Thursday, July 22, 2010

Take Daily for Health and Longevity

As a naturopathic doctor, I give A LOT of different types of advice to people on how to get healthy. Much of that advice is individual or tailored to the specific needs of the person sitting in front of me. In fact, I feel individualized treatment plans are a key part of my approach. I don't just see a person with "health condition A" and give them "treatment A". Very few "protocols" are used in my office. The primary goal is always to identify and treat the underlying issues which result in the symptoms each patient has. In other words, what is crucial for one patient, may be useless for another. It all depends on what's going on.

That all being said, there are also certain basic health tips I give to just about every single patient. I have chosen these health tips because, unlike the specific treatments I recommend to work on individual need, these tips will help EVERYONE.

Anyway, instead of just sharing them with each new patient I see, I figured why not share them with everyone I can?!

Take Daily for Health and Longevity:
  • Skin to Skin Contact with the Earth: Based on the information and research I have read in the new book "Earthing, the Most Important Health Discovery Ever?" I now consider "Earthing" to be the most simple, fundamental and crucial daily health tip of all. It is so easy to do, and yet so powerful and so potentially beneficial it's almost hard to believe. There is NO REASON why everyone of you cannot start "Earthing" today! In addition, optimal effects will be achieved by adding one or more grounding products from Earthing.com.
  • Real Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants and Meats: This is a modified version of the simple advice Michael Pollan came up with after researching for his book, "In Defense of Food". Being a big fan of paleo eating, I couldn't help myself but to add a little meat! Anyway, the statement pretty much speaks for itself. No reading between the lines here. Stay away from all processed, packaged, chemical-laden foods. Eat each meal until you're about 80% full and stop there. Base your menu plans around a variety of richly colored organic veggies and different types of pastured, anti-biotic and hormone free animal foods and don't eat much of much else. You won't regret it! There are a variety of books on the right side of this page that can go a long way in helping you accomplish these goals.
  • Pure Water til Your Pee is Light Yellow: Everyone seems to have their own idea about how much water you can drink. 8 cups a day. Half your body weight in ounces. Only drink when you're thirsty. So on and so forth. I honestly don't know if any of these are right and I don't believe there's ever been any hard research done to prove me wrong. Because of this I decided to come up with my own set of advice on fluid intake. I don't think any research has ever been done on this advice either, but it makes the most sense to me. I think, depending on a variety of factors, especially activity level and diet, that your body's water needs can vary widely. So I had to come up with some advice that took this into account. After all, drinking too much water isn't good for you either! Give this a try and see how you feel.
  • Vigorous Physical Activity: Everyone and their mother knows by now that exercise is important. Most people still don't quite get just how important it is, and almost no one I talk to understands that some types of exercise may be much more beneficial than others. This subject could be an entire blog posting on its own, so instead of rambling on, I'll simply direct you to Mark Sisson's book at the top right corner of this page for more info. After years of research I feel this book, Primal Blueprint, gives the single best set of advice on exercise for health that I have ever come across. If you couple that with his equally excellent advice on diet and other healthy lifestyle tips, I feel Mr. Sisson has created the best overall book on health I have come across yet. This book, along with "Earthing" are the two most important health advice books available to date.
  • Regular Outdoor Exposure in Nature: GO OUTSIDE. OFTEN. 'Nuff said.
  • Quality Sleep and Frequent Rest: Unfortunately, this one is much easier said than done. Nonetheless, I would rank it up there just under Earthing, in terms of importance. (as I write this at 5:30am instead of, you guessed it, sleeping!) If this is a challenging area for you, you should know there is a wide variety of advice available out there on how to get a good night's sleep. Of course the most obvious advice (read- "Go to Bed!") is also probably the most difficult for most of us, especially parents, to follow. However, if you are having real problems in this area, you need the help of a health professional. If that is the case, I nominate myself. Why not? It's my blog.
  • Positive Social Interactions: This is another important bit of advice that could take a number of different forms, depending on the person. Honestly, most anything will do, as long as it's not directly harmful to you or anyone else. The biggest problem I see in this category is that people just get stuck in their day to day life and don't go out and have some fun! What's the best social activity I can think of? Go to a park with your friends or family, run around barefoot on the grass playing some game or another that makes you all laugh and breath hard, drink some water, eat an organic salad with chicken on it, then take a nap. There's this whole list in about an hour. Wow. Was that easy or what??
  • Play, Laughter and Good Humor: Have you ever heard about how it takes way more muscles to frown than it does to smile? I always loved that bit of trivia. Well, if you're this lame-o, you can take time out of your precious day to disprove the theory, or you can just go with it! Smiling and laughter will make you live longer. No ifs, ands or butts about it (snicker, I just said butt).
  • Meaningful Participation in Your Community: And last but not least, what good is living longer if you are not helping out the rest of this world? We are all in it together here, and without all of us doing our part to help each other and this planet out, we will just not make it much longer. The signs are everywhere. (Whew man, I just stopped smiling). Sorry it needs to be said. So start small if you aren't doing do so already. You know, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". Then go from there. Volunteer. Coach a Little League team. Open the door for someone. Plant a tree. Pick up the garbage you see on the ground and throw it away. Choose a job that makes you feel like you are making a difference. You won't regret it and neither will I.
~Aloha

Friday, May 7, 2010

Health Research Links

Hello there,
I have been very strapped for time these days, and unable to do a post lately. However, I have been posting quick bits of info almost everyday on my Twitter account. Because not everyone who reads this blog has chosen to follow my Twitter account, I thought I'd post some of the more interesting links I have made lately.

Be on the lookout for a more lengthy article soon!!

Carotenoids from food and anemia in children


CoQ10 and Migraines in children


How to Simplify Your Life for Less Stress

Coffee Consumption May Reduce Alzheimer's Risk

If you want to learn more about how to optimize your health, be sure to check out my healthstore at the top of the page, for some of my favorite resources on how to do just that!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

New Study on Homeopathy May Quiet Critics Once and For All

I just finished reading about one of the most amazing studies I've ever heard of on homeopathy. If this one doesn't stop the chatter about homeopathy being fake or only working via a placebo effect, I don't know what will!

In the study, performed by Moshe Frenkel, MD at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and published in the prestigious International Journal of Oncology, breast cancer cell cultures were treated with four homeopathic preparations:
  1. Carcinosin (also known as an "isode" being actually made from cancerous tissue)
  2. Conium
  3. Thuja
  4. Phytolacca
All of these homeopathic remedies, for one reason or another, are suggested in homeopathic literature to be potentially useful in cases of breast cancer, and outside of the U.S., they are commonly employed in cancer care treatment plans.

Well, the study results certainly didn't disappoint. All four remedies (diluted well beyond the point where one would expect a bio-chemical effect) showed PRONOUNCED CYTOTOXIC EFFECTS. In other words, they stopped cancer cell growth, altered gene expression that regulated the cell cycles, and induced apoptosis (cancer cell DEATH!). Carcinosin and phytolacca had the strongest cytotoxic effects of all.

Of course (no surprise to anyone familiar with homeopathy) the remedies were also shown to have zero negative effects on non-cancerous breast cells.

So, does this mean that anyone out there with breast cancer should madly rush to their local health food store and pick up a bottle each of these remedies? I'd say at the very least it couldn't hurt, but researchers do caution (and I concur) that this was NOT a cancer treatment trial- ie a study done on people with cancer. Therefore, we should at most (right now) be cautiously optimistic.

It's also important to note that if homeopathic remedies may be effective in treating cancer, why wouldn't they be helpful in the treatment of ANY acutely or chronically diseased body tissue?

In my opinion, interested patients should not just run out to the store and start buying remedies, but instead should enlist the help of a practitioner trained in homeopathy, especially the use of isode remedies (like carcinosin). One of the key, most important facets of homeopathy is that, for it to work, it needs to be the right remedy. If it's not, it won't really do anything. Figuring out what remedy that is isn't always easy.

There are, or course, a number of ways to try and do this, the most commonly employed method being using your doctor's brain, or the combination of their brain and a homeopathy computer program. Fully admitting my bias, I feel kinesiological testing is as good as it gets. (See my website for more info on this), but I think any well trained homeopath has a good chance. That being said, I do still feel it's important to note that (again in my opinion and the opinion of some other docs out there) homeopathy is not as easy to practice today as it used to be. The sole reason for this is that the amount of toxins we are bombarded with on a daily basis in this modern age far exceeds anything the average person was exposed to back in the time that homeopathy first came about. These toxins sometimes can have the effect of "clouding the picture", making it difficult to see the right remedy, and/or rendering the remedies less effective or more likely to cause a negative reaction when the energetic wave they set off gets blocked on its way out of the body.

The system I employ helps me search for the affected tissues/organs, but also helps me identify these toxic "blocks" and (also using homeopathy and sometimes herbs) remove them first. Again, if you'd like to learn more about these techniques you can see my website, or contact me directly.

Lastly, I think it's also important to point out the fact that, not only does this study show promise for the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies, it also provides some pretty clear, undeniable proof as to the presence of something BELOW or BEYOND the level of biochemistry (ie blood and guts) at work here. In other words, it provides yet another piece of evidence that many types of healing, especially profound healing, happen on a deeper level. Based on some of the evidence I've been recently learning more about, I would go even further and just say that LIFE happens, begins and/or is influenced on a level deeper than we are consciously aware of.

This is another entire topic I hope to blog about and possibly lecture about in the near future. For now, if you are interested, click on the link to my store above and go to the "Additional Learning Tools" page on the right. Once there, check out the selection of videos I have listed that go into this topic in depth.

The future of medicine is definitely NOT going to come in the form of more drugs and more surgery, or at least the future of HEALING won't.

Aloha......

Monday, February 1, 2010

Cholesterol and Your Brain

Quick Post, Quick Question:

How can the FDA approve of and allow the drug industry to heavily promote the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs like Lipitor, when they have also recently approved (no kidding) a cholesterol SUPPLEMENT to improve the retardation, hyperactivity, irritability, poor attention span, and tendency toward aggressive and self-injuring behavior seen in children with Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome, a genetic disorder that prevents the body from being able to fully manufacture cholesterol itself????

If you get:
  • retardation
  • hyperactivity
  • irritability
  • poor attention span
  • tendency toward aggressive and self-injuring behavior
when you have really low cholesterol, where is the cutoff point when using drugs like Lipitor?

Answer- There is no accepted cutoff point!!!

I recently saw a patient of a heavy dose of a statin drug, with a TOTAL cholesterol of 90! That is scary. The above list doesn't even go into the additional uses of cholesterol in the body's immune system and other systems.

We need to wake up and smell the egg yolks people. Cholesterol is NOT the problem. Want to learn more? Take your pick from below or (better yet) read them both and more:

Statins, Statins and More Statins

Cholesterol and Health

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Fattiest Treat You'll Ever Meet

If you subscribe to the to idea that a low carb/high fat primal diet is beneficial and are working on incorporating these ideas into your life, you will love this recipe. It's from page 324 of
Primal Body-Primal Mind: Empower Your Total Health The Way Evolution Intended (...And Didn't)
  • 1 jar almond butter
  • 1 full brick of KerryGold butter (available @ Trader Joe's) at room temp (can use ghee or coconut oil)
  • 10 oz or so of nuts, preferably soaked and dried, chopped or 1 full package of Raw Organic Hemp Seeds
  • 1-2 tsp cinnamon (my addition)
  • Alcohol-free vanilla
  • First mix together the nut butter and butter (a fork works well for this)
  • Then add other ingredients.
Leave it in the fridge and take tiny nibbles whenever you have a sweet craving.

**Keep in mind, eating a diet high in animal fats is beneficial IF you are eating low carb (less than 75-100grams a day total). For more info on the benefits of such a diet, be sure to check out Nora Gedgaudas' book: Primal Body-Primal Mind: Empower Your Total Health The Way Evolution Intended (...And Didn't)


Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Heart Healthy Cooking. Are you KIDDING ME??

In yet another example of the backwards approach to health and nutrition the U.S. continues to follow, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) recently released a list of atherosclerosis- promoting recipes listed under the paradoxical title "Stay Young at Heart: Cooking the Heart-Healthy Way". Please look it over and take note of the tremendous lack of nutrient density, the emphasis on simple carbohydrates, the frequent use of baking with vegetable oil and/or margarine, the lack of raw foods, and the scarcity of phyto-nutrients. All of these things have been proven beyond doubt by high level research to contribute to heart disease:

  • "Sunshine (white) rice" cooked with vegetable oil, orange juice, and lemon juice

  • "Homestyle biscuits" made from white flour, salt, and sugar

  • "Banana-nut bread" made from mashed ripe bananas, low-fat buttermilk, packed brown sugar, margarine, all-purpose white flour, egg and salt.

  • "Apricot-orange bread" made from dried apricots, margarine, white sugar, egg, white flour, dry milk powder, salt and orange juice

  • "Apple coffee cake" made with peeled apples (please note that >90% of the antioxidants contained in apples are in the peel-thus when the peel is removed, virtually all that remains is antioxidant-poor carbohydrate), one cup of sugar, one cup of dark raisins, one-quarter cup vegetable oil, 1 egg, and two-and-a-half cups of sifted all-purpose white flour

  • "Frosted cake" with 2 1/4 cups cake flour, 4 tablespoons margarine, 1 1/4 cups sugar, 4 eggs, low fat cream cheese, and 2 cups sifted confectioners sugar!!

If you want to learn more about the real causes of heart disease, check out these links instead:
If you are interested in determining where your current level of cardiovascular health is, get some diagnostic testing (which I can order for you if needed) that looks at truly reliable risk factors. Tests like these:
If you don't care about all that and just want to follow some dietary recommendations to truly prevent heart disease, diabetes and a bunch of other chronic diseases, make sure you read:
Keep fighting the good fight!!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Give the Gift of Health This Year!

OK, so I realize this is a bit "Last Minute" but I figured, better late than never!

Below you will find a random list of my favorite "Healthy Gift Ideas". This list is not presented in order of my preference, for I feel that certain items are good for some people, while other ones are better for other people. I encourage you all to check out the items that sound interesting and match them appropriately. Not only will they all help improve the health of the person you give them to, they will also help the wonderful, hard-working person behind the gift as well!

Books on Health Eating:

Great Cookbooks that Follow Similar Principles:


Other Great Food Related Services:


Places to Learn
the Right Way to Move (hint- buy someone a gift certificate!):

Ways to Make Your Body Feel Good:

Go forth and help make your friends and family healthier this year!