Speaking of vitamin D and epigenetics, a new study has discovered that Australia is in the grip of a hidden vitamin D epidemic. My colleague and friend Dr. Michael Holick will be giving a conference in Sydney Australia next week to discuss this.

However Dr. Holick gave another exciting  bit of information from his recent research that he will be presenting. He said “For the first time, this study shows direct evidence that improving vitamin D levels plays a large role in improving immunity and lowering the risk for many diseases.”

Again a very broad gene expression analysis found that 290genes were altered simply by increasing vitamin D levels. He stated that “These291 genes are related to 80 biological pathways linked to cancer, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and cardiovascular disease”

He further went on to say “This study shows that vitamin Dis more than the bone health vitamin.”

We have always known this from the epidemiologic studies but now it is being proven on the Gene level.

This is so exciting to me and I am delighted to be able to share this  with you in my newsletter.

Of note to my patients, I still cannot get the oncologists that I work with to test or give vitamin D to their cancer patients. In addition, I still cannot get the obstetricians I work with to measure or give vitamin D to their patients during pregnancy. I hope these doctors are reading this newsletter!

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

For thousands of years, the Yogis have passed on through their tradition, which was relayed to me personally by my teacher Yogi Bhajan ,that meditation helps the body to heal. When I first started talking about this 30 years ago in my practice, my physician colleagues regarded me as a “quack”.As we all know time are rapidly changing. Now the doctors that used to criticize me are asking to study with me!  I am surely glad that they are opening themselves up to the Integrative approach to medicine.

In this issue of my newsletter I want to share with you one of the most exciting studies I have seen recently in the world of genetics.

In this study, a single training program of the RelaxationResponse – a form of meditation – has been found to alter gene expression that is involved in Inflammation, Energy Metabolism, and insulin secretion.

In this study done at Harvard, Herbert Benson and Towia Liberman, who is the director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Center, found that pathways involved with energy metabolism, particularly the function of mitochondria, are upregulated during the relaxation response.

Furthermore,pathways controlled by activation of a protein called NF Kappa B, which are known to have a prominent role in inflammation, stress, trauma and cancer were suppressed after the relaxation response session. The expression of genes involved in insulin pathways was also significantly altered.

These findings are absolutely so exciting to me and only enhance my commitment to bring products and services and information to my patients so that all of us may stay as healthy as possible.

Some of my patients have asked me to teach a meditation  class. If you are interested please let me know.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

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Well! The whole world is moving more and more in the direction of integrative medicine every day. Indeed, it is estimated that over 80% of all chronic diseases are caused by diet and lifestyle.

 

My New Website!

I’m happy to announce that I have a new website I’ve created called Integrative Medicine Update. It is a Digg style website, in which you and all your friends can add your own articles relevant to integrative medicine. If you want to see what’s the latest, just take a look at my new website!

Please let all your friends know as well. I want to build this up so that it is a go-to resource for people that want to know the latest in integrative medicine.

 Gluten Sensitivity and Leaky Gut

Many of you know, that we have a new blood test in the office for very accurate, scientific detection of patients who have “Non-celiac gluten sensitivity”. In addition we have an equally scientific test now. through blood to diagnose intestinal permeability problems which are called “leaky gut”. These tests in the forefront of this work are run by Cyrex Labs. You can read about them here.

 In this article that appeared in the news this week both of these diagnoses are approached rather skeptically. I do not all agree with that skepticism. Leaky gut and gluten sensitivity are indeed real and I’m changing my patients’ health every day by ordering tests to find out if they have these conditions and then fixing them!

 Take a look at this ARTICLE in the National News. 

 My Mistake in Sending to you without comment !

Several of my patients “called me” for allowing the article last week that encourage people to eat fish! I was aware of that article having fish as a “healthy food” and I should have put a note to all of you that I don’t agree. Most of you know that I think Mercury from fish, is a huge problem. I think it is only a matter of a few more years until the dangers of the mercury in fish,  will be on the national news in a bigger way.

 Please watch this newly published video from my friend, Michael Gregor, MD, documenting the dangers of Mercury, in this case especially for children. I agree with him that NO Mercury level is truly safe

 

More Alzheimer’s Disease

All of us baby boomers and even young patients in my practice are worried about Alzheimer’s disease, and I’m very happy that there is a good article written by my writers in this week’s issue.

It is now estimated that one in three seniors die with Alzheimer’s or dementia. You can read about it here.

In this article, it is estimated that costs associated with dementia amounted to over $200 billion in the United States in 2010 and is expected to increase nearly 80% per adult by 2014. This study was done by the RAND Corporation.

 You can read about it here.

It’s one thing to review all these depressing statistics. However I am one to inspire people to try to stay healthy and do preventive medicine. In that regard I highly recommend the book Power Foods for that Brain, by my colleague Neal Barnard, MD.

 You can buy the book here. You can get it on Kindle HERE. And you can get the DVD HERE.

The Articles in This Issue

I’m delighted with all the issues in this week’s issue from my writers:

1. The article on avoiding Alzheimer’s is extremely informative.

2. The water shortage crisis in America and the world is vastly under-looked. I am really glad my writers have written about this. Without sounding like a broken record, this is another push in the direction of all of us becoming vegetarians or vegan. As is pointed out in the article, growing 1 kg of potatoes requires only 100 Liters of water. 1 kg of beef requires 13,000 Liters of water. We can all do the math!

3. I left the third article on the seven nutrients Americans are most efficient in, in this newsletter. All of you who are my regular patients are fully covered on all these nutrients! However some of you may want to send this article to your friends.

4. We all need some smiles in our day!  The fourth article in this newsletter is about the best types of dogs for each type of function. One day they will need to write an article about the best types of dogs for each type of personality!

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter! Remember to follow me on Twitter and like me on Facebook. Remember to check out my new news website Integrative Medicine Update.

 To your good health,

 Dr. Soram