Gut Health | Lesley James MD

March 13, 2024March 14, 2024

Fiber and Ferment–Two of My Favorite “F” Words

Increasing dietary fiber is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to improve your diet. Focusing on this one aspect generally leads to a healthier diet overall, as it typically requires the consumption of more minimally processed plants such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds. It’s no surprise, then, that diets rich in fiber have been proven to lower the risk of developing chronic disease and improve longevity!

May 5, 2022May 6, 2022

Cook your way to a healthy lifestyle.

One of the things that I find really constructive to creating a healthy lifestyle is cooking. Becoming familiar with cooking meals allows you to feed yourself with exactly what specifically your body needs. Feeling comfortable enough with making substitutions in recipes so that they better nourish yourself is an essential step to achieving overall wellness. Additionally, by cooking at home rather than eating out, you can ideally reduce the amount of processed foods you are eating. Eliminating as many processed foods from your diet as possible is another crucial step to a healthier lifestyle. Also, I think it’s really important to cook and eat food that you actually like. Sometimes eating healthy can feel like a sacrifice, like you have to cut out foods that you really like, and lose joy in eating. By cooking, you can learn to make the delicious dishes that you want, and realize that healthy food is actually really tasty!

January 26, 2021January 26, 2021

Gut-Wrenching Facts about Processed Foods

Most nutrition experts agree on a fundamental belief made famous by author Michael Pollan: “Eat food. Not too much. Mainly plants.” Pollan’s writings reflect that “food” refers to real, unprocessed food, and that what Americans buy in supermarkets and consume is, for the most part, far from real.

October 8, 2020October 9, 2020

Our Changing Climate, Our Health

There are significant impacts of climate change on the brain, heart and gut

The next time you see your physician, consider discussing the impact that climate change and environmental hazards are having on your health. While the interactions of human health and the environment are complex, we are seeing dynamic and interacting forces that span from the level of personal to global. One of the world’s oldest and most respected medical journals, The Lancet, has referred to climate change as the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”

August 17, 2020August 17, 2020

Visceral Adipose Tissue Compromises Gastrointestinal Health

Visceral Adipose Tissue (VAT), abdominal fat that is located deep inside the abdominal cavity, can have a devastating effect on our gastrointestinal health and increase our risk of various GI conditions.