Refuse To Regain

Our Healthcare Industry: NOT

by Barbara Berkeley, MD It's in the headlines. It's on your mind. It's health care. As of December, 2016 the United States was spending 17.8% of its gross domestic product on health care. That's 3.2 trillion dollars or about $9,990 per person each year. The imbroglio over Obamacare is the direct consequence of our enormous health care problem. Proper coverage is too expensive for many of us and beyond any reach for truly sick people unless there is a contribution... Read more →

Mr. Warburg Surfaces Again. The Link Between Diet and Cancer

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Because of my interest in the potentially toxic effects of too much sugar on the body, I became fascinated with the work of one Otto Warburg back in 2010. At that time, I published this blog about him. Warburg believed that cancer cells were unable to live by normal cellular processes and that they relied on sugar...and large amounts of it---to live. The thought was that cancer cells might be able to be starved to death... Read more →

The Body Mysterious: Time to Lift the Veil

by Barbara Berkeley, MD We physicians live in the shadow of rising health care costs. Hospitals want us to cut length of stays and somehow become more efficient. Insurance companies ask us to accept less money for patient visits, forcing us to see more people in fewer hours. The government wants us to check a slew of electronic boxes to prove that we’ve performed what they deem to be “best practices”…. even though there is little evidence that any of... Read more →

Don't be a Lazy Jack. Use Your Own Yardstick.

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Are you driven crazy by the daily dietary directives that scroll beneath the news and pop up on the front pages of the papers? I am. The internet has given us the ability to learn of every speculation about diet and every study...whether small, large, well-constructed, or poorly run. Media reporting does not discriminate between these. Pretty much everything is offered with equal weight, which leaves it to us to figure out if the latest dietary... Read more →

Successful Weight Loss? Stop Celebrating and Go to Battle Stations

by Barbara Berkeley, MD It's been a message I've been repeatedly posting since 2008. That was the year when, frustrated to the max with a lack of attention to regain, I found the energy to write a book about it. My intention was to create support material for my patients and for other weight loss practices. I discovered blogging around the same time and started putting my perspective out on the internet. In the intervening seven years there has been... Read more →

Obesity and the Brain: Let's Talk

by Barbara Berkeley MD An email from a friend of mine started me thinking about this topic again and it's a fascinating one. I am interested in the fact that we spend so little time thinking about the territory above our shoulders. Why is that? Maybe because we can't see our brain so we are continually looking out from it, perusing other parts of our bodies, but largely ignoring the place where we truly exist: in the neural net that... Read more →

Medical Contrarian: A Most Interesting Story About Fats and Science

by Barbara Berkeley, MD I couldn't get enough of this article on Dr. Fred Kummerow, 99 year old researcher who has spent his life studying dietary fats. As you know, I can be accused of science geekery. Essentially this means that I find articles on the neurochemical pathways in the appetite centers of the brain and studies on LDL particle number as compelling as most people find CSI Miami. But for me, this article on Kummerow held all the twists,... Read more →

Foie Gras---Human Style

by Barbara Berkeley, MD It's an expensive delicacy that appears on the menus of fine restaurants world-wide. Foie Gras is goose liver, but not just any old liver. Specifically it is the super smooth and tasty liver of geese or ducks which have been overfed with carbohydrates until their livers fill with fat. The translation of Foie Gras is pretty blunt. It means Fat Liver. Since geese will generally avoid eating until they are sick, the fattening process is accomplished... Read more →

The Importance of What You Eat and How Doctors Are Lagging Behind

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Here's a subject that most Americans don't want to discuss: We need to seriously change the way we eat. Here's the drill: "We don't need to change what we eat. We just have to make better choices." "The food isn't the problem. It's just the fact that we have to be more responsible." "Every kind of food is ok. In moderation." "We'd be fine if we'd just learn to eat only when we're hungry." "The food... Read more →

Weight Loss Drugs: Let's Get Real

by Barbara Berkeley, MD Two new weight loss drugs, the first to be approved since 1999, are about to go to market. Let's start by saying that a magic bullet has not yet been found. I have found it interesting that since the FDA's recent approvals of Belviq and Qsymia, there has been little shouting from the rooftops. I would have expected a great hue and cry when these drugs got the nod. Instead, it has been rather quiet out... Read more →