Author Archives: Lily Kiswani

About Lily Kiswani

I am an Integrative medicine practitioner. I transitioned into Integrative medicine after three decades of Gynecology practice and Endoscopic surgery. I was the first female Laparoscopic surgeon in India. I have co-authored a textbook, Endoscopic Gynecologic Surgery, available on Amazon. Now, after all these years, with the realisation that I can help people regain their lost health, I find myself inordinately excited and blessed to have this opportunity.

Which vitamins should be taken together, and which not

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Patients often ask which types of vitamins should not be taken together and which should be taken together for maximum effect.

Answer:
How you take a supplement can be just as important as which product you take — both may impact how much of a nutrient your body actually gets.

A few rules of thumb:

    • If you take a large dose of a mineral, it will compete with other minerals to reduce their absorption. The mineral most often taken in large amounts is calcium. So if you take a calcium supplement, take it at a different time of day than other mineral supplements or a multivitamin/multimineral supplement. Doses of magnesium can also be relatively large and should, ideally, be taken apart from other minerals. If you take high doses of zinc long-term, be aware that it can cause copper deficiency, so you may need to supplement with copper as well.

 

    • Some vitamins can actually enhance the absorption of other nutrients. Vitamin C, for example, can enhance iron absorption from supplements and plant foods.

 

    • The fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) are likely to be better absorbed if taken with a meal that contains fats. In fact, one study found that taking vitamin D with dinner rather than breakfast increased blood levels of vitamin D by about 50%.  Taking vitamins D, E, or K several hours before or after other fat-soluble vitamins would seem to maximize their absorption.

 

    • Taking certain supplements with food can reduce gastrointestinal side-effects. For example, taking magnesium with food can reduce the occurrence of diarrhea, and taking iron with food can reduce the chance of stomach upset.

 

  • Be aware that vitamins and minerals can also affect the absorption and effectiveness of medications.

Stay Healthy.

 

5 Supplements For People Struggling With Autoimmune Diseases

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Autoimmune diseases are one of the leading causes of suffering in the world.The good news is that there is a lot you can do today to take action for your health.Research suggests that genetics account for only about one-third of autoimmune disease factors. Environmental triggers, diet and lifestyle might be what’s largely responsible — which means you can help balance your immune system, dampen the inflammatory attacks and attempt to put the autoimmune response into remission.As the father of medicine, Hippocrates, said “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine thy food.” The foods we eat instruct and build our biochemistry. And when there is a lack of the nutrients, the genetic switch for autoimmunity is triggered.

With that in mind, I’m sharing the top nutrients and corresponding food medicines that I recommend for people struggling with autoimmune conditions:

1. Vitamin A

Vitamin A is essential for equipping you with a strong immune system. And vitamin A deficiency has also been linked to autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes.

Why? Researchers seem to think it has to do with our dendritic cells. These alarms of the immune system can send out a “red alert” to stimulate immunity, or a “calm down” message that tones down excessive immunity that can damage the body. The “calm down” message makes use of vitamin A.

Food Medicine: True vitamin A, what’s called retinol, is only found in animal products like fish, shellfish, fermented cod liver oil, liver and butterfat from grass-fed cows.

Plant carotenes, a precursor to vitamin A, are found in sweet potatoes and carrots but the conversion rate to the usable retinol is very weak. In fact, research suggests that just 3% of beta-carotene gets converted in a healthy adult.

2. Vitamin D

Known as the “sunshine vitamin,” this nutrient is essential for many metabolic and immunological pathways in the body.

For example, Th17 cells are helper T cells that produce a number of inflammatory chemicals, such as interleukin-17. With autoimmune conditions — such as inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis — Th17 cells are out of control.

But Vitamin D, in conjunction with Vitamin A, has been shown to synergistically dampen the Th17 inflammatory response.

Food Medicine: As with vitamin A, vitamin D is most abundant in animal and dairy fats. But soaking up some time in the sun can also help — about 20 to 60 minutes a day, depending on your complexion. And consider getting tests done every few months to ensure your vitamin D levels are healthy.

3. Vitamin K2

One study in the Journal of Neuroimmunology found that vitamin K2 was effective at inhibiting the pro-inflammatory iNOS in the spinal cord and the brain immune system in rats that had multiple sclerosis symptoms.

Unfortunately, K2 is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies in the western diet.

Food Medicine: Vitamin K2 is best paired with the other fat-soluble vitamins, A and D, in whole food form like grass-fed butter oil (ghee), or organ meat. Natto, a Japanese superfood made from non-GMO fermented soybeans, also has high levels of K2.

4. Iron

Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is linked to many autoimmune diseases. One reason is because a large amount of stored iron, ferritin, is absorbed in the intestines. And in functional medicine, damage of the gut lining and leaky gut syndrome are considered preconditions for autoimmunity.

Food Medicine: It’s critical to first deal with the underlying problem that’s causing the iron deficiency. Healing of the microbiome is essential for healthy nutrient absorption, especially iron.

Once the gut is healed, iron-rich foods like grass-fed beef, liver and spinach can be effective, as well as cooking with cast iron cookware.

5. Micronutrients

Micronutrient deficiencies — such as selenium, magnesium and zinc — are associated with several autoimmune diseases. That’s mainly due to chronic inflammation, which decreases the absorption of these vital nutrients.

These micronutrients are needed for the healthy production and conversion of the thyroid hormone — and thyroid problems such as Hashimoto’s disease are some of the most common autoimmune conditions.

Food Medicine: A variety of nuts and seeds like Brazil nuts, as well as oysters, are good sources of these nutrients.

What Should You Do Now?

If you’re struggling with symptoms of an autoimmune disease, here are some specific steps to consider taking:

1. Get Your Nutrient Levels Checked

A good place to start is having blood labs done to see where your nutrient levels are.

2. Find Out If You Have Nutrient Absorption Issues

You might be eating all the right foods, but just not properly absorbing them. Potential inflammatory microbiome issues, such as leaky gut syndrome, may be preventing optimal nutrient absorption.

3. Avoid Your Trigger Foods

With autoimmune problems, you can have an immune response from virtually any food. For example, nuts may be a great source of micronutrients in theory, but may not agree with your body in particular.

4. Implement Natural Methods

There are many natural tools for you to use to help dampen inflammatory-immune responses, including avoiding gluten and managing stress.

5. Consider an Integrative Medicine Evaluation

Integrative medicine can help suggest sustainable options for those suffering from autoimmune conditions. Take advantage of a free phone  evaluation to have your questions answered and to see if Integrative medicine might be right for you.

Why Low Fat Diets Wreck Your Brain Health and What To Do About It

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These days, we’re struggling with an undeniable epidemic of brain problems.Anxiety, brain fog, fatigue, depression, ADD, autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis — the long list of conditions affects nearly everyone in some way.And with more people than ever before battling these brain issues, we have to ask ourselves: why?

While there are many complex reasons for the decline in brain health in the modern world, let’s talk about what I feel is one of the main culprits.

The Fear Of Fat: Why We’re Missing Out On Crucial Nutrients

For years, fat and cholesterol have been demonized in our diets. Since the latter part of the 20th century, we’ve been told these nutrients would clog our arteries and cause us to gain weight, and we’ve avoided them.

Even today this belief remains — but its days are numbered. One 2014 study in the medical journal Neurology found that, contrary to popular belief, there might actually be no association between high total cholesterol and stroke risk. In fact, other research has shown that low cholesterol may actually increase the likelihood of death. At the same time, some of the many side effects of statins — cholesterol-lowering drugs — include memory loss and brain dysfunction.

The truth is that as the fattiest organ in your body, your brain is composed of 60% fat, and as much as 25% of your body’s cholesterol is found in the brain.

So why deprive your brain of the very nutrients it is made of?

Consuming cholesterol and fat is critical to the health and function of the brain — but for years we’ve been starving our brain from its favorite food.

Sugar Vs. Fat: What Should You Fuel Your Brain With?

Today the standard Western diet centers around many forms of the very same thing: sugar.

From the refined carbohydrates of junk foods to breads, pastas, fruit and juices, sugar makes up most of what we’re eating. But is it the best form of energy for your brain?

One 2013 study found that higher blood sugars in non-diabetics decreased function in areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It’s one reason why AD is now often referred to in the medical literature as “type 3 diabetes.”

On the other hand, a ketogenic diet — where fat, not sugar, is your primary source of energy — has been shown to do some remarkable things for your brain health.

And healthy fats are a slow, sustainable form of energy, unlike the sugary roller coaster many find themselves on. After all, biology knows best: as babies we were all born relying on fat in the form of breast milk for brain development and energy.

Bottom line: For our brain to work properly, it requires a lot of energy. And from a biological and evolutionary perspective, the most sustainable form of energy for optimal brain health is good fats.

What Now? 3 Ways to Better Your Brain Health

1. Do Blood Tests

There are many great lab tests that I recommend to help determine if your brain is healthy or not. For example, look into having homocysteine and fasting insulin tests done. These labs can give you insight into your specific case, as well as where to go from there.

2. Feed Your Brain Good Fat

Changing the way you view fat and cholesterol can be overwhelming, especially if you’ve spent years of your life avoiding them.

So, start by educating yourself on the best sources of fats for your brain. And be sure to learn about which fats are most effective at decreasing inflammation, which is linked to just about every brain problem.

For example, arachidonic and DHA are two forms of fat that play an important role in brain health. The most bio-available sources for these brain foods? Grass-fed meats and wild caught fish.

Coconut oil is also a wonderful plant-based fat source for your brain: the MCT (medium chain triglyceride) oil found in coconut oil has been shown to improve cognitive function. Monounsaturated fats like extra virgin olive oil and avocados are also beneficial to your brain.

Be sure to start adding in fat slowly. After years of low fat diets, it’ll take your system a while to adjust to eating healthy fats.

3. Consider Personalized Functional Medicine Care

Functional Medicine realizes what works for one person may not work for you. In general, adding in more healthy fats is a wise move. But how much is right for you?

The ideal ratio of fats, carbohydrates and proteins should be determined on an individual basis. Some people don’t do well on ketogenic diets, for example, and targeted brain natural medicines depend on your unique needs.

Look for an Integrative / Functional / Metabolic / Root Cause Resolution practitioner near you to find the unique solution for your condition.

Be Healthy.

Weight Loss – Four Simple Steps

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You Can Lose the Weight – Four Simple Steps

Go to the mall. See a movie. Look around next time you’re in an airport. What you’ll see is the confirmation of all the statistics that we’re hearing so much about these days related to the ever-increasing prevalence of obesity. It’s everywhere and it’s affecting most of us.

Books, online information, infomercials, daytime T.V., and even nightly news programs are constantly hammering us with the scary news that relates increasing abdominal girth to just about every bad medical condition you don’t want to get. At the same time, these same resources offer up some new trendy solution to the obesity epidemic daily, often in the form of some new and exotic dietary supplement.

Truth is, losing weight doesn’t happen when you give in and buy the latest pill. Weight loss happens when the body shifts from storing fat to burning fat. It is that simple, and far and away how we signal our metabolism to make this fundamental shift depends on what we choose to eat.

But it’s understanding how our food choices influence the ratio of fat storage to fat burning that will help give commitment to making the right dietary changes to trim down.

When we humans consume glucose or carbohydrate-rich foods that are then broken down into glucose, it stimulates the pancreas to secrete the hormone insulin. We all learned in high school biology that insulin works in the body by facilitating the reduction of blood sugar by driving it into cells. But while that is true, insulin performs two other functions in your body that you need to be aware of: it stimulates fat production and inhibits fat breakdown. This explains why sugars and carbs make people fat.

In our hunter-gatherer days, the ability of insulin to stimulate fat production might well have paved the way for our ability to survive. Long before wheat fields, apple orchards or convenience stores, late summer and early fall were pretty much the only times of the year when humans would stumble upon sugars, because that’s when fruit ripens. Eating these sugar-rich foods would stimulate insulin production, leading to fat storage that provided us a calorie buffer for the winter, when food was scarce. This is actually an incredible adaptive mechanism. Unfortunately, sugar-rich foods are no longer just something we have for a few weeks a year. Sugar and carbs are available in abundance 365 days a year, all the while telling us to store fat for the winter of food scarcity that never comes.

Dietary fat has pretty much the opposite effect in terms of insulin signaling. It actually sends signals to our physiology that food is abundant, shutting down the need to store fat for the future.

The other player influencing whether we are fat or lean is the microbiome, the collection of more than 100 trillion organisms living within our body. So influential are these organisms in terms of our metabolism that scientists now regard the 3-pound microbiome as actually representing an organ within the body like the liver or the heart. Specifically, the bacteria within the gut play a huge role in regulating how many calories we extract from a given meal, the level of our desire to eat, and even the production of the brain chemicals that influence our eating habits.

So here’s the skinny:

  1. Eat a diet that’s really low in sugar and carbohydrates. I recommend a target of 60-80 grams/carbs/day. Opt for whole fruit, not fruit juice. Avoid dried fruit as it is highly sugar-concentrated.
  1. Eat more fat. Welcome fat back to the table in the form of extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, free-range eggs, wild fish and grass-fed beef.
  1. Add probiotic-rich fermented foods to your plate. Foods like fermented fish, kimchi, fermented vegetables, kombucha, and cultured yogurt are teeming with healthy probiotic bacteria that can help pave the way for weight loss.
  1. Eat more fiber. Fiber rich foods increase the sense of fullness and that helps reduce overall food consumption. More importantly, foods containing a special type of fiber, prebiotic fiber, cater to the healthy gut bacteria, expanding their numbers and enhancing their positive influence on your health. These include choices like jicama, dandelion greens, Jerusalem artichoke, onion and garlic.

Be Healthy.

Want Glowing Skin? 5 Easy Steps That Start With Your Gut

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by Anna Mitsios

It’s easy to overlook our gut as the source of skin troubles. But if the well-being of our internal organs and energy levels are determined by what we put in our mouths, why shouldn’t the same be true for our skin?Here’s what an unhealthy gut do to your skin:

  • It disrupts the flora in the skin as it creates inflammation, affecting the integrity and protective function of the skin. Research shows that small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a condition involving inappropriate growth of bacteria in the small intestine, is ten times more prevalent in people with acne rosacea, and that a correction of gut flora led to marked clinical improvement in their skin conditions.
  • Altered gut flora can activate the release of substance P — a neuropeptide produced in the gut, brain and skin that plays a major role in inflammatory skin conditions like eczema.
  • An unhealthy gut can result in maldigestion and the malabsorption of proteins, fats, carbs and vitamins. SIBO can lead to nutritional deficiencies including vitamin B12, as well as vitamins A, D, E and K (fat-soluble vitamins) which are all critical for optimal skin health and overall good health.
  • An imbalance of stomach acid can result in the overgrowth of “bad” bacteria in the color, which can lead to acne. (This was discovered over a century ago!)
  • 14% of patients with ulcerative colitis and 24% of patients with Crohn’s disease (both diseases that affects the lining of the digestive tract) have skin manifestations.

Correcting your gut flora and establishing a healthy glow — inside and out — doesn’t need to be complicated. Here are five easy steps you can take to start the healing process:
1. Stop feeding the bad guys.

The bad flora in your gut has a field day with sugar, dairy and processed grains. Starve the little critters by reducing your intake of these foods — your skin will thank you.

2. Start taking a probiotic.

Oral probiotics have been shown to improve skin conditions by reducing inflammation and oxidative stress, as well as strengthening the intestinal barrier. In one study, 80% of participants who received a probiotic experienced improvement in their acne.

3. Eat prebiotic- and fiber-rich foods.

Prebiotics provide food for probiotics and can be just as important as probiotics in maintaining healthy skin and gut. Asparagus, beetroot, pumpkin, flaxseeds and garlic are wonderfully rich prebiotic foods. Fiber helps the process by sweeping away toxins and excess hormones which can wreak havoc on the skin.

4. Eat fermented foods.

Fermented foods can be a wonderful way of introducing good gut flora in a natural way. They also assist with improving digestion and stopping persistent sugar cravings.

5. Up your digestive ability.

Promoting the body’s hydrochloric acid production is critical to improving its ability to break down and absorb food. Splash apple cider vinegar onto your salads and increasing your consumption of bitter foods such as rocket, dandelion, lemon and radicchio will increase your digestive power.

Remember that what you put on and in your body are both important! Get your gut in order and your skin will follow.

Be Healthy, Simply.