The field of holistic medicine lost one of its brightest and most enduring lights with the passing of Robert Anderson, MD, on April 6, 2020, just three days after his 88th birthday, after a prolonged period of declining health.
Watch a clip or look at a photo of Donald Trump at any of his recent COVID-19 press conferences.
There he is, flanked tightly by a phalanx of dutifully stone-faced cabinet members, advisors, and health experts—all within a sneeze of each other. All apparently unconcerned about catching or transmitting the very pathogen that is tanking the global economy and throwing turmoil into millions of peoples’ lives.
This year marks Holistic Primary Care’s 20th birthday. As we take stock of our journey so far, I want to thank all of you who’ve been loyal readers of and contributors to this publication over the years. If you’re new to HPC, welcome to our community.
“We know the answer, and it is not that complicated. To be healthy, eat high volumes of vegetables. The answer to disease is vegetables. But people don’t want to hear, ‘Eat vegetables.’ They want pills to overcome the diseases caused by our dysregulated appetites,” said Joel Fuhrman, MD, at the first annual Plant-Based World Expo in New York City earlier this summer.
Oral administration of polaprezinc (zinc L-carnosine) can prevent oral mucositis in cancer patients undergoing radiation or high-dose chemotherapy, according to a series of studies from researchers in Japan. The compound may also be useful in preventing or minimizing more common oral lesions like canker sores.
New research into fasting, and specifically an approach called the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD), is shedding light on how to use foods and diet patterns to promote longevity and prevent or reverse degenerative diseases. It’s an approach that is catching on with functional medicine practitioners—and their patients.
A pair of recent studies exploring the health benefits of thyme indicate potential roles for the medicinal herb in treating cancer-related conditions, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and insulin resistance.
Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) often goes undiagnosed because it may not be accompanied overt symptoms or by liver enzyme elevations. Clinicians who are not specifically looking for it, are not likely to detect it. But over the long term it can have devastating consequences. Fortunately, there are many botanical and nutraceutical interventions that can help.
There are a lot of anxious, needy people eager to cross the line that separates the US from Mexico. Go to the border towns of Southern California and Arizona, and you’ll see them— US citizens heading south to Mexican clinics and farmacias, seeking lower cost surgeries and cheap meds.
Medical and pharmacy “tourism” to Mexico is a large and growing phenomenon, one that has received little attention amid the bitter political rancor over immigration policy and border control.
As Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh faced off in the Senate, the state of California quietly passed a major piece of legislation on sexual misconduct, one that could provide patients with far greater protection against predatory physicians. The Patient’s Right to Know Act will require any California physician placed on probation for sexual wrongdoings to disclose this fact to any and all patients before an appointment.
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