Finding a New Primary Care Doctor

A Big Thanks To Leslie at Wellparents.com for this great advice Thanks to Leslie at Read more

The Rollercoaster of Life

Grandma: "I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like Read more

Sheltering at Home/Covid 19

Never in the last two decades of my career as a physician would I have imagined that we would be using the same mask to see patients all day and then sterilizing/recycling them at the end of the day. Read more

Turmeric Health Benefits

Have you ever wondered what the paste is applied to the bride and groom's faces and arms in Indian weddings?  It's actually the spice turmeric.  Turmeric is the ingredient in curry that gives it a vibrant yellow color.  Actually, Read more

COVID 19 Precautions

With the scare of COVID here in the USA now, I wanted to post a little info about boosting immunity to prevent contracting the virus. Here are some important facts about Covid-19 It is spread by contact with Read more

Natural Tips for Avoiding Colds

This cold and flu season is still upon us and unfortunately, many patients are still being plagued by these nasty viral symptoms.  Here are a few tips to try if you feel like you are coming down with something. Of Read more

Sherry's Story

Sherry has a great story.  She has been diabetic for years and she has made some massive changes!   "I have been on a lifestyle change. It has been a year following a ketogenic food plan.  When I started this journey Read more

Pharmacy to Farmacy

Many of you may know Erin-- the fabulous Pharm D that worked in our office a few years back.  Erin is a phenomenal gal and we embarked on the journey  into natural medicine around the same time.  As we both Read more

food additives

Homemade Yogurt –get those probiotics!

beakers

 

ADDITIVES-YUCK  

Why are they even in the healthy stuff like yogurt???

A big shout out to one of my dear patients that recently shared her recipe with me for homemade yogurt!  She is taking her gut bacteria seriously and is in fabulous health!!  I love it!  I was hesitant to try it and intimidated by the instructions in my probiotic handouts.  It just seemed a little overwhelming and too domesticated for me.  But it actually wasn’t bad at all!!

 

  1.  Sterilize a glass bottle in boiling water —I use mason jars (the small jelly kind are my favorites–you can get them pretty cheap at Meijer or even find them really cheap at Goodwill)
  2. Take 8 cups (approx 2L) of organic milk (I love Trader’s Point Creamery) and bring it almost to a boil on the stove.  You can use goat milk but the texture is much more runny.
  3. Add sugar to taste (about 3-4 tbsp/2L of milk)
  4. Let it cool down to 37 degrees C —ie warm to touch but not burning
  5. Gradually add the starter 1:7 -1:10 and mix well-you can purchase a starter or buy a high quality plain yogurt with live active cultures from the store— add a little milk to the starter to give it a little fluid
  6. Pour into clean bottles
  7. Put them  in the oven with a 40 watt bulb for 6-8 hours (use paper to block direct light onto the milk)
  8. After 6 hours— the milk will solidify and be ready to stick in the fridge or eat.  (It will keep 1-2 weeks)

AND WOWZA–you just made cheap high quality yogurt without all of the artificial sweeteners, dyes, and hefty price!!  Watch out Martha Stewart!

Posted on by Angela in Diet, Nutrition 2 Comments

8 GMO Foods to Avoid

What is a GMO?

A GMO (genetically modified organism) is the product of a lab process that takes genes from on species and inserts them into another species to attain a desired trait.  Viruses or bacteria are used to infect animal or plant cells with the new DNA.  The DNA is coated with tiny metal pellets and shot into the cells.  Then, the new DNA is injected into fertilized eggs and electric shocks create holes in the membranes of sperm forcing the new DNA into the holes.  Although, no research on humans has shown detrimental effects from eating GMO foods, numerous studies on animals have shown immune damage, pre-cancerous cell growth and many unexplained anomalies.

For more information on the history of GMO’s visit HERE

Here are the top 8 GMO foods to avoid

1.  CORN– corn is the most prominent genetically modified crop here in the US.  Please know your farmer if you want good fresh sweet corn–and ask what type of seeds he uses.

2.  SOY–90% of soy is genetically engineered to be resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup.

3.  SUGAR–since 2009, genetically modified beets have been used to make beet sugar.

4.  ASPARTAME -not only is one of those toxic food additives, it is actually made from genetically modified bacteria.

5.  PAPAYAS—yep, this wonderful fruit is exported here from Hawaii since 1999 and is genetically modified to be resistant to the Ringspot virus.  They are banned in all European countries.

6.  CANOLA– canola is made from rapeseed which is one of the most chemically modified and adapted oils.

7.  DAIRY–  1/5 of all dairy cows are injected with rBGA growth hormone from Monsanto—Drink organic or plant-based.  Remember that 93% of all soy is GMO— Silk Brand Soy milk is non-GMO.

8.   ZUCCHINI AND YELLOW SQUASH– most are genetically modified to resist viruses.

Luckily, Connecticut and Maine have recently passed laws requiring manufacturers to label all products with Genetically Engineered ingredients.

4 Tips to avoiding GMO

1.  Buy organic–labels saying 100% organic or made with organic ingredients

2.  Buy Non GMO–labels saying “artificial hormone free”

3.  Avoid high risk ingredients–corn, soybean, canola, cottonseed, sugar beets, corn syrup

4.  Download shopping guide and get the app “ShopNoGMO”—a great app with plenty of good information and specific products to avoid.BagofNon-GMOGroceries

Posted on by Angela in Call to action, disease, Nutrition, Organic, Whole Food Leave a comment

Sweet Deception–Exposing Artificial Sweeteners

 

A big shout out to Dr. Chris for sharing this great video with us —please visit his site http://www.yourpersonalwellness.com for more great information.

Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, Whole Food Leave a comment

Weightlossmavens.com

Hey there—
Just a quick update—you can now check out more posts on http://www.weightlossmavens.com
I will be guest authoring on this site which provides great tips on nutrition and the prevention of disease. What is the best side effect of great nutrition —DING, DING, DING—–Weightloss!  Check out their site by clicking the link on the right side of your AngelaMD page.
Logo_975x1751
Dr. Dan Perez started this site with the following mission—
 Weight Loss Mavens is a multimedia site dedicated to eradicating obesity and the chronic degenerative diseases it spawns by channeling the collective knowledge of health experts, or mavens.   The word maven comes from the Yiddish meyvn, meaning “one who understands.”   But to be a maven you have to more than just understand a topic, you have to know its ins and outs.   In other words, mavens know their stuff! Our goal is to help people all over the planet achieve a healthy weight and experience a life of optimal health.  We believe that a world with healthier citizens leads to a more prosperous world for all.The site features content written by experts and thought leaders in the fields of peak performance coaching, behavioral psychology, weight loss, nutrition, fitness, alternative medicine, and functional medicine.   New content is added daily.
Thanks to Dan for inviting me to  write for them!
Here is my first post:

Food as Medicine

 

imagesI am privileged to share my experience and health insights with the readers of Weight Loss Mavens. I am a board certified internist in private practice in Indiana for the last 12 years.  Like most medical school graduates, I left medical school eager to treat and cure-all diseases.   After completing my residency, I was absolutely sure that I had found my mission in life by becoming a physician.

To my surprise, I was WRONG!

My wake up call came about a year ago when I realized that I was repeating the same, ineffectual mantra by encouraging my patients to “eat healthier and exercise.”  But nobody was getting better!  Every year I wrote more prescription medications to treat symptoms.  I never truly identified the root cause of their disease, and certainly didn’t give them specific information about how to eat better and exercise. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even know anything about good nutrition and prevention at the time.

Enter Susan–my “Ah Ha” patient that changed my life for the better. Susan was in her 40′s with four young sons, a successful veterinary practice, and the awful disease LUPUS.  Lupus is a debilitating, chronic autoimmune disease in which the body’s own immune system attacks its own cells all over the body. We had her on immune suppressing drugs that were packing on the pounds, causing severe symptoms, and frankly not controlling her symptoms. She was unable to spend any time in the sun and couldn’t attend her son’s ball games. She frequently missed work due to pain and was relying on narcotics to get her through her days. She was nearly suicidal. This intelligent, beautiful woman had everything going in life until she was struck by disease. I wasn’t helping her at all.

We decided to go on a mission to determine the root cause of her disease. We began educating ourselves on toxins in our food supply and environment that could turn on auto-immunity. I spent sleepless nights feeling like I was a complete failure and contemplated quitting medicine. I felt that I wasn’t doing patients any good.

CUE THE DRUM ROLL!

We figured it out! After tedious symptom/ food diaries, spreadsheets, research/prayers—We discovered that Susan was intolerant to RED DYE # 40!

We immediately removed it from her diet.  Today, Susan is a drug free, vital, beautiful, thin, happy woman who no longer has Lupus.   It may seem too simple and hard to believe, but it is a true story!

Today, I continually educate myself on the power of food as medicine and integrate this knowledge into my practice.  Susan was my wake up call.   Thanks to her, I’ve helped many patients re-examine how they eat, move, and think.  The results are remarkable.

My challenge to you is to start today—Start being conscious of each and everything that you put in your body, and ask yourself  “Is this something from the Earth that is going to nourish my body?”  If the answer is NO–reconsider consuming it! It just may save your life and give you many years of vitality versus disease.

When Rosie O’Donnell had her heart attack last year, she stated that was the first time she actually became conscious of what she was putting into her body. So that is the first step we can take.  Let’s begin this journey by reading labels, focus on eating real food, and being mindful of what we are putting into our bodies.

About the author:

Angela DeBord Henriksen, MD received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and her MD degree from Indiana University School of Medicine.   She completed her residency training in Internal Medicine through St. Vincent’s Hospital in Indianapolis.   Dr. Henriksen currently has a private practice at IU Health after serving as a hospitalist there. 

 

Posted on by Angela in Call to action, disease, Guest Blog, Nutrition, Uncategorized, Weight Loss Leave a comment

Breaking up!

Instead—-upgrade to a more healthy alternative–try Spectrum’s Coconut spray oil available at http://www.spectrumorganics.com

Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, Exercise, Nutrition, Whole Food Leave a comment

Unjunk your candy!!!

 

Emma-the Princess with Attitude!

Trick or treating time is here and it poses a difficult decision for parents.  How much nasty sugary candy do we actually allow them to eat?  I remember back in my childhood days of trick or treating that it was not uncommon to be invited into a neighbor’s house for popcorn and apple cider.  These days we scan for razors, fear arsenic laden homemade treats, and dread “that house” that passes out the healthy stuff.   Heck, I even think I went haunting without my parents well after dark and actually survived to tell about it.  That was a different time and we live in a much different world.    The reality of  Halloween is that nothing fresh is safe, we trust the packaged brand name candy, and want our children to just be happy.  Therefore, we allow the high fructose corn syrup laden candy and attempt to ration it with validation of good parenting.   The truth is—-we might as well be injecting heroin or allowing our kids to sniff bath salts for all that good validating happiness on one evening.  Have you ever really looked at the candy labels?  I hadn’t until I started trying to be more conscious.  The all too tasty Mounds and Almond Joy contain hydrolyzed milk protein which is a pseudoname for MSG.  Snickers (satisfying) contains partially hydrogenated soybean oil.  Reese’s has a preservative in it that is closely related to butane.  Mars and M&M’s are laden with artificial coloring as well as those Hershey’s products which are made with partially hydrogenated oil (major artery clogging stuff).  It makes me want pass on rolling that Rolo to my pal!  I’m no drug dealer!

Hence— a solution to our parenting woes—

“A few years ago, Michael and his 13 year old son Nicky got into an argument over Halloween candy.  Nicky came home with his bag of loot, went to bed, and woke up the next morning to find that his dad had confiscated most of it.  It played out the way these fights normally do, with the candy gone and Nicky going to his room.

Later, Nicky did some research online (to prove to his dad that candy isn’t so bad).  He discovered that his dad was right (for once).

It’s not that Nicky thought candy was healthy.  It’s that he didn’t know how bad it really was. What Nicky learned was that the worst parts of candy (like hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives) aren’t there to make it taste good.  They’re there to make it cheaper to produce.

Nicky had a hunch that without the junk, candy could taste better. With the help of his older brother Kris, and his dad, they set out to prove it.”

 

From that ingenious question stemmed a great corporation called “Unreal”.  Unreal candy values not using HFCS or any artificial colors/flavors.  Unreal products can be found at major retailers such as Kroger and Target.  So thanks Nicky for being proactive and helping raise awareness that will benefit many generations of trick or treating yet to come.


Some of Unreal Candy’s ingredients:

Milk Chocolate (chocolate, skim milk, cane sugar, cocoa butter, milk powder, organic blue agave inulin, soy lecithin, vanilla extract), Peanuts, Cane Sugar, Calcium Carbonate, Peanut Oil, Colored with (beetroot juice, turmeric root extract, purple cabbage juice), Gum Arabic, Vanilla Extract, Carnauba Wax & Beeswax

Contains milk, soy, peanuts. May contain tree nuts, wheat

You can visit their site at http://www.getunreal.com

Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, disease, Humor, Nutrition, vegan Leave a comment

Genetic Roulette

Here is the trailer to Genetic Roulette which will help explain a little about GMO’s and why our food is making us so sick!  The version above is closed captioned and the one below is subtitled in spanish.

Posted on by Angela in Body, Call to action, cancer, Diet, disease, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Mid Life Manifesto

When I was a little girl–the words “become a professional and don’t expect someone else to take care of you” were gently and repetitively etched into my head.  I think that is why I aspired to become a doctor.  I didn’t want to do law, I have no passion for rules.  A business owner seemed too processed for me.  I wanted to help people.

When I was in college after already committing my life to become a doctor, I became terribly ill and landed a spot in the hospital.  My doctor at the time told me “You are not going to die”  That phrase I will never forget because at that moment–I felt like I might.  I was then forever indebted to becoming that person who would reassure a patient that their darkest hours were not at hand.   I studied hard and abstained from activities my peers were engaged in only to pursue my dream.  Eleven years ago my dream came true and I was finally the doctor starting practice and ready to change the lives of many.  I was trained to treat every disease with the best of medicines and could conquer any patient’s complaint.  Unfortunately, those concepts drastically changed as I continued to evolve as a person and was touched by each patient that I met.  After ten years of medicine I could feel myself beginning to change but I wasn’t quite sure just what the change was.  Then the day Susan came in I began to have a greater focus.

A few years ago, Susan, a popular vet in the local community with 4 boys, came to me tearstricken and upset.  She had developed an autoimmune disease seven years before that had debilitated her to the point that she was unable to function as the woman, mother, and wife that she had once been.  Tears welled in my eyes during that annual visit as I noted her spirit and life’s luster being eroded by the burden of her disease.  I told her … “I am no superwoman, I have no answers for you.”  We could only pray together that things would change.

The following monday morning she called and said  “My pastor pulled me aside after church on Sunday and told me he had dreamt I got a second opinion and was healed.”  I immediately called a physician whoI had not seen since residency.  He was leaving for a mission trip to Haiti the next day and the only way he could see her was if she could be there in thirty minutes.  Ironically, she had no patients scheduled that day, had a babysitter for her kids, and was already having lunch in the area.  He told her that it wasn’t a disease, it was an allergy.  He hadn’t a clue as to what she might be ingesting that would cause this severe reaction. Eventually, she discovered that she had to eliminate red dye # 40 from her diet and she is 100% healthy now.

I have spent countless hours walking in the woods and enjoying my own family.   Yet, I continue to watch many other patients struggle with their inability to share the same pleasures in life.  I have now realized that I have been on the wrong track.  We dont need to cure and treat disease–we need to prevent it!
All the years of training to to heal people have proven that I have been coexisting with them.  I must shift my role to help them before the diseases takes hold.  I must help my patients change themselves.  I realize that the best way to change the world is to change yourself.

Thus—I will simply become who I am by letting go of what I thought I was and hope to do the same for those who come to me for help.

Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, Exercise, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

BPA—Read the Label

Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical that acts like the hormone estrogen in your body, is used to create the epoxy linings of canned food.  BPA is a chemical created over 70 years ago as a drug that was intended to promote healthy pregnancies.  It was never used as a drug so the food industry saw no problem adding it to a wide range of products, including canned food linings and plastic food containers. Low levels of BPA exposure have been linked to abnormal development of reproductive organs, behavior problems in children, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic changes resulting in diabetes.

BPA is generally used to keep fats from becoming rancid.  It is most commonly found in butter, meats, snack foods, cereals, dehydrated potatoes and beer.  It is also used to preserve food color and flavor so it’s added directly to many packaging materials.

Eat Your Veggies!  Eat Your Veggies!

Just another reason to avoid it if it’s in a box, package, or can!  Shop the perimeter of the grocery!  It goes a lot faster and you don’t have to curse under your breath at the lame geeky people who spend 10 minutes reading the label of a product and then putting it back.  You know they didn’t take the time to read the Oreo label, but when it comes to buying their pasta–they only want whole grain!  Check out this excerpt from Mayo Clinic regarding how to avoid BPA products.

 

  • Seeking out BPA-free products. This may not always be easy to do, of course. Some manufacturers label their products as BPA-free. If a product isn’t labeled, keep in mind that most aluminum cans or bottles have linings that contain BPA, while steel bottles or cans don’t. Polycarbonate plastic is generally hard, clear, lightweight plastic. It often has the No. 7 recycling symbol on the bottom.
  • Microwave cautiously. The National Toxicology Program advises against microwaving polycarbonate plastics, although the American Chemistry Council says this is safe. The plastics can break down over time, possibly causing BPA to leach into food.
  • Wash safely. The National Toxicology Program advises against washing polycarbonate plastics in the dishwasher using harsh detergents, although the American Chemistry Council says this is safe.
  • Use alternatives. Use glass, porcelain or stainless steel containers for hot foods and liquids instead of plastic containers.
  • Cut back on cans. Reduce your use of canned foods since many cans are lined with BPA-containing resin.
Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Healthcare Reform

Thanks to the Forks Over Knives crew for summing this up so concisely!

 

The United States Supreme Court’s decision last week on health care reform brought the subject back into the spotlight. We released the below statement through social media, which was shared by thousands.

Posted on by Angela in Body, Call to action, Diet, disease, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment