Category: Uncategorized

Frustrated by that damn scale?

Are you working out and eating right, but the scale just won’t move? Are you gaining weight without changing a thing? Are you frustrated and overwhelmed by the plethora of information there is about dieting? Trying to choose a plan that’s right for you isn’t always easy. Maybe it’s time to consider your lifestyle.

At least ten times a day, my patient’s say to me “I’m eating right and exercising, but I’m not losing weight” or “I’ve tried every diet, but I can’t seem to keep the weight off .” The problem was so common that it became the driving force in the birth of Origin Wellness Center. The mission of the center is to help our patients lose weight by educating them, giving them the power to not only achieve their weight loss goals but to create real, sustainable change in their overall lifestyle.

At Origin, we look at weight loss dimensionally.
What does that mean? We start with a body composition analysis. The information we’re able to extract gives us the data we need to start a conversation about a patient’s overall lifestyle. From there, we not only look at water intake, diet, and exercise, but we take a much deeper dive and look at hormones, adrenals, and anything else that might be getting in the way of our patient’s weight loss goals.

BUT…our program has become wildly successful in large part because of the integration of coaching into our program. Our coach, Bernice Donato, works closely with our patients to examine a person’s mindset around lifestyle choices. She helps our patients align their decisions with their goals by exploring what they believe and expand their thought process to help get better results. Ten out of ten patients have told me that this was a critical part of the process for them, and without it, their fantastic results would not be possible!

As a physician, I’m proud of what we’ve created here. Our patients are not only losing the right kind of weight (fat), but they are learning to align their lives with an overall healthier lifestyle!

Call today for your FREE consultation and body composition analysis. (973) 237-0700 Ext.: 208

5 Must haves when you’re stressed

It’s easier to go through the world with a healthier mindset when things are going well. But what do you do when something happens that’s upsets, makes us angry or causes us anxiety? It’s all too often a patient will come into the office completely stressed out by life circumstances. They are suffering from a whole host of symptoms ranging from adrenal fatigue to exhaustion to weight gain/loss. Stress is often the root cause of it. Life provides us with a great deal of both joyful and stressful situations, but what if I told you there was another way to manage stress? How interested would you be?

The 5 Must Haves when your buttons are being pushed.

1: Notice you’ve been hit. There may be a burning feeling that comes over you. You may start to sweat. Your heart may race, or you may get the feeling that the world around you has slowed down. Pay attention to what it feels like, but take NO action. Becoming aware is the first step in the direction of change.

2: Breathe. It’s funny to me to think that we teach our children this method to help them learn how to manage their emotions, but rarely consider using it ourselves. Taking a moment to breathe can not only stop us from reacting unfavorably, but it can give us just enough time to make another decision. Breathing can be a powerful tool in helping settle down the urge to react rather than respond.

3: Check your emotional reaction scale. Ask yourself, how emotionally reactive am I around this situation? I love the process of scaling for this. Ask yourself, on a scale from 1-10, with ten being very reactive, how reactive am I? I think scaling can be useful because sometimes were very reactive and can let it go, and sometimes we’re reactive, and it lingers for a good deal of time before we can make peace with the situation.

4: Learn a new trigger. There are advantages and disadvantages to everything we feel. So, if you don’t judge it, you can really figure out what specifically triggered you. Spend some time, perhaps journaling about, not only what was said, but why it upset you. This exercise can be incredibly powerful to the process of change.

5: Create a sustainable change. Finally, if this situation ever arises again, what would I do differently or how would I like to show up differently next time? Teasing this out gives you back the control. Feeling out of control is generally the reason we react rather than respond. In this space, you can actually provide a solution based response. Think about that!!!

IDSA Lyme guidelines removed from NGC; ILADS guidelines still there

The National Guidelines Clearinghouse–a federal database that provides treatment information to health care professionals and insurance companies–has removed the IDSA Lyme disease treatment guidelines from its website recently.This means that the only Lyme disease guidelines listed on the NGC are those of ILADS, which were posted in 2014. This is quite good for the Lyme community. Here’s the backstory.

In 2006, shortly after the IDSA published its most recent guidelines on the treatment of Lyme disease, an antitrust investigation was filed by then-Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. (Blumenthal is now a U.S. senator.) The IDSA settled the antitrust investigation by agreeing to review its guidelines in a public hearing—which provided essentially equal time for the IDSA and patients, clinicians, and scientists who held opposing views.The hearing panel released its finding in 2010. The panel for the hearing was exclusively IDSA members so it is no surprise that they endorsed their own society’s guidelines—although panelists did recommend 25 changes. Nevertheless, the IDSA advised the NGC that the IDSA had reviewed its guidelines and that no change was necessary.

Based on the IDSA’s assertion, the NGC allowed the IDSA guidelines to be posted for an additional five years essentially without having to actually review and revise the guidelines. LymeDisease.org protested this extension with the NGC. However, in 2014, the NGC revised its criteria for listing guidelines to conform to some of the standards adopted by the Institute of Medicine in 2011 for creating trustworthy guidelines. These standards included using a rigorous evidence review system. The ILADS guidelines, which were authored by Lorraine Johnson (LymeDisease.org), Dr. Dan Cameron (ILADS), and Dr. Betty Maloney, conformed to the high evidentiary standards of the IOM. Although the IDSA guidelines did not conform, because they were filed before the NGC adopted the IOM standards, they were given a “free pass” on compliance.

LymeDisease.org thought it was highly likely that the IDSA would file another “no change” extension of its guidelines and that the NGC would continue its “free pass” for non-compliance with the IOM standards. However, the NGC recently delisted the IDSA guidelines. This is because the guidelines had passed their five-year mark and did not comply with the more stringent requirements.

The IDSA guidelines are currently undergoing revision. The IDSA’s guideline revision process was publicly posted for comment in May 2015. LymeDisease.org and the Lyme Disease Association led an effort to gather comments from close to 90 groups protesting the process—which among other things—did not include a Lyme patient as required by the Institute of Medicine.

LymeDisease.org launched a patient survey called for comments on the IDSA guidelines on March 27 and filed comments from over 6,100 patients in less than a month. After the protest regarding the failure to include a Lyme patient on the panel, in response to pressure by U.S. congressmen, the IDSA suggested that it might reconsider putting a Lyme patient on the panel. We do not know the revision schedule for the IDSA guidelines. But for now those guidelines have been removed from the NGC as outdated and not in compliance with current standards.
This leaves the ILADS guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease as the only guidelines currently posted on the NGC.

The LYME POLICY WONK blog is written by Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA, who is the Chief Executive Officer of LymeDisease.org. You can contact her at lbjohnson@lymedisease.org. On Twitter, follow her @lymepolicywonk.

Not All Supplements Are Created Equal: A Personal Message from Dr. Nancy Lentine DO

To Our Patients:

You may have read the recent article in Consumer Reports, or heard the follow up from mainstream media outlets that raise strong concerns about 15 specific supplement ingredients.The media attention is highlighting the inherent risks associated with the usage of nutritional supplements without the supervision of a licensed healthcare practitioner.

Nutritional supplements are powerful tools that can have meaningful effects on the body, and many are tailored to support specific conditions and address individual challenges. When we make a supplement recommendation, we are carefully considering the research on the quality of the manufacturer, dosage, potential to react with other medications, and duration of use. All of these factors play a role in the safe use of supplements and are part of our clinical management of your health.

We echo the FDA in our belief that simply because many supplements are available online or in health food stores doesn’t mean they should be taken without the direction of a trained qualified practitioner. Just recently there was a major recall of liquid vitamins that was contaminated with bacteria.*

We also carefully evaluate the safety and efficacy profile all the supplements we recommend. The supplements recomended in our practice are professional grade—and they are designed for incorporation into a personalized nutrition protocol to achieve your health and wellness goals. Remember not all supplements are created equal. As a partner in your healthcare, it is our goal to guide you to products that are reputable, well researched, and safe.

Sincerely,
Nancy Lentine DO

*Liquid Drug and Dietary Supplement Products by Pharma Tech:Recall – Risk of Product Contamination http://www.fda.gov/Safety/
MedWatch/SafetyInformation/
SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts
/ucm515625.htm

Thyroid and Adrenal Insufficiency

Thyroid and adrenal insufficiency is one of the main reasons behind low metabolic energy which can cause a wide variety of symptoms such as the following:

  1. General: low body temperature,coldness, fatigue, weight gain(sometime loss)
  2. Brain: depression, anxiety, memory issues, lack of focus and sleep issues
  3. Immune system: Frequent infections or allergies
  4. Musculosketal: fatigue, muscle or joint pains, headaches
  5. Sexual: menstrual disorders, infertility, loss of libido
  6. Vascular: Blood pressure issues(low or high)
  7. Gastrointestinal: constipation, gas, bloating
  8. Skin: dry skin or acne
  9. Hair: hair change-loss, brittle or coarse

The thyroid gland makes T4 which converts to T3 or rT3(reverse T3). T3 is the energy hormone which affects ATP. Many doctors don’t do a complete set of testing for thyroid function. We look at Ft3, Ft4,TSH, rT3, thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin. We don’t just look at what is in range–we look at optimal ranges for these hormones.

The adrenal gland located on the top of each kidney helps the body deal with stress. The stress can be either internal such as illness or natural changes-menopause or can be external stress such as pesticides. The adrenal gland when is is not functioning properly will create symptoms very similar to hypothyroidism.

The adrenals and the thyroid gland speak to on another and influence each other-among other organs such as the pancreas and the sex hormones. One also has to look at gastrointestinal health-leaky gut for example. Candida is one of many reasons for leaky gut. Candida will all effect the adrenals and thyroid gland.

At our office in a very simplified explanation, we practice functional medicine, we try to find the causes of the adrenal/thyroid dysfunction.