The Joint Principles established by the AAFP, AAP, AOA and ACP, which form the basis of the medical home certification process, define a PCMH as a practice that meets the following core criteria:
Parental concerns about their own fat intake should not necessarily define diets for their children. While childhood obesity is clearly a major public health problem, it is important to remember that young children need certain amounts of dietary fat. Forcing children to adhere to adult weight loss regimens is not necessarily the best way to address the childhood obesity problem.
Roughly 1 in 7 American couples have difficulty conceiving, and each year they spend between $2-3 billion on fertility drugs, assisted reproduction, and other medical services. In many cases, drug based interventions can be avoided through greater attention to the couple’s nutritional status and stress level, both of which profoundly affect fertility.
Lipoic Acid, Green Tea Extract, and Fish Oils are among the cornerstone supplements for helping people improve their glucose metabolism and preventing diabetes.
A combination of alpha lipoic acid, selenium and silymarin (Milk Thistle) can greatly improve liver function and overall health in people with Hepatitis C, thus averting the need for conventional drug therapy or liver transplant.
The return to breast-feeding in the US has had an unintended consequence: Rickets. This skeletal disease, which arises from vitamin D deficiency, is on the rise, and Centers for Disease Control experts attribute it to a combination of breast-feeding (breast milk is very low in vitamin D) and melanoma prevention efforts that encourage parents to keep their kids out of the sun.
The large scale NORVIT trial surprised the medical world by showed no meaningful cardiovascular benefit from lowering homocysteine with folic acid and B vitamins. Though the lead investigator confidently pronounced that the homocysteine hypothesis is dead, others are not so sure.
Linoleic acid and other polyunsaturated “good” fats can inhibit the growth of Helicobacter pylori, the bug that contributes to development of peptic ulcers. The research suggests that reducing saturated fat and increasing polyunsaturates may be a good way to control ulcers.
There are some major design flaws in the NORVIT trial, which suggested that there’s little cardiovascular benefit to lowering homocysteine with folic acid therapy. Don’t throw out your folic acid yet!
Many people who end up in doctors’ offices have nutritional deficiencies, including deficiencies in protein, B vitamins, and magnesium that markedly impact their overall health status. These deficiencies are easily reversed, if only physicians would think about them.
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