Just a wonderful testimonial: "For years, my life was work, work, work. My wife, Donna, and I have two grown daughters, Shelby and Elizabeth, and my family’s my whole world, but I was hardly home. I’m a truck driver and I was away for days at a time — I’d drive up to 2,600 miles a week. My father was a workaholic and I got that from him. Last September, I discovered a golf ball sized mass on my neck. I’d put off seeing a doctor and when I finally went to ...

Stress increases cortisol, which may have a profound impact on the gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota and metabolome, selectively decreasing beneficial bacteria and secretory IgA (sIgA). Thus, it is not surprising that clinical interventions implemented to resolve GI symptoms may not be completely successful if stress is not considered as a potential root cause. Chronic stress directly effects our gastrointestinal health via hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation. Stress can adve...

Magnesium may up and down-regulate a number of genes linked to metabolism: Magnesium’s favourable effects on certain metabolic pathways is associated with changes in gene expression, says a new study that adds to our knowledge of nutrigenomics. Four weeks of magnesium supplementation were associated with a decrease in levels of C-peptide, a marker of improved insulin sensitivity. The mineral was also linked to down-regulation of certain “genes related to metabolic and inflammator...

Some credit Hippocrates with the saying, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” With the spread of messages and health promotion programs using the food as medicine slogan, you may have seen an uptick in headlines and social media posts with a contrary message: “No, food isn’t medicine. It’s food.” When you read a little further, most of these articles don’t dispute that nutrition contributes to health. The disagreement is over how the...

Cachexia is a complex disorder characterised by the loss of adipose and skeletal muscle tissues leading to chronic and involuntary weight loss that cannot be fully reversed by conventional nutritional support. Cachexia occurs in association with cancer and multiple other chronic diseases, including heart failure and kidney disease. The incidence of cachexia is particularly very high in cancer patients. About half of all cancer patients suffer from cachexia, which is the direct cause of at le...