LOADED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are many ways that you can support your digestive health with your diet. Certain foods can help stimulate your digestion, support your friendly flora, and maintain the integrity of the barrier function of your gut.

Supporting your gut health will keep your immune system strong, and ensure you get the most out of the food you eat.

Here are five food tips for a healthy gut:

1. Eat fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, kimchi and sauerkraut. Drink kombucha. There are great options to dairy like cultured coconut milk, and soy yogurt.  These foods will keep the healthy flora going strong.
2. Eat plenty of fiber in whole grains and veggies. They provide the “fertilizer” for your healthy flora.
3. Avoid raw or uncooked meats and fish, as they carry many viruses and tiny parasites, that while they might not infect humans, they put a strain on the immune system in your gut. Avoid having sushi more than once a week.
4. Do not drink too much liquid with your meals as it dilutes your enzymes and therefore your digestive power.
5. Use coconut oil and ghee (clarified butter) in your cooking. Ghee has butyrate, and coconut oil has medium chain triglycerides, both are the best food for your intestinal cells and keep the barrier strong. Coconut oil also has anti-yeast and anti-viral properties.

The sugar-intense period of candy procuring is finally over. And if your kids have garbage bags-full of fun-sized Snickers bars lying around, you might still be riding that sugar roller coaster. But a reminder: Thanksgiving is just under two weeks away. Can anyone say, “Pumpkin pie?” And don’t forget about the sugar, alcohol and chocolate consumption that follows, unceasingly, until the holiday rampage is finally over. Read more at The Daily Rye

Although it doesn’t feel as though summer is over just yet- we will be lucky to get another taste of it this weekend- cold and flu season is right around the corner. I checked in with Susan Blum, M.D., Award-Winning Preventive Doctor, Chronic Disease Specialist and Founder of Blum Center for Health on the 3 best ways to stay healthy during cold and flu season:
Read More at My Beautyberry

Fill Up On Healthy Fats

You’ve probably heard about the heart-healthy impact of omega-3 fatty acids, but their benefits also go skin deep. “Many skin issues, including psoriasis, eczema and some acne, are made worse — redder, angrier and more puffy — by inflammation in the body,” explains Susan Blum, M.D., assistant clinical professor of preventative medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and founder of The Blum Center for Health in Rye Brook, New York. “Omega-3’s reduce that inflammation.” The body also needs these fats to help produce its own natural oils and retain moisture for soft, hydrated skin. You can find these good-for-you fats in salmon, sardines, walnuts, flaxseeds and soybeans.
Read More at iVillage

Every year, some bullshit (albeit completely scientific and test tube-y) study surfaces “debunking” the notion that we tend to get sicker – more colds, more flu, more feeling-like-something-the cat-dragged-in – once the summer sadly ends and temperatures start to head south. Read More at Momover.net

Feeling tired? Suffering from insomnia? Experiencing weight gain, headaches or hot flashes? If you answered yes to any of these symptoms, there’s a good chance your hormones are out of balance. Read More at Healthy Style New York

Feeling irritable? Suffering from insomnia? Experiencing bloating, headaches or hot flashes? If you answered yes to any of these symptoms, there’s a good chance your hormones are out of balance.

So many people come into my office thinking they have a Thyroid problem, when in fact it turns out to be one of their other hormone systems. The different endocrine organs: Thyroid, Adrenal, and Ovaries/Testes, are controlled by the Pituitary, a part of the brain that I call the “leader of the endocrine orchestra”. The pituitary secretes stimulating hormones that directs the secretion and activity of all these organs, and literally tells them to make estrogen, progesterone, thyroid hormone, testosterone and the important adrenal hormone cortisol. It’s important to keep in mind that this orchestra of hormones works best when all of the “instruments” are in tune. Which is precisely why an imbalance in one hormone causes an imbalance in the others.