Dr. Frank Lipman, The voice of sustainable wellness

A chance encounter and shared moment with one of nature’s greatest and most fleeting phenomena.

If all Doctors followed the latest cholesterol treatment guidelines, and all their patients took their prescribed statin medication, there would be 3.5 million more diabetics in America. But wait! There is another pill (injection actually) that has been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes. And it’s only about $50,000 per year per patient. Let’s see 3.5 million times $50,000. What does that bring us to?

Pharmageddon!

We are stuck in an absurd cultural habit of thinking that medication will save us from lifestyle and social diseases.

Two separate studies in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) underscore that we have come to the end of an era of being saved by medication. Antibiotics and vaccines were a huge advance in medicine in the 20^th century. But the single pill for the single ill just doesn’t work for 21^st century chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes.

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Every year I post a similar blog, just tweak some resolutions and add a few more. This year, I am hoping that 2012 will be the year that the Wellness Revolution really kicks in.

When I qualified as a Doctor at 26 years old, I thought I knew everything there was to know about health and medicine. By the age of 30, I realized my medical training was limited and I didn’t really know much about health and wellness. So I went on a journey of discovery to expand my horizons and studied acupuncture, Chinese medicine, Functional medicine, nutrition, yoga and Buddhism. By 50, I realized my life training was limited too as my daughter (a teenager at the time) was pointing out “how stupid” I was. And now that I am 57, I realize I have amassed a lot of knowledge but have so much more to learn.

As I get older and hopefully wiser with every year, certain insights become clearer. Here are some of them gleaned from the wisdom I have gained from 32 years of marriage to my beautiful wife, Janice, having a wonderful 24 yr old daughter, Alison, 32 years of practicing medicine and being a perpetual student of life.

• More Real Food, Less Food-like Substances
• More Fruit and Vegetables, Less Sugar, Gluten and Dairy
• More Plant Foods, Less Animal products
• More Organic, Less Chemicals
• More Clean Products, Less Toxic Products
• More Chewing, Less Eating
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Are you polishing your skin with plastic? You are if your favorite facial scrub contains particles made from polyethelene. It’s a common exfoliating ingredient in such popular products as Olay Regenerist Advanced Anti-Aging Regeneration Cream Cleanser, the new Neutrogena Rapid Clear Foaming Scrub, and even Bliss Lemon + Sage Body Scrub. Polyethelene beads are made from polymers of ethylene oxide (say that three times fast)—the same synthetic stuff used to make plastic grocery bags.

What is it doing in your skin care? The beads are supposed to be a boon for skin because they’re perfectly spherical—unlike walnut shells and apricot pits which can be coarse, some say, and tear at tender facial skin, or worse, irritate, infect, or spread a case of the pimples, particularly the red bumpy kind. (They’re better off used in body scrubs.)

At best, polyethelene beads probably create a bit of friction as they roll over your face. New York City dermatologist Dennis Gross, M.D., who’s not a fan of most scrubs, says that of all possible materials, at least these have a smooth surface.

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John Mackey, who started Whole Foods, talking at TEDMED and telling the audience how Whole Foods is incentivizing employees to make healthy lifestyle decisions. Good for him!!

Most home appliances have become more efficient over the past 30 years, but those gains have been offset by the influx of personal computers, televisions and related devices, according to data released recently by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Over the past three decades, the share of residential electricity used by appliances and electronics in U.S. homes has nearly doubled from 17 percent to 31 percent.

In the latest update to its Residential Energy Consumption Survey, which is has updated periodically since 1979, EIA found that:

• 58 percent of U.S. homes had energy-efficient, multi-pane windows, up from 36 percent in the 1993 survey.
• 76 percent of the 114 million U.S. homes had at least one computer, 8 percent more than just four years prior; 35 percent had multiple computers. (Hewlett-Packard announced last week that it has reduced the energy its products need to operate by 50 percent over the past five years.)
• 68 million homes have energy-efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) or light-emitting diode (LED) lights.
• 44 percent of all U.S. homes had three or more televisions. Screen size and average energy consumption per television continue to grow.

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1)          Gary Clarke Jr

Gary Clark Jr. is an American guitarist considered by some to be the leader of the Austin, Texas rock scene, playing in a style that has at times been compared to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He has been acclaimed as the savior of blues and Rolling Stone declared him “Best Young Gun” in its April 2011, “Best of Rock” issue. His live performances, as well as his recordings, blend rock, soul and blues, infusing fluid guitar with a guttural howl and a falsetto trill that mix together.

Check him out in this video:

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What is it that makes us feel helpless in our lives? How best can we handle our perceived powerlessness? How too might this feeling instruct us in more deeply knowing ourselves?

Awful as it may be, the anatomy of helplessness is fascinating in all its trickery. When struck by it, we feel impotent to and victims of its torment. We scamper madly about in our panic, in search of any external source of aid to bail us out, convinced as we are in those sputtering moments of our own incompetence. This is understandable given how helplessness holds within it the distinct and scary sense of being utterly out of control. But the dominant trouble when we skip over ourselves in sole favor of outside supports is that we actually re-initiate and compound our helplessness.

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I am honored to be on the board and part of the Ubuntu Education Fund family (www.ubuntufund.org). This amazing organization transforms township children’s lives from cradle to career. We use our 12 years of grassroots experience and rigorous business practices to create a comprehensive, creative pathway out of poverty for each of the 2,000 children we serve. We are a community-based international organization in Zwide Township, South Africa. We are doing the simplest, most basic thing that people have always done in order to prosper: we are raising children. This means going through exams, illnesses, adolescence, clothes shopping, counseling, and so much more. It’s simple because it’s something we all want to do. It’s radical only because very few organizations do this. Most of the children we work with are either orphaned, HIV positive or come from extreme poverty. We become their extended family and support them on all levels until they are able to support themselves. Here is a short video from there.

Reprinted with permission from Experience Life Magazine.

Before you set healthy goals for 2012, stop and appreciate what you’ve already accomplished. A quick look back may be the best tool for evaluating what comes next.

By Experience Life Staff

Like it or not, another 12 months have zoomed by. If you haven’t checked off every last thing on your resolutions list, don’t fret. Chances are you still accomplished a great deal, probably more than you’re giving yourself credit for. Really. We’re not just being nice.

Perhaps you’ve started eating a little healthier, and you’re feeling more energetic as a result. Maybe you’ve managed to put a few miles on the bike you bought three years ago. This is the stuff you need to acknowledge as forward progress, not as evidence of a larger job as yet undone.

Viewing this year’s successes in sharper relief can help prime you for even more success in 2012 — because it helps you see that you are, in fact, making health and fitness a priority in your life. Recognizing even a little forward progress lets you upgrade your pursuits from the dreaded “should” or “have to” status (or worse, “total failure” status) and helps you build positive momentum.

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