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Health Resources
Compounding Pharmacies
Compounding pharmacies are a type of pharmacy that prepares an individual patient's drug prescription authorized by a physician to fit the unique needs of the patient.
Click here for our recommended compounding pharmacies
BIO-Identical Hormones
What are bioidentical hormones?
(This article was first printed in the August 2006 issue of the Harvard Women's Health Watch. For more information or to order, please go to http://www.health.harvard.edu/womens.)
Many women and health experts continue to struggle with the turnaround in attitude toward hormone therapy in the wake of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trial of combined estrogen and progestin (as Prempro) for preventing later-life ills. The trial was stopped early, in 2002, because hormone users had a higher risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and blood clots. Though the added risks were small, many women and their clinicians concluded they must discontinue hormone therapy. Many of these women found that hot flashes, sleeplessness, and other menopausal symptoms returned with a vengeance.
Hormone therapy is still considered the most effective treatment for symptoms. But women are not rushing back. One concern of health experts is that women are turning to alternatives they think are safer - but may not be.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/What-are-bioidentical-hormones.htm
Gluten Free
Learn how the new prebiotic soluble fibers benefit bowel health and many GI disorders
Purpose
Gluten is the protein part of wheat, rye, barley, and other related grains. Some people cannot tolerate gluten when it comes in contact with the small intestine. This condition is known as celiac disease (sometimes called non-tropical sprue or gluten sensitive enteropathy). There is also evidence that a skin disorder called dermatitis herpetiformis is associated with gluten intolerance.
In patients with celiac disease, gluten injures the lining of the small intestine. This injury results in weight loss, bloating, diarrhea, gas, abdominal cramps, or vitamin and mineral deficiencies. When patients totally eliminate gluten from the diet, the lining of the intestine has a chance to heal.
Removing gluten from the diet is not easy. Grains are used in the preparation of many foods. It is often hard to tell by an ingredient's name what may be in it, so it is easy to eat gluten without even knowing it. However, staying on a strict gluten-free diet can dramatically improve the patient's condition. Since it is necessary to remain on the gluten-free diet throughout life, it will be helpful to review it with a registered dietitian.
Oats is a grain the merits special attention. Oats are believed safe in patients with celiac disease although this was not always the case. The problem with oat products is not the grain but rather the manufacturing process. When oats are processed in the same facilities as wheat, contamination can occur even with the best cleaning protocol. Oat products can now be found that are not cross contaminated. These can be tried after an initial period of 6 months to see if they can be tolerated. Most, but not all patients can tolerate pure oat products.
http://www.gicare.com/diets/Gluten-Free.aspx
Dangers of Dairy
"There is compelling evidence, now published in top scientific journals and some of which is decades old, showing that cows' milk is associated, possibly even causally, with a wide variety of serious human ailments including various cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and an array of allergy-related diseases. And, this food contains no nutrients that cannot be better obtained from other far more nutritious and tasty foods."
- Dr Colin Campbell
"Inclusion of milk will only reduce your diet's nutritional value and safety. Most of the people on the planet live very healthfully without cows milk. You can too."
- Robert M.Kradjian M.D
"I no longer recommend dairy products...there was a time when cow's milk was considered very desirable. But research along with clinical experience has forced doctors and nutritionists to rethink this recommendation"
- Dr. Benjamin Spock
Over the years, there have been many conflicting stories in the news, in scientific journals and from nutritionists regarding dairy products, and it is often difficult for people to decide quite what to believe about them. However, there has been much research to-date concerning dairy products which has shown dairy products in a very unfavourable light. In this article, I will attempt to overview some of this recent research, and also uncover the main problems with dairy product consumption.
According to Dr. Julian Whitaker in his 'Health & Healing' newsletter in an article entitled 'Tomorrow's Medicine Today' (October 1998 Vol. 8, No. 10) the notion that milk is healthy for you is "udder" nonsense. While eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains has been documented to lower the risk of heart attack, high blood pressure and cancer, the widely touted health benefits of dairy products are questionable at best. In fact, dairy products are clearly linked as a cause of osteoporosis, heart disease, obesity, cancer, allergies and diabetes. He argues that dairy products are anything but "health" foods.
Those who advocate milk consumption do so, not on the basis of its supposed macronutrients, but because of its supposed micronutrients: calcium and supplemental vitamin D. However, other more healthful sources of calcium and vitamin D are available. More importantly, calcium balance involves far more than calcium intake. Dietary changes that reduce calcium losses are probably much more important for us.
http://www.vibrancyuk.com/dairy.html
Micronutrient Deficiencies
June 10, 2010
Research article
Prevalence of micronutrient deficiency in popular diet plans
"Research has shown micronutrient deficiency to be scientifically linked to a higher risk of overweight/obesity and other dangerous and debilitating diseases. With more than two-thirds of the U.S. population overweight or obese, and research showing that one-third are on a diet at any given time, a need existed to determine whether current popular diet plans could protect followers from micronutrient deficiency by providing the minimum levels of 27 micronutrients, as determined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) Reference Daily Intake (RDI) guidelines."
http://www.jissn.com/content/7/1/2
Nutrigenomics
Nutrigenomics is the study of molecular relationships between nutrition and the response of genes, with the aim of extrapolating how such subtle changes can affect human health. Nutrigenomics focuses on the effect of nutrients on the genome, proteome, and metabolome. It is applying the sciences of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to human nutrition in order to understand the relationship between nutrition and health.
Nutrigenomics, Genewize, Individualized Nutrition, and your DNA
Nutrigenomics: Is there a Connection Between Nutrition and Genetics?
Yes, there is a connection between nutrition and genetics, and for want of a better word it is called nutrigenomics since the science became possible only after the cracking of the human genome in 2003. If you have not yet heard the word, it will not be too long before it is on everybody's lips. It might sound like the science of fiction, yet it is the science of today.
Genetic research has not only explained how your genetic make-up can determine how you utilize the nutritional content of the food that you eat, but also how these nutrients affect your body and genetic make-up. The term nutrigenomics is given to the study of the interaction between food and your genes, and is not some weird new order-manufactured term, but in fact an accepted term recognized by the scientific community, and that will eventually change our eating habits and perhaps our whole lives.
First consider some facts. Why are Inuits becoming obese by following western diets? Why have the East African Masai, that great warrior race, become so unhealthy since adopting western diets? Why do Japanese have soaring cholesterol levels when they stray from their traditional diet of fish and rice? There can be only one answer to these questions, and it is one that science has now established. Their genetic make-up is not suited to handling the western diet.
It is only a freak of nature that occurred thousands of years ago that enables Northern Europeans and their descendants to be able to digest milk: in other societies that is not possible after childhood, particularly in South-East Asia.
The reason for all this is genetics. Your genetic make-up determines how your food is put to use in your body, and although it is considered by most to be either a new science or a 'new age' science, it is accepted by the foremost biochemists and geneticists in the world. Nutrigenomics is valid science, and the more studies that are carried out on the effect of genetic structure on health, the more is being understood as to how genes determine which foods are nutritious for you and which are not.
Although the day is still far off when you will be sending a blood sample to your local store and receiving your food for the week that is most suited to your genetics, the concept is not groundless in science. Nutrigenomics is valid science and is starting to explain some of the dietary inconsistencies between members of the same family, and also similarities in body shape and use of nutrients. For example, why is one person able to eat as much as he likes without gaining weight, while another puts on stones just by looking at cream cookies?
Nutrigenomics can explain that, but it can do a lot more. It can be used to calculate the nutritional supplement most suited to your genetic architecture. Personalized dietary advice just got explainable! In fact genetically-guided nutritional supplements can now be formulated on a personal basis. The days of everybody buying the same supplements from their local health store are numbered: the future is bespoke nutrition. Nutritional tailoring just for you. What suits you sir, doesn't suit your neighbor.
http://www.squidoo.com/WhatIsNutrigenomics
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