August 1, 2017

Olive Oil Intake Associated With Better Memory

Findings from a study reported on June 21, 2017 in the  Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology indicate a potential protective role for extra virgin olive oil consumption against the development of Alzheimer’s disease.  Olive oil is a prominent component of the Mediterranean diet and has been suggested by some researchers to be the reason behind the diet’s beneficial effects. “The thinking is that extra virgin olive oil is better than fruits and vegetables alone, and as a monounsaturated vegetable fat it is healthier than saturated animal fats,” commented lead investigator Domenico Praticò, MD, who is a Professor in the Departments of […]
July 25, 2017

Plants That May Help Boost Sexual Performance

The earliest humans used plants for medicine as well as for food. By medieval times, people were making huge amounts of money trading spices around the globe. People wanted to make their food taste good, of course. But the perceived medicinal benefits also were extremely important. According to author Jack Turner, “In the medieval mind, spices and medicine were effectively one and the same. Not all drugs were spices, but all spices were drugs.” An 11th-century monk named Constantine wrote that ginger, cinnamon, galangal (a root related to ginger) and pepper could be used to treat impotence. Indeed, the search […]
July 25, 2017

Flax Seed: Be Healthy, Stay Safe

Dear Health-Minded Readers, Lately, several of my patients have asked me about adding flaxseed to their diets. They’ve heard a lot about the important health benefits of Omega-3 fats and that flaxseeds are high in these good fats. While I agree that adding Omega-3 fats by adding flaxseeds to your diet is highly beneficial, you also need to exercise a little caution in doing so. Let me explain. The Health Benefits of Flax Seeds Flaxseed is truly a miraculous food with many health benefits that are varied and include the following: Rich in alpha linoleic acid. A rich Omega-3 fat, which […]
July 24, 2017

We’re Going Nuts for Plant-Based Milks

The dairy aisle used to be so simple—whole milk, low fat milk, non-fat milk, half and half, cream and maybe goat’s milk if it was a health food store. With the growing number of people with lactose intolerance, or those following a vegan diet, the consumption of plant-based ‘milks’ has been expanding by about 11 percent each year since 1999. Consumption of cow’s milk has declined by 25 percent since 1975, according to Cooking Light Magazine. Cow’s milk was for decades considered an almost perfect food with 8g protein, 460 mg potassium (13% of the RDA), 35% of the RDA […]
July 18, 2017

Poor Diet May Fuel Alzheimer’s Disease

The University of Southern California issued the following news release: A diet high in cholesterol, fat and sugar may influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease in people who carry the ApoE4 gene, a leading risk factor for the memory-erasing disease, indicates a new USC study. The study on mice, published June 12 in the journal eNeuro, is the latest to explore the association between obesity and Alzheimer’s disease, both of which are associated with inflammation and both of which affect millions of people. For the study, researchers at the USC Davis School of Gerontology compared the effects of a poor […]