Physiologics Supplements

Now available using my professional discount

I’m pretty excited about this! Physiologics is one of the few nutritional supplements manufacturers that sell exclusively through licensed health care professionals. Their products are top of the line, but have always been a little inconvenient to get, and almost never available at a discount. Those drawbacks are now gone. When you use my Professional ID, you can:

• Order directly from the company website
• Get 10% off all orders
• Get Free Shipping for orders over $65
• Get a free subscription to Rx Complement magazine to stay on top of nutritional news and information

Here’s how:

1. Go to www.Physiologics.com
2. On the right, you’ll see a “Patients” area: click the link that says: Click Here to Register
   3. The next page asks for “Your Healthcare Professional’s ID.” Enter: PL01218 and click “Next”
   4. You should see my name come up on the next page as verification. Then just type in your email and you’re all set!

You may know Physiologics from their famous products like:

• Zygest – Superior digestive enzymes
• MusclEase – All natural muscle relaxer
• CTR Support – potent treatment for sore joints
• Complete Cleanse – safe & effective colon cleanse
• Detoxinal - for the liver and gastrointestinal tract

They have a wide range of other products besides vitamins & minerals, in such categories as: immune support, joint support, cardiovascular, mental support, and lots more. Check out the website.

About Supplement Quality:
There are three main considerations when buying vitamins and supplements.

1. Quality control. You should only buy from a company that can substantiate the quality of their products. US law remains very weak for over the counter supplements. You need to be able to rely on your manufacturer, and use one with a sterling reputation. Check out the “Professional Standards” tab once you’re in the Physiologics website.
2. Ingredients and Labeling. Unfortunately, current law is very loose about what a manufacture has to put on their labels. If they are not volunteering full disclosure about what is in their products, you need a new company. Look for these in particular:

• Herbs should list the species name, not just the common name. Vitamins & minerals should list the specific chemical form, not just the common name.
• Herbal ingredients should state the part of the plant used. Many cheaper companies can (legally!) hide the use an inferior species or the wrong part of the plant by simply not being specific.
• Quantities of each ingredient should be specified. Even the best companies occasional resort to grouping everything under a “Proprietary Blend” heading (sometimes under licensing agreements), but if this is common, it’s a red flag. You simply don’t know how much of which ingredient you are getting. (But it’s a good bet that it’s mostly the cheaper stuff!).

3. Getting the right product for you: Typical vitamins and supplements are safe for most healthy people, but if you have substantial health concerns you should have a qualified health care professional overseeing the supplements and medications you are taking. As with drugs, the herbs and supplements that are right for someone else may not be appropriate for you. The Physiologics website has an excellent resource area – see the “Health Notes” tab. Tucked away in the lower part of that page are probably the best references anywhere for topics such as herb-drug interactions, top nutrient-depleting drugs, and herbal information references.

So, head on over to www.Physiologics.com, and use my Professional ID PL01218: upgrade to professional quality supplements, and save some money at the same time!

Maintaining a healthy weight may be the single best thing we can do for our health. Carrying extra pounds, together with our typically poor diets and low activity levels, is associated with the most prevalent killer diseases of our society. It also causes unnecessary damage to our joints and connective tissues. Fortunately, several positive steps toward good health go hand-in-hand with weight control: keeping fit, developing good postural habits, and putting good food in our bodies. These will go a very long way toward reducing diseases such as:

• Cardiovascular disease
• High blood pressure
• Type II diabetes
• Osteoporosis
• Stress
• Insomnia
• Digestive problems
• Immune system weaknesses

Those problems are not caused by a deficiency of pharmaceuticals. To a great extent, they come from the choices we make and the patterns we have developed.

But It’s Hard to Get Started

It sounds so simple, and yet, making lifestyle changes is one of the hardest things do to. I know it for myself. I see it with my patients. And I know that both doctors and patients are complicit in gravitating toward the illusion of an easy fix: take a pill (or maybe ten). As an acupuncturist, I’m lucky to have patients who are typically more averse to fixing problems with drugs and are more eager to take on a solution they can implement themselves. But that doesn’t make it easy.

Read the rest of this entry »

In my companion article, I discussed the importance of healthy eating and an effective exercise program to lose fat and get fit. I also noted how hard it is to find good information and a support system to get you on the path to success. So, I went looking for some programs that offered good advice, clear guidelines, a support/feedback system, and online availability. I’ve come up with two that fit the bill. They have a focus on fat loss and fitness through sound nutritional guidelines and safe, effective exercise programs. These are programs that work, and the customer feedback and reviews for them are excellent.

Both systems offer extensive, detailed e-books (downloadable documents) plus supporting materials on their websites, in newsletters, etc. The information and guidance is sound and they are reasonably priced at just under $40. Both have a 60 day money-back guarantee from a very reputable payment processor, so you really can’t lose anything but your fat!

Read the rest of this entry »

Influenza season is coming, and with it, the latest recommendations for vaccinations. I have been reluctant to recommend them in the past. As a minimalist regarding pharmaceutical interventions, I like to see clear benefits that cannot be achieved through other means. My concerns have mostly to do with the effectiveness of the vaccines; numerous studies have questioned how well they work in practice. Also, because of frequent mutations, this is not the type of disease that is likely to be eliminated by vaccinations. Their usefulness, in my mind, would best be demonstrated by the reduction in related deaths. But while flu-related mortalities decreased dramatically over the last century, much of that decrease occurred before vaccination was common. The positive trend seems more likely related to improvements in life-saving medical care and overall health and poverty levels, etc.

However, there is some interesting evidence that we are going about vaccinations in the wrong way. If so, much better results might be obtained by taking a different tack. In general, the policy in the U.S., supported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), is to vaccinate those who are most at risk for serious illness or death. For influenza, this has meant the youngest and the oldest populations. A study published in Science, however, argues that this is the wrong approach.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just as some people like to believe their current circumstances were preordained in a previous life, or in an alternate reality, scientifically-minded folks may feel certain that their genetic makeup is responsible for their struggles with weight control and diabetes. No doubt our genetics have a dramatic influence on our physical and psychological makeup, but genes are not simple, immutable masters of our realm. Genes respond to their environment, and a gene can be expressed differently at different times throughout an individual’s life.

A critical function of our genes is the issuing of instructions to make important proteins. The genetic instructions change according to the presence of epigenetic marks – chemicals that can be attached to a gene and thus change the rate that it produces a particular protein, or even stop its production altogether. Understanding proteins and their production is a huge and barely tapped area of investigation; how genes influence protein production may offer important clues in understanding, and perhaps even preventing, disease.

Juleen Zierath and her research team at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden are trying to discover how people develop insulin resistance (a precursor to type 2 diabetes). Epigenetic marks seem to play an important role, and their research, published in Cell Metabolism, indicates that these chemical markers are affected by the dietary substances they are subjected to.

Read the rest of this entry »

By now, you should be suspicious of the idea that pills or supplements offer better nutrition than real food. And yet, I realize the possibility of a magic bullet that would allow us to live well on junk food remains tantalizing, even irresistible. But it is becoming clear that supplements may fail to provide the expected nutritional boost on the one hand, and actually do harm by providing excess doses, on the other. In an ongoing effort to burst some nutritional fantasy bubbles, here’s some guidance on folic acid.

Folic acid is an important B-vitamin, and it is particularly critical for pregnant mothers: a deficiency is associated with increased occurrences of spina bifida. This condition occurs when the lower end of the neural tube fails to close properly, leaving the spinal cord exposed to the amniotic fluid. Concern over this issue led several countries to require that the grains used to make bread, breakfast cereals, etc. be fortified with folic acid. And these programs have been successful. Since 1998 when the fortification program began in the U.S., there has been a 31% decrease in spina bifida cases in babies. There is also some possibility that high doses may help to reduce cardiovascular diseases, strokes and mental decline with aging.

It was once believed that folic acid was the active nutrient, but it is now understood that its important role is as the precursor of folate, which is found naturally in leafy greens such as spinach (think of folate = foliage) and oranges. Folic acid is converted into folate in the liver. However, the liver is limited in how much folic acid it can handle. Excess amounts end up, unmetabolized, in the blood and urine. Read the rest of this entry »

Fish oil remains one of my favorite nutritional resources – whether derived from eating fish directly, or from extracted fish oil. It is one of the few substances around with a lot of good research indicating benefits for cardiovascular health plus anti-inflammatory properties, with virtually no negative effects. As a rule I prefer whole-food sources of nutrients, rather than extracts or isolated chemical replications in a pill or capsule. My hesitancy about eating a lot of fish, however, is because of concerns about mercury levels. While commercially available fish is generally considered safe, mercury is frequently present at low levels. Extracted fish oil can (and should) be micro-filtered, molecularly distilled and  tested for heavy metals, PCBs, dioxins and furans, microbial contaminants, oxidation and rancidity. In addition, it can be standardized for optimal levels of EPA and DHA, which are believed to be the most active components. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a new, big meta-study published recently that attempted to evaluate the benefits of organic food. Over 160 studies were initially looked at, but the researchers narrowed those down to 55 for the final evaluation, attempting to include only the best-designed work. The review encompassed 50 years of research. It was commissioned by the British Food Standards Agency, and carried out by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The headline conclusion was that organic food offered no health benefits. But lets look a little deeper. The report’s authors came to the “no benefit” conclusion based only on the nutritional value of the foods examined (produce, meat, dairy and eggs). That is, they found very little difference in the level of nutrients in organic vs. non-organic foods. There were some minor variations, such as a tendency for higher nitrogen and acid levels in the organic vegetables, but nothing that was considered significant for health. This is not particularly surprising, as nutritional analysis (how much vitamin C, iron, etc.) contained in a food has never really been categorized according to its growing environment. Of course, some heavy metals, for example, can show up in plants when they exist in the soil, but that is independent of the growing method. Perhaps it is actually something of a relief that the non-organic food most Westerners eat can provide good nutrition. (If only we were eating a good, balanced diet in the first place. Organic pork rinds really are not the answer.) Read the rest of this entry »

I frequently get asked about the latest miracle weight loss plan. Most weight loss products are either useless or worse – many contain products design to work as diuretics, purgatives or stimulants. You’ll see some weight loss as you “pee, poop and sweat” more at first, but that approach is unhealthy and misses the point. For all the products, diets and methods I’ve seen, I’ve found none better than this:

1. Stop eating things with added sugar/honey/fructose or other sweeteners. (that’s almost any ready-made food, including condiments and a lot of “natural” products. If you want something sweet, eat some whole fruit (not juices, which are mostly sugar (fructose) and water)

2. Stop eating processed grains – e.g. white flour and white rice. You’ll be hard pressed to find breads with 100% whole grains, but the higher the percentage the better. The term “made with” usually means “made with barely any.” If you like rice, switch to brown rice.
These two points are almost one in the same: your body treats white flour and rice about like it does sugar.

So what left to eat? Almost anything that qualifies as real food. And you’ll find you can eat pretty much all you want (ok, maybe not sticks of butter). You won’t find much ready-made/processed food that qualifies, so you’ll probably have to spend a little time cooking. But it’s easy to make up a batch of rice or pasta and then steam or sauté your favorite veggies to go with it. I like toasted sesame oil and Braggs amino acids for flavor. Spray a little olive oil and vinegar on your salads rather than slathering them with high fat & sugar salad dressings. Personally, I don’t eat meat – but broiled or baked lean meat, fish and poultry are fine.

Want to add some moderate exercise? Fabulous. It is beneficial on many levels. You may find you lose weight more slowly because you are building muscle as you lose fat, but you’ll see the changes in your body shape. And one of the side benefits of muscle is that it burns calories all day long, even at rest.

There is an interesting treatment technique in Traditional Chinese Medicine known as cupping. It’s not used a lot in the West and not well known here in the States. A few years ago Gwyneth Paltrow showed up in public sporting the distinctive circular marks the technique leaves on the skin, but I haven’t seen much reference to it lately.

Cupping uses a vessel to create a vacuum as it is pressed to the skin, stretching the tissues and creating enhanced circulation in the area treated. These days, many practitioners use a glass “cup” which actually looks more like a miniature fish bowl. A vacuum is created by quickly flashing an open flame inside the cup, just before it is placed on the skin. As the air inside the cup cools, it reduces in volume. A modern variation makes use of plastic cups with built in check-valves. A hand pump is then used to suck out some air and create the vacuum. I find the glass cups to be more comfortable for the patient, especially if they will be used in a moving fashion to cover a large area. The plastic versions are superior for getting a strong suction in a very small cup, which can be ideal for working on small bony areas, such as an elbow or knee. Read the rest of this entry »