News

Incidence of Celiac, Gluten Intolerance On the Rise, says Mayo Study

By John Otrompke, Contributing Writer

Approximately 1% of American Caucasians may now have celiac disease, according to a major epidemiologic survey by researchers at the Mayo Clinic. Once thought to be rare and largely marginalized by mainstream medicine, conditions like celiac disease and gluten intolerance are proving to be much more common—and serious—than previously thought. “It’s kind of ironic: we […]

In Heart Disease, Little Plaques Equal Big Risk

By Erik Goldman

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the large atherosclerotic plaques that cause most fatal cardiac events; it’s the small ones you really need to watch out for, says Steven Masley, MD, a functional medicine physician in St. Petersburg, FL. Large plaques cause angina, which are like the fire alarm signals of heart disease. But these […]

Omega-3 Maker Offers Innovative $5K Scholarship Opportunity

By Erik Goldman

Nordic Naturals, the nation’s leading fish oil manufacturer, recently announced an innovative scholarship program that offers new and returning college students the opportunity to win $5,000 toward their tuition. Entitled “Learn. Inspire. Change. 2013 What’s Essential™ Essay Scholarship,” the program asks students to put down in words—1000-1500 of ’em—what is essential to them, what inspires […]

Cold Sores? Think Yogurt!

By August West, Contributing Writer

Yogurt has the highest lysine content of any common food, and it can make for a good cold sore remedy, says Jim Roach, MD, founder of the Midway Center for Integrative Medicine, Midway, KY. Speaking at the Healthy Medicine Academy’s 2012 Advances in Cancer Strategies conference, Dr. Roach said that lysine is important for strengthening […]

Drug Therapy Has Little Value In Early Stage Hypertension

By Erik Goldman

Amid the clamor over metanalyses suggesting that organic veggies are no more nutritious than conventional, and that omega-3’s don’t reverse heart disease, another important metanalysis got totally overlooked: the one showing that anti-hypertensive drugs are largely ineffective in people with Stage 1 hypertension.

Lifestyle Summit: How to “Take the Chronic” Out of Illness?

By August West

Functional medicine pioneers including Drs. Jeffrey Bland, Susan Blum, Joel Evans, Wendy Warner, Mark Hyman and many others will gather in southern California at the end of September for the first-ever Lifestyle Medicine Summit. The goal? To share with clinicians from across the country, effective nutrition and exercise strategies that could–if widely implemented–greatly reduce the […]

Consumer Advocates Blast “Organic Traitors”

By Janet Gulland, Contributing Writer

The Organic Consumers Association, and other environmental health advocacy groups are taking to task a large number of food and beverage companies they view as “organic traitors” that have been cashing in on the organic movement while actively opposing GMO labeling initiatives. In it’s latest newsletter, OCA blasted the “gross hypocrisy and greed of large […]

Office-Based Exercise Testing a Boon for Primary Care

By Erik Goldman

Office-based exercise testing for cardiovascular risk provides many potential benefits to patients, while creating much-needed new revenue for cash-strapped primary care practices, says Corey Evans, MD, a family physician at St. Anthony’s Primary Care in St. Petersburg, FL. “If you use the tools of stress testing plus intimal medial thickness measurement, you can do a […]

“Go Organic or Starve,” Investment Banker Tells World

By August West

“We have to go to an organic sustainable system or we’ll starve.” That’s not your typical granola munchin’, Prius-drivin’ food coop managin’ eco-citizen talking, but Jeremy Grantham, a highly successful investment banker, who just so happens to match keen financial instinct with an equally keen understanding of reality. In an article by Mark Bittman in […]