Intermittent Fasting – Is there any scientific basis for it?
written by Marsha Seidelman, M.D. Intermittent fasting has become popular both for weight loss and health improvement. People have adapted this to be anything from alternate day fasts, drastically restricting calories for 2 days each week(a 5:2 plan), or restricting eating to a certain number of hours per day, usually 8-12 hours. Is there any scientific…
Diabetes, fiber and the micro biome
One of the talks at the conference was “Beyond Carb Counting: Why Plant-Based Nutrition is Sweet Medicine for Insulin Resistance”. It was delivered by Dr. Michelle McMacken, a board-certified internal medicine physician and an assistant professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine. She is vegan and is deeply involved with encouraging her patients to…
Food as Medicine
I had the pleasure of returning to my alma mater in the Bronx – Montefiore Hospital – where I did some of my clerkships in medical school, and the majority of the clinical work during my pulmonary fellowship. It’s been renovated so much in the 31 years since I’ve been there that the only building…
Osteoporosis: a Review of Bone Loss and Nutrition
Osteoporosis, a Brief Overview. Let’s talk about a process that we should think about when we’re young so we can try to prevent unfortunate events as we age. First, here are a few important definitions. Osteoporosis is a decrease in bone mass leading to fragility of the bones and increased fracture risk. Osteopenia is its less severe sidekick and sarcopenia is…
We Are What We Eat: Stay Slim the Japanese Way
I often heard the expression “We are what we eat,” which turned me immediately off from certain foods. Who would like to be a cow? Chicken? Pig? Should I be a turnip or donut? An apple or brownie? There is some truth in this statement, however, I secretly agreed. Studies on obesity have shed some…
Why Is Weight Loss So Difficult – A Scientific Explanation
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of going to a Smithsonian sponsored talk by Dr. Hall, who is a Senior Investigator at NIH and chief of one of the research programs at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases that reaches across different branches of the institute. It was the…
Tomato Day: A Morning at Carrboro Farmers Market
Every time my husband and I are in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, visiting my parents-in-law, we make sure to join them for the Saturday ritual of going to the wonderful Carrboro Farmers Market. The market is quite extensive, with cheese, pasta, gourmet soup or bread makers, mushroom farmers, and flower growers, in addition to the…
Herb-Marinated Chicken Breasts
Amy Riolo is an award-winning author, lecturer, food historian and cooking instructor. This recipe is adapted from her book, The Ultimate Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, Harness the Power of the World’s Healthiest Diet to Live Better, Longer. Part of her journey revolved around trying to understand why her relatives who continued to live in Italy were so much…
Carrots as Medicine
When my patients tell me that their blood pressure has been running high, the first thing I ask them is what they have been eating. After a careful discussion, it often becomes clear that the blood pressure increased after a meal high in sodium. We then focus on the diet, rather than medications alone, to…
Food, Glorious Food – A Valuable Resource
“You waste life when you waste good food” – Katherine Anne Porter Not a soul would go to bed hungry if we did not waste the food we grow….