Weight loss is a popular topic and a multi-billion dollar industry for a reason. I have found that it is the rare person who is perfectly happy with their weight.  Most people are either trying to drop a few pounds, lose a lot of weight, or trying hard simply to maintain their current weight.  Why are so many people struggling with the numbers on their bathroom scale?  There are so many answers—we live in a land of abundance, we eat the wrong foods, we eat too much food, we exercise too little, and the way our food is produced is a nightmare. So how then, can you successfully jettison that excess...

The health of your family members offers clues about how you’ll age and what diseases you have a higher than normal risk of developing.  I come from a large family, and arthritis is a dark cloud affecting both my parents and many of my siblings.  So far, I’ve managed to dodge the arthritis bullet, but I realize that it may be an issue as I get older. Arthritis is chronic inflammation of the joints that affects an estimated 70 million Americans. Its symptoms include pain, swelling, limited range of motion, redness, and warmth around the joints.  There are many different kinds of arthritis, but...

Baby, it’s hot outside, and some of my patients are starting to show the strain.  Hot flashes are worse, people are hot and thirsty, and tempers are flaring. Much of Chinese medicine is based on the idea that we humans are part of the natural world, and as such, we’re greatly affected by our environment. Seasonal changes and extreme weather can by physically stressful and wreak havoc with our health. Therefore, when it’s dry outside we get dry conditions, such as a scratchy sore throat, dehydration, and dry skin.  When it’s cold and damp, achy joints and phlegm conditions flare.  Windy...

Numbers have all kinds of meaning for different folks, and in Chinese medicine, it’s no different.  There are the five elements, the four examinations, and the eight principles of diagnosis.  For both men and women there are numeric cycles of growth.  As men age, they go through eight year cycles of growth, and women go through growth cycles every seven years. Today, girls are the subject of this post.  At age seven, according to Chinese medical texts, girls have replaced their baby teeth with permanent ones and their hair grows abundantly.  At age 14, girls have matured into young women, and...

The Chinese view food as medicine that you get to eat three times a day.  Food can nourish, heal, and give you energy. Simple, right?  Well, maybe not so simple if you are trying to lose weight, maintain your weight, cut out carbs, ditch the fats, or restrict your diet in ways that are unhealthy.  If this is the case, then for you food may feel a little bit like the enemy. My initial topic for this post was truths about weight loss.  However, as I began writing, I realized that the greatest truth is this:  How you approach food and eating is a mirror to how you approach life. In the clinic, I see...

There is nothing better than finding a new shampoo that leaves your hair feeling healthy and shiny.  It’s even better if that shampoo smells really good, too.  But what if that wonderful new shampoo contained ingredients that weren’t good for you?  In fact, what if not only your shampoo, but all of the products you put on your body routinely contained ingredients that irritated your skin, messed with your hormones, or even had the potential to cause cancer?  Well, guess what?  Many of them do! That’s right–I’m talking about all those soaps, moisturizers, lotions, lipsticks,...