I still have patients tell me they’re avoiding egg yolks because of the amount of cholesterol and the danger of heart disease. This is unfortunate, because egg yolks are very nutritious, and there is little evidence of any correlation between eggs and heart disease. A just released study has debunked the “eggs and cardiovascular risk” myth once again. The unbiased non-egg industry authors conclude: “Higher consumption of eggs (up to one egg per day) is not associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke.”

The fact is that eating cholesterol does little to increase the level of cholesterol in your system; saturated fats are a more likely culprit. But both cholesterol and saturated fats are necessary in the diet. Every cell in the body is made up of cholesterol and phospholipids — both abundant in egg yolk — as well as saturated fat, which keeps the cell from collapsing in on itself.

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Here is a great blog post that a colleague Jeffrey Grossman LAc offered as a repost…

It’s about a month into the New Year. Do you already wish you had a do-over for your New Year’s Resolutions?

If so, you’re in luck. You do.

February 10th is the Chinese lunar New Year. The celebration of the New Year, the Spring Festival, is China’s longest and most important holiday. Because it is based on a different calendar, it falls on a different date between January 21 and February 20 every year.

You can think of Spring Festival as Christmas and New Year all rolled into one. Just like our holiday season, it’s a time of celebration, visiting family and friends, giving gifts and preparing for the next year.

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When I use MRT blood test for food sensitivity testing sometimes it can be non-food items that are causing symptoms. If the patient does not experience significant improvement in health after the first week of the MRT/LEAP diet then I instruct the patient to check ingredients in cosmetics, toothpaste, soap, and skin cream. It may be a hard concept to grasp, but sensitivities and allergies can be triggered via transdermal (through skin) route as one doesn’t necessarily have to ingest something to trigger an immune response. A recent interesting Japanese study demonstrates this point very well.

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The lack of acupuncture coverage by insurance companies in Massachusetts at best disappointing. Very few companies actually cover acupuncture treatments. I know I save insurance companies tens of thousands each year. I have little doubt that my acupuncture colleagues in Massachusetts in total save insurance companies many millions. We would save insurance companies more money if we weren’t a last resort.

How could I be so sure we are saving so much? One metric is simply based on people telling me they need surgery. Back, knee, intestinal, hip etc. Many times after a series of acupuncture treatments people feel remarkably better. If they underwent surgery those procedure are often at minimum $15,000 per procedure. ( typically much more). If people came to us before getting an expensive MRI the cost effectiveness would be even further realized.

Many people are not interested in taking medications with side effects. It seems more and more people are waking up to the fact that mediation for chronic conditions only treats symptoms and does little to help the underlying issue. Acupuncture is one of many great modalities that can help correct chronic conditions that Western medicine where western medicine has little answers except medication or surgery. Those answers can be very costly.

The review just released below demonstrates the cost effectiveness of acupuncture to back up my claim.

Acupunct Med. 2012 Dec;30(4):273-85.
A systematic review of cost-effectiveness analyses alongside randomised controlled trials of acupuncture.
Kim SY, Lee H, Chae Y, Park HJ, Lee H.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To summarise the evidence on the cost-effectiveness of acupuncture.

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Pregnancy is a critical time for smart dietary choices and proper nutritional support to improve the health of a baby. But pregnancy and childbirth in the opinion of many has become has become a pathology and medical procedure with excessive interventions that can negatively influence a mother and babies’ health.

Of course a small percentage of pregnancies require modern medical intervention in the forms of medications and potential surgeries. Modern medicine has saved countless pregnant women and newborn lives. But I don’t agree with the unnecessary overuse of strong medicines or procedures that have little clinical evidence of safety and potential deleterious side effects when safer options are available. Read the rest of this entry

Sleep is not overrated! Sleep is how our body restores itself. Lack of sleep leads to inflammation and there is good data tying lack of sleep to many undesirable health consequences.

There can be many reasons why someone is not sleeping well. The typical patterns I see when someone complains of a not sleeping well or ‘insomnia’ is either:

• A person cannot fall asleep. Either their head is spinning with thoughts (“monkey mind” 心猿) or they just feel wired and jittery.
• A person wakes up after a few hours of sleep. Often around 2 am for about 1-2 hours.
• A person wakes up early in the morning feeling they haven’t had enough sleep, but cannot fall back asleep. (even though it is 4:00am).

Some sleep issues can stem from endocrine system and blood sugar dysregulation. Some can be caused by anemia. Some may stem from circumstantial life situations one is currently experiencing and causing a ‘Heart’ disturbance. Certainly the sleep disorder is not from an Ambien deficiency.

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A recent Archives of Internal Medicine systematic review article of acupuncture randomized control trials (RCTs) found that acupuncture was more effective than what customary care for chronic pain. The meta analysis examined 29 studies involving almost 18,000 adults. The researchers concluded that acupuncture was more effective than customary medical treatments and slightly better than ‘sham’ acupuncture.

So we now have a meta analysis that looked at raw data from over 2 dozen studies and it showed that acupuncture is an effective treatment for back pain. However the anti-alternative medicine folks are quick to pounce on the fact that real acupuncture over sham acupuncture only had about a 10% improvement in chronic pain scores. In other words it wasn’t statistically significant. The 5 senses only folks then claim acupuncture is just a placebo effect, which is a ridiculous argument in of itself for a few reasons:

1. The sham group in this case is not ‘sham’, as in receiving no treatment. “Sham” absolutely can trigger a physiological response. As any acupuncturists will tell you the mere puncturing of the skin in needles at random points can bring about positive change in some. Yes you don’t need to hit exact points in some people as they may respond to almost anything.
2. Of course there is a ‘placebo’ effect in acupuncture treatments. How can there not be? The patient/practitioner relationship plays a significant role as shown by Ted Kaptchuk. But what is the ‘placebo effect’? It is the mind bringing about a healing response. If the goal is to make people feel better than that is a treatment! Who cares how one gets there as long as they feel better.
3. If it is just a placebo effect then how does one explain the numerous reports of improvement of health for animals?

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Besides acupuncture one of the big components of my practice is food hypersensitivities which can cause a myriad of symptoms that then drive up our health care costs because doctors are treating the symptoms with medication rather than the identifying the cause. Food hypersensitivities are caused by immune system dysregulation where there is an inappropriate response to foods we eat that then in turn cause an inflammatory response. This inflammatory response is the root of almost all modern diseases and ‘syndromes’.

“There are no studies that show GMOs are harmful to human health.”     This is a common statement made by the self-intere$t pro-GMO movement and parroted by our government.  However there are no studies of reasonable length (> 10 years) that show they are safe.   There is a plethora of compelling data showing that GMOs are a serious threat to our health.  Monsanto, Dow chemical and BASF must be stopped from using this technology in our food supply.  Else we will  have a lot of food that causes inflammatory reactions and is harmful to eat.   The effects may not be noticed in a year or several years, but over the course of a couple of decades they will definitely present themselves as they are already.

There is unequivocal evidence that the genetically modified foods that are in our food supply are contributing to the increase in inflammatory diseases we see today. This is especially true of intestinal diseases, asthma, allergies, and likely contributes in some way to the autism spectrum of diseases. I will go out on a stretch and say I wouldn’t be surprised that in 10 or 15 years we find that all these new tick vector diseases and widespread insect diseases are in part because of the GMO crops that lay out in fields for animals,birds and insects to eat causing mutant genes to be expressed.

Jeffrey Smith the direction of the Institute for Responsible Technology has made a stellar film about GMOs. It is available free for the next week. Please take an hour to view it. GMOs in our food supply must be stopped.

Please watch www.GeneticRouletteMovie.com

Yours In Health,

George Mandler

Licensed Acupuncturist

Licensed Dietitian

Whether you love kale, or hate kale or never tried kale I find that a well made kale salad is akin to say…ice cream.   OK a kale salad doesn’t taste like ice cream, but almost everyone loves good ice cream (even if it is unrequited love causing GI distress)…and almost everyone loves a good kale salad.   (For those that really love kale and ice cream here is a kale ice cream recipe.)

The raw kale salad variations are endless  Here are some of our variation of the 3 recipes below:

• Pomegranates mixed in and on top around the December holidays to give it a seasonally festive look.
• Avocado and pumpkin seeds w/pumpkin seed oil
• Apples and walnuts for Autumn Read the rest of this entry

LATE SUMMER EARLY FALL MEANS ANOTHER
SEASONAL CHANGE IS UPON US

We are now approaching Vata Season (season of Air and ether).
Officially starts October 1 but the energies are building now.

Vata – air/ether is responsible for all energy and movement in the body. Catabolism. The heat principle of Pitta and the heavy principle of Kapha cannot do anything without the force of Vata.

Vata is considered nuclear energy, vibration, and is associated with sense of hearing, responsible for the breath, governs the hollow organs, abdomen and thorax. Air = electrical energy (the electron moves because of the air element), pulsations of the heart, movement of the muscles, contraction of the heart, breathing, movement through the intestines and is responsible for elimination. The flow of thought and desire are derived from Vata. The air and ether element of Vata gives us freedom, peace, expansion of consciousness and is responsible for love and compassion, but when out of balance it will create feelings of separation, isolation, emptiness, insecurity, fear, and anxiety.

Vata physical imbalances will show up as sciatica, arthritis, loss of memory, emaciation, breathlessness, tremors, hyperactivity, restlessness, sleep disorders, many forms of digestive disorders especially constipation and abdominal distention.
Vata is intimately related to our vital life force, the play of intelligence, and the communication between the cells.
This time of the year it can further exacerbate Pitta disorders such as heartburn, diarrhea, dysentery, hives, rash, acne, bleeding disorders, fevers, inflammatory diseases, burning eyes, colitis, and Pitta emotions such as envy, criticism, hatred, jealousy, and OCD. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms you need to pacify Pitta by doing a cleanse using bitters and purgatives. Consider donating blood this month (this lowers the fire in the blood and stimulates immune function). Pay special attention to the foods available this time of year, early apples, and corn on the cob are a good example of the foods that will aid the body in lowing the excess heat which is responsible for the above symptoms.

One of the best things to have is a high powered blender such as the Vitamix blender (expensive and not so easy to clean) or a NutriBullet (much easier to clean and handle) and make a drink every day using a combination of leafy greens, vegetables, fruits and what Nutribullet calls power blast foods (in Ayurveda we call this Rasayanas). See article below.

We will be heading intoVATA SEASON soon, so call 978-298-5753 to book your
seasonal evaluation and get a personalized end of the season cleanse to take home and follow.
This upcoming season is a great time for Pancha Karma.

For more comprehensive seasonal information and Vata Diet go to www.integrativeayurveda.com and look under Seasonal Newsletter. This is changed each Season.

Poison Ivy – Still time for this nasty weed. For prevention take Rhus Tox 200CK before venturing out in the garden (code RHU13). If you happen to get it, then get Poison Ivy #39 (code POISO) and/or Poison Ivy/Oak tabs by Hyland (code H11301). Check your local health food store for All Terrains Poison Ivy/Oak bar for topical relief.

Acute Allergy Relief (Rag weed, Skunk cabbage, and golden rod time) – Guna Allergy Treat (code ALL34), dosage is 10 drops as needed. And/or Histamin Tablets by Heel (code HIST6), dosage is 1 tablet disolved under tongue as needed. Both are Homeopathic.
Allergy Prevention – Guna Allergy Prevent (code ALL34), 20 drops twice a day.

Indigestion/Heartburn – Avipattikar powder is the best Ayurvedic remedy for this. 1/2 teas in warm water after meals. Contact the off ice for this remedy or buy it by the pound from Emersons (code AVIPA).

FLU TIME AGAIN
Guna Flu (code is FLU) is the best natural alternative to the flu shot.
One vial under tongue every week as a preventative. If you feel the onset of flu symptoms take three vials a day for 3 days. If that doesn’t get rid of it by then.

Another option for immune compromise, especially if one has a lot of inflammation going on in addition to a high level of reactivity to foods and chemicals your choice should be Guna React (code is REACT) and CitoMix by Guna (code is CITOM). Dosage, 4 pellets of each 2-3 times a day. These can be taken together.

All Products with codes are available through Emerson Ecologics 800-654-4432 or www.emersonecologics.com

NUTRIBULLET  CONCEPT
This is a new powerful small blender that is available on line, at Walmart, and Target. The concept is great and at this point I have over 100 patients using this daily and everyone of them feel more energy and a reduction of symtoms.
This is not a juicer or a regular blender. It falls into the category of the VitaMix Blender (maybe not quite as strong).
One of the biggest problems I see clinically is GI issues and lack of ability to absorb nutrients. Does your tongue have scolloped edges? Then you are not benefiting nutritionally from what you are eating.
One of the quickest way to heal the gut is to have 1-2
drinks a day using the Nutribullet concept.
The concept is: 50% green leafy veggies, 50% fruit and top it off with powerful, nutrient dence foods such as Nuts, Seeds, Goji berries, Herbs, Herbal Formulas etc.
The blender then blends it down to a liquid. This liquid is now predigested and will heal the gut and give you an injection of powerful nutrients and enzymes. For more information see this video on youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVJ2i-owUCY

The Wonders of Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera – My favorite for internal use is Aloe-Ace (code ALOEA), this is a concentrate of the Leaf, sap and rind. When taken internally, aloe vera juice aids digestion and absorption of nutrients, helps control bloodsugar, increases energy production, promotes cardiovascular health, improves liver function, and boosts the immune system. Add a 1/4 teaspoon to your Nutribullet drink or add the 4 oz bottle of Aloe Ace to a gallon of pure water and keep it on hand in fridge. Especially good after meals if one has digestive problems (1/4 cup of mixture).

For external use the juice from the plant is great.

INTEGRATIVE HEALTH and WELLNESS
CENTER
Office of Linda Reynolds Ph.D, D.Ay.,
Connie Jackson MD,  George Mandler CNS, LDN, LicAc,  Joy Mandler AOBTA, LMT.

A full service Wellness Center that offers:
Homotoxicology, Physiological Regulating Medicine, Anti-Aging Medicine, Bio-Identical Hormone replacement, Nutrition, Acupuncture, Shiatsu, Doula, Foot reflexology, Yoga Therapy, PSE,  and Ayurveda, (full service Pancha Karma clinic in Stow only).

132 Great Rd. (route 117)
Suite 201
Stow. MA  & 129 Main St. West Harwich
978-298-5753
www.integrativeayurveda.com
www.iwellnesscenter.com