021-My Interview with Ashley Koff RD on Integrative Nutrition for Optimal Health- Part 2 of 3

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This is part 2 of my interview with Ashley Koff RD on the importance of good diet for our health

We talk about her two books, Recipes for IBS and Mom Energy: A Simple Plan to Live Fully Charged which she wrote with Kathy Kaehler, who is a celebrity trainer. 

25 million people have IBS and that is why Ashley wrote a book on the dietary approach to helping patients with IBS. Ashley wanted her book to be called Digestive Wellness and that is what it is really about. 

In her new book Mom Energy: A Simple Plan to Live Fully Charged. In this book she talks about how fatigue is one of the main complaints in our society.  She talks about how people are confusing MORE energy with Better energy. We want to learn what a good baseline energy for us. Her book is much more than just the mother with children but really anybody who needs to give out a lot of energy.

She points out that in the name of being a mom, women are often rewarding themselves with food. She talks about the importance of being selfish so that you can take care of yourself and that you can then take better care of your children and family. In our society the idea being selfish is regarded as negative, but that is not really the way it should be. This will let women be better in their own lives and better for others.

The simple analogy is that on an airplane you are advised that if the oxygen masks drop down you are to put it on yourself before your children so that you can properly take care of them. 

Ashley talks about how she met with an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Center in New York who always advises his cancer patients to eat only organic but he does not eat organic himself at home!

I find this very often in my practice that people do not pay attention to these things until they reach a crisis point.

We talk about which diet Ashley recommends to her general clients. She recommends a Qualitarian diet which is a diet that uses high quality foods that are not loaded with pesticides, or sugars, or preservatives.

The idea of what I can and cannot have should always be based on what is best for your body. Somebody on a vegan diet could be eating sugar and caffeine all day and be very unhealthy. Not everybody should be on the same diet. But synthetic, processed, poor quality food does not work for anybody.

You have to play an active role in order to be a “Qualitarian”. With this diet you have to be knowledgeable about nutrients. This is important thing to know if you are vegetarian or vegan in order to avoid belly fat.

We need to get complete protein but you do not have to eat meat to do that but just a variety of foods to give you the full Amino Acid balance.

We also talk about how it is ironic that cows are vegans and yet we eat their meat in order to get our full protein!  They got their full proteins from eating a variety of grasses that carried the full amino acid balance, so why can’t we? And of course in fact we can! 

To find out more about Ashely, check out her website or find her on facebook and twitter

You can find her book Mom Energy: A Simple Plan to live Fully Charged which you can get here

Or here as a kindle book

You can get her book on Recipes for IBS here

or on Kindle here

Please leave comments and questions below or email me at questions@askdrsoram.com

020-My interview with Ashley Koff RD on Integrative Nutrition for Optimizing Health

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Ashley Koff RD is a registered dietitian that I have worked with in my office for over five years. Often I give my patient's special diets in order to help improve their health. This can range from a "leaky gut" diet to a diet to reduce overgrowth of yeast in the digestive tract. 

As a physician, I often do not have the time to go over the details of the diet and certainly do not have the time to help them with direct menu planning. I'm very fortunate to have Ashley working with me to help implement the diets that I prescribe for patients. As a Registered Dietitian, she is able to sit down with the patient  and go over the diet and menu planning in detail and answer all their questions because of her familiarity with all the integrative medicine types of diets that we use.

In this first part of my interview, Ashley and I discuss what is the difference between a registered dietitian and nutritionist?

We then go on to talk about why a doctor would refer her a patient and what her role is working with the physician such as she does with me. We talk about how she helps my patients. And how she allows email follow-up for her patients. She helps people find what works for them with diet not just a rigid following of a program on a piece of paper. 

Ashley works with me and other physicians around the country and helps our patients “implement” the diets the doctors prescribe.  

On my next podcast I will talk with Ashley about her new book Mom Energy: A Simple Plan to live Fully Charged which you can get here

Or here as a kindle book.

We will also discuss her other book Recipes for IBS.

Ashley’s website is here

Follow her on facebook atAshleykoffapproved

And on twitter @ashleykoff

Please leave comments and questions below or email me at questions@askdrsoram.com.

019-Ask Dr Soram – Dr Crinnion and Phthalates Part 2

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Happy new year to all my listeners and readers and lets make this a year  of Enlightened Medicine, Conscious Living and Compassionate healing.

In this part two of my interview with Dr. Walter Crinnion we continue to discuss the ubiquitous phthalates, and how Conscious Living can help us minimize our exposure to them.

We talk about several studies that have shown it is easy to reduce your phthalate burden. And  a book that shows how the authors were able to reduce their own levels. The book is Slow Death By Rubber Duck

or you can get it on Kindle here

We also talk about Metametrix which is a laboratory where your doctor can order a test kit to measure your phthalate levels. We also talked about the dirty dozen at the environmental working group. The link to the environmental working group's safe cosmetics database is here.

The article about metabolic disruptors that I mentioned in an interview can be found here.

 The link to the Naturopathic Medical Association is here.

The link to Dr. Crinnion's book Clean Green and Lean, is here.

or get it on Kindle here

 And Dr. Crinnion's website is here.

I can recommend a wonderful air filter for your house. It is the Rabbit filter and you can buy it at this website. They've given me a discount code for my listeners which is SK1259  and if you apply it, you will get a discount of $30.00 off when you buy an air filter.

I look forward to hearing your comments about these two interviews with Dr. Crinnion.  Have you changed your lifestyle as a result of this information? Have you read the ingredients on your personal care products? Have you found phthalates in your products? Have you changed the way you cook or make or buy food and the wrapping that is around it as result of this podcast?

You can leave a comment below or you can drop me an e-mail at questions@askdrsoram.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

018-Ask Dr Soram—Interview with Dr Crinnion and what are Phthalates?

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I am delighted to bring you another interview with my colleague and friend Walter Crinnion, N.D. The subject for this podcast is phthalates.

Phthalates are plasticizers and they are used everywhere in our life. From plastic grocery bags to garden hoses to shower curtains to children's toys and food wrapping, we are all constantly being exposed to phthalates.

Phthalates are not like other environmental toxins. Most environmental toxins get in our body and are sequestered in our fat and do their mischief that way. Phthalates do not persist in our body and have a very short half-life of approximately one day. Therefore if you are able to avoid phthalates for just 5 days, levels of phthalates in your body will be markedly less.

In this interview we talk about how you can do that.

The link to the Environmental Working Group is here:

and their fabulous cosmetics database is here.

Phthalates are linked to many common medical conditions that we are seeing in our environment that appear to have no cause. This ranges from endometriosis, to uterine fibroids, to ADHD in children, to reduced fertility in men in our society, and all the way to breast cancer.

And yet, by just changing your environment with the products you use the foods you eat and cleaning up your house and personal care products your levels can significantly drop. In this interview you'll learn how women with the highest levels of phthalates in their body were four times more likely to get breast cancer. One would ask why the FDA does not regulate these products more closely. If there was a food that was causing a breast cancer rate increase of 400% certainly the FDA would become involved.

In addition, increasingly diabetes and obesity are being recognized as linked to our exposure to phthalates.

I look forward to your comments about this part one of the interview with Dr. Crinnion. Have you checked your personal care products? Do you have a doctor that can help you find out if you are overburdened with phthalates? Do you have friends or family that had been diagnosed with breast cancer who have had their phthalate levels checked? Please drop me a comment in the box below or send me an e-mail at questions@askdrsoram.com.

017 Ask Dr Soram –Report on the course I just took from the Institute for Functional Medicine.

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I am just back from the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM) conference entitled Applying Functional Medicine to Detoxification. 

In this podcast, I share with you my excitement about the many things that I learned that complement what I already do in my practice of medicine.

The speakers included Dr. Kristi Hughes, ND, (pictured above with me) who is the Associate Medical Director of the Institute for Functional Medicine. She organized a wonderful conference with three other speakers.

The speakers were Dr. Jeanne Drisko MD, Kenneth Bock, MD, and Rick Mayfield, ND. The four doctors taught us about how environmental toxicity is overwhelming our body's ability to cope with the toxins and contributing to the development of the wealth of diseases that we see in today's society.

Dr. Bock is a famous physician who is treating autistic patients with great success. He pointed out to us that one in 91 children are being diagnosed with autism. One in 11 children are being diagnosed with ADHD, and one out of every four children suffers from respiratory or other allergies.

We learned about the five different mechanisms of toxic insult and how these insults can manifest in disease in adults as well. In adults the manifestations are everything from cancer, diabetes, heart disease to all the autoimmune diseases including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroiditis.

Even the epidemic of obesity in our society is now linked with the toxins which we are now realizing act as what are called "Environmental Obesigens.”  These are chemicals that make it difficult  to lose weight because they change our biochemistry. This then contributes to the relapsing that people trying to lose weight have. 

We discussed "detox" programs that involve a functional food along with a low allergy diet and the many benefits that this can bring.

If you have friends or family who have children with any of the 4-A disorders, autism, ADHD, asthma, or allergies I urge you to read Dr. Bock’s books which you can get here

And here.

Those of you who want to find a practitioner who has had similar training can contact the Institute for Functional Medicine website which is here. They have a list of practitioners and you can find one near you.

I really encourage you if you have a chronic health problem that conventional medicine has not been able to figure out to look for  a functional medicine doctor.

Please leave your comments and questions below or e-mail me at questions@askdrsoram.com. I look forward to being in dialogue with you.

016-Ask Dr Soram-Interview with Dr Neal Barnard on PCRM and its work

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I am delighted to bring you this new podcast of my interview with my colleague Dr. Neal Barnard, discussing the organization of which he is the founder and president, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. (PCRM)

They have over 12,000 physician members and over 120,000 lay members.

PCRM does clinical research and work with diets to see how diet can benefit diabetes and heart disease and other major diseases.

The other side of PCRM is the ethical side. They look at why medical researchers still use animals for experiments that could be better accomplished without animals.

After much work, PCRM has virtually eliminated the use of animals by most medical schools for teaching medical students. 

PCRM brings in non-animal techniques to do research which is now very validated. With modern techniques such as tissue banks which are very sophisticated research can be done without using animals.

He also discusses PCRM’s efforts to ban research on the Great Apes. He and I ask you to call your congressperson and ask them to pass the bill to stop research on the Great Apes. You can call (202) 224-3121 and tell them your zip code and they will connect you to your representative directly. 

PCRM is in partnership with George Washington School of Medicine to teach medical education for physicians on diet and nutrition for good health.  Currently there is almost no education in med school itself on how diet and improve our health. The site is here

His book 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health can be found here

The Nutrition Guide for physicians which Dr Barnard mentions and which you can buy for your doctor or yourself is here

And his book on reversing diabetes without drugs is available here. 

And here is the kindle version:

What are your thoughts on animal research and animal diets? How is your diet changing based on your own philosophy of health? I look forward to your questions which you can leave in the comment box below or drop me an e-mail at questions@askdrsoram.com 

015-Ask Dr. Soram- Interview with Dr Neal Barnard on the PCRM Nutrition Program

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In today's show I have the privilege of interviewing Dr. Neal Barnard, on the subject of a whole food plant based diet.

As many of you know, I have been a vegetarian for the last 40 years. But starting May of this year after taking the course at Cornell University for health professionals on a whole food plant based diet I changed to being a vegan. My health improved, my well-being improved, and very importantly to me, my cholesterol improved without the use of pharmaceutical drugs.

Dr. Bernard and the organization he founded and of which he is still the president is the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, is an organization that educates doctors and patients about the benefits of a whole food plant based diet.

http://www.pcrm.org/

Dr. Bernard has been the author of many books including the most recent 21 – Day Weight Loss Kickstart, which is a book which helps people try a vegan diet for 21 days. Within 21 days most people will notice improvement in their health but this diet.

He has also co-written a vegan cookbook with 425 easy and delicious recipes to jumpstart weight loss. You can get it by clicking here

We talked about this growing statistics of diabetes in our country. There are over 25 million adults and children in the United States which is 8.3% of our population that have diabetes. Diabetes in children is one of the fastest growing conditions in children. The problem with diabetes is not mainly the elevated sugar but the consequences of elevated sugar which we will learn about in this interview.

You can find the PCRM website here, where you can get much more information.

I know you will enjoy listening to this interview as much as I did doing it.

Here are some of Dr Barnard’s articles:

A Low Fat vegan diet for Diabetes

A Low-Fat Vegan Diet Elicits Greater

Macronutrient Changes in individuals with type 2 Diabetes

Have you tried a vegan diet? Let me know in the comments below or drop me an e-mail and questions@askDrSoram.com.

014-Ask Dr Soram-Vitamin D News and Your Questions

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In today's show I review some of the latest findings on the relationship of vitamin D to many increasing problems in our country and the world. As you know the Vitamin D winter has begun for the northern two thirds of the United States and for all of Canada and northern Europe.

I am delighted that Fraser health care home residents will now be getting vitamin D on a regular basis. This is a “ nursing home" in British Columbia, Canada. At least 200,000 falls are recorded in seniors each year in British Columbia and they expect that number to double as baby boomers age. Vitamin D is associated with an increased incidence of falls and the resultant consequences which can often include death for the senior that breaks their hip.

They will be giving the residents  20,000 IU weekly of vitamin D and then following them over time to see if the incidence of fractures is reduced.  I am very excited about this project as I think it is necessary that all seniors be given an adequate dose of vitamin D not only to protect against osteoporosis but also to reduce the incidence of falls and fractures. As many of you know I've written about this in my book and in my blog posts.

Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer's disease is an increasingly common problem in our country and early studies in the medical literature clearly showed relationship between vitamin D and cognitive dysfunction and dementia in older adults.

This article reviews that connection 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21790207

as does this one

 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18503256

and I am delighted that David Llewellyn at the University of Exeter (UK) has been given a grant from the Alzheimer's Association for the study of vitamin D as a potential biomarker as well as therapy for dementia, brain shrinkage, and other neuroimaging abnormalities.

The article which you can read here

 http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=16633

notes that over 800,000 people in the United Kingdom have dementia  now and that costs the UK economy 23 billion pounds per year which is more than cancer and heart disease costs combined. They note that the average cost for each person with dementia is greater than the average UK salary. And of course they are concerned about the baby boomers that will be multiplying these expenses.

Read more

013 Ask Dr Soram-Environmental Medicine and our Health-An Interview with Walter Crinnion, ND, Part 2

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In part 2 of my interview, Dr Crinnion and I talk about harder to get rid of environmental chemicals including solvents and pesticides.

Dr Crinnion gives some easy tips on reducing your body burden and  we talk about taking certain nutritional supplements to help with keeping the burden down. 

I am so pleased that Dr Crinnion has agreed to come back for more discussion of environmental medicine. I am hoping to have him as a regular guest on the show.

You can buy his book Clean, Green and Lean here.

Dr Crinnion’s website is here.

Please send questions that you may have for Dr. Crinnion to me at questions@askDrSoram.com. Or you can call my question line at 310-499-0275.

Was this interview helpful to you? Do you plan on making changes in your exposures to environmental chemicals? Will you be talking to your children about these exposures and how they can minimize exposures? Please leave your comments in the box below.

012 Ask Dr Soram-Environmental Medicine and our Health-An Interview with Walter Crinnion, ND, Part 1

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The environment we live in from the air we breathe to the water we drink to the food we eat to the personal-care products that we use on a daily basis is affecting the health of everyone. Every day, in my practice, I work with patients examining and helping them to reduce their body burden of these chemicals in order to help their health. 

Naturopathic doctors have led the way in our understanding of how these chemical affect our health and how to reduce the load we have already gotten. 

This is the first of what hope will be a series of interviews with Walter Crinnion, N.D., a noted naturopathic doctor, who specializes in Environmental Medicine.

Dr Crinnion has been on the board of directors of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians and was the recipient of their first award for in-office research in 1999 and was awarded it a second time in 2002. He has been on the adjunct faculty of Bastyr University (Seattle, WA.), the National College of Naturopathic Medicine  (Portland, OR.), and the University of Bridgeport School of Naturopathic Medicine (Bridgeport, CT.). He is a professor at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine (Tempe, AZ.) and the chair of their Environmental Medicine Department.

He is the author the book Clean, Green and Lean: Get Rid of the Toxins That Make You Fat and he has a website at http://www.crinnionmedical.com/

In this part 1 of our interview, Dr Crinnion and I start with my question “Do environmental toxicants really affect our health?” and move into the role of Mercury in human health and the exposure to it that we get in our diet from fish.

We then move on the talk about Phthalates and how easy it is to reduce our exposure to them and cleanse our body of them. we get in our diet from fish.

We then move on the talk about Phthalates and how easy it is to reduce our exposure to them and cleanse our body of them. 

Have you had your blood mercury checked? If you had elevated levels, what have you done to reduce them and have you been able to reduce them? Do you know what phthalates are? What have you done to reduce your exposure to them?

I look forward to your comments which you can write below or you can ask your questions by contacting me at questions@askdrsoram.com or by calling our question line at 310-499-0275.

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