Holistic Health Provider

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”? Food sensitivities are becoming more and more common as our society deals with ever increasing levels of toxins, pesticides, and stress. And the worst thing is that these sensitivities may be so subtle you may not even know you have them, until they manifest as migraines, digestive disorders, sinus issues, eczema, chronic fatigue, asthma, autism, or obesity. If you are consistently eating foods you are sensitive to, this constantly over-activates your immune system, leads to increased inflammation in the body, and can cause sugar cravings, making it virtually impossible for you to lose weight. With prolonged exposure, these same foods can make you very sick.

But if you don’t have an immediate reaction to a food, how can you know if you are sensitive to it? By far, the most comprehensive test is a simple blood test called the ALCAT test. The ALCAT measures the body’s cellular response to challenges from a wide array of substances including foods, food additives, molds, chemicals, and colorings. The ALCAT is not an allergy test that tests for a specific antibody (like the skin prick test used by most medical practitioners). The skin prick test may pick up some of your allergies, but may miss others if they provoke a different type of antibody response. In my experience, if you have an immediate IgE sensitivity to a food, you probably know it. The delayed sensitivity reactions can be much harder to pinpoint, as sometimes the symptoms will not even appear for two weeks after being exposed to the food!

A study from Baylor Medical College reported 98% success for weight/fat loss in patients that followed the recommended ALCAT rotation diet plan and removed foods they tested sensitive to. This success occurred without reducing calories, carbohydrates, or fat grams!

The ALCAT test was developed to measure personal nutrition at the cellular level.
If you suffer from stubborn weight gain or more serious health issues like migraines, ulcerative colitis, aching joints, autism, autoimmune disease, asthma, fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue, the “healthy” foods you’re eating might be making you sick and fat. Find out what’s really going on inside your body today by making an appointment to determine if the ALCAT is an appropriate test for you.

Poor cholesterol! This waxy fat has been blamed for heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, and weight gain. The cholesterol fear has scared an entire generation from ever eating an egg yolk, meat, seafood, or butter. It has caused the medical profession to put millions of people (including children!) on statin medication to lower cholesterol, despite the long list of side effects. If cholesterol is so evil, why do we even have it in our bodies?
The answer is that we NEED cholesterol. Cholesterol is the main building block of many of our hormones including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and cortisol (the stress hormone). It is a precursor for bile acids that help us digest our food, Vitamin D3 (which has now been shown to help prevent osteoporosis, diabetes, MS, hypertension, and cancer), and cholesterol forms an important part of our cell membranes. In fact, the body’s need for cholesterol is so important that we have a back-up plan to ensure we maintain our cholesterol set point. If you don’t get enough from your diet, your liver will just increase production of cholesterol.
High cholesterol can be part of the equation of heart disease, but it is only a small part. Factors like inflammation, damage to the vessel wall, increased clotting, and blood thickening have a much greater effect on the development of heart disease and heart attacks.
So what are the real causes of heart disease? Damage to the arterial wall is of great concern, as this seems to stimulate inflammation that leads to plaque formation. This damage can be caused by heavy metals and toxins that stick to the vessel wall, a vitamin C deficiency, or excessive amounts of lipoprotein (a), a sticky substance found in the blood. The next major player in heart disease is inflammation. Inflammation has many causes including infection, stress, deficiency of certain essential fatty acids, high insulin levels (caused by increased carbohydrate consumption), toxins, and trans-fats or rancid oils.
Blood thickening can be caused by homocysteine, a substance that occurs when methionine from meat and milk is ingested without enough vital B vitamins and betaine to prevent conversion. Homocysteine is one of the best blood markers to predict the risk of death in patients with cardiovascular disease. Cytokines, a hormone produced by white blood cells in response to inflammation, are another important predictor or mortality risk in patients with congestive heart failure.
With all of these contributing factors, does it make sense that our first line of defense in combating heart disease is to lower cholesterol? The side effects of cholesterol-lowering medication include muscle damage/pain, neuropathy, anemia, tendinitis, low immune system, sexual dysfunction, and liver dysfunction. Now a recent study has shown that statins increase the risk of diabetes in menopausal women by up to 50% and may contribute to certain cancers! If you are at risk for heart disease, find a health provider who will help you look for real answers to your problem, as opposed to just prescribing a statin medication.

My name is Dr. Ilana Goldberg. I created this site to share some of the information, techniques, and research I have found most beneficial in treating patients and in my own journey from illness back to health.
Enjoy!
Dr. G

Happy 2012! This year, millions of people made resolutions to diet and exercise more. And by February, millions of people will be right back to the habits they had before. How can you make your resolution stick? First off, make sure it’s the right resolution. It’s one thing to resolve to “diet”, but every individual will have varying nutrient needs and may require a different combination of foods to lose weight and increase health simultaneously. If you’re trying to follow a raw, vegetarian/vegan diet and keep craving steak, that may not be the right eating plan for you. If you’re following and Atkins or Paleo diet and feel like you have indigestion and low energy after eating, that’s not the right eating plan for you either. I would highly recommend finding an experienced natural and holistic health provider who can help you do the metabolic and body shape typing that will determine your perfect eating plan, before you go gung ho on any kind of diet. That being said, EVERYONE will benefit by cutting out sugar and highly processed carbohydrates. NO ONE needs to drink soda. MSG, pesticides, mercury, artificial sweeteners (including diet coke!) and food colorings do not have any place in the human diet. So if those things figure prominently in yours, a fantastic resolution would be to get rid of them.
As for exercise, I tell my patients to start with baby steps. If your resolution is to work out every day but it’s been three weeks since you even knew where your sneakers were, that resolution may not last very long. Twenty minutes of an incredibly effective work out (see my post on high intensity interval training) twice a week is going to be more realistic, and will actually burn MORE FAT! In fact, moderate to strenuous exercise without recovery breaks will raise your stress and cortisol levels causing muscle loss and increased belly fat. So make sure you’re exercising at the right level for your body.
Another tip is to take your goal and trace steps backwards. Say your goal is to wake up at 5 a.m. to exercise instead of your usual 7:00. But you know your body needs 8 hours of sleep to actually feel good (and burn fat!). That means you need to be asleep by 9 p.m. and probably IN bed by 8:30. You’ll need to eat dinner at 6 p.m. at the latest. For most of my patients, this change may be harder than waking up at 5. But if you go into the change with a good idea of how to make your actions successful, there’s a good chance you’ll keep it up.
The same goes for eating. You may resolve to snack on more vegetables, but when you get home hungry, harried, and rushing around, that easy-open bag of chips is going be way more tempting than a big bunch of celery. Make sure you allow time on the weekends for washing, chopping, and preparing veggies so you can grab them from the fridge and eat them right away. Or do what I do and cheat! I buy the pre-washed, pre-sliced vegetables almost exclusively. That way not only will I eat them, but my family will too. Especially if I’m sure to have a tasty hummus or cream cheese/tomato dip on hand.

One of my personal resolutions is to increase the quality time I spend with my family. A great way to piggy-back this resolution on to your goals to diet and exercise more is to include your family! If your kids are old enough, give them tasks like sprinkling raisins and sunflower seeds on the salad, skewering chunks of salmon to broil, or setting the table. Turn off the t.v. and put on some music for the whole family to do 30 seconds of running in place (my kids love to do this “AS FAST AS YOU CAN”) followed by two minutes of dancing. Repeat this pattern 6 times and you’ve just done a great high intensity interval workout!

2012 is your year! Make sure you’re on the right path, plan accordingly, and you’ll be unstoppable!

Happy December! I love this time of year. I love the music, the lights, and I adore the scents associated with the holidays: peppermint, cinnamon, orange, and clove. What if I told you that the spice you enjoy so much in your Christmas hot cocoa might also cure cancer? And could also kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria? Unfortunately, you won’t get this effect from your Starbucks peppermint latte. So I thought this month would be a good time to talk about an element of natural medicine that I recently became interested in: Essential oils. Essential oils are the liquids that are distilled from plant leaves, seeds, bark, roots, flowers, or fruit. When the oils are very pure, they represent the most potent type of plant medicine. It is said that one drop of peppermint oil is as strong as 200 cups of peppermint tea. Plants contain incredible oxygenating and immune-strengthening benefits, especially when you use the distilled oil as opposed to the dried herb. They are very small in molecular size so they can quickly penetrate the skin and cell walls. Almost all essential oils are antibacterial, anticancer, antifungal, and antiviral. More than that, several oils (like frankincense) are able to pass the blood-brain barrier. This makes them useful in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. When you smell essential oils, they have an immediate effect on the brain, most notably in the limbic system were emotion and memory are managed. Some of the most powerful effects of essential oils are related to their effect on mood and depression.

Essential oils were mankind’s first medicine, and have been used for thousands of years. There are 188 references to essential oils in the Bible, and Egyptian temples were dedicated to the production and blending of the oils. They are incredibly effective, but gentle enough to use on kids. I like a lot of different oils, but the two I use the most are two blended oils by Doterra. The first is “Breathe”, a combination of peppermint, eucalyptus, laurel, melaleuca, lemon, and ravensara. If you really want to experience the power of essential oils, rub a few drops of this oil on your hands and inhale deeply. Even severely congested sinuses will clear in a few seconds. This has been invaluable for my children. I used to dread the nights they were suffering from colds because I knew their sleep would be restless due to trouble breathing. Now, if they are stuffy, I have them smell the Breathe oil and they are breathing much better in no time. The other oil I use constantly is Doterra’s “On Guard” or a blend from Young Living called “Thieves”. Both of these are designed to boost the immune system and kill harmful bacteria, mold, and viruses. They contain a combination of citrus, clove bud, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary. This oil blend can be slightly irritating to the skin, so when I use it on my kids I rub it on the bottoms of their feet or I diffuse it in the air. For myself, I’ll put a drop in a cup of warm coconut milk for a germ-destroying vegan eggnog.

Have questions about which oil would work best for you? Feel free to email me directly, or visit one of these websites:

http://www.doterra.myvoffice.com/drgoldberg/

http://www.youngliving.com

If you really want an amazing gift in a little package, a present of an essential oil would be a fantastic thing to find in your stocking this year!

Every year it seems that as soon as the last trick-or-treater leaves, the holiday season begins.  Already I’ve had several patients express concern that between family visits and holiday parties they might spiral out of control between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  So I thought I might offer some helpful tips to make it through the next few weeks without going off the rails.

First, I can’t stress enough how important it is to follow a low-glycemic diet on a day-to-day basis.  Every time you eat sugar, you spark new sugar cravings.  Avoid sugar and refined processed grains as much as possible.  Even if you know that you will be eating “off the plan” on the Thursday of thanksgiving and over Christmas, make those exceptions to the rule.  Allow yourself to indulge (within reason!) on those days, and the next day get right back on track.  If you are hosting, send most of the leftovers home with your guests.

Load up on potassium!  Potassium is your ally against sugar cravings!  Eat greens, broccoli, avocados, brussel sprouts, pumpkin seeds, and nuts as they are great sources of potassium with low sugar content.

Avoid additives like MSG, aspartame, modified food starch, yeast extract, and any kind of “hydrolyzed protein”.  All of these, besides being fairly toxic, cause an increase in insulin and will spark sugar cravings.

Make friends with stevia.  This natural plant is 300 times sweeter than sugar with no known side effects and no effect on insulin.  It is available in powder or liquid form.  I recommend trying stevia extract since it is less likely to have a bitter aftertaste.  Try this “cocktail” to curb sugar cravings and as a digestive tonic before eating:

1 tsp. of apple cider vinegar, 5-7 drops of Vanilla Crème stevia, squeeze of lemon, and 8 oz. sparkling mineral water.  My daughter calls this “Mommy’s Soda” and drinks it with me.  The apple cider vinegar is helpful in lowering blood sugar as well as weight loss. 

Need extra help?  The herb Gymnema has been used by Ayurvedic medicine in India for hundreds of years.  It can help lower blood sugar levels but also changes your taste perception of sugary foods.  I like the Standard Process Gymnema supplement which has 4 grams of the gymnema leaf per tablet.  Another great supplement is inositol, a B vitamin.  Deficiency of this vitamin causes sugar cravings, so sucking on a tablet of inositol may be just what your body needs to bypass dessert.

Make your family time more active!  Instead of letting the holidays revolve around food, plan activities that the whole family can do together.  Get everyone out for a walk after dinner instead of letting the whole family snooze in front of the T.V.

Too often November and December become a blur of mindless eating and running around that results with you starting January feeling bloated, guilty, and exhausted.   Keep yourself on track so you start 2012 feeling fantastic!

Whenever we talk about diet, we inevitably get to the question of bread.  Is it good for you? Bad for you?  Will it make you fat?  Will it help your workout?  It’s controversial because many people CRAVE bread and get very panicky at the thought of not being able to eat it.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 10 years you’ve probably heard the message that highly processed white bread doesn’t offer many health benefits.  What surprises many of my patients is that I don’t consider whole-wheat or multi-grain bread to be that much better.  Certainly if you are struggling to lose weight, have any kind of blood sugar issue, or have a gluten or wheat allergy, commercial bread in any form should be avoided.  And while, yes, whole wheat bread has a lower glycemic index than white bread I have seen many diabetic patients who experience the same spike in blood sugar from eating either type of bread.  Not only that, but the blood sugar will often raise to the same level it does after drinking a can of regular soda! Whole wheat bread is still made out of flour which turns very quickly into sugar.  When your blood sugar spikes, your body releases insulin (a primary fat-storing hormone) to quickly lower your blood sugar to normal.  But when your blood sugar swings too low, you can end up with severe sugar/bread cravings and hunger.

Does whole wheat bread offer more nutrition than white bread?  In theory it should.  Whole wheat bread uses every part of the wheat berry including the outer bran layer, the endosperm layer, and the germ portion.  These three layers contain B vitamins, vitamin E, some antioxidants, complex carbohydrates, fiber, fats, and protein.  However, when it is milled into flour several chemical processes take place.  The fats in the wheat start to oxidize, and many of the nutrients are lost within 72 hours of milling.  So unless you are buying the wheat yourself, sprouting it, milling it at home, and baking with it within three days of milling, you probably aren’t getting all the nutrition you think you are.  Commercial bread factories combat this in white and wheat bread by adding synthetic forms of the nutrients lost to the flour after it is milled.  This can be done in a powder form or a spray emulsion form.  The spray form is “stabilized” by adding sugar to the mix (one of the reasons sugar shows up on your bread ingredient label). This same nutrient fortification process happens with pasta, cereal, and rice as well but with rice they actually shellac the rice after adding the nutrients by spraying it with an ethanol or isopropanol solution of zein, palmitic or stearic acid and abeitic acid.

I won’t delve deeply into the issue of gluten sensitivity in this post, but if you suspect you might be sensitive to gluten I would definitely do an elimination diet of at least three weeks where you cut out all gluten-containing grains (wheat, rye, barley, spelt, and kamut).  Oat does not technically contain gluten but is often contaminated so look for oats that are certified gluten free.  Symptoms of gluten sensitivity can include the following:

• Abdominal Distention
• Abdominal Pain and Cramping
• Alternating Bouts of Diarrhea and Constipation
• Anemia
• Arthritis
• Autoimmune Disease
• Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
• Autism
• Bloating
• Constipation
• Depression, Anxiety and Irritability
• Diabetes
• Diarrhea
• Fatigue
• Malodorous Flatulence
• Malodorous Stools
• Gluten Ataxia
• Hair Loss (Alopecia)
• Headaches and Migraines
• Hypoglycemia
• Infertility
• Joint pain
• Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis
• Lactose intolerance
• Mouth sores or mouth ulcers
• Nausea
• Numbness or tingling in the patient’s hands and feet
• Osteoporosis
• Peripheral Neuropathy (including either a tingling or sensation of swelling your toes and fingers)
• Sjogren’s Disease
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Teeth and Gum Problems
• Vitamin and Mineral deficiencies
• Vomiting
• Unexplained Weight loss

If the idea of an elimination diet isn’t appealing, I would recommend ordering a testing kit from www.enterolab.com or Cyrex labs.

So should anyone eat bread?  Some of my patients are participating in fairly intense exercise programs and feel they need more carbohydrates.  However, if they get the additional carbohydrates from vegetables, whole grains like quinoa and wild rice, or sprouted bread like Ezekiel bread, they will get much more nutrition from the food they are eating at the same time.

Interested in milling your own flour?  Check out the videos at this website:

http://breadbeckers.com/

Please let my know your thoughts by leaving a comment below!

In health,

Dr. Ilana Goldberg, D.C.

This past Sunday I went to my first ever Bridal Expo.  I was offering stress tests to help people determine how stress was affecting them.  The results were dramatic, if not surprising.  You might guess that brides-to-be are a pretty stressed bunch and you would be right.  But these ladies almost broke my meter.  At least 50% of them were off the charts; they’re bodies were reacting to their wedding stress by going into complete fight or flight mode.  Interestingly, the mothers-of-the-brides all had the opposite reading.  They were all in adrenal fatigue, or burn-out.  So in honor of my brides (and their moms), I wanted to write today about exactly what stress is and how it shows up as physical symptoms.

Put simply, stress is your body’s response to any demand placed on it.  The stress can be physical (pain, injury, hunger) or emotional/mental (divorce, job stress, loss of a loved one, planning a wedding).  Your body doesn’t make too much of a distinction between different types of stress.  As soon as you undergo stress, a series of reactions begin that are coordinated by your adrenal glands.  The adrenal glands are triangular glands that sit on top of the kidneys.  These small glands are in charge of your fight-or-flight stress response, which they control by secreting a number of different hormones including adrenaline and cortisol.  While a little bit of stress was supposed to be protective (it would increase the chance you could run away from the tiger chasing you), long term stress can be very destructive because your body never gets a chance to recover back to its normal state.  The effects of chronic stress include weight gain that tends to focus in the mid-section and belly, increased blood sugar, increased blood pressure and heart-rate, insomnia, decreased immune function, brittle bones, fatigue, allergic responses, and cravings for salty or sweet foods.  Left unchecked, these will develop into full blown disease states of diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, and will probably cause your adrenals to burn out to the point where they can’t produce normal amounts of hormones.   This point of “adrenal fatigue” is where most of the mothers-of-the-brides were.

Unfortunately, there’s no magic pill to reverse the effects.  Anti-anxiety medication and sedatives have a host of unwanted side effects and don’t actually repair your adrenal glands.  I’ve found the best prescription to heal your adrenals is a combination of diet, the right exercise for your body, incorporating stress relief techniques, and using certain supplements to help support your body while dealing with stress.  If you’re curious how stress is affecting you, please contact the office for a FREE evaluation and consultation.  And brides, fight the urge to become a bridezilla!  It will do you more harm in the long run.

In health,

Dr. Goldberg, D.C.

Anyone who’s had kids can testify the weight that took you nine months to gain can often take you a lot more than nine months to lose.  After my first child was born it took me close to two years to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  When my second was born in 2010 I was back to my normal weight in six months and then lost another 10 pounds after that.  The difference?  I started incorporating High Intensity Interval Training.  My workout took 20 minutes, three times a week.  I could do it while the baby was napping and still had time to take a shower before he woke up!  The key is that this type of exercise is a powerful way to stimulate your body’s production of growth hormone, the ultimate fat-burning hormone.  And your body will produce growth hormone after your workout for 48 hours IF you are eating the right diet.

When you get on the elliptical and do an hour of a moderate-pace workout, you don’t start burning fat until all the sugar in your muscles is used up (probably about 30 minutes).  As soon as you stop exercising, the fat burning also stops. Not only that, but an hour of that exercise will actually RAISE your cortisol (stress hormone) levels and could cause your body to hold on to excess fat.  But how do you know if your body can handle high intensity interval training?  And exactly what your interval should be?

The best way is to do an exercise recovery test.  This test will determine how your body recovers from strenuous exercise and what interval pattern will give you the most effective fat burning without creating a stress response.  We often do this as part of our initial patient work-up, but also offer it as a separate service if you want to make sure you’re doing the right work-out for your body.

 - Dr. Ilana Goldberg, D.C., The Health & Wellness Center, Holistic Healthcare Expert

Where your body deposits excess fat is partially a result of  your genes but is also affected by your hormones.  If you suspect you may have a hormonal imbalance, your body shape may offer a clue.  The four main body types we see are the Liver, Thyroid, Ovary, and Adrenal. Check out this video explanation of the four types: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnZQhM5O9yo

Liver Type

The liver body type is characterized by a “pot belly” which is usually firm as opposed to flabby. Other symptoms of liver dysfunction can include itching, dark skin spots, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), dark urine, pale stools, swelling, easy bruising and spider veins, nosebleeds, clubbed or whitish nails, and even breast enlargement in men.  The liver is the largest organ in the body. It has a number of functions in the body including detoxification, hormone production and breakdown, setting metabolism, aiding digestion, and cholesterol synthesis.   Because of the liver’s constant exposure to toxins, it can easily become over-taxed.

Thyroid Type

The thyroid body type tends to gain weight uniformly in many different areas.  Because the thyroid is so important to your metabolism and protein synthesis, people with a sluggish thyroid will tend to gain weight and experience fatigue and weakness.  They may also experience depression, cold intolerance, mental slowness, decreased heart rate, ridged nails, high cholesterol, infertility, and hair loss. People with an over-active thyroid will tend to lose weight but will often feel anxious and irritated.  The thyroid is a horseshoe shaped gland in the front of the neck.  It produces T3 and T4 from iodine and tyrosine. Underproduction of T3 and T4 can be due to nutritional deficiencies, autoimmune disease, stress, increased estrogen/testosterone, and certain medications.

Ovary Type

The ovary body type gains weight in a pear shape, primarily around the hips, thighs, buttocks, and lower belly (below the navel).  This is due to abnormally high levels of estrogen, a condition also termed “estrogen dominance”.  Estrogen is also a strong signal to the body to create cellulite.  After prolonged exposure it can also cause fibroids, endometriosis, and certain cancers.  A combination of factors can lead to estrogen dominance.  If the liver is compromised, it is unable to process estrogen properly so it simply recycles in the body.  We are also exposed to large amounts of estrogen-like compounds that come from plastics, pesticides, or meat/dairy that has been treated with hormones.

Adrenal Type

The adrenal body type gains weight in an apple shape; holding on to fat in the mid section while the arms and legs actually may get thinner due to muscle atrophy.  This is due to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol.  Cortisol also tells the body to raise blood sugar, decrease thyroid hormones, increase blood pressure, and can cause osteoporosis.  The adrenal body type will often have trouble sleeping, may suffer from anxiety, and may experience chronic inflammatory aches and pains.

Different diets and exercise plans are required to treat the different body types.  Find out what body type you are by taking our Body Type Quiz!

- Doctor Ilana Goldberg, D.C., The Health and Wellness Center, “Creating Individual Plans for … Complicated Health Issues.”