Posts Tagged ‘Vitamin D’

Arthritis, Gossip and Vitamin D News

October 14, 2010 Written by JP

Life expectancy is slowly but surely rising in the US and many industrialized countries. This is a welcome trend that we all hope will continue. But with advancing age, so too comes an elevated risk of degenerative and progressive health conditions including arthritis, heart disease, osteoporosis and more. So while scientists strive to find new ways of keeping us here longer, we must do our part to figure out how to improve the quality of this additional time.
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Posted in Bone and Joint Health, Mental Health | 2 Comments & Updates

Hot Flashes, Influenza and Weight Loss Updates

July 14, 2010 Written by JP

There is an enormous gap between what we know and don’t know in the field of alternative and complementary medicine. Countless questions remain unanswered simply because there isn’t enough financing and resources to test in a scientific manner. That’s why it’s vitally important to put to use every last study that has been conducted. Because even the slightest of experiments can yield important clues that help bridge the knowledge gap. Read more »


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Posted in Diet and Weight Loss, Women's Health | 3 Comments & Updates

Holistic Tweets

July 8, 2010 Written by JP

Long before the advent of alarm clocks, the Sun served as mankind’s lone wake-up call. Conversely, when the dark hours of night rolled around it was an obvious reminder to rest and allow the body to recover from the active day that preceded. This was the logical pattern that served countless generations well, but that has largely been abandoned in modern times. While it’s impractical to try and reclaim this traditional sleep-wake cycle, it may be wise to inch closer to it in ways that fit our schedules. Read more »


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Posted in Alternative Therapies, Bone and Joint Health | 6 Comments & Updates

Good Doctors

May 28, 2010 Written by JP

I recently had two positive experiences while visiting a couple of allopathic physicians. The first occurred when my wife and I went in for our yearly physical, convenient because we both see the same doctor. After a thorough, “old school” examination he proclaimed, “You guys don’t really need me. You already know all the right things to do and you’re doing them”. That’s a bit of an overstatement, but it’s a clear example of his approach to medicine. This is a physician who doesn’t like to waste money or time – his or ours. A couple of weeks later we made a surprise visit to the emergency room. My wife took a nasty fall and hit her head on a steel beam. Needless to say, we fully expected that a CT scan would be required to rule out a concussion or worse. But once again, the doctor we saw opted for a more conservative approach. He explained that he prefers to use CT scans only when forced to by the presence of certain critical symptoms. He simply does not like to expose the brain to large doses of unnecessary radiation. Read more »


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Posted in Alternative Therapies, Diabetes, Nutrition | 6 Comments & Updates

Natural Mood Boosters

May 19, 2010 Written by JP

According to the National Institute of Mental Health almost 10% of the US adult population is living with a mood disorder. Approximately 15,000 million of these men and women carry the diagnosis of major depressive disorder. An additional 3 million adults are dealing with a milder form of chronic depression referred to as dysthymic disorder. (1) Read more »


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Posted in Alternative Therapies, Mental Health, Nutritional Supplements | 27 Comments & Updates

Osteopenia and Osteoporosis Alternative

May 12, 2010 Written by JP

Whenever possible, I like to turn the spotlight on alternative remedies to potentially dangerous medications. A class of drugs known as bisphophonates are best sellers in the senior population. Older women tend to be the primary recipients of prescriptions for Actonel, Boniva and Fosamax because they’re geared toward stemming the loss of bone density. My problem with bisphosphonates is the quality of bone they ultimately yield, which can be brittle, and their questionable side effect profile. Patients and physicians have reported instances of “acute influenza-like illness”, arterial fibrillation, esophageal irritation, gastrointestinal upset, musculoskeletal complaints and osteonecrosis (bone death) of the jaw that appear to be associated with long term use of these medications. (1,2,3)
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Posted in Bone and Joint Health, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements | 15 Comments & Updates

Chewing Gum, Honey and Vitamin D

April 30, 2010 Written by JP

The first stop on today’s Twitter tour is a visit with Dr. Andrew Weil to get his two cents about the relative merits of honey as a sweetener. Then two new contributors to Twitter Thursday – Nancy Onyett, a certified family nurse practitioner, competitive bodybuilder and director of the Pyramid Preventative Medicine and Dr. Bill Yates, a Tulsa-based physician with a keen eye for interesting neuroscientific research. Finally, we’ll round out today’s column with some input from a few familiar Twitter sources: Neatorama and Dr. Wayne Dyer.
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Posted in Diabetes, Diet and Weight Loss | 2 Comments & Updates

Arthritis, Diabetes and Vitamin D

April 5, 2010 Written by JP

Several years ago, I was working in the casting department at a major film and television company. On one particular day I was asked to pull some scenes from the film Pay it Forward (starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osmont) that would highlight the considerable acting skills of Mr. Spacey. While reviewing the film, I remember thinking that screenwriters sometime like to write young characters into their films because they can say things that older actors can’t. Take this line for instance: “I guess it’s hard for people who are so used to things the way they are – even if they’re bad – to change. ‘Cause they kind of give up. And when they do, everybody kind of loses”. As spoken by the young Haley Joel Osment, the dialog was effective. But even a great performer such as Kevin Spacey might have a hard time pulling off those lines without sounding corny. Read more »


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Posted in Bone and Joint Health, Diabetes, Heart Health | 6 Comments & Updates

Natural Bone Builders

March 12, 2010 Written by JP

Some alt-med experts are suspicious of mainstream medical publications such as the The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). They generally believe that such periodicals are firmly in the camp or even in the pocket of allopathic medicine. While there may be some truth to that, it’s also accurate to say that unbiased articles do occasionally appear in these same journals that are often criticized. Read the following quote and tell me if it sounds like it belongs in a publication whose primary purpose is to support the existing medical and pharmaceutical paradigm: “The current drug-labeling practice for adverse events is based on the implicit assumption that an accurate portrait of patients’ subjective experiences can be provided by clinicians’ documentation alone. Yet a substantial body of evidence contradicts this assumption, showing that clinicians systematically downgrade the severity of patients’ symptoms, that patients’ self-reports frequently capture side effects that clinicians miss, and that clinicians’ failure to note these symptoms results in the occurrence of preventable adverse events”. That quote is taken directly from a current analysis entitled, “The Missing Voice of Patients in Drug-Safety Reporting” which is presented in the March 10th online edition of the NEJM. Read more »


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Posted in Alternative Therapies, Bone and Joint Health, Nutritional Supplements | 16 Comments & Updates

Top 5 Natural Health News Items

January 12, 2010 Written by JP

One of most common problems that writers have is a nagging inability to self edit. It may seem odd, but it’s much easier for many scribes to write articles, novels or screenplays that are too long rather than too short. When I compose my daily column, I find that I generally have an over abundance of information to share. Therefore, I need to carefully pick and choose among my source information. But even so, I still end up with blog entries that tend to be lengthier than desired. This is especially problematic because I very much want to provide clear and concise resources on this site. One possible solution I’m currently toying with is the use of occasional lists. Instead of writing columns that are comprised of densely constructed paragraphs, I’ll simply select 5 noteworthy studies or topics and briefly describe their relevance as I see it. Read more »


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Posted in Children's Health, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements | 7 Comments & Updates

Olive Oil and Red Wine Gifts

December 10, 2009 Written by JP

A few years ago I gave my wife a rather unconventional gift for the holidays. It was a book of “vouchers for lovers”. In it, there were coupons that could be redeemed whenever she chose. Some of the options included requests for “alone time”, “a big kiss”, “breakfast in bed”, “a candlelight dinner”, “a foot massage” and “a weekend getaway”. I don’t know who originally conceived of this idea, but I thought it was very clever. It seemed like an excellent way for couples to give a lot without necessarily having to spend a lot. Read more »


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Posted in Food and Drink, Heart Health, Nutrition | 10 Comments & Updates

Overweight News

November 2, 2009 Written by JP

There are some fairly obvious reasons why obesity is such a prevalent issue in the 21st century. Likewise, there are many predictable consequences that frequently befall those carrying around excess weight. However, there are also some modifiable risk factors that tend to fly under the mainstream media’s radar. It could be that these topics are just “too boring” or, perhaps, they’re deemed too specific for a mass audience. But the fact remains that being unaware of these threats can seriously endanger one’s health. Read more »


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Posted in Diet and Weight Loss, Heart Health, Mental Health | 13 Comments & Updates

Vitamin D Headlines

October 17, 2009 Written by JP

If you took a poll that asked people to identify the most popular vitamin in the world, you’d likely find that Vitamin C tops the list. But if you posed that same question to researchers who are currently conducting scientific studies, their answer would almost certainly be Vitamin D – and I’m not just referring to researchers in the field of nutritional science. Specialists from all over the medical map are expressing an interest in the role that the “sunshine vitamin” may play in conditions ranging from asthma to cardiovascular disease to diabetes, and even lesser known conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). These days, the scientific literature is simply lit up with references to ergocalciferol (Vitamin D2) and cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3).

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Posted in Bone and Joint Health, Nutritional Supplements, Women's Health | 13 Comments & Updates