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Sleep

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 There are few universal experiences quite like sleep.  When it's done right, it can be enjoyable, rejuvenating, and healing.  Adequate, appropriate sleep can help athletes recover from tough exercises.  It can help students set important information in their memories.  When done poorly, it can be grueling, tedious, and even...nightmarish.  According to the CDC and the Sleep Foundation, most adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep, but across the United States, about 1/3 of adults get 7 hours or less.  Poor sleep can lead to more frequent acute illnesses like viral infections, chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, and mental diseases like depression.   In a perfect world, you would avoid computer or TV light 60 minutes before bed while performing a wind-down routine like meditation.  Between 9 and 10pm, you would retire to your bedroom which is cool, dark, and quiet.  Your comfortable bed would only be used for sleep and be at least 5 feet distant from any electronic dev
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Men's Health

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Health specific to men represents a significant portion of health burden. Life expectancy for men is up to 8 years shorter than women. Behavioral and psychological elements do play their part, but there may still be room for developing a more robust system for treating men's health. Erectile dysfunction, changes in testosterone, and prostate issues can be difficult for a lot of men to discuss even with a healthcare provider, but these issues can lead to physical and emotional problems including a group of symptoms labeled LUTS or lower urinary tract symptoms. It's easier to avoid difficult or awkward conversations and examinations when you don't go through a medical professional, but this can lead to untested practices and even exposure to dangerous medications or toxins from unregulated supplements. Today on the Integrated Pharmacist Podcast, I'd like to go through medicine specific to men's health. Hopefully, we can find a way to guide patients to healthy
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Stress

  How do you feel when I mention the word "stress"? It's possible the word itself might cause your shoulders to flex and your heart to race. Stress has been linked to poor health outcomes. Even for those who don't have serious health issues, stress can make life complicated and difficult. Today on the Integrated Pharmacist Podcast, I want to talk about what stress is and how we can manage it appropriately with complementary and alternative medicine. Everybody deals with some level of stress. Whether it's from work or school demands, taking care of your home and loved ones, negative changes in your environment or traumatic events, stress can have mental, emotional, and even physical consequences. But not all stress is brought on by negative things. Even enjoyable experiences can bring on stress - weddings, family vacations, and financial gains can contribute to a person's stress. But not all stress is bad! We actually need some stress. As a sho
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Cadiovascular Disease

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  Cardiovascular disease refers to the disease of the heart and blood vessels. Although we continue to learn more about this disease, it continues to be one of the top killers in the United States. Today, I'd like to take a look at what integrative and functional medicine have to offer. Cardiovascular disease is a multifaceted problem that results in life threatening cases of heart attack, embolism, and stroke. These different events are all caused by a problem in the arteries. As we understand it currently, molecules that carry cholesterol called low-density lipo-proteins (or LDL) get stuck under the linings to our blood vessels. As they build up, immune cells try to consume them. Their high cholesterol content causes the immune cells to foam up. As more cholesterol builds up in the vessel lining, bulges begin to obstruct the flow of blood and (perhaps more importantly) red blood cells. This fatty build up can become calcified, making the vessel brittle. Brittle and bu
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Diabetes

Welcome to another episode of the Integrated Pharmacist Podcast. This is my first in a new series based on disease states rather than a specific modality or product. My goal is look at the major health concerns through the lens of complementary and alternative medicine and find evidence to substantiate that approach to health. I'd like to begin with diabetes. Diabetes is essentially the body's inability to deal with sugar. Often, the targeted chemical in the body is insulin. Insulin is like the key that unlocks the sugar gate to each of our cells. When it isn't working properly, sugar builds up in our blood where it can cause complications throughout the body. For patients with Type 1 diabetes, their bodies don't make insulin. Most often, this is because their immune system developed a response to the pancreatic cells that produce insulin. In other words, their bodies attack their pancreas to the point that they cannot produce insulin on their own anymore.
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