House Call With Dr. Hyman

Snacks for Endurance Athletes “What do you recommend for food and fuel for endurance athletes?” asks Dennis in this week’s house call. The Difference between Gluten Sensitivity and Celiac Disease Our next question comes from Antra who asks, “What’s the difference between gluten sensitivity and celiac disease? And what’s your favorite gluten-free recipe?” Acid Reflux and a High-Fat Diet Our final question comes from Meg who writes, “I have acid reflux. How do I increase healthy fats in my diet without worsening my reflux?” Do you have tips for endurance athletes? Are you dealing with celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity? How about acid reflux? I want to hear from you. Share your thoughts on my Facebook page. If you liked this video, be sure to share it with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter. Also, do you have a question for the House Call series? Send your videos to support@drhyman.com or you can tweet me your questions: twitter.com/markhymanmd, and maybe next week I’ll make a house ca

I am so excited to share my new and improved Housecall series with you. Instead of focusing on one submitted question per week, we’ll cover two to three questions submitted via video, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram! Have you heard of the concept of food as medicine? Have you ever wondered about the Blood Type Diet or the Ketogenic Diet? These are the topics that we will cover on this week’s Housecall. Our first question comes from Chrysanne who asks, “Is it really worth it to spend extra money on good food? Does it make a difference?” Our next question comes from Jenna who asks, “Eating for your blood type advocates say that those with O blood type shouldn’t eat anything with coconut, but it’s so good for you. What are your thoughts on this?” Our next question comes from Jenna who asks, “Eating for your blood type advocates say that those with O blood type shouldn’t eat anything with coconut, but it’s so good for you. What are your thoughts on this?” Now I want to hear from you! Have you experimented wit

Here’s the Downside of Antibiotics Your Doctor Might Not Tell You by Mark Hyman

“Dr. Hyman, I’ve recently gone gluten-free, and I’ve seen tons of replacements for traditionally gluten-laden foods,” a writer recently emailed me. “I’m a little suspicious, but are any of these choices healthy?” We are all aware that “gluten-free” has become a major buzz term. Restaurants proudly offer options like gluten-free bread, and even mainstream supermarkets have whole aisles dedicated to the trend. Nearly everyone has jumped on the gluten-free bandwagon. I don’t recommend this to everyone – not at least until you understand a few facts … and here’s why. As a doctor who treats sick patients, I find that gluten often is a major cause of digestive, autoimmune, weight, mood and neurologic problems. While one would think that I would be 100% pro gluten-free, I want to be clear that there are some downsides to this trend. The biggest problem with demonizing a food substance is caused by the food industry. In a nutshell, this industry manipulates basic foods items and turns them into “Frankenfoods.”

“I have been dealing with constipation for years now, and I’m so tired of it. It’s making me cranky, bloated and it’s messing with my appetite,” a social media follower recently wrote. “I feel like I’m doing everything right, but I can’t poop. Help!” Unfortunately, I see many patients who struggle with constipation and other bathroom issues. Sometimes they are too embarrassed to admit their problem until it becomes too painful to bear. My patients aren’t alone. Researchers find that roughly 12 to 19 percent of the US population (about 63 million people) suffer from constipation. And while constipation might be common, it’s definitely not normal and it can have disastrous consequences. I want to hear from you. Are you currently dealing with constipation or have you overcome chronic constipation? What worked (and didn’t work) for you? Share your comments below or on my Facebook page. And if you liked this information, please share it on your social media. Also, be sure to submit your questions to drhyman.co

I was visiting Google one day, and I walked into a lunch area and saw everyone sitting on couches and at tables, all on their computers. I asked, “is this the silent lunch room?” and was surprised when I was told no. Far too often, I find myself on my phone or computer for most of my day – often missing the people and live events that are all around me. This is why it is important to do a complete “digital detox” – something I do at least a few times a year so that I can get back to just being. More and more studies have been coming out showing the link between too much Internet usage and screen time and mental and mood disorders (like ADHD, anxiety, depression etc.). In a recent study, people who reported excessive Internet use also reported social anxiety disorders, loneliness, social isolation and lower quality of life. The study also showed that Internet addiction was associated with reduced immune function. That’s right, too much Internet and screen time can actually make you sick! PS – My Eat Fat, G

“Dr. Hyman, how do I know if I’m eating enough fat?” a reader recently asked me. This is an excellent question and one of my favorite subjects because I wholeheartedly believe eating the right amount and type of fat plays a crucial role in shaping health and wellbeing. Doctors, patients and readers are often completely confused about fat, clinging to myths and misinformation that prevents them from understanding the latest science to lose weight and achieve optimal health. You’re familiar with many of these myths: Fat makes us fat, fat contributes to heart disease, and fat leads to obesity. Saturated fat is bad, while vegetable oils are good. Simply put, these and other fat myths are big fat lies. Thankfully, the importance of fat is finally starting to catch on. How do you know if your cells are getting enough vital fat? I'll be covering signals your body actually sends you when it doesn’t get enough good fat. Never ignore the signs your body is giving you. If you’re still curious about whether you’re g

Since the release of my book Eat Fat, Get Thin, I’ve noticed fierce debates on social media and other news sources about things like calorie counting, eating vs. avoiding fat and genetics. When it comes to overall health and weight loss, there’s an excess of advice out there. Unfortunately, most of it is terrible, misguided, outdated and scientifically disproven. This ubiquitously poor advice can create weight loss roadblocks and even damage your health. Here are four prevalent misguided myths that drive me nuts. Myth #1 – All Calories are Created Equal Myth #2 – Your Genetics Define You and Your Health Myth #3 – You Can Out-Exercise a Bad Diet Myth #4 – Fat Makes You Fat I’ve created a plan to reset your body and move toward your best self that incorporates movement, supplementation and above all, food and dietary fats . The Eat Fat, Get Thin program is a 21-day plan designed to support weight loss, maximize energy and mental clarity and kick start your health. Thousands of people all over the world ha

I am so excited to share a recent interview that I did with Dr. Elizabeth Boham, my dear friend and long-time colleague here at The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. She is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Albany Medical School and an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner. She also has her undergraduate degree in nutritional biochemistry from Cornell University and her graduate degree and Registered Dietitian from Columbia University. Dr. Boham joined my team in 2007. What is so interesting about her journey is that she knows first-hand how difficult it can be to navigate through the health-care system. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 30 and discovered Functional Medicine and the importance of evaluating all systems in the body to discover the underlying cause for dysfunction. Here at our center, Dr. Boham and I take on some of the most difficult cases, and I am simply amazed by her dedication to creating health for her patients. She focuses on a var

This is a time of year where many of us become overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by what’s still left to accomplish and preparing for family or extra holiday centric obligations. I’m sure many of you, like me, are also thinking about what we want to accomplish next year. My Handel coach gives me an excellent exercise each year that helps me focus, and get clear on what I want, and it never gets old. Simply put, it’s called dreaming. You might want to schedule a 30-minute consultation to see how this tool can help you design your life to be what you always wished it would be. Handel Group and I agree you should only take on 3 to 5 areas each year to focus on, but don’t worry when you improve one area, it always improves all the other ones, too. Everything is connected. Choosing to focus can be difficult but it’s crucial. In 2017, I’m going to focus on my family and strengthening and building those relationships, my finances (as in getting more organized about how I manage them) and my friendships by dedicating mor

“Dr. Hyman, I just started your Eat Fat, Get Thin plan, and I’m feeling great, but I have a lot of fear around my upcoming social schedule,” writes a Facebook reader. “How can I maintain my newfound health during the holidays? “ I get this all-to-common yet excellent question from folks as they confront their holiday eating fears. Eating well is not about perfection. We are human, so perfection is impossible. A better approach involves honoring your body and knowing what works best for you and just as importantly, what doesn’t work. If I go to a party and eat tortilla chips or sugar-laden treats, I’ll definitely feel the aftereffects. I’ll feel sick, tired and bloated. Obviously, that’s not how I want to spend my time or how I want to feel. Just like anything in life, preparation is key to staying lean and healthy during the holidays. I’ve found these 10 strategies help my patients stay on track in even the toughest social situations.

“Dr. Hyman, I’m so confused about what fats to cook with,” a reader recently wrote. “For so long I’ve been using vegetable oils because I heard they were best to cook with, and now I hear that we can cook with butter or coconut oil.” I completely understand your confusion, especially with rampant misinformation about fats and nutrition in general. For instance, the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends adults get no more than five percent of their calories from saturated fat, urging people to use vegetable oils instead. They also advise people to eat at least five to 10 percent of their calories from polyunsaturated fat (PUFAs). Unlike saturated fat, the AHA rationalizes the linoleic acid in PUFAs lower LDL cholesterol levels. As a result of this and other poor nutrition advice, the average intake of this omega-6 fatty acid has risen sharply: Americans consume at least twice the amount of linoleic acid today than they did in the 1960s. Increased consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils, which are highl

The First Step to Your Best Health: A Kitchen Makeover by Mark Hyman

When we decided to put together another Fat Summit, I knew that I wanted my friend Dr. Carrie Diulus to co-host with me. I’ve only known her for a year, but it feels like I’ve known her forever. Dr. Diulus is the medical director of an amazing center in Ohio called the Crystal Clinic Spine Wellness Center. She is one of the only female board certified orthopedic spine surgeons in the country, and one of the only surgeons I have met who encourages people to choose alternatives to surgery when they can. When the decision is made to pursue surgery, she uses a Functional Medicine approach to help people prepare for and heal from the procedure. That’s the type of surgeon I want in my court! You probably remember from the first Fat Summit that Dr. Diulus is dealing with type 1 diabetes; so, she knows a lot about fat, diet and carbs. As a special sneak preview, I wanted to share with you our new interview from The Fat Summit 2. In this early expert talk with Dr. Diulus, you will learn: - Types of diabetes and

We want the facts! We want an unbiased analysis of research and we want to know what works. That is exactly why I had to interview my friend and colleague Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac for my original Fat Summit. He is a globally recognized leader in the fields of ancestral health, Paleo nutrition and Functional and Integrative Medicine. Chris in an investigator and pioneer in his field. In the first Fat Summit, Chris and I got the chance to talk about personalized medicine, cholesterol, Paleo diets, vegan diets and myths around heart disease and fat. You can read the transcript here. I wanted to dig into the research and science around meat consumption, so I invited Chris back for our upcoming Fat Summit 2: Separating Even More Fat from Fiction. We recently talked about meat and ended up discussing into how science is often for sale and how we should read all studies with a grain of salt. We also had the chance to dig deeper into fat, heart health and much more. My new interviews with Chris and over 30 other

Is butter back? What is the deal with coffee? What exactly is biohacking? Does calorie counting actually work? What fats should we eat? Which fats are harmful? My friend Dave Asprey and I had the chance to sit down this past February, during our first Fat Summit, to answer these important questions. Dave is the founder of Bulletproof and the author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Bulletproof Diet. He is also the master of optimizing the body and the brain. Our conversation was fascinating, to say the least. After the first Fat Summit, the New York Times released an article discussing the idea of a “cursed” metabolism. I knew that I wanted to sit down again with Dave to talk about this because he is living proof that you CAN reset your metabolism. There are so many myths out there about metabolism, calorie counting, what we should eat, what to stay away from, how best to exercise and the list goes on and on. So I brought Dave and over 30 other experts together again for The Fat Summit 2: Separating Ev

Many of you asked me how I gave up being a nice-aholic, which I talked about in a previous blog titled Is your Kindness Killing You? If you’ve been following my writing, then you know I had a bad habit of not saying what I really thought in some important relationships and then ended up suffering the consequences. I had the habit of getting into conflicts or disappointments with people and then complaining to my friends or coach about it, while not saying what I really wanted to the source of my frustration – all of which lead me to being increasingly unhappy about the whole situation! I used to have a weird experience of feeling right or justified about complaining. But this approach really took me far away from dealing with the real situation in front of me. That’s until I learned what I could do about it. All the coaches on my coaches team – the Handel Group – teach this step by step process and help you work through your most difficult relationships with you. If you are interested in this kind of support

The way you eat, how much you exercise, how you manage stress and your exposure to environmental toxins all contribute to things like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and of course, heart disease. The current way doctors treat heart disease is misguided because they treat the risk factors not the causes. To think we can treat heart disease by lowering cholesterol, lowering blood pressure and lowering blood sugar with medication alone is like mopping up the floor while we leave the faucet running as the sink overflows. Instead, we need to ask what is causing the high blood pressure, high blood sugar or abnormal cholesterol in the first place. Spoiler alert: These are not medication deficiencies! We treat these problems with medication, but studies have increasingly shown that treating these risk factors has very little benefit if any at all. Research shows changing your lifestyle can be a more powerful intervention to prevent heart disease than any medication. In February of this ye

I once had a fear of fat while growing up. I subscribed to the antiquated “all calories are the same” myth, a mentality that demonizes fat. After all, eating fat makes you fat, right? End of story. From a caloric perspective, that makes sense. Dietary fat contains nine calories per gram, versus the four calories per gram for carbs and protein. If you eat less fat, you will eat fewer calories, and you will lose weight – easy and done, right? Unfortunately, that theory doesn’t work for many reasons. The theory that all calories have the same impact on your weight and metabolism remains one of the most persistent nutrition myths that keep us fat and sick. Earlier this year, I brought together some of my favorite doctors, scientists, researchers and health experts to discuss the idea that food is information and that the information in fat is actually beneficial for our health, despite what we’ve been told for decades. My goals for the original Fat Summit were to clear up the confusion around this misunderstoo

I am so excited to announce to that we are launching The Fat Summit 2: Separating Even More Fat from Fiction this coming November. During the first Fat Summit, we brought together physicians, health experts, researchers, journalists and scientists to tell us the truth about what makes us sick and fat, and guess what? It’s not the fat that is the culprit! We dove deep into subjects like cholesterol, brain health, heart disease, hormones and so much more, but the conversation was only just beginning, which is why we decided to bring you The Fat Summit 2. We are bringing back some of our favorite experts and introducing some new ones, too. Before we launch this new summit, we want to take you back to some of the highlights from the original summit. So, over the next five weeks, I’ll be sharing some of the amazing conversations we had to give you the skinny on fat. This week, I’m sharing one of my favorite interviews with Dr. David Ludwig. For 20 years, Dr. Ludwig has conducted basic and clinical research int