Tag Archives: prevention

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 32

Asthma, Allergies and Nutrition – The Story Part III – THE NUTRITION STUDIES – THE TO DO
There is good quality data on specific parts of a diet or nutritional plan as it relates to asthma. This section will detail these micronutrient and macronutrient benefits and how to implement them in an overall asthma plan. We will start by looking at a list of high quality nutritional interventions and then follow with an expanded view of a few critical players…… and a second section of mothers and death risk perinatally.
To your health,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #52 – Jacquelyn Paykel, MD – Whole Health Medicine

This weeks guest is my former classmate and good friend, Dr. Jacquelyn Paykel. Jax, as I call her, is a tour de force in the world of Integrative Medicine at the Armed Forces level. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee with a degree in Anthropology. She then obtained medical and residency degrees in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. To round out her degrees, she completed an Integrative Medicine Fellowship at the University of Arizona as well as an MBA at the UNC Kenan Flagler Business School.
She is the Chief of the Whole Health Service (WHS) at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, Florida, leading the first-of-its-kind VA WHS within the U.S. where they develop and implement novel patient-centered clinical and well-being services for patients and employees. A U.S. Navy Veteran, Dr. Paykel has mentored and consulted with VA Medical Centers across the country on implementation of Whole Health. She leads the development and national spread of THRIVE – a virtual Whole Health healing program.
This week we discuss her work with the Veterans Administration Department and Whole Health Service. This work is a model for the entire country.
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 31

THE NUTRITIONAL STUDIES
We know that the foods that we consume affect our intestinal microbiome, our immune system, our metabolism and therefore have a significant effect on inflammation. Is this knowledge translatable to asthma? Let us look specifically at nutrition as it relates to Asthma. Are there specific diet studies available that lead us toward a unified diet for better asthma health? Can we make good recommendations for our patients on a macronutrient basis with fats, carbohydrates and protein ratios and types. Do we have data to support certain micronutrient needs in asthma and how a diet could provide these nutrients? How much can we trust the data?…..
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 30

Asthma, Allergies and Nutrition – The Story
Here is a long form look at asthma and allergies as I am preparing a lecture on asthma and allergies for a conference in October. I will break it up into a few parts for your consumption.
  • Asthma is now well known to be an inflammatory disease based on the response to anti-inflammatory medications and pathophysiological evidence making it a prime candidate for anti-inflammatory nutritional interventions.
  • The Standard American Diet is filled with pro-inflammatory highly refined and processed foods that are laden with excessive amounts of sugar and unhealthy fats thus promoting inflammatory pathways that exacerbate disease.
  • The genesis of the inflammation is now believed to start in part in the intestinal and pulmonary microbiomes with the loss of immune tolerance. The intestinal microbiome is highly responsive to whole food dietary alterations.
  • Uric acid, a by product of fructose metabolism, is becoming a known driver of inflammasome activation and local tissue inflammation
  • We will discuss in depth the food choices that lower the inflammatory burden, the asthma phenotype and the food immune reactions that exacerbate disease……..

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 28

Outdoor Yard Safety
Yard work season is here and for me, lots of happy times spent outdoors. I remember as a youth earning money mowing lawns. The work was fun and the money was happily accepted. My father was my mower safety coach. Unfortunately, despite good teaching, I still burned myself on the engine by not paying attention to where I was touching. I still spilt gasoline on myself. I still ran over projectile objects in the grass carelessly. Ah, youth….
Have a great day,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 27

Let us head back to the headwaters of HDL biology to find some more answers. If you did not read the original HDL piece or remember the basics of HDL biology, go back to Newsletter V13 #15 for a review. HDL as an associated biomarker of death risk has a U shaped curve with higher all cause mortality at very low and high levels of volume. Let us understand why? (Madsen et. al. 2017) Anything that causes more LDL, low density lipoproteins, to stay in circulation will raise one’s risk of ASCVD or heart attack. The historical reality (as I have discussed for years) for why we would have these genomic mutations to have more LDL particles in circulation is 1) as a protection mechanism against bacterial infections which were common for thousands of years. The HDL and LDL particles have receptors on their surface to grab bacterial cell wall debris like LTE or LPS and remove them via the liver. This is a massive beneftit to the human species until recent times. 2) as a storage mechanism for calories/recirculation of metabolically expensive cholesterol. (Maile et. al. 2020)(Feng et. al.. 2019)(Trinder et. al. 2021)…….
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #50 – Richard Johnson, MD – Fructose and Perinatal Issues

This weeks guest is my favorite researcher, Dr. Richard Johnson.
He is the Tomas Berl Professor of Medicine and the Chief of the Renal Division and Hypertension at the University of Colorado since 2008. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a major in Anthropology, and a graduate of the University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, he is a physician and nephrologist whose research has focused on the role of sugar, and especially fructose, in driving obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease. Much of this work has explored the role of fructose metabolism, especially the generation of uric acid, in driving this phenotype, and his work has included studies ranging from molecular biology, integrative physiology, and evolutionary biology. He is the author of The Sugar Fix which introduced the first low fructose diet, and also The Fat Switch which explores the role of fructose in driving the obesity epidemic. His newest book, Nature Wants Us To Be Fat, is a tour de force of the entire pathway of survival via metabolic events in the body related to fructose and the polyol pathway. This is a must read book.
This podcast will follow up on the original conversation, podcast #14, and the exceptional work of Dr. Johnson this time looking at how we are mismatched metabolically for the environment of modern America and our food systems from the maternal health and perinatal perspective.
Enjoy,
Dr. M