Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a variant of major depressive disorder that occurs during darker winter months when the days grow shorter. It’s fortunately far less common in sunny AZ. But it still does occur. This may be in part because, despite the sunshine, Vitamin D deficiency is still common [...]
Lithium is a trace mineral that doesn’t get a lot of attention. It’s not included in most multivitamins. There hasn’t been a great deal of research historically into its effects in the body. It’s known best not as a mineral, but as a high dose pharmaceutical for the treatment of [...]
We’re entering the holiday season, which always makes me think of warming spices like cinnamon. The smell and flavor of cinnamon are due to an oil called cinnamaldehyde, which comprises about 90% of cinnamon’s essential oil. Cinnamaldehyde is believed to be the source of cinnamon’s spectacular array of health benefits. [...]
Enter the latest fad diet: The Carnivore Diet. You might think from the title that it’s pretty much the same thing as paleo or keto, but this one takes carb avoidance to a whole new level. On the Carnivore Diet, you’re only allowed to eat meat, fish, and animal products [...]
The Blood Type Diet, popularized by Dr Peter D’Adamo, was all the rage for awhile—and it seems to be enjoying a resurgence, thanks to Dr Gundry’s Low Lectin Diet, based on a similar idea. Both diets revolve around the concept of lectins, or proteins that protrude from a cell’s surface [...]
Lectins are proteins that protrude from a cell’s surface, allowing it to interact with its surroundings. This article compares lectins to Velcro: they’re sticky, and while each individual attachment is weak, the composite effect is strong. Lectins are everywhere: your cells have them, bacteria have them, and most of your food [...]
Beverages can add a lot of empty calories to one’s diet. Any sugar content will hit the bloodstream immediately, since there’s no fiber, protein, or fat to slow its release—which means sugar in beverages set you up for a glucose spike, and subsequent crash while the glucose all rushes into [...]
There are multiple levels of iron deficiency: low ferritin is the first, as ferritin is a storage form of iron. This can progress to low iron saturation in the bloodstream. Finally, it can become iron deficiency (or microcytic) anemia. The first two levels of iron deficiency can be caused by [...]
We all know that sugar is bad for us, right? (If you don’t, check out this article.) Suffice it to say for now that if I could change just one thing about the way people eat in America, it would be to dramatically reduce or eliminate processed sugar consumption.) But what [...]
Image credit https://traineracademy.org/ There are a lot of trendy diets out there (paleo, ketogenic, Whole 30, Autoimmune Protocol, GAPS, Specific Carbohydrate, etc). They all have their merits, and I do put people on each of them in specific cases. But one of the simplest, longest term approaches is “counting macros.” [...]