Hormone Balance is one of the most common reasons patients seek my care, and for good reason! Hormones have profound effects on your mental, physical, and emotional health and well-being.

Plastic. There is plastic in your fast food. Researchers at George Washington University purchased 64 items from fast-food restaurants, tested them for 11 harmful chemicals, and detected 10 of those 11 chemicals.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, each organ system of the body has a time of day that it is more active than others. For the liver? It’s 1-3am. That means that if you repeatedly wake up at 3am, it’s possible your liver is overworked or you need some additional support for detoxification.

Plastic. There is plastic in your fast food. Researchers at George Washington University purchased 64 items from fast-food restaurants, tested them for 11 harmful chemicals, and detected 10 of those 11 chemicals.

100% avoidance of toxins is never possible. That’s why it’s important to support our body’s inherent ability to metabolize, detoxify, and eliminate toxins on a daily basis. One of the best ways to do this is through food.

Here are 5 delicious foods to support everyday detoxification.

More than 85,000 chemicals are known to be circulating in everyday products in the US alone—in cosmetics, clothing, furniture, electronics, cleaning products, construction materials, and more. Taking simple steps to enhance your body's detoxification pathways can help to keep you in balance. Let's start with the basics.

More than ⅓ of adults in the US don’t get enough sleep, and it could be bad for the waistline. New research from Mayo Clinic shows that a lack of sleep combined with free access to food leads to higher calorie consumption and increased belly fat.

Whether it’s seasonal sneezing or a year-round runny nose, it’s possible that your home could be making allergies worse! When it comes to improving our health, it’s easy to forget about the importance of our surroundings. Even if nobody in your family struggles with allergies, taking these steps can improve your odds of staying allergy-free!

Seasonal allergies happen when the immune system reacts to a substance that should otherwise be harmless. It’s like an immune response gone rogue. What happens next is the release of histamine—a tiny chemical messenger released from mast cells that leads to a cascade of inflammation. Histamine is at the center of seasonal allergies and causes most of the irritating symptoms.

The snow is melting, the temperatures are rising, and most of us are excited to start spending more time outdoors. For many, however, this transition to spring and summer weather also brings the unwanted symptoms of seasonal allergies, such as: Sneezing, itchy or Runny Nose, Itchy or Watery Eyes, Headache, Dry Cough, Fatigue and “Brain Fog”

Every cell in your body contains magnesium and needs it to function. Magnesium often serves as a cofactor — a helper molecule — and is involved in more than 600 biochemical reactions in your body happening at any given moment.

As I have mentioned in prior blogs, your hormones dance with one another. This is why, when evaluating hormone balance, you have to take into account the various hormones interacting in your body. When one hormone becomes imbalanced this can lead to other hormonal imbalances. Stress hormones and thyroid hormones are good examples of this.

It is finally SPRING and in Northern Michigan (where I am based) the snow is starting to melt and the sidewalks are starting to clear. It’s time to get outside and start WALKING! I speak with patients every day about walking as a key part of overall fitness and well-being. Walking is fundamental to general fitness, helps to lower stress hormones (cortisol), and can even lower the blood sugar impact of a meal!

Dreaming of Summer? I am! It’s that time of year when many of us are looking forward to emerging from the isolation of winter to spend time outdoors with friends and family. This is also a great time to focus on a healthy skin routine! In addition to a proper diet and adequate hydration, a routine of clean skincare products can get you ready to emerge this Spring with fresh glowing skin!

February in Northern Michigan is often synonymous with low vitamin D (often referred to as “the sunshine vitamin”). Vitamin D (technically really a hormone) is made in our skin when we’re exposed to sunshine. We need it to absorb calcium for our bones and to keep our immune systems strong.

Your gut, skin, nose, and airways are home to trillions of tiny bacteria and other microbes—some of which might help your immune system fight off unwanted infections. It’s called your microbiome.

Do you ever feel like you just aren’t a healthy person or can never become one? It might be guided by some set of beliefs that has formed over the years—completely beyond your control. I like to call it your mindset.

I am excited to announce that our office is transitioning to an all-virtual format. We’ve closed the doors to our Downtown Petoskey building for the winter and taken our office 100% online.

Thyroid health is one of the most common reasons why patients seek my care - and for good reason! Optimal thyroid function is an essential component of your health and well-being. Your thyroid gland is part of your hormone system (also referred to as your endocrine system). The thyroid gland is shaped like a butterfly and is located inside your neck over your windpipe.

Our skin has a natural ability to exfoliate dead skin cells and does so daily. Unfortunately, this process slows down with age, which can lead to an accumulation of dead skin cells, leaving skin appearing dull and uneven. AHAs dissolve the upper layer of skin cells by weakening the cellular “glue” that holds dead skin cells together, encouraging exfoliation and triggering skin repair.