I have been warning everyone for the last 20 years about privacy issues. Nobody seemed to care much. We had an early warning from Jeffrey Rothfeder, Privacy for Sale: How Computerization Has Made Everyone’s Private Life an Open Secret published in 1992. This was before the Internet was born in its current GUI format. To prove how we were losing privacy even 26 years ago he was interviewed on a major show. The interviewer asked him just how fast he could…
People ask me what is your personal nutrition routine? What do you take on a daily basis? What supplements and micronutrient do you take yourself for optimal nutrition? To achieve optimal health and well being in a high stress world today. Personal Goal A personal goal and my mission for all of you is health and well-being. Longevity with vigor. Protection from cognitive decline. Prevention of diabetes, arthritis and cardiovascular disease. Growing older without aging. It was the famous British…
How do you personally find valuable and appropriate information about prescription drug medications today? What is your best source? How do you balance the need to know with overly cautious or scary warnings? Even I have difficulty locating information unless I use a physician-only proprietary database such as Epocrates. Today I want to introduce you to Consumer Safety, a valuable source of drug information. This site provides notable “black box” warnings. The really serious adverse effects that you might want…
Why Are Baby Boomers Dying Prematurely? I am a pioneer antiaging/age management physician. I co-authored the best-selling book on the age management – The Life Extension Revolution: the New Science of Growing Older without Aging. I was the founder of the Los Gatos longevity Institute rebranded as California Age Management Institute. These credentials are well known. I have been giving serious thought and reflection on an alarming dichotomy of generations. It appears that so many individuals who were born in…
Symptoms of Iron Deficiency Anemia: Iron is essential for oxygen carrying capacity. Iron deficiency and anemia decreases oxygen delivery to all major organs of the body. Most especially the brain, heart and muscles. Iron deficiency manifests with easily identified symptoms and conditions. Here is a quick overview followed by a more detailed description. Mental Fatigue and Cognitive Impairment. Iron is an essential cofactor for neurotransmitter and myelin synthesis. Brain neuronal cells require iron for DNA synthesis, mitochondrial respiration, and…
We talked about the essentials of iron metabolism, iron uptake and iron control in part 1 and 2. Now let’s try to unravel the mystery of iron therapy. But first we take a side trip into oxygenation, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radicals. In reading through the literature it is obvious this is a very complex subject. Far more complex than is usually admitted. And I have alluded to many controversies where another binary choice is offered. Either you…
All these years I was trying to understand the relationship between serum free iron, bound transferrin iron, storage as ferritin iron and anemia. What is the control mechanism? What is the cause of iron deficiency? How is this related to chronic anemia? How much lab data do we need to determine true iron status? OK. So let’s review iron cycling through each body compartment. Bivalent Iron You want lab data that measures all these forms of iron transport and storage…
The Essentiality of Elemental iron Iron is essential for healthy red blood cell hemoglobin levels. Red blood cell hemoglobin is essential for oxygen transport. Oxygen and glucose are absolutely essential for brain function. The topic of today’s review. I think iron metabolism, assimilation and transport is highly misunderstood. And the subject of great controversy. Here is why. Hemoglobin is the essence of red blood cell function. And you can see in figure 1, iron is the essential core of hemoglobin….
Flu vaccine may only be 10% effective this year? That means 90% ineffective. Tell me more. I am asked frequently by my patients, “do you suggest or advocate the flu vaccine.” My simple answer is no. I do not recommend flu vaccines. I am middle of road on vaccines. Some vaccines are essential. No argument. Tetanus boosters, MMR for measles, mumps and rubella, polio vaccine. In my day we all had smallpox vaccination. That is now history. I can…
Why Your Doctor Is Burned Out or Retiring There is a growing litany of acronyms and alphabet soup organizations and algorithms that are designed to confuse, obfuscate and subordinate physician discretionary thinking. Funneling physician thinking into more pre-defined and standardized patterns. With the notion that these patterns are always superior, more efficient and accurate. More than traditional physician discretionary thought, observation and formulation of diagnosis and treatment plans. This dizzying array is one of the many reasons why virtually every…