Alternate Treatments, Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Infection, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Obesity, Philosophy, Vitamins
The Forever Formula for Good Health and Longevity
Readers often ask me what it takes to reach 100. My answer is always the same. Good genes. Good luck. And a lifetime of good choices about my health. “What about your daily regimen of high dose vitamin C, lysine, magnesium, coenzyme Q10, quercetin, and proline?” That’s right, I say. It’s my forever formula for health and longevity. I’ve recommended all kinds of things to readers, like stepping on the bathroom scale every day, taking good care of teeth, getting sufficient fibre in the diet, and being wary of medication. My website (docgiff.com) has thousands of my articles posted, and although maybe not all of them have aged as well as I have been fortunate to do, readers can find all...Read More
Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Lifestyle, Obesity
Never Ignore the Symptoms of Early Heart Failure
Years ago, after interviewing Dr. Michael McDonald, I asked, “Will you be my cardiologist?” Now, as I reach my 100th year I’m grateful his sound advice has kept me alive. He’s associated with the world class Peter Munk Cardiac Center affiliated with the University of Toronto. During my visit he stressed that more patients would be living longer if they reported to their doctors the early signs of heart failure. Prevention is always better than cure. Never forget this fact. We are all living longer and so is our heart. Today, if you’re over the age of 65, heart failure is the most common reason for being admitted to hospital. And when heart failure starts, this means a life expectancy of...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cardiovascular, Lifestyle, Obesity, Sports
An Active Lifestyle is the Right Resolution
One week into the New Year, and how are you doing on your resolutions? Most people make ambitious plans at the end of December and by this point can’t remember what they were. A few people overdo it, like those who commit to running a marathon before they’ve had success with a daily walk. If you are constantly worrying about how to strike the perfect balance, that’s also a waste of your time and no help for your heart. The best habits for health are regular moderate exercise, a healthy diet, good sleep, and an upbeat outlook. First thing in the morning, every morning, is a natural time to check in with yourself. Step on a scale and make sure the...Read More
Cardiovascular, Lifestyle, Obesity, Pediatrics
Heart Disease Prevention Begins with Children and Good Parenting
Heart disease is called the “silent killer”. Why? Because the first symptom can be a fatal attack. Most people lead their lives unaware of the ticking time bomb within, neglecting lifestyle changes that could radically reduce the risk. The fact is, preventing heart disease needs to be a lifelong practice, starting in childhood. Pediatric cardiologists and researchers who focus on identifying and mitigating risk factors for cardiovascular disease in children and young adults are proving the case. Studies show that obese children have higher levels of insulin resistance and inflammation than their non-obese peers, both of which are known risk factors for heart disease. Obese children also have stiffer arteries, which can lead to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems. But...Read More
Diabetes, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Obesity
Why Some People Die Early and Others Live On
What’s the most depressing part of a newspaper? It’s the obituary section where you see many people dying too early in life. What causes these untimely deaths? A Gifford-Jones Law states that one bad health problem inevitably leads to another and another, causing people to die early. One of the cardinal sins is not having a healthy and sensible breakfast. Where to lay blame? It’s the neglectful practices of food companies, governments, schools, and parents, all of whom are commonly ignoring the hazard. The breakfast sin is found everywhere. Nearly every restaurant serving breakfast is guilty of pushing the wrong foods. We recently found sinful breakfasts in a high-end retirement residence in Toronto. Even upon request for a high fibre cereal,...Read More
Diabetes, Gastroenterology, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Obesity, Philosophy
An Excess of Stupidity Is Still the Problem
At a breakneck pace, today’s world threatens to leave us gasping for breath. You name it – climate change and pollution, the global demographic explosion, autocratic rulers trampling civil society, or the threat of AI’s unintended consequences. But for all the things where meaningful influence is out of the hands of most of us, why are these still so many things well within our control that we do so little to change? Consumers have a lot of power, for example, but too infrequently use it. If you don’t like the microplastics in the ocean, stop buying food sold in excessive packaging. When affordable public transportation is available, we spend far more to drive our own vehicles. We buy enough clothing to...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cardiovascular, Lifestyle, Neurology, Nutrition, Obesity, Philosophy
Starving the Gut Feeds the Brain
If our bodies could speak to our brains, many would hear this: “Dear brain, please know the difference between being hungry and bored. Sincerely, I’m getting fat!” Who doesn’t turn to food when the doldrums set in? The smart brains would offer their hosts three pieces of advice. One, eat nutritional food. Two, limit portion sizes. And three, now and again, engage in fasting. Why fasting? Because studies show that for obese and skinny people alike, after prolonged reduction of food intake, the body’s defences improve against stresses. Cardiovascular risks decline. And the brain functions better. Temporary cessation of eating provokes chemical changes throughout the body. Ketones are a type of chemical the liver produces when it breaks down fats. The body...Read More
Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Medicine, Obesity
New Drugs for Type 2 Diabetes
Albert Einstein wrote, “Everything is a miracle.” Is it possible that a new class of drugs is finally providing a miracle in the fight against diabetes? Ozempic and Trulicity, produced by Novo Nordisk and Ely Lilly, are examples of the brand-name prescription drugs gaining attention for fighting type 2 diabetes and showing success. Type 2 diabetes is among the leading killers globally. But information about these drugs is running wild. The hoped-for miracle needs a measure of grounding. Consider Ozempic, a prescription drug, injected weekly by pen. It’s approved in Canada and the U.S. to treat type 2 diabetes, a lifestyle disease linked with obesity and a major risk factor for heart attack, blindness, kidney failure, and gangrene of the legs...Read More
Cholesterol, Gastroenterology, Nutrition, Obesity
What Is the Best Nutritional Advice Ever Given?
How long has this column recommended a high-fiber diet? Since March 1978 when readers were informed that processed foods create a “slow assembly line” in the bowels. Now some of the world’s most highly regarded nutritional scientists at Imperial College London say dietary fiber is “the best health advice of all time”! What is it about fiber that is so important? Soluble fiber dissolves in the stomach and can help lower blood cholesterol and glucose levels. Insoluble fiber passes through the digestive system, supporting a faster assembly line that moves waste out, reducing the risks for hemorrhoids and colon disease that creep up when hard stools loiter the bowels. Experts agree that women need about 25-30 grams of fiber daily, and men...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Genitourinary, Gynecology, Obesity, Surgery
What to Do When Things Fall Down
The law of gravity means our bodies are pulled down to Earth. This fact inevitably spells trouble over time. But for some women, it causes inconvenient and annoying issues, and sometimes surgery, to address what’s called vaginal prolapse. Not all women are born equal. Some inherit tougher pelvic tissues and do not experience prolapse, even after bearing several children. But the more pregnancies, the greater the risk in older age of weakened all pelvic structures leading to the sagging of the vagina, urinary bladder and often the rectum. The most common complaint is the loss of urine on coughing and sneezing. A large survey of women in North America revealed that four percent suffer from this annoying problem. Apart from pregnancy, what else...Read More
Cardiovascular, Obesity, Pain
Edema Is a Common Problem Often Ignored
What is one of the most common health problems that develops in people as they age, and also one of the least discussed? The answer is chronic swelling of the legs. At best, it’s a natural consequence of aging. But also known as peripheral edema, there can be medical, nutritional, or lifestyle causes and serious health consequences. Edema is a general term meaning swelling. Peripheral edema occurs in the legs, ankles, feet, as well as arms and hands. Swelling in other parts of the body include pulmonary edema (in the lungs), cerebral edema (in the brain), and macular edema (in the eye). It’s a medical emergency when the lungs or brain are affected, and a life-altering condition when vision is impacted. But...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Cancer, Diabetes, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Obesity, Vitamins
A Windfall of Science on Apples
We write about natural remedies we believe are good for human health. Why this focus? It’s not to encourage avoidance of pharmaceutical drugs when medical care is an imperative. To the contrary, Canadians and Americans have the luxury of the world’s best doctors, medicinal drugs, and healthcare facilities. But health systems are overwhelmed. To ease the crush, people who are not yet ill should take up responsibility to stay healthy. Good health is not achieved through inaction. Live a poor lifestyle and illness will come as sure as night follows day. But the talents of doctors and the cure of drugs are best reserved for the unlucky who lose the health lottery. For young people and the healthy aging population, a proactive,...Read More
Obesity
Ignoring Hazards Leaves Little Hope for Longevity
What is the greatest hazard to your longevity? Ask around and you will get a variety of answers: heart disease, cancer, genetics, or humankind’s own folly with warfare and planetary destruction. But it has become taboo to mention obesity. Yet, for decades, this column has stressed that obesity is the greatest health hazard of them all. Amid all of society’s penchants for weight gain, daily unrelenting efforts of individuals to maintain healthy weights would save more lives than any other prescription. Supportive public policies and improved private sector responsibility would help. Today, all over the world, people are disturbingly obese and ill. Among the root issues is one simple fact. People are devouring too many calories, too often combined with sedentary lifestyles....Read More
Diabetes, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Obesity
Online Grocery Shopping a Cause for Concern
Food products in stores are changing. Shoppers easily find more processed, attractively packaged, and conveniently prepared meals. With online shopping, the way these products are now selected and put in the cart has changed too. For that, consumers may be paying more than just the price of inflation. Online food shopping has become the norm for many people. Home delivery of groceries may be a convenience, but consumers are losing their moment of discernment. Even if online customers take the time to click through product pages checking nutritional information, in-store shopping assistants frequently turn to substitute products and don’t take notice when ingredients in products have changed. Food deliveries arrive with frequent surprises. “That’s not what I ordered,” must be among the...Read More
Cancer, Medicine, Obesity
For Men, Don’t Disregard a Lump in the Breast
Few findings cause women as much fear as discovering a breast lump and wondering if it’s cancer. But what about men who notice a mass and pain in the breast? Male breast lumps are not commonly discussed in the locker room. But confusion and embarrassment can delay diagnosis of a malignancy. Breast cancer is not entirely a woman’s disease. Although it occurs in males in less than one percent of cases, diagnosis tends to be late. In 2022, of the 2,710 American men expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer, about 530 will die. But male breast lumps are not always dangerous. There’s a condition called “gynecomastia” derived from the Greek root for female and “mastos” for breast. In fact, studies of...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Diabetes, Obesity
Challenge Yourself to Better Glycemic Health
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher and poet, wrote, “All life is an experiment.” So this week, to conclude our six-part series on the devastating and relentless pandemic of type 2 diabetes, we conclude with a challenge to readers to undertake an experiment. The premise of the experiment is that achieving the “perfect” diet and carving time for physically active lifestyles is not always feasible. The evidence is overwhelming that for too many people, losing excessive weight is not easy. In fact, society has become not only complacent about obesity, but accepting and even promotional of it. For “skinny fat people” too – the ones who may not present as overweight, but whose bodies harbour visceral fat around internal organs – there...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Diabetes, Nutrition, Obesity
Reversing Pre-Diabetes with Glycemic Control
The most important thing readers should have learned from last week’s column is that pre-diabetes is reversible. And fancy pharmaceuticals aren’t to thank. Rather, it’s glycemic control, achieved naturally, by managing blood sugar with the help of concentrated brown seaweed. But what’s glycemic control? And what’s so special about brown seaweed? For decades, this column has advocated for a change in lifestyle as a strategy for reversing the steady societal march towards higher and higher rates of type 2 diabetes – the consequence of complacency about obesity and other risk factors. But either people aren’t listening, or they are being overwhelmed by negative socioeconomic factors, such as the costs of healthy food choices, lack of time for the preparation of healthy...Read More
Diabetes, Obesity
The Other Pandemic – A Challenge to News Media
Last week’s column claimed, “Wars are too important to be left to generals.” And “the type 2 diabetes pandemic is too important to be left to doctors.” We asked whether there was a difference between millions of North Americans dying quickly of COVID-19 and millions of people dying slowly of diabetes. In this week’s column, we challenge media outlets to help doctors fight this other pandemic that is having a disastrous effect on our health care system. Consider what’s happened for 20 months now. Broadcasters in North America could hardly wait to tell us night after night about the daily number of deaths from COVID-19. But what they have not mentioned is that 1 in 10 North Americans now have type 2...Read More
Diabetes, Obesity
The Other Pandemic That Keeps Killing
Want some good news about the current viral pandemic? Vaccines are taking effect across global populations and will eventually end this horrible nightmare. But we’ve yet to face, let alone resolve, the truly catastrophic health crisis plaguing humankind. It’s a disease for which there are no vaccines. Worse still, it is a completely unnecessary health tragedy that will continue unabated to kill millions of people worldwide year after year. It’s called type 2 diabetes and the coronavirus has made it deadlier. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the U.S., one in ten North Americans has diabetes. And 40 percent or more of the people who died of COVID-19 had diabetes. According to an analysis of CDC data, people aged 25...Read More
Diabetes, Obesity
Healthy Conversations About Weight Should Not Be Taboo
This week launches a series of columns on the current crisis – not the COVID pandemic, which will eventually come to an end, but rather, the seemingly endless escalation of the type 2 diabetes pandemic. We begin this week with the greatest culprit: obesity. Worrisomely, changing attitudes about weight are making matters worse. We’ll continue next week with an article on the interplay between diabetes and COVID, followed the subsequent week by a challenge to powerful media houses to do better. Finally, as we know from your letters that this column helps prevent many from falling victim to avoidable health problems, we’ll do a three-part series on the signs of pre-diabetes and where you can turn for help. So, let’s turn to obesity,...Read More
Cancer, Diabetes, Infection, Obesity, Surgery
COVID Means Double Trouble, and Worse
If ever a time to act on your health, this is it. Study after study in leading medical journals reports compounding troubles from COVID-19. What was described as a lung disease early in the pandemic is now better recognized as an attack on health systems – your own body’s systems involving multiple organs as well as societal systems of disease surveillance and care delivery. Whether you have been infected or not, chances are high your health is becoming worse. New research should raise alarm bells. In the journal, Nature, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, reported on deteriorated health of COVID-19 survivors. To his amazement, the disease was not just deadlier for people with...Read More
Genetics, Obesity, Pain
Gout: No Longer the Blue-Blooded Disease
King Henry VIII of England offers an excellent example of how too much wine, rich food and obesity trigger the agony of gout. But why did Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, and Benjamin Franklin, to name a few, develop this excruciating disease? And how can you decrease the risk? More than nine million North Americans suffer from gout, a type of inflammatory arthritis in which the body produces too much uric acid, or the kidneys fail to excrete enough. Genes play an important role. Gout and diseases such as diabetes are more likely to occur if there is a family history. But given the rise from only 3 million cases just over a decade ago, more than genetics is driving the...Read More
Lifestyle, Obesity, Sports
Weightlifting, Not Just for a Medal
When asked how they exercise, people often report jogging, bicycling or walking. But what about weightlifting? Authorities say that picking up weights is not about winning a medal. Rather, as we age, strength exercises can help circumvent medical problems. Take if from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who famously remarked, “The best activities for your health are pumping and humping.” Let’s leave the humping part aside for now. When it comes to pumping weights, there are a lot of myths. First, lifting dumbbells is not just for building muscles. In fact, it helps to fight one of the problems that can change your life in a split second. Getting older is invariably fatal. But long before the final event, we begin to lose bone density,...Read More
Nutrition, Obesity
Questions About the Ketogenic Diet
What is a ketogenic diet? How does it differ and is it more effective than other diets? Apart from the hype surrounding this diet, what are the medical concerns about it? Recent marketing of the ketogenic diet suggests it’s a new one. But a report from the University of California says it’s been used for years to treat medical problems such as epilepsy in children. But what is it about the ketogenic diet that causes weight loss? A major factor is that it’s low in carbohydrates and high in fats. Blood sugar (glucose) is normally the body’s main source of energy. But when blood sugar is diminished by eating less carbohydrates, the body is unable to maintain needed levels. To compensate, the body...Read More
Gastroenterology, Nutrition, Obesity
It takes guts to have good health
Why is it that some people eat to their heart’s content and never gain a pound, while others gain weight with a glance at the plate? As Bill Gates said, “Life is not fair. Get used to it.” But fair or unfair, is there a complex, unseen system that plays a role in weight management for each of us? Your ability to maintain a healthy weight involves factors beyond diet and exercise. Some people’s metabolism, or operating system, is faster than others, requiring more energy to run. But there’s more than speed and efficiency. The gut microbiome contains microbial cells, including bacteria, that outnumber the cells in the body. Having evolved with us for millions of years, they all serve important functions,...Read More
