Diseases are rooted in the gut, a fact I have highlighted my whole career. When we understand the profound ramifications, we stop hacking at the leaves and beating around the bush. Understanding this explains why disparate, seemingly incongruent issues are related. For example, long t

I am always looking for the root cause of things, particularly illness. As a scientist, I am fully aware nothing has a single cause, but our experiences in childhood loom large in the genesis of diseases. See the first two studies below. Hugo Rodier, MD Childhood abuse may cause physi

Depression will soon become the number one disease in the USA, if it has not already. Sure, we all get a little blue from time to time, but a significant number of people become incapacitated by it. Some even take their lives, unable to escape the darkness that mars their lives. What

I grew up drinking Mate. My cousin Mac hated it. In those days, he was the only obese kid I knew. I regret to admit I called him Tubby. He also had red hair. Anyway, I just ran into another article saying that Mate, an herb drink, helps improve our metabolism.[1] It probably works thr

Here is a follow up on my recent blog on nutritionally deficient doctors: drugs commonly used for seizure disorders (carbamazepine, phenytoin, phenobarbital and primidone) raise Vitamin D requirements.[1] This is yet another reason why many of us need to supplement our diets. Hugo Rod

By lowering “normal blood pressure” below 120/80 an additional thirty million Americans will be prescribed medications to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, the most popular diuretics, Hydrochlorothiazide and Lisinopril, have been associated with diabetes, lung and pancreatic cancer, a

When I was in Medical school in the early 80s only one in 2,500 children had Autism. It’s a lot more than that now. Why? Have our genes mutated? Are we better at diagnosing the problem? The answer is the same as every other disease: poor diets, toxic environments, and unrelenting emot

Medical School in 1980-1984 let me down on several fronts. For instance, (1) we were not taught to think integratively; (2) we only received one hour of nutrition, and none on environmental issues; (3) the mind-body connection was deemed to be “soft medicine” not worth bothering with,