Dr. Samantha Brody
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By Dr. Samantha Brody, On April 9, 2012
Please check out my guest post on MizfitOnline, a fabulous blog on fitness and life. I write about taking health headlines with a grain of salt. You know which ones I’m talking about: “Red Meat Kills!” Really folks? I don’t think so.
Which Sunscreens are Safe and Effective?
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On June 13, 2011
There is a great deal of controversy in the natural products industry about whether sunscreen is safe to put on our bodies. And this, of course begs the question of whether we need sunscreen at all. It is my personal opinion that sun is *gasp* good for us! Now that said, without question, sunburn is not good for us. I come down on the side of wearing sunscreen if you are at risk of burning or have a history of burning. Or, if you have a personal increased risk of skin cancer. Oh, and I wear sunscreen on my face because I have bought into the dominant paradigm and wish to postpone the inevitable (sigh.)
There is a fabulous website by a group called the environmental working group that has numerous articles on sunscreen, cancer risk, and risks and benefits of sun exposure. They also have rated many sunscreens on several factors and they have a list of which sunscreens contain ingredients that are known to be harmful to humans (and lab animals.) I was fascinated by several of these articles. I highly recommend you check it out.
Edited to add: The FDA released new regulations regarding sunscreen labeling today! Here is a summary of the regulations in the LA Times.
Lecture Wednesday Feb 23rd at New Seasons!
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On February 21, 2011
Please join me on Wednesday February 23 from 7-8:30pm at New Seasons Market 7-Corners.
The Years Between: Hormone Health and Balance for Women in their 20s AND 30s
Presenter: Dr. Samantha Brody, ND
Young, healthy woman often show signs of hormone imbalance that get overlooked entirely or dismissed as being “just hormonal,” and they are given few options, other than birth control pills or antidepressants. However, if left untreated, these hormone imbalances can have a serious impact on general health and well-being. Many women will experience mood and sleep disturbances, fertility issues, headaches and migraines, painful periods or other cyclical symptoms that affect their ability to work and enjoy life to the fullest. In this class, Dr. Samantha Brody will offer an overview of hormone function and describe how different hormones interact to create a balanced state of health. She’ll provide a practical strategy to help you gain hormonal balance and take control of your body—and your life.
Health News: Trying to Lose Weight? Less Sleep = Less Success.
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On October 13, 2010
Picked this one up (directly) from the Endocrine Daily Briefing- a daily newsletter I get from the Endocrine Society.
The Los Angeles Times (10/4, Khan) “Booster Shots” blog reported, “For dieters who had a full night’s worth” of sleep, “more than half of the weight they lost was fat.” However, “when the researchers cut three hours off their bedtime, only a quarter of the weight the study participants lost was fat. That means the other 75% being burned was nonfat mass – such as protein, valuable building blocks of muscle and other body tissues,” the blog entry explained.
Vitamin D, the wonder vitamin?
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On May 11, 2010
Vitamin D is hitting the news just about every day of late.
Sure it’s the ‘it’ vitamin right now, which automatically makes me suspicious, but the evidence is piling up that we may be causing ourselves immense harm by avoiding the sun.
Here is a sampling of just a few articles citing recent studies on vitamin D.
- Higher blood levels of vitamin D associated with improved mobility for seniors.
- Taking vitamin D supplements during pregnancy is not only safe for mother and baby, but also can prevent preterm labor/births and infections.
- Vitamin D deficiency leads to sharply increased risk of breast cancer spread.
- Low vitamin D may raise heart disease risk.
- Low vitamin D is associated with increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes, high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome.
- Lower vitamin D levels are associated with greater risk for upper respiratory infection (colds/flus.) This association is stronger in those with existing respiratory diseases such as asthma or COPD.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
In response to the latest news, some doctors are just putting all of their patients on ‘higher’ doses of vitamin D, 1000iu, 2000iu, but I don’t think that’s good enough. What I’ve found in my practice is that each person needs a different load of vitamin D to reach an ideal level (I shoot for 60-90 as a rule) and then a different amount to keep them at that level once they get there. Therefore, I recommend that everyone have a vitamin D test. Once we have results, I decide how much to supplement and we run follow up labs in 6 weeks to see if an ideal level has been reached. If all is well I keep the patient on approximately 1500-2000iu daily and then test again in another 3 months to make sure the patient is stable.
Note, please that as an ND I always supplement with vitamin D3, not prescription vitamin D2. Here is a study comparing D2 to D3.
I’m thinking about doing an upcoming post with FAQs about vitamin D.
Check back.
In Health,
Dr Samantha
Huffington Post Article on Swine Flu.
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On October 19, 2009
Read it here.
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On August 9, 2009
We’ve just returned from a 10 day trip to the East Coast to visit family. It is always interesting to navigate food when we’re out of town. I was thrilled to find a large health food department at the Wegman’s chain in upstate NY, and then comforted to find the local home grown health food store in Guilford CT.
Whenever we plan a trip we call ahead to the local stores to see what we will be able to get there, and what we need to pack. This trip we only packed our airplane cooler and got everything else on site. Not cheap, but comforting and we were able to feed our son what he needed to work around his allergies, and I was able to eat what I need to to feel my best.
It is my belief that once you figure out what foods work best for your body there is almost never a reason to stray…unless you want to. It’s just a matter of prioritizing your own health. Aunt Betty who tries to get you to eat her homemade bundt cake will just have to understand…you’re committed to your new way of eating, and you’ve never felt better.
Check out these blogs I stumbled upon this morning. I’m printing some of the recipes to try in the next few weeks.
Everything-free Recipes
(This site uses some products that I don’t particularly like but it looks like there are lots of recipes that fill my bill of healthy gluten, grain, or dairy free healthy eating. If it fits into your nutrition plan, you can just swap things out if necessary!)
In Health,
Dr. Samantha
Acupuncture and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On July 22, 2009
New study looks at acupuncture for carpal tunnel syndrome. Check out the results!
Reported on acufinder.com
“Seventy-seven patients were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group received eight acupuncture treatments over four weeks, and the other group received oral doses of prednisone, daily, for four weeks. The results showed that acupuncture was just as effective as the corticosteroid for pain, numbness, tingling and weakness. For the symptoms of night time awakening and motor function, the acupuncture group had better results.”
Silk soymilk…good, right? Not so much.
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On July 14, 2009
My sister recently sent me a link to the Cornucopia institute, a group that “promotes economic justice for family scale farming.” They have developed a rating system for soy milk brands which takes into account manufacturing processes (do they use hexane, etc), whether the products use American soy or imported soy, and whether or not the company sources organic soybeans. You can read it yourself, but I’ll give you the preview that Silk brand was rated very poorly. They used to be only organic, and used American beans, but the company was purchased by Dean Foods, a giant agribusiness that runs many factory farms. In the past few years they started buying up organic and health food brands right and left. The upshot is that not only are most of Silk’s products no longer organic, but they also are sourcing soy from China. Oh, and they bought Horizon Organics as well…
The Organic Consumers Association writes about the dangers of this trend here.
Support your local farms.
Stimulation of Acupoints Is Effective for Post Operative Nausea and Vomiting.
By Dr. Samantha Brody, On May 9, 2009
Anyone out there get nauseated post-anesthesia? I do, and acupuncture has always been helpful for me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve recommended it.
A new review of 40 existing studies affirms my recommendation and finds that indeed, it does work. As a matter of fact, we don’t even need to use needles, acupressure will do the job just as well (for this condition, anyway.)
Next time you’re in, ask me about this point, in my experience it’s great for most kinds of nausea, not only post operative.
In Health,
Dr. Samantha
Samantha Brody, ND LAc
