One of a Few Common Chronic Diseases That We Are Now More Likely to Face Advances in research have helped the U.S. enjoy decreasing rates of several chronic diseases over the past 3 decades.  Autoimmune disease has been a notable exception to this trend increasing rather dramatically.  This trend has been broad with sharp increases […]

In the last several blogs we looked at the research on the human microbiome which corresponds to the onset of the many diseases that become more prevalent with age.  Keep in mind “with age” does not mean after the age of 60-70 but rather gradually beginning between age 30-40. This shift is hallmarked by the […]

In the previous blogs we discussed the interesting work on altering the microbiome with fecal medical transplant (FMT) to correct inflammation, inflammatory related disease, diabetes, and other chronic health problems.  The results are pretty dramatic.  The problem is that FMT requires endoscopy/colonoscopy, cost and further FDA approval.  Right now it is only approved to treat […]

A parallel observation occurring as humans age and develop the common age related diseases is that the intestinal microbiome shifts to a different population.  That begs the question whether these are simply unrelated changes or does one contribute to the other.  In the previous blog I discussed the interesting study which found that fecal medical […]

Day two of the conference I discussed in the last blog concentrated on the microbiome which is this enormous population of micro-organisms such as bacteria that live in and on us.  The microbiome has been known to exist for many decades but was poorly understood until heavily researched in the last 20 years.  One of […]

It Is More About How They Are Turned On Or Off I participated in a conference this past week on the role of epigenetics in health and disease and how our lifestyle affects that.  Epigenetics simply means “above the gene”.  Our 30,000 genes harbor many mutations that can increase our disease risks.  These risks, however, […]

I have written past blogs regarding the potential adverse impact of the use of proton pump inhibitors, the drugs commonly used for reflux.  These problems evolve slowly over time with ongoing use which obscured them during the clinical trials that led to the approval of these drugs as they tended to be shorter term studies. […]

The human microbiome, or the microbes that live in and on us are vast and diverse.  These microbes number 100 trillion with the majority residing in the digestive tract. For a perspective on 100 trillion, the number of microbes in the human microbiome is 10 times greater than the number of our own cells. As […]

The hallmark of good healthcare is that it is “evidence-based”.  This simply means that decisions in care and preventative strategies are largely based on quality scientific evidence rather than empirical information.  This is not to say that empirically based knowledge, that based only on practical experience, is not important but that scientifically derived evidence tends […]

There is a tendency for us to have progressive inflammatory activity as we age.  This inflammation is a part of virtually every chronic disease from heart disease to cancer to autoimmune disease.  As would be expected all of these diseases become progressively more common with age in parallel to what is happening with inflammation.  This […]