Author Archive

Recent research has uncovered a dietary pattern associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer disease.  The traditional approach to studying the association of foods with illnesses is to take one or two foods or nutrients, and determine whether they are individually associated with the condition.  The same group at Columbia University in New York that...
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Feeding your brain involves more than just the food you eat, but the activities that you do.  One of the most beneficial is meditation.  There are many different styles of meditation: mantra, visualization, kriya, mindfulness… the list goes on and on.  In my own practice of over 15 years, I have found that different...
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A recent meta-analysis demonstrated that it does indeed matter whether EPA (eicosapentanoic acid) or DHA (docosahexanoic acid) is in your omega-3 fatty acid supplement. A total of 21 studies using greater than 50% EPA or pure EPA in the supplement showed significant reductions in depressive symptoms. On the contrary, symptoms of depression were not...
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There is so much hype about chocolate, and for good reason.  It makes most of us feel good, probably in part by liberating dopamine in the brain – the signal that indicates a pleasurable, or rewarding choice.  Its caffeine helps us to wake up, and there is quite a bit of it.  Chocolate is...
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Flavonoids are compounds found in plants.  Their functions include providing pigmentation — especially yellow, red and blue tones — and also protecting against the attacks of insects and microbes.  Remarkably, they have numerous beneficial effects on the human body and mind as well.  A recent study in the American Journal of Epidemiology (Letenneur et...
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When plants come under attack from bacteria or fungi, they do something very similar to what animals, including human beings, do when confronted with famine: activate a system of protective molecules known as sirtuins.  The sirtuins act through complex molecular cascades to increase the lifespan of cells.  In 2003, researchers at Harvard Medical School...
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Results of Randomized Controlled Trials Several randomized controlled trials have been performed utilizing omega-3 fatty acids as a monotherapy for depression, or as augmentation therapy (added to an antidepressant for major depressive disorder.)  Two recent meta-analyses aggregated these data, and found that there is evidence for an anti-depressant effect of omega-3 fatty acids when...
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In this classic article to the Lancet, JR Hibbeln demonstrated that there was an inverse correlation between annual fish consumption in a country, and that country’s incidence of depression (Hibbeln, 1998.)  As you can see from the graph, those countries that consumed the most fish per capita, such as Japan, had the lowest rates...
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We recently had a patient at the hospital where I work who became psychotic, or lost touch with reality, believing that the CIA wanted to assasinate him, and hearing voices whispering death threats through the hallways.  The only cause that could be found was vitamin B12 deficiency.  Once we gave him injections of vitamin...
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A report was recently published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals that a virus called “xenotropic murine leukemia virus related virus” was recently found to infect 67% of white blood cells of chronic fatigue syndrome patients, but only ~4% of normal individuals (Lombardi et al., Science, Oct. 2009). This finding was covered...
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