What they aren’t telling you is that plastic is full of another substance called “Phthalates” (pronounced THAL-ates), which are also endocrine disruptors, and just as problematic as BPA.  Phthalates are used to make plastics more flexible, but they are not tightly bound to the plastic molecules.  That means that these chemicals can leach off of the plastic and into your food, water, lotions, etc.  The more flexible the plastic, the more phthalates will end up in your products (plastic wrap is one of the worst offenders).  Heat also speeds up the process exponentially – heating up foods in plastic dishes, drinking from water bottles left in the car?  You’re getting a not-so-healthy dose of phthalates.

Your best bet to avoid or minimize your exposure?   Drink your water from a refillable, stainless steel bottle.  Cook/reheat in metal, glass or ceramic dishes, and use tin foil instead of plastic wrap.  When buying meat, get freshly wrapped meats in butcher paper rather than in the plastic wrap, and avoid “steam in bag” foods.  When in doubt, stick with glass or metal to keep your body healthy!
Some conditions that could be worsened by phthalate exposure:

• Endometriosis
• Testosterone deficiency
• Weight Gain/Obesity
• Uterine Fibroids
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
• Diabetes
• Hypothyroidism
• Infertility
• PMS
• Depression/Anxiety
• Phthalates have even been associated with birth defects in lab rats.

I was recently introduced to “My Fitness Pal” – it’s FREE, online, and available for smartphones.  I have a number of calorie trackers on my phone, always trying them out for patients, and this is by far the best one I’ve seen yet.  They have an enormous database of food to choose from, and if you can’t find the one you’re looking for you can scan the barcode and it will automatically upload (very cool!).  Entering portion size is easy, and you can add in any exercise you’ve done for the day.  They will break down your calories into proteins, carbs, and fat grams which is especially important since the content of your calories is more important the number of your calories.  And every so often they will give you little reminders – “if every day were like today you will reach your goal in 5 weeks”.  Take it from someone who’s spent a lot of time with these apps, this is the easiest and most complete one you’ll find.

The biggest benefit to any tracker is the ability to really see just how much you are eating in a day.  It’s incredibly easy to go over your limit without even thinking about it, and that’s a quick way to sabotage your best efforts in weight loss.

An allergic reaction is essentially an inflammatory one, involving the immune system, the lining of the nose/sinuses, and (most importantly) the gut.  The intestines are actually responsible for a huge portion of our immune activity, and having a healthy gut can decrease allergies, colds, flus, etc.

One of the best things you can do to decrease/eliminate allergy symptoms is take a good probiotic supplement.  These are safe for the entire family and are typically either capsules or powders containing the good bacteria that line our intestines and keep our immune systems functioning normally (they also decrease gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea).  When looking for a good probiotic you want a product listing a variety of different strains (or types) of bacteria, including Lactobacillus, Sacchromyces, and as always the “Other ingredients” list should be short, indicating that it isn’t full of unnecessary fillers.   My favorite probiotic is by Integrative Therapeutics and called “Probiotic Pearls” – this particular brand is especially formulated to survive digestion in the stomach, delivering more probiotics to the small intestine (read: more bang for your capsule, and for your buck).

We have used probiotics for years to treat allergies, eczema, asthma, frequent colds, and digestive upset of all sorts.  They are particularly effective for children in decreasing ear infections, and the number of school days lost to illness.   There is even evidence that probiotics help to boost and stabilize our moods!

HCG remains one of the single most effective weight loss programs we have today – when it is done properly.  You should be seeing a physician regularly, and you should be receiving the actual HCG hormone (something that can only be prescribed by a licensed physician).   With the proper medicine and supervision, a very low calorie diet becomes a safe and effective option for weight loss.  With this diet Dr. Cronin has helped hundreds of patients lose thousands of pounds, feel wonderful, no longer need medications, and have major decreases in blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol, all while learning how to eat good food and make lasting lifestyle changes.

If you are struggling in your weight loss goals, and think this may be an option for you please call Dr. Cronin.  She offers a free 15-minute Meet & Greet to answer your questions and determine if this program is a safe one for you

1. Don’t dry out!  By keeping your mucous membranes moist (nose, mouth, throat, lungs) your body’s own defenses will be that much stronger.  So, that means drink lots of water, and you may want to consider a humidifier in the bedroom.
2. Take some probiotics – especially if you’ve taken antibiotics this winter.  Probiotics are capsules full of the good bacteria that we need to have strong and healthy immune systems.  Probiotics have been shown to decrease the incidence of ear infections in children, and to decrease the severity of asthma in adolescents.
3. Keep the sugar and the dairy out of your diet!  Sugar will feed any potential infection, and increase inflammation in the body (which only aggravates allergies).  And dairy tends to create massive amounts of mucous for people who are prone to allergies.  So, for those who already have congestion, piling on some extra mucous just makes breathing that much more difficult.  Don’t worry – you can get plenty of calcium from green, leafy vegetables and a multi-vitamin, so for these spring months have less cheese and drink less milk.
4. You can use an over-the-counter immune booster as prevention.  Emergen-C and Airborne work very well to prevent a cold or flu, and help your immune system function more normally.
5. If your allergies are unmanageable, there are a number of supplements that can help – so please let us know if we can help you feel better!  And, there’s no need to suffer through a cold, even if it’s “just a virus”.  If you’ve managed to pick up the latest bug going around, let us know – we have extremely effective herbal and nutritional alternatives to antibiotics (easier on the stomach, too!).

Here’s to a happy and healthy Spring!

Food Additives to Avoid

• Acesulfame potassium
• Ammonium acetate
• Aspartame (NutraSweet)
• BHA/BHT (butylated hydroxyanisole/toluene)
• Coloring
• Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil (trans fat)
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Hydroxypropyl cellulose
• Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
• Polyethylene glycol
• Polysorbates
• Propylene glycol
• Shellac
• Sucralose (Splenda)

Generally – anything that sounds like a chemical!

Food Additives That Sound Scary, But Are Really OK

• Ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
• Boric acid
• Calcium disodium EDTA (preservative, actually used a medicine sometimes)
• Cyanocobalamin (B12)
• Inositol (B vitamin)
• Pyridoxine hydrochlorise (B vitamin)
• Riboflavin (B vitamin)
• Tocopherols (Vitamin E)

Making the decision to follow a specific diet is very personal, and should be made between you and your doctor.  Regardless of the type of diet you follow, there are certain things you should look for on the labels of your food.  The big box, detailing calories, protein, carbs, etc is important (be careful to take note of the serving size), but even more important is the ingredients list below.  Processed foods are especially full of artificial coloring, flavoring, sweeteners, preservatives, conditioners and a host of other chemicals.   When we eat food, those chemicals are absorbed through the intestines and directly into the bloodstream – do you really want your insides dyed Yellow #5?  Make sure you check your supplements, while you’re at it – many of them contain shellac to make the tablets shiny, but your intestines definitely don’t need shellac!

You want to look for an ingredients list that reads like real food: for example, you can buy peanut butter containing peanuts and salt.  Or you can buy peanut butter containing peanuts, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils (read trans fat), mono- and di-glycerides, and salt.   The more natural your food is, the easier it is to digest, the more nutritious it becomes, and less stress is placed on your liver and kidneys trying to filter those things out of the body.  See the list posted along with this article for a list of additives to avoid, and additives that may sound scary but are actually ok.  Once you pick some new foods, shopping and label reading will be a cinch.  Happy shopping!

Having healthy bones is an investment that will pay dividends long into your elderly years, and while women have been taught to think proactively about their bone health, this is an issue that effects men and women alike.  Weak bones can cause severe chronic pain and fractures – but you don’t want to wait until they are weak to do something about it.  The key to healthy bones is to start early!  The following tips apply to both men and women.

1. Get your calcium! While we tend to think of dairy-based foods for this, there is quite a bit of calcium in leafy green vegetables (broccoli, kale, and spinach), oranges, fish, and supplements.  If you’d prefer to take a calcium pill, look for one with vitamin D and calcium citrate, NOT calcium carbonate.  The citrate form is much easier for your body to absorb and use.
2. Get enough Vitamin D.  This wonder vitamin is produced in the skin while we’re in the sun.  Usually 5-10 minutes, 3 times a week is enough, but not necessarily.  We are finding now that more and more people are deficient in this vitamin, and it is absolutely necessary for maintaining blood calcium levels and maintaining good bone mass.  If you have any doubts here, have your doctor test vitamin D in your blood.  Most people need 1000-2000U per day.
3. USE your bones! The old adage is true, if you don’t use it you lose it.  It is absolutely crucial that you are doing some weight-bearing exercise to stimulate your body to keep those bones strong.  Weight-bearing means actual weight-lifting, jogging, aerobics, walking, etc.  It does not mean swimming or pool exercises, where the water takes the pressure off of the bones.
4. Maintain a healthy body weight. This means not too much, and not too little.  Researchers have found that a low body weight is a big contributor to osteoporosis and osteopenia!  Calculate your BMI, and make sure that it’s in the normal range – if you are at 19 or 20, it’s time to start putting some muscle on those bones and bring your BMI up to 21.   Having a BMI above 25 isn’t necessarily bad for your bones, but opens you up to a host of other problems, so let’s aim for the middle ground.
5. Don’t rely solely on a DEXA scan (bone scan) to determine the health of your bones.  It’s the most popular test we have, and it shows bone density (which doctors love to see after they’ve put you on medication), but what we’re starting to find is that it isn’t a good predictor of fracture risk.  The whole idea of strengthening your bones is to prevent a fracture!  I recommend that people supplement their DEXA scan with a simple urine test for deoxypyridinoline, which measures how quickly your body is breaking down bones.  If you are interested in this test, please call us at (520) 431-1080.

February marked the beginning of the Garlic growing season, which means this is the time of year that you can buy garlic at its peak of freshness, potency, and affordability.  Garlic has been well-known for years to prevent and treat colds, flus and infections.  Did you know that it has also shown promise in preventing cancer, lowering cholesterol, and in thinning the blood to prevent heart attack and stroke?  If that weren’t enough, garlic is also full of sulfur-containing compounds that our livers use to remove harmful metabolic wastes, chemicals, and generally icky things from the bloodstream!  These are just a few of the reasons garlic has been so treasured, and used in so many tasty food dishes, so season away and know that you’re doing something very good for yourself in the process.

Garlic in the Kitchen

Tired of peeling garlic?  You can smash it (just a little) using the flat side of a knife and the heel of your hand.  This will take the peel right off, and leave you with a clove ready to be chopped.

Not sure what to put it in?  Put fresh chopped garlic in with your favorite chicken, beef, turkey, anything really for added flavor.  It is also a favorite in roasting vegetables – simply toss your favorite vegetables in some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and roast at 375 until crisp-tender (usually about 30 minutes, depending on the veggie).  Very tasty.

Making a homemade sauce, dressing, pesto, marinade or dip?  Everything is better with fresh garlic.