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Finishing up on Vaginal Infections and Something About STDs

If you recall, I spent last week’s Health Tip covering Candida (yeast infections), but when it comes to actual numbers, the very commonest vaginal infection is Bacterial Vaginosis (B.V. for short) triggered by one of several germs, the most frequent culprit being Gardnerella.

Common Vaginal Infections #1: Candida

Last week, I wrote about the care and feeding of a healthy vaginal microbiome, the “normal” bacterial melange living peaceably “down there”. There are, however, troublemakers, decided annoyances, sometimes stubborn hangers-on, never severe enough to be, say, a line item on your death certificate or the final sentence on your obituary reading, “Contributions may be made in her name to the American Candida Association.” Still, life would be easier without vaginal infections.

The Care and Feeding of Your Vaginal Microbiome

We mainly think of “microbiome,” that overall population of wanted (and often unwanted) bacteria, fungi (yeast), viruses and even parasites as confined to our intestinal tract.

Hydration and Longevity

What is the best title for this: A group of researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Institute of Aging, in Bethesda, Maryland, had been exploring why some people seem to age faster than others, why some people seem to develop any of that list of chronic illnesses we all know are associated with abbreviated longevities.

If You Play Your Cards Right, You'll Live Longer Than You Think

An amusing moment occurs two or three times a week when I am finishing up with a middle-aged patient who asks, health-wise, how she’s doing. I tell her that my best guess is she’s got “X” number of decades left.

The predicted COVID uptick is back

COVID-wise, Labor Day weekend was pretty busy. I phoned in ten Paxlovid prescriptions, and obviously these were WholeHealth Chicago patients who had tested themselves and contacted me. Apparently Immediate Care Centers are quite busy as well. Hospitalizations, still very low in comparison to pandemic days, are also on the rise.

Gluten Triggers Visible Brain Inflammation In Mice

Don’t breathe a sigh of relief because you don’t have whiskers and a tail. Our digestive systems, and their immune response to gluten, happen to be very similar. If you’re a new patient at any of the WholeHealth Chicago offices, arriving for help with a symptom or symptoms that may have been going on for years but tests have been negative, you’ll notice we spend a lot of time on your eating habits.

Platelet Rich Plasma for My Joints! My Hair! My Vagina! Oh My!

You may have read the phrase “Platelet Rich Plasma Injections” somewhere, but it didn’t stick in your brain. Understandable. A lot of stuff flies by every hour on the internet. Or a friend recommended it to you when she saw you limping around and suggested you give these a try.

“I Just Don't Feel Right and My Tests Are Normal”

Readers of these Health Tips know the usual suspects we look for at WholeHealth Chicago: chronic Lyme disease, toxic mold, multiple chemical sensitivities, but to me, as a physician, the most exasperating source of symptoms are those caused by correctly taken drugs, whether over-the-counter or prescribed by another physician.

“WHY ARE WE GETTING CANCER WHEN WE’RE YOUNGER?”

Throughout my earlier years as a physician, cancer was considered a diagnosis of the elderly. A person survived infectious diseases of childhood, heart and lung issues of middle age, and then, blind to the risks of smoking and having no access to colonoscopies or CAT scans, would develop cancer in her seventies or eighties and die.

“I’m Scared. So Many of My Relatives Have Alzheimer’s”

Jeanette, sitting across from me, was genuinely frightened about her future. Yes, she did have several elderly relatives with what she was calling “Alzheimer’s”, but I quickly pointed out that not all causes of dementia are due to Alzheimer’s Disease and much of dementia is both preventable and reversible.

Colon Cancer, Dementia Prevention, and Your Socks

Sometime in your mid forties, you start thinking of words like “prevention” and “screening”, the “serious stuff” beyond what you thought was reasonable, like getting your teeth cleaned, your eyes examined and, if you have one, having your cervix checked.

LONG COVID: Our Most Troubling Epidemic

You may not see anyone wearing masks anymore, but COVID is still out there. The real problem now is LONG COVID; that plethora of debilitating symptoms potentially lasting for weeks, months, and sometimes longer, following what on the surface may have been anywhere from a mild case to a devastatingly severe case of COVID.

Brain Degenerative Diseases Linked To Your Microbiome

The “Big Four” brain diseases frighten everybody, doctors included. Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease(PD), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, a/k/a Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and multiple sclerosis (MS). Not one is curable although we’re doing well these days in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

LYME TIME...AGAIN!

In H.G. Wells’ novel (and Steven Spielberg’s movie), War of the Worlds, aliens from Mars invade earth, fully intending to destroy it. Earthlings are losing against the Martians until suddenly the Martians start dying off. Scientists later discover the aliens had no immunity against earth’s bacteria and paid the price with their lives.

Yes, Your Child (Or You) Is Miserable With Hair Loss

Alopecia areata, patches of baldness, starts as a small area and seems to enlarge. Then you see another, then another. Your hair stylist says, “Did you know there’s this large area in the back…?

Updates On Anti-Aging Medicine And Dementia Prevention

Taurine. Never heard of it, right? It’s an amino acid, one of the building blocks of protein, and helps digestive, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and nervous system functions. However, we require more taurine than we can manufacture, so deficiencies are possible.

Women and ADD: Part 2

In my last Health Tip, we discussed Claire, a woman in her thirties with attention deficit disorder (ADD), reviewing lifestyle and non-medication approaches. This week, I’ll go over the conventional medications used for this very common condition.

Women and ADD: Part 1

Already ten minutes late for her first appointment, Claire phoned from her car that she’d be in the office in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, she arrived flustered and embarrassed, and “Oh, my gosh, I left all the forms on my kitchen table, but I did fill them out,” and “My insurance card? I’m sure I had it, I can call my husband, he has one, I think,” and “Could you please put money in the meter for me, I just realized I forgot and I have s-o-o-o many tickets…”

Time-Crunched, Inattentive Physicians Working In Silos

Back in 2011, I wrote a Health Tip entitled, “Physicians as Morons”, whose title over the years I have come to regret, the unpleasantness of name-calling and all. You can read about this case here, but it’s just easier if I summarize it. A young woman had contacted me for help with the unusual diagnosis of hypertrichosis, a medical term for a skin condition in which she was growing hair all over her body.

How To Take Care Of Your Gut

I must admit being intrigued by a New York Times article earlier this month entitled, “How a Gastroenterologist Cares for Her Gut”, because, let’s face it, we do a lot of “gut rehab” work here at WholeHealth Chicago. I was curious about the conventional recommendations.

Alternative Approaches For Your Depression, Anxiety, Insomnia, And Even A.D.D.

Maybe the increases in these diagnoses began with the COVID pandemic but more likely we just weren’t paying attention. We’ll not really know until a few years from now when statisticians look over the data, compare notes with each other, and can finally say, “Wow! Look at these numbers! More mood disorders, more anti-depressants and anti-anxiety prescriptions, more sleep meds. We even run out of ADD meds every month. What’s happening?”.

This Health Tip Might Make You Anxious: Keep Reading

I scan all sorts of medical information sources to write these Health Tips. The usual ones that every doctor should be reading (JAMA, Medscape, etc.), but I don’t miss the New York Times and the Washington Post.

High Dose Ozone Therapy: What It Is And How Doctors Use It

If you’ve been to either of our centers, I’m sure you’ve seen patients relaxing in large recliner chairs, dozing, or busy on their smartphone, tablet or reading a book and on the receiving end of an intravenous drip.

Not One Nibble More Than 25 Grams Of Sugar A Day

Of course, everyone reading this already knows that sugar is “bad” for you. It’ll make you fat, you can get addicted to it, and it causes all sorts of health problems, like early heart disease, diabetes, depression, cancer susceptibility.

A New Treatment For Chronic Anxiety

Far and away, the most common mental illness troubling the human animal is Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which can make life really miserable for almost 25% of women and 15% of men.

Prevention/Treatment Of All Chronic Illnesses

Here at WholeHealth Chicago we’re introducing a bevy of new treatments aimed at preventing and even treating virtually all chronic symptoms and disease illnesses, the ‘bad stuff’ life can throw you when you least expect it during the decades ahead.

Peptides For Longevity

Take a glance around our waiting room or apothecary to see what a patient population engaged in maintaining good health actually looks like. Even the beginners, perhaps overweight or out of shape, are working on self improvement.

Peptides As Aphrodisiacs

It seems that men wanted to control female sexuality since the dawn of time. “Aphrodisiacs” (named after Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and desire) appear in the medical writings of ancient Greece, and in Chinese medicine a combination of acupuncture and herbs apparently worked wonders.

More Information on the New Weight Loss Meds

In last week’s Health Tip I introduced you to the semaglutides, the weekly injectable medications originally approved by the FDA for Type 2 diabetes, but when it was discovered how many users were losing 20% of their weight, began getting quick approval for ‘obesity’.

Peptides For Weight Loss: What You Need To Know

You’re tired of being overweight, and now you’re teetering toward actual ‘obesity’. You’ve tried everything. You’ve been dieting as long as you can remember and nothing happens. You starve yourself, exercise to exhaustion, lose some pounds and gain them back. No matter what you do, your ‘tummy’ is still there. You know you’re not alone.

Peptide Therapy Thymosin And Bpc 157

Honestly, if you Google ‘peptide therapy', you’ll get overwhelmed by TMI (‘too much information’). Then you might be put off by claims that sound terrific (“Burn fat! Combat mental decline!” “Heal wounds! Reverse aging!”) but then make you feel, well, skeptical.

Orthomolecular Medicine and Longevity

“Orthomolecular medicine”. Now there’s a phrase you don’t hear in the 21st century, except in historical terms. Invented by two-time Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling (Do you even remember him? Ah! How fleeting is fame!), one prize for his work on chemical bonds, the second, the Nobel Peace Prize for his work banning atmospheric nuclear testing.

Everything Begins In The Gut

I sometimes wonder if new patients to WholeHealth Chicago think we’re overly preoccupied with their digestion, gut health, nutrition, and even the consistency and quality of their stool when they scheduled that appointment for a seemingly unrelated problem.

Mast Cell Activation Syndrome

Mast cells are a special type of white blood cell manufactured in your bone marrow that travel just beneath the surfaces of your skin, moist mucosal surfaces like your respiratory tree and your digestive tract.

NAD+: Getting Serious About Anti-Aging Therapy

We’re living in a time of major, worldwide breakthroughs when it comes to understanding how we age and also the steps we can take to not only slow down aging, but to all appearances reverse the process.

How Menopause Can Destroy Mental Health

“Pretty dramatic title,” I thought, “especially for usually staid, Guardian newspaper.” But the writer had been collecting data from UK doctors, interviewing patients, and clearly was shocked at what she had found.

Water And Your Longevity

Sometime in her eighties, my Aunt Hildy, who passed on at 94 or so, handed me a book, “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water”, by an Iranian physician with a totally unpronounceable name, Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, M.D.

Women and ADD part two

In my last Health Tip, we discussed Claire, a woman in her thirties with attention deficit disorder (ADD), reviewing lifestyle and non-medication approaches.

Women and ADD

Already ten minutes late for her first appointment, Claire phoned from her car that she’d be in the office in five minutes.

The Loneliest, Saddest Patients In America

Imagine this: one night, you awaken from sleep feeling itchy all over. You scratch and scratch, eventually getting back to sleep. The next day, you feel like your skin is crawling.

Three Paths To Great Looking Skin

When it’s time, you can expect to transition through menopause in one of three ways. If you’re unlucky enough to land in Menopause Hell, give some serious thought to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).

Quell The Fire of Menopause Hell With BHRT

Slow Aging and Track Your Results

Most people figure they must be getting older based on how they feel and look. We wince at our first grey hair, deepening wrinkles, and shifting body fat.

When Your Thyroid Medication Isn’t Working

Thyroid facts worth knowing: The diagnosis of mild (also called “subclinical”) hypothyroidism (low levels of thyroid hormone) is overlooked by many physicians and when you actually are diagnosed with hypothyroidism, you might be prescribed the medicine that won’t work best for you.

Anti-Aging Medicine: Testosterone For Men, And, Yes, It Really Works

In middle age, you, as a man, or your sexual partner (keeping this observation to her/himself), will likely start to notice a group of symptoms due to a slow but inevitable decline of your male hormone testosterone.

Heart Disease Prevention: Part 3

The (alleged) BIG NEWS in health care last week, that spread through CNN, Prevention Magazine, NYT, Journal of the AMA, etc. etc., was the publication in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology which compared the cholesterol lowering effect of statins to those of several nutritional supplements (cinnamon, fish oil, garlic, red yeast rice, turmeric and placebo).

Heart Disease Prevention: Part 2: Getting Started

Most people aren’t certain what illnesses run in their family and how dangerous these might be.

Covid Distracted Us, But Heart Disease Remains Our #1 Killer

About 700,000 of us will die of heart disease every year; most of which is preventable provided we become proactive patients.

Protect Yourself From the Chemical Swill In Your Body and All Around Us

The American Medical Association estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 people will die unnecessarily every decade because of our government’s failure to respond quickly enough to the harsh EPA rollbacks that occurred during the Trump administration.

Ready For This? There Are 115 Manifestations Of LONG COVID

“But,” you splutter, “I read everywhere how the COVID numbers are going down. Nobody’s dying of COVID these days. And what about those boosters?”

Wellness Path To Cancer Prevention

After a certain age, every person fears getting cancer (and believe me, doctors are just as skittish as everyone else!). Being told, “I’m sorry you have cancer,” or “we need to find you a good oncologist,” is a moment you will remember forever.

NAD+...A Potent Anti-Aging Therapy

There have been major breakthroughs on a worldwide scale when it comes to understanding how we age and steps, serious steps, we can take to not only slow it down but to all appearances, reverse the process.

So Many of My Relatives Have Alzheimer’s - I’m Scared

Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation

You’ll see ultraviolet lamps in many areas of hospitals and medical centers used in a variety of ways. Doctors began to appreciate the healing powers of ultraviolet light as far back as the early years of the 20th century.

Infusions & Supplements to Maximize Your Surgical Success

If you’ve ever undergone surgery, either “emergency” (like “we need to remove your appendix NOW”) or “elective” (a strange term basically meaning “you can put your surgery off until it’s convenient for either of us.

Infusions At Wholehealth Chicago #1: Ozone Therapy: What It Is And How Doctors Use It

If you’ve been to either of our centers, I’m sure you’ve seen the large leather recliner chairs, often containing a patient, busy on their smartphone, tablet or reading a book and on the receiving end of an intravenous drip.

The Statistically Proven Dangers of Television Watching

There’s some interesting data in this Health Tip based on both recent and older research concerning our screen viewing habits and their effects on both mind and body.

Where are we with COVID? Overall, We’re Not in a Good Place

It was like magic. After three years of sickness, death, lockdowns, masks, taking our temperatures, measuring oxygen levels, suddenly everyone on the planet seemed so shout “Don’t talk to me about COVID anymore!”

Phosphatidyl Choline (PC) an Anti-Aging Wonder Pill

You’ve likely read or heard about phosphatidyl choline somewhere, maybe online or on a bottle in a supplement aisle. Perhaps, like many of us, you could barely pronounce it and therefore disregarded it completely.

You Know It’s Time To Change Doctors When…

Despite waiting weeks for an appointment and filling out all those forms, you can tell from the get-go, you’re being regarded as an inconvenience.

Longevity Medicine: Three New Facts And Five Anti-Aging Supplements

During these days of generally bad news (people getting shot, the Monarch butterfly population in steep decline) it is heartening to read the findings from a huge study...

Wholehealth Chicago Partners With Chicago’s Finest Trigger Point Therapy Team

Let me tell you about Mary Biancalana and the value of myofascial trigger point therapy. A lifelong fitness expert and personal trainer, in her early thirties Mary found herself with chronic headaches.

Longevity Medicine: Chronic Inflammation and Cytokines

Did you ever wonder why some obese people, after decades of being badgered by their families and physicians to lose weight, out-live all of them and are healthy for decades?

Longevity Medicine: Take A Family Inventory

If every one of your parents/grandparents/great-grandparents made it well into their 90’s, and passed away with their bodies and minds basically intact, you can probably skip this Health Tip.

Longevity Medicine: Your Gums And Your Lifespan

Last week, we chatted about how your microbiome affects your longevity. Now let’s meander to the other end of your 30-foot-long alimentary canal, up to your mouth, specifically your gums.

Longevity Medicine: Your Intestinal Microbiome As A Predictor Of Longevity

Seriously folks, I really don’t believe conventional medicine knows much about your intestinal microbiome except, “Too many antibiotics cause diarrhea” and “C. difficle is really dangerous.”

Longevity Medicine: How Your Herd Of Specialists And Their Fragmented Care Can Shorten Your Life

“Silo medicine”. It’s an odd way to express it, “silo medicine”, but there have been articles written using just this phrase to express one of the most serious flaws in the health care system.

Longevity Medicine: How Owning A Gun Might Shorten Your Life

My personal experience with guns is close to zero, except for coveting (and never receiving) a Daisy Red Ryder air rifle when I was about twelve years old.

May, June, July: Covid, Ticks, Long Haul, Chronic Lyme, What Next?

COVID-19 is certainly still with us. Last week, the U.S. death toll crossed the one million mark. Suburban Evanston returned to the high-risk zone for COVID transmission.

Longevity Medicine: Testosterone For Men, And, Yes, For Women,Too

In middle age, men will begin very slowly to notice a group of symptoms attributable to the decline of their male hormone testosterone. The medical term for this is “andropause” sometimes called “male menopause.”

The Roe Vs Wade Debacle And My Decades Dealing With Abortion

The opinions on abortion are mine and not necessarily those of the staff at WholeHealth Chicago. For Health Tip readers who have commented that I should not voice political opinions and stick to my work as a doctor.

Longevity Medicine: Long Term Lead Exposure

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