Category: Blog

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Pain Summit

HEALING CHRONIC PAIN SUMMIT “There is, most likely, at the current stage of our knowledge, a programming phase early on that makes the brain more vulnerable later to develop a chronic pain syndrome.” Join thousands who are registering to watch this online summit with 47 leading experts. In this summit, we acknowledge and recognize that […]

Important Implications for Development of Future Therapeutic Strategies Using Engraftment of Microbial Species Into Our Gut Microbiome

An exclusive metabolic niche enables strain engraftment in the gut microbiota Elizabeth Stanley Shepherd, William C. DeLoache , Kali M. Pruss , Weston R. Whitaker & Justin L. Sonnenburg After programming of the general compositional architecture of the gut microbiota in early life, the established microbial ecosystem remains fairly stable and resilient to perturbations throughout […]

The “National Eating Disorder” Epidemic and What You Can Do About It

In this excellent summary by Mark Bittman and David L. Katz about what you need to know about healthy nutrition, the authors address some of the most commonly asked questions that I get from patients and audiences around the country. Some people may disagree with some of these recommendations, but overall, I cannot think of […]

Chronic Stress Is Bad for Your Gut Microbes

Psychosocial stress has long been known to affect the gut as well as its microbial residents. More than 10 years of research in rodents, monkeys, and human subjects have shown that even mild stress can transiently reduce the abundance of certain types of microbes, including the lactobacilli in the stool of the animals. In chronic […]

The Effect of Physical Exercise on Our Gut Microbiome

A large body of scientific evidence supports the fact that physical exercise is good for cardiovascular and brain health. In particular, a previous study from Ireland comparing professional rugby players and sedentary healthy control subjects suggested that exercise increases short chain fatty acid production by gut microbes and thereby improves your gut health.1 However, as […]

Putting Your Mind Back into Food

As health-conscious consumers, we are constantly concerned about finding the healthiest foods in the market. We perform calorie counts of our meals and worry that we may not get enough protein, vitamins, calcium or other minerals. Millions of people with a syndrome called non-celiac gluten sensitivity spend a lot of their attention and money on […]

Why the Mediterranean Diet Is Good for You

If you want to stay healthy, slim, maintain your cognitive function, and live longer, there is no question that sticking to a traditional Mediterranean-type diet is the best investment you ever make. As diet fads come and go (including high fat, paleo, vegan, and ketogenic diets) there is a consistent flow of studies that confirm […]

Do All Diseases Start in the Soil?

According to recent science summarized in a blog post by Anne Bikle and David Montgomery published in Nautilus and discussed more extensively in their book “The Hidden Half of Nature,“ the answer is a definitive yes. The authors describe not only the astonishing interconnectedness between what we feed our plants and how these plants feed […]

Caveats to the Ketogenic Diet

If you listen to the proponents of the ketogenic diet, everybody should be increasing their consumption of animal products, particularly red meat and animal fat, while restricting the intake of processed carbohydrates such as sugar. There is no question that the scientific literature supports the effectiveness of ketogenic diet in rapid weight loss and in […]

Has Gluten-Free Failed You? Here’s What To Do Next

I just posted a blog on Medium together with my friend and colleague Dr. Steven Tan. The last time we co authored a paper was in 2015 entitled Traditional Chinese medicine based subgrouping of irritable bowel syndrome patients. This time our joint article is related to food, more specifically about how to design a personalized […]

The Western Meditation – Is It A Mere Stress Reduction Technique?

If you have ever observed longtime meditators in a Buddhist monastery, or gone through rigorous meditation training yourself, you know that meditation is a serious business and has been for thousands of years. Dedicated meditators strive towards compassion, equanimity and enlightenment, and do not pursue their practice with the simple goal of stress reduction and […]