DrCarney.com Blog

Losing a child is every parent's worst fear. No one would argue that nurturing and protecting our children to the best of our ability should be one of our highest priorities. We make sure our children get enough sleep, do their homework, brush their teeth, limit their TV exposure, and enroll them in sports. Yet...

Losing a child is every parent's worst fear. No one would argue that nurturing and protecting our children to the best of our ability should be one of our highest priorities. We make sure our children get enough sleep, do their homework, brush their teeth, limit their TV exposure, and enroll them in sports. Yet...

So often we think of MODERN as good, or even best, and often it is when we consider technological advances  and all that technology has done for us (although there are negative effects as well). Nevertheless, the one place where MODERN is decidedly NOT best, or even remotely good for us, is in our MODERN diet, created...

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." These are wise words spoken by Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician, that is "considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine." The Hippocratic Oath which is named after Hippocrates, outlines medical ethics for doctors and is still used today. Part of the oath reads: "I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone."

Sadly though, "medical care and errors" has become the third leading cause of death in the U.S. It is estimated that over 400,000 deaths per year are associated with medical error. Examples of this include infections in hospitals, unnecessary surgery, hospital errors, adverse reactions and interactions to prescription drugs, administration of the wrong drug to the wrong patient, and wrong diagnosis. The good news is that we can avoid many of these unnecessary treatments contributing to these statistics when we eat a health-supporting diet.

You will absolutely enjoy watching the short video clips from the eye-opening documentary Processed People (from Veg Source) featuring interviews from many of our nation's leading health and nutrition experts. There are a total of 14 clips, each between one-two minutes in length. Plant-based health advocates such as John Robbins, Jeff Novick, Doctors John McDougall, Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., Jay Gordon, Joel Fuhrman, Pam Popper, Milton Mills, and Jeffrey Masson discuss what we can do to prevent becoming "Processed People."

Processed People is a 40-minute snapshot of how our nation's "health care system" has become a profit-driven "sick care system." This system has become very successful in selling sickness by adopting a pill or surgical procedure mentality to solve every health care problem.

Dr. John McDougall has been studying, writing, and speaking out about the effects of nutrition on disease for over 30 years. In this two-minute video excerpt, Dr. McDougall talks about his early experiences as a sugar plantation doctor on the Big Island of Hawaii where he provided medical care to three generations of people.

During this time, his observations led to a clear understanding regarding the association between diet and disease. Those first-generation patients who had originated from China, Japan and the Philippians ate diets rich in starchy grains and vegetables; as a result, they were fit, trim, and had no evidence of heart disease or diabetes. They also maintained their good health and activity well into their eighth and ninth decade. Their children and grandchildren however, traded their traditional vegetable and starch-based diets for the typical American diet. As their diets became more Americanized, they became sick and obese.

Vegans have lower body weights as well as cholesterol levels, according to a recent study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and reported by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine:   "Those who consume vegan diets have better cholesterol levels than people who eat meat, fish, dairy, and/or egg products, according to a...

Olive oil is as American as baseball and apple pie. Its monounsaturated omega-3's have long been touted for being "heart healthy." But if olive oil ready did protect our hearts from heart disease, then why do one out of every three Americans die from it? Perhaps it doesn't really protect our hearts after all. Clever...

According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, overweight adults have a significantly higher incidence of premature death and CVD (cardiovascular disease). "Compared with normal-weight adults, obese adults had at least 20% significantly higher rate of dying of all-cause or CVD. These rates advanced death by 3.7 years (grades II and...

This is a very interesting article written by Kristin Wartman from The New York Times. She explores several reasons why it's important for parents to feed their children healthy food right from the start....even while in the womb. Children quickly learn and develop different taste preferences and emotional attachments to the food that they are...

If someone were to offer you a plain baked potato or a bag of potato chips, which would you choose? If you chose the plain baked potato, hooray for you! Most people however, would gobble down the entire bag of potato chips, lick their fingers, and look for more. The popular 1960's potato chip advertising slogan, "Betcha can't eat just one" was right; we can't eat just one. Many of us have probably tried, but failed. What compels us to gulp down the entire bag of chips, instead of the baked potato? Dr. Joel Fuhrman has the answer:

"The science on food addiction has now established that highly palatable foods (low-nutrient, high-calorie, intensely sweet, salty, and/or fatty foods - those that make up the majority of the Standard American Diet) produces the exact biochemical effects in the brain that are characteristic of substance abuse."
According to Dr. Fuhrman, "Junk food is ubiquitously available, legal, cheap, and socially accepted; therefore, it becomes the drug of choice for many of us."

Let's pretend it's lunch time. You're in a meeting and it won't end until 2:00, two hours past the time you're used to eating. How do you feel? Are you experiencing "stomach grumbling, headaches, light-headedness, irritability, fatigue, and inability to focus?"

At 1:00, are you now hoping no one will notice your nervousness, confusion, shaking, and anxiety? Most of us would assume that these uncomfortable symptoms are associated with hunger, since eating relieves the discomfort. Dr. Joel Fuhrman explains in his article that conventional wisdom would agree these are hunger symptoms, but Dr. Fuhrman disagrees. He says, "People are consistently led by these symptoms to consume more calories than they require and this widespread overeating behavior has led to an epidemic of obesity and a continual rise in preventable chronic diseases. Understanding the motivation behind overeating behaviors could be a key factor in reversing these trends."