Note: This is another guest post by Stefanie Stevenson, M.D., the Nourish Integrative Physician. Stefanie has been attending the Health and Wellness Conference in Boston this week and sending us updates!

Last day!  It was a great conference and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to listen and learn from the experts in this area.  I’m now sitting in the Boston Airport reflecting on what I’ve learned.  I appreciate doing these updates because it helps me really reflect on what information is the most meaningful to patient care and public health care.  This morning I heard from Dr. Walker, an expert in probiotics. Without getting too detailed, it is critical that babies get colonized with the good bacteria during childbirth, early feeding, and during weaning.  When a child reaches 12- 18 months of age, they have acquired their complete adult gut (intestinal) flora (the good bugs).  If a child, for a multitude of reasons (C-section, bottle fed, frequent antibiotic use) does not acquire this optimal flora they are at increased risk for asthma, allergies, and more frequent colds and stomach illnesses.  There are things that can be done to help these children, mainly probiotics and prebiotics, yet this area can seem confusing.  I can help if you have questions!

The last lecture of the entire conference was on genetically engineered foods.  If you don’t know much about this I would encourage you to learn more.  The speaker was Sheldon Krimsky, who has done a tremendous amount of research in this area.  The two biggest GM (genetically modified) crops are corn and soy.  There is a paucity of research in the safety of GM foods and as consumers, we don’t know which products contain these foods because our government does not require labeling.  For now, organic and Non-GMO Project labeled foods, do not contain GM foods.  The process of inserting genetic material from another organism into a different organism can create a variation of a protein that may promote allergies.  Consider the great increase in food allergies in this country over the last decade.

I hope my updates stir up your own curiosity into how food relates to health.  If you want to discuss your own health concerns and how my approach could help you feel better, please call me at 513-245-4224 x 5.  I would love to hear from you!

“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.”  – Thomas Edison

Note: This is the next guest post by Stefanie Stevenson, Nourish’s Integrative Physician, who is attending the Nutrition and Health Conference in Boston this week!

The morning began in an interesting way – 3 experts (Weil, Willett, and Hibbeln) discussing the health benefits of the various types of fats (saturated, omega 6 and omega 3) and they were not all in agreement.  It does underline the difficulty in studying nutrition and how the information is interpreted.  The next talk was about nutrition and bone health.  There was a general consensus on calcium and vitamin D recommendations for both men and women, but the most interesting thing that I took away was a typical Western Diet with overly processed foods causes an acidic load on the body.  The skeleton buffers this load by losing its calcium.  Another way to buffer this acidity is by eating 9 fruits and vegetables a day!

Dr. McClafferty, a pediatrician, gave a wonderful talk “What’s a Parent to Do?  Children’s Nutrition and Environmental Medicine.”  One of her goals was to raise awareness about diseases that may be related to environmental toxins in children.  As a parent of three children this lecture certainly raised many concerns about the toxins our children are exposed to daily in our environment.  The endocrine disrupting chemicals – Bisphenol A, phthalates, flame retardants – are currently a key area of research.  I learned of two great resources – the Environmental Working Group and GoodGuide.

Finally, Dr. Weil talked about food and mental health – a huge topic!  There is currently a huge shift that is taking place in how medical researchers and clinicians are thinking about the causes of depression.  There is a growing body of data that SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors – an example is Prozac) work no better than a sugar pill.  In fact, long term SSRI may lead to prolonging depression due to the brain making less serotonin and decreasing the number of serotonin receptors.  We have seen an analogous story in the stomach with long – term proton pump inhibitors (an example being Prevacid).   The two strategies that have the strongest evidence to both prevent and treat depression are exercise and fish oil.

Once again, if you have any questions, ask them in the comments section!

Note: This  is a guest post by Stefanie Stevenson, M.D., the Nourish Integrative Physician. She is attending the Nutrition and Health Conference in Boston this week and sharing her experience via the blog!

Hi everyone! Day one of the conference was terrific! Here are a few of my personal favorite “nuggets” of information from today’s lectures:

Dr. Robert Lustig gave a lecture on “The Trouble with Fructose” (he was recently featured on 60 minutes and has a you tube video “Sugar:  The Bitter Truth). Fructose (from high fructose corn syrup and it makes up 50% of table sugar) drives insulin resistance.  Insulin resistance is one of the key factors in obesity and the development of metabolic syndrome. The liver metabolizes fructose the same way as alcohol, which causes the liver to make fat and deposit that fat in the liver, at the same time it induces liver insulin resistance, which drives weight gain and continued consumption.  He also commented that about 80% of all the products in an average grocery store have added sugars.  Our food environment promotes obesity.

Dr. David Eisenberg from Harvard Medical School shared cooking lessons with his talk “Cooking and Culinary Literacy.”  In 1960 America spent 74 billion dollars on food and 27 billion dollars on health care; compare that to what America spends now – 1.25 trillion dollars on food and 2.5 trillion dollars on health care.  Who would you rather pay – the doctor or the grocer?  Culinary literacy is at an all time low.  Learning to cook can be a catalyst of societal change!

There was a great review of the newest FAD diets (FAD = falsely advertised diets), including the sleep doctor’s diet, raw foods diet, the paleo diet, the alkaline (or pH diet), and the BHCG diet.  At any one time, 40-50% of Americans are dieting, making the weight loss industry a > 40 million business.  The take – home point on all of these diets is they may have a kernel of helpful information to them, but taken in their entirety, there is lack of evidence for benefit.  The BHCG diet can pose specific health risks, especially if the active drug is being taken.

Dr. David Ludwig from Harvard Medical School gave a wonderful lecture on childhood obesity.  For all those parents (me) that struggle with getting your child to eat healthy food, Dr. Ludwig suggests two main constructive methods – protect the home environment (if it doesn’t support health don’t have it in your house) and model the behavior you want your child to have.  Young children are programmed to learn about new foods by watching adults.  Teach children what to do, rather then what not to do.  Authoritative parenting styles (respectful with clear boundaries) have been correlated with the lowest risk of a child being overweight.

Look for another update soon and feel free to ask any questions via comments!