Optimizing Metabolism

by Ingrid Kohlstadt MD, MPH

Books by Gifted Healers

Introduction

Readers of Townsend Letter seek healing beyond the mainstream practice, and as a columnist, I most definitely want to cheer them on. PerseCHEERance. My daughter and I coined this word to convey the art of encouraging someone to keep trying and not give up. The word sums up a big part of medicine, because when you are sick and treatments are not readily available, it isn’t easy to seek out the answers. This column highlights the recent books of four medical doctors who perseCHEER readers to renewed health.

Regenerative Medicine Needs Food

and

Nutrients

to

Reach Its Full Healing Potential

The Sinatra Solution: Metabolic Cardiology,

by Stephen T. Sinatra, MD (March 2011)

Medicine is fresh with opportunities to wonder and marvel. Here we read how heart muscle regenerates. The claim is well supported by emerging evidence from diverse research including stem cell technologies and studying the effects of unintentional human exposure to carbon 14 decades later.

Here’s the next medical challenge for regenerative medicine – getting the human body to cultivate the new cells. Many new biologic treatments are successful when they “take.” This book details the biochemistry which forms the basis for the metabolic processes which influence the survival of progenitor cells. The medical frontier that Dr. Stephen Sinatra brilliantly explains is both dazzlingly high tech and very practical.

Please include this book among your prescriptions for patients with ischemic and valvular heart disease and congestive heart failure. Let them experience the restored health which comes from this scientifically masterful and clinically successful approach.

Nutrition Is Brain Surgery

and

Psychotherapy

, by Daniel Amen, MD (2012)

You are not reading science fiction! SPECT (single photon emission computerized tomography) scans image your mind and what you are thinking. This powerful technology and its applications are among the research funded by Homeland Security.

Our habits, how we have trained our mind and how our mind has been shaped show up in the brain. In Amen’s words, SPECT scans are a game changer for clinical practice.

Not only can we now see our mind works, we are given powerful tools to change it. Nutrition often gets short shrift because, well, a fork and knife aren’t high tech, and what we eat is mostly within our own control. In this book you can marvel at the extremes of new technology and see how the ordinary can make profound changes. Food and nutrients are powerful tools to help us change both the brain and the mind.

To me, SPECT tests remain like human spaceflight: we all benefit from the technology and the collective knowledge, but might not necessarily want to be the ones traveling “out there.” Current barriers to broader use of SPECT include cost, risk of radiation from malfunctioning CT scanners, and finding experts as skilled as Amen in interpreting the scans. That said, there are definitely some patients for whom I wish I had the additional guidance of this diagnostic test, and I’d urge patients to participate in clinical trials. It might not provide me with a diagnosis, but it will most certainly direct my diagnostic thinking to ask more informed questions that may identify sometimes surprisingly simple treatments.

This book is so engaging that I almost burnt my dinner reading it. Why do we make the choices we make? How possible is it to change our ways? Dr. Daniel Amen’s clinical cases are compelling and complex. The overarching message is hope and motivation for patients about to make those difficult, low-tech lifestyle changes. As Amen proposes, the fountain of youth is between our ears.

Healing Nutrition Begins

with

Validation

by Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, and Bill Gottlieb (2012)

How can patients begin the healing process if they are told that their pain and fatigue are imagined or that no cure exists? This is an incredibly affirming book. Readers are empowered, beginning with the title all the way through.

My favorite section is the 28-day treatment that builds on itself. Each day adds a new step. The focus of the first week is nutrition, the second, physical activity, followed by improved sleep and positive thinking and purpose. With this guide, patients can accomplish what amounts to a lifestyle overhaul in small increments. Given the encouragement infused into this book, I have no doubt that many people will put its healing advice into action.

A

Book Can Be

a

Lifestyle Medicine Coach

by Mark Houston, MD, MS (February 2012)

In reference to the title, doctors only have a limited time with patients. How can doctors tell their patients everything? Nutrition, when explained correctly, is complex and takes time to comprehend. Albert Einstein advised, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Oversimplified cardionutrition has caused confusion. For example: When is added salt not in the interest of a patient’s heart health and when can it save a life? What patients with heart disease really benefit from fish oil supplementations? What’s the right dose of exercise for each patient?

Here’s the solution. Have Dr. Mark Houston coach your patients! I can hear it now, “On your Mark, get set for big improvements, go change your health!”

Conclusion

Not only are Houston, Teitelbaum, Sinatra, and Amen writing books for the public, these gifted healers are among the 80 expert team developing the authoritative medical text, Food and Nutrients in Disease Management. The next edition, coming in December 2012, has a new name: Advancing Medicine with Food and Nutrients, 2nd edition. That’s to emphasize the profound healing demonstrated through research of nutrients at the molecular level.

I encourage health-care providers to reference the text’s expert presentation of the medical evidence and to prescribe their patients the accompanying consumer health book. Repairing the metabolic engine is possible, especially for patients who have someone perseCHEERing them on!

Ingrid Kohlstadt MD, MPH, has been elected a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and the American College of Preventive Medicine, and is an associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She recently completed a two-year appointment at the FDA working in the Office of the Commissioner, and published one of Medscape Public Health’s “Top Ten CMEs for 2010.” Dr. Kohlstadt is the founder and chief medical officer of INGRIDients Inc., editing Food and Nutrients in Disease Management (CRC Press; Jan 2009) and Scientific Evidence for Musculoskeletal, Bariatric and Sports Nutrition (CRC Press; 2006).