Total Health Magazine

At best of times, understanding the ebb and flow of women’s hormones through the various stages of their life can seem like a daunting task. To make matters even more challenging, the Allopathic medicine perspective tends to medicalize and pathologize women’s hormonal issues. All too often, the first approach is prescribing hormones either as bio-identical hormones or HRT, both options come with risks.

Dear Pharmacist,

I’ve felt sick for 10 years, and no one has helped me. I read on the Internet about Candida, and I have every symptom possible. I’ve eliminated sugar already, and after 2 months, I feel better. I just found your site and hope you can teach me more about this infection.

If I were to tell you there is a fungus living in your intestines that produces 180 chemical toxins capable of making you feel dizzy and fatigued, shutting down your thyroid, throwing your hormones off balance, and causing you to crave sugar and alcohol, all of which make you put on weight—would you believe me? You probably wouldn’t— few doctors even realize the extent of damage caused by yeast overgrowth but the above scenario is all too true.

Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin Part II

A previous article, “Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin,” discussed the basics of setting up a daily nutritional foundation by choosing a multivitamin-mineral formulation appropriate for one’s basic needs and expectations. As pointed out, with regard to nutrition it matters whether one is old or young, male or female, an athlete, etc. Also discussed were issues such as determining the quality of a product and improving absorption of nutrients. Setting up a nutritional foundation is always the place to start when considering supplementation. Nevertheless, a foundation is just that, something to build upon.

In case you haven’t noticed, life has gotten harsh. It starts with jarring alarm clocks and chlorinated showers, where we lather up with stripping detergents and petrochemicals. Once in front of the mirror, we might pass a little harsh self-judgment before brushing our teeth with sodium lauryl sulfate, gargling with stinging mouthwash, applying paraben-laden deodorant to freshly-shaven underarms, and coal tar-derived color cosmetics to freshly-exfoliated skin. With a spritz of great-smelling neurotoxins and carcinogens, we hit the kitchen for our blood-sugar-spiking juice and cortisol-pumping coffee. As we sit down with our newspaper to dwell on the important things, we think: Ahhh, the most relaxing part of my day, as our bodies gasp, What just happened! And what’s going to happen to me when we go out the door?

The venerated father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, has had many of his wise sayings immortalized over the past two millennia. Most of us know a version of the following: “As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least, to do no harm.” However, there is one quote attributed to Hippocrates that has all but disappeared from a list of his most quotable quotes. Hippocrates poised the rhetorical question, “What is Woman?” to which he supplied the answer: “Disease!”

When it comes to women’s health, the knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine embodies may pearls of wisdom. One of the most well-known sayings is that a Chinese doctor would rather treat ten men rather than one woman! It is no surprise that women are the more complex gender. A woman’s unique physiology gives her extraordinary advantages, such as a longer life span. However, altering the very delicate and finely balanced female hormonal system can also predispose women to a long list of health problems that can compromise her physiological, emotional and mental well-being.