Health Matters Blog

Why Not All Mental Health Problems Are Psychological

Minding the Body Means More Than Just Taking a Pill Even though we recognize that physiological processes hugely influence cognition, emotion, and behavior, too many therapists still tend to…

Hope and Healing Research

Excellent ‘recipe’ book for how to understand how hope can heals us. Dr. Hedaya was recently interviewed by the Integrative Medicine Clinician’s Journal. He was asked about the role of…

Five Herbs Plus Thiamine Reduce Pain and Improve Functional Mobility in Patients With Pain

by Robert Hedaya, MD, DLFAPA ABSTRACT Context • Five herbs—Urtica dioica (stinging nettle), Boswellia serrata, Equisetum arvense, Allium sativum, and Apium graveolens—have been demonstrated to have activity at several anti-inflammatory…

Suicide: Overlooked Causes You Should Know

I would like to talk with you about a current but very difficult topic…suicide. Statistics show a clear rise in suicide frequency with the highest risk being in white…

Dr. Hedaya looks familiar to many

If Dr. Hedaya looks familiar to you, it may be because you’ve seen his uncle, the actor, Dan Hedaya. Dan Hedaya is known for his prolific career in film…

Dr. Hedaya Gives Grand Rounds at Cleveland Clinic

Click on photo to see video which is hosted on Institute for Functional Medicine website.

Bipolar Disorder and Seasonal Affective Disorder A Clinical Illustration: “Bill”

Bill is a 27-year-old physicist with bipolar SAD, type A. He agreed to take lithium, which eliminated his springtime hypomania, but only partially alleviated his winter depression. Light therapy…

Depression and Marital Problems A Clinical Illustration – “Jenny”

The Importance of Context and the Limits of Medication Every health care provider has had experiences that were so powerful that they have forever transformed his or her thinking…

Journey from Postpartum Depression and Panic Disorder to Wellness

High Functioning Businesswoman When Janine first came to see me she was 35 years old, and had just delivered her third child. As a former businesswoman, her transition to…

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Treated without Medication – John

Severe OCD since 4th Grade John was a very bright young fellow who was heading off to an Ivy League university in the fall. He was suffering from very…

Medication Burn Out Assumed – Brody

19 Year Old with Depression and Panic Attacks Brody had a recurrence of panic disorder after 20 symptom-free years. Brody was a funny really warm-hearted young man. When I…

Early Recognition that Panic Disorder Can Be Treated without Medication – Joanne

1985 after being in practice for just a couple of years, a patient I will call Joanne, came to me for treatment of a panic disorder. I figured it…

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder A Clinical Illustration – Mark

Top Student Sidetracked by OCD Despite being handsome, tall, personable, and a top student at Yale, Mark was silently struggling with an intense need to count to 100 every…

WSJ: "With Every Alzheimer’s Diagnosis the Same Bleak Conversation" & Dr. Hedaya’s Rebuttal

Jeremy Abbate writes in The Wall Street Journal With Every Alzheimer’s Diagnosis the Same Bleak Conversation Aug. 25, 2017 6:44 p.m. ET On an overcast Tuesday morning last October…

New Lyme Disease Book for Kids & Adults

Lyme disease is reaching epidemic proportions. Lyme Disease is the great imitator of our day, presenting symptomatically in many different ways. This coming year is expected to see a…

Alzheimer’s Disease Letter to the Editor Wall Street Journal

Time for a Better Approach To Alzheimer’s Treatments Alzheimer’s research has failed because of adherence to a flawed model. April 16, 2017 12:32 p.m. ET As a psychopharmacologist who…

Generic Medications Alert

Medicines Made in India Set Off Safety Worries New York Times February 14, 2014 By Gardiner Harris NEW DELHI — India, the second-largest exporter of over-the-counter and prescription…

Hope & Healing

Dr. Hedaya was recently interviewed by the Integrative Medicine Clinician’s Journal. He was asked about the role of hope in the healing process. This is his response: “Hope is…

Dr. Hedaya Speaks at Georgetown University Wellness Conference

Achieving Optimal Wellness Conference at Georgetown University Doro Bush Koch, Patricia Reilly Koch and colleagues of the BB&R: a Lifestyle and Wellness Advisory firm hosted the Achieving Optimal Health…

Executive Vitality: Mind-Body Connection

We are believers in the mind-body connection. Each affects the other—no way around it. Therefore, we thought it would be useful to seek out some information from a specialist…

Response to "The Angelina Effect"

“The Angelina Effect” in Time Magazine details Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a double mastectomy. The May 27th cover story, “The Angelina Effect” was well done. However, what…

DSM-V & Why Psychiatrists Need to Be Open to Other Fields

Talitha Stevenson’s Book Review in the Financial Times newspaper (“Mind field”, Life & Arts, May 24) shed much need light on the release of the DSM V, and the ensuing national…

Response to NY Times Opinion Column: "Don’t Take Your Vitamins"

The New York Times article “Don’t Take Your Vitamins” (Opinion, June 8) puts readers at real risk by presenting an unbalanced, over-generalized perspective and selective attention to the body…

Top 5 Things to Know about Teenage Depression

Depression is a syndrome, not a disease. While we in the western world are trained to think of depression as a disease, in fact, it is just a collection…

Health Perils of Sitting for Extended Periods

What we do all day with our bodies has consequences. Many of us sit during our working hours and leisure time and that directly affects our body chemistry. The…

Useful News in Endocrinology: Things that Are Harmful to Your Thyroid Gland

Things that Are Harmful to Your Thyroid Gland CT Scans and Contrast Die First, a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine (1) reveals that imaging studies which…

Should ‘Mother’s Day’ Be Replaced by ‘Women’s Day’?

Today women have more opportunities than at any prior time but still are expected to fill an almost comically large number of roles”, writes psychiatrist Anna Fels, author of…

How do you know when your thyroid function is low? Why is it important to know?

High Rate of Thyroid Dysfunction in Non-ill According to a very large study, the NHANES study (see reference below), conducted over 10 years, there is “a high rate of…

Japan and Radiation: What should you do?

With the ongoing release of radiation into the atmosphere from the damaged Japanese nuclear facilities, many people are wondering whether they should protect themselves as well as what they…

Lying to Your Doctor Has Unitended Consequences

I am a bit naïve. Yes, I am a psychiatrist, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, and the founder of the National Center for Whole Psychiatry. Given my experience, I…

Institute for Functional Medicine

Being on the faculty of the Institute of Functional Medicine is a rewarding part of my professional life. On Sunday, I returned from an intense weeklong meeting with other…

Nutrition and Depression: Nutrition, Detoxification, and Depression, Part 4

Nutrition, Detoxification, and Depression An additional avenue through which nutrition can help mood disorders is via liver detoxification, which can influence mood via the modification of steroid hormone metabolism…

Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is the result of infection with the spirochete Borrelia Burgdorferi. It is generally thought that the infection is the result of a tick bite, which about 50%…

Memory Matters

Memory loss creates fear in the very core of one’s being because it threatens one’s identity, and raises the specter of losing one’s independence. Forgetfulness can be a signal…

Panic Disorders: Part 2

Biological Theory of Panic Disorder (Recurrent Panic Attacks) The prevailing theory of panic disorder states that there are two types of panic attacks, non-phobic spontaneous panic and triggered panic attacks….

Panic Disorders: Part 1

The Spectrum of Disorders Associated with Panic Panic attacks are among the most terrifying experiences a person can have. Panic disorders include panic with and without agoraphobia, simple phobia,…

Do Antidepressants Really Work?

Antidepressants have a role in clinical practice but they are grossly over-utilized. As a certified psychopharmacologist, practitioner of Whole Psychiatry (Functional Medicine and traditional psychiatry) and Clinical Professor of…

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 deficiency and its detection have been in the news lately from the New York Times and The Dr. Oz Show. B12 Deficiency Effects Widespread The effects of…

Mood, Gut Bacteria, and the Immune System

Many people would be surprised that the immune system, the gastro-intestinal tract and stress interact, but that is what the most recent of a number of studies shows. In…

Laughing Gas (Nitrous Oxide) is No Laughing Matter

I was wandering around the internet last night, looking for scholarly articles on something called ‘methylation pathways’, when I came across a very disturbing article on the potentially quite…

Light Therapy & Health

Your Biologic Clock Your Biologic Clock keeps our body rhythms and sleep –wake cycles in synch with the light-day cycle of the earth. It is located in the suprachiasmatic…

Can a Brain Be on Fire?

Yes! Over the last 20 years, ample evidence has accumulated to prove that inflammation in the body causes changes in the brain that lead to depression, anxiety, sleep problems,…

Highest Rates of Bipolar Disorder in the United States: Why?

According to a new study discussed on Health.com about 2.4% of people around the world have had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at some point in their lifetime, according to…

Nutrition and Depression: Nutrition, Neuronal Protection, Omega 3 Fatty Acids, Vitamin D and Depression, Part 3

Nutrition, Neuronal Protection and Depression Neuronal protection (protection against cognitive decline) requires glutathione peroxidase (a crucial enzyme which requires selenium, cysteine, carotenoids, zinc, and vitamin E) is an important aspect of…

Nutrition and Depression: Nutrition, Methylation, and Depression, Part 2

Nutrition, Methylation, and Depression Nutritional support for the methylation cycle is another area in which nutrition plays a critical role. The methylation cycle is essential for mental and physical health. It…

Nutrition and Depression: State of the Science and Treatment, Part 1

Efficacy and Use of Medications in the Treatment of Depression It is becoming widely recognized that the current treatment of mood disorders (such as depression), while offering better outcomes…

“Are there Benefits to having Bipolar disorder?”

Let me start by acknowledging what is well known: Manic Depression or Bipolar disorder can be a devastating illness. Affecting at least 1% of the population, it can, untreated,…

More on ‘Medicine Masquerading as Science’

In a previous blog, I talked about how many doctors and patients do not know the full story about their drugs or medical treatments because of a widespread problem…

Scrub the Soap to Save Your Thyroid?

There are over 900 ‘new to nature’ chemicals in our environments, in our blood, and many are even in the blood of unborn children. Now, following the heightened concern…

The Teenagers Brain

If you are reading this, you are probably a parent, a teacher, or perhaps even a teen yourself. In any case, you feel confounded by unpredictable and volatile behavior,…

Letter to the Editor of the New York Times

The New York Times had a front page article on May 12th, 2010 entitled: “Doubt is Cast on Many Reports of Food Allergies“. The article reviewed a government report…

Obesity, Insulin Resistance, Diabetes and Mental Health: Part II

As I mentioned in part I of this blog, there is a strong association between insulin resistance, diabetes and mental health. Caught and treated early, insulin resistance is reversible…

Obesity, Insulin Resistance, Diabetes and Mental Health: Part I

Insulin resistance is a fully reversible condition in which the cells of the body become insensitive to the insulin signal, which itself is designed to take glucose (sugar) out…

Fractured Families – a good thing?

I was thinking about the high rate of fractured families and the lack of community in the US, when I began to look at the issue from a different…

PMS and Insomnia: What to do?

Insomnia, an all too common problem, is usually attributed to stress, depression, anxiety, alcohol or caffeine use, poor sleep hygiene, restless legs syndrome, and sleep apnea. Hormonally, thyroid abnormalities,…

Mitochondria and inflammation

New research indicates that in cases of closed crush injury, runaway inflammation is not due to infection, as previously thought. Never able to find the source of the supposed…

5-Day Energy Rebalancing Diet

Most people (except those with liver and kidney disease) do not get enough protein (fish, meat, eggs) for breakfast and lunch. Try increasing your protein at breakfast and lunch…

The Effects of Thyroid Function and Mental Health

A recent study known as the Colorado Thyroid Disease Prevalence Study, found that 13 million Americans may have undiagnosed thyroid conditions, and suggested that more widespread thyroid testing is…

Traditional Medicine and You

Yet despite these limitations, if I break my arm, or have an acute illness, I want a really good traditional doc. They do a pretty good job with acute…

Medicine Is Trendy and Cyclical

The behavior patterns I have outlined above go far back in time. If you are interested, read “Mad in America”. This 400-year history of the psychiatric establishment demonstrates the…

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