I recently underwent food allergy testing at the behest of my gastroenterologist to see if food allergies are causing or contributing to my irritable bowel syndrome. It turns out I’m allergic to five foods. My question is how do I determine if all five are causing my symptoms or just one or two? That is a great question. The guidelines I’m going to share with you were worked out in clinical research units. In these settings patients are kept in…
The FDA recently approved omalizumab (Xolair) to treat patients with food allergy including children as young as one year. The approval came from several research trials including one recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that was conducted at John’s Hopkins. This particular study looked at allergy to peanut, cashew, egg, milk, walnut, hazelnut and wheat. In the case of peanut allergy 67% of the test patients were able to consume 600 mg of peanut (equivalent to…
By: Sasha Klemawesch, MD If I asked you to tell me one fact about bananas, you’d probably cite how rich they are in Potassium. And you wouldn’t be wrong. But, in addition to having approximately 10% of your daily value for potassium, they also contain about 10% of your daily needs for Magnesium, Vitamin C and Fiber. While potassium is great for lowering blood pressure, maintaining muscle (including heart muscle) strength, and avoiding certain types of kidney stones, foods with…
There is a memorable scene from the movie The Graduate where Ben (Dustin Hoffman) is taken outside at his college graduation party by a friend of his fathers’. The friend says (regarding Ben’s future) “I have just one word for you: plastics”. Fifty years ago, plastics seemed to be a boom in terms of both convenience and commerce. Now, plastics are doom in terms of environmental harm and human health. Once plastics are released into the environment (soil and water)…
Conventional wisdom for decades has been to avoid nuts and seeds if you have diverticulosis; however official Gastroenterology literature now says otherwise. Actually, it has for some time, but old habits die hard, and anecdotal rumors still heavily cloud the discussion both in the medical community and among lay people. While it’s not surprising that patients’ impressions may be skewed by rampant Reddit forums on the subject, doctors should be aware of the change in recs, seeing that literally hundreds…
In the preceding article I mentioned how antibiotics became accepted as standard treatment for diverticulitis; doctors considered which pathogenic bacteria would typically invade the gut, and drew a logical conclusion that if the colon was infected, then Cipro/Flagyl would treat it. The practice had staying power because patients seemed to get better while on said treatment. However, like many other entities commonly “treated” with antibiotics, it is not the antibiotic that is making the patient better, it is so-called Tincture…
If you are a non-streaming luddite like me who still watches cable, then I’m sure you could not only sing the Ozempic jingle on command, but probably do the Jardiance-Lady’s dance as well. There’s been so much hype around the novel diabetic agents, I thought it worth discussing some of their downsides, since otherwise mainly what you hear are social media-ites & bravo-lebrities lauding them as quick & easy weight loss hacks. While it’s true (especially for the Ozempics/Mounjaro’s of…
Shiitake dermatitis is a big price to pay for the joy of shiitake mushrooms. The dermatitis consists of intense itching that occurs shortly after ingesting raw or undercooked shiitake mushrooms. Characteristic of the rash are raised, red streaks which is also called “flagellate erythema” because it literally looks like the sequela of being whipped. Other than this characteristic appearance, the dietary history is the cue to diagnosis. It responds quickly to oral antihistamines and/or steroids. It is prevented by adequate…
The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a study done by scientists in Cambridge, Mass. This group did refined chemical analysis on 60 different health supplements. Their findings were very disconcerting. Just 11 percent of the products contained an accurate amount of the key ingredients listed on the label. Forty percent had none of the indicated ingredients. Forty Five percent had inaccurate amounts varying from .02 percent of the amount listed to 334 percent of the amount listed….
Scientists at Mass General Hospital in Boston recently published findings on 1,150 adult patients in their hospital who underwent thymectomy (removal of the thymus gland). The thymus gland is a bit of a mysterious organ found in our chest that is most active in early childhood. It is located in the chest between the lungs and just above the heart. In infants the gland is large and completely covers the front of the heart. Until this recent study scientists have…