Cycle of Symptoms

By Carolyn Dean MD, ND: I’ve observed a disturbing trend among some clients who consult with me. I’ve even heard similar stories from cab drivers and customer-service people who are being treated for heart disease with no relief. I call it “domino drug therapy.” Here’s the scenario:

1. You experience a tremendously stressful event or series of events in your life. Here’s a partial list: surgery, a death in the family, divorce, job loss, sickness of a child, foreclosure, hospitalization or even running a marathon!

2. As a result, you experience headaches, insomnia, achiness in your body and exhaustion.

3. You visit your doctor for reassurance that you don’t have something wrong. But you’re nervous on top of your stress so your blood pressure is elevated. It’s called “the white coat syndrome.”

4. Your HMO doctor is an hour behind schedule and doesn’t have time to ask about your stress levels or find out that you haven’t slept well or eaten a decent meal in three weeks.

Continue reading »

Dr. Christiane Northrup on Aging

“Dr. Lydia Bronte, former director of The Aging Society Factor at Carnegie Corporation and author of The Longevity Factor, says most of us have 3 different careers: one in our 40s, another in our 50s and early 60s and still another in our 70s. Almost half had a major peak of creativity beginning at about age 50 and in many cases lasting 25 to 30 years.”

DNA + Lifestyle = New DNA

By Dr. David Katz, Director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center

We have long known that lifestyle has a powerful influence on health across a wide array of outcomes. It is not news to you that eating well, being active, controlling your weight, managing stress and not smoking, for instance, can influence your fate.

But we have tended to think in terms of “nature versus nurture” — with lifestyle and genetic influences on health as independent and potentially competing forces. This study, and others like it, ostensibly change the game. They suggest that lifestyle and genetics are not independent after all, but interact. Even our genes are influenced by lifestyle choices. We can, it seems, nurture nature.

To a Preventive Medicine specialist like me, this is of profound importance. Complacency and fatalism are enemies of disease prevention. For many people, the notion that their medical destiny is written in their genes is a disincentive to take matters into their own hands.

Continue reading »

The Potentially Adverse Effects of Prescription Drugs

“Discovering dangers of prescription drugs after they have been marketed to the medical community and public is common. Generally, 51% of FDA-approved drugs have serious adverse effects not detected prior to approval.(1) Each year prescription drugs injure 1.5 million people so severely they require hospitalization. In addition, prescription drugs cause 100,000 deaths annually.(2) With these numbers, how can the public be protected from dangerous drugs?

A recent study in JAMA examined the incidence of serious and fatal adverse drug reactions (ADR) in hospital patients. An ADR is any harmful, unintended, or undesired effect of a drug. This definition does not include drug abuse nor intentional or accidental drug overdose.(2) The results of this study were conclusive: the rate of severe and deadly adverse drug reactions in U.S. hospitals was found to be extremely high—high enough that ADRs ranked fourth, after heart disease, cancer, and stroke, as a leading cause of death in the U.S.(2)

Continue reading »

About Our Practice

Your health is your most valuable asset. We combine traditional medicine with complementary treatments and lifestyle approaches to seamlessly integrate your health care into your daily life. Our goal is to provide you a level of service that inspires and creates your optimal well being.

Our practice offers a comprehensive, individual approach to family care. We treat the whole person, body and mind, not just the medical issue of the day. Whether your needs are preventive or diagnostic, we will create a unique plan to serve your immediate and long-term goals. Some of our varied services include:

Investigate This Site.…..Schedule a Visit