batching productivity
January 11, 2017

Batching: A Simple Strategy for Boosting Brainpower and Increasing Productivity

For busy professionals with heavy workloads, maximizing productivity is paramount. Unfortunately, today’s climate of hyperconnectivity and multitasking can have a detrimental impact on focus and performance. Read on to learn how batching can help you be more productive.

hpa axis dysfunction
January 9, 2017

Adrenal Fatigue or HPA Axis Dysregulation?

Do patients come to you complaining of adrenal fatigue? While widespread in popular health media, the term “adrenal fatigue” is not supported by the scientific literature. Read on to learn why “HPA axis dysregulation” is a much more accurate and useful diagnostic term.

Doctor Examining Child's Ears
January 4, 2017

Should You Prescribe Antibiotics for Ear Infections?

Ear infections are common in young children and infants. Seeing a miserable child with an anxious parent makes us want to DO something to help—such as prescribing antibiotics. But is that the best course of action? Read on to find out why antibiotics shouldn’t be used for the majority of ear infections, and what to do instead.

thyroid disorder
December 28, 2016

The Underlying Causes of Thyroid Disease

Do you see a lot of patients with thyroid disorders? The number of people suffering from thyroid disorders continues to rise each year. Read on to learn more about thyroid disorders and how to address the root cause of disease.

December 21, 2016

RHR: High Cortisol and Brain Fog

Chronically high cortisol levels, which are associated with stress, have been shown to kill brain cells, cause premature aging in the brain, and decrease the rate at which new brain cells are made. In this podcast, you’ll learn how to diagnose high cortisol and how to protect your brain if you’re suffering from this problem.

naltrexone
December 14, 2016

Low-Dose Naltrexone: A Promising Drug for Hard-to-Treat Conditions

Clinicians are increasingly using low-dose naltrexone to treat challenging illnesses such as autoimmune conditions and neurodegenerative disease. LDN is extremely safe and well tolerated, especially compared to the drugs typically used to treat these conditions, making LDN a valuable tool for clinicians and an important focus for ongoing research.

DNA
December 7, 2016

HLA-B27 and Autoimmune Disease: Is a Low-Starch Diet the Solution?

Do your patients have an autoimmune disease? Do starchy foods tend to make their symptoms worse? Mounting evidence suggests that individuals who have autoimmunity related to a particular set of genes called HLA-B27 may benefit from reducing their starch intake. Read on to learn why this is.

SIBO
December 5, 2016

Breath Testing for SIBO: Limitations and Considerations

Diagnosis of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) has increased considerably in recent years, particularly due to its close association with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Yet the prevalence of SIBO is difficult to determine given methodological issues with testing. Read on to learn the various types of tests available and why breath testing remains the best option for clinical practice, despite its limitations.

statins
November 30, 2016

The Diet-Heart Myth: Statins Don’t Save Lives in People Without Heart Disease

Cardiovascular disease is one of the most misdiagnosed and mistreated conditions in medicine. In the first article in this series, I explained it’s not the amount of cholesterol in the blood that drives heart disease risk, but the number of LDL particles. In the second article, I discussed the five primary causes of elevated LDL particle number. In this article, I will debunk the myth that statin drugs save lives in healthy people without heart disease, and discuss some of the little known side effects and risks associated with these drugs.

LDL particle number
November 28, 2016

What Causes Elevated LDL Particle Number?

In the last article in this series, I explained that LDL particle number (LDL-P) is a much more accurate predictor of cardiovascular disease risk than either LDL or total cholesterol. In this article, I’m going to briefly outline the five primary causes of elevated LDL-P.

November 23, 2016

RHR: Does your diet affect your cholesterol level?

Today’s topic and today’s big question is, if dietary fat and cholesterol don’t raise cholesterol levels, why do total cholesterol levels drop after you stop eating those foods? That’s a really good question, and for all of the discussion about this topic, this is actually how I got started in blogging and writing. Way back in the Healthy Skeptic days, I started writing articles about the relationship between cholesterol and saturated fat and heart disease. It’s been a dominant theme of my work since then. There are lots of other people who are writing and speaking about this, and there’s still quite a bit of confusion out there, and it’s understandable because this can be a confusing subject.

Placebo effect
November 21, 2016

The Power of Placebo: Why Context Matters for Healing

The placebo effect is a widely accepted phenomenon in science and medicine, but its potential role in improving patient health is rarely addressed. This is unfortunate because clinical trials increasingly demonstrate the power of placebo (and nocebo) to drastically alter patient outcomes. Read on to learn the science behind placebo and how to harness its effects in your clinical practice.

November 16, 2016

RHR: Chronic Fatigue—Treating the Cause Not the Symptoms

Symptoms are important because they can give us clues to what the underlying mechanisms might be that are contributing to a health problem. However, if you focus on the underlying mechanisms and causes, the symptoms tend to resolve on their own. When treating a nonspecific symptom like fatigue, you have to investigate all seven of the primary mechanisms that lead to disease.

cholesterol
November 14, 2016

The Diet-Heart Myth: Why Everyone Should Know Their LDL Particle Number

Cardiovascular disease is one of the most misdiagnosed and mistreated conditions in medicine. In this article, I will debunk the myth that high cholesterol in the blood is the cause of heart disease.

November 9, 2016

RHR: Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker on Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome

Dr. Shoemaker is a pioneer in understanding how low-dose biotoxin exposure, including toxic mold and algae, impacts our health and contributes to disease. Find out what chronic inflammatory response syndrome is, how people get exposed, and who is susceptible.

mindfullness
November 7, 2016

How Distraction Is Rewiring Our Brains—and How Mindfulness Can Help

Our modern lifestyles provide nearly endless sources of distraction. Not surprisingly, recent research has shown that this constant input has a significant impact on our health. Read on to learn more about how distraction is literally rewiring our brains.

November 2, 2016

RHR: Is it Possible to Prevent (or Reverse) Type 1 Diabetes?

In autoimmune diabetes (type 1), the body attacks insulin-producing cells — or even insulin itself in some cases — which then leads to insulin deficiency. That’s why people with type 1 diabetes or type 1.5 diabetes end up needing to take insulin. However, if you intervene early enough, you may be able to arrest the progression from just the mere production of antibodies to the destruction of that tissue that the antibodies are tagging. There is a lot of research that suggests that autoimmunity is triggered or exacerbated by a whole bunch of different factors, like intestinal permeability and poor nutrition, lack of exercise, inadequate stress management, lack of sleep or poor quality sleep, and environmental toxins.

October 31, 2016

When “Normal” Blood Sugar Isn’t Normal (Part 2)

In the last article I explained the three primary markers we use to track blood sugar: fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and hemoglobin A1c (A1c). We also looked at what the medical establishment considers as normal for these markers. In this article, we’re going to look at just how “normal” those normal levels are – according to the scientific literature. We’ll also consider which of these three markers is most important in preventing diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

October 26, 2016

RHR: Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN) as a Treatment for Autoimmune Disease

Find out how low-dose naltrexone works, what kind of conditions it’s been studied in, and how you might find a doctor that you can work with to take it.

October 24, 2016

When “Normal” Blood Sugar Isn’t Normal (Part 1)

In the next two articles we’re going to discuss the concept of “normal” blood sugar. I say concept and put normal in quotation marks because what passes for normal in mainstream medicine turns out to be anything but normal if optimal health and function are what you’re interested in.