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In part 3 of my interview with Ashley Koff, R.D.,we talk about calories and how Ashley really pays attention to the nutrient value rather than calories and she calls meals “Eating Occurrences”.  Eating occurrences are not what we normally consider  a meal but eating every 3 hours rather than gigantic meals all at once.

This is the opposite of “backloading” which is eating small all day and then having a gigantic dinner with snacks the rest of the night. This prevents people from saying  “ I can go all day without food but then at 3pm I need my sugar. 

Ashley’s 4 tenets for healthy eating are

1.Quality,
2. Quantity,
3.Frequency and
4. Nutrient balance.

Food allergies are then discussed and the role of GMO’s in contributing to this. Our bodies are getting all sorts of things in modern food that it does not know how to deal with. This causes the body to become less efficient and irritated. Food intolerances are a wake up call –Your body is telling you it is so irritated that is not accepting the food you are putting into it.

So we use a simple bland diet for a while to clear the cobwebs so to speak and then try the foods again. Often you will be able to eat many of the foods that you thought you were allergic to.  [Read more…]

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This is part 2 of my interview with Ashley Koff RD on the importance of good diet for our health

We talk about her two books, Recipes for IBS and Mom Energy: A Simple Plan to Live Fully Charged which she wrote with Kathy Kaehler, who is a celebrity trainer. 

25 million people have IBS and that is why Ashley wrote a book on the dietary approach to helping patients with IBS. Ashley wanted her book to be called Digestive Wellness and that is what it is really about. 

In her new book Mom Energy: A Simple Plan to Live Fully Charged. In this book she talks about how fatigue is one of the main complaints in our society.  She talks about how people are confusing MORE energy with Better energy. We want to learn what a good baseline energy for us. Her book is much more than just the mother with children but really anybody who needs to give out a lot of energy.

She points out that in the name of being a mom, women are often rewarding themselves with food. She talks about the importance of being selfish so that you can take care of yourself and that you can then take better care of your children and family. In our society the idea being selfish is regarded as negative, but that is not really the way it should be. This will let women be better in their own lives and better for others.

The simple analogy is that on an airplane you are advised that if the oxygen masks drop down you are to put it on yourself before your children so that you can properly take care of them.  [Read more…]

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Ashley Koff RD is a registered dietitian that I have worked with in my office for over five years. Often I give my patient's special diets in order to help improve their health. This can range from a "leaky gut" diet to a diet to reduce overgrowth of yeast in the digestive tract. 

As a physician, I often do not have the time to go over the details of the diet and certainly do not have the time to help them with direct menu planning. I'm very fortunate to have Ashley working with me to help implement the diets that I prescribe for patients. As a Registered Dietitian, she is able to sit down with the patient  and go over the diet and menu planning in detail and answer all their questions because of her familiarity with all the integrative medicine types of diets that we use.

In this first part of my interview, Ashley and I discuss what is the difference between a registered dietitian and nutritionist?

We then go on to talk about why a doctor would refer her a patient and what her role is working with the physician such as she does with me. We talk about how she helps my patients. And how she allows email follow-up for her patients. She helps people find what works for them with diet not just a rigid following of a program on a piece of paper. 

Ashley works with me and other physicians around the country and helps our patients “implement” the diets the doctors prescribe.   [Read more…]

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Happy new year to all my listeners and readers and lets make this a year  of Enlightened Medicine, Conscious Living and Compassionate healing.

In this part two of my interview with Dr. Walter Crinnion we continue to discuss the ubiquitous phthalates, and how Conscious Living can help us minimize our exposure to them.

We talk about several studies that have shown it is easy to reduce your phthalate burden. And  a book that shows how the authors were able to reduce their own levels. The book is Slow Death By Rubber Duck

or you can get it on Kindle here

We also talk about Metametrix which is a laboratory where your doctor can order a test kit to measure your phthalate levels. We also talked about the dirty dozen at the environmental working group. The link to the environmental working group's safe cosmetics database is here.

[Read more…]

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I am delighted to bring you another interview with my colleague and friend Walter Crinnion, N.D. The subject for this podcast is phthalates.

Phthalates are plasticizers and they are used everywhere in our life. From plastic grocery bags to garden hoses to shower curtains to children's toys and food wrapping, we are all constantly being exposed to phthalates.

Phthalates are not like other environmental toxins. Most environmental toxins get in our body and are sequestered in our fat and do their mischief that way. Phthalates do not persist in our body and have a very short half-life of approximately one day. Therefore if you are able to avoid phthalates for just 5 days, levels of phthalates in your body will be markedly less.

In this interview we talk about how you can do that.

The link to the Environmental Working Group is here:

and their fabulous cosmetics database is here.

Phthalates are linked to many common medical conditions that we are seeing in our environment that appear to have no cause. This ranges from endometriosis, to uterine fibroids, to ADHD in children, to reduced fertility in men in our society, and all the way to breast cancer.

And yet, by just changing your environment with the products you use the foods you eat and cleaning up your house and personal care products your levels can significantly drop. In this interview you'll learn how women with the highest levels of phthalates in their body were four times more likely to get breast cancer. One would ask why the FDA does not regulate these products more closely. If there was a food that was causing a breast cancer rate increase of 400% certainly the FDA would become involved. [Read more…]

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I am just back from the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM) conference entitled Applying Functional Medicine to Detoxification. 

In this podcast, I share with you my excitement about the many things that I learned that complement what I already do in my practice of medicine.

The speakers included Dr. Kristi Hughes, ND, (pictured above with me) who is the Associate Medical Director of the Institute for Functional Medicine. She organized a wonderful conference with three other speakers.

The speakers were Dr. Jeanne Drisko MD, Kenneth Bock, MD, and Rick Mayfield, ND. The four doctors taught us about how environmental toxicity is overwhelming our body's ability to cope with the toxins and contributing to the development of the wealth of diseases that we see in today's society.

Dr. Bock is a famous physician who is treating autistic patients with great success. He pointed out to us that one in 91 children are being diagnosed with autism. One in 11 children are being diagnosed with ADHD, and one out of every four children suffers from respiratory or other allergies. [Read more…]

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I am delighted to bring you this new podcast of my interview with my colleague Dr. Neal Barnard, discussing the organization of which he is the founder and president, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. (PCRM)

They have over 12,000 physician members and over 120,000 lay members.

PCRM does clinical research and work with diets to see how diet can benefit diabetes and heart disease and other major diseases.

The other side of PCRM is the ethical side. They look at why medical researchers still use animals for experiments that could be better accomplished without animals.

After much work, PCRM has virtually eliminated the use of animals by most medical schools for teaching medical students. 

PCRM brings in non-animal techniques to do research which is now very validated. With modern techniques such as tissue banks which are very sophisticated research can be done without using animals. [Read more…]

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In today's show I have the privilege of interviewing Dr. Neal Barnard, on the subject of a whole food plant based diet.

As many of you know, I have been a vegetarian for the last 40 years. But starting May of this year after taking the course at Cornell University for health professionals on a whole food plant based diet I changed to being a vegan. My health improved, my well-being improved, and very importantly to me, my cholesterol improved without the use of pharmaceutical drugs.

Dr. Bernard and the organization he founded and of which he is still the president is the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, is an organization that educates doctors and patients about the benefits of a whole food plant based diet.

http://www.pcrm.org/

Dr. Bernard has been the author of many books including the most recent 21 – Day Weight Loss Kickstart, which is a book which helps people try a vegan diet for 21 days. Within 21 days most people will notice improvement in their health but this diet. [Read more…]

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In today's show I review some of the latest findings on the relationship of vitamin D to many increasing problems in our country and the world. As you know the Vitamin D winter has begun for the northern two thirds of the United States and for all of Canada and northern Europe.

I am delighted that Fraser health care home residents will now be getting vitamin D on a regular basis. This is a “ nursing home" in British Columbia, Canada. At least 200,000 falls are recorded in seniors each year in British Columbia and they expect that number to double as baby boomers age. Vitamin D is associated with an increased incidence of falls and the resultant consequences which can often include death for the senior that breaks their hip.

They will be giving the residents  20,000 IU weekly of vitamin D and then following them over time to see if the incidence of fractures is reduced.  I am very excited about this project as I think it is necessary that all seniors be given an adequate dose of vitamin D not only to protect against osteoporosis but also to reduce the incidence of falls and fractures. As many of you know I've written about this in my book and in my blog posts. [Read more…]