If you like House Call with Dr. Hyman, you're going to love my new podcast, The Doctor's Farmacy. This podcast is a place for deeper conversations about central issues of our time that affect us all. Researching my last book, Food: What the Heck Should I Eat?, it became clear to me that we need to unpack the shifts and intersections of medicine, nutrition, food systems, health and food policy, and much more. The food system is at the root of our chronic disease epidemic, climate change,...

Eating healthy is more confusing than ever. I’ve been studying nutrition for 35 years and found that even experts are confused by the science. If the people we look to for nutritional guidance keep changing their views, no wonder the rest of us are so overwhelmed! You know what I’m talking about. One day eggs are unhealthy, then the next day they are a miracle food. One year the government tells us to eat bread, pasta, and other carbohydrates as the foundation of our diet, and the next it...

Arthritis has become a 21st century epidemic, affecting 1 out of every 4 people. Even more shocking is that 30% of adults age 45-64 have doctor diagnosed arthritis. Something has changed in our environment, making all types of arthritis more and more prevalent. Inflammation is the most basic problem in all arthritis, whether it is what we traditionally call “inflammatory arthritis,” like autoimmune rheumatoid arthritis, or the arthritis most associated with wear and tear on joints over...

Modern industrial medicine treats disease with medication or surgery. That’s what it is designed to do, and when it comes to emergency interventions it is still the best medicine in the world. When someone comes into the emergency room with a severed leg, conventional medicine treats the problem with incredible efficacy. But when it comes to chronic illness, this approach simply doesn’t work. Here’s why conventional medicine tends to break down in the face of chronic illnesses like...

Last year I experienced some serious health challenges. Recently I sat down with Mind Body Green to talk about this difficult time in my life.

My patients and readers tell me that one of the biggest obstacles they face on their path towards better health is lack of support. I always say that getting healthy is a team sport, and unfortunately, many of us are lacking the positive encouragement and supportive relationships we need in order to move toward our best selves. Psychological researcher, George Slavich, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies human social genomics, says that our genes can actually be turned...

I recently got the chance to interview my friend James J. DiNicolantonio, PharmD, author of The Salt Fix, and I’m really excited to share this interview with you. I also asked James to write a few words about why low salt diets might be harmful for some, and here’s what he had to say… We are constantly being warned about the harmful effects of salt. All health agencies, government bodies, and dietary guidelines tell us to cut our salt intake to no more than 2,300 mg of sodium per day (about...

People always want to know what I eat and do every day to stay energized and focused with everything on my plate. I talk a lot about cutting sugar and processed carbs and eating real, whole, fresh foods, exercising, and meditating—but everyone wants to know if I walk the walk! The truth is that I have to. I have about ten jobs, two kids, a dog, a team, weeks of travel at a time… the list goes on and on. In order to keep up with this lifestyle, maintaining optimal health and an optimal brain...

I was a thriving, young doctor with a promising career ahead of me. Then, within a short amount of time (it felt like it was almost overnight), my entire life changed. Suddenly, depression and anxiety were constant companions and I had such extreme fatigue I couldn’t even get out of bed some mornings. What was I supposed to do? Everything I did required optimal brain function. Without a healthy brain, I couldn’t see patients, do research, workout, or connect with loved ones.. I was at a...

I know this might seem like a silly question, but it’s one that I had to ask myself a long time ago when I suddenly became depressed, anxious, and fatigued. The answer was quite obvious to me. Something was definitely wrong with my brain and my body. But sometimes, a broken brain is not obvious and does not show up in the form of dementia, ADD, or depression. Sometimes, a less than optimally functioning brain can show up in small ways. So many of my patients come in after months or even...

Conventional medicine likes to label disorders, but often labels are meaningless. They tell us what disease we have, but they don’t say why we have it or even more importantly, how we can really treat it – other than prescribing a pill for every ill. The emphasis on naming diseases is pervasive throughout medicine, and it is the single biggest obstacle to changing the way we do things and finding the answers to our health problems. The truth is that two brain disorders, with two completely...

About 20 years ago, at the start of my medical career, I went from being a healthy, thriving physician to becoming a disoriented and terrified version of myself. I woke up feeling like I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I was depressed, anxious, forgetful. It got so bad that I had a hard time following what my patients were saying during their appointments. I tried to take careful notes and keep track, but I couldn’t focus on our conversations. I couldn’t even remember anyone’s...

Many doctors would say no. In fact, I’ve had several patients who have received a diagnosis of dementia and are told that there is no treatment that can truly stop or reverse the progression of this brain disorder. Compassionately, they’re told to get their affairs in order. For so long we believed that the brain is unchangeable and even worse, we thought that once we started to experience cognitive decline, it was all downhill from there. We now know this is not true. My friend and...

I’ve done a lot of meditation over the years. In fact, I used to be really passionate about meditation, and then the stress of trying to do it all interfered with my time for self-care. “I don’t have enough time to meditate,” I would say to my coach, and myself. The truth is that meditation is one of the most important tools I have to help me manage stress. I didn’t realize how stressed or anxious I’d become until I started meditating again. With so much going on, meditation helped me have...

“I have heard a lot of talk about mitochondria,” a reader tweets. “ What is it and why is it so important?” I love telling people about mitochondria. Discovering the importance of mitochondria and how to optimize their function was a huge part of my personal healing journey. Mitochondria are key energy sources for our bodies. They are tiny factories housed within our cells that take the foods we eat and the oxygen we breathe and convert them into energy. Taking care of your mitochondria...

Today is Part 2 of our discussion around reasons for hitting a weight loss plateau. One of my followers tweeted me saying, “I Lost 30 lbs on The Blood Sugar Solution. I am doing Eat Fat, Get Thin for another 30 days. NO sugar/carbs – all veggies, proteins, and good fats, but much slower weight loss this time.” Last week, we talked about four important reasons why someone might be having difficulty losing weight. With Pastor Rick Warren and Daniel Amen, I created The Daniel Plan, a...

A reader tweets, “I lost 30 lbs. on The Blood Sugar Solution program. Now, I am following the guidelines from Eat Fat, Get Thin for the next 30 days. NO sugar/carbs – all veggies, proteins, good fats – but seeing much slower weight loss this time.” Weight loss plateaus are a very common and frustrating issue. When I am working with someone who is having trouble losing weight, despite doing everything right, there are a few things I look at, to see if we can uncover why they are hitting a...

In this week’s House Call, a reader asks, “How do I go about finding answers or the underlying root causes if conventional doctors won’t/can’t, but you can’t afford a Functional Medicine doctor?” This is not only a great question, but it’s an important one. For a variety of reasons, many of you are not able to work with a Functional Medicine practitioner. I am here to tell you that you still have the power to work with your doctor to get the tests that you need. A big part of my work is...

In this week’s House Call, a reader asks, “If one is lactose intolerant, but has no other intolerance to dairy, (e.g. casein and whey) is it OK to consume dairy products while having Hashimoto’s?” By now, most of my readers probably know how I feel about dairy — it’s nature’s perfect food — but only if you’re a calf. We have no biological requirement for this food, and yet, we’ve been told over and over again that dairy is a great source of calcium, milk makes healthy bones and we should...

If you want to avoid stress, you’ve been born in the wrong era. Chronic stress has become an epidemic in our society where faster is better, and we attempt to pack more obligations into our ever-expanding schedules. Luckily, there are experts out there who have come up with ways that we can achieve calm in the middle of chaos. One of those experts is Pedram Shojai, A.K.A. The Urban Monk. Pedram Shojai has studied Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga, Meditation, and medicine diligently for the...

The mantra of the government and food industry is that people should just eat less, choose a “balanced diet,” and exercise more. How’s that working out for you? Despite what popular magazines and TV shows might say, if you think you can exercise your way to weight loss, I am sorry to say you are in for a big disappointment. Using exercise to lose weight without changing your diet is asking for failure. You can change your diet and lose weight, but if you exercise and keep your diet the...

Do you ever wonder why you get cravings? Last year, I sat down with Alexandra Jamieson to talk about food addiction, cravings, and much more. One of my favorite parts of our conversation was her explanation of the four root causes of cravings. First, let me tell you a little bit about Alexandra. She is the co-creator and co-starred in the Oscar nominated film, Super Size Me. She coaches women going through big life shake-ups to double-down on self-care, nutrition, and pleasure, and...

Is pre-disposition predestined? The answer is no. Epigenetics suggests that our behavior can influence which of our genes are turned on or off. This has been one of the biggest breakthroughs in medicine. Most people tend to attribute far too much power to their genes. I’ve seen thousands of patients who have blamed genetics for their ailments and diseases, however it is your lifestyle washing over your genes that determines who you are in any moment. What you eat, how you move, how you...

It’s not just genes; your environment could be harming your thyroid. I had the pleasure to sit down with thyroid expert Dr. Izabella Wentz and talk about all things thyroid last year, and one of my favorite moments of the interview was our discussion around environmental toxins and their impact on the thyroid health. After being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis in 2009, Dr. Wentz was surprised at the lack of conventional medical knowledge about lifestyle interventions for Hashimoto’s,...