Category: Blog

The Role of Diet in Inflammation

By Jill Horn Though acute inflammation is an important component of innate immunity, chronic low-grade immune system activation can be harmful to one’s health. Chronic inflammation has been identified as a pathological feature shared by various chronic diseases, including metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Although the association between […]

Insects: The “New” Frontier

By E. Dylan Mayer I distinctly remember a class I took in my undergraduate studies at Boulder where a guest speaker came in and introduced us to the idea of eating insects. She brought our class multiple insect dishes including cricket chocolate chip cookies and cricket popcorn. Just about everyone was uneasy at the idea […]

Fruit, Fiber and Blood Glucose

By E. Dylan Mayer As I have been working in the health and nutrition space for a few years now, I have learned many things I had never had exposure to in college. Something we all can agree on, and have been engrained to know from early on, is that fruits and vegetables are some […]

Resilience

By Jeffrey Lackner, PsyD The American Psychological Association defines resilience as the process and outcome of successfully adjusting to difficulties or challenging life experiences, especially through flexibility in thinking, feeling, and behaving. There are a number of factors that influence resilience. Some of these involve the way individuals interact with their environment. Others concern the […]

Science Confirms That the Vagus Nerve Is Key to Well-Being

By Markham Heid Take a deep breath. Hug a friend. Reach for the ceiling and stretch your limbs. Each of these simple acts bestows a sense of calm and comfort. And each works its soothing magic in part by activating a complicated system of nerves that connects the brain to the heart, the gut, the […]

Time-Restricted Eating vs. Simple Calorie Restriction

By E. Dylan Mayer If you’ve been a follower of our blog for some time, you’ll know Dr. Mayer touts the benefits of time-restricted eating (TRE). There has been plenty of preclinical and clinical data showing the benefits of restricting the time of daily food intake to 8 hours, giving the gut a rest period […]

Self Compassion is Good Medicine for Your Gut and Mind!

By Kerry Wangen, MD, PhD “Digestive issues can really impact our quality of life, social interactions, and our feelings towards ourselves and our bodies.” Digestive issues can really impact our quality of life, social interactions, and our feelings towards ourselves and our bodies. It’s not uncommon for frustration to arise when we have digestive symptoms, […]

Artificial Sweeteners vs. Sugar

By Jill Horn An increasing awareness of the adverse health effects of ingesting too much sugar has led to a boom in the abundance and accessibility of sugar substitutes or artificial sweeteners in recent years. Including myself, a lot of people wonder whether the ingestion of artificial sweeteners as a sugar replacement produces adverse health […]

Antibiotic Use Increases Risk of Cognitive Decline

By E. Dylan Mayer Antibiotics have long been used to treat or prevent bacterial infections and can be considered the most important medications ever developed. While highly effective and potentially lifesaving in the treatment of bacterial infections, antibiotics have been increasingly prescribed for conditions, in particular viral infections for which they are completely ineffective and […]

How To Choose The Best Yogurt

By Fiona Riddle We’ve all been there, wandering down the dairy aisle trying to pick a yogurt from the dozens on display. Add in the dairy-free options and the options seem endless. All you know is that you want something healthy, and you also want it to taste good. So how are you supposed to […]

Intermittent Fasting vs. Time Restricted Eating

By Juliette Frank The obesity epidemic and its metabolic consequences are a major public health problem both in the United States, as well as globally. While the underlying causes are multifactorial, dysregulations within the brain–gut–microbiome (BGM) system play a central role. As obesity rates hit peak levels, causing a major public health crisis, many Americans […]

Can Breathwork Be Psychedelic?

By Sarah Abedi, MD Breathing techniques have been used for millennia to improve physical, mental, and spiritual health. Pranayama, for example, is the ancient yogic practice of controlling the breath. In Sanskrit, “prana” means life energy and “yama” means control. The goal of pranayama is to connect the body and mind. Some examples of pranayama […]

Fish Oil – A Super Pill or a Hoax?

By Emily Noronha Every evening, for the past few years, my Dad would open up the medicine cabinet, retrieve his weekly pill organizer, and take a mix of vitamins. Over the years, the supplements changed, based on the newest common cold, the trends his friends mentioned, or what his cardiologist recommended. However, one always remained […]

Mindful Eating

By Kerry Wangen, MD, PhD “Practicing mindfulness when eating can improve digestion, increase awareness of how different foods affect you, lower your stress level, and it may help you to maintain a healthy weight.” What if there was a simple way to improve your gut health, you could start doing it today, your mind has […]

How Effective are Dietary Therapies in IBS Treatment?

By Jill Horn Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a disorder of altered brain-gut interactions (formerly called functional gastrointestinal disorder) characterized by symptoms of chronically recurring abdominal pain associated with altered bowel habits. Depending on diagnostic criteria used, IBS affects approximately 10% – 20% of the adult population in Western countries, and psychosocial stress as well […]

Have Processed Foods Hijacked Your Taste Buds?

By Fiona Riddle Do you ever wonder why it’s so hard to put down a bag of chips or why you keep reaching for cookie after cookie? Chances are the packaged foods that you can’t seem to walk away from contain some type of flavor enhancers that are actually designed to make it nearly impossible […]

Gut Bacteria Linked with Long COVID

By E. Dylan Mayer We know that having a rich and diverse gut microbiome is essential to preventing chronic disease and maintaining a healthy body and brain, however, we are just learning about the role of the gut microbiome in COVID-19 outcomes. There is growing evidence that the COVID-19 virus’ severity and long-term health consequences […]

Stress and The Female Gut Microbiome

By Ariel Suazo-Maler There are many benefits to having a well-tuned acute stress response system. If we didn’t have this alarm system which was perfected in evolution over millions of years, our species would have long disappeared from the planet. In its simplest terms, the fight or flight response has saved our ancestors from being […]

The Key to Healing Ourselves — and Our Planet

By Gayle Madeleine Randall, MD Never in my 40 plus years career in medicine has it been more crucial for us to understand the connection between our own health and the health of the planet. Today, we find ourselves at a crisis point in both areas, the human health crisis, not just in this country […]

Glyphosate and Gut Health: Is Oatmeal Dangerous?

By Jamisen Cook There is nothing quite like waking up in the morning to a tasty bowl of oats. A swirl of maple syrup, a spoonful of brown sugar, or a dash of cinnamon creates a concoction that feels like eating a warm cookie for breakfast. This not-so-guilty pleasure can be a healthy, satisfying meal. […]

Gluten Is Not The Enemy

By E. Dylan Mayer If you have been a follower of the diet and health space for some time, chances are you’ve heard prominent voices and many commercial entities tell you gluten is enemy #1 in our diet. A publication in 2013 convinced a large and still increasing number of people to believe that many […]

The Power of Gratitude

By Suzanne Smith, MSN, NP, CMT-P What are you grateful for? Reflect on one thing that you are grateful for right now in this moment. How does gratitude make you feel? “Gratitude is a celebration of the good things in life….” Gratitude is the feeling of appreciation that arises from within in response to something […]

The Nocebo Effect in SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination

By Jill Horn The nocebo effect refers to a negative reaction expressing itself as adverse symptoms which are mostly driven by the expectation of an individual that a negative effect will follow the administration of a medicinal dietary intervention, such as a vaccine, drug, or food item. A potentially easier way of describing this phenomenon […]

Fasting: The New Diet On the Block

By Arpana Gupta, PhD and Riya Sood Most start the new year with optimistic resolutions around health and wellness. My husband and I decided that we were going to get a head start and end the year on a healthy note. While everyone was gathered around tables briming with abundance, we decided to go on […]

Trying to Quit Smoking? Your Gut Microbiome May Hold The Key

By E. Dylan Mayer According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), tobacco use remains the leading cause of morbidity and preventable death in both the United States and worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2019, approximately 14 of every 100 U.S. adults aged 18 or […]

Does a Gluten-Free Diet Help with IBS Symptoms?

By Juliette Frank The majority of patients seen for IBS treatment are either on a gluten-free diet, or have tried such a diet with mixed success. Marketing campaings have promoted a gluten free diet for a variety of common digestive symptoms ranging from abdominal bloating and pain, gas and altered bowel habits. However, the evidence […]

Will Ketamine Help with My Chronic Abdominal Pain?

By Sarah Abedi, MD Ketamine has been in the medical toolbox for a long time. With its first use as a surgical anesthetic in 1970, ketamine quickly also gained popularity for its ability to maintain hemodynamic stability on the battlefield. Unlike other anesthesia that can sometimes bring down blood pressure and respiratory rate, ketamine does […]

We Are Facing a Youth Mental Health Crisis

By E. Dylan Mayer Last week, the United States surgeon general spoke out and warned that young people are facing “devastating” effects on their mental health as a direct result from challenges experienced by their generation, especially the COVID-19 pandemic. The US surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, released a 53-page report stating that the […]

Can Trauma Manifest in the Physical Body?

By Sarah Abedi, MD When I learned about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in medical school, it was usually confined to my psychiatry courses. Because why else would it be anywhere else…it only affects the mind, right? I never really questioned this paradigm as I had no reason to until I started to see some particular […]

The 3 Ps of What to Eat in Fall: Pumpkin, Persimmon, and Pomegranate

By Jill Horn Fall is officially coming to its end and winter is about to start. Not only do the leaves turn orange and red during fall time, but so do the foods on our plates. If you eat seasonally, the benefits of which have been discussed in a previous post, you may have been […]

Discussing Women’s Health

By Ariel Suazo-Maler A more nuanced conversation needs to be had about women’s mind-body wellness. This is especially true when it comes to the connection between diet, emotional and physical health. With women making up 56% of Americans actively dieting, an unpacking of the word ‘diet’ is a necessary place to start. Ideally, ‘diet’ would […]

Microplastics and the Microbiome

By Markham Heid You’ve probably heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s the mass of plastic debris—now twice the size of Texas—that’s floating in the ocean between California and Hawaii. As if it that weren’t bad enough, four more large collections of plastic waste are spreading in the open waters of our blue planet. […]

Gut Pain? There’s an App for That!

By Luisa Scott, PhD Living with chronic pain is hard. Disorders characterized by chronic pain, like IBS, do not just affect us physically. Pain affects our emotions, our outlook, and how we interact with others. We change our behavioral patterns to try to guard against our symptoms occurring or worsening. It is common for those […]

What is Akkermansia Muciniphila—And How Can It Help Your Gut?

By The Pendulum Therapeutics Team Akkermansia (A) muciniphila is a species of human intestinal mucin-degrading bacteria (in this article, we refer to this species simply as Akkermansia). Extensive research is being undertaken to understand this microbial species’ association with several metabolic disorders. In healthy people, Akkermansia accounts for up to 4% of intestinal bacteria. Studies […]

More Exercise, Less Aging?

By Jill Horn Successful aging implies growing old in the absence of chronic illness while maintaining mental and physical well-being and successfully adapting to the changes of increased age. It is well-known that lifestyle factors can influence the process of aging in either positive or negative ways through epigenetic and other pathways. In addition to […]

Natural Ways to Boost Testosterone

By E. Dylan Mayer Testosterone is a steroid hormone with important functions for both the female and male body and brain. It is produced in men’s testicles and women’s ovaries, with some also being produced from the adrenal glands. While testosterone is important for driving physical changes in boys during puberty (increased muscle, deeper voice, […]

Is There a Difference Between Empathy and Compassion?

By Sarah Abedi, MD Empathy and compassion are frequently used interchangeably. But are they the same? Let’s discuss the subtle differences between empathy and compassion.” Empathy: Feeling what a person is feeling. Understanding empathy requires us to discuss a special part of our brain that holds mirror neurons. Found in the premotor cortex, these neurons […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 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 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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]