Learn how to feed your pet the healthiest foods possible to avoid sickness and disease.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1522wl5a.mp3
- Featured Speaker Al Plechner, DVM
- Guest Website Dr. Plechner
-
Guest Bio
AL Plechner, DVM, is a veterinarian with special interests in allergies, autoimmunity and cancer in animals and humans. He has shared his thoughts and research in books, medical journals, his website at drplechner.com, and with physicians that attended his lectures at the Broda Barnes MD Research Foundation.
Dr. Plechner created the first non-meat pet diets, which included developing the Nature's Recipe pet food line. The veterinary profession and pet food manufacturers followed his lead and began creating similar pet foods.
In 50 years of practice and clinical research, Dr. Plechner’s greatest achievement is his discovery of a hormonal imbalance, originating in the middle layer adrenal cortex, which initiates immune system irregularities that can cause a number of catastrophic diseases including; allergies, autoimmunity, cancer and AIDS, in both animals and humans. This hormonal imbalance is known as Atypical Cortisol Estrogen Imbalance Syndrome (ACEIS) or Plechner’s Syndrome, as the public calls it. He also developed the Plechner Protocol, a hormonal replacement therapy used to correct these deadly imbalances.
Dr. Plechner was vitally instrumental in ending the use of vacuum chambers for euthanasia. He also conceived and created Stonewood Meadows, a wildlife preserve in the Santa Monica Mountains, which offers governmental agencies an opportunity to heal and relocate captured and injured indigenous wildlife.
Officials of the Santa Monica Animal Shelter call him a "uniquely selfless individual, an animal lover in the truest sense," and he has received public praise from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the L.A. Department of Animal Control, the Elsa Wild Animal Appeal, the Committee for the Preservation of the Tule Elk, and the Society for the Conservation of the Big Horn Sheep. -
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 29, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Al Plechner, DVM
This is it, the ultimate wellness show just for you. Wellness for Life Radio with Dr. Susanne Bennett.
DR. SUSANNE: You take the time to make sure you and your family are eating the healthiest food possible but what about your pets, your loving friends? Even with the best intentions, do you really know what your loyal friend is eating at dinner time? Here with me today is Dr. Alfred Plechner, who has been practicing veterinary medicine for almost 50 years and he’s been my vet of choice He’s here to share with us how to feed our furry friends the best food possible. Thank you so much for being with us, Dr. Plechner.
DR. PLECHNER: Thank you so much, Susanne, for having me. I really do appreciate it. You know, I really love your work over the years because you and I worked together on different cases and things and we believe the same. I mean, we’re thinking outside the box. We’re looking for a better way. We’re trying to upgrade the help that people need not only for themselves but also for their pets.
DR. SUSANNE: Yes, yes. Absolutely. You tell us, what do you have to look out for? What do we have to look out for when we purchase pet foods? Because there’s so many different varieties. I’d like you to share maybe some danger words that we better look out for in our pet food.
DR. PLECHNER: Well, yes, I think, realistically, the pet food market now is $42 billion. Everybody’s coming in to it. Everybody’s added things they think that people will like to eat themselves even if it may not be good for them you know darn well is not going to be good for the pets. So, you get into different forms of foods. The things that people have to realize is normally the three first ingredients are 90% of that food and so often feeding off the table. if you’re eating correctly, is good. You can add fresh veggies, you can add fruits, you can add stuff if you’re eating correctly. So, when you look at dog foods, cat foods, pet foods if you will look at the first three ingredients, see what they are. If it starts off with corn, corn gluten, wheat, wheat gluten, you tell me how good that is. You know it’s not good and you’ll get into the different types of food. That’s something that people need to look to which we’ll talk about. Things, I think, to watch out for are with additives like sweet potato, carrots and apples. If they are not organic, they are going to be high in pesticides, right? Glyphosates, the whole bit, that will, in fact, will be estrogen mimickers and will cause inflammation, all kinds of problems as you and I know. So the beauty and you stay away from things if you can. Our pets are inbred now and that’s what you’re looking at. You’re looking at a Ferrari that can’t take the gas from a 1928 Chevy. It’s not going to work. It’s just not going to work in the system and things that have high level estrogen whether a plant based, phyto or chemical, zino, only seem to add to the fire so you want to avoid products that have soy in them. You want to avoid products that have sesame seed and even sunflowers, if you can believe that because they’re all high in natural estrogen.
DR. SUSANNE: Wow. You know what? Well, if that’s what we’ve got to look out for. What do we want to see for the first three ingredients? What should we see? What do we want to look for?
DR. PLECHNER: You want to see, probably, some protein maybe some veggies if they’re you know healthy you know broccoli or whatever but I like to see some kind of protein first you know whether it’s fish or whether it’s a foul, whether it’s you know some kind of a meat product if possible, if the animals can tolerate that. Most of them are doing better on the, literally, on the fish and on chicken and duck and stuff like this. The interesting thing is you see raw foods. Raw food diets which are fresher. Hopefully, they’re processed correctly so there’s no salmonella in them, so on and so forth but some of the raw foods are a little harder to digest. Not a big deal. The grain-free foods which is the big marketing selling point if you will, now the interesting thing is we usually don’t see gluten enteropathy in these dogs and cats. However, the importance, as you know, of a grain free diet is it’s going to avoid GMO. Genetically modified grains and in like corn, like in a lot of the fillers if they put in, they’re genetically modified and the research is showing the one thing that I had written about interestingly enough in Russia when the researchers went in and they got soy bean milk for the infants and they fed it to a family of guinea pigs. They not only got allergies, auto-immunity and cancer but in the second generation there was a five times mortality rate and the interesting thing is the third generation feeding this genetically modified soy bean milk, they were all sterile. So you know what are we looking for, what are we leaving for our children and for our pets. See these are things we have to really, really, really consider. I think when you also consider pet food the longer the label the worse the food. Good nutrition is normally very simple and what you don’t want to do, you want to have…and when I created foods and I created Nature’s Recipe, the first one of these foods probably 30 years ago then all the lamb and rice, duck and potatoes, all of this. I went to a limited antigen diet meaning I had one protein, one carbohydrate because over the years many of the animals became allergic to lamb and rice, if you will, and that’s why I had to go to white potato. Right now if you can find say duck and potato, fish and potato make sure it’s white potato and not sweet potato unless it’s organic and these are some of the pitfalls that people can actually look at.
DR. SUSANNE: Right, I saw on your website DrPlechner.com that you have a big list of phytoestrogens you spoke about it a minute ago. Phytoestrogens, which are foods that actually promote the binding sites and stimulate the binding sites of estrogens in our pets and that’s something that you don’t want. I mean, that list was really long, Dr. Plechner. I mean I saw apples there, sesame seeds that you just mentioned. So, we really need to go there, go to the website drplechner.com and look up that, that article on phytoestrogens, right?
DR. PLECHNER: Yes and the other end of the thing, too, is Susanne is there’s thoughts that some people say, “Well, phytoestrogens are good because they’re short acting and they will bind the receptor sites for thyroids so on and so forth and they’ll take up the place of the bad estrogen.” Over the years, I have not found this to be true but what’s really simple, honestly, would be do a total estrogen on yourself or on, for example your pet, which is easy to do. Go ahead and then feed high level phytoestrogens for two weeks and then recheck and see where your estrogen levels are. See if they’ve gone done and if they haven’t and gone up, then you know it’s bad for you. So< this is a way of actually proving this without saying, “Well, I think it’s this, I think it’s that.” There’s a lot of, “I think,” stuff out there that is on the internet that some is correct, some is not correct.
DR. SUSANNE: You know a lot of veterinarians would say they don’t even have that kind of a test. I mean do they really do that test regularly?
DR. PLECHNER: They don’t, there’s only one lab in actually in Texas. There’s only one veterinary lab in Texas that can do the total estrogen. The rest of the laboratories in this country cannot…veterinary labs can’t do them. Quest does this for humans, LabCorp-- a lot of the humans will do total estrogen because this is an area that has really, really, really been missed. I mean, in the human field they don’t realize there’s a tremendous amount of estrogen coming out of the inner layer adrenal cortex and with cancer…Well, for example with women if you test they check the three ovarian estrogens: estradiol, estrone, and estriol, E1,2 and 3. They don’t look at adrenal estrogen. I’ve had a number of through MD’s obviously, a number human patients, that were postmenopausal where their estradiol’s were down and they said they were taking an estrogen patch. Well, I suggested maybe doing total estrogen which should be 40 or less and many of these women were at 90, 95, 100 meaning that if you get an estrogen patch you’re going to kick them into allergies, auto-immunity and cancer but this is, for some reason this is definitely missing in my profession. But in the human profession, they’re not using, there’s not a lot of belief that estrogen comes out of the adrenal cortex. They know androgen does, as you know. They know male hormones comes out but now, the same layer of zona reticularis, you get a tremendous amount of estrogen. What’s it’s coming from, I think, is one of the main things that people don’t realize is that if you measure a hormone in the body you get an empirical level. That’s all fine. Well, you’re in the normal level--that’s what the lab tells you. However, you don’t know whether, in fact, in the body that’s active or not so you’ve got to check the affects. So, when you do, for example, cortisol whatever level it is, you do estrogen because it can be very high cortisol but the estrogen is high—
DR. SUSANNE: I’m so sorry we’ve got, it’s already time. How could this be so quick? You know what? Thank you so much, Dr. Plechner. Great information. Go to DrPlechner.com for more information.
This is Dr. Susanne sharing natural strategies on Wellness for Life Radio on RadioMD. Until next time stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Each week, host Dr. Susanne Bennett shares with her listeners Nature's Secrets to a healthier body. This week: fungus among us.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 5
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1520wl5e.mp3
- Featured Speaker Susanne Bennett, DC
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 15, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
It is time to feel better with help from Dr. Susanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness all discussed right here, right now. It is Wellness for Life Radio on RadioMD. Here is your host, Dr. Susanne.
DR SUSANNE: Eighteen years ago when my son Cody was two years old, he had severe mold allergies so terribly that we had to carry an Epi-pen 24/7. This is a medical injectable device to use just in case he has an anaphylactic reaction from eating anything contaminated with mold. I didn’t know and his pediatrician didn’t know, much about mold and fungi allergies and how toxic it can be to the human body. Today on Nature’s Secrets we are going to discuss the fungus among us, whether it is inside our body or outside and how we get rid of it naturally.
Now, molds are just one type of fungi and is different from plants, animals and bacterias. Molds are eukaryotic micro-organisms that are decomposers of dead organic material such as leaves, wood, plants and even dead animals, and they are absolutely essential for the health of our earth ecosystem. But we just don't want them invading our body’s food and living environment. For people with general mold sensitivities, it can trigger irritating immune responses such as hay fever symptoms, allergic rhinitis and coughing issues. Now for people with severe allergy systems or compromise immune systems, mold can cause chronic inflammation and more significant issues such as asthma, anaphylactic reactions, bronchial fungal infections, chronic fatigue and even irritable bowel symptoms.
Some ingested molds of aspergillus and fusarium species can be very dangerous because it actually produces potential toxic substances called mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are the toxins that mold excrete to help fight off other molds and microbes like bacteria. You probably know a lot about penicillin because that is actually a microtoxin because we know that from penicillin molds we were able to many, many years ago find them. It is what kills bacterias in our body and now we use that as an antibiotic substance. But if we eat molds and mycotoxins, it can cause severe GI upset. It can also damage the intestinal lining causing leaky gut. It can wipe out the liver function enough that it actually causes liver failure. And long-term exposure to mycotoxins such as aflatoxins can cause liver cancer. This is well, well known.
So, it is also mycotoxins that are poisonous neurotoxins meaning they can damage your central nervous system causing inflammation and irritation, really scary when you think about what is found in our foods, the foods that we eat such as nuts, grain crops such as corn, rice and wheat. You know, foods that we have every single day on our plate. So, where else can you find it? Celery, potatoes, apples, peppers and other produce. Of course, because produce that is not good and it is old, definitely mold has set in. They are finding that 25% of the world’s crops could be affected by mycotoxins, particularly aflatoxin. So aflatoxin grows on peanuts and grains, particularly and corn is really toxic. You know how you find that when you open up that fresh looking corn? You open it up and right there under that silky stuff is black mold, brown mold, yucky mold? That can be mold that produces aflatoxin, so you really want to stay away from that.
Did you also know that aflatoxin is found in cow’s milk and, yes, did you know why? Because the cow is eating the grains that are actually are contaminated by mold. So, it’s really important to watch out for the dairy products that we have. So, what else do we have? Bleu cheese--that’s roquefort cheese. Penicillin roqueforti is actually what is growing in bleu cheese. All types of cheese actually grows mold. You could tell because as soon as you take it out of the refrigerator, often there is just green or blue all over it. So, you have got to be careful with that. Also, salamis. You know, the outer cover on salamis often kind of whitish stuff; that is mold as well. And alcohol, we love to drink alcohol when we are out with friends and family but that is a mycotoxin itself, fermentation with sugar as well as grain and fruit juice, right? That is all that makes alcohol, all that fermentation.
So, it’s really important to stay away from that. If you’ve got mold allergies, other risky foods are mushrooms that obviously comes from fungi, dried fruits, restaurant salad greens, freshly squeezed fruit and veggie juice that is packaged in foods as well. Crackers and chips. They all can harbor mold. Then, of course, because nuts such as peanuts, cashews, pistachios they are really, really high in mold growth. Now every week, I would say three to five times a week, I get patients who complain about stomach upset because of food poisoning. Why? They have eaten a big salad trying to be healthy and they eat it out of a restaurant. And out of a restaurant they don't wash the veggies, they don't wash the greens. They literally take it out of the bag and they put it on your plate and put all that dressing on so you can't taste it because often you can taste what fungus and mold taste like and it is so disgusting.
But what we want to do is this. I recommend people do not eat salads outside of your home in restaurants. If you want to be able to eat cooked veggies, ask for just steamed cooked veggies. You can even ask them to cook your arugula. So, instead of arugula salad have steamed or sautéed arugula just like spinach, you know? If you are really jonesing for fresh greens then go home and make sure that you clean it properly. I am going to teach you in one minute how you can eat mold-free salads at home. Other tips that I want to talk about is that you know what? When you are at the store, make sure you look at the best buy dates and make sure that before you put it in the shopping cart, read what you are buying. Make sure it is way before the date because it takes days and days and will start to harbor mold otherwise.
Don't sniff. You know, often we pick something and sniff it. Don’t sniff it. Well, you know, on an orange all that whitish film? Well, on an orange that whitish film is mold that naturally grows on them. So, don't sniff because the mold’s spores can go right into your nose and then, of course, you end up having sinus infections from that. Store things at the right recommended temperature. Don’t leave things out because often if you leave things out like bread and stuff like that, of course, gluten-free bread will go moldy in a jiffy. And don't over buy produce. Get whatever you eat. I go to the store twice a week and then what I do is I literally clean all my produce with Vitamin C crystals and this is how you are going to be able to have great green free of mold and, of course, not have any damaging toxins in your gut.
So, what do you do? I use Vitamin C crystals. You just put about a half a teaspoon. You soak your veggies, wash your veggies as well as other kinds of fruit that you can't peal like berries and grapes as well as grains such as brown rice, oatmeal, quinoa and amaranth. What I do is, I soak it in a glass container and then you just put half a teaspoon of Vitamin C for fifteen minutes and what that does is, it cleans off all of the greens and the berries of the mold, debris as well as bacterias and sometimes even little bugs. It will clean it right off and then of because Vitamin C’s are a super antioxidants, it will neutralize pesticides and any kind of fertilizers that may be on your produce. Remember, even organic produce can have other kinds of stuff coming from other farms and what not and of because little bugs are there, too. Sometimes even organic can actually have more fungi because they don't use fungicides on the veggies.
Make sure you get ascorbic acid, not the buffer kind Not Ester-C. Get the one that is corn-free so that you don't deal with Genetically Modified Corn (GMO). A lot of Vitamins C’s are made with GMO but if you have trouble finding it, you can go to drsusanne.com/crystals. Finally, if there is any spot of mold in your fruits, let’s say in a box of berries, throw that whole berry box out. It is not worth it because mold you cannot see and it just goes everywhere. It is really important that you don't end up eating it. That’s so important. Wow. This is a lot of information. I am so glad that we talked about all this. You know, once you make some changes, you will see how much better you feel inside and out.
This is Dr. Susanne. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to serve you I am dedicated to helping you feel your best today.
This is Wellness for Life Radio on Radio MD. See you next time. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Over 100 million people suffer from chronic pain, and the cause could be what is found in the environment.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 4
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1520wl5d.mp3
- Featured Speaker Gary Kaplan, DO
- Guest Website Kaplin Clinic
-
Guest Bio
Dr. Gary Kaplan, D.O., a pioneer of integrative medicine, is one of just 19 physicians board certified in both family medicine and pain medicine and practices in McLean, VA. A clinical associate professor at Georgetown University and director of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine, he has also served as a consultant to the NIH and, in October 2013, was appointed to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee at Health and Human Services. He has discussed his work on Good Morning America, NPR, NBC News, as well as in New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. He resides in Falls Church, VA.
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Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 15, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Gary Kaplan, DO
You’re listening to Radio MD. She’s a chiropractic, holistic physician, best-selling author, international speaker, entrepreneur and talk show host. She’s Dr. Susanne Bennett. It’s time now for Wellness For Life radio. Here’s Dr. Susanne.
DR. SUSANNE: Do you, suffer from chronic pain, headaches, muscle aches, joint pain? Well, you’re not alone. There are approximately a hundred million people in the United States suffering from chronic pain. My next guest joins me today to share with you how the environment around you may be causing this pain and how you can find treatment. Please welcome a pioneer of integrative medicine and best-selling author of Total Recovery Breaking This Cycle of Chronic Pain and Depression, Dr. Gary Kaplan. Thanks for being here, doc.
DR. GARY: Once again, thank you for having me.
DR. SUSANNE: Absolutely! Tell the listeners first, what would you consider chronic pain? We all know acute pain is like when you slip and fall, and hit yourself, and you’ve got this major bruise and swelling. What is chronic pain?
DR. GARY: So, actually chronic pain and acute pain are two very different things, it turns out. Acute pain is when you directly hit yourself, the tissue is damaged, the body part’s damaged and over time it heals and resolves and you’re done.
Chronic pain is any pain that persists after a period of time of expected healing. So that that can be typically about six weeks out after an injury is occurred. So, chronic pain is on-going. The chronic pain is also a curse in terms of migraine headaches, which are recurrent in people. People will suffer in chronic daily headaches, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis and low back pain are, by the way, the number one and two causes of disability in this country. They cause something in the order of about $18 million dollars and start affecting eighteen million people a year with these disabilities. So, we actually don’t do very good job at treating chronic pain.
DR. SUSANNE: Well, the chronic pain that I know of, like you’ve just said, as a chiropractor, we deal with low back pain. You’re absolutely right. But the problem is that there are not good enough treatments. There aren’t good enough therapists and a lot of us go for the surgery because that’s all they know but even…there are a lot of failed surgeries, isn’t it that right too?
DR. GARY: Oh, there’s a huge amount of failed surgery. The fact of the matter is, we are horrible at treating chronic pain. If you just look at the statistics, if you happens to suffer with chronic pain, your odds of recovery are about forty-eight percent. If you happen to suffer with chronic pain and depression or anxiety disorder, your odds of recovery drop under 10 percent. Think about that. This is a less than chance of getting better in terms of getting better with conventional medical therapy. And the reason for that is because we have not understood what this problem is. We treat these conditions as if they are the disease itself. Fibromyalgia, headaches, when in fact what they really are, is symptom of an underlying inflammatory problem in the brain. This is a brain on fire symptom. And so what we need to do then is step back and say, “Okay, what is it this that’s causing the brain to be inflamed, and then how do we go about our treating it?” And once we start asking those questions, that we understand the basis and what I go into in my book, is how the brain gets inflamed because it typically occurs as a result of cumulative assaults multiple times and with the brain has concussions or you have problems with mold exposures we discussed previously.
Celiac disease, I’ve had patients who’ve had chronic migraines, who in fact had celiac disease and that was the sole presentation of the celiac. They had no gastro-intestinal symptoms. So, if you don’t know to ask questions about what’s creating the inflammation, then you don’t get the right answers and inevitably you don’t get the result that is the resolution of the pain for the patient.
DR. SUSANNE: In your book Total Recovery Breaking the Cycle, and I like the title, Breaking the Cycle of Chronic Pain, you’ve got to know, first of all, all the symptoms that you may be having. People think that when they’ve got, let’s say, hemorrhoids and stuff and pain like that, that that’s just what it is – hemorrhoids, but they might be much deeper issue. So, in your book, do you go through some of those deeper-rooted issues?
DR. GARY: Absolutely. We go through a lot of case studies in the book that people can easily relate to and understand as to how this might pertain to them. But it’s really about the detective work of going through the process of, first off, starting with a very comprehensive history. Patients don’t come into me and say, my right knee hurts. They come in, and they spend 2 hours with. I take a very comprehensive history in terms of how their digestion is, how their sleep is, what’s going on in their lives, because stress can also be something that’s neurodegenerative. Stress actually damages the neuron response. So, if you were in an extremely high stress situation, this may be something we need to address as well.
The other thing that’s particularly interesting, is that the things that can help reduce inflammation of the brain, are things like exercise. Regular aerobic exercise will absolutely reduce inflammation of the brain and improve actually cause new nerves neurons to occur of the brain.
Meditation is another thing that’s extremely effective of reducing the inflammation of the central nervous system. So, there are a lot of things that come into play here and the only way get into the bottom of it is really listen to the patient, have a chance to take your comprehensive history and then do the proper testing for appropriate for that individual.
DR. SUSANNE: Got it. You talk a little bit about the Lyme disease. That’s a huge area but you did mention that we should get tested for Lyme disease.
DR. GARY: So I practice in Northern Virginia. I live Northern Virginia. We have a huge number of Lyme cases this region of the country, all open down the eastern seaboard. Again, it’s one of those things that we don’t get to ask, you don’t make the diagnosis. So, when people are in tick-infested areas, they’ve been outdoors, they are exposed, the majority of people who get bit by ticks actually aren’t unaware that they’ve been bitten, so that, your migraine reaction which is a positive reaction in Lyme disease, actually doesn’t show up in the majority of people who get Lyme Disease, so if you’re not asking questions about what your potential exposures, do they have pets in the house, did the dog have ticks, you’re not going to think about the diagnosis. There’re only two diagnoses you make: those that you think you make and those that you actually make. So, if you’re not making an inquiry, if you’re not doing the detective work, you’re not getting the comprehensive history, you’re not going to know what the questions to ask, what testing to do, to get to the bottom of what the problem is.
DR. SUSANNE: Right, I know. Lyme disease has so many different symptoms in Lyme. And like you know, if you it’s in the area, but I’ll tell you what, we’ve got it here, Dr. Kaplan. We’ve got it here in Southern California, a lot of people have Lyme, and I’ve seen many, many and you know there are tests that you can do. Which test do you recommend for people to ask your doctor to get?
DR. GARY: So, there are a number of specialty labs that do really fine testing for Lyme disease. The test that I typically use is IGENEX.
DR. SUSANNE: Right.
DR. GARY: Which is out in your neck of the woods. And you’re absolutely correct. So, let me back up. The testing for Lyme disease is not as good as we’d like it to be. So even the Western blot so the ELISA test which is typically the screening test, some will miss almost half the cases and many doctors will stop at that test and that’s a huge mistake. So, doing the Western blot testing is absolutely essential. But, even the fact, that there are our cases of what we call sero-negative Lyme, and in those situations is about getting…listening to the patient, understanding the whole picture to be able to take the diagnosis.
DR. SUSANNE: Right. Right. I know that depression is one symptom of Lyme, but depression is definitely a symptom that a lot of us have. We just have one minute. You know, a lot of us walk around, we say, “Oh, I’ve got foggy brain.” That alone can be considered depression, isn’t that right?
DR. GARY: Well, so foggy brain, difficulty focusing and concentration, is really about some inflammation of the central nervous system but it may not be a full-blown depression. Again this is discussed in my book, Total Recovery, and I would hope people will have an opportunity to look at it and read it and find their own pathway to health, and that’s what I wrote it for and hope that’s what people will find.
DR. SUSANNE: Right. Right. Total Recovery. That’s what you want. Look at that book. It’s awesome. Breaking the Cycle of Chronic Pain and Depression. And you mention that depression is definitely more than just the emotional and psychological aspect of it. If you find that you got all these symptoms, that you don’t even know that are related, chronic pain, you don’t feel good, you get irritable quickly, and you find yourself, for no reason, being depressed, you end up having foggy brain, digestive issues, allergies, all of this is in Dr. Kaplan’s book, Total Recovery. Again, everyone, Breaking the Cycle of Chronic Pain and Depression, so that you can feel your best. Dr. Kaplan, thanks so much for being here. Loved it, loved it.
Alright to learn more on chronic pain and the factors that can cause it, please go to www.kaplanclinic.com.
This is Dr. Susanne Bennett sharing natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness right here on RadioMD. See you next time, stay well! - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
There are silent disease-causing toxins that may be lurking in your home. How can you avoid them?
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1520wl5c.mp3
- Featured Speaker Gary Kaplan, DO
- Guest Website Kaplin Clinic
-
Guest Bio
Dr. Gary Kaplan, D.O., a pioneer of integrative medicine, is one of just 19 physicians board certified in both family medicine and pain medicine and practices in McLean, VA. A clinical associate professor at Georgetown University and director of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine, he has also served as a consultant to the NIH and, in October 2013, was appointed to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee at Health and Human Services. He has discussed his work on Good Morning America, NPR, NBC News, as well as in New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. He resides in Falls Church, VA.
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Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 15, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Gary Kaplan, DO
It's time to feel better with help from Dr. Suzanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness. It’s all discussed right here, right now. It's Wellness for Life radio on Radio M.D. Here's your host, Dr. Suzanne.
DR SUZANNE: Toxins in your home. You know, mold in particular, can make you really incredibly ill. My next guest is here to show just how serious mold toxicity is and what you need to know to keep your family worry free and healthy. Please welcome my host, Dr. Gary Kaplan. Thanks for being here doc. Tell us, what makes most so dangerous?
DR. GARY: Well, thank you for having me on the show, Suzanne. Mold is a ubiquitous problem in that it occurs anytime there's been water damage to a building, so that if you have water damage to your house or water damage to your office and that damage is not addressed, what happens is mold starts to go back in the wallboards in the carpet… and what happens is most secrete toxins. Toxins normally keep themselves and we’re protected in the environment, but in humans about 20% of us can't process those toxins. We don’t make the enzymes necessary to break them down. What happens is they end up accumulating in our body. That accumulation can result in an inflammatory process in the central nervous system. The consequences of the inflammation can be problems with difficulty focusing and concentrating, problems with depression, and problems with chronic pain. You can see fibromyalgia or you can see chronic fatigue systems associated with this inflammatory process in the central nervous system all caused by mold toxins. The toxins can…
DR. SUZANNE: Go ahead, toxins can…
DR. GARY: Okay, so the toxins can be so severe that we see people who look like they have multiple sclerosis. They have problems with coordination or movements. They have problems with focus, concentration and such severe fatigue that they can't get out of bed: muscle pains, muscle aches. If we do not address it, if we don’t find, if we don't ask the right questions in terms of finding out that they've got mold toxicity, what you end up doing is making the diagnosis that’s incorrect and not responsive to treatments.
DR. SUZANNE: So, what you're saying is that this is a hidden problem that we cannot… we don't know… even as a patient. Let’s say, you go in thinking that you have a headache or you're having some allergy reaction, but it can truly be mycotoxin or mold toxicity that’s triggering these symptoms and you say that it's dangerous because it's a hidden inflammation. Inflammation in the body. Can you talk a little bit more about how inflammation can be detrimental to our brain?
DR. GARY: Sure. Inflammation is a lot of different things in the body, so that if you have allergies you’re…what’s mediating that inflammation is antihistamines, the release of mast cell in the body. But, in the brain, a whole different set of mechanisms occur there that cause inflammation. So, in the brain there’s a small cell called the “microglia”. That’s responsible for mediating inflammation in the central nervous system. There’s a lot of things that potentially set off that microglia. So, the microglia moves into action anytime that there’s an injury to neural tissue. So, problems that occur with mycotoxins for instance, are problems that can occur from Lyme disease or other infections. An example of what it looks like when the brain is inflamed is the flu. Things that would happen: you’ve got fever, you can’t focus, you can’t concentrate, you’re exhausted, experiencing generalized body aches and malaise. One of the big mistakes we’ve made in medicine is that we’ve been treating depression and we’ve been treating chronic pain conditions: headaches, problems with fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis. We treat these conditions as if they are the primarily disease and they’re not. The underlying disease is inflammation in the central nervous system and the inflammation in the central nervous system comes from a large number of causes, mold toxicity being one of them. This is a condition which affects better than 100 million people in this country, this chronic pain condition and if you’re suffering with pain and depression, that’s about 20 million people in this country. They’re not responsive to therapies because the therapies are geared at treating the symptoms and not treating the underlying cause, which is inflammation in the central nervous system.
DR. SUZANNE: Wow. So, again, we are dealing with these…a lot of people have depression, a lot of people have inflammation in their body and that it really can be a mold issue and you mentioned very clear that it’s really like the doctor has got to be the detective. I truly believe I’m like a medical detective, I’ve got to figure this out. You’ve got to ask the right questions. What should the doctors be asking a patient who may be having these mold issues?
DR. GARY: You know you’re absolutely right about the necessity of becoming a detective as a good physician and one of the things that patents come to me constantly and say “You know, all of my lab tests are normal” and I say “Well but, you’re not normal” and so that means we haven’t tested the right things yet so, we have to go look. So, there’s a series of specific lab tests that we can do to evaluate. First off is genetic testing that we can do to evaluate whether or not you’re susceptible to mold toxins --spider and tick bite toxins. There’s also direct testing that can be done to look for micro toxins in your body, a urine test that can be done. So, you have to go to a physician that’s familiar with this kind of testing and knows how to ask these kinds of questions. So, that becomes the first problem. If all you’re doing is a blood count and you’re doing c-reactive protein and a urinalysis and a metabolic profile, you’re going to miss the overwhelming majority of cases. This is specialized testing, you have to have been properly trained to do it and if you don’t ask the right questions, you don’t get the right answers.
DR. SUZANNE: That’s a great point. I know that you can go to American Academy of Environmental Medicine to find practitioners and doctors who are well-versed in this. What other organization do you suggest that the people out there, that listeners can go to, to find the right doctors in their neighborhood?
DR. GARY: Physicians who are trained in functional medicine, so the Functional Medicine Institute is a great source of physicians. The American Academy for the Advancement of Medicine is another great source and the Academic Consortium for Integrated Medicine is a consortium of all of the medical schools in the country who are training physicians in integrative medicine, another great source where you can find physicians who understand these conditions.
DR. SUZANNE: Right. You’re an integrative doctor, aren’t you, Dr. Kaplan?
DR. GARY: I am. I am. Now, integrative medicine-- I want to define it a little bit for your listeners because integrative d medicine is not about doing acupuncture or doing herbs and spices, but it’s about a comprehensive medical system which includes everything that is wonderful in Western medicine and expands the diagnosis by including things like dysfunctional medicine, being able to do acupuncture. In our center, I’m trained in acupuncture; I’m trained in manual therapies, in addition to very conventional medicine; my boards, my specialties, are in family medicine and pain medicine. So, it’s about keeping it all and figuring out…being able to expand your scope of knowledge and being able to help people with a whole bunch of different series of interventions which includes supplements, but also includes conventional medicine at the same time.
DR. SUZANNE: Right. I know a great deal about mold toxicity because actually my son was severely allergic to them. That’s really how I got into natural medicine and natural allergies. My son actually, Dr. Kaplan, was severely allergic. We had to carry an Epi-pen. If he were at all to even be exposed and eat it, he would go into a major anaphylactic reaction, swelling of the throat, etc. So what we had to do is go through a great deal of learning and cleansing out the body and cleansing out those mycotoxins that you do it in your practice. Isn’t that right?
DR. GARY: Absolutely and you know, the mycotoxins, they come in a variety of forms. We’ve been focused on…in terms of mold mycotoxin, but mycotoxins also occur in food. You’ve got aflatoxins from corn products. You’ve got ochratoxins from peanuts and so you really have to be attentive and be your own detective somewhat when you’re reacting to things. You’re not feeling well. What environments are you in at that time? What foods have you eaten that perhaps you didn’t feel so well on? And a lot of times we continually poison ourselves to such an extent that it’s hard to distinguish from one to the next. So, what you really need to do is step back. I have my patients go on a hypoallergenic diet, which is rice, fish, chicken, fresh fruits and vegetable, which eliminates some of the food allergens, but then it also allows you to see what other things you may be reacting to. If you stay on that diet for a month, that will begin to clean things up a bit. You need to be attentive. You need to be a bit of a detective for yourself. What environment is bothering you and whether or not you’re getting sick of a certain food.
DR. SUZANNE: That’s right. I say you all have to be an allergy detective yourself. That’s awesome. Well, thanks, Dr. Kaplan, so much for joining me today. To learn more about mold toxicity please to go his website kaplanclinic.com that’s kaplanclinic.com. That’s the website or you can always go to my radio show page on RadioMD.
This is Dr. Suzanne sharing my natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness right here on Radio M.D. Thanks again. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
What you use in your kitchen to cook can severely affect your family's health.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1520wl5b.mp3
- Featured Speaker David Andrews, PhD
- Organization EWG
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Guest Bio
Dr. David Andrews is using his background in chemistry and nanotechnology research to investigate environmental health issues. His work focuses on finding ways to change national environmental regulations and government policies to protect public health. During his five years at the EWG, he has developed comprehensive knowledge of the regulatory processes affecting industrial chemicals, consumer products, cosmetics and nanomaterials. David has conducted more than 100 media interviews on various public health issues and frequently deals with federal agencies and legislative offices. His recent work has included collaborating on designing and building EWG’s consumer databases, highlighting the overuse of confidentiality claims submitted to EPA and organizing a conference for a federal initiative to set priorities for nanotechnology research. He holds a B.A. in chemistry from Wesleyan University (Connecticut) and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Northwestern. He has authored more than 10 scientific publications and holds a patent on quantum interference devices.
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Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 15, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: David Andrews, PhD
You are listening to Radio MD. She is a chiropractic, holistic physician, bestselling author, international speaker, entrepreneur and talk show host. She is Dr. Susanne Bennett. It is time now for Wellness for Life radio. Here is Dr. Susanne.
DR SUSANNE: In my book, The 7-Day Allergy Makeover, I talk a lot about allergens and chemicals in your kitchen, specifically about staying away from non-stick pans lined with PTFE. It is also known as Teflon made by Dupont. You know, when the non-stick pan has been scratched and heated, it can release a chemical called Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Now, this toxic chemical is known for its health hazards including cancer and birth defects. Well, my next guest is here to share that even if you don't use these Teflon-coated pans that you and your family still remain at risk. Dr. David Andrews has been all over the media. He is very passionate about informing the public about the dangers of chemicals, some that are found in our very own home.
Welcome, Dr. Andrews.
DR ANDREWS: Hi. Great to be here, Dr. Bennett.
DR SUSANNE: Thank you. Tell the listeners just in a very short summary what happened about Teflon. What was that all about many years ago and why do we still need to remember that?
DR ANDREWS: Sure. We released a report earlier this month that really detailed the legacy of this pollution. Originally, these Teflon chemicals were being produced by Dupont and 3M in large quantities and ended up contaminating neighboring communities as well as the globe. And so ten years ago, along with a court case, we helped publicize some of the deception and cover up that these companies have gone to to really hide the health effects of these chemicals, and it led to one of the biggest fines ever levied against a company, at least in this part of our environmental regulation regulating industrial chemicals and it led to the phase out of these most concerning chemicals. So, these chemicals have to be phased out by the end of 2015 but what we are concerned about is that the replacement may not be all that better.
DR SUSANNE: I want to learn more about those replacements. I know that you mention, on your site, that you came out with and now we are talking about Environmental Working Group’s site? Isn’t that correct?
DR ANDREWS: That is correct ewg.org and our report is right up there prominently featured, it is titled ‘Poisoned Legacy 10 Years Later Chemical Safety Justice for Dupont’s Teflon Victims Remains Elusive.’ And so, we detailed, really, this legacy of pollution and this chemical as you mentioned earlier PFOA is kind of an integral ingredient in making Teflon, the non-stick coating that goes onto pans, clothing, numerous places in your house it’s integral in some of the carpet non-stick treatment and carpets, also in couches, also tablecloths, really a chemical that finds its way all throughout your house and in the environment. And this chemical was through contamination of nearby water supplies in West Virginia and Ohio, we learned that it’s probably linked to testicular cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid disease, heart disease caused by high cholesterol, pregnancy induced hypertension. This is in a population study of 70 000 people where the drinking water was contaminated. What we do know is that this chemical contaminant is now found throughout the globe, you can detect it in blood of, essentially, all Americans as well as polar bears in the arctic and animals all across the globe. So, it is really concerning in that these chemicals last an extremely long time in the environment, possibly decades or centuries or longer and that they build up in people’s bodies; they build up in our blood and then they cause these detrimental health effects.
DR SUSANNE: What you are saying is even if it is gone by 2015 which I'm so excited about and happy that is going to be the case and more and more people are going to learn about it. I mean, it is in dental floss you know what I mean? You were talking about that carpet stuff and microwave popcorn bags, can you believe that? We are literally popping away our popcorn and we are eating it every single day. It’s pretty scary and, as you are saying, there is a lot. It’s not just our bodies but the animals that are out there in the wild but also domesticated animals, isn’t that right?
DR ANDREWS: That is correct. They are ubiquitous in the food supply. One of the concerns that you mentioned is a lot of food contact uses where it’s on some of the plastic and materials that touch your food, the popcorn bags is a great example. Also very common in carry out containers, sandwich wrappers at your local deli or sandwich shop, pizza boxes. They’re used to greaseproof these paper or cardboard products and yet, at the same time, they may have this unintended consequence of providing or exposing us to these really concerning chemicals. So, as you mentioned, by the end of the year this most concerning chemical where we have fifty years of evidence of the harm that it causes is being phased out of the market, but we timed our report with the publication of a statement and paper by fourteen international scientists in Environmental Health Perspective which is a very prestigious US public health journal. And what these fourteen scientists were calling for was they are really raising concern about all the alternatives that are coming on the market as replacements for the chemicals that we now know causes these really damaging health effects including cancer.
DR SUSANNE: What are these? Yes.
DR ANDREWS: So, the concern is that we bringing out to the market potentially over a hundred alternative chemicals that share as many of the same characteristics and they just haven’t been very well studied and they’re now ending up in all of these consumer products, a lot of these places where the old concerning chemicals were being used, we’ve now got these new ones.
DR SUSANNE: Can you please just share a few of the chemicals, the names of them so we can look out for them?
DR ANDREWS: Sure. Well, the thing is, even some of the chemical names themselves are claimed confidential and secret. But oftentimes, you will see the Teflon label, Goretex, those are some of the more common ones that have the PFOA coating, the Perfluorooctanoic. Those chemicals or those labels you will often find in your house. So really, what it comes down to with textiles, the labels you will see any textile that is claiming to be stain repellant, non-stick, most of those will be coated with PFC chemicals.
DR SUSANNE: Yes. You just mentioned something: non-stick. I remember using Scotch guard when I was growing up I wanted to go to the local snow and go skiing and I didn’t have any ski pants, so I literally Scotch-guarded my jeans. Do you remember that? I don't know you might be very young but I used to do that and that is the stuff you are talking about the PFOS’s right?
DR ANDREWS: Absolutely. It’s these highly perfluorinated chemical. That’s another example the Scotch guard formulation, those original coatings ended up on jeans, clothing and they advertise it for use on clothing and they are very commonly used in carpeting and carpet treatment in extremely high concentrations. So, naturally, in people’s houses and work places carpets actually use the highest quantities of these materials.
DR SUSANNE: A lot of us know that having new carpet, a lot of children to get allergic to it skin issues irritations, you know? I know that you also have EWG Skin Deep which is an excellent list and database of all the different types of substances that you put on your skin and I just wanted to plug that in because that is a great, great resource right there.
Thanks so much, Dr. Andrews, you are such a great, wealth of information. I'm definitely going to have you back here. I love it. Love it.
Okay, everyone you know educate yourself. Go to ewg.org website or you can go to my show page on RadioMD.
Until next time this is Dr. Susanne Bennett sharing natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness right here on RadioMD. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
You commute, you bike, run, walk outside, breathing in everything that is in the environment around you... how is this affecting your lungs?
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1520wl5a.mp3
- Featured Speaker Alex Spira, MD, PhD
- Guest Website Virginia Cancer Specialists
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Guest Bio
Dr. Spira is a member of the The US Oncology Network. A graduate of Harvard University, Dr. Alex Spira earned his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine. He then went on to complete his internship and residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and he completed his medical oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital. During his training, Dr. Spira was granted many awards and honors, and he completed several specialized fellowship programs. Among these honors were the National Institutes of Health Medical Scientist Training Program Fellowship (1990-1997), Merck Corporation Scholarship (1995-1995), Pediatric AIDS Foundation Fellowship (1993-1995) and Harvard University Scholarship (1987-1990). Dr. Spira has also received his PhD from the New York University School of Arts and Sciences.
Throughout his career, Dr. Spira has received multiple honors, including Top Doctor in Northern Virginia Magazine and Washingtonian magazine for multiple years. In 2014, he received the prestigious Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctor award. In his spare time, Dr. Spira enjoys spending time with his family, coaching children’s sports, cycling, and cheering on his favorite New York sports teams. -
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 15, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Alex Spira, MD, PhD
It's time to feel better with help from Dr. Susanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness, all discussed right here, right now. It's Wellness for Life Radio on Radio MD. Here's your host, Dr. Susanne.
DR SUSANNE: Have you stopped to think for a second, besides oxygen in the air that we breathe, what you're putting into your body, into your lungs every time you take a breath? It all depends on the environment you live in. Second hand smoke, car exhaust fumes, you know, things that we can see and smell. Well, my next guest joins me to inform you that there are far many more chemicals we should be looking out for. He's here to share how to keep your lungs healthy.
Welcome to the show Dr. Alex Spira. He's an oncologist and director of the VCS Research Institute. Thanks, Dr. Spira, for being here. Now, let's explain to the listeners how chemicals in the air we breathe can affect our lungs.
DR. ALEX: Well, since the lungs are -- as I describe it to my patients -- the body's filter. Everything that you breathe outside gets in there, from pollen to allergies to pollution. So, anything that you're doing bad to the lungs, it gets right in there. So, you really want to make sure that you take good care of them and make sure that you're inhaling the least amount of pollutant as possible. Everything, as I said, from pollen to pollution and, of course, tobacco smoke is a big one to avoid.
DR SUSANNE: Oh, tobacco smoke. That's so true. I mean, still millions of people smoke all around the world. And you are an oncologist. Are you specifically a lung oncologist?
DR. ALEX: Yes, I am.
DR SUSANNE: Great. So then, you would know exactly what kind of chemicals that we are exposed to, that can be the trigger, the mechanism that can start this horrible disease. Can you give us some examples?
DR. ALEX: Well, as you said, cigarette smoke is the big one. That's, basically, you're inhaling poison every time you take a puff. But the other things we think about are pollution -- lung cancer, asthma and allergies are all much worse in big cities with pollution. If you look, for example, at China where they have very poor pollution regulations, the incidence of lung cancer and asthma in those places is very high. We know that they're high here even in the United States in the big cities that have very poor pollution controls. And that's one of the many reasons that a lot of people who lived long ago in factory towns got all these lung diseases as well. So, it's much worse living in big cities than if you live in the clean air countryside. But there's other things as well. Radon is one of the other big things that can seep in. It gets into your body and that's why there's a big thing to check that. There are small other pollutants that you may experience on a daily basis even on the job.
DR SUSANNE: I'm so glad that you actually mentioned radon. What is radon? People don't know what it is. It actually sounds like it's some kind of radiation. Can you explain it to them?
DR. ALEX: It's basically a natural by product that's in the ground. But the problem is it's hazardous where it doesn't ventilate properly. You get a very high dose in your house because that's where you are. It's a naturally produced product. There's nothing you can do about it. And the key thing is when it's there, to know it's there and develop a proper venting system to get rid of it. It's still not that common and it's unclear how much radon one needs to get that exposure. But everybody should have their houses checked and because it's a very easy, relatively inexpensive fix if you are having a problem. But then, again it's a natural product that there's nothing you can do anything about.
DR SUSANNE: Got it. There are test kits that you can get at the local hardware stores. Isn't that correct?
DR. ALEX: Oh, yes. They are incredibly cheap and everybody should do it by and large. I have done it at my house and everybody should do it if they are at all -- they should be concerned.
DR SUSANNE: Right. I've had patients come in with carbon monoxide poisoning within their own home. And that's another type of test that you can get. An easy to use -- and if you've got concerns, I know that you could even call and get it through your local fire department. They'll come out and check for you.
DR. ALEX: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Carbon monoxide is one of the big ones that affect people's lungs as well. And it could be deadly, as we all know.
DR SUSANNE: Right. You know, we talked about toxins from tobacco and the chemicals in it and all the chemicals -- not just the smoke but the cadmium which is a heavy metal and what not in tobacco smoke. But, besides tobacco what other triggers do you find that actually contribute to lung disease, in particular, lung cancer?
DR. Alex: Pollution again is one of the biggest ones. That's because everything that you breathe in that is just bad. You know, any kind of pollution is bad for you. So, you really want to try and minimize that and the key is, obviously, you can't avoid it. It's just to minimize and it's up to the authorities to try and minimize it in the air that we breathe. All that factory pollution that was -- you know we've done a much better job at regulating now over last two decades. But if you look at our patients in our 60s and 70s, we didn't do such a good job back then. So, anything one can do to avoid that. Plus, if you're working around the house, there are toxins in the air or you're doing something and you can see it or you can smell it, probably you can breathe it as well. So, you have to take the appropriate respiratory precautions.
DR SUSANNE: I actually found my office only because I really only wanted a parking lot. My office has a parking lot that's outside. I really didn't want to have a parking lot indoors, like a garage, because you can -- all those fumes that are just stuck in the parking lot going down deeper and deeper into the caverns of earth would always irritate my lungs. And so, it was one of the musts you know, is to get parking space outdoors so that I'm not breathing in those toxins. What other things that can we do besides, of course, living in a healthier environment? What can we do for ourselves? In my book, The 7-Day Allergy Makeover, I talk a lot about cleaning up your environment like using an air purifier. Do you recommend those as well?
DR. ALEX: Most people don't need an air purifier at home because our air is still pretty good by and large. So, you don't necessarily need one unless there's a lot of smells and things that you can smell around the house. It always makes me laugh when people are doing the construction work inside and say, "Oh, that smells bad." Well, don't you think that's going into your body? But, you know, keeping a clean environment, whatever reasonable, is good. The best you can do is just get out there and exercise because that'll just improve your lung function anyhow. So, if you have marginal lung function, the one thing that you can really do to work on that is get those muscles going and take nice deep breaths. And exercise is probably one of the best things that you can do.
DR SUSANNE: Well, exercise. Obviously, not on smoggy days because in LA sometimes, Dr. Spira, it can be super, super toxic. Especially in the summertime. But let's also then talk about what is it that exercise will do? Obviously, your lungs, you're saying, are our filters. Do we get all these toxins trapped in the lungs? Besides exercise, is there anything else we can do to get all that junk out?
DR. ALEX: I wish it was that easy to get all that stuff out but you really can't because once it's in there -- you know the lungs are the body's filter -- but it's a one-way filter. So, once it's in there, you can't do much about it. The body has just got to get rid of it on its own. So, the key is to avoiding it in the first place.
DR SUSANNE: Well, gosh, that's actually disconcerting when you think about it because if we live in these urban areas, it's just something that we're going to have to deal with. And I know that even wearing a mask might be helpful, like a facial mask when you're walking in the city of New York, let's say. I want to talk quickly about a possibility, just about your practice. One of my friends actually just came down with lung cancer, third stage. Stage three without even -- I mean you would have never thought --he is a very health oriented person, physically active, a fitness instructor, blah blah. And why does this happen to people that take such good care of themselves?
DR. ALEX: Well, you know, cancers happen in everybody and there are certain things you can do to prevent it. But it's also just a matter of bad luck as you get older. But even young people are getting it right now. In my practice probably more than 50% of patients never smoked and actually tons of patients just like that you know that take perfectly good care of themselves and just develop lung cancer, partially, because it's a big organ and has a tendency to do it. Partially, because it's the body's filters, so anything that we breathe that might cause lung cancer can do it. And partially because it just happens. In the old days, we used to say everybody smokes and that was the cause but at this point the incidence of smoking has, thankfully, gone down. You're really now seeing the non-smoking population beginning to take over the smoking population although the rates are much less than they were years ago when the incidence of smoking was much higher.
DR SUSANNE: Yes. I know that you mentioned about China and they are using so much of coal now to produce all of that smoke. Fumes and the smog is coming to our end because that's the direction of the fumes and mercury is such a big issue. I'm sure that that has some impact on the lungs. Well, thank you, so much for being here, Dr. Spira. Everything was so informative about your lung health and lung cancer. Please visit my radio show page on RadioMD.
This is Dr. Susanne sharing natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness right here on RadioMD. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Each week, host Dr. Susanne Bennett shares with her listeners Nature's Secrets to a healthier body. This week: Women's Health.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 5
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1519wl5e.mp3
- Featured Speaker Susanne Bennett, DC
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 8, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
It is time to feel better with help from Dr. Susanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness... all discussed right here, right now. It is Wellness for Life Radio on Radio MD. Here is your host, Dr. Susanne.
DR SUSANNE: Moms are the best. They are so special. They give so much to us, right? Love and all the great things that they do. But often they forget to take care of themselves. So, for Mother’s Day, I thought it would be appropriate to support all of the moms out there with some advice on how they can be best for their own body. What can they do? So, today on Nature’s Secrets, I want to talk about three things that many women aren’t aware of or they rarely talk about it, even with their doctors. Number one, now how many women can say that they really know their own breasts in detail? We have been told for years to do monthly breast exams self-exams as a preventive measure to support our breast health and catch problems early on. And while spending the time doing that check is there something more that we can do that might actually prevent breast cancer, the most common cancer among American women? I say “Yes. There is.”
So, let’s have you start now. Breast lymphatic massage that is my number one advice. It is a simple exercise so you can truly consider it being a preventive in nature to help your breasts stay perky and healthy. Your lymph system keeps tissues clean and the body’s immune system working. It is like a second circulatory system and moves waste and toxins out and it produces immune cells that fight infection. But your lymph system doesn’t have a pump like the circulatory system, so our body movements activate the lymph flow. Now, if you don't get enough exercise or you have poor diet, have a hidden infection or are exposed to toxins, your lymphatic system can become bogged down, stagnant with toxins that don't get filtered out. Then your body can become more susceptible to infection and diseases such as cancer.
Here are four simple steps to help you move the breast lymph and prevent disease. Now, what you want to do is keep your shoulder relaxed. Put all four fingers into your armpit where the lymph nodes are and pump straight into your pit. Pump, this is not a massage where you are doing circular movements, you are just pushing straight up into your lymph nodes, your tissues. You want to do this about ten to twenty times. Next, hold the entire breast with both hands and pull your breast towards the armpit towards the lymph nodes, so you are basically pumping and pulling your breast up towards the armpit towards lymph nodes. You do this about ten to twenty times as well.
Up next. The upper quadrant, the inner quadrant of the breast needs a little extra care because it drains differently. Hold the breast on the same side just holding the breast in opposite hand supports the above breast then you are pumping the upper breast towards the collarbone. Now using this you can do this by using your palm and really just pumping upwards. So, again this is ten to twenty times. Last exercise. Grab both breasts with both hands and push the breast straight back into the chest while straight back. So, you are going to just basically push straight into your chest and by doing that ten to twenty times you are moving your lymph; you are moving your breast lymph. Now how often? I would do this every day in the shower it doesn’t take very long.
And by following these simple four steps…There is actually a short video that you can find at Breast Health Project and you can get that at drsusanne.com/breastexercise and it is a video that will help you get your lymphatic fluid moving, filter and remove waste products and potentially reduce swellings and PMS breast symptoms and also other breast discomforts. Less toxins in the breast tissues means less triggers that can lead to cancer cell growth. Plus, you know what? It turns this whole scary cancer hunting self-check into a relaxing preventive massage that can help you strengthen your breast immunity and detox the tissues.
Now one more thing. I suggest women do not wear the underwire bras it is way too restrictive and which will inhibit lymphatic flow. There has been concerns about that so it is really important that you go for you know what like I do, I wear a wireless bra and so can you, or you can just go completely free without anything.
Alright number two. Let’s keep your vagina healthy. What are the best things to do to keep your vagina healthy is to keep your vaginal microbiome healthy, the good friendly bacteria properly balancing within the vagina by eating an appropriate diet and that includes the use of probiotics as well. So, if you eat a lot of sugar and simple carbs the bad bacteria and the yeast will go into total overgrowth mode and which leads to vaginal infections. You can counter that by eating whole healthy foods low glycemic load carbs lots of green leafy vegetables and fermented foods, such as kimchi which is my favorite and sauerkraut, pickles and miso as well as coconut yogurt and kefir. Otherwise, you could go ahead and take a daily probiotic.
So you also want to keep things in and around the vagina clean but to avoid over drying and irritating chemicals. A healthy vagina is at a pH of 3.8 to 4.5 and many soaps will change that healthy level to an unhealthy level. I recommend you avoid baby wipes, sprays and douching. You know, douching impacts the pH level and study has shown that douching can actually increase the risk of infections, pelvic inflammatory diseases and sexually transmitted diseases. Wash the vulva area around the outer area of the vagina daily and I recommend you try the probiotic cleansing bar which is pH-balancing chemical-free as well as hyper-allergenic. It contains fermented lactic acid bacteria to ensure a healthy microbiome as well.
Now if you are perimenopausal or menopausal you know less estrogen will thin and dry vaginal tissues and so it also increases the pH level and fewer secretions can mean discomfort during sex. Having sex actually can help preserve your vagina’s thickness and moisture. So, if you don't want to lose it you want to use it. Also start taking C buckthorn oil, Omega 7, it will increase the tone and keep your vagina very moist and healthy and within a week you will notice, “Oh, wow. Less pain, less irritation and less inflammation,” triggered by different sexual activity and what not. And if you use lubrication please look for a natural water-based formula verses Vaseline or other toxic chemicals.
Alright lastly. Today most of us without even knowing we are poisoning our bodies by applying toxic skin care products and make up. We slather on products on our skin loaded with synthetic chemicals that can easily be absorbed by our skin, our body’s largest organ. So, synthetic chemicals found in majority of skin care products are often endocrine disruptors that mimic our natural hormones signaling to our body to decrease the production of key hormones erroneously. So, they can actually tell our cells to die prematurely or allow other dangerous hormones to accumulate. So, which ones are we talking about? These are the culprit: amines, amines can be definitely carcinogenic if they mix with nitrates and it causes dermatitis as well and irritating our skin. Parabens. That is well known carcinogen it is really important that you stay away from parabens because they found on bodies with breast tumor that they are actually high in those tumors, parabens.
BPA Bisphenol A. That is another problem that can actually link to breast and other cancers. Phthalates which is a lot in fragrances although we love good smells, they are also endocrine disruptors. These are all lipophilic. What that means is that it gets stored in fatty tissue. You know, I dedicate an entire chapter day 6 in my bestselling book, The 7-Day Allergy Makeover, of this topic about body care. So, one more thing, don't forget, stay away from colors: yellow, number five red, number four because there is a lot as well in cosmetics because they can cause allergic reactions. So, you can also go to ewg.org and there is a place called Skin Deep and you will be able to get all kinds of great information. So, happy Mother’s Day to all of the beautiful women in your life including you. This is Dr. Susanne. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to serve you. I am dedicated to helping you feel your best today.
This is Wellness for Life Radio on RadioMD. See you next time. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
If you are a mother of a daughter, find out what you should be discussing to help with her self-esteem.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1519wl5d.mp3
- Featured Speaker Joan I. Rosenberg, PhD
- Guest Website Dr. Joan Rosenberg
-
Guest Bio
Joan I. Rosenberg, PhD, creator of Emotional Mastery™ and Emotional Mastery Training™, is a highly regarded expert psychologist, master clinician, trainer and consultant. As a cutting edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, trainer and speaker, Joan has shared her life-changing ideas and models for emotional mastery, change and personal growth in professional and educational seminars (e.g., Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy, John Assaraf’s Money Neuroscience of Success and Master Your Mindset series, Bo Eason’s Personal Story Power, Rick Frishman’s Author 101 University), psychotherapy sessions and graduate psychology teaching (currently a Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University).
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 8, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Joan I. Rosenberg, PhD
You are listening to Radio MD. She is a chiropractic, holistic physician, bestselling author, international speaker, entrepreneur and talk show host. She is Dr. Susanne Bennett. It is time now for Wellness for Life radio. Here is Dr. Susanne.
DR. SUSANNE: When you think about yourself growing up as a young girl, doing things at different aspects of your life as a young girl, do you ever wonder if you made different decisions that your life would actually be different today? What if you got better advice from your mother or she intervened a little bit more? Well, my next guest is here to share some tips on what every mother should be telling their daughter about self-esteem and relationships. Please welcome world renowned psychologist author and speaker Dr. Joan Rosenberg.
DR ROSENBERG: Thank you so much.
DR. SUSANNE: Alright. Let’s jump right in. besides being a good role model what can mothers do to support their daughters in developing healthy self-esteem?
DR ROSENBERG: You know, one of the things that when I was thinking about this whole topic was that it is really important for mothers to help girls trust their instincts and to have the girls set high standards for themselves, particularly about being treated well and keeping this idea of safety in mind. So, let me, if I elaborate just for a moment on that. A lot of times, girls will put themselves in situations where they subject themselves to poor treatment, that they allow themselves to be put down, they are diminished in certain ways, they may feel coerced by a boyfriend or, if you like, they are going to lose a relationship if they don't behave a certain way and what I really want mothers to convey to their daughters is that a girl should have high standards of how they get treated, and I mean with kindness and safety-- never being a threat as two key examples.
DR. SUSANNE: So…
DR ROSENBERG: There is more.
DR. SUSANNE: Go ahead, please, I want to hear more.
DR ROSENBERG: Okay. Well, I also want mothers to emphasize to daughters that they should learn how to speak up with ease. Again, so my thinking around self-esteem is that if an individual has a hard time speaking up and saying the things that they want to say, to whom they want to say them, when they want to say them, and, again, hopefully with kindness and discretion, that if they don't do that, they will never, I think, solidify their sense of self or their self-esteem, and that so being able to speak up with ease is kind of like super gluing the self-esteem. So, I want mothers to also encourage their daughters to speak the truth of what they think and feel because that will help them.
DR. SUSANNE: So…
DR ROSENBERG: Go ahead.
DR. SUSANNE: Yes. I hear you. I'm sorry. I was thinking about what you were saying. I remember my son when he was really young, I actually used to role model with him because there were times he would come home all upset about this and that and because his friend said something mean to him and he was like four, five years old and I would role model and act like that friend so that I can get him, Cody, to speak up use his voice in a way not to be hurtful but to share the feelings. You just reminded me of that as you are talking about it.
DR ROSENBERG: Absolutely and, again, I think what ends up diminishing a girl’s sense of self-esteem is because she doesn’t speak the truth of what she is experiencing nor does she necessarily act on the truth. So, it’s rather she feels like sometimes not right in a situation rather than speaking to it or rather than leaving the situation, she stays in it and then she begins to devalue herself. So, this is why I think setting high standards, being able to speak up and say things she needs to, that say she is a super important element in any relationship whether it is a peer, a girlfriend, or it is an emotionally intimate partner, a sexually intimate partner that you got to be able to pay attention to those kinds of things in order just to maintain that high sense of self-esteem.
DR. SUSANNE: Right. You actually wrote a book about this, about relationships that girls have, Mean Girls, Meaner Women.
DR ROSENBERG: Yes.
DR. SUSANNE: Tell us a little bit about that.
DR ROSENBERG: You know, the book is really about the kind of multiple influences on why women treat each other poorly, and, again, one of the key elements in that book is really about the need for girls and women to be more authentic with themselves. So, we have to tell the truth to ourselves and then we need to be telling the truth to other women. So, it is being authentic with ourselves and authentic with each other, and the key here around that I see that really undermines things is that, by and large, girls are not socialized well. They are not taught well to handle anger and competition. And I think that this really gets in the way of girls, again, having high self-esteem because they are asked to shut down on important protective experiences and they don't learn well how to go after things that they want because they are afraid to be in completion with somebody else. So, those are two of the things that were talked about in that book.
DR. SUSANNE: That’s great Mean Girls, Meaner Women. That is an excellent book. So, what can we talk about when we talk about signs that, as a mother, signs may indicate that your daughter might be in a toxic relationship or friendship?
DR ROSENBERG: You will see withdrawal. You will hear your daughter speak poorly about herself. You will hear her devalue herself she will describe not being worthy of good things kind of going back to this whole idea that high self-esteem involves feeling worthy and also feeling capable of going after what you want and so, again, the withdrawal. You will see depression. You might see more anxiety and this fear of going after things, this fear of being able to speak up, being afraid that the fear of losing a relationship that is hurtful she is more afraid to do that than she is to be on her own. So, those are some of the things that a mother can look for.
DR. SUSANNE: Yes. I also think that even your grades start going down.
DR ROSENBERG: Oh, sure. Absolutely. Grades going down, isolation, all those different kinds of things. Yes. Even a child that changes mood abruptly so that she has gone from being a sweet child to being an angry, aggressive, pessimistic, abrasive child. Those are also signs that something is going on underneath.
DR. SUSANNE: Yes. Yes and what age do we start talking to our daughters? Like I said, for my son I talked to him when he just pretty much started going to school, kindergarten and pre-school, I mean really when is the best time to start talking to our girls?
DR ROSENBERG: You know, my thing is you start as young as they can understand what is taking place. All you do is change how you approach language-wise, how you talk about content so that if your son was coming home at four, five or six where he was not being treated well, you just find the right language and the right way to interact with him around that, and I would say the same is true for mothers with daughters. You want to start young. You just want to use language that the child can understand about how important it is to feel safe; how important it is to begin to say stop if they don't want somebody to do something or also encouraging them to be able to go after things that they want and to be able to handle things if they don't work out.
DR. SUSANNE: Gosh, we are in the last minute here. Is there one thing that a mom can do today for Mother’s Day to be able to talk to their daughters? Is there one thing that you advise?
DR ROSENBERG: That they can do to talk to their daughter? You know what? Reach out. Make the connection. If there is any kind of estrangement, my thing is, and there is some distance, go repair the distance and reach out and tell your daughter how much you love her and that you want to be there for her to support her in whatever she wants to go after.
DR. SUSANNE: Fantastic. So much great information. Everyone go to Dr. Joan Rosenberg’s website at www.drdusanne.com/drjoan. I so appreciate you coming on the show and then, of course, you can also go to the Wellness For Life Radio show page on RadioMD.
This is Dr. Susanne sharing natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness right here on Radio MD. Until next time stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Down on yourself? Learn how to build higher self-esteem from an expert on the matter.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1519wl5c.mp3
- Featured Speaker Joan I. Rosenberg, PhD
- Guest Website Dr. Joan Rosenberg
-
Guest Bio
Joan I. Rosenberg, PhD, creator of Emotional Mastery™ and Emotional Mastery Training™, is a highly regarded expert psychologist, master clinician, trainer and consultant. As a cutting edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, trainer and speaker, Joan has shared her life-changing ideas and models for emotional mastery, change and personal growth in professional and educational seminars (e.g., Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy, John Assaraf’s Money Neuroscience of Success and Master Your Mindset series, Bo Eason’s Personal Story Power, Rick Frishman’s Author 101 University), psychotherapy sessions and graduate psychology teaching (currently a Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University).
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: May 8, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Joan I. Rosenberg, PhD
It's time to feel better with help from Dr. Susanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness all discussed right here, right now. It's Wellness For Life Radio on Radio MD. Here's your host, Dr. Susanne.
DR SUSANNE: Do you ever find yourself feeling like you're not good enough? You're always feeling like you're waiting for others to approve of you and your actions because you just don't want to make any mistakes? You are feeling a lot of shame and you have a tendency to be really hard on yourself? Well, you're not alone. You may be among the millions of people who suffer from low self-esteem. My next guest has 30 years of experience on the topic and she's here to lift you up and give you some great tips on how to develop higher self-esteem. Please welcome professional speaker, bestselling author and psychologist, Dr. Joan Rosenberg. Thank you Dr. Joan. So what's the cause of low self-esteem?
DR JOAN: What's the cause of low self-esteem?
DR SUSANNE: Yes. What is it?
DR JOAN: Well, what I think? Well, let's start with what self-esteem is because it's a pretty broad topic and I like to think of self-esteem as taken from Nathaniel Branden's early work on the topic when he described it. It's this idea that you not only feel worthy of good things, you feel capable and confident to achieve or go after whatever you want. So, it's kind of this notion of I'm worthy of good stuff and I'm capable of going after it. Low self-esteem then would be, not…Obviously feeling the opposite of that. You feel neither worthy nor capable.
DR SUSANNE: Right and this all happens at such a young age because we see that in our children and I truly believe that a lot of it is because our children actually mimic our parents and we are models and the people that we actually look up to also have low self-esteem. What do you think about that?
DR JOAN: I would agree with you. I think that and, in fact, I'm going to be doing a talk in couple weeks on the importance of parents dealing with their own emotional kind of stuff, if you will, for lack of a technical term, because when parents don't work out their own issues or concerns or the way that they were raised, oftentimes they visit that to their children and they will be mean to their children, they'll be hurtful to their children, they'll tell their children that they're not worthy or that they didn't want them or that they're stupid or any number of other things that really undermine a child's ability to believe in his or her own capabilities. So, it has a huge impact. It has a huge impact.
DR SUSANNE: I know. I see this all the time and you can see even in the shopping mall when you're shopping and you see parents really grabbing their child and yelling at them. I actually feel that parents don't know how, they don't have any other way, they don't have any idea of how else they can treat their kids and, just by default, that's what they do, because that's what they were taught and their parents treated them this way. So, obviously, one of the causes of low self-esteem can be from life events. Life events that you are dealing with, with parents. What else causes low self-esteem?
DR JOAN: You know, I think that there's a challenge for folks and, again, I tie this to my ideas around emotional strength, as being part of what can help someone, then, develop high self-esteem but the cause then, or some of the cause then is somebody's own inability to handle the unpleasant outcomes in life. So, if I don't handle disappointment well as a child and I avoid activities or I avoid experiences that might put me about to face disappointment and I avoid those things, I never develop a sense of confidence. I never have my sense of being capable of handling upsets and, as a result, I lead a very restrictive life. So, those kinds of things can also contribute to low self-esteem. So, it's not just what parents may say or do that are hurtful to the child and undermines that child’s sense of self, but it's also as an individual. If I don't go out and try things and find that I can handle things when they don't work out, that also can lead to low self-esteem.
DR SUSANNE: Got it. So, you mentioned a really interesting term, emotional strength. So, emotional strength is like the integrity of how you deal with trauma or deal with day to day actions. What else is that? What else is emotional strength?
DR JOAN: I break it down into two aspects and I'm sort of on a mission to redefine what emotional strength's all about. We get this stereotype view of it, of thinking that it means shutting down or stiff upper lip or all sorts of kind of phrases like that. For me, it involves two things. It involves feeling capable and feeling resourceful. If I can, I want to break that down for you. Feeling capable basically involves being aware of and kind of in touch with what's going on inside of you. It means that you're aware of what you think and you're aware of what you feel, in that you're able to, again, handle unpleasant feelings. I think that this is really interestingly enough at the core of stuff and I don't think of unpleasant feelings as bad or negative. They're simply unpleasant. None of us wants to experience them but we need to be able to actually move through life with much greater ease. The second has to do with feeling resourceful. When I think about feeling resourceful, for me that means that you feel okay doing things alone and you feel comfortable leaning on people when you need to. And we’ve got to do both in life or we have to be able to do both in life so that when you feel resourceful then you're able to ask for help and then you can acknowledge your needs and limitations. You can ask for help and then you can, hopefully, easily receive what people give to you. So, it's this inside aspect and this outside aspect that's a part of emotional strength. Am I making sense?
DR SUSANNE: Yes. Yes. I love the fact that you share about how it's important to, like you said, lean on and, I suppose, really trust your own instincts within yourself but when you need, help don't forget to ask, don't forget to ask those people.
DR JOAN: Right and what I watched, Susanne, is that a lot of people when they won't acknowledge need, or their limitations, and they won't ask for help, because they see asking for help as weakness.
They see need as weakness and that's why this whole notion of me putting, asking for need, recognizing and asking for help as emotional strength. It's really emotional strength that can do that--not weakness. So, again, it's feeling capable, which means you can handle unpleasant feelings and it's feeling resourceful which means that you can recognize need and ask for help and those two those elements are what comprise emotional strength.
DR SUSANNE: And once you obviously develop emotional strength, it's all about building your self-esteem. It's all part of it, isn't it? The two of them together?
DR JOAN: Yes, absolutely. It totally contributes to it because when you have; when you feel capable and you feel resourceful, then you're going to go after stuff that you want to go after. You’re going to go pursue the goals and dreams that you have, and it means that you're going to be able to face the outcome of the challenges, or the frustrations or the disappointments that you meet along the way. So, the key here is that when we then go after stuff, we'll be able to handle it, and that, again, is when we have that high self-esteem. It's like, “Oh, I can go do this and it's alright if it doesn't turn out. I can handle it.”
DR SUSANNE: It's all a win-win situation where once we start to see ourselves as we're capable people and competent, then our esteem ends up rising. Thank you so much, Dr. Rosenberg for this uplifting information. For my listeners who want to learn more about developing higher self-esteem go to Drsusanne.com/DrJoan. Drsusanne.com/DrJoan or go to my Wellness for Life radio show page. This is Dr. Susanne with natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness. Until next time, stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
With so many choices in birth control, learn how to make the right choice for you.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1519wl5b.mp3
- Featured Speaker Alyssa Dweck, MS, MD, FACOG
- Book Title V is for Vagina: Your A to Z guide to Periods, Piercings, Pleasures and So Much More
- Guest Website Dr. Dweck
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Guest Bio
Alyssa Dweck, MS, MD, FACOG, is a partner and full-time practicing OB/GYN at the Mount Kisco Medical Group in Westchester County, New York. She coauthored V is for Vagina: Your A to Z guide to Periods, Piercings, Pleasures and So Much More. She has a Masters Degree in Human Nutrition from Columbia University and her MD from Hahnemann University (now Drexel University) in Philadelphia. She is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
- Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
