Ahhh, summer. Beach weekends and mid-day picnics at the park. Perfect time to catch the rays and get that mega-dose of vitamin D our bodies so desperately crave all winter. Too much sun, however, can come at a cost and lead to peeling skin and dry patches. While sunscreen or a big floppy hat should be your first line of defense, what to do once the damage is done?
Book Review: Wheat Belly
By William Davis, MD (Rodale, 2011)
Reviewed by Rosalind Michahelles, Certified Holistic Health Counselor
Dr Davis has it in for wheat. He claims it provokes more insulin and does that faster than even table sugar. He and others are reporting disturbing news about that important hormone, insulin. Insulin is like an army’s quartermaster, making sure that the supplies (blood sugar) get to the right destination to be used for energy now or stored as fat for later. So one problem with wheat – bread, crackers, cake, cookies, and pasta, too – lies in its high glycemic load, even when not sweetened with added sugars.
Health Article: The Rest and Digest State!
HOW YOU EAT IS AS POWERFUL AS WHAT YOU EAT!
By Brittany Wood Nickerson, Practicing Herbalist
Our digestive system takes in and breaks down food and experiences. It is through the process of digestion that bits of food are transformed into vital nutrients – complex chemical processes work to extract vitamins and minerals, break down fats into lipids, and proteins into amino acids. A well functioning digestive system has the wisdom to break down, absorb and utilize the nutrition it needs from the food we eat and let go of the parts and pieces that it does not.
Book Review: BEYOND BROCCOLI: Creating a Biologically Balanced Diet When a Vegetarian Diet Doesn’t Work
BEYOND BROCCOLI: Creating a Biologically Balanced Diet When a Vegetarian Diet Doesn’t Work
By Susan Schenck, Lac
Reviewed by Rosalind Michahelles, Certified Holistic Health Counselor
For those who are, were, or might become vegetarians, this is a useful book. Written by a woman whose earlier book The Live Food Factor extolled the nutritional benefits of raw plants. Courageous woman! When she found after six years of raw veganism that she didn’t thrive, she looked “beyond broccoli,” and, once her health was restored, she wrote this book.
Health Article: The Power of Peppermint
A favorite herbal medicine of the ancients, peppermint leaves have been found in Egyptian pyramids dating back to 1,000 BC. Modern scientific investigations have now confirmed that this remarkable plant has over a dozen healing properties.
In our continuing effort to educate folks to the vast array of healing agents found in the natural world around us, we are excited to feature peppermint, a member of the aromatic mint family that you may already have squirreled away somewhere in your kitchen cupboard. While most have experienced peppermint as a flavoring agent, or perhaps as a comforting cup of herbal tea, few are aware of its wide range of experimentally confirmed therapeutic properties.
Book Review: Coping with Heartburn, GERD, SIBO, and IBS
Coping with Heartburn, GERD, SIBO, and IBS
Fast Tract Digestion by Norman Robillard
Reviewed by Rosalind Michahelles, Certified Holistic Health Counselor
For anyone puzzled about GERD (Gastro-esophageal reflux disease) or SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) or IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) – puzzled despite reading books and seeing doctors, Fast Tract Digestion by Norman Robillard may help.
This ‘alphabet soup’ of digestive ailments is very likely one brew connecting different symptoms that vary according to where you feel the distress. Excessive and painful belching oresophagus is called GERD. If the symptoms are intestinal cramps, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, and flatulence – it may be either SIBO or IBS. (N.B., IBS differs from IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, in that IBD is considered an autoimmune disease and a more serious problem.)
Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms – When My Lab Tests Are Normal?
Health Article: Green Tea Changes Estrogen Metabolism and Breast Cancer Risk
By Case Adams, Naturopath, posted on greenmedinfo.com 03/09/2013
New research from the U.S. National Institutes of Health shows that the biochemicals in green tea change a women’s estrogen metabolism, revealing at least one of its mechanisms for reducing the risk of breast cancer.
The study comes from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute, and was led by Dr. Barbara Fuhrman. The researchers tested the levels of urinary estrogens and metabolites among 181 healthy Japanese American women from California and Hawaii. Of the group, 72 of the women were postmenopausal. The remainder of the group was premenopausal.
Book Review: The Breakthrough Depression Solution
James Greenblatt, a local psychiatrist practicing in Waltham, MA gives special attention to the role nutrition can play in mental illness.
He works with both adults and children and, though fully prepared to prescribe medications when useful, he also points to the statistics showing the limited effectiveness of such drugs. In the last twenty years the number of Americans on psychiatric disability leave has trebled. What’s wrong with this picture?
Book Review: AN EPIDEMIC OF ABSENCE
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff
Reviewed by Rosalind Michahelles, Certified Holistic Health Counselor
Moises Velasquez-Manoff is a journalist – a science writer primarily — who has taken on the job of translating an ambitious scope of research for the non-medical reader. The central thesis is that we evolved with parasites, mostly insects and worms, and without their stimulus our immune systems get restless and look for targets that often end up being some part of ourselves. This sort of ‘friendly fire’ becomes allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases. It’s important to point out that the many examples in the book are based on correlation, not causality. The correlations are indeed compelling, however. One, for instance, is that mothers who live on farms with animals have children with less asthma and fewer allergies. Another correlation links the end of malaria in Sardinia to a rapid rise in two autoimmune diseases, multiple sclerosis and type-1 diabetes. This book is dense with such examples.