Category Archives: Complementary and Integrative Medicine

UTMB Perinatal Hospice

  By cageary | May 10, 2013 - 10:23 pm | , ,
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We have recently updated the website for our Perinatal Hospice Program at UTMB and we are honored to have a contribution from the parents of our first enrolled family.  Please visit our site and see Abby’s story.  If we can be of help to anyone dealing with a lethal diagnosis in an unborn baby, please feel free to contact us through our website’s contact page.  http://www.utmb.edu/perinatalhospice/

Perinatal Hospice and Palliative Care

Cara Geary, MD, PhD, is an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Neonatology and director of UTMB’s Perinatal Hospice and Palliative Care Program. Among her interests, she works to enhance humanism and compassion in medicine.

Kale: Can you really eat it?

  By Kristen | May 2, 2013 - 6:42 pm | ,
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

At a recent fundraiser for Meals on Wheels, the wonderful chef at the Galveston Country Club served a lovely salad made with kale.

A friend sitting with us who runs one of Galveston’s finest healthy eating establishments expressed an opinion that many of us may hold about kale: it is a nice ornamental in your garden or a garnish on the plate, but who would eat that bitter stuff?

So why, when a friend of my wife’s gave us a couple big bunches of organically homegrown kale was I as happy as a 10-year-old with a new pony? Because kale is a really healthy, nutrient-dense addition to the menu plan and offers many ways to enjoy it. Americans are falling in love with kale like never before, even raw kale. (more…)

Make room for some down time

  By Kristen | April 18, 2013 - 8:44 pm |
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

It seems to be a mark of status in our society to be forever busy. Ask someone how they are and a likely response is, “Busy.”

Now there is nothing wrong with attending to business, family and other responsibilities. However, it seems to me that the slavish value we give to always being busy often goes too far.

What about down time? What about taking time when we just stop our endless busyness to rest, reflect, recuperate, and recharge? Isn’t this just as great a value to our health and happiness as constant motion?

My favorite Chinese philosopher, Lao Tsu had much wisdom to offer us on this topic. More than 2,500 years ago, Lao Tsu said “Always be busy, and life is beyond hope.” And on the benefit of quietude: “Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action?” Here’s another: “A truly good man does nothing, yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, yet much remains to be done.”

His classic book, the Tao Te Ching (quotes from translation by Feng and English, Vintage books, 1972), is filled with many similar notions. Inaction is not inactivity and sometimes the best course to allow things to develop naturally. Too much success is not an advantage, nor is constantly meddling with the world out of discontent.

In fact, being content and accepting things how they are, as contrary as that may seem to our work ethos and progressive tendencies, is often the most direct path to personal satisfaction and immediate joy. It can also bring balance and a healthy perspective to our daily duties and even keep us from annoying others.
After a couple of weeks in which it seemed we had 25 hours of work to do in a day, my wife and I decided for a weekend of down time. Though we had several social events, fests, galas, and gatherings on our calendar, we thought the better of it and just hung out together at home. We did simple domestic things like cooking, gardening, catching up on some reading, taking extra long naps, and enjoying the fabulous weather.

We tinkered on some minor projects and enjoyed time with family. Glorious! Research supports such stress-less times as ways to improve our mood, memory, immunity and resilience.

Even a few minutes a day of quiet meditation or prayer can help prepare us for the wisest course of actions in the day ahead.

So maybe the next time someone asks you how you are, instead of answering, “Busy!” you might think better of it and say something like, “Peaceful” or “Content” or even “Relaxed.”

They will likely look at you sideways and shake their heads. But just maybe, you have taught yourself and them a valuable lesson in life. The harmony of life is like music, the rest notes help make the melody.

The Right Choices for a Healthy, Smart, Super Baby

  By Moderator | April 2, 2013 - 6:04 pm | ,
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

Infertility, premature birth, children with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum and attention deficient disorders, obesity, and diabetes are now rampant in our society.  Scientists have determined these problems have been increasing rapidly over the last decade and longer.  

No single cause for these trends been agreed upon by specialists. Factors such as brain injury, genetics, behavioral, and social problems all play a likely role.

I am going to suggest a not so radical idea. These problems in the ability to conceive, to have a healthy pregnancy, and a healthy baby are primarily linked by several common causes: nutrition, lifestyle, and environment.

To put it basically, we are living very different lives than our ancestors whose diet was mainly whole, home-cooked foods, without the chemicals that are part of our contemporary environment. In the past, babies were all breast-fed and obesity in adults or children was rare.  And how about daily activity levels? Stress?

Our environment has changed radically. Foods are now highly processed, pesticides and insecticides in them are common, chemicals from plastics disrupt vital hormonal pathways, and nutrient deficiencies alter expression of genes and increase birth defects. (more…)

Women’s hearts, women’s health

  By Kristen | March 8, 2013 - 7:27 pm | , ,
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

In case you missed it, February was Women’s Heart Health Month, perfectly fitting with Valentine’s Day in the middle of the month. It isn’t too late to wear a red dress to support awareness of heart disease in women.

The pink ribbon of breast cancer awareness is easily recognized and well known, but the red dress of heart disease is not. Yet, roughly 10 times more women die from heart disease annually as do from breast cancer. Since the mid 1980s, more women have been dying annually of heart disease than men.

Part of the problem here is focus and part is history. Breast cancer is enormously emotional, frightening, and potentially disfiguring. The good news is that it is more and more curable with good screening, early detection, treatment and follow-up. Also, many of the same lifestyle choices to reduce breast cancer risk also reduce heart disease risk.

An important issue is that heart disease symptoms in women are often subtle and less obvious than in men. The common triad of chest pain brought on by exercise and relieved by rest, which is a common, presenting sign of heart problems is not always so clear-cut in women. Because women’s heart disease tends to occur in smaller vessels and is more diffuse symptoms can present more generically. These include fatigue, shortness of breath, indigestion, nausea, faintness, upper back, neck or shoulder pain.

Let me give you the example of Lila, a lovely woman in my practice now in her mid 60s, who is now on the transplant list for a new heart. She seemed to be at low risk for heart disease. She was a nonsmoker, thin, active, with well-controlled blood pressure, blood sugars and cholesterol. She had also breast-fed her several children lowering her risk of breast cancer. (more…)

Making diabetes care less costly

  By Moderator | February 19, 2013 - 7:51 pm | , ,
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

Some good news came out recently for those with type 2, non-insulin dependent diabetics that will lower the burden and costs of your care. If your hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) level is under 8 and you are on oral medications, you don’t need to monitor your glucose daily beyond the first 6 months of starting therapy. This is also true of those on medical nutrition therapy. A review of multiple studies by the Cochrane Collaboration found that monitoring home blood sugars 4-7 times a week in such patients does not reduce the HbA1C more than less frequent self-monitoring of 1-2 times a week.

This is good news since the cost of glucose strips and the discomfort and inconvenience of daily finger sticks has long been a nuisance to patients. Diabetes is a costly disease already in terms of human suffering from serious issues such as heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, and circulatory problems sometimes requiring amputation. It is also expensive to manage diabetes due to the costs of medications, monitoring, doctor visits, testing supplies, special shoes, and hospitalizations.

So at least, this one component of perhaps reducing your monitoring frequency should make your life easier.  Consult with your doctor about this change in recommendations to make sure it is appropriate in your case. (more…)

Chocolate, Love, and Health

  By Moderator | February 12, 2013 - 8:50 pm | ,
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by Dr. Victor Sierpina

by Dr. Victor Sierpina

Maybe the reason chocolate is associated with Valentine’s Day is that it is associated with the release of phenylethylamine (PEA), a chemical released when we are falling in love. Chocolate also is known to affect pleasure receptors in our brain by stimulating endorphins. The theobromines in chocolate act like a mild dose of caffeine and are a brain stimulant. Of course, the carbs, sugar, and fat content of the typical chocolate bar all give us a burst of pleasure as well.

What you might not know is that dark chocolate, defined as chocolate with at least a 70% cacao (pronounced Ka-Kow) content, is a true health food. It is rich in anti-oxidants and packs three or more times the antioxidant strength of such antioxidant powerhouses as blueberries, green tea, and red wine. Though chocolate has a lot of saturated fats, they do not raise cholesterol since they are primarily oleic acid, which is like olive oil, and stearic acid, which is converted by the body to healthy mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Chocolate contains abundant minerals and vitamins and perhaps its long considered benefits in alleviating premenstrual symptoms have more to do with the amount of magnesium and iron in chocolate than its effects on the brain. Polyphenols and other flavonoids in chocolate protect blood vessels against cholesterol, are low glycemic, and help control insulin secretion. Emerging science shows compounds in chocolate can help reduce cancer risk, improve immunity, and increase memory. (more…)

Healthy nuts: A super food for your daily diet

  By Moderator | February 5, 2013 - 5:54 pm |
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

Checking out of Bucee’s on the way back from San Antonio last week, we grabbed a 99-cent pack of hot cashews that festooned the exit counter. The aroma and appearance were hard to resist. We both shrugged, smiled, and said, “Why not?”

Let’s face it, nuts have always had a bit of a seedy reputation. Calling someone a nut isn’t exactly a compliment. How would you like being called a health nut? The old song about, “Nuts, hot nuts, you get them anyway you can!” was truly edgy for the 60’s. Why are nuts so consistently hidden away in our favorite desserts and cookies, like they are somehow illegal, furtive, and suspect? It somehow reminds me of stashing marijuana in brownies. On airplanes or in fine restaurants, we get little packs of nuts more suitable for a four-year old’s appetite and hands than for an adult. (more…)

Some Home Remedies for Colds and Flu

  By Moderator | January 10, 2013 - 11:01 pm | ,
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

So you have a cold or flu and feel miserable. It is that time of year. Your nose is runny, your throat is sore, you are coughing, sneezing, and are achy all over. Your appetite is poor and you are tired and irritable. What to do?

First off, don’t pick up the phone or go into your doctor to ask for an antibiotic. Not only do antibiotics not work for colds and flu, they have side effects and may increase the presence of drug resistant bacteria. Antiviral therapy for influenza (not the stomach “flu”) can shorten the course of the illness by a day or two if started in the first 48 hours of the illness. Get a flu shot to prevent getting it in the first place.

There is a surprising lack of evidence on over-the-counter cold remedies containing decongestants and antihistamines. These may provide some relief in older children and adults but side effects can limit their usefulness. Avoid if pregnant or in children under 5 as they are one of the 10 leading causes of death in this age group. (more…)

Massage: Real Medicine

  By Moderator | December 31, 2012 - 10:36 pm |
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Dr. Victor Sierpina

Dr. Victor Sierpina

In the upcoming New Year, give yourself or someone close to you a gift of healing: regular massage treatments. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, stated that the essential elements of medicine were, “Massage, music, and gymnastic.” So in addition to the healing power of the arts and the benefits of exercise, the importance of massage in medicine has been appreciated for millennia.

When did you last get a real massage, beyond a friendly backrub? A professional massage is a proven way to relieve stress and is highly effective for many medical conditions, chronic pain, sports injuries, even the side effects of cancer treatment such as lymphedema. Dr. Tiffany Field of the Touch Research Institute in Florida has been one of the leaders in the scientific study of massage. Her research, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, has demonstrated the benefits of massage in multiple conditions: increasing weight gain in preterm infants, enhancing attentiveness, alleviating depressive symptoms, reducing pain, reducing stress hormones, and improving immune function. (more…)