In a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, it was found that people who followed a vegetarian diet had a lower risk for death from any cause. In addition, specifically men, also saw benefits for cardiovascular mortality.

All cause mortality was reduced by 12% according to Michael Orlich, M.D. who is the principal investigator in the study.

In men,  cardiovascular mortality was significantly reduced by 29% as was death from coronary artery disease which was also reduced by 29%, in men who followed this diet.

The authors are quoted as saying “Vegetarian dietary patterns have been associated with reductions in risk for several chronic diseases, such as hypertension, metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus, and ischemic heart disease, which might be expected to result in lower mortality.”

This was a very large study which was why it was able to be published in JAMA. They looked at over 73,000 participants, whose mean age was 58 and roughly 2/3 of the participants were women.

The follow-up was for almost 6 years and over that time there were over 2000 deaths.

There were no obvious reductions in deaths from cancer according to the researchers.Interestingly, women had no significant reductions in deaths from cardiovascular disease.

The authors stated “The heterogeneous nature of cancer may obscure specific diet – cancer associations in analysis of combined cancer mortality, and lack of significance may reflect insufficient power to detect weaker associations at early follow-up.” This basically means because there are so many different types of cancers, that they would have needed an even larger group of people to find statistically significant connections with all the types of cancer.

Robert Baron MD of the University of California at San Francisco wrote an invited commentary to the article. In it he said, “First and foremost, dietary advice needs to be given to patients based on their own dietary history and preferences, their motivation to change their diet, and their clinical circumstances.”.

I totally agree with this last statement as you cannot force anybody to change their diet. It has to come from within them. I know all my patients and readers will agree with  that.

Source Article

I, and most physicians and scientists are just delighted that the Supreme Court has finally ruled unanimously against a private corporation’s ability to own a gene. Specifically, this landmark ruling centered on patents for just two breast cancer genes, BRCA1 in BRCA2 which were held by a company called Myriad Genetics based in Utah. Although hundreds of mutated forms of these genes have been found, only a few are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers. This was most recently brought to the forefront by actress Angelina Jolie who had a double mastectomy because she was positive on this gene testing.

This new decision by the Supreme Court will allow other companies to go into competition with Myriad Genetics, which will not only drive the price of the test down, but also allow innovation and expansion of testing capabilities. Their cost to the patient for this test has been $3000.

Nucleotides are the individual components of a gene. Justice Clarence Thomas in reading the opinion of the court stated “The location and order of the nucleotides existed in nature before Myriad found them.” This one sentence in the court’s opinion, explained why a company cannot own a gene.

Immediately following the Supreme Court’s ruling the cost of the BrCa test dropped to $995

See the Articles HERE and HERE

Wheat Belly Lose the Wheat, Lose the Wheat, and Find Your Path Back to Health is a very popular and controversial new book that has recently come out. In the last few months a new blood test for what is now called Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity has become available and I am doing this test on many patients at my office.

 In those patients who I find to be gluten sensitive, I’m seeing profound changes in their long-term health, and resolution of health problems that have been resistant to any other treatment from other physicians.

In addition, gluten sensitivity often creates what is popularly called “leaky gut”. This is an increase in the permeability of the lining of the small intestine. This condition is linked with many health problems including fatigue, headaches, gas, bloating, and all autoimmune diseases.

I encourage all of my patients and readers to consider giving up gluten for three months and then reintroducing it, to see if there’s any change in your health. For those in my practice, of course, you can ask me to do the gluten sensitivity and leaky gut blood tests for you when I see you in the office.

You can get the Wheat Belly book here 

or on Kindle here

Or for Busy people the 30 minute-read Summary kindle book here

It is estimated in the years ahead, that over that 50% of people over the age of 80 will have either Alzheimer’s or other type of dementia. Taking preventive measures while you are young and healthy, rather than waiting for a bad diagnosis, is what we should all be doing.

In addition dementia is now affecting more people under than age of 55 than ever before

In my practice, the thing that my patients fear the most at end-of-life is being demented and leaving a burden on their family for their care.

Basically, in his lectures, Dr Perlmutter explained how oxidative stress, which is like internal rusting, specifically in the mitochondria (the energy centers inside the cell), are a huge contributor to the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s disease. More and more medical articles are showing this.

In fact we now know that most chronic disease is linked in a causative way to oxidative stress. The most common example in our lives of oxidative stress is rusting. A major theory for the cause of all chronic disease aging is that we are “rusting” inside.

This is why for so long I have given antioxidants to my patients  and encouraged all my patients to eat fresh fruits and vegetables which are loaded with phytonutrients, which are mother nature’s antioxidants.

Dr. Perlmutter discussed this extensively in his lectures and showed us the biochemical pathways – which I will not bore you with – that lead to shrinking of the volume of a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is directly linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Some of the things he recommended to prevent age-related cognitive decline include:

1. Achieving an optimal body weight. In one study, at Kaiser Permanente, it was shown that individuals with high amounts of body fat were at an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease of 293%, compared to those with low body fat, when followed up 27 years after their initial valuation.

2. Take antioxidants, specifically coenzyme Q 10. He also discussed the new category of antioxidants which I am very excited about which are called Nrf2 activators. Please talk to me about this when you see me in the office, as I am recommending this to ALL of my patients over age 30.

3. Keep your homocysteine low. All of my patients know that I annually measure my patients’ homocysteine level. Elevated homocysteine is associated not only with heart disease but also cancer and now Alzheimer’s disease. Cardiologists are not paying attention to this important risk factor, nor are neurologists. But in one study, a homocysteine level of just 14 was associated with a doubling of the risk for Alzheimer’s disease according to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. When you come to the office ask me about your homocysteine level.

4. Countless studies have shown a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s disease in those who exercised aerobically regularly. In fact in one study it was shown that aerobic exercise increases the size of the brain’s most important memory structure as mentioned above, the hippocampus. And now a new article just published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health has just proven that Yoga improves brain function more than aerobic exercise! This is great news for all of us doing yoga on a daily basis.

We now have, in my office, technologies to measure your degree of oxidative stress and the tools to reduce it. I would be most happy to talk with you about these with your next office visit.

For more information about this I refer you to Dr. Perlmutter’s article for laypeople on the subject at this link.

And you can find his book called Power Up Your Brain here

Or on Kindle here

I want to be sure that all my patients saw the rather controversial article on the cover of the New York Times Magazine last week. It was about breast cancer and the whole conversation about whether mammograms done annually are helpful at all. The author Peggy Orenstein,  is a famous writer who is a breast cancer survivor. She brings out many interesting perspectives from both sides of the breast cancer story.

As you know, epidemiologic studies have shown that if every woman in America had a vitamin D blood level above 52 ng/mL,  we would  reduce the incidence of breast cancer by 50%. Some day when the drug companies are not watching this will appear on the front page of a  newspaper! 

Right now, I cannot get anybody in the breast cancer movement to hear me when I say this.

I believe that the whole thrust for breast cancer research should be on prevention, rather than all the money going to developing new chemotherapy.

I will appreciate your thoughts.

READ THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE HERE

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