Nutrition & Lifestyle

The Leapfrog Effect: New Tech Moves Tests, Treatments Out of the Clinic

By Erik Goldman

For a lot of people these days, medical clinics are no longer the center of the healthcare equation like they were in the past: their smartphones are now the point of focus. An astonishing number of medical tests, treatments, and services have jumped out of the clinic and into peoples’ daily lives via their computers, […]

Maybe She’s Just Tired, Maybe It’s Undiagnosed Iron Deficiency

By Lourdes Medrano

(Originally published on Aug 24, 2024 by www.undark.org) About three years ago, Soumya Rangarajan struggled day after day with exhaustion, headaches, and heart palpitations. As a frontline hospital doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic, she first attributed her symptoms to the demands of an unprecedented health care crisis. But a social media post got Rangarajan thinking […]

Can Curcumin Attenuate Type 2 Diabetes? You Beta!

By Erik Goldman

Daily supplementation with 1,500 mg of curcumin extract reduced fasting blood glucose, lowered hemoglobin A1c, and improved pancreatic β-cell function in obese people with type 2 diabetes. Those are the topline findings from a recent, year-long, placebo-controlled trial, involving 229 participants. Curcumin-treated patients also got a small but significant bonus benefit: weight loss. “We believe […]

In Memoriam: Norman Shealy, MD

By Erik Goldman

“To me, everything is energy.” That’s the sort of statement one would expect from a shaman, or perhaps a theoretical physicist, not from a neurosurgeon. But Norman Shealy was not a typical neurosurgeon. Over a clinical and research career spanning nearly 70 years, Dr. Shealy challenged and expanded the boundaries of neuroscience in ways that […]

Folic Acid: Too Much of a Good Thing?

By Gil Winkelman, ND, Contributing Writer

It is time to rethink how we’re using folate, and its derivatives, methylfolate and folinic acid. Recent research suggests that people who routinely take more than 1000 μg of folic acid per day may be at increased risk of cognitive decline, asthma, impaired immune function, and certain types of cancer (Fardous AM, et al. Nutrients. […]

A Good Relationship Gone Bad: Recognizing & Restoring Health in GI Candidiasis

By Erik Goldman

Candida is a commensal microorganism living in the digestive tract of the vast majority of our patients. For most, it causes no harm. But certain common lifestyle factors and medication exposures promote overgrowth of Candida species, leading to a fungal-predominant dysbiosis with sometimes severe systemic symptoms. Candidal overgrowth is often an important piece of the chronic illness […]

Be Alert for Drug-Induced Magnesium Depletions

By Meg Sinclair, Staff Writer

Be on the lookout for drug-induced magnesium depletions. That’s one of the major messages from a comprehensive new paper on the clinical impact of magnesium deficiencies recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Many of the most widely prescribed drugs, including diuretics, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), and certain antibiotics, can cause magnesium wasting. […]

South Park’s Scathing Critique of US Healthcare

By Erik Goldman, Editor

The End of Obesity, a new episode of the viciously satirical cartoon series, South Park, is a merciless excoriation of American healthcare, one that has some physicians commenting that the show is more documentary than parody. Currently running exclusively on Paramount Plus, this latest installment of the long-running show centers on the rotund Eric Cartman, […]

Fraudulent Research Floods Nutrition Field, Corroding Credibility

By Erik Goldman, Editor

Good medical practice is based on trust. Patients trust that practitioners are knowledgeable, and that they use their knowledge intheir patients’ best interests. In turn, practitioners trust that researchers run their studies honestly, and that editors and peer-reviewers of the medical journals carefully scrutinize the papers they receive, sift out the garbage, and only publish […]

Natural Alternatives to Ozempic

By Erik Goldman

GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy have rapidly become some of the most widely prescribed drugs for weight loss and metabolic disorders. While they can sometimes be valuable aids in helping people normalize their weight and their glucose metabolism, the mechanism of action for these drugs can have some unhealthy consequences. Many people are […]