Author: adminEmMaMD7fzJ

Towards a Personalized Nutrition

Daniele Del Rio, PhD How would you react if I told you that the world-famous proverb “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” was, in fact, missing one very relevant bit? The whole sentence should go like “An apple a day keeps the doctor away for John, but not for Jay!”. You think I […]

Can One Really be Addicted to Food?

By Arpana Gupta, PhD and Riya Sood Potatoes: My weakness, my Achilles heel. Baked, fried, mashed, sautéed. I somehow cannot say no to them no matter what form they come in. Doesn’t matter how full I am, I always find myself leaning in for another bite. This led to my next question: Why is it […]

Why You Should Care About Seasonal Eating

By Sarah Abedi, MD “When we eat seasonally, not only are foods more nutritious and flavorful but are also cheaper and better for the environment.” Seasonal eating encourages consuming fruits and vegetables during the time of year when it’s naturally ready for harvest. Although we now have access to many fruits and vegetables in grocery […]

Natural Remedies for Lowering Cholesterol

By Juliette Frank and Jill Horn Cholesterol is synthesized in the liver, carried through the bloodstream attached to proteins called lipoproteins, and is found in all the cells in the body. Cholesterol is essential in building healthy cells and is necessary for other functions such as making hormones, vitamin D, and bile acids in the […]

How Precision Medicine Will Change Our Health

By Marvin Singh, MD Precision medicine is a game changer in how we define health—or what it means to “be healthy.” We now have the technology to go in and see what’s true for you–just you. This means we can see how healthy you actually are, or what could use improvement, and make adjustments from […]

Meeting The Change in Seasons with Equanimity

By Amanda Gilbert Fall is my favorite time of the year. There is something about the slow letting go of the lush colored foliage and long ripe nights of summer that equally inspires an internal slowing down within me to feel the transition at hand. Some years, I meet fall with more of a celebration […]

Addressing the Silent, Looming Threat of Antibiotic-Resistant Sexually Transmitted Infections

By Ron Chiarello, PhD Sexually transmitted infections are at an all-time high, affecting one in five Americans, yet this significant national problem has received little attention from a COVID-19-weary media and public. Now, we may be entering a critical era for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) as antibiotic-resistant infections have developed the potential to affect virtually […]

The Increasing Prevalence of Food Allergies

By Ana Schilke Ever since I was a child, eating acidic fruits, such as strawberries and mangos, always left my tongue with a strange feeling about the texture of the food I had just eaten. Exposure to these foods would result in small reddish patches on my tongue, with strange patterns. While often these patches […]

From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Science – The Health Benefits of Berberine

By E. Dylan Mayer Growing up in a partly Iranian household, it wasn’t a rare occurrence to have traditional Persian dishes such as zereshk polo (barberry rice with saffron chicken). As I was never the biggest fan of zereshk, as they are bitter – I would always ask my Mom to make it without them, […]

The Power of the Mind-Body Connection

By Sharon Brock In April of 2018, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was treated at UCLA Medical Center and received chemotherapy every three weeks for an entire year. The way chemotherapy “works” (generally speaking) is that it targets cells that multiply quickly, such as cancer cells. However, there are other types of cells […]

The Fear of the Unknown: GMOs

By Juliette Frank GMO, or genetically modified organism, has become the common term used to describe a food that has been developed through genetic engineering, a technique which involves copying the gene of a desired trait from one organism and inserting that information into the DNA of another organism to create a new one. While […]

A Truly Golden Root

By Jill Horn Over the past decade, increased clinical attention has been attributed to turmeric, a root also known by its scientific name Curcuma longa, with a specific focus on one of its biologically active constituents, curcumin. Curcumin is found in the rhizome of the turmeric plant and based on largely preclinical studies is known […]

A Promising Breakthrough in Cancer Research

By E. Dylan Mayer I recently came across an article talking about the surprising antitumor effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) during acidosis (when there is too much acid in the body fluids – opposite of alkalosis). This is surprising in view of the well-known fact that cancer cells require fatty acids (FAs) to support […]

Resistance Training vs. Cardio

By E. Dylan Mayer In the fitness community, it is generally understood that if you want to put on muscle, you focus on weightlifting, and if you want to lose fat, you do cardio. Many people think of resistance training and cardio as mutually exclusive exercises, with each one doing a specific action (building muscle […]

What You Need to Know About Testing for COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

By Ron Chiarello, PhD Providing people with the ability to test for viruses in their own homes empowers them to be proactive about their health while helping public health officials, policymakers, and researchers with information that could head off the next pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically exposed an existing shortage of readily available state-of-the-art medical […]

The Secret of the San Pedro Cactus, Or the Rediscovery of Mescaline

By Sarah Abedi, MD Mescaline also known as 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine is a psychedelic compound found in the fast-growing San Pedro cactus, Trichocereus pachanoi, Peruvian torch cactus Trichocereus peruvianus as well as the spineless ground-hugging cactus Peyote, Lophophora williamsii). These cacti are native to South America, Mexico and the southwest United States.1 The psychoactive mescaline is found […]

The Relationship Between Diet and Mental Health

By Ariel Suazo-Maler Understanding the ‘best diet’ for mental health, is to unpack the word ‘diet’ and its different uses. Taken literally, ‘diet’ describes what we eat; someone can have a vegetarian diet, omnivorous diet, carnivorous diet, etc. With regards to mental health, as a result of research into disease correlates, longevity, and mental acuity, […]

Moments of Mindfulness

By Suzanne Smith, MSN, NP, CMT-P Mindfulness is a quality of attention that is open, nonjudgmental, curious, and kind. Meditation is a way to practice mindfulness and cultivate these qualities creating possibilities for more ease, insight, and a kinder relationship to experience. However, we can bring the quality of mindfulness to any moment. We often […]

Personalized, Holistic Healthcare Isn’t as New As We Thought

By Emily Noronha In an age of a rapidly increasing number of pharmaceuticals and prescriptions, we often forget how our everyday food impacts our health and can be used to treat many chronic diseases. While Western medicine has been focusing successfully on the battle against cancer and infectious diseases, and on diagnosis and treatment, it […]

How Diet and Socioeconomic Deprivation Intersect with COVID-19 Risk

By Juliette Frank Although the threat of COVID-19 is slowly receding in many countries due to the help of mass vaccinations, many doctors and public health officials are still trying to make sense of the highest risk factors in order to reduce the burden of the pandemic as the world is still struggling to combat […]

Do We Really Need to Take 10,000 Steps a Day for Our Health?

By E. Dylan Mayer If you are into personal fitness and have ever used a fitness tracking device or app, chances are you’ve heard that taking 10,000 steps per day is recommended. Have you ever asked yourself, who came up with this number? Interestingly this number is not based on science. Dr. I-Min Lee, a […]

Ayahuasca – Rediscovery of an Ancient Healing Approach

By Sarah Abedi, MD Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic tea that has been used by Amazonian cultures for centuries as a central element of healing ceremonies. In the native Quechua language spoken by indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Andes, aya means ancestors, souls or dead persons and wasca (huasca) means rope or vine with the compound […]

What’s Up with the Microbes in Your Cheese?

By Jill Horn As most of us know, cheese consists of milk from which water is removed, leading to a concentration of milk proteins, fats, and nutrients. However, not everyone is familiar with the fermentation processes that are necessary for the manufacturing of cheese which largely depend on the activity of various microbial strains. A […]

What Is All The Hype About Ashwagandha?

By E. Dylan Mayer Ashwagandha, otherwise known as “Indian Winter Cherry” or “Indian Ginseng” or by its scientific name Withania Somnifera is one of the most important herbs of Ayurveda – the traditional system of medicine in India. Its roots have been used for thousands of years for its claimed wide-ranging health benefits.1 As you […]

MDMA and PTSD

By Sarah Abedi, MD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develops in an individual who has difficulty recovering from experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. PTSD can be associated with a variety of symptoms including anxiety, disordered sleep, irritable behavior and angry outbursts and irritable bowel syndrome. Patients with PTSD often avoid people, places and activities that […]

Why Kindness Makes Meditation Sustainable

By Amanda Gilbert As a lecturer and teacher of mindfulness, I often get asked the question, “How do I become consistent with meditation?” Or “How can I make it sustainable?” I love when people ask this, because it means that they are looking to go deeper with their meditation practice and that they care about […]

What You Should Know About Probiotic Supplements

By Ana Schilke and Emeran Mayer, MD “It has been generally assumed, but rarely proven, that these positive effects can be enhanced by taken probiotic pills.” The human microbiome is composed of 3 major classes of resident microorganisms, bacteria, viruses and fungi. In an effort to maintain the delicate balance of this vast microbial ecosystem […]

The Remarkable Rediscovery of Magic Mushrooms by Modern Medicine

By Sarah Abedi, MD Recently there has been a re-emergence of psychedelics in clinical research for its therapeutic benefits. These compounds have been used for centuries by indigenous people and ancient civilizations in ritual practices and are beginning to regain popularity in the scientific community for its potential role in depression, anxiety and PTSD among […]

The Link Between Type 2 Diabetes and the Gut Microbiome

By Colleen Cutcliffe, PhD and The Pendulum Team The gut microbiome is an ecosystem that exists deep within our gut and is intimately linked to our health. Like any ecosystem, the gut microbiome is resistant and resilient to change, but at the same time highly adaptable to new challenges. These gut microbial changes can either […]

Why Do Healthy Foods Give Me Gas?

By Markham Heid In my household, for reasons that are obscure even to me, fart is a bad word. At some point, my wife and I must have decided that we didn’t want to hear our kids use the F-word all the time, so we adopted “toot” as a gentler substitute. Beans and other legumes […]

Early Onset Diabetes May Increase Dementia Risk

By Jill Horn “Type 2 diabetes is most often caused by environmental risk factors such as the consumption of unhealthy, energy-dense foods and a lack of physical activity.” Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease associated with serious complications and co-morbidities including cardiovascular disease, stroke, and vascular damage (Javeed et al., 2018). The global prevalence […]

Is BMI a Scam?

By E. Dylan Mayer If you exercise and watch the food you eat, chances are you’ve probably checked your Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI has become a common measurement in healthcare whether it be in a doctor’s office, on a smart scale or from an online calculator. Based on your weight and height, it puts […]

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Disorders of Brain-Gut Interaction

By Suzanne Smith, MSN, NP, CMT-P “There is now significant scientific evidence to demonstrate the interactions between the brain, gut and microbiome.” Have you ever experienced an unpleasant sensation in your gut when you were nervous or frustrated or even thinking about something stressful? That experience is a simple example of how the brain can […]

Mindfulness in Kids

By Ariel Suazo-Maler There is this misconception around mindfulness that leads people to believe one cannot feel the full spectrum of emotions if they are ‘truly mindful’. Anxiety, frustration, and sadness, are things inappropriately thought to be absent in a mindfulness practice. This is simply untrue. In its most basic definition, mindfulness is nothing more […]

How to Better Bounce Back after COVID-19

By Jill Horn The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought about substantial mental health concerns with reported increases in loneliness, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation due to prolonged social isolation and economic uncertainty. “A recent study reported an increase in depressive symptoms, worry, anxiety, and loneliness in people during the pandemic.” A recent study based on […]

The Unexpected Power of the Unconcealed Placebo

From Anthony Lembo, MD Since the 1940’s placebo-controlled studies have been the gold standard to evaluate the effectiveness of any kind of therapy, be it dietary, pharmaceutical, or targeted at the mind. Only those treatments found to be better than placebo in a so-called double-blind placebo-controlled trial (a trial in which neither the patient nor […]

What You Need to Know About Age-Related Muscle Wasting

By E. Dylan Mayer I have talked about frailty in a previous post, emphasizing the importance of shifting dietary habits and adopting a regimen of regular physical exercise. This same advice stands true for age-related muscle wasting, or sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass and function, and frailty can be defined as multi-system […]

It’s More Than Just Dirt!

By Juliette Frank As scientists and environmental organizations constantly remind us of the dire future we are heading towards if we don’t substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions, it feels more and more like we are doomed. Trying to grasp the degree of large-scale change necessary to halt and try to reverse the rate at which […]

The Remarkable Benefits of Flexible Problem Solving

By Jeffrey Lackner, PsyD The past 20 years has seen an explosion of research on non-drug treatments for painful medical disorders including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Disorders that were once seen as untreatable are now regarded as treatable. Hope has replaced helplessness. One particularly exciting area is the use of a specific behavioral treatment called […]

3 Habits of the Healthy and Happy

By Nicole Winhoffer For 10 years, I’ve worked with the most prestigious performance artists, Oscar-winning directors and actresses and top CEOs in the world, whom I like to consider, all, top athletes. We prepare, train, practice and repeat, to reach their optimal excellence. We perform each day, asking our minds, bodies and spirits to execute […]

Solutions for PMS (And What Gut Health Has to Do with It!) Part Two

By Selin Bilgin Welcome back! I hope you found value and are already feeling better from following the recommendations I gave in my last blog post on Solutions for PMS. I’m thrilled to share with you even more steps for you to implement to have a better menstrual cycle. The impact of targeted nutrition and […]

Managing Our Mental Health in the Midst of the Pandemic

By Ariel Suazo-Maler Over the last year, we have collectively gone through a reeducation process surrounding best ways to ‘take care’. While the pandemic caused us to immediately focus on how to support our physical well-being, we quickly understood that ‘health’ included taking care of our mental wellness. “Bringing awareness to best practices and understanding […]

Microbiome and Aging

By E. Dylan Mayer I recently came across an article in the NYTimes titled, A Changing Gut Microbiome May Predict How Well You Age. The article talks about the gut microbiome and its role in healthy aging. The author quotes a new study published in the February issue of the journal Nature Metabolism which found […]

Your Happiness Makes Me Happy

By Amanda Gilbert In mindfulness meditation there is a traditional practice called mudita, or appreciative joy. Mudita is the heart-based practice of feeling joy and happiness for others, and celebrating their happiness, good fortune and success. While mudita may be a lesser-known practice in modern times, it is one that can have great influence over […]

4 Myths About Mindfulness and Meditation

By Suzanne Smith, RN, NP Thirty years ago, when I was living in Asia, some friends invited me to meditate. There was no formal instruction, simply watch your breath. I waited and waited, and nothing happened. My mind was just as active as ever and I was not moving into any state of deep relaxation […]

The Importance of Time-Managing Stress

By Jill Horn We all know that chronic stress, regardless if it is psychological or physical stress, is bad for our body and mind. But recent evidence suggests that the timing of the stressful experience during a 24 hour period also plays an important role in determining its effect. Based on both pre-clinical and clinical […]

Futuristic Food Boom

By Juliette Frank “The Plant-Based Meat Substitute Have Scaled-up Into One of the Fastest Growing Markets in the Food Tech Industry.” With growing awareness of the negative health and environmental impacts of the meat and dairy industry there has been a growing demand for alternative protein sources in the past few years, making room for […]

Meeting Our Difficulties with Self-Compassion

By Amanda Gilbert One of my first mindfulness meditation mentors would often say, “usually we don’t begin a meditation practice because everything is going well in our lives.” The first few times I heard this it felt alarming and almost too honest. As a longtime meditation teacher now myself, I think back to my mentor’s […]

The Mind-Gut Connection: Nutritional Psychiatry

By E. Dylan Mayer As stated in an article from Harvard Health, your brain functions like a high-performance vehicle – it works best when it gets premium fuel. The logic behind this view is that eating high-quality foods packed with vitamins, minerals, polyphenols, fiber and healthy fats will help protect your brain from oxidative stress, […]

Solutions for PMS (And What Gut Health Has to Do With it!)

By Selin Bilgin Are you a gal who dreads that time of the month, or have someone in your life that suffers from PMS? My hope is that you will be delighted at how simple it can be to bring your body back to balance with today’s article and relieve yourself of challenging PMS symptoms. […]

Destigmatizing Mental Health

By Ariel Suazo-Maler The conversation surrounding mental health maintenance is a loaded one. While society is moving in a less stigmatized direction when it comes to sharing feelings, diagnoses, and modes of taking care, we still have not achieved complete de-stigmatization. “A silver lining of the prolonged lockdown” With the announcement of a lockdown coming […]

Brain Balancing Act

By Nicole Winhoffer NW Method was created to help artists like Madonna, Kate Hudson, and Stella McCartney to achieve optimal health through connecting their mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical body. Total health cannot be achieved without connecting all parts of the human body. Many fail to realize that the physical body is a representation of […]

A Sign of France’s Culinary Shift

By Juliette Frank “France is known for its haute cuisine filled with meat-laden dishes.” For anyone working in the restaurant industry, chefs, and foodies alike understand the value of a Michelin star. For more than a century, the French tire company has been publishing annual restaurant reference guidebooks which award up to three Michelin stars […]

Living with Intention

By Amanda Gilbert From a mindfulness perspective, there are two ways to go about living our lives. One is to go through life with the awareness of what we’re actually doing, saying, thinking, feeling and creating, while the other, is to live without practicing present moment awareness. The downside of the latter, more common approach […]

When Does Keto Make Sense?

By Jill Horn “The keto diet has successfully been applied in the treatment of treatment-resistant seizures, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.” The ketogenic diet (“keto diet”) has recently received increased attention from the general public as well as the scientific community.1 The proposed benefits include weight loss, improved metabolic regulation, reduced […]

What Does Biodiversity Have to Do with Our Health?

By E. Dylan Mayer I recently read an interesting article by Markham Heid online that talked about the relationship of being in close proximity to the natural world and the health of our microbiome, and our own health. “It is not surprising that we are now living on a planet that is in turmoil, and […]

The Mind Body Connection

By Nicole Winhoffer Let’s talk about mind-body connection. If you are reading this post, then you know very well that there is a connection between your mind and gut. Did you know you have more brain neurons in your stomach than your brain? In the same way that the body affects the mind, the mind […]

The Exercise-Gut Connection

By Juliette Frank It is well known that regular exercise is a key part of a healthy lifestyle due to its many health benefits such as assisting in weight control, reducing inflammation and risk of heart disease, and increasing antioxidant defenses. As more evidence on the importance of the gut microbiome on overall well-being continues […]

A Mindful Approach to Better Health

By Jill Horn Mindfulness describes a non-judgmental approach to life and a focus of attention on the present moment associated with an approach to the present experience with an attitude of openness.1 Further fundamental components of mindfulness include a shift in our attention on the breath and on bodily sensations. As discussed in Suzanne Smith’s […]

It’s Not All About WHAT You Eat, It’s About WHEN You Eat

By Juliette Frank The recent publication of a number of studies on the benefits of time-restricted eating (TRE) on losing weight and improving overall metabolic health has led to an increased interest in the topic. As TRE and intermittent fasting (IF) gets pushed into mainstream discussion, a common question people have is if it is […]

Exercise, The Miracle Drug

By E. Dylan Mayer Levels of anxiety, stress and depression are at all-time highs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and there is little doubt that this compromised state of our mental wellness will continue into the next year. Many of us are in lockdowns, unable to gather with family & friends during the holidays and feeling […]

The Remarkable Health Benefits of Abdominal Breathing

By Suzanne Smith, RN, NP 2020 has been a challenging year to say the least. We have all been impacted significantly and many of the resources we rely on for our well-being are not available. Most gyms and studios are closed, it is not safe to gather in groups and most of us are working […]

Two Simple Changes for Better Metabolic Health

By Jill Horn The body, and in particular the brain gut microbiome axis are complex systems with all parts being in constant bidirectional communication with each other through multiple feedback loops.1 The behavior of such complex systems is characterized by regular fluctuations or oscillations, which are a measure of the health of the system. On […]

As Far as Fish Are Concerned, Smaller Is Better

By E. Dylan Mayer This article was inspired by Patagonia Provisions’ journal found here. Even though the majority of people have stuck to their traditional habit of enjoying red meat as their main protein source, in the last 40 years, an increasing number of Americans have been moving away from red meats and transitioning towards […]