The Aesthetics Advisor

Your body cannot produce iodine, so you must get it from your food. Although iodine deficiency is reemerging as a public health threat,1 it is completely preventable in the Western world. It is a critically important trace mineral, which means that your body needs it in very small doses. Although many cells use iodine, your thyroid gland uses what’s available first to produce the thyroid hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4). According to Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, 2  most people in the U.S. get their dietary iodine from iodized salt and milk. If a person chooses to follow a low-fat, low-salt diet recommended by the American Heart Association, 3  it drastically reduces the amount of iodine they absorb each day. This may help explain how iodine deficiency and thyroid conditions have become serious public health concerns. According to the American Thyroid Association, 4  roughly 30% of the world's population is thought to be at risk of deficiency a...

While there are hundreds of articles, dietary strategies, government agencies and food manufacturers designed to offer information on how to fight disease and optimize your health, you may be surprised to find that before the featured study, none concentrated on brain health or mental disorders as recently as 2007 . In September 2018 , researchers reported the results of a study focused on finding the best foods to eat to help fight depression. Dr. Laura R. LaChance and a team from the University of Toronto, and Drew Ramsey from the department of psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, tackled the initiative. According to the study :      "A systematic literature review was conducted to derive a list of Antidepressant Nutrients from the 34 nutrients known to be essential for humans using level of evidence criteria. Nutritional data was extracted for a subset of foods with a high content of at leas...

My colleague Pam Schoenfeld, MS, recently put me onto an eye-opening article on vitamin A. Titled “ Tissue Changes Following Deprivation of Fat-Soluble A Vitamin ”   by S. Burt Wolbach, MD and Percy R. Howe, MD, the article was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine in 1925. This paper is interesting for several reasons. Primary Effects of Vitamin A Deprivation The first concerns the changes these researchers observed when they deprived rats of vitamin A. The main effect was keratinization of the epithelial tissues. The epithelial tissues are thin tissues that cover all the exposed surfaces of the body, such as the skin, the inner lining of the mouth, the digestive tract, secretory glands, the lining of hollow parts of every organ such as the heart, lungs, eyes, ears, the urogenital tract, as well as the ventricular system of the brain and central canals of the spinal cord. Keratinization is the process by which the cells of the epithelium are filled with a hard protein ...

In the ever-evolving field of bioenergetic medicine, the relationship between our diet, microbiome, and overall health continues to unveil complex and intriguing connections. At the heart of this exploration is the legacy of Ray Peat, Ph.D., whose theories on sugar intake and metabolic function have sparked widespread debate and interest among researchers and health enthusiasts alike. In this interview below, repeat guest Georgi Dinkov, a bioenergetic medicine researcher and I delve into the nuanced understanding of how our microbiome influences dietary choices, particularly the contentious decision between starch and fruit as preferable sources of carbohydrates. Dinkov also reviews groundbreaking research and innovative treatments that aim to manipulate cellular energy pathways to combat cancer. My Take on the Fruit Versus Starch Controversy Many of Peat’s followers believe that he advocated large amounts of sugar, but that’s not the case. Sugar, or glucose more specifically...