A biochemical reason why H1N1 hurt some more than others… and how to fight it

The journal Critical Care just came out with a study that found a biochemical marker that may explain why some people became severely ill with H1N1 flu, whereas most others had mild illness. Clinically, we knew that those with pre-existing lung diseases, such as asthma, were at increased risk for severe illness. But some without [...]

Read Full Post »

Top 5 Swine Flu Prevention

With Labor Day holiday today, the health news that has dominated not only the Health section of the newspaper, but often the Business section as well as the front page, is the possibility of swine flu re-emerging as a threat. Swine flu is able to target the young, and like any virulent infectious disease, spread [...]

Read Full Post »

Homo toxicus

CBC’s documentary series “The Lens” aired a program last night titled Homo toxicus. The program detailed a woman who had her blood tested for environmental contaminants, and found over 110 chemicals including PCBs and known carcinogens. The program investigated the woman’s search to see whether or not these chemicals were playing a role in her [...]

Read Full Post »

Green tea slows prostate cancer

Population based, green tea is the most popular beverage world-wide, and with good reason. I have written before on the benefits of the calming amino acid theanine and the health benefits of the plant chemical EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) that is present in high amounts of matcha tea, and now there is another study showing the [...]

Read Full Post »

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with more plaque build up in arteries

A recent study in type I diabetics gives us another reason, other than swine flu to make sure our vitamin D levels are optimized. 375 patients with type I diabetes were studied and their vitamin D levels measured. When the levels were below 25 nmol/L (SI, Canadian units) these patients were almost 3 times as [...]

Read Full Post »

Fasting sugar is not the best marker for pre-diabetes

I query most of my patients during the initial exam and history as to whether or not they have any diabetes in the family. Often I am told that they do, and that they themselves “have been tested” for diabetes and are fine. This almost always means that they have had a fasting glucose measurement [...]

Read Full Post »

Back at it…

After a long delay due to being too busy at home – I am back to semi-frequent posting.
The news this morning has stated that the World Health Organization is preparing to declare the Swine Flu a pandemic. The preparations they are speaking of are more to avoid a panic amongst the general public.
The World Health [...]

Read Full Post »

Chemical toxicity in the news…

Drycleaning in the water
A small town near a military base outside of Quebec City has found out recently that there has been a leak of a chemical into their water supply for the last few years. The chemical, TCE or trichloroethylene, is a probably carcinogen.
From the Globe and Mail:
QUEBEC — Marie-Paule Spieser lost her best [...]

Read Full Post »

Disinfectants for use in the house…

Most people already know that we should be using separate cutting boards for raw meat and vegetables. Hopefully after having a good turkey dinner, clean up wil have been thorough to get rid of reisdual bacteria from raw turkey that has been in contact with counters and surfaces.
While these aren’t the type of chronic infections [...]

Read Full Post »

Sleep matters… for more than neurodegenerative disease

15 years ago I was involved in competitive martial arts, and competed nationally as part of a provincial BC team. The training often involved heavy sparring at mid-to-full contact. Nowadays I tend to dream about naturopathic medicine, but back then my dreams were definitely about martial arts.
In fact, in many of the dreams I found [...]

Read Full Post »