Autumn is a season when we naturally go inward, gather and build stores, while also taking inventory of internal environment and cleansing it of what no longer serves us. In this podcast, Dr. Nina Walsh discusses how the foods we eat in autumn can help strengthen our immune system and prepare us for the challenges of winter.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), food is viewed as medicine and is used to nourish and harmonize the body, mind, and spirit. All foods have a distinct energy and characteristic properties that either help to balance our bodies and make us healthy, or that create imbalances which ultimately result in sickness. In this podcast, Dr. Nina Walsh discusses how food energetics, combined with a seasonal approach to planning our diet, can help strengthen our immune system and improve our health.
Diseases largely eradicated in the United States a generation ago are returning. Across America, children are getting sick and dying from these preventable diseases—in part because some parents (more than 10%) choose to skip or delay their children’s immunizations.
Your intestines are home to many different kinds of bacteria. Together they are called the “gut microbiome.” They come from the food you eat – and whatever else gets into your mouth. Bacteria start colonizing your gut at birth. Your gut microbiome aids in digestion and produces vitamins and other compounds that affect your health. It seems to play a role in many other health-related functions, including metabolism, cardiac health and mood. New evidence shows that the bacteria in our gut also interact with our immune systems, and might even influence the body’s immune reaction to vaccines.
Researchers around the world are making groundbreaking progress in engineering replacement organs. Since the first successes with bio-engineered skin, which can be used for grafts to treat people with burns, tissue engineers have created lab-grown cartilage, bone and, most recently, whole organs such as bladders. The science of tissue engineering promises to revolutionize medicine as well as the way we think about our long term health and longevity.
Nutrigenomics is the study of the effects of foods and food constituents on gene expression. Although nutrigenomics is a science still in its infancy, it offers tremendous potential for the application of nutrition in cancer prevention and management. As this field advances, the future of nutritional care will be personalized diet recommendations based on an individual’s genetic profile and physiologic needs.