And they really shouldn’t be expected to. They have been trained to diagnose and treat illness, and most are very good at doing just that. But making an informed and experienced  recommendation on the amount and relative balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates you should be eating, figuring out why you can’t fall asleep at night, or why your athletic performance keeps declining for no apparent reason lies outside the scope of Western medicine. And it is not only becoming quite clear that they aren’t helping their patients prevent and improve their “health” but that are quite lacking at ta ..read more

Measurement is the first step that leads first to understanding, then to control, and eventually to improvement. If you can measure something, you can understand it. If you can understand it, you can control it. If you can control it, you can improve it. You can’t manage for improvement if you don’t measure to see what is getting better (or worse). Sorting through the vast number of health assessments that are now available can be a daunting task. But they can be grouped into three, basic categories–global health assessments, individual biomarkers, and deeper diagnostic tests. In my first post ..read more

Measurement is the first step that leads first to understanding, then to control, and eventually to improvement. If you can measure something, you can understand it. If you can understand it, you can control it. If you can control it, you can improve it. You can’t manage for improvement if you don’t measure to see what is getting better (or worse). Sorting through the vast number of health assessments that are now available can be a daunting task. But they can be grouped into three, basic categories–global health assessments, individual biomarkers, and deeper diagnostic tests.   Last wee ..read more

Measurement is the first step that leads first to understanding, then to control, and eventually to improvement. If you can measure something, you can understand it. If you can understand it, you can control it. If you can control it, you can improve it. You can’t manage for improvement if you don’t measure to see what is getting better (or worse). Beyond doing the standard, serum chemistry profile a doctor orders during an annual exam, most people don’t have a measurable system for objectively tracking the ongoing status of their health and well-being. Many women take nutritional supplements ..read more

In last week’s posts I shared with you information that shows why what you eat makes such a huge difference to your health and longevity. This week I want to provide you with a meaningful strategy on how you can determine your personalized “healthy” diet. Avoid toxic foods. Whether you eat paleo, keto, low carb, vegan, Whole30, low fat, Mediterranean, intuitively, organically etc. we all need to avoid eating things that are toxic to us. This means processed oils, simple sugars, bleached flours, coloring and preservatives and pesticides. This means choose organic when possible especially ..read more

From a nutritionally oriented physician, this is a sad tale. In four years of medical school we had only one class on nutrition and that came in the first semester of our first year. It was by far the lowest on the totem pole of our education. Conspicuously this class was after lunch on Wednesdays when there were no more classes for the rest of the day. So for even the most committed of students making it back for nutrition after lunch and a morning marathon gross anatomy lab was unlikely. Attendance for the nutrition class (I did go a few times) was less than 25% of what it was for the “im ..read more

The major point of this article is that you should never mistake physical fitness for physiological fitness and health. If you do, for many results are less or will be less than expected, for some the result will be injury, fatigue and other metabolic issues, and for a small but growing and unacceptable minority, sudden death will be the result. For example, Dale Basescu, one of triathlon’s earliest pioneer professionals, died a few years ago at age 60 during a training session in the pool. Dale became a top competitor as early as 1983, very shortly after the rise of Mark Allen and Scott Molin ..read more

Tending to Your Microbiome We now understand that the GI tract is a highly evolved microbiome (the combined mircroorganisms found in a particular environment) that serves as the body’s second brain. In fact, the specific types and ratios of organisms your gut contains determines how your body responds to the food you eat—whether it’s used for immediate energy or stored for future use; recognized as a source of beneficial nutrients or rejected as a pathogen. Gut microbes can actually cause food cravings by influencing taste receptors. Researchers have determined that women who crave chocolate ..read more

As a physician and educator, people frequently ask me what the best diet is for them. The problem is there are so many options that completely are opposite from vegan and low fat to paleo and primal to those in the middle such as Whole 30 and Mediterranean. Add in the latest diet program written by an expert and you can imagine how we are all confused. The answer I tell everyone is it depends. It depends on your goals. It depends on your genetics. It depends on your gut microbiome. It depends on your activity level. And it depends on your commitment to making the food you put into your mouth a ..read more

Keeping your brain active is important to keep it functioning well. I am traveling with my son for 2 weeks in Australia. While it is awesome to visit new places and eat new foods, one of the things I look forward most about traveling is to get out of my everyday routine. While Australia is similar in culture to the US there are many differences here “Down Under”. One of them is driving on the left side of the road with the driver’s seat on the right. This is made even more challenging as the car we have is a manual transmission, so I have been shifting with my left hand. In addition, the turn ..read more