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Immune Superstar: Mushroom Blends

To support your immune system, it may be helpful to take one capsule of a good mushroom blend twice daily and eat actual mushrooms frequently, incorporating them into the many meals you’re now cooking at home. According to Paul Stamets, who knows more about fungi than anyone, there are an estimated one to two million […]

Case Study: High Blood Pressure

Phyllis B. was a longtime patient of mine whose medical problems were happily under control and who usually came in only for annual check-ups. As I’d just seen her last month, I expected today’s visit meant some new problem had emerged. “I’m here for Kirk,” she began. I’d only met her husband once, years earlier. […]

Fox News (Wait, I Mean Frontline) On Nutritional Supplements

Not being a TV watcher, I’d never actually seen PBS Frontline until I received some emails from patients and medical colleagues asking for my reaction to what sounded like a Fox News rant against the nutritional supplement industry. Since it’s my belief that such exposé-type shows exist mainly to enhance ratings, I wasn’t enthusiastic. If […]

Conventional Medicine Bashes Supplements (Again)

Posted 12/24/2013 The nutritional supplement industry took a few body blows this month from conventional medicine, with several reports published in the Annals of Internal Medicine regarding the effectiveness of daily vitamins and minerals. An accompanying editorial urged physicians to discourage their patients from taking supplements altogether. Moreover, the editorial suggested the government should stop […]

Europe Bamboozled By Big Pharma

Stories like the one I’m going to tell you this week and next make me proud to be a Chicagoan. Nobel prize winning Chicago author Saul Bellow said that we reside in the “contempt center of the USA” and, you know, I’ve got to agree. We take to such chicanery as well-placed bribes, cronyism, no-bid contracts, and politicians hay-tumbling with big corporations as naturally as naive folk worldwide take to breathing.