Modern humans have always had the belief, conscious or subconscious, that they could lead a less-than-optimal lifestyle and yet health care could prevent the ill effects.  This is particularly true thinking about medical care.  Why eat an optimal diet when the unhealthy food is so good?  Exercise is more effort than I want to put […]

Exercise has an important role both in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.  Understanding the mechanisms by which exercise helps bone density has important implications as to the most beneficial exercise pattern.  The relationship between exercise and bone health relates to mechanisms: Increased loading causes bone to undergo more remodeling increasing bone volume and density.  […]

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, […]

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 […]

As sugar consumption was found to be strongly associated with health risks such as obesity and diabetes, a simplistic solution seemed to be the use of non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NCAS) – we could have most things taste sweet with no harm.  The problem has been that after 3-4 decades of consumption of NCAS, both diabetes […]

The discussion of the changes to our diet over the past 100 years that are driving the many chronic diseases common in society can be complex.  However, there are a few indicators which are key and relatively easy to look at.  Perhaps the most important indicator is the sugar to fiber ratio or sugar:fiber.  A […]

Omega-3 fatty acids (FAs) are essential fatty acids.  This means that the body needs them for different functions, and they must be consumed as the body cannot make them from other sources.  Systems that are particularly dependent upon the availability of omega-3 FAs are the immune system, the cardiovascular system and the brain. There are […]

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease in which an immune antibody reaction to gluten begins to cause cross reaction against the lining of the small intestine. It is associated with intestinal symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating and diarrhea as well as many symptoms outside of the digestive tract such as fatigue, anemia, osteoporosis, joint […]