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Four decades of writing on living long and living well, with 1,000+ posts on functional and longevity medicine.
451 written by Dr. Frank Lipman
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Mar 28, 2022 · Gut Health17 Ways to Help Your Microbiome and Brain, Boost Mood, Reduce Anxiety and Support Mental Wellness
Recently, self-care has taken center stage as people look for ways to steady themselves and soothe their psyches. While movement, meditation and relaxation are essential for maintaining an even keel, if you’re eating poorly – think sugar, starchy foods, processed and junk foods – you’ll likely still wind up with slipping and dipping moods, in part because the trillions of multi-species bacteria that make up your gut microbiome aren’t getting enough of the nourishment they need to do their best work – and your brain suffers too. Simply put, food can make or break a big chunk of your mental health and have a powerful impact on mood.
Mar 21, 2022 · Health & Wellness7 Thoughts On Releasing Big Pharma's Vice-like-Grip On Your Health
We live in a pharma-rich country with a health care system that encourages everyone to dig in. I do not. Instead, I encourage all my patients to take a close look at the pill-for-what-ails-you approach that your doc, the pharmaceutical companies and health insurers perpetuate. Are drugs always the answer? And what’s in it for your health? Here’s another question worth asking: Given that so many common ills don’t actually warrant drugs, why is just about everyone on them?
Mar 18, 2022 · Healthy AgingFAQ's on Protein Sources for Aging Well
When changing your personal food regimen shoot for a baseline of healthy food and protein habits geared towards aging well.
Mar 14, 2022 · Health & Wellness11 Life-Changing Effects of Berberine
Berberine has, for thousands of years, been used to treat an enormous range of conditions, including eye, mouth and ear infections; skin irritations; wound healing; fever; microbial pathogens; digestive and respiratory diseases to name a few. Today, berberine gets high marks for its natural pharmacological properties, including its health-supportive effects on the immune system, metabolism, heart and gut health, blood and kidneys as well as for its antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-fungal and anti-inflammatory powers.
Mar 7, 2022 · Health & Wellness22 Quick and Easy Instant Health Upgrades
Finding it tough to make much needed health and lifestyle changes you know you really need to make? How to change a path of previous fails into a road paved with wellness and vitality? Keep it simple, start small, master one or two habits at a time, and move on to tackle the next upgrade on your list. Also, try starting with the easy stuff first! Keep at it and in time, you’ll evolve into a creature of far more good habits than bad, culminating in major wins for your long-term health and wellness, with positive ripple effects across multiple aspects of your life.
Mar 4, 2022 · Nutrition16-Hour Fast FAQ
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about fasting.
Feb 28, 2022 · Nutrition6 Delicious, Nutritious Benefits of Dark Chocolate
Chocolate – ancient Mesoamerican civilizations considered it a ‘food of the gods,’ and as a major chocolate fan myself, I’m inclined to agree. The taste of chocolate is so appealing that for most people, finding additional reasons to indulge on the regular hardly seems necessary. But beyond the taste is its overlooked superpower: it’s actually good for you, in all sorts of ways. How to tap into its deliciously medicinal charms? Some food for thought on the world’s most beloved food.
Feb 21, 2022 · Health & Wellness9 Ways to Build New, Healthier Habits – and Make them Stick
Just about all of us have habits we know we need to upgrade and do better with. But as we all know, converting healthy thoughts into healthy habits, especially ingrained ones, is easier said than done. But as the saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. If you ‘fall off the wagon,’ resist the siren call to just give up altogether. Instead, think of the slip-up as a temporary lapse, not a permanent condition. The quicker you get yourself back on the healthy habits path, the sooner you’ll change your health – and life – for the better.
Feb 14, 2022 · Sleep14 Strategies for Superior Sleep, Starting Tonight!
More than just an annoyance, poor sleep is a major health underminer. Not taking sleep seriously impacts all aspects of your day-to-day life: how well you learn and process information, how clearly you think, how well you fend off illness, how well you age. And let’s not forget: your mood, your weight and yes, even your sex drive. Crappy sleep is a body bummer, and if you make a habit of it, you’re increasing your risk for exactly the kinds of health destroyers we’re all trying to avoid, like Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, heart attack/ failure, stroke, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and obesity. Sleep isn’t something to be toyed with – it’s serious business, and the time to clean up your sleep act is now.
Feb 11, 2022 · NutritionWhat To Think About When It Comes To Faux Meat
Many meat replacement products are junky, because they’re heavily processed and contain a lot of questionable ingredients: genetically modified soy, canola oil, sunflower oil, yeast extract, unspecified “flavors,” modified food starch—the list goes on.
Feb 7, 2022 · Sleep6 Ways to Stress Less, Sleep Better and Tame Pain with Magical Magnesium
By now, you should appreciate that a whole foods diet, plenty of daily movement, restorative sleep, relaxation and stress reduction come together to ensure your body will function well for a long, long time. What else to add to your good health stew? Magnesium. Its long list of beneficial effects makes this multi-tasking miracle mineral one of my favorite recommendations.
Jan 31, 2022 · Health & Wellness14 Ways to Preserve Mental Health – Pandemic or Not
Hard to say how or when the pandemic will eventually end but one thing is for sure, it’s impact on mental health won’t soon be forgotten. One bright spot in the pandemic wilderness has been the de-stigmatization of mental health challenges. Whether you struggle from time to time with pandemic-induced low moods or are dealing with more chronic mental health issues, more than ever, prioritizing, cultivating, and protecting mental health is no longer a taboo subject. That’s fortunate because we’ve still got continued social isolation to contend with, not to mention the classic winter blues that many folks wrestled with even before COVID turned life upside down (think, short days, and cold temps).
Jan 24, 2022 · MovementGet Fitter Faster in 2022 – and Burn More Fat – with HIIT
To live a long and healthy life, movement, and plenty of it, simply must be part of your overall plan. No surprises there. However, we all know that when life gets busy, regular exercise often slides down the to-do list. There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. Sound familiar? If so, now might be a good time to work some High Intensity Interval Training, or ‘HIIT,’ into your routine to get maximum bang for your movement buck, in the minimum amount of time.
Jan 21, 2022 · SleepEmbrace Your Chronotype
Even though we all have an innate 24-hour rhythm, not all of our rhythms are the same. We all have a sleep chronotype – choosing a sleep-wake schedule that takes your chronotype into account will help you arrive at a rhythm that supports when you’re naturally inclined to sleep, wake up, and perform.
Jan 17, 2022 · Health & WellnessHow BDNF Keeps Your Brain Healthy and How To Boost Yours
Forgetting your car keys or not remembering where you parked the car. Blanking on a name when making introductions. We all experience these forgetful moments. They unnerve us and maybe they even strike fear in our hearts as we wonder if something sinister could be responsible. For most people, these blips are just that. For others, the news may be less reassuring. But the positive message for all of us is that there are things we can do right now to help lower the risk of neurological problems down the road. One of the most important may be to increase our brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).
Jan 10, 2022 · Nutrition6 Ways Polyphenols Will Make Your Health Soar
By now, everybody knows that eating veggies and low-sugar fruits is a health no-brainer for many reasons. But you may not appreciate one of the most important – getting your daily dose of mission critical polyphenols. These extra special compounds can supercharge just about every aspect of your health and missing out on them can have serious consequences. And while I always recommend eating the good stuff – as in whole, unprocessed, organic or farmers’ market versions – as we head into the new year, I encourage everyone to redouble their efforts to fill up on foods – particularly those rich in polyphenols – to fortify and protect your body at every meal.
Jan 3, 2022 · Healthy Aging5 Easy and Essential Ways to Stop Your Aging Clock
Looking for the fountain of youth? There are several every-day habits and behaviors you can do, starting now, that can slow down aging at the most basic cellular level. They don’t cost much, or in most cases, anything, and they can, and should, last a lifetime -- in other words, a lot longer than ‘miracle’ potions or jars of skin cream. While absolute lifespan, for instance whether your grandmother lived to 85 or 95, is very much influenced by genetics, your ‘healthspan’ – how long you live well, is very much up to you.
Dec 27, 2021 · Health & WellnessOur Top 11 Most Helpful Tips of 2021
If you don’t know where to start, we have gathered our 11 top helpful (and health-full) tips of 2021 to optimize well-being into the next year! You can find these tips and so much more on our Instagram account - @franklipmanmd - please follow along!
Dec 20, 2021 · Health & WellnessOur Top 11 Most Helpful Blogs of 2021
Now is a wonderful time to reflect and make plans for the New Year. And if 2021 did nothing else good, it did point out the importance of prioritizing our health for the greater good. With new variants revealing themselves, finding ways to incorporate new (or old) healthful habits into the day-to-day is essential.
Dec 13, 2021 · Health & Wellness7 Simple Ways to Shed Pandemic Weight Gain — and Prevent Extra Holiday Pounds!
The holidays will soon be over but by all indications the pandemic won’t be. What that means is that you can’t wait for the all-clear from the CDC to begin getting your life in order. And one of the most obvious, and yes, visible, reminders that COVID has done a number on our well-being is more than a few extra pounds, the end-result of a more stressed-out sedentary lifestyle, heavy on the high-carb comfort foods. If you’ve been back-sliding over the last 18+ months, now’s the time to take (or re-take) control of your diet and your weight and start turning the vicious circle of the pandemic (more pounds, more blues, less physical activity) into the “virtuous circle” of enhanced health and wellness.
Dec 6, 2021 · Gut HealthMake More Butyrate to Protect Gut and Brain Health Today!
Your gut microbiome houses certain types of bacteria which, when properly fed, produce powerful, health-supportive compounds like short chain fatty acids (SCFAs). One of the most well-studied SCFAs is butyrate – and it’s one you won’t want to leave home without. If you want your body to run well from head to toe, here’s the 411 on this essential compound that everyone can use a little more of – and how to get yours.
Nov 29, 2021 · RelaxationVagus Nerve Stimulation: 10 Ways to Quickly Calm Body and Soul
If nothing else, this difficult time has shown us just how important it is to protect and preserve both physical and mental health. One silver lining to emerge from the last 18 months: we’re now more aware of what sends our stress levels into the stratosphere. The tricky part? How to bring them back down to earth fast. The good news is that inside every one of us in an actual nerve whose job it is to do exactly that -- the vagus nerve (VN) – and you have the power to tap into its calming power, with ‘vagus nerve stimulation’ (VNS).
Nov 22, 2021 · Gut Health5 Things to Know About Cultivating Your Gut Diversity to Upgrade Your Health
When feeling well is the goal, it pays to focus on your gut microbiome, the trillions-strong community of bacteria whose job it is to keep you healthy. By now, you may be aware of your microbiome and the need to protect it. But, you may not know that microbial diversity – having lots of different, health-supportive strains of bacteria inside you – is another key element of a healthy gut, and a healthy body. What does microbial diversity do for you? How to protect it and how to enhance yours every day? Here are a few ways to do it.
Nov 15, 2021 · Healthy Aging7 Ways Tracking Your Heart Rate Variability Can Save Your Health
One often overlooked but extremely helpful health marker I encourage everyone to track is their heart rate variability or (HRV). Learning more about your HRV can give you a better picture of your cardiovascular fitness and your over-all resilience, as well as helping to steer you toward more health-supportive daily behaviors and lifestyle tweaks. Think of HRV as a sort of on-demand monitoring and feedback system for doing stuff that keeps you well.