Whole Medicine Blog
Something to Celebrate
A story runs through my family. It weaves the theme of the challenges of women manifesting themselves. My daughter Corinna has a photo blog called Bird Wanna Whistle. She’s a writer by profession and a mother and she’s good at both. Very good. Ezra is at a...
In It Together
She was soooo pretty. Blue eyes. Curly blond hair. She looked RIGHT at me. I almost had to look away it was so direct. I can still remember like it was yesterday. I should have known she’d break my heart. It was 37 years ago this month. Jennifer. She was my...
Mood Health
In my practice the most common patient concerns are fatigue, trouble with sleep, and anxiety. It is actually rare for a patient to complain about depression, but many of these patients are offered anti-depressants by their physicians. They often ask me if there are...
Space Building
There is a way of looking at human development as a process of becoming attached and then working the rest of our lives to undo that attachment. We are supposed to be safe and then to separate and become individuals. Many toddlers go through a stage at about age 18...
Modern Plague
In the last few weeks I have seen a 9 year old with frequent colds, a middle aged man with depression, tight hamstrings and debilitating knee pain, a menopausal woman with fatigue and anxiety and an overweight woman with insomnia. Each of these individuals has seen at...
Bone Health
What is a person to do? Most of my patients are aware of the risks of bone fracture with aging. The statistics are indeed pretty frightening. Fractures in old age are the kind of thing that sends us to bed and from which we may never get up. Most women routinely get...
We have met the enemy
My practice seems to be evolving. More talk, fewer supplements. Lifestyle science continues to accumulate evidence that confirms the comic strip character Pogo’s observation “yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.” That now-famous comment appeared in an...
The Myth of Cholesterol, Part II
In my previous post I reviewed what I consider to be an inappropriate focus on cholesterol in the effort to alter risks for preventable diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, and peripheral artery disease. Although statins may be effective in reducing the risks for...
The Myth of Cholesterol, Part I
In my experience there is no current area of medicine that provokes stronger objection by many patients than the recommendation to use a statin, the family of medications that help lower LDL cholesterol (for example Lipitor or Crestor). It seems that lots of people...
The Winding Road to Functional Medicine: Life after Plum Spring
The following interview with Dr. Sharp and Kathleen Williams was published in the August 2010 issue of Health & Healing in the Triangle. For many, the way practitioners view the function of the human body is a critical health issue. To explore the meaning and...
A Good Dinner
A few weeks ago, friends invited Kathleen and me to dinner. They live out in the country and have a neighbor who has a small farm, grows vegetables, and sells them to lucky people who live nearby. We were served cooked spinach that night that tasted like something new...
The Art and Craft of Nourishing Yourself, Part I
Here are two organizing principals for making your eating life satisfying, health-promoting, and easy to manage. 1. Low glycemic load foods: Build your food habits around low-glycemic index choices. Glycemic index is a measure of how fast the carbs you eat break...