Health Tips

Home / Health Tips

Niacin

Also known as vitamin B3, niacin has earned a reputation (in supplement form) as a natural cholesterol-lowering agent that often rivals prescription drugs in mild to moderate cases. It may also help to prevent or treat a number of other disorders, from arthritis and depression to diabetes. Three forms of niacin supplements–each with a specific therapeutic role–are commercially available: nicotinic acid (also called nicotinate), niacinamide and inositol hexaniacinate, a compound of niacin and inositol (another B-family vitamin).

Nettle

Also known as “stinging nettle” because the prickly hollow needles on its dark green leaves sting and burn upon contact, nettle (Urtica dioica) is an ancient herbal remedy for snakebites, asthma, arthritis, urinary tract inflammation, and excessive menstrual flow. While the above-ground parts of the plant–the leaf and the stem–are generally still used for these purposes, the roots are now popular for treating the discomforts of an enlarged prostate.

Natural Progesterone Cream

For many women, natural progesterone cream appears to provide significant relief from symptoms related to shifts in the female hormones estrogen and progesterone.

For younger women, such imbalances are often associated with PMS or endometriosis, and bring on symptoms such as irritability, breast tenderness, and pelvic pain. For older women entering menopause, decreasing supplies of estrogen can cause hormonal imbalances, producing hot flashes, mood swings, urinary urgency, and poor concentration.

Naringin

A flavonoid compound found in grapefruit, naringin gives grapefruit its characteristic bitter flavor. Grapefruit processors attempt to select fruits with a low naringin content, and often blend juices obtained from different grapefruit varieties to obtain the desired degree of bitterness. Naringin is believed to enhance our perception of taste by stimulating the taste buds (some people consume a small amount of grapefruit juice before a meal for this reason).

Naturopathy

Naturopathy is a distinct system of medicine that is based on a belief in the healing power of nature–and especially in the body’s innate ability to fight disease and heal itself. Practiced by naturopathic doctors (also known as naturopaths or N.D.s), it uses a wide range of natural treatment methods, rather than drugs or surgery, to stimulate the body’s own healing powers. Among the therapies many naturopaths frequently prescribe are diet and lifestyle modifications, nutritional supplements, homeopathy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, detoxification, spinal manipulation, and more.

Our Missing Nutrients

Click here for the Health Tip link. “Empty calories.” “Overweight and undernourished.” These are the phrases used to describe millions of Americans. Waddling though our now half-empty shopping malls, chowing down on a Mrs. Field’s cookie for the energy to get us to that distant food court, we wonder, “What, in this Land of Plenty, […]

Can You Trust the NYT?

Click here for the Health Tip link. After three patients and health tips readers sent me copies of a decidedly smug article in the New York Times blasting the public’s gullibility regarding vitamin supplements, I felt I had to say something. The article reports that the public seemingly ignores numerous large “well-controlled clinical studies” that, […]

A Solid Thumbs-Up on Nutritional Supplements

Click here for the original post. Every morning and evening for more years than I like to ponder, I reach for my two vitamin trays (yes, I need two), mentally check that I’m not taking them on an empty stomach, and dutifully swallow my eighteen pills and capsules, plus an aspirin. That’s 37 a day. […]

Nutritional Research: Busy Month

Click here for the original post. I’ve had the feeling recently that everybody’s getting tired of prescription medications. To begin with, we’re taking far too many unsavory chemicals for problems mostly attributable to our unhealthful lifestyles–controlling adult-onset diabetes, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, cooling heartburn, sedating our stress-laden lives. And did I mention side effects? […]

R&R for 2008

This new year’s eve, consider a resolution that will make your cheeks glow and your heart happy.

Consider scheduling a long weekend, or even a week, at a health spa.

Many of my patients who have followed through on this (my favorite) prescription consider their health-spa visits life-altering. The healthy food, massage, long walks, and yoga sessions, lack of TVs, and turned-off cellphones helped them see how eliminating stress could lead to a whole new approach to good health.

Nutritional Medicine News

Each week I read well over 100 medical articles, summaries, and abstracts of studies sifted from the thousands that are published. Most have nothing to do with nutritional medicine, but there are always a few. Here are some recent highlights:

Nutritional Bad News

Click here for the Health Tip link. The government has made official what’s been common knowledge among nutritionally oriented practitioners for years: the vitamin and mineral content of our fruits and vegetables has been in steady decline since the 1950s, when scientists first began to measure them. Researchers sampled produce from grocery stores all over […]