October 23, 2022

Simple Health Hacks To Get You on Track

Life can get in the way of you doing the things you know you should do to be healthy. Luckily, there are simple hacks you can try to get back on track and stay there. As a person who prioritizes wellness, you already know you should prioritize healthy foods, stay hydrated, move your body often and get plenty of sleep for optimal health. But following a healthy lifestyle is a juggling act full of distractions and diversions. Sometimes you drop the ball on healthy habits. You may have to work through lunch and end up eating from the vending machine. […]
October 22, 2022

The Compassionate Connection

Why is it so hard for us to connect on a deep level with others, particularly those who are suffering? We constantly find ourselves interrupted and inundated with tasks and stresses. We are disconnected, sleepwalking through our lives, unable to help even ourselves. There is a better way. In The Compassionate Connection: The Healing Power of Empathy and Mindful Listening, Dr. David Rakel explains how we can strengthen our bonds with others—all the while doing emotional and physical good for ourselves. As founder and director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine program, Dr. Rakel discovered that we become the […]
October 22, 2022

Halloween Trick and No Treat?

You didn’t really think I’d support eating the sweets did you? Nope, not even for one of the ‘sweetest’ holidays of the year. You have to stay persistent at being consistent. Now, don’t get me wrong! I think I have the worst sweet tooth out there. So advising you to not eat sweets is like asking me not to breathe? Or telling me not to shave my head! (It wouldn’t be pretty) Once again (can you hear the broken record?) it’s all about moderation and allowance. You are surely not going to eat an entire basket of treats like you […]
October 11, 2022

How To Go Gluten-Free as a Senior

As awareness of gluten issues grow, more and more people – including seniors – are being diagnosed with celiac disease and gluten allergies. While learning to live a gluten-free lifestyle can be daunting to anyone, it provides unique challenges to seniors over age 65. Here, we address some challenges seniors going gluten-free may grapple with. GETTING DIAGNOSED WITH A GLUTEN SENSITIVITY Once considered a disease that affects mainly children, doctors now know that gluten issues can affect anyone at any age. But for older people who may be grappling with other health issues, getting a proper diagnosis can be tricky […]
September 25, 2022

8 High Fiber Gluten-Free Foods You Should Be Eating

One of the downsides of following a strict gluten-free diet is that you lose a lot of your fiber sources, as many fiber-rich foods are wheat-based. Fiber is an important part of a healthy diet for numerous reasons: It helps maintain an environment of healthy gut bacteria It helps with constipation It aids in healthy cholesterol and blood pressure levels It helps treat belly bloat It makes you feel fuller for longer It helps you maintain a healthy weight It helps avoid complications like heart disease, diabetes, and colon cancer Long story short: fiber is crucial. Studies show the average […]
September 25, 2022

Okinawans Know the Secrets of Long Life

This is the first in our 5-part series on life in the “Blue Zones,” where people live longer, healthy lives. Each part will look into the diets and lifestyles of the areas where longevity is a normal part of aging better. Who doesn’t want to know their secrets? Okinawa has a population that has been researched in-depth due to the fact that it’s been ranked as one of the top life expectancy locations in the world for several years in a row. The island of Okinawa, off the coast of Japan, is considered a “Blue Zone” which is a geographical […]
September 25, 2022

Undoing Medical Myths: Lies My Doctor Told Me

Has your doctor lied to you? Eat low-fat and high-carb, including plenty of “healthy” whole grains—does that sound familiar? Perhaps this is what you were told at your last doctor’s appointment or visit with a nutritionist, or perhaps it is something you read online when searching for a healthy diet. And perhaps you’ve been misled. Ken Berry, MD, FAAFP is here to dispel the myths and misinformation that have been perpetuated by the medical and food industries for decades. Dr. Berry’s bestseller, Lies My Doctor Told Me: Medical Myths That Can Harm Your Health, exposes the truth behind all kinds […]
September 25, 2022

What is Osteoporosis And Why You Should Care?

Osteoporosis is a quiet condition that occurs slowly over time as we all get older. It is usually not discovered until we start breaking bones from simple falls or less. All of us are born with thin bones, and as we grow, our bones grow and thicken. So, when Mom said “eat your veggies and drink your milk to grow up big and strong,” she was telling the truth. Microscopically, bones are built like steel-girder bridges or scaffolds, lots of bone girders holding up our bodies. Our bones should be their strongest by about age 30. After that, our bones […]
August 30, 2022

Beneficial Saffron Is the ‘Queen of Spices’

Saffron is a spice sometimes referred to as “red gold” or “the queen of spices” with some impressive potential health benefits. It is one of the most expensive spices in the world, mostly due to its costly production and labor-intensive harvesting process. Saffron originated in the Mediterranean region and has long been used as a traditional spice, coloring agent, and medicine. In addition to adding a vibrant golden color to dishes, saffron adds a subtly sweet and floral flavor. Many of saffron’s health benefits stem back to its high levels of three powerful antioxidants which may play an important role […]
August 29, 2022

Your Body Needs Many Different Antioxidants for Optimum Health

I see patients all the time who are confused about antioxidants. Often they think if they take vitamin C, they’ve got their bases covered. This just isn’t the case. To understand why, let’s take a deeper look at how your body works. When you eat food, the process your body uses to convert it to energy creates byproducts called free radicals. These free radicals are reactive molecules. When they encounter a healthy cell, they damage it and also create more free radicals. This process happens all through your body both in water-based tissues and in fat-based tissues. Your body uses antioxidants to clean up […]
August 16, 2022

Walking May Help Reshape Damaged Heart Tissue

Just 30 minutes of running on a treadmill can reshape damaged heart tissue, researchers have found in a study which proved that exercise could be just as important for heart health as controlled cholesterol and a healthy diet. The findings showed that just a single session of endurance exercise – activities that increase breathing and heart rate such as walking, jogging, swimming – increased the expression of genes that are used to repair damaged DNA and helped remodel heart tissue. “The genes that are important for genome stability are up-regulated in the heart tissue after a single bout of endurance […]
July 30, 2022

Diet for the Mind Fights Memory Loss

As we age, our brains age too. Our ability to think slows down, and we may experience occasional difficulty in, for example, recalling where we left our keys or retrieving a word or name. By all accounts, this is considered a normal degree of cognitive decline. Several factors play into whether you will suffer from cognitive decline or develop Alzheimer’s disease as you age — lifestyle, health conditions, environment, and genetics, for example. But there is scientific evidence indicating that diet plays a bigger role in brain health than we ever thought. And thanks in part to Dr. Martha Clare […]
July 30, 2022

Pursue Your Passions & Grow Bolder Not Older

Remember when you were a kid and your parents, or some older relative, teacher, neighbor, etc, told you to “act your age” when you were just enjoying yourself? What it really meant, though, was to act more mature, or older, than you were and forego the fun as well.  As a result, many of us learned at an early age to put enjoyment by the wayside in an effort to behave the way everyone told us we should for our age. Now that you’re older, acting your “age”, for some, may mean sitting around watching television but to others it […]