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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
RHR: Is it Possible to Get Off Thyroid Medication?
A reader with low T3 levels asks if she can ever get off her thyroid medication. As is often the…
Why Hemoglobin A1c Is Not a Reliable Marker
Over the last few years doctors are increasingly relying on a test called hemoglobin A1c to screen for insulin resistance and diabetes. It’s more practical (and significantly cheaper) than post-meal glucose testing, and it’s less likely to be skewed by day-to-day changes than fasting blood glucose. While this sounds good in theory, the reality is not so black and white. The main problem is that there is actually a wide variation in how long red blood cells survive in different people.
RHR: Subclinical Hypothyroidism—What You Need to Know
According to recent statistics, subclinical hypothyroidism may be more common than type 2 diabetes. In this podcast Dr. Amy Nett and I will discuss the thyroid physiology behind subclinical hypothyroidism and its clinical consequences.