Well the summer isn’t over yet. There is still time to fit in some reading material that may just change your life. Head over to local bookstore or check out www.amazon.com for an incredible amount of insight, all for under twenty bucks.

Female Hormones:
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause: The Breakthrough Book on Natural Hormone Balance
by John R. Lee MD and Virginia Hopkins

What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause: Balance Your Hormones and Your Life from Thirty to Fifty
by John R, Lee MD, Jesse Hanley, and Virginia Hopkins

Male Hormones
The Testosterone Syndrome
by Eugene Shippen, William Fryer

Adrenal Glands
Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st-Century Stress Syndrome
by James L. Wilson

Safe Uses of Cortisol
by William McK. Jefferies MD

Thyroid
Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness
by Broda Barnes

Diet and Nutrition
The China Study : The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term HealthK
by T. Colin Campbell, Thomas M. Campbell II

Other Resources
Root Canal Cover-Up
by GeorgeMeinig

These books will motivate you to strive for quality of life and better health despite fatigue, toxins, and dimishing hormone levels.

From the desk of Dr Wells

Here's a NEAT trick. There is a little known secret that has been helping dieters lose tremendous amount of weight. It's called NEAT, Non Exercise Activity Thermagenesis. This is any spontaneous activity that people do that burns additional calories. This is different from exercise and sports which is a form of calorie burner that requires additional time.

One example of NEAT is "fidgeting.

This week I attended a wellness conference hosted by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. This organization's mission is to introduce the concept of Functional Medicine to physicians and patients. Functional Medicine promotes prevention of disease and looks for an underlying cause of disease. This is quite different from the usual medical practice which looks at treating symptoms and not the whole person. In medical school the main focus is reactive medicine: if you have a symptom, find the drug that will cure the symptom. If you cannot sleep, procreate, have a bowel movement, or breathe, there is a drug for you. If you have a side effect from that drug, there is another drug for you. And if you do not take that drug for a while, you will go into withdrawal and there is probably a drug for that too.

Functional medicine and Anti-Aging medicine has developed because there is a need to get the root cause of illness. For instance if you have aches and pains, you may be diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. You may receive a prescription that treats aches and pains such as a narcotic or you may receive an anti-depressant pill which many drug companies love to sell. What you will not receive from traditional medicine is an answer to why you have developed that condition or suggestions on how to make your condition better. Functional Medicine practictioners would look for poor nutrition, adrenal fatigue, toxic load, hormone imbalances, etc. They defy the typical Band Aid approach that is normally given to sick people.

Perhaps, you have lots of symptoms. Maybe you're gaining weight. Perhaps you have a condition which year after year gets a little worse. Maybe your doctor told you that your labs or vital signs are borderline abnormal and you are afraid of developing overt disease. Here's a recommendation for you:

This week I had the pleasure of taking my children to see WALL*E the new movie created by the same director who produced Finding Nemo. The plot surrounds a small robot on Earth that falls in love with a fancy robot from outerspace. Yes there were moments of comedy and romance, but I was intrigued by the social commentary. It shows what can happen to human beings who become overly dependent on machines and robots to perform our daily duties. In the movie, the earthlings of the future have forgotten what it's like to do normal human functions like get dressed, do their hair,or even stand upright and walk! (Isn't the ability to stand upright a major feat of Homo Erectus, the first hunter gatherer?) You may laugh when you see the movie and think that we could never become like that. Those offensive overweight cartoon characters obsessed by consumption could not possible represent our future. But just take a look around us. Look at all of the things we no longer have to do because of modern day conveniences.

1. We do not have to cook. We just microwave our food. We just ignore the fact that we paid money for a meal and allowed a machine to just blast the nutrients away. So we eat without a purpose and not to nourish our bodies.

2. We do not have to use our arms to open cans, open doors, or turn faucets on.

3. We do not have to do bodily functions such as cool ourselves off. We have the AC to do that. In the winter, we wouldn't think of using our own body heat to keep us warm in the car on the way to work.

4. Children do not know how to go outside and play. They've abandoned the jump rope and hop scotch for TV! Kids actually complain when they are told to go outside and have fun!

These are sad statements about our present day circumstances. I am afraid to ask what the future holds. We've already made breastfeeding, something that all mammals do naturally, almost obsolete. Some people are choosing C sections because they do not want to give birth the natural way. We're already trying ways to beat sleep with No Doze or create sleep with Ambien. In the future, I wouldn't be surprised if we considered it beneath us to breathe on our own. Modern day people are always looking for advances, new and improved, breakthroughs that make our lives easier....even though each advance comes with a price tag. We were made to eat berries and nuts not fast food; gather and hunt our food as our occupation and not sit behind a cubicle. We are messing with mother nature and trying to contort ourselves into something we were not meant to be! The weight problem that America faces is not due to increased hunger on the planet, it's due to the accessibility of high calorie low nutrition foods and devices that make our life TOO EASY AND SEDENTARY.

Neil Armstrong's flight to the moon was considered a milestone and he has a famous quote: "That's one step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." I do think that it was an awesome technologic feat. But some modern advances such as air conditioning, escalators, elevators and such things have contributed to a GIANT LEAP BACKWARDS for America. How do I know? Look at the high rates of disease that seem prevalent in our country, cancer, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. And for the first time in history the life expectancy of Americans is going down! That says it all.

A good goal for this week would be to find ways to avoid over using appliances and technology. What technological advances can you give up, or cut down on using during this week?? Microwave?? Remote Controls?? Food Processor?? Elevators and escalators?? Car?? Try to use these items less over the next week or so, and see how it goes. Do you think you turn down the air conditioning? You might even save money. You may even be surprised by how doing things the old fashioned way makes you feel better!!

And don't forget to see WALL*E. And skip the popcorn!

From the desk of Dr. Wells