Why Absolutely No Situation Is Hopeless

There will be times when life’s challenges will cause extreme misery and sorrow. No matter what you do or how hard you try, you may feel that your situation is hopeless. You feel stuck in the tunnel of despair. Everything around you looks dark and uncertain. It seems as if things are falling apart, and… Read more »

Medicine: In Need of Change

Have any of you wondered about this column’s title, The Paradigm Shift in Medicine Today? What is the paradigm shift it references? Why does this matter? And, why would this be important to me? A paradigm shift is an expansion of perspective to include more information. The revelation that the world was round and not… Read more »

Health Care Professionals Learning to Manage Stress

Health care stress is rampant― affecting its providers (employees and the organizations) and customers (patients and their families) alike. “Most stress in life is unnecessary, though some of it is inevitable,” says Kiran Dintyala, MD, MPH, a board certified internal medicine physician with Eisenhower Medical Center. “There are simple things that one can learn to… Read more »

Support Groups and Therapy Groups: What Is the Difference?

As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I have worked with many people on a one-on-one basis. I have also led many group therapy sessions and facilitated numerous support groups. Quite often I am asked: What is the difference between group therapy and support groups? Aren’t they pretty much the same? But if not, which… Read more »

SVF for Neurological Conditions

This is the latest story in our series about the uses of fat-derived stem cells for the treatment of degenerative diseases. Stem cells can be derived from your own fat as part of a minor outpatient procedure performed as a type of “mini liposuction” under local anesthesia. The product obtained known as Stromal Vascular Fraction… Read more »

Cancer Does Not Discriminate

Cancer does not discriminate. It affects people of all ages, races, backgrounds and lifestyles. And sometimes it finds those you’d least expect – those who have lived the healthy, balanced life that we all strive to achieve. This year, breast cancer found Shay Moraga at 39 years old. A yogi who lived a clean, balanced… Read more »

The Dish on Fat

It seems straightforward. Calories in equal calories out. If we eat less and exercise more, we’ll lose weight. NOT TRUE! The truth is: Eating calories isn’t the same as burning calories. When you eat sugar and refined carbs (bread, pasta, crackers, chips, cereals), an increase in the hormone insulin occurs. This hormone fuels fat cells… Read more »

Rhythm

One of the beauties of life is the repetition of patterns that serve as teachers of life’s great themes. Nature must know that we humans are slow learners and therefore offers us example after example of this important truth: rhythm is a vital component to virtually every part of our existence. Our heart has a… Read more »

Biography Becomes Biology

Have you ever audited yourself on the way you plan for your most precious gift: your health? We tend to spend time planning our financial strategy, our travel, our social life, but few of us create a health strategy for ourselves. With the growth of the functional medicine movement, I have pondered its basic premise:… Read more »

Treating Interstitial Cystitis

Painful bladder syndromes are very complex and often poorly understood. Yet, they are a significant public health concern and contribute substantially to health costs and poor quality of life. Painful bladder symptoms may include frequency, burning, and urgency to urinate as well as pelvic pain and interference with sexual function. The most severe of the… Read more »

Less Stress, More Joy

Life is about growth, balance, and passion. Life is supposed to be lived peacefully and joyfully. Alas! How often we are stuck in the stresses and strains, losing ourselves completely in the maze of life…too often. Stress hinders growth, leads to imbalance and breeds dispassion. So, it is very important that we prevent stress and… Read more »

Prebiotics: Fertilizer for Your Digestive Garden

Probiotics have really stepped into the spotlight in the past few years. New research linking gut health and pathologies like depression is proving what naturopathic doctors have been saying for a long time – the gut-brain connection is not to be ignored. By extension, gut health is of prime importance. To be clear, probiotics are… Read more »

The What and Why of Support Groups

Support groups are made up of people with common interests and experiences. People who have been or are going through a similar circumstance can do more than sympathize with you—they can truly understand your thoughts, feelings and questions. Often, people who have been through what you’re going through have fewer judgments about what you “should”… Read more »

Gut Instincts

Probiotic, micro-biome, gut-brain axis, leaky gut, food intolerance…these words have become more common in the past few years, and yet there is a lot of confusion about what is going on with our gut. We used to think of the gut or gastrointestinal tract as a somewhat indestructible channel through the body that had no… Read more »

Is Rejuvenation Biology the Future of Wellness?

Human biology is changing rapidly. Just as Moore’s law was applied to the exponential growth of computer technology 50 years ago, experts now believe that human biology has started a period of exponential change following the mapping of the human genome and new technologies to understand how life works. Rejuvenation biology is a growing medical… Read more »

Cryopreservation of Your Own Stem Cells

Autologous (your own) stem cells from fat have been used for repair and regeneration on an investigational basis for various degenerative conditions including orthopedic, urologic, neuro-degenerative, cardiac and auto-immune diseases. These cell therapy procedures are generally performed on an outpatient basis and involve the use of cells from liposuction fat that are prepared on the… Read more »