Jack Frost does more than nip at your nose … he nips at your whole body, leaving about 81 million Americans suffering from dry, cracked skin each winter, according to the National Health Interview Survey.

Dry winter air and frigid temperatures can strip your skin of oils and water, damaging the protective outer layer. Once the protective layer is damaged, your skin can quickly become cracked, itchy and irritated. Dr. Lisa Benest, a board certified dermatologist, explains on The National Skin Care Institute’s Web site:

“The Department of Dermatology at the University of Iowa Hospital describes healthy skin as “a multi-layer cake covered by a single sheet of clear plastic food wrap to keep it fresh.

The plastic food wrap prevents the frosting and underlying layers of the cake from drying out by preventing loss (evaporation) of the water from the cake into the air. It is the moisture in the cake that gives it its freshness. The outermost layer of the skin, which acts like the plastic food wrap and is about the same thickness, is called the stratum corneum.

The stratum corneum consists of dead skin cells embedded in a mixture of natural oils (lipids) that are made by underlying living skin cells. These natural skin oils keep the water inside our body from escaping into the air and also keep irritating substances and germs from entering the body.

Both the skin oils and the dead skin cells hold a certain amount of water in the stratum corneum and it is this stratum corneum water that helps keep the skin soft, pliable and smooth.”

Dry, cracked skin is not only painful; it can leave an opening for germs to enter your body. Fortunately, there are natural methods you can use to keep your skin supple and soft even in the middle of a cold, icy winter.

Click here to read more.

 

Chlorine is regularly used to disinfect public drinking water supplies, a measure public health officials stress is necessary to keep the water safe from various water-borne diseases. Yet, during the chlorination process toxic disinfection byproducts are created, many of which linger in the water you drink, shower and bathe with.

And while there are a total of 600 disinfection byproducts that have been identified by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists, legal limits for levels in tap water have been set for only 11 of them.

What is also concerning, as pointed out by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), is that legal limits, or MCL (Maximum Contaminant Level), for these toxins are “established as a balance between health, treatment cost and feasibility.” They are not, therefore, intended to be a true safe level of exposure. Instead, the MCL of a disinfection byproduct actually allows more contamination that the truly safe level, which is what the EPA calls its “public health goal.”

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It’s long been a mystery why so many non-smokers develop “smoker’s diseases” like lung cancer. Now that mystery may have been solved, thanks to research by Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge scientists.

H. Barry Dellinger, Ph.D., the Patrick F. Taylor Chair of Environmental Chemistry at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and colleagues detected a new type of air pollutant they call persistent free radicals (PFRs). While it’s long been known that free radicals, molecules that are highly damaging to cells in your body, exist in the atmosphere, most of them only exist for less than a second, then disappear.

PFRs, on the other hand, linger in the air and can travel over great distances. They form on airborne nanoparticles and other fine particle residues as gasses from smokestacks, exhaust pipes and household chimneys cool. What makes these particles unique, and especially dangerous, is the fact that they could have effects similar to those caused by tobacco smoke.

“Free radicals from tobacco smoke have long been suspected of having extremely harmful effects on the body,” Dellinger said on Physorg.com. “Based on our work, we now know that free radicals similar to those in cigarettes are also found in airborne fine particles and potentially can cause many of the same life-threatening conditions. This is a staggering, but not unbelievable result, when one considers all of diseases in the world that cannot currently be attributed to a specific origin.”

Click here to read more.

Many of my patients and readers participated in the online Gluten Summit that occurred some weeks ago. In all, over 100,000 people participated.

Slowly but surely we are bringing awareness to people at large about how gluten can affect our health.

Dr. Tom O’Bryan, the organizer of the summit has quoted from an article in the medical literature that shows that, on average, from the time an important medical discovery is made, to its implementation in the general practice of medicine, takes 17 years!

We want to move Gluten Awareness along faster than that!

Continuing in the trend of The Gluten Summit there is now a follow-up webinar, that also will be free, entitled”Now That You Know, Where Do You Go?”

This will be a 90 minute webinar to guide those who watched the Summit, through the process of using the information that they learned in the Gluten Summit. Because we recognize that most symptoms are the last straw of a system out of balance, the goal of this webinar is to guide the attendees into asking questions of themselves and their doctors.

In the webinar, they will cover step-by-step instructions for as many paths as possible, on an understanding of the diagnosis and treatment of non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Here is the full information about the free webinar:

SUBJECT: Free Gluten Webinar with Dr. Tom O’Bryan

Registration for the follow-up webinar for The Gluten Summit is now open!

CLICK THIS LINK TO REGISTER FOR FREE:

The Now That You Know, Where Do You Go? webinar will tell you what to do with the information learned during The Gluten Summit about gluten-related disorders. More specifically, it will answer such questions as:

What tests should I take to see if I have a disorder?
How do I convince my doctor to order the tests?
Could it be gluten? Or dairy? Or another food triggering symptoms?
When should I take the tests?
How do I get them?
How do I interpret the results?
What if my results come back positive for a gluten-related disorder?
What testing options are available outside of the U.S.?

Not everyone will take the same route, so Dr. Tom O’Bryan of theDr.com will cover the step-by-step instructions for as many paths to diagnosis as possible!

DATES: January 30 – February 2, 2014
TIME: Begins January 30,10:00 A.M. U.S. EST, available 24/7 through February 2
LENGTH: 90 minute audio with video
REGISTRATION: FREE!

You don’t want to miss this FREE, online event available
from January 30 – February 2!

CLICK THIS LINK TO REGISTER FOR FREE TODAY:

See you there!

For those of you who missed the original Gluten Summit but are interested in buying the videos/audios to watch at home,you can find it at this link.

I am seeing miracles in my practice with the testing and treatment I am doing for non-celiac Gluten Sensitivity. If you or your family or friends is suffering from a chronic health condition, whether it has a formal name or not, please encourage them to see their own physician (for my patients, that is ME!) for proper Gluten-sensitivity testing.

In November of last year I participated in Health Interactive, a live event regarding healthy living that occurred in Santa Monica California.

I was on a panel with John La Puma, M.D. and Robin Berzin, M.D. entitled “Your Health Questions Answered‚ÄìLive.”

The invitation said “Join two world-renowned integrative physicians for a live Q&A session where you will have the chance to have your health related questions answered by the experts. This is a rare opportunity to interact with two brilliant voices who are the transformation of medicine.”

It was a “speed answer” format and each of us had one minute to answer every question. The entire meeting was 30 minutes.

We covered a range of questions from the the people in attendance as well as from Twitter feeds!

Some the questions were:

1. A skin reaction to food.

2. Problems with weight loss and sleeping.

3. Questions about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.

4. Treatment of autoimmune disease.

5. Soy and men’s health.

6. Optimal levels of vitamin D.

As well as other subjects.

Here is the video:

Please let me know what you think of the video and if you like it please send it to your friends and spread the word about the benefits of Integrative Medicine!

It’s the dreaded “F-word” — FAT. Many of us are consumed with it … gaining it, fearing it and doing just about anything to get rid of it. Yet we all have it. Even lean adults have 40 billion fat cells; those who are obese may have 80 billion to 120 billion. But it’s not only the amount of fat that makes the difference between being healthy and unhealthy, it’s the type of fat, and where it’s distributed in your body.

Visceral Fat Vs. Subcutaneous Fat

There are two types of fat: subcutaneous and visceral. Subcutaneous fat is the type found just underneath the skin, which may cause dimpling and cellulite. Visceral fat, on the other hand, is located in the abdomen and surrounding vital organs. It can infiltrate the liver and other organs, streak through your muscles and even strangle your heart; and you can have it even if you appear to be thin.

It is the latter, visceral, fat that is linked to everything from bad cholesterol and hypertension to diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Click here to read more.

 

Stretching 4,500 miles from Venezuela to the tip of Chile are the Andes Mountains, drawing thousands of visitors each year to witness the longest mountain range along with one of the highest mountain peaks in the world.

Sadly, even remote parts of the world like this — long considered to be among the purest forms of nature — have been tainted by environmental pollutants. In a recent study researchers tested snow samples from Aconcagua Mountain in Argentina, considered the highest peak in the Andes at 22,834 feet high, and found traces of a toxic pollutant called PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls).

How PCBS are Making Their Way Into the Environment

PCBs are a mixture of 209 man-made chlorinated chemicals. They can enter the environment through air, water, and soil during their manufacture, use, and disposal; from accidental spills and leaks during their transport; and from leaks or fires in products containing PCBs.

Click here to read more.

Snow is one of nature’s most amazing, and breathtaking, feats. Few other weather systems are capable of causing such fury — grounded planes, traffic jams, closed schools — and such beauty — snow-covered ski slopes, fields blanketed in fresh white powder and, of course, snowflakes falling on Christmas morning — as snow.

Snow is also very interesting, more interesting than you may have thought, and the following facts are a perfect conversation piece to keep close with you during this winter season.

1. There are an average of 105 snow-producing storms in the continental United States each year.
2. Skiers have their own “snow language,” which was created back in the 1900s to describe different snow conditions. Some of the earlier terms included “fluffy snow,” “powder snow” and “sticky snow.” Later terms include “champagne powder,” “corduroy,” and “mashed potatoes.”

Click here to read more.

In my newsletters and in my podcast, I’ve discussed the importance of the friendly bacteria in our large intestine for our general health, not just for digestive health.

We now know that the population of our gut bacteria is unique to each of us. Moreover, we know that certain populations of bacteria predispose to digestive diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease. These trillions of microbes that live in our gut are called our “Gut Microbiome”. It is also known that these gut flora can predispose to obesity, diabetes and colon cancer.

Most recently however, scientists are realizing that our gut microbes can affect our neurology as well. This means they possibly may be impacting our cognition, our emotions and our mental health.

Now, excitingly, in new groundbreaking research, it has been shown that feeding mice a beneficial type of these bacteria can ameliorate autism–like symptoms. This is according to Prof. Rob Knight, who just authored a commentary piece about this research. This is the first research to show that a specific probiotic may be capable of reversing autism–like behaviors in mice.

This amazing research was just published in the medical journal,Cell, under the direction of Elaine Hsiao, from the California Institute of Technology.

The researchers found a way to make pregnant mice induce autism-like behavior and neurology in their offspring. The researchers found that the gut microbial population of the offspring differed significantly when compared with a group of control mice. Most importantly, when the mice with autism-like symptoms were given a specific microbe, known to bolster the immune system, the aberrant behaviors were reduced.

The authors of this commentary stated “The broader potential of this research is obviously an analogous probiotic that could treat subsets of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.”.

This research is in direct support of new work that has recently been undertaken by a newly formed organization called the Autism Microbiome Consortium, part of the American Gut Project. This interdisciplinary consortium has experts in a range of disciplines from psychology to epidemiology and it is investigating the autism-gut microbiome link.

My physician colleagues in integrative medicine who have been treating autism for years, have long used variations of probiotics to help their autistic patients. However, this new research is now academically proving the validity of this treatment approach.

If you have family or friends who have an autistic child, they can have their child’s gut microbome sequenced by contacting the American Gut Project, which is a crowd funded research effort.

Main Article

California Institute of Technology Article

Big News

Money is at the root of many marital arguments, even in a normal economy. But right now especially, as unemployment rates skyrocket and savings accounts are dwindling, the heightened financial stress is taking an extra toll on many relationships.

In fact, according to a Harris Interactive poll, 38 percent of men and women said that money was the number-one cause of marital conflict … and that was in 2006 — before the economy really got bad. The bottom line is when finances get tight, an issue many couples are dealing with right now, it puts extra stress on your marriage. But that doesn’t mean your happiness or intimacy has to suffer. With the tips that follow you can be sure your marriage will survive these tough times, and may even come out stronger.

1. Avoid letting money become a control issue. If one partner earns more money than the other, it can feel as though they have more of an entitlement to the money, or in deciding how it’s spent. They don’t. As a couple, you need to make financial decisions together, regardless of who earns more.

Click here to read more.