Category Archives for "Blog"

0 Acupuncture is an Option for Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Millions of people across the world and over 200,000 individuals in the United States alone suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease which damages nerves in the brain and spinal cord. Individuals suffering from this debilitating disease experience nervous system impairment, which disrupts the brain’s communication with the body. MS produces a number of symptoms, often including fatigue, pain, muscle weakness, and sensory problems (especially eyesight).

The disease is especially difficult for sufferers and their friends and families because there is no known cure for MS. There are, however, some steps that people can take to help with recovery and to minimize the severity of symptoms. Typically, treatments seek to improve motor function after an attack and work toward preventing further attacks. Sometimes, doctors prescribe medications for this purpose, but while somewhat effective, they can have adverse side effects that some patients find intolerable.

Another treatment for Multiple Sclerosis is physical therapy, which can help promote healthy motor and neural function in affected individuals. Through changes in exercise patterns and diet, patients can reduce the inflammation that arises with MS. Reduction of inflammation then leads to an alleviation of symptoms as well as an improvement in some pre-existing nerve damage.

Acupuncture is also an option for those individuals with MS. In fact, it is a very attractive option. Through the stimulation of specific points on the skin using thin needles, the flow of energy throughout the body is altered to positive effect. Typically, 4 to 12 areas will be stimulated per treatment session, and 6 to 10 sessions are required to determine whether the treatment is working. For MS, acupuncture has been shown to be effective in the relief of many symptoms, including sensory problems (tingling and numbness), depression, pain, spasticity, and some organ issues (particularly bladder problems).

Often, acupuncture points on the scalp are chosen based on what symptoms the patient is experiencing. When combined with moxibustion, acupuncture can significantly reduce recovery time. Acupuncture is most effective when coupled with changes in diet and physical therapy. Over 87% of patients have seen immediate improvement after just one session. In many cases, acupuncture patients see better improvement in their condition than they did with traditional treatments.

Acupuncture is effective not only in relieving the symptoms of MS and other autoimmune diseases but has also proven beneficial in the alleviation of their causes in some cases. If you suffer from one of these debilitating illnesses, seeking a consultation with a certified acupuncturist is a worthwhile option. Just because you have an illness does not mean you can’t go on living, and acupuncture offers you a way to do that.

From now until April 15, Dr. Michael Forman and his staff will be donating 10% of proceeds from paid booked appointments to the National MS Society.

To book your appointment today or to learn more about how Dr. Forman can help you with your MS symptoms, call 305-741-2102.

0 The Truth About Vitamins

Vitamins, minerals and enzymes are the genuine parts necessary to develop, maintain and fix every organ and every function in our body. But these vitamins, minerals and enzymes must be delivered in a form that the bodies can use.

The only source of nutrition in the world is food. Everything else is an interference in our internal function and just like pharmaceutical drugs, must be balanced with side effects in order for our bodies to do what they must do; maintain homeostasis to keep us alive.

Vitamins are complex combinations of co-factors, which include many different components and enzymes. The true nature of this synergy has yet to be truly understood, let alone replicated by a laboratory.

Every type of whole food and its substrates are made up of complex organisms that cannot be replicated in the form of an isolated chemical. When we eat an orange, for example, there are dozens of vital components that make up its nutrients in the form of Vitamin C and A complex and other essential nutrients. Vitamin A Complex alone has over 64 components responsible for it’s absorption and utilization, including co-factors of minerals and enzymes.

When we take vitamins in the form of chemical isolated synthetics, we are taking only 1 of these complex components. So what does our body do? It does what it is designed to do…survives by establishing homeostasis. And to do that, it looks for the other components required to absorb and utilize the nutrient. When it does not find this in our digestive system, it pulls what it can from our own body and eliminates the rest as toxins. This is the reason many people urinate bright yellow upon ingesting synthetic vitamins.

This causes a long-term deficiency in the very vitamin we are trying to supplement. Please understand that, like a drug, we get a short-term therapeutic effect, which can go on for sometime. But over the long term, we are running out of gas.

And this is especially true for so called vitamins as anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants were branded in the late 50’s and early 60’s after experiments on laboratory animals (rats and guinea pigs) showed positive effects for certain diseases. The problem was that these were never methodically tested on human beings and therefore we made a leap to assume that the same chemical compound that serves as a vitamin for one species would serve for humans.

But we know that every species has its own dietary requirements that cannot be easily used by another. How long would people live if they had to survive on the diet of a rat, or guinea pig? Yet we are taking anti-oxidants based on lab results for these animals. Even pharmaceutical drugs are eventually tested on people to certify their safety and efficacy.

So it’s not that surprising that when these so called vitamins were finally tested on humans in large mega-studies costing billions of dollars, the results were negative. In the largest study ever on the efficacy of antioxidants, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2007, it was found that taking these so called vitamins for long periods of time were associated with all cause mortality. That means people died from all forms of death more when consuming antioxidants than when not. And in the case of certain diseases like melanoma the deadliest form of skin cancer), women were 400% more likely to get it. And people had more heart attacks, strokes and cancers as well.

Oxidation is what causes fruit to go bad when it hits the air. So nature has developed protection of nutrients in plants and fruits that must survive in an atmosphere of over 22% oxygen. And these anti-oxidants (Ascorbic acid, Beta-carotene, Tocopherols) are the protection (like preservatives). But why would the protection of the nutrients be the nutrients themselves any more than a bank guard would be there to protect the bank guard?

Our bodies do not oxidize from oxygen. We need oxygen more than any other nutrient. How long can we live without oxygen compared to any nutrient? So taking chemicals that stop oxygen from working is against the foundation of survival of animals and humans.

But, like so many times in the past, financial interests survived by creating a justification for the proliferation of its product: ‘Free Radical Pathology’. This was a theory (never proven) that was based on the idea that oxygen molecules, in a radical form, are floating around the body harming and eroding tissues.

But this does not make sense if we think about physiological pathways in the body. When we breathe, oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide in the alveoli of the lungs and carried in the blood by hemoglobin molecules. At the capillary level, tissues are provided with oxygen to fuel cell production. As a result of this production (called the Krebs Cycle) carbon dioxide is given off as a by-product and carried to the lungs by the venus return system.

Free radical oxygen molecules, if there are any, are easily handled by the enzyme superoxide dismutase and other enzymes in every cell of our body. Free radical oxygen is made by our body inside certain cells to kill germs, unwanted viruses and other intruders. Disease is not the result of oxidation like an apple or banana. It is the result of loss of function due to long-term nutritional deficiency. And taking anti-oxidants only accelerates this process by robbing the body of the very thing it needs most: Oxygen.

Do we need supplementation? Yes. But this supplementation must be in a form our bodies can use: food.

0 Headaches and Migraines: Causes, Types and Treatment

If there is one common experience shared by all people in the world, it is headache. Be it afternoon headaches, pounding migraines, tension headaches or sore temples, this problem occurs frequently in one form or the other. So, what are headaches and migraines?

A headache is basically any kind of pain that occurs in any region of the head. Meanwhile, migraines are recurrent throbbing headaches that are often accompanied by nausea and disturbed vision.

What are the types of headaches and migraines?

Ninety percent of headaches and migraines are medically declared as primary headaches and migraines, meaning there is no discernable cause for them. Tension headaches, cluster headaches, etc. are some of the examples.

The other types of headaches are classified as secondary headaches and migraines. The name itself describes their occurrence; these headache and migraines are secondary to another disease or condition.

What causes headaches and migraines?

For a primary headache, the etiology or the origin is completely unknown. There is no possible cause behind these headaches because the mechanism of having a headache is universal. Your brain itself has no pain receptors, and thus, does not feel any pain. It is only the surrounding blood vessels, nerves and tissues around the brain and in the head, the eyes, and the sinuses that can actually feel pain. The causes of these headaches can be anything, from hormonal imbalance or organ dysfunction to stress related nerve response.

When it comes to the secondary headaches, there is a definite cause, because these headaches and migraines are secondary to another disease. For instance, a headache accompanied with a brain tumor, or a headache caused due to some event that might have taken place, a car accident or perhaps some spinal injury.

How do we solve migraines and headaches?

The first step is to find out why your headaches are happening. In every situation of headaches, there are usually specific organ dysfunctions and nutritional deficiencies that exist in combination with the health problem. So, we have to find out what your organ deficiencies are, and what nutritional deficiencies are causing the organ dysfunction.

Imagine an equilateral triangle, with perfect sides of the same length. If you pull one of the sides of this triangle, it immediately throws off the other two sides. Now imagine a health triangle whose points are headaches and migraines, organ dysfunction and nutritional deficiency.  The same principal applies. If you have a headache, it is a physical problem. Thus, you can be sure that you have certain nutritional deficiencies. Since these nutritional deficiencies are the fuel for your organs, you can assume that your organs are not working 100%. And if your organs are not working at 100%, their ability to absorb, digest and utilize nutrition is impaired. The less nutrition your organ gets, the worse the symptoms become. As the symptoms become worse, it puts more stress on your organs and further impairs their ability to receive nutrients. It becomes a vicious cycle. You might use the help of pharmaceutical medicines after consulting your doctor, yet still you notice that the cycle continues.

So, what do we do?

What we need to do is to put a halt to the entire cycle. We need to stop any further erosion, stabilize the situation and began to rebuild. What we need to do is to identify your organ dysfunction and nutritional deficiencies, as well as the underlying causes of the problem.  We do this through a system of analysis called Nutrition Response Testing, a clinically proven nutrition program tailored specifically to your individual needs, because what your organs lack is probably different from your neighbor.  Proven effective with thousands of patients, this approach corrects the nutrition deficiency, which has led the organs to the dysfunctional state that caused the headaches in the first place.  Thus we are addressing the root cause of the issue.

0 The Absence of Symptoms Does Not Mean Good Health

Good health is not just about not being ill; it is also about being happy and feeling whole from physical, mental as well as spiritual perspective. To be healthy, popping some medicines only when unwell or taking action only after you see the symptoms is not enough. You have to take care of yourself proactively to prevent illness from reaching you.

But, we do the exact opposite. We think that health problems are the sudden onset of a disease we unsuspectingly acquired, when actually the problems are a matter of degree of symptoms. This is why the use of pharmaceutical drugs to suppress symptoms definitely provides short term relief, but it also tends to make the problem worse over the long run. The same pharmaceutical medications then invariably fail to even control the symptoms because the underlying problems begin to worsen, and the drugs are no longer able to contain the symptoms for which they were first prescribed.

When we push ourselves too much, be it physically or mentally, our bodies have their own ways of telling us that something is wrong. For instance, we may experience a headache when we are extremely stressed. Our standard procedure to counter it is taking acetaminophen. It helps. It makes the headache fade away. But, the actual cause of the headache is still there, without even being identified. Thus, sooner or later, the headache will resurface again.

Please don’t make the false notion that I am against the use of pharmaceutical drugs. I am not. There are numerous good medications out there that help ease symptoms. I am only against the misguided belief that drugs used to suppress symptoms are curing you. They are not. This is the fact where we are in denial on a national scale.

It is ironic that a large number of people, who are ready to take full responsibility for all the problems that life throws at them, have their head in the sand when it comes to health problems. We cannot define health as the absence of symptoms. We have all heard of or know of the person who feels great, had a great check up with the doctor only to have a sudden heart attack or stroke shortly thereafter. He didn’t have any detectible symptoms, but he was obviously not in good health. It is, therefore, not dependable to rely on the correlation of symptoms with the underlying causes of ill health.

Ever wondered why the United States health care system is ranked so low by the World Health Organization? After all, we can sew on our finger, transplant a kidney, replace the cochlear fibers in the ear of a 2 month old baby yet we still rank incredible low. It is because we have delegated the responsibility for our health and well-being to pharmaceutical intervention without a plan to address the underlying causes of the particular health decline. An integrated approach is vital in this particular situation. Isolating and managing symptoms together with a strategy to correct the underlying causes is the need of the hour.

Nutritional Response Testing, a system which focuses on health restoration using the instinctive intelligence of the body to identify vital whole food supplementation to restore health, can be of a great help!

0 Nutritional Response Testing and Organ Dysfunction

We all wish to live a life without any illness slowing us down. But reality is different. We all face health concerns to one degree or another. If the causes of these problems are not identified at the earliest, they can further damage our health.

The most common underlying causes of health concerns are organ dysfunction from nutritional deficiencies. These deficiencies are the long term result of processed foods, highly refined sugars, soil erosion, and environmental hazards exasperated by our misguided belief that food is not fundamental to our health on any levels. Therefore, in order to restore health and functionality, we must replace these deficiencies just like we need to untie a knot in order to have a straight rope again.

But, merely eating a better diet is not enough to correct the problem because the foods available in the market are of low quality as a result of soil erosion, pesticides and genetic modifications irreversibly applied to crops. Even the best foods do not contain sufficient nutrients to undo the long term degeneration causing symptoms and disease. This where my Applied Clinical Nutrition practice comes to the rescue.

So, how do I correct the underlying causes to correct health problems? It is done using Nutritional Response Testing, a system of analysis to identifying the precise organ dysfunction and nutritional deficiencies that lie at the cause of the symptoms and then handle these deficiencies with the appropriate supplementation to fix it. These supplements are in the form of concentrated whole food medicines that are available only through a physician. They are made to address specific clinical nutritional deficiencies and concerns.

How do I find the specific organs? First, I do a complete intake of all existing and prior diagnosis, pharmaceutical drugs that have been taken, symptoms, etc. I then order lab tests, both blood work and hair analysis. I test the health of the nervous system using a heart rate variability device which allows me to assess the wear and tear on the nervous system as it relates to organ function.

Finally, I perform a clinically proven system of analysis called ‘nutrition response testing’ which allows me to assess the precise organs that need repair and what specific nutrition is required to repair them. I then consider all this information and present a written report of findings in which I lay out which organs need repair, what they need to repair them and how long it will take. I then offer a treatment course which I supervise over a period of time to get the results required. This method is very safe and natural. I can work with patients of any age, patients who are pregnant, patients who are on existing medications and have existing diagnosis. My youngest patient is 2 years old. My oldest patient is 75 years old, and both are doing fine.

Many of my patients have been able to reduce or eliminate some or all of the medications they have been taking and are well on their way to full health restoration, thanks to nutritional response testing.

0 Why Applied Clinical Nutrition is Effective

Our system of health is not working because we are not focused on the right thing…nutritional deficiencies. Like any magic trick, the magician needs a plausible diversion to make the audience believe the trick works. In the case of modern healthcare, the diversion is the miraculous life saving procedures and emergency care that keeps our attention off of the real problem…chronic degenerative disease. Treating these diseases with pharmaceutical drugs is like the gorilla who can hit a 400 yard drive 2 feet from the hole and goes to finish the hole only to hit another 400 yard shot…the ball never goes in the hole.

Of the 17 largest and most technologically advanced countries in the world, the US is ranked dead last in terms of health and longevity by the WHO. The average American is 23 pounds overweight. It is estimated that currently by the age of 65, 77% of Americans are diabetic or pre-diabetic and within the next 6 years, 1 in 2 Americans will have diabetes or be pre-diabetic. Diabetes aka high blood sugar is the #1 cause blindness, kidney failure and amputations in adults. And it is making us fat…leading to other diseases like high blood pressure, cardiac stress and low immune function to name a few.

People are being misled into the mistaken belief that suppressing these symptoms with pharmaceutical drugs is somehow curing the disease. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality, the disease is getting worse.

It is a medical fact that our body is in a constant effort to maintain what we call homeostasis (or stability) and therefore has to adjust to every drug intervention with side effects to compensate. And please don’t confuse side effects with the notion of side dishes. They are not minor, but rather major concerns because they represent not just one, but multiple new diseases and conditions now required by the body to compensate for the intervention. And this is where health spirals in a downward direction.

This approach is appropriate in an acute cases, but that’s not what it is being used for. It is being used to manage chronic conditions like low back ache, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, insulin resistance, insomnia, auto immune diseases and all the chronic conditions keeping people from living fully productive lives.

The only way to really fix these conditions and truly restore health is to treat the actual cause…organ dysfunction from specific nutritional deficiency. These deficiencies are the long term result of processed food, highly refines sugars, soil erosion exasperated by the misguided notion that food is not primary to health…on all levels. You are literally the result of everything you have eaten and drank in your lifetime. And please don’t blame it on genetics. Truly genetic diseases that are directly inherited represent a small fraction of diseases and even smaller fraction of known conditions. This is overplayed by the pharmacological medical establishment to relieve us of being responsible for our own health and well being.

So in order to solve these problem for real, what needs to be done is to identify what specific organ dysfunction and nutritional deficiencies are at the cause of the problem. What makes this a challenge, is that each person and problem presents a unique set of deficiencies because each person’s life experience and nutritional intake has been unique over the course of their lives.

For example, in the case of sleep difficulty, we need to find out exactly what specific organ dysfunction and nutritional deficiency is at the root of your sleep problem, not your sisters or neighbor’s.

This requires a competent system of analysis in order to make an accurate determination, and then the right concentration of food source in the right amounts to get the body functioning again.

So to do this, we use a variety of clinically proven tests and testing techniques, make a determination and design a specific program of supplementation needed to fix the problem. This supplementation is in the form of concentrated whole food nutrients that are only available through a physician like myself. We then supervise the administration of these over a treatment course to get the results desired.

So if you or someone you know someone isn’t sleeping well, is worried about their blood sugar, gets sick with a cold all the time, has chronic fatigue and wants real help, I implore you to send them to have a consultation with me, Michael Forman DOM.

0 Whole Food Vitamins versus Synthetic Nutraceuticals: Understanding the Difference for a Healthy Lifestyle

Whole Food Vitamins versus Synthetic Nutraceuticals: Understanding the Difference for a Healthy Lifestyle

While most people are aware that getting a good balance of vitamins is important to a healthy lifestyle, fewer are aware of the differences between the organic molecules found in whole foods, such as meats, fish and vegetables compared to the supplements that are increasingly filling the shelves of supermarkets, chemists and even health-food stores. If you are committed to leading a healthy lifestyle, then understanding the benefits of whole food vitamins over synthetic nutraceuticals is a must.

Despite being labeled as a ‘natural’ product, almost all the multivitamins available on today’s market are what can be classified as synthetic nutraceuticals. A scientific and chemically produced copy of a singular compound, these synthetic nutraceuticals are, by design, unable to replicate the diverse micronutrient structure that makes up a whole food and whole food vitamin complex, despite claiming to have the same health benefits.

To break it down more simply, whole foods vitamins are made up of a complex spectrum of components, complete with other co-factors that enable the product to do its job. Vitamin C complex found in oranges, for example, is not just made up of ascorbic acid, but also Rutin, Bioflavonoids, Factor K , Factor J , Factor P , Tyrosinase and Ascorbinogen. In addition, when you take a bite of an orange, you are also getting Vitamin A, B1, Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium, Folate, Selenium, Fibre, and much more. Together, these work in harmony with each other to deliver a range of health benefits, and our system is geared toward recognizing the whole, rather than individual chemicals that make up our food.

When creating synthetic vitamins nutrients are created in isolation: separating out the individual components that make up a food source. In doing so, these synthetic nutraceuticals shift away from the organic process by which the many co-factors that make up a whole food can be successfully and beneficially absorbed. In fact, many of these isolated vitamins are not even recognizable by the body, and can often be treated as toxins or lead to deficiencies as the body takes the available co-factors from our own tissue to use them.

Adding to this problem is the fact that the food available to us today is increasingly less nutritious, making it harder to get the essential vitamins we need. The pesticides and fertilizers used to grow the vegetables and grains we eat and give to livestock limit the ability of plants to draw in nutrients as they grow. The refining and processing of food so that it lasts longer also strips out and destroys many of the health benefits, and we are only just beginning to understand the implications of genetically modified food. The synthetic vitamin industry has thus become more powerful as there is increasing evidence to suggest that simply maintaining a healthy whole food diet is not enough.

In light of this, how can we make sure we get the right balance of vitamins without turning to chemical alternatives? Organic and biodynamic foods and multivitamin supplements that use whole food sources, such as nutrient rich animal products, fruits, vegetables and herbs are a great start. Most importantly, the answer lies in being educated about what you are eating, drinking and ingesting, and making informed decisions about you and your family’s health by understanding the incomparable and irreplaceable benefits of whole food.