Hiatal Hernia: The Anatomic Abnormality of the 21st Century

In the late 1970’s I was attending a radiology class during medical school. The esteemed Radiology Professor was the author of many textbooks of his profession and he was a proverbial “walking textbook” of knowledge about his field. He told us that 25% of the U.S. population suffered from the presence of a hiatal hernia. Fast forward to today; that number has exploded to approximately 60% of the middle-aged adult population in America. If you venture into the textbooks, not much is written about the causes of this dramatic explosion of an anatomic abnormality that predisposes many of us to all kinds of symptoms related to gastroesophageal reflux disease. This question has plagued my mind for several decades as I watched more and more of my [more]

Fructose Malabsorption: A Very Frequent Problem

How often do we suffer from gas, bloat, nausea, cramping and diarrhea or know of someone with similar symptoms? At least one in every eight people suffer from these symptoms on a rather regular frequency. While the causes of these symptoms can be caused by a number of reasons such as celiac disease (gluten allergy), giardia, pancreatic insufficiency, inflammatory bowel disease, H. pylori gastritis, lactose intolerance and the like, many of us suffer from an intolerance/malabsorption to fructose. We cannot absorb this sugar in the small intestine so it passes into the colon where our bacteria ferment it and generate the symptoms. It is unclear how many of us suffer from fructose malabsorption but it is more common than one might think. I see many patients [more]

The Omega Imbalance in Nuts

For any of you who have followed my writings for the past decade or more, I have tried to emphasize the importance of balancing omega-3 and omega-6 fats in our diet. The problem with the Western Diet is that we consume far too many omega-6 fats and almost no omega-3 fats. Does this matter? Emphatically, yes! Omega-3 fats reduce inflammation and nourish our nervous system. Omega-6 fats activate in the inflammatory process; this is important for processes such as fighting an infection, tissue repair after trauma or surgery. I have explored these issues in depth in my first and third books and would encourage all of you to read them if you want to better understand these essential fats. The problem with the Western Diet is that [more]

OMEGA CHECK HELPS BALANCE YOUR DIET

Back in the early 1990’s when I first started investigating the Western Diet and its implications concerning nutritional health, information outside of the National Library of Medicine was sparse. Few books existed at that time that gave us insight into the menace this diet was creating in our bodies. With the advent of the internet and social media, information began to spread much more quickly but finding and interpreting medical information still remained a challenge. As I researched information from the National Library of Medicine for my first book about Trans fats, omega-3 and omega-6 fats, I soon realized that much of the nutritional knowledge I gleaned from that homework was not in the textbooks, let alone being taught to the health care providers [more]

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

When you think about liver disease, what cause pops into your mind? Alcohol? Viral hepatitis? Drugs? Genetic? Autoimmune? While all of these can cause liver disease, the most common liver disease in America and the world over is not caused by any of these agents. Rather, the most common cause of liver disease affecting us has only been around for the past few decades and it is increasing by the millions annually. This liver disease is known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is a disease that is caused by the conversion of fructose to triglyceride in the liver and leads to deposition of fat in the liver and abdomen. This then causes the liver to get inflamed and begin to [more]

Obesity Reversal: Eliminating "Watery Fruits and Vegetables"

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and is now spreading to much of the world as well. Obesity is nothing new however. It just affects so many more people than ever before. I just finished reading a fun book written in the 1850's by a French Doctor, Francois Dancel. My book was translated into English in 1973. It was titled: Obesity, or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of Cure. He was a prominent Parisian Physician during the middle of the nineteenth century and found a rational cure for the obesity problem affecting the upper class people of France in his hay day as a physician. It was assumed that the logical way to reverse obesity at that [more]