From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, means that the heart has to push harder than it should to get the blood to the entire body. There are two blood pressure numbers: systolic (the top number) and diastolic (the bottom number). Systolic indicates the pressure at the heart’s maximum contraction, while diastolic indicates the remaining pressure when [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
Androgens are male sex hormones: primarily testosterone, DHEA, and androstenedione. They are much higher in men than in women, of course, and elevated androgens are a common symptom of PCOS, a common cause of female infertility. But it turns out that women need some testosterone for optimal fertility. Too much is a problem, but so [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
Traditional thyroid testing is limited to TSH. TSH is the hormone produced in your brain that tells your thyroid to produce actual thyroid hormone, which is T4. T4 is still only about 20% of the active thyroid hormone, though; the other 80% is T3. Most of the T4 produced by the thyroid gets converted to [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
Ferritin is the storage form of iron—or, more specifically, it is a protein that itself stores iron. More often I tend to see it low than high for a variety of common reasons--a situation that often leads to hair loss, among other things. But ferritin can also be abnormally high. The reasons for this have to [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
It’s been a rough cold and flu season! We seem to be through the worst of it, but what can you do to protect yourself and your family? Of all the myriad of products proclaiming immune support benefits, how do you know which one to choose? It’s first of all important to start with a [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
There are multiple levels of iron deficiency: low ferritin is the first, as ferritin is a storage form of iron. This can progress to low iron saturation in the bloodstream. Finally, it can become iron deficiency (or microcytic) anemia. The first two levels of iron deficiency can be caused by chronic infections or hypothyroidism—or of course [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
About 50% of women experience “baby blues,” or a brief period of mild depression for a few days to a few weeks after giving birth. But 10-20% will suffer more severe postpartum depression. Every pregnant woman has very high levels of hormones (estrogen, progesterone, prolactin, and oxytocin) when pregnant, and these hormones plummet precipitously after [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
Women in early menopause or perimenopause are most familiar with hot flashes: they’re generally understood to occur with declining estrogen levels. Occasionally I’ll see a still-menstruating woman who experiences hot flashes in the week or two before her period (when estrogen levels are declining), too—though this is much less common. And yet, this isn’t the [...]
From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor
I wrote here on the basic theory of what inflammation is. Briefly: in initial stages, inflammation is part of non-specific immunity. It just means something hurts and your immune system calls all hands on deck to deal with it. In later stages, inflammation becomes specific: this means your immune system is carefully targeting a specific invader, [...]
By Dr. Krisel Nagallo Magnesium is one of the more multifaceted minerals when it comes to health and wellness. Not only does it play an important role in basic metabolic pathways including energy production and hormone conversion, studies demonstrate how suboptimal magnesium levels can play a role in liver detoxification, [...]
