My regular readers know that my husband and I recently returned from a delightful trip to Spain and France. Among the challenges was dealing with language. My husband speaks a smattering of Spanish and I speak a smattering of French, so basic communication was possible. Actually, I took several years of French in elementary school, … Read more
<<< Click the book cover to find out more. We were talking about diabetes in the last chapter, and before we entirely leave there, it’s important to know that Alzheimer’s disease has sometimes been called “diabetes of the brain.” Even in the earliest stages of the devastating memory-destroying disease, the brain’s ability to metabolize sugar … Read more
Our American culture pre-programs people to believe that cognitive function declines as we age. There are countless jokes, even television sitcoms that exploit Grandma leaving the car keys in the freezer or Grandpa getting lost on the way home from the grocery or groping for a word or name. While we may chuckle at the … Read more
Brain training in the latest rage among the over 60 crowd and it’s a good idea for all of us. I’ve always been of the “use it or lose it” school. That means, exercise, a healthy eating plan and yes, mental stimulation. Alzheimer’s runs in my family. My mother and grandmother both died of the … Read more
by Dr. Robert Thompson and Kathleen Barnes Do older men who take testosterone therapy risk having a heart attack, stroke or to die in the next couple of years? That’s the conclusion of a widely publicized =– and exceptionally flawed — study from the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System in Denver. This one study, … Read more
HEADACHE, MIGRAINE Your Garden RX: garlic, spinach, sunflower seeds, feverfew, mint, valerian Migraines are debilitating forms of headache that affect about 10 percent of us and are more common in women than in men. It has long been suggested there is a hormonal component to migraines, although the headache pattern is highly individual. Known migraine … Read more
If you listen to Big Pharma’s brainwashing campaign, statin drugs are the best thing since sliced bread. Everybody ought to pop them daily, just because…. Because WHAT? Well, Big Pharma tells us, we need to keep our cholesterol levels low so we don’t have clogged arteries, heart attacks and strokes. OK. Nobody wants these, but, … Read more
A book excerpt by Dr. Hyla Cass and Kathleen Barnes authors of 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health: A Take Charge Plan for Women Depression, anxiety, panic, obsessions, addiction and memory loss are problems faced by an increasing number of people. Friends, family and sadly, even doctors, often tell you that self-discipline, “getting over it,” or long-term … Read more
OK—this may be a stretch for you, but it’s not really. Yes, there is a brain in your gut. The gut — the digestive system — has sometime been called the “second brain.” In fact, there are 100 million neurons in your digestive tract. Those nerve cells transmit messages to the brain and have a … Read more
from What Doctors Fail to Tell You About Iodine and Your Thyroid By Robert Thompson, M.D. Americans are experiencing a dramatic drop in iodine levels and a corresponding deterioration in our collective health. Between the early 1970s and the early 1990s, we experienced an average drop in iodine levels of 50%. In just 20 years! … Read more