The Vitamin Prescription (For Life): 20 Cutting-Edge Super Nutrients to Help You Design Your Own Perfect Whole-Life Program

By Dr. Richard N. Firshein

Today, front-page news about medical triumphs not only cover advanced medical breakthroughs but also puts emphasis on the power of nutrition. Discover miracles and stories of natural healing that will surprise and inspire you in The Vitamin Prescription (for life).

For over twenty years of his medical practice, Dr. Firshein often relied on a versatile, hardy, and relatively small army of researched nutrients to do much of the healing work. Nutraceuticals are nutrients that have the capacity to act like medicines. They are natural pharmaceuticals.

This miraclenatures power to healhas always been available to us. But it is only now that science has given us the tools to understand the mystery of healing foods and nutrients. Soy, for example, can boost and balance hormones and help prevent cancer. Fish oils and gingko are just some of these supernutrients that work wonders for your health.

An excellent resource thats easy to read and informative, The Vitamin Prescription (for life) offers you a healthy way of eating and living, along with the most powerful nutrients known to medicine. These nutrients are not magic bullets that can work on their own. They need to be accompanied by healthy lifestyle changes, exercise, and stress-reducing activities like meditation and yoga.

If one eats well, lives well, and adds one or more of the necessary super supplements, 80% of chronic illnesses can be reversed or prevented entirely. Embrace the nutraceutical revolution and achieve maximum health!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 28, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453518403

Dr. Richard N. Firshein

Dr. Richard N. Firshein D.O. practices Integrative Medicine in New York City. He is Board Certified in Family Medicine and a UCLA trained and certified Acupuncturist. He is the author of Reversing Asthma and Your Asthma Free Child. Dr. Firshein has served as a professor of Family Medicine at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine as well as contributing editor to Psychology Today.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

I have been fortunate to have so many talented people play such a crucial role in the writing and editing of this book. There are many people to thank.

My gratitude goes to Julie Grau, who understood my vision and believed in this book from the beginning.

Kris Dahl my agent at ICM, who has consistently exceeded my expectations.

Camille Chatterjee, my assistant during the writing of this book; and to Mary Angela Lauricella, for her extensive work in researching and proofreading. I would like to thank Jasmine Hedocil for all of her efforts in making sure that this book came to a successful completion.

Special appreciation goes to my office staff over the years. In particular I would like to thank Amy, Susan, Hazel, Vadim, Parikh, Therese, and Debra for their dedication and hard work. To Jill Neimark for the many hours spent during the preparation and writing of this book.

I would also like to thank the following people who have made, at one time or another an important contribution to this book or my life: Dr. Alan Lambert, Dr. Albert Knapp, Adam Zeliger, Dr. Ahron Friedberg, Aida Turturro, Ann Acheson, Ann Clairmont, Dr. Arthur Kennish, Beth Minardi, Bettina Witteveen, Carmine Minardi, Chris Blackwell, Csaba Lucas, Dr. Dan Firshein, Dana Goldstein, Daria Zeliger, David Beal, Donna Azarian, Duncan Kirk, Elie Tahari, Ellen Newhouse, Gail Firshein, Dr. Gary Ostrow, George Clairmont, Helene Levy, Dr. Holly Phillips, Vartan and Houri Geudelekian, Isabella Ginanneschi, Ira Levy, Dr. James Aisenberg, Dr. Jed Kaminetsky, Jim Gayneau, Joanne Sasso-Gayneau, Dr. Jonathan Charney, John Azarian,, Dr. Jonathon Glashow, Dr. Jordan Josephson, Dr. Jordana Gilman, Joy Firshein, Dr. Karlene Chinquee, Larry Mullen Jr., Dr. Lewis Kohl, Lori Wasserman, Martin Elthrich, Mary Ching, Marilynn Hawkridge, Meg Friedman, Dr. Melissa Kohl, Michael Goldstein, Mistie Elthrich, Dr. Oz Garcia, Pankaj Shah, Paul Levy, Paul Sorvino, Dr. Phillip Bruder, Raoul Witteveen, Rhonda Levy, Richard Faherty, Dr. Ron Grelsamer, Dr. Ronald Hoffman, Rory Tahari, Rosella Galli, Sam Newhouse, Shari Dunaif, Sian Edwards Beal, Steve Dunaif, Dr. Steven Firshein, Susann Lucas, Sy Ethan , Dr. Stuart Young.

Special thanks to Dawn Perry for sharing her wonderful recipes in this book.

Finally, I want to thank my family and most importantly my wife Marcia for her love, and for making the world a more beautiful place to live in.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Everyday Miracles

My Own Odyssey

Magnesium: Nature’s Great Relaxer and Bone’s Best Friend

Fish Oil: Firefighter of the High Seas

Isoflavones: Mother Nature’s Healing Hormone

Coenzyme Q10: Universal Energy Source

Milk Thistle: The Liver’s Best Friend

Probiotics: Protecting the Digestive Tract

Glutamine: Food for Your Gut

Flaxseed: A Gentle Cleanser

The B Vitamins: Cardiovascular Healers

Vitamin E and Tocotrienols: Antioxidants for the Entire Body

Ginkgo: Circulation and Energy

NAC: Breathe Easy

Tyrosine: Stress Buster

Lutein: Sight for Sore Eyes (and Zeaxanthin) Vision and Eye Health

Quercetin: The End of Allergies

Valerian and St. John’s Wort: The Key to Calm

Phosphatidyl Serine and Acetyl-L-Carnitine: The Nervous System and the Mind

Branched Chain Amino Acids: Building Blocks for Strength and the Musculoskeletal System

A Woman’s Remedy—Menopause Hot Flashes

Saw Palmetto: A Man’s Best Friend Prostate Health

Nutrients of the Future

Addendum

References

Dr. Richard N. Firshein

INDEX BY AILMENTS AND

CORRESPONDING CHAPTERS

Allergies

      Quercetin CH 17

      Nettles CH 17

      Bromelain CH 17

Alzheimer’s

      Vitamin E CH 12

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Phosphatidyl serine CH 19

      Acetyl-L-carnitine CH 19

Angina. See also Heart Disease

      Coenzyme Q10 CH 6

      Vitamin C CH 12

      Magnesium CH 3

      B vitamins CH 11

       (Homocysteine)

      Resveratrol CHAPTER 23

Antiaging

      Glutamine CH 9

      NAC CH 14

      Lipoic acid CH 23

      Phosphatidyl serine CH 19

      Flaxseed CH 10

      Probiotics CH 8

      Fish oil CH 4

      Lutein CH 16

      Saw palmetto CH 22

Anxiety

      Valerian CH 18

      Chamomile CH 18

Arteriosclerosis (Hardening of the Arteries). See also Heart Disease

      Magnesium CH 3

      B vitamins CH 11

       (Homocysteine)

      Vitamin E CH 12

Arthritis

      B vitamins CH 11

       (Homocysteine)

      Fish oil CH 4

      Probiotics CH 6

      SAMe CH 23

      MSM CH 4

      Glucosamine sulphate CH 4

      Pycnogenol CH 23

Asthma

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Magnesium CH 3

      Fish oil CH 4

      NAC CH 14

      Quercetin CH 17

      Pycnogenol CH 23

      Alkylglycerols CH 23

Atherosclerosis. See also Heart Disease

      Resveratrol CH 23

      Tocotrienols CH 12

Bladder Infection (Urethritis). See also Urinary Tract Infection

      Cranberry CH 8

      Probiotics CH 8

BPH

      Saw palmetto CH 22

      Nettles CH 22

      Zinc CH 22

      Pygeum africanum CH 22

Cancer

      Coenzyme Q10 CH 6

      Fish oil CH 4

      Isoflavones CH 5

      Vitamin E CH 12

      Tocotrienols CH 12

      Lutein CH 16

      Alkylglycerols CH 23

      Flaxseed CH 10

      B vitamins CH 11

       (Homocysteine)

      Resveratrol CH 23

      Milk thistle CH 7

Candida

      Probiotics CH 8

      Flaxseed CH 10

Cardiomyopathy. See Heart Disease

Cataracts

      Lutein CH 16

      Vitamin E CH 12

Celiac Disease (Gluten Enteropathy)

      Glutamine CH 9

      Zinc CH 9

Cholesterol. See also Heart Disease

      Coenzyme Q10 CH 6

      Vitamin E CH 12

      Milk thistle CH 7

Chronic Fatigue. See Fatigue

Circulation

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Fish oil CH 4

      Vitamin E CH 12

Cirrhosis. See Liver Disease

Claudication

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Vitamin E CH 12

      Fish oil CH 4

Colitis

      Glutamine CH 9

      Zinc CH 9

      Probiotics CH 8

      Fish oil CH 3

Constipation

      Flaxseed CH 10

      Probiotics CH 8

      Magnesium CH 3

COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diease)

      NAC CH 14

      Vitamin E CH 12

      Magnesium CH 3

Crohn’s Disease

      Glutamine CH 9

      Zinc CH 9

      Probiotics CH 8

      Fish oil CH 4

Depression

      Ginkgo CH 13

      St. John’s wort CH 18

      SAMe CH 23

Diabetes

      B vitamins CH 11

       (Homocysteine)

      Coenzyme Q10 CH 6

      Vitamin E CH 12

      Magnesium CH 3

      Lipoic acid CH 23

      Pycnogenol CH 23

      Milk thistle CH 7

      Phosphatidyl serine CH 19

Diarrhea

      Probiotics CH 8

      FOS CH 8

Diverticulitis

      Flaxseed CH 10

Dysbiosis

      Probiotics CH 8

      FOS CH 8

Emphysema

      NAC CH 14

      Magnesium CH 3

      Selenium CH 12

      Zinc CH 12

Exercise

      BCAA CH 20

      Whey protein CH 20

Fatigue

      Tyrosine CH 15

      Coenzyme Q10 CH 6

      Ginseng

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Licorice CH 23

Flatulence

      Probiotics CH 8

Food Allergies

      Probiotics CH 8

      Quercetin CH 17

Hay Fever. See also Allergies

      Quercetin CH 17

      Nettles CH 17

      Bromelain CH 17

Headache

      Magnesium CH 3

      Feverfew CH 3

Heartburn

      DGL Licorice Ch 23

      Aloe vera Ch. 23

Heart Disease

      B vitamins CH 11

       (Homocysteine)

      Vitamin E CH 12

      Fish oil CH 4

      Flaxseed CH 10

      Lutein CH 16

      Magnesium CH 3

      NAC CH 14

      Resveratrol CH 23

      Coenzyme Q10 CH 6

Hepatitis. See Liver Disease

High Blood Pressure

      Magnesium CH 3

      Fish oil CH 4

      Taurine CH 4

HIV Support

      NAC CH. 14

      Milk thistle CH. 6

Hot Flashes

      Black cohosh CH 21

      Dong quai CH 21

      Isoflavones CH 5

Hypotension

      Tyrosine CH 15

      Ginseng CH 15

      Licorice CH 15

Hypothyroidism

      Tyrosine CH 15

Immune Disorders

      Glutamine CH 9

      Maitake mushroom CH 23

      Alkylglycerols CH 23

      Licorice CH 23

Impotence

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Arginine CH 23

Insomnia

      BCAA CH 20

      Valerian CH 18

      Passion flower CH 18

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

      Glutamine CH 9

      Flaxseed powder CH 10

      Probiotics CH 8

Liver Toxicity

      Milk thistle CH 7

      NAC CH 14

      Calcium-D-glucarate CH 23

Macular Degeneration

      Lutein CH 16

      Zeaxanthin CH 16

      Vitamin E CH 12

Memory

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Phosphatidyl serine CH 19

Obesity

      Chromium CH 23

      Green tea Extract 23

Menopause

      Black cohosh CH 21

      Dong quai CH 21

      Licorice CH 2

Menstrual Cramps

      Black cohosh CH 21

      Magnesium CH 3

Osteoporosis

      Magnesium CH 3

      Calcium CH 3

      Boron CH 3

      Isoflavones CH 5

Peptic Ulcers. See Heartburn

Periodontal Disease

      Co Q10 CH 6

      Aloe Vera CH 6

Peripheral Neuropathy

      Acetyl-L-carnitine CH 19

      Phosphatidyl serine CH 19

      Lipoic acid CH 23

Pregnancy

      Folic acid CH 11

      Calcium CH 3

      Magnesium CH 3

PMS

      Black cohosh CH 21

      Fish oil CH 6

      Dong quai CH 2

Prostate Cancer. See also Cancer

      Modified citrus pectin CH 23

      Green tea CH 23

      Lycopene CH 23

Psoriasis

      Milk thistle CH 7

      Alkylglycerols CH 23

      Fish oil CH 4

Raynaud’s Phenomena

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Magnesium CH 3

      Niacin CH 3

Skin Cancer. See also Cancer

      Milk thistle CH 7

      Green tea CH 23

Stress

      Tyrosine CH 15

Tinnitus

      Ginkgo CH 13

      Magnesium CH 3

Urinary Tract Infection

      Probiotics CH 8

      Cranberry CH 8

Author’s Note

Patients with particular medical conditions should consult their physicians before beginning any nutritional program. This book is not intended to be a substitute for medical care or advice. Since nutraceuticals are used for specific medical conditions, they should be used under the guidance of a qualified medical practitioner. Anyone with a known medical condition, on medication, or with specific health concerns should consult their physician before beginning any treatment in this book.

Dosages are meant to be used as guidelines only and may vary according to the specific needs of each individual. Supplements should be incorporated into a comprehensive health program. Individuals seeking a healthier lifestyle should incorporate foods which contain the appropriate nutraceuticals or vitamins whenever possible. Good sources are highlighted within each chapter and at the end of this book.

1

Everyday Miracles

Today you can change your life, stay healthy and reverse aging with a specific roster of essential vitamins, minerals and nutraceuticals. The Vitamin Prescription for Life teaches you how a specific list of super-nutrients can do the work of natural medicines. The real miracle-nature’s power to heal-has always been available to us. But now science has given us the tools to understand the mystery of healing foods and nutrients. We can study and isolate the chemical composition of plants, fruits and vegetables, fish, flowers, berries, and herbs. We can explain just why they powerfully impact our cells and our lives. These days, we know what a nutrient is doing to our blood, our cell membranes, even our DNA, and how it protects us from cancer or heart disease or thinning bones. And we can often measure the effects in our body within hours of ingestion. We can watch the miracle in action through the powerful lens of modern science.

And then we can change our lives. Today, front-page news about medical triumphs not only covers heart transplants or even the marvelous and sophisticated science that maps the human gene. It’s about the power of nutrition. This kind of power:

• Tomatoes may cut the risk of deadly prostate cancer by nearly half.

• A modest dose of a single B vitamin, folic acid, can prevent tragic and common birth defects.

• Within weeks of eating fish or supplementing your diet with fish oils, your body’s estrogen levels shift dramatically in favor of the most protective anticancer form of estrogen.

• Daily portions of broccoli can cause similar strong shifts in estrogen balance and prevent cancer.

• Taking fish oil capsules for a mere twelve weeks significantly slows the growth of colon tumors.

• Olive oil lowers the risk of breast cancer and heart disease.

• Green tea can reduce the risk of heart attacks.

Nudged between today’s headlines is one of the great stories of our time: that nutrition can literally save lives. I don’t claim to offer a cure-all for every person, nor can I magically pull anybody I treat back from the brink of death. What I do promise is that in many cases of ill health, from mild malaise to life-threatening disorders, nutritional medicine can make an astounding and life-altering impact. Moreover, we can do more than correct illness. We can prevent it when we understand how nutrients can help maintain our vitality and good health. You will find this book full of stories of healing that may surprise and inspire you.

THE COMMON THREAD

I’ve been practicing medicine for over twenty years, and although the field is deepening and refining itself every week, I’ve found that I often rely on a versatile, hardy, and relatively small army of researched nutrients to do much of the healing work. Some of these are supernutrients that seem to work to prevent disease across many categories. Soy, for instance, can help boost and balance hormones and can help prevent cancer. Fish oils seem to work wonders in chronic inflammatory diseases, from asthma to colitis, yet they are also useful for thinning the blood and thereby protecting the heart. Ginkgo, an ancient and powerful herb, also thins the blood, fights allergies, and improves circulation throughout the body, so that it is useful in everything from heart disease to Alzheimer’s disease.

Many of these nutrients work synergistically. I have assembled nutritional programs that heal chronic illness, fight fatigue, boost the immune system, and help balance hormones. My programs combine both common and relatively unknown nutraceuticals: amino acids like glutamine and newer compounds like lutein and modified citrus pectin. You may be stumbling over these words now, but by the book’s end, I hope they will be familiar friends to you.

What I try to offer you in this book is a healthy way of eating and living, along with the most powerful nutrients known to medicine. I call them super supplements, and I’ve studied both how they work and why they work.

These nutrients are part of an overall program that I offer my patients, including healthy lifestyle changes, exercise, and stress-reducing activities like meditation and yoga. I don’t believe that nutrients are magic bullets all by themselves. They rarely heal illness if you go on eating an unhealthy diet laden with saturated fats, processed foods, and sugar. I do believe that if you eat well, live well, and then add one or more of the necessary super supplements, 80 percent of chronic illnesses can be reversed or prevented entirely.

Humanity’s healthiest diets have evolved over tens of thousands of years, in far-flung and radically different climates, from the heart-protecting diet of the Eskimos, which is largely made up of fish, to the cancer-fighting rice-and-vegetable-based cuisines of the Chinese. Yet today all these far-flung foods are available to us, right here at home. Using everything from North Alaskan salmon to umeboshi plums, wild game to passion fruit, bok choy to spelt, we can create a biologically optimum diet that incorporates the latest findings on nutrition and healing. We now know what broccoli does inside the cells to help prevent cancer, how fish oil gets absorbed into the cell membrane and prevents inflammation, and just what chemical magic soybeans trigger to help prevent cancer.

Call it ancient wisdom transformed by science.

NUTRITION IN ACTION

John, a thirty-seven-year-old executive, was rushed to the hospital after collapsing. When he regained consciousness, his doctors told him he suffered from a severe case of adult-onset diabetes. His blood sugar reading was 830, nearly 700 points above normal. For the rest of his life, he was told, he would have to inject himself twice a day with insulin, or he would die.

John walked into my office emotionally shattered. He was clean-shaven and fit, with brown hair and blue eyes. He admitted that for months he’d been feeling thirsty and parched and had urinated frequently and that foods had begun tasting odd to him. But he’d had no idea he was suffering from adult-onset diabetes.

Now I’m injecting myself with insulin twice a day just like they told me to. But I don’t feel well. I’m fatigued. I still crave sweets like crazy. And I’m scared. I don’t want to stay on a drug the rest of my life.

The tip-off, however, was when he told me he craved sweets. It turned out that John’s diet consisted of meat, daily pasta, and lots of sugary sodas and fruits. It was a diet extremely high in simple sugars. I put him on exactly the opposite diet: one that emphasized fish, vegetables, and beans and cut out all refined starches and most fruits.

But I didn’t stop there. I knew John’s body was depleted in certain nutrients and needed extra help. I also put him on special supplements, some of which included the following:

• Chromium picolinate, which stabilizes blood sugar and lowers insulin resistance

• Magnesium, which is often deficient in diabetics, perhaps because insulin surges deplete it

• Fish oils, which allow the body to utilize insulin more effectively

• Garcinia cambogia, another herb that helps the body metabolize fats and sugars more effectively

After only six weeks of nutritional healing, John was weaned off all his insulin, and his blood sugar was normal. Elated, he returned to his doctor for a checkup. His stunned physician didn’t know what to say. John’s diabetes stayed in remission for over two years.

Another patient, Alicia, an outgoing forty-eight-year-old kindergarten teacher with curly brown hair and a big smile, was told that she had breast cancer and must undergo surgery and radiation immediately. She was also told she might be left with disfiguring scars. She agreed to the treatment but came to see me as well, hoping to boost her immune system and heal as rapidly as possible. I have a very specific anticancer protocol that systematically starves the tumor while feeding the individual. We flooded her system with anticancer and immune-boosting nutrients and foods, as well as my anticancer diet, and added topical treatments such as aloe vera to minimize any scars from surgery and radiation. The nutrients I prescribed included the following:

• Large doses of antioxidants, especially vitamin C

• Omega-3 essential fatty acids, which are protective against cancer

• Topical aloe vera to be applied to her surgical wound

A few months later, Alicia’s surgeon called to tell me she had recovered better than any patient he’d treated. He told me, When Alicia went for a follow-up mammogram, they could not find the surgical scar. It had completely healed. What did you give her?

The speed and power of nutritional healing are sometimes astonishing. Blood test results can change in a matter of weeks with the proper diet and supplements. In fact, many nutrients cause changes in the blood within hours—changes that can be measured. In other cases, the healing is slow but can reverse stubborn and persistent problems. For eighteen months, I worked with a man deformed by psoriasis. He was covered with red and scaly patches from head to toe. He reminded me of a raw, peeling fish. The cortisone his doctors had prescribed in ever-increasing doses no longer helped.

I tested him for food allergies and eliminated all possible allergenic foods from his diet. In addition, I prescribed these nutrients:

• Essential fatty acids, including those found in fish oil and primrose oil, which help stop inflammation

• Milk thistle and dandelion, herbs that help the liver detoxify harmful substances (Whenever a person suffers from skin problems like psoriasis, it’s a reasonable bet that their liver is having trouble detoxifying.)

After eighteen months, not a single scaly patch was left. I thought I would have to live the rest of my life with this disfiguring illness, he told me. I thought I’d never go on a date or go to the gym. I’m in a state of shock.

NUTRIENTS AS EDIBLE VACCINES

Vaccines can protect you from lethal illness. So can foods. Can we refer to our foods, then, as edible vaccines? As potent and protective agents that help prevent disease?

I like to think so. Consider this:

• Certain vitamins (such as vitamins C and A) can reduce the recurrence of bladder cancer by 50 percent.

• Flaxseed can slow tumor growth.

• Milk thistle can reverse liver enzyme elevation.

• Green tea, an ancient staple of Chinese society, has a powerfully protective effect against lung cancer, and in one study from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, green tea drinkers had a 60 percent lower risk of cancer.

• Foods high in magnesium and potassium can lower high blood pressure in weeks.

• The nutrient coenzyme Q10 has heart-healing properties—in clinical studies, it has sometimes eliminated the need for blood pressure medication, and in one small study helped prevent breast cancer.

A little over half a century ago, vitamin C was first discovered. In 1958, free radicals were discovered. In the past two decades alone, an incredible amount of research on nutrients has spilled out of laboratories and universities. When we think of disease-fighting nutrients today, we don’t just worry about vitamins A or E or C. We study the hormones and chemicals in plants and herbs. We study substances with long scientific-sounding names, like sulforaphanes (in broccoli). These compounds have now been found to be essential elements for our health. For instance, we know that a cell has to jump through many biochemical hoops before it becomes malignant. But at almost every hoop on the way to cancer, there are compounds in vegetables and fruits that can slow or even stop the process. Within hours after eating broccoli, sulforaphane is coursing through the bloodstream, activating enzymes that literally whisk carcinogens out of the cell so that the body can discard them. And within weeks of eating large amounts of broccoli, a compound called indole-3-carbinol dramatically lowers the form of estrogen that promotes cancer. These are dramatic and rapid shifts, and it turns out that most natural foods—from cumin to cauliflower, garlic to strawberries—provide potent health factors.

WHERE’S THE CATCH?

No matter what your health history, you can start to change it within days just by changing your diet and adding the right supplements, because at the cellular level, your body responds almost immediately.

What’s the catch? There is no catch—if you don’t mind getting a Ph.D. in nutrition and studying all day every day.

I say that because there is now so much information available it can be dizzying. I did an Internet search recently on phytochemicals and health and found over eighty thousand references. As I began to leaf through the first few hundred of those studies I had printed out from my search, the results were tremendously exciting to read about.

Mass media regularly report nutritional discoveries fresh from the trenches of science, making all of us lay scientists. For instance, a drug company in Spain—Pharma Mar—was working with the National Cancer Institute to scour the earth’s oceans in search of new medicines, medicines they might find in a frog’s venom or an algae’s protein. From a library of more than twenty thousand samples of marine organisms, nearly 350 compounds have already been isolated, and some have shown strong anticancer potential. William Shurtleff of the Soyfoods Center, a bookstore in Lafayette, California, even maintains a nutritional database on soy. It contains 45,000 articles. Add that to the fact that at the turn of the century, there were only two tofu suppliers in the entire country, and now we have two hundred suppliers producing 65 million pounds a year, and you begin to understand that this is not a revolution that can be overlooked.

This book is your guide into a new world, one rich with possibilities, where nutrition becomes high-tech medicine—where you can offer your body precisely what it needs at a cellular level to protect and heal itself. In this book, I offer you the twenty top nutrients that I use in my practice, and fifteen new nutraceuticals that are still so new they aren’t widely known, but hold great promise. These are nutrients that I think of as magic molecules, smart nutrients with their own kind of intelligence. I feel myself to be a kind of fascinated outsider, peering into the intelligence of another world.

If you come along on the journey of this book, you will discover just how smart these magic molecules are. In the era of the gene, when we have mapped the genetic code, and when we regularly read reports about genes for cancer or other hereditary illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, we are sometimes too impressed with science’s technical prowess. Discovering a gene does not mean we understand how the symphony of genes works or just how potent a single gene might be. Sometimes we give away too much personal power. We believe that genes and tests and drugs have all the answers—when, instead, we should be asking questions. Not long ago, the New York Times headline stated: A Single Gene Linked to 95% of All Breast Cancers. This is not true, as we have since discovered. That gene does not necessarily lead to breast cancer. It seems to be one flute playing in a whole orchestra—and we don’t yet know how big a part that flute has. Genes rarely act alone. They usually act as a symphony, playing off each other. And they can be activated or calmed down—and that process depends in large part on environment, particularly diet.

Consider another important study by Erich V. Kliewer of the Australian National University and Ken R. Smith of the University of Utah. They studied women who had emigrated to Australia or Canada as adults. Nearly sixty groups of immigrants from all parts of the world were studied, and the breast cancer rate of their homelands was compared to that of their new environment. It inevitably adjusted itself to the new environment. Within a mere thirty years, the rate of breast cancer in these émigrés was indistinguishable from that of local residents. Noel Weiss, professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle, remarked, The importance of this study is that it reinforces our notion that your risk of breast cancer isn’t something you’re born with. We don’t have to passively accept the dictatorship of the genes.

At the renowned Strang Medical Clinic, the impact of diet on the genes that regulate estrogen in our body was studied. One type of estrogen is associated with a low risk of cancer. Another type is associated with a high risk. Researchers found that merely by adding omega-3 fatty acids, from fish and fish oil, to the diet, the gene’s activity changed within a mere matter of weeks. That means we can regulate our genes simply by altering the foods and supplements we take.

If that’s not enough evidence, consider the widely reported research on birth defects and folic acid. A study in the Lancet reported that some mothers pass on a gene to their babies that causes birth defects like spina bifida. But this only happens if those mothers do not consume enough folic acid, a common B vitamin. That’s because the bad gene cannot function properly unless it has extra folic acid. When it gets what it needs, it’s fine. That same gene may be involved in heart disease as well, since it increases the risk of coronary illness by two to three times.

So come explore the same super-nutrients that I use every day to help my patients achieve optimal health. They can be your bridge to a better life where food and nutrition offer not just pleasure but optimal health. The Vitamin Prescription for Life gives you a detailed tour through the nutrients that address and often help heal the most common modern conditions, from allergies and asthma to eye problems, heart disease, cancer, reproductive difficulties, arthritis, poor digestion, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and more. In this book I will explain how and why these nutrients work, and I will offer the stories of many of my patients whose lives have changed through nutritional and integrative medicine.

2

My Own Odyssey

In this chapter, I will tell you a bit about my own personal experience with healing nutrients, as well as suggest a basic way of eating that is an absolutely necessary foundation for health. As I’ve said before, nutritional supplements are amazingly potent, but they are not a substitute for a good diet.

I have been asthmatic since I was a child. In my late twenties, however, I nearly died after an asthma attack spiraled out of control. I had been unable to sleep, after an interminable night of wheezing, and toward morning I took a few puffs from my bronchial inhaler. It was supposed to open up my lungs, but instead my throat began to close. I felt as if I’d been locked in an airless trunk. Every cell in my body seemed to be sounding an alarm. I kept trying to breathe, but even the deepest, most ragged breath left me dizzy and breathless.

My condition began spiraling dangerously out of control. My friends both physicians, rushed me to the Emergency room , where I was quickly triaged to the Intensive Care Unit, While I lay in the ICU unable to breathe or speak, starring at a machine that could forcibly pump air into my lung I was transformed. By evening I was simply unresponsive but I could hear the doctors discuss how difficult my situation was and even question whether or not I would make it. That night, for a time , I was literally outside of myself, and seeing myself gasp for air became determined to do whatever was necessary to turn my health around. I struggled , with every breathe to survive that sleepless night and as morning came I was more determined than ever to begin this revolution. I began examining every detail of my life, a process that would change the way I lived and practiced medicine forever.

That attack was my wakeup call. For years my health had been deteriorating, but I didn’t want to admit it. In 1981, I’d fallen ill with mononucleosis, which is caused by a virus. In 1982, I began to suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, as well as muscle pain (fibromyalgia) in my legs. At one point, I was so ill I had to take all my courses and exams at home.

Yet by 1986, I’d become a practicing doctor, teaching and seeing patients in the clinic of the medical school where I’d graduated. I was living every day with battle fatigue, but I’d gotten used to it. After my hospitalization, I sought out expertise from a center specializing in the treatment of the most serious cases of asthma and have pioneered allergy tests for a wide range of foods, airborne toxins, food dyes, and additives.

Doctors at the center gave me capsules containing food extracts without telling me what was in each capsule. During one food challenge, my sinuses became congested, and I correctly guessed that the capsule contained tomato extract. It was easy to guess, since this particular congestion occurred whenever I ate tomatoes.

Foods can have profound effects on health. In my case, severe allergies made eating a difficult and even life-threatening experience. My body had been telling me the truth for years, but until that moment, I did not listen. Often it’s hard for us to listen, even when the evidence is brutally obvious. In my case, each sensitivity expressed itself differently. Wheat might trigger an asthma attack; sesame might make my lips sting and swell.

Why did different foods affect me in such different ways? Because they contain distinctly different proteins. Over the next few years, I eliminated every single food to which I was sensitive. I stopped eating processed and junk foods. I purified my diet by sweeping it clean of unhealthy, fatty, and refined foods. I relied heavily on fish, fresh vegetables and fruit, whole grains, and free-range chicken. And I studied nutritional medicine closely so that I could flood my own body with healing nutrients in the form of supplements. I knew that after so many years of poor eating and ill health, my body needed as much help as possible.

I remember taking a trip down to Chinatown, in New York City, where I live. It was as if I’d been transported to another country: there in a small shop was a wizened old man behind a counter, measuring out what looked like barks and dried plants of mysterious origin. I told him my problem and was given several herbs, including ginkgo leaf and ginseng root, and ordered to cook them in soup for eight hours!

I started to shop for food in an entirely new way. I slowed down and started to notice the colors of fruits and vegetables, from purple potatoes to the gleam of fresh raspberries to the lemony yellow of summer squash. I learned that the vibrancy of color reflects a food’s content of bioflavonoids and important antioxidants that help prevent disease. I began to understand the importance of freshness, ripeness, and flavor—all markers of important nutrients needed to maximize our health. I learned to hold and feel produce, to weigh it in my hands when I was testing for ripeness. I’d grown up eating iceberg lettuce: now I was discovering a whole new world of greens, from arugula to watercress, romaine, bibb, and Boston lettuce, dandelion greens, raw parsley, and spinach. And I was learning to combine them all into delicious creative salads, with fresh dressings made of lemon juice, honey, mustard, and spices.

I experimented with vegetables native to Asia, including bok choy, lotus root, bamboo shoots, and Chinese squash. I felt, in a way, like I’d traveled back centuries and come across some beautiful plant or root and foraged and picked it out myself, choosing the freshest and most unblemished specimen I could find. Suddenly I wasn’t looking just at food but at a medicine chest filled with powerful nutrients that could detoxify my liver and recharge my own immune system. I was becoming connected to my health by understanding what I was putting into my body. I thought about the Chinese herbalist and the centuries of experience his culture had provided, the knowledge of foods that can enhance health and treat disease. I began to investigate herbal knowledge in other cultures.

I eventually bought a small rosemary tree and set up window boxes with herbs. Fresh herbs serve as a reminder to me that I am connected daily with nature and healing.

I began to look at my meals as medical miracles, as healing treasures. For the most part, I didn’t miss chocolate, cakes, and hamburgers, though occasionally I craved them. And occasionally I ate them too. Nobody’s perfect! But this began to change over time. The better I ate, the better I felt, and soon my desire for these foods diminished.

It worked. Now, years later, from the safe perch of recovered health and a nutritional practice that is both gratifying and inspiring, I can look back and see that period of my life as a healing crisis. I was burned and almost destroyed in the crucible of that crisis, but it was in the end a gift. I would not be the kind of doctor I am today if I had not almost died trying to be a different kind of doctor. I would not be out in the trenches, working with my patients to help them change their lives through nutrition. And, I’m glad to say, I’m only one of a growing number of physicians around the country who are as excited as I am about the healing potential of nutritional medicine.

The compounds in foods can harm or heal us. As Paul Lachance, professor of nutrition and food science at Rutgers University, says, the healing nutrients in foods, or nutraceuticals, represent an alternative to high-tech rescue medicine. By using natural therapies, we could save several billion health care dollars and prevent 70 percent of our current diseases. Just by eating the right foods! We’ve come a long way.

THE KEY TO PLEASURE: HEALTHY SUBSTITUTION

Why is it so hard for some of us to give up foods like ice cream, juicy steaks, and french fried potatoes, especially if we know that eating those foods regularly is actually making us ill and shortening our lives?

When I ask my patients why they continue to eat these foods, they say, Because they taste good, and they make me feel good. For many of us, life’s stresses and chronic illnesses are so difficult to handle that the quick, easy reward of food is the first thing we reach for. Food that is sweet or creamy or crispy or fatty. Rich, fried instantly gratifying food. Food that has good mouth feel, as cooks are wont to say. Another reason is the unavailability of good food. Unfortunately, junk food is much more readily available than good foods, particularly in the winter months. But science has been at work rectifying this situation, so that many of the important nutrients found in food are also available in supplement form.

Most of the time, however, when I ask people to think about how they really feel within an hour or two of eating junk foods, they reply, Well, actually, I felt tired. I had a headache. I had indigestion and gas.

The truth is that healthy foods can taste delicious too. And in the long run, health itself is the ultimate feel good reward. So the only answer is to replace our feel-good treats with healthy food.

MY HEALING DIET

Here’s how I did it.

First, I changed what I drank. I used to drink processed iced tea with sugar. Now I put a whole pint of organic strawberries into a pitcher of green tea while it’s still hot and then pour it over ice. Green tea and strawberries are loaded with plant chemicals that fight chronic illness. Ellagic acid in strawberries may help prevent cancer, and proanthocyanidins in green tea help prevent colon cancer and improve digestion. I recommend this tea to anyone who suffers from intestinal problems or is at risk of colon cancer.

In winter, I make a soup base out of pure vegetable stock made from onions (cancer fighter), parsley (blood purifier), carrots (loaded with carotene), and root vegetables like turnips and potatoes. I add cayenn (helps asthma and circulation) and ginger (good for digestion) and an assortment of vegetables, puree that stock, and freeze it. When I want my own homemade soup, it’s ready to go. And it’s truly healing. The same can be done with healthy juicing.

No more orange juice in a carton or apple juice from a jar. Instead, I make my own fresh juices. I’ve found that a combination of ginger and carrot juice in the morning is really energizing. And it’s actually a lot more delicious!

From time to time, I test my own boundaries. For example, recently I was ordering organic pizza from a nearby gourmet shop for lunch every day. The pizza had a thin crispy whole-wheat crust and organic vegetables like yellow and red peppers, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Perfectly healthy, right? And delicious. Except after a few weeks, I noticed I was feeling fatigued after lunch. It turns out that although these days I can tolerate wheat, I can’t eat it every day. I will start to develop my food sensitivities again.

So I stopped ordering my healthy pizza for a while and returned to the lunch that makes me feel the best: fish and whole grains, along with a fresh salad.

WHY FOOD IS NOT ENOUGH

Even so, I learned that as powerfully healing as food can be, most of us need more than food in order to return to optimal health. The damage caused to tissue by illness and inflammation is tremendous, especially if the illness is chronic, and it needs to be corrected by flooding the body with nutrients targeted to that specific illness. Even for healthy people, supplements can be invaluable, because almost all of us have inherited genetic weaknesses that cause us to be more vulnerable