What “healthy” snacks do your kids love? I grew up jonesing for Twinkies and Entenmenn’s, but I don’t want to doom my kids to my sugar addiction. As a family doctor and a dad of two energetic boys, I know firsthand how challenging it can be to ensure our children eat healthily, especially when it comes to snacking.… Read the rest
Category Archives: Heart Disease
4 Reasons I Love GLP-1 Meds For Weight Loss
You’ve all heard by now about a new class of weight loss medications: GLP-1 receptor agonists. These injectable medications are gaining attention for their potential to help people lose weight. But are they really as good as they sound? As a family doctor with over 24 years of experience treating patients with obesity, I’m excited to share what I’ve learned about these medications and why I believe they’re truly remarkable—not just for weight loss but for overall health improvement.… Read the rest
Erythritol May Cause Strokes and Heart Attacks?
We were in the supermarket last week doing one of our favorite things — buying chocolate! As my family is trying to get rid of added sugar in our foods, we’ve been on the hunt for yummy sugar-free chocolates. And we found one that we liked: Lily’s Chocolates.… Read the rest
Alcoholism: A Family Scourge
I miss my father. He should be around to be granddad to my wonderful boys, helping me raise them to be good men. But he’s not around, dying far too early, from alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Only in his mid-60’s, he was a wonderfully warm-hearted man with a deep belly laugh, very much the average-guy Martin Crane to my Frasier Crane-like stuffiness.… Read the rest
Diabetes: Healthy Lifestyle Choices Are Key
I’ve been a family doctor for fifteen years, and one of the more dramatic changes I’ve noticed is a big spike in the incidence of prediabetes and diabetes, in all age groups. I had worked in China for ten years until last summer, and all us family doctors at my Beijing clinic weren’t surprised at all with the 2013 paper published in JAMA confirming the frightening reality in China: more than half of all adults in China now are prediabetic.… Read the rest
Chinese Spring Festival Eve: As Unhealthy As Thanksgiving?
Next week’s Spring Festival will already be my sixth here in Beijing, and Spring Festival Eve is always one of the highlights of my year. My wife and I spend a wonderful evening with our Chinese in-laws, and all two dozen of us will gorge for hours on endless rounds of dumplings and snacks, drink all types of alcohol and juices, and happily shout at the TV screen as another awful performer lip syncs yet another tacky ballad. … Read the rest