Many popular pharmaceuticals are presented as miraculous cures when, in fact, they have much lower effectiveness than the sellers claim. As a result, most of us believe most medicines to be far more potent than they are and assume they have fewer side effects than in reality. We may be more likely to accept a prescription than not, by default, based more on faith in the results than the true knowledge of their effectiveness. The term "Snake Oil" refers to a medical solution that is promoted as a cure-all for various illnesses but is fake and worthless. A snake oil salesman sells these useless products for a quick profit and then escapes to avoid the consequences. Many of these were salespeople who traveled from place to place selling their goods. Regrettably, these individuals frequently focused on vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those who are unwell. Some things never change. You may have noticed the numerous medication ads and cover stories on the news that make them sound so wonderful. Are the medications as effective as they say? The answer is, sadly, usually no. How did they get away with this? Read on to find out.
Read MoreColostrum is something that many people are totally or partially unaware of. If you have heard of it, it may have only been because you or someone you know had a child and had to deal with lactation. Colostrum is the first yellowish fluid produced after childbirth. It is pure for about the first four days of lactation, and then it is slowly replaced by milk over several weeks. The early milk that still contains some colostrum is called transitional milk. All lactating mammals produce colostrum. Research has proven that pure colostrum promotes growth and health in all newborn mammals, including humans.
Bovine (from cows) colostrum is consumed by some traditional cultures and is becoming more popular as a supplement for its supposed health benefits. This post will cover what it is, what it does for newborn babies, and its use for adults.
Read MoreCannabis smoking has become much more common (and acceptable) in recent years. Recreational marijuana is legal in twenty states, and medical marijuana is legal in thirty-six. According to the CDC, 18 percent of Americans used marijuana in 2019. 1 It is estimated that about 90 % of users smoke it. 2 Smoking may negatively affect the mouth, teeth, and gums. Negative effects include periodontitis (gum disease), caries (tooth decay), xerostomia (dry mouth), a decreased salivary pH (increased acidity), and an increase in the density of Candida albicans (yeast infection, thrush). 3 This post will only discuss dental problems associated with the legal smoking of marijuana by adults; I will not touch upon other routes of ingestion of marijuana or its effects on any other part of the body other than the mouth.
Read MoreThe health benefits associated with resistance training are not under debate and include decreased gastrointestinal transit time, reduced risk of colon cancer, increased resting metabolic rate, improved glucose metabolism, improved blood-lipid profiles, reduced resting blood pressure, improved bone mineral density, pain, and discomfort reduction for those suffering from arthritis, decreased lower back pain, enhanced flexibility, and improved aerobic capacity. What has been under debate is how to do it best. 1 The American College of Sports Medicine, long considered the expert in resistance training, has dispensed poor advice over the years, largely unsupported by rigorous science.
In 2011, researchers used existing studies that employed rigorous science to more fully understand how we should work out. They included intensity, the number of repetitions, the length of training sessions, the volume of work, whether core exercises were as important as we think, the speed of repetitions, rest time between sets, and whether free weights are better than machines. Their findings might surprise you.
Read MoreMicronutrients are the smaller building blocks, such as minerals and vitamins, we need to sustain life and have optimal function. Micronutrient deficiencies (MNDs) are quite common worldwide. Iron, iodine, folate, vitamin A, and zinc deficiencies are the most common MNDs. They are responsible for perinatal complications, poor growth in children, and increased mortality and morbidity. 1 They can be just as devastating to adults. This post will describe the deficiencies, their symptoms, and how to correct them.
Read MoreAll animals, including humans, evolved to contact the Earth. We mostly walked barefoot or with footwear made of animal skins and slept on the ground or skins. Humans routinely do not touch the Earth anymore due to shoes with synthetic soles, modern homes, and beds. Insulating ourselves from contact with the Earth has had negative health consequences that few are aware of, including health care providers. Have you ever noticed that you feel better after a barefoot day at the pool or beach? It isn't just the sun and fresh air that is responsible. The contact with the Earth is too. This post will cover the numerous health benefits of routinely contacting the Earth's surface, a practice called Earthing or grounding.
Read MoreIt may surprise you, but I would not wish a denture on my worst enemy. This may seem hyperbolic, but it is accurate-I wish good health over less-than-perfect treatment for everyone. I make them, but I warn patients that as much as they can replace teeth and improve appearances and chewing, they have many pitfalls. I warn patients that they may appreciate appearing as if they have all of their teeth, but there will be a host of problems with them. In short, the best dentures in the world will still have numerous problems; they may marginally function as natural teeth. This post covers the good, bad, and ugly of dentures.
Read MoreWelcome to part five. The use of toothpicks is uniquely human. The famous dental anthropologist Peter Unger discovered tiny striations in teeth that could not be caused by chewing. He concluded that the marks could only have been caused by the overuse of toothpicks made of hard materials like bone. He also drew a parallel between tool use and the introduction of meat to humans' diets. Ungar said toothpick use is one of the first lines of evidence from the hominid fossil record that shows our genus consuming significant amounts of meat in the ancient past. Tooth picking likely served to remove food, especially meat, but it caused visible damage. To quote him, "Teeth are not well designed for eating meat, so our early ancestors had to use toothpicks." This post will cover the evidence and discuss the proper use of toothpicks.
Read MoreThe connection between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vitamin D status has been known for some time. A 2015 review of the literature concluded that being deficient in vitamin D presented a 21% greater chance of developing Alzheimer's compared to those with adequate levels of vitamin D above 50 nmol/L. Researchers at the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Canada and the University of Exeter in England explored the relationship between vitamin D supplementation and dementia in more than 12,388 subjects. They found that subjects who had a history of vitamin D supplementation were 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. The results are exaggerated due to normal statistical trickery, but there is still a strong correlation. I will break the study down and explain the real results. I will also give my two cents on whether you should supplement.
Read MoreThe carnivore diet is based on eating animal-based foods as much as possible. In some of my previous posts, I have listed supporting evidence that we tolerate animal-based foods well. Our highly acidic stomachs, longer small intestines, and lack of a cecum are a few patterns we share with carnivorous-leaning mammals. Additionally, fat cells have two patterns: one indicating herbivory and one carnivory. It turns out that humans have the carnivorous pattern.
Read MoreMy father had been hospitalized several times recently and lost significant leg strength. Lately, he was put on hospice due to heart failure, and his legs ceased to be of any use after about two weeks. After living a great life, he sadly passed on March first, 2023, at 93, three days before his 94th birthday. He had a massive heart attack when he was about 52. His heart was so damaged they gave him poor odds of survival. They told him he would die young, even if he survived the next few weeks. They told him not to exert himself. He complied initially but then started lifting weights and walking. He regained his youthful vitality, which kept him alive for the next 42 years. One of his last lessons was about being confined to bed and its many downsides, even if it is sometimes unavoidable. This post is dedicated to him.
Read MoreA strange phenomenon can happen to patients when tooth structure disappears without decay present. The roots of teeth are the most common area affected. The term resorption is used in such instances. There are two main types of resorption; internal and external. Because internal resorption occurs inside the teeth and external resorption happens mostly on roots, detection without radiographs (x-rays) is difficult. Surprisingly, the process often happens without pain, and most patients are unaware it is happening. The process can result in tooth loss, so early diagnosis and treatment are critical. This post will cover how tooth and root resorption are diagnosed and treated.
Read MoreAs part of patient care, I have conversations about the introduction of processed grains to our diets about 10,000 years ago and all the detrimental effects that came with it; tooth decay, gum disease, stunted growth, etc. I also discuss the introduction of industrially processed seed oils like corn, canola, and soy and their connection to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, inflammation, and more. A frequent response I hear is the phrase, "everything in moderation." I am unsure what they mean, and I wonder if they do either. I believe seeking moderation has risks. I suggest optimizing as a better approach to health. This post will cover the difference between the two and seven things we should optimize for health.
Read MoreMy father is almost 94. When he was in his early 50s, he had a massive heart attack and has had heart problems since that time, including heart failure. Sadly, he followed all of the advice to avoid heart attacks but still had a few. I will explain some of the reasons in this post.
Read MoreThis post contains the slides for my presentation at The Southwestern Society of Pediatric Dentistry. It is intended for the attendees, but all are welcome to view it and share it. Enjoy.
Read MoreYou may have heard that a piece on the TV program called 60 Minutes recently sparked some controversy. A doctor stated that obesity is a brain disease, and the largest contributor to obesity is genetics. To quote her, "That means if you were born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50-85% likelihood of having the disease yourself even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management, [and] stress management..." She tells us that lifestyle won't make a difference for genetically flawed people.
The 60 Minutes Program then segues into the new weight-reducing medications, stressing how effective they are, potentially leaving the audience with four takeaways: 1) Obesity is a brain disease. 2) Obesity is genetic 3) Lifestyle changes won't work for the genetically flawed. and 4) Drugs are better than lifestyle changes, especially for the genetically flawed. This post will address these issues and more.
Read MoreEvolution takes place because we successfully adapt to changes in our environments over vast amounts of time, leading to the false belief that evolution occurs only when the environmental change is stable over time so that the adaptive changes can take hold and the species can flourish. After all, if the adaptative pressure goes in one direction and then reverses course, the adaptive changes might never happen or become maladaptive and cause extinction. But the climatic record during human evolution has been extremely variable, especially in the recent past, so it does not support the idea that environmental stability produced our adaptation. This post will discuss the accepted definition of ice ages, glaciations, interglacials, and their effect on human evolution.
Read MoreFrancis Pottinger jr. MD is one of those names we all should know. Sadly, few do. He experimented with Cats for ten years, from 1932 to 1942. His research and findings are now known as the Pottenger Cat Study. I will get into the amazing findings of his work and their dire implications for us later in this post, but his work was one of the first to look at epigenetics, although that term was unknown to him. Additionally, he paralleled the changes he saw in his malnourished cats to humans, which I will also cover today.
Read MoreI use local anesthetics every single day at work without fail. Even most of my ardent holistic patients who shun "chemicals" don't object to its use. The reasons are clear. Their use is generally very safe, and most people don't want to risk feeling dental pain, which can be intense. This post will cover what local anesthetics are, what they do, the side effects, and the risks of their use.
Read MoreThe Cleveland Clinic studied over 51,000 employees to see how effective the bivalent Covid-19 vaccines have been up until the close of the study on December 12, 2022. The start date was September 12, 2022. They specifically looked at reinfection incidence with covid-19 after one, two, three, and three-plus vaccines. The results are neatly presented in a line graph which we will look at later in this post. Two things really stand out. The first is that the more vaccinations the employees received, the more Covid-19 they got. The second thing is how the research paper described the vaccines as effective. I can't tell if this is a joke, as the paper is in pre-print and under peer review. In this post, we will look at the study with the results, then review their uncanny conclusions and discussion.
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