Naturopathy Online - Naturopathic Medicine

What's New! - A Healthy Living Newsletter

My patients frequently ask my opinion about new health books on the market. And there's certainly no shortage of experts peddling their advice! While many of these books are excellent, others are written by people who don't have a clinical background in the subject. Simply put - they're inaccurate.

I was amazed to read Suzanne Somers telling her readers not to eat nuts or beans. Recent research show nuts are not only a valuable source of protein, but they protect your heart. Beans are highly nutritious, cancer-fighting and are invaluable for millions of people with blood sugar problems.

The people writing the books either don't regularly use the medicines they write about or they're presenting theories as if they are facts. Others can be valuable tools for improving the quality of your life.

Volumetrics
By Barbara Rolls and Robert Barnett

What's the biggest complaint about dieting? Always feeling hungry. Barbara Rolls eliminates this complaint with a simple idea - you can eat more of certain foods and not gain weight and still feel full. And guess what? Those foods that fill you up and don't put on weight just happen to be healthy for you. Natural whole foods tend to be low calorie, more nourishing and even more important to the dieter, they are more filling. That means if you are going to have 1500 - 1800 calories that day, you will feel much fuller and be able to eat larger portions of low density foods like fruits and vegetables than high density foods that have more saturated fat. The great thing about this book is that the author doesn't just tell you what to eat, she provides good recipes.

Rolls takes a well deserved jab at the diet industry and earns top grades with me when she steers her readers away from the artificial lowfat foods (lowfat cakes, cookies, crackers) that are empty calories and rarely make you feel full. Food should provide nutrition. 80 calories of non-fat cookies does not equal 80 calories of an apple.

In the end, it's a new spin to an old story - you can fill up on larger portions of healthy low calorie foods like fruits and vegetables without putting weight on. Despite its pseudo-technical title, Volumetrics is really a worthwhile book.

Live Right for your Blood Type by Peter D'Adamo, ND

D'Adamo created an uproar in the health field when he stated that your blood type (O, A, B, AB) determines what you should eat to be in the best health. I don't know if D'Adamo is correct about his theory or not - his research is not conclusive. However, it is great to see the tremendous popular response to a book that essentially recommends that people eat whole, unprocessed foods. His recipes are low fat and do not include white flour, white rice, or white bread. He introduces whole grains like amaranth, spelt and sprouted seed breads. He also suggests lean, organic meats and avoids fried, smoked, cured, or pickled meats which often contain nitrates and nitrites that can be harmful in his recipes. This in itself, would dramatically increase the health of anyone eating this diet.

In my practice, I see people that seem to do well with his diet and a fair amount that do not. But how can I argue with someone that is urging people to eat better. All this means is that his theory doesn't fit everyone. But then, he, several times in his books, says that these are general guidelines and not rigid rules and regulations. So, go to the library or bookstore and get one of his books. They are good recipes and will certainly help improve your health and give you something to talk about over coffee.

Eat Fat, Be Healthy by Matthew J. Bayan

For about 20% of the population, eating a very lowfat diet will cause increased risk of heart disease. Who are these people? These are primarily men whose grandfathers, fathers and older brothers had heart attacks before age 50. They have high blood pressure and high triglycerides and cholesterol despite eating a good diet. And they are the ones who just might have the apolipoprotein B gene - a gene that predisposes them to all these conditions.

This is a great book for people who fit this profile. Matthew Bayan's description of his own heart attack is a powerful incentive to do something about the risk of a heart attack. He explains why his attempts to eat a low fat, low cholesterol diet only increased his cholesterol. If these people don't eat some cholesterol in their diet, their bodies will produce a great quantity of cholesterol on their own. Unfortunately, not all physicians know about the apoB gene and it's significance on diet. But this book will provide enough information to help the informed patient to communicate better with his physician.

So no, if you thought this was a book saying it's okay to eat a fatty diet, it's not. It's a very sensible person's journey through the medical maze back to health - which just might help about 20% of the population.

Herbal Health tip - Did you know that the same Wild Cherry Bark, we take as soon as we get a cough is really most effective for chronic coughs, whopping coughs and the period after a cough to heal the throat lining? Ellingwood's American Materia Medica

Consider inhaling a few drops of apple cider vinegar in a warm humidifier to decrease spasmodic coughing.

Food Tip -Add garbanzo beans (also called chickpeas) to your green salad for extra protein and roughage. You can buy precooked garbanzo beans in the supermarket or health food store. Beans are also a great blood sugar stabilizer for people with blood sugar problems like diabetes or hypoglycemia.

Local Health Event -

January 13^th. Albertson's at the corner of Durham and 99 in Tigard is doing a wrist bone density test. Cost $25.00 Inexpensive way to see if you need to increase your exercise and intake of calcium and magnesium.

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