by Wendy on March 8, 2010
If your physician has told you that your cholesterol level is high, chances are you’ve left her office with a prescription in hand for a statin drug like Lipitor or Crestor to get it under control. However, if you had consulted Dr. John La Puma, you might have received some recipes instead. Dr. La Puma is a board-certified internal medicine specialist who happens to be a professionally trained chef (or a chef who happens to be a doctor). It’s his interest and expertise in the intersection of food and medicine that makes his book, Chef MD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine such a valuable resource when you want to know what you should eat when you have a condition like arthritis, allergies or even a common cold. Here is a list of foods that Dr. La Puma “prescribes” for maintaining a healthy cholesterol level.
- Black Tea
- Dark chocolate
- Yogurt
- Cinnamon
- Ground flaxseed
- Rice bran and oat bran
- Barley
- Avocado
- Macadamia nuts
- Hazelnuts
- Sunflower oil and canola oil
- Egg whites
Because of the correlation between declining estrogen and rising cholesterol levels, it’s not unusual for women in their forties and fifties to experience rising cholesterol levels, which can lead to heart disease later in life. If you haven’t hit the danger zone yet and you want to reverse this trend, diet and exercise could help. Of course, if your physician has recommended prescription drug therapy, it would be wise to add exercise and a diet rich in these foods to your regimen. It could reduce the amount of of time you need to taking a statin drug.
by Wendy on February 11, 2010
As we approach Valentine’s Day, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about sex, or more specifically a woman’s (diminishing) sex drive as she ages. According to Genie James, M. M.Sc., author of the new book, In the Mood Again: Use the Power of Healthy Hormones to Reboot Your Sex Life – at Any Age, this lack of desire, or loss of pleasure is caused not by too much stress, fatigue, or embarassment over drooping body parts, as some experts would have you believe. The reason your sex life is in the toilet (as she puts it) is due to a shift in our bodies’ hormones – which begins as early as our 30s (and continues to go south for the next three decades). She wrote this book, she says, to tell everyone how to safely and naturally turn back your sexual clock. [click to continue...]
by Wendy on January 18, 2010
If you’re concerned about losing bone strength during the menopause transition, you’ve probably been advised by your physician to increase your intake of dairy foods and/or take a daily calcium supplement of at least 1000 mg every day to help prevent bone loss. But you’ll be surprised to learn that Calcium may not be the answer at all.
In their book, Building Bone Vitality: A Revolutionary Diet Plan to Prevent Bone Loss and Reverse Osteoporosis–Without Dairy Foods, Calcium, Estrogen, or Drugs, authors Michael Castleman, and Amy Lanou, Ph.D., a senior nutrition scientist for the Physician’s Committee on Responsible Medicine, argue that the highest incidence of hip fractures have actually occurred in countries where dairy consumption was the highest. Moreover, the science doesn’t support dairy’s usefulness in reducing the risk of fractures. They point out that of the 86 studies that have examined the connection between calcium supplementation and bone health, two-thirds showed no impact on bone health above 500 mg. So if fortifying our bodies with added Calcium is old, conventional thinking, what is the new answer when it comes to preserving bone vitality as we age? [click to continue...]
by Wendy on January 21, 2009
If you missed Oprah’s show on hormone therapy last week, be sure to tune in Thursday for a repeat performance. Dr. Christiane Northrup did an excellent job explaining the role that hormones play in our body’s “control center” and what happens when they get out of whack (menopause). See my blog post below for a full review.
If your physician has told you that your cholesterol level is high, chances are you’ve left her office with a prescription in hand for a statin drug like Lipitor or Crestor to get it under control. However, if you had consulted Dr. John La Puma, you might have received some recipes instead. Dr. La Puma is a board-certified internal medicine specialist who happens to be a professionally trained chef (or a chef who happens to be a doctor). It’s his interest and expertise in the intersection of food and medicine that makes his book, Chef MD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine such a valuable resource when you want to know what you should eat when you have a condition like arthritis, allergies or even a common cold. Here is a list of foods that Dr. La Puma “prescribes” for maintaining a healthy cholesterol level.
