent and even reverse some cancers. Today I’ll review the research supporting this theory and explore how the ketogenic diet may impact cancer tumor growth.
Prebiotics and Probiotics for Kids with SIBO
Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is on the rise in children, and if left untreated, may cause serious health problems. While the conventional view of SIBO has been that prebiotics and probiotics should be avoided, recent studies suggest that not only are prebiotics and probiotics not harmful for people with SIBO, but they may actually be helpful. Read on to learn about why you should consider incorporating prebiotics and probiotics into treatment protocols for your pediatric SIBO patients.
Treating Methylation: Are We Over-supplementing?
Genetic testing for MTHFR variants has become increasingly popular in the alternative health community, and many patients begin supplementing with high-dose methyl donors based solely on their genetic results. But are we supplementing too much? Read on to learn how we should really be treating methylation issues.
Two Reasons Conventional Medicine Will Never Solve Chronic Disease
Chronic disease is shortening our lifespan, destroying our quality of life, bankrupting governments, and threatening the health of future generations. Unfortunately, conventional medicine has failed to adequately address this challenge, and the prevalence of most chronic health problems continues to rise. In this article I explore why that is and outline a new approach to healthcare that would much more effectively tackle the chronic disease challenge.
Does Testosterone Therapy Increase The Risk of Heart Disease in Men?
In recent years, advertising campaigns for testosterone replacement therapy have sparked a rapid rise in the use of testosterone gels, patches, pellets, and injections by men of all ages. Despite its popularity, testosterone therapy is not without risk. Research suggests that men who use testosterone may be at increased risk of heart disease. Read on to learn about the dangers of testosterone replacement therapy and why dietary and lifestyle changes are a much healthier approach for restoring optimal levels of this crucial hormone.
Research Studies: Why the Media So Often Gets Them Wrong
Red meat on the chopping block again? While epidemiological research is useful for identifying potential associations between dietary and lifestyle factors and various health outcomes, it also has some major limitations. Read on to learn about the perils of observational epidemiology in this case study about red meat and diverticulitis.
Is Gluten Killing Your Brain?
In the past decade, awareness of the potential harmful effects of gluten has risen exponentially within the medical community and general public. An increasing number of healthcare practitioners are recognizing that celiac disease is just one extreme manifestation of gluten sensitivity and that many other patients may unknowingly be suffering from non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). While non-celiac gluten sensitivity is most often associated with digestive system symptoms, it turns out that this disorder may have equally detrimental effects on the brain. Read on to learn about the relationship between non-celiac gluten sensitivity and the brain and how treatment of this condition may successfully reverse mental health disorders and neurodegenerative disease.
A Functional Perspective on Diet and Cholesterol
For nearly 50 years, cholesterol and saturated fat have been maligned by the medical community for their purported role in heart disease. However, a large body of scientific research indicates that dietary cholesterol and saturated fat are not the driving forces behind heart disease. Despite this evidence, much of the medical community continues to promote outdated dietary guidelines for patients with high cholesterol and heart disease, including low-fat and low-cholesterol diets. As it turns out, this outdated advice may actually be harmful to the heart! Read on to learn why dietary cholesterol and saturated fat are not to blame for high cholesterol and heart disease and why a reduced-carbohydrate, nutrient-dense diet is the healthiest approach for treating high cholesterol and heart disease.